it had always been that way with Jake. She wanted to please him.
They walked the short distance to the hotel in silence. It was past one in the morning and only a few people were around. She breathed in the fragrance of the spring night and tried to pretend, for just a moment, that all was right in her world. That she and Jake had just come off a successful mission and were enjoying some downtime together.
The fantasy lasted until they walked into her room. Then the silence, instead of easy and comfortable, became painful. Angela moved across the room to the window and leaned against it, her arms crossed. As much as she wanted to say things to make it all better, she couldn’t. And if she stayed close to him, she knew she wouldn’t be able to resist touching him.
Jake sat on the edge of the bed and faced her. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too.”
“I’ve had a lot of time to think about things.”
Angela tensed. The expression on his face was impossible to read.
“I came back here to ask you to reconsider being an operative.”
Her heart plunged and despair filled her again. Angela opened her mouth to once again try to convince him to change his mind when he added, “And then when I saw how you handled yourself today, I realized I couldn’t. You were in your element, doing what you’ve always wanted to do and doing a damn good job.” He shook his head. “I should never have asked you to give up your dreams.”
Hope rising, her voice was so thick she hardly recognized it as hers. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that…” He stopped and shoved his fingers through his hair. “I’m saying that whether you’re an LCR operative, a researcher or hell, a stripper, I don’t care.”
She’d gone from hopeless to ecstatic and now she was somewhere in limbo, being tortured by uncertainty. What was he trying to tell her?
“What, Jake?”
A faraway look came over his face. “When Teresa was killed, I spent a lot of time thinking about all the things I didn’t get to say to her, all the things I wished we had done together. All the time we wasted that we didn’t even realize was a waste.”
Still not breathing, Angela waited.
Blue eyes glinting with more emotion than she’d ever seen in them, Jake continued, “Bottom line—I don’t want to live without you. I’ve wasted enough time as it is. So if it’s only a day, a month, or a year that I can be with you, I don’t want to miss another minute of it.”
She held on to the windowsill behind her to keep from running across the room, into his arms. “What happens when I’m on an op? How are you going to handle it?”
“I won’t lie to you…I’ll worry. I hope to be with you on most of them but if I can’t be, I trust you to know how to handle yourself.”
Angela leaped toward him and Jake caught her, swinging her around in his arms. Then setting her feet on the floor, he cupped her face in his hands. “You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever known, Angela Delvecchio. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
She stood on her toes to kiss him and was surprised when he pulled away. “What’s wrong?”
“I have something to show you.” He backed up and unbuttoned his shirt. So mesmerized by the beautiful muscled chest he was revealing, she missed his next words.
“What?” she asked.
“It’s a message for you.” Shrugging his shirt off, he dropped it to the floor and turned his back to her.
Something was written on the back of his neck. She drew closer and her eyes filled with tears. In the exact place where she had her rose tattoo with the word ‘survivor’ in the middle, he’d had tattooed on his neck: I love a survivor.
Swallowing a sob of joy, Angela leaped at him again. He turned at the last second, caught her in his arms and then fell onto the bed with her beside him. Covering her face with kisses, he licked at the salty tears streaming down her face.
“I thought you hated needles,” she said breathlessly.
“I do, but you, Angela Delvecchio, I adore.”
“And I love and adore you, Jake Mallory.”
“Partners at work and at home?”
“Yes, partners,” she whispered.
“Forever?”
Her heart soaring, she spoke against his mouth, “Forever.”
Epilogue
Three Months Later
The McCall’s house
Paris
“You think they’ll be surprised or upset?”
Lifting a strand of Mara’s