Never Gonna Happen - Cynthia Eden Page 0,81
about being a spy?”
“Seriously?” A disgusted snarl.
A door slammed.
She jerked.
“You bring her into the spy world, and it will be the last mistake you make.”
Before she could speak, Sebastian stormed forward. “Get your hand off her, man!”
Dex slowly pulled back his hand.
Alyssa grabbed for the sides of her chair, physically rooting herself to the spot. On one hand, she wanted to surge to her feet and grab Sebastian. Hold tight. On the other hand… “It sure as hell took you long enough!”
The anger faded from his expression. He blinked and seemed bemused.
“I mean, I’ve just been sitting in here for a few hours. Hoping you were alive and not slumped in a gutter somewhere.”
Dex coughed. Or smothered a laugh. Hard to be sure. “Um. It’s just terrible that he let you worry that way,” Dex added with a hard nod. “So selfish.”
Sebastian’s gaze cut to him. “Do not start with me.”
Dex lifted his hands. “This feels like a private conversation. I’ll give you a minute—or five—then come back so that Alyssa and I can finish our discussion.” His stare swept back to her. “I meant what I said.”
He wanted her to be a spy?
“No.” Sebastian shook his head. “Absolutely not. She is not interested so go ahead and walk away.”
That was it. Alyssa let go of the chair and jumped to her feet. “You don’t know what I’m interested in!”
“You want to be a spy?”
Dex began to sidle away.
“Maybe,” Alyssa snapped. “Not like I’ve considered it before. But Dex says I have a flare for it.”
Dex was almost at the door. He stiffened. Glanced back. “I don’t think I used the word flare. I did say that you were a nice shot. You are.”
Sebastian blocked her view of Dex. “Because you shot that bastard to save me.”
“Yes. And I didn’t even get a thank you.” Scratch that. What was she saying? She squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t want a thank you. I just wanted you to be okay, and I was going crazy being away from you.” Her eyes opened. Accusingly, she charged, “You sent me away.”
Pain flashed on his face. “I am not good for you.”
“Who says I want you to be good?”
He frowned.
Wait. Wrong words. She’d blurted the wrong stuff. “You are good for me, all right? I feel good when I’m with you.”
“You’re running for your life when you’re with me.”
“And who is protecting me? Who’s watching out for me? It’s not Dex. He’s waving me around like a red flag and basically shouting, ‘Come and get her! Bait over here!’” She craned around Sebastian so that she could glower at Dex, but he was gone. The door was closed again. It was just her and Sebastian. Good.
“You could have been killed because I brought you close to me.” Sebastian’s voice was so wooden. “That can’t happen. I can’t put you at risk. I won’t. I—”
“Stop.” Her stomach had just twisted into a very unpleasant knot. “If this is the scene where you say that you’re going to leave me in order to protect me, you stop right there.”
He stopped.
“Because that crap doesn’t work. You leave me, then guess what? Suddenly I don’t have my own personal spy at my beck and call.”
“That’s…true,” he spoke haltingly. “But…beck and call? I mean, is that really—”
“If I called you and told you that I was in trouble, what would you do?”
“Run to you.” An immediate reply.
The right reply. “That’s what I’d do for you, too.”
The faint lines near his eyes deepened. “The kind of danger I face is different than what’s normally in your world. It’s deadly. You never would have been targeted at all if it wasn’t for me.”
“You mean if it wasn’t for the fact that you and my brother are spies?” She tilted her head. “Are you sure about that? Because Isla and Nico and I were talking—see, we had a whole long time to chat while I was waiting in this room for you to come and show me that you weren’t dead.”
He winced.
“They told me the guys arrested had rap sheets that stretched for days. That they sold out their services to the highest bidder. Call me crazy, but it seems odd for your super spy enemies to hire out the job to local thugs.” Pair that up with what Dex had told her about the thugs rushing to the safe house only after Sebastian had arrived…
At her words, Sebastian’s face went blank.
“You’re not calling me crazy,” she pointed out.
“You’ve never been crazy