“No one fucks with me or mine.” He moved closer to her. “And now, that includes you.” He drew in a deep breath, drawing in her scent.
Something sparked in her eyes. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, Mr. Knightley. I have no use for overbearing, overprotective alpha males.”
“You’ll have to find a use.” He made himself step back and drag in a breath. “I’ll email you details for your cover job. You’ll need an assumed name.”
“Yes. It’s best to keep it as close as we can to my real name. I have an old alias I can use. Halle Atwood.”
“Good. Then I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Ms. Atwood.” Bennett turned to leave.
“Knightley?”
He glanced back.
“We will find him,” she said.
He gave her a decisive nod. “We will.”
CHAPTERTHREE
“And so, I’m going undercover at Secura as the new head of communications.” Hadley dusted on some eyeshadow.
“Undercover with a sexy billionaire. Tough gig, Hadley.”
She heard the amusement in her friend Hex’s voice. She glanced at the tablet propped up on the vanity in her bathroom.
It was early in New York, but Jet “Hex” Adler kept crazy hours. She was Sentinel Security’s tech wizard, and a former CIA hacker, who could make any computer dance to her tune.
On-screen, Hex was sipping coffee from a huge mug.
“As long as the billionaire doesn’t get in my way, I’ll be fine.”
Hex made a sound. “You should let him get in your way, girl. Let that Grade-A, gorgeous man get his hands on you.”
“I’m working.”
“You’re always working, and I’m your friend. I know you don’t like letting anyone too close. Especially men.”
Hadley looked away, selected a lipstick, and ruthlessly concentrated on applying it. “He’s a rich, entitled man dedicated to his company. I know men like that. Selfish ones who go after what they want and damn the consequences.”
“Hadley, he’s not your parents and he isn’t Casper the Rat,” Hex said.
The name still hit like an arrow. Piercing, hurting, generating a strange mélange of emotions: rage, regret, embarrassment.
“I don’t let foolish mistakes rule my life.”
Hex was quiet for a second. “Yes, you do.”
“Jet…”
Her friend leaned closer to the screen. “He played you. You trusted him, fell for him, and he was a foreign agent. I get how that must’ve felt, but Bennett Knightley is not Casper Abbott aka Casper Ahmadi. You can trust Knightley, or at least give him a chance.”
Hadley looked at her reflection in the mirror. No man was worth the risk. She never again wanted to feel how she’d felt when she’d uncovered the truth about Casper.
That he’d played her for months, led her on, all to steal her password to try and access the MI6 system.
Hadley had stopped him, but his betrayal had shattered something inside her.
“I have no personal interest in Bennett Knightley.”