for every woman he’d hurt. And there had been so many . . .
“Of course, I shouldn’t worry,” she murmured as he crossed the floor and settled on the couch, smiling at her, satisfaction glinting in his eyes. He’d hurt her . . . frightened her, even if she refused to show it. He still knew.
Hell, she suspected he liked that she didn’t show her fear. Made her that much more useful as a showpiece. That’s why he wanted to get married anyway.
It was a business arrangement, and that had never been in any doubt.
It’s time I found a wife. I believe we suit each other. Neither of us are looking for emotional entanglements, after all.
No. She wasn’t looking for an emotional entanglement. She was looking for a way to ruin his life, but that wasn’t emotional. Or it hadn’t started out that way, at least.
“So, enough with the nerves, right, Ella?” he said, eyeing her narrowly.
“Of course.” She smiled at him over the rim of her glass. “It’s a business arrangement, naturally. But a wedding is an important thing for a woman. Easier said than done, trying to not be nervous. I’ll do better about it, I promise.”
“Glad to hear.” He studied her critically. “Worrying does you no good. It will give you wrinkles.”
Wrinkles—
It was almost laughable. If only that were the worst of her problems.
She had much bigger things to worry about . . . staying alive. Staying two steps ahead of him. Actually, ten would be ideal.
FOUR
"WE’RE closing in on what I think may be the core group for a large human trafficking operation.” Special Agent in Charge Taylor Jones sat across from Joss, still wearing a perfectly pressed three-piece suit.
Joss knew enough about clothes to realize it probably cost more than Joss usually spent on clothes in six months. He also knew that the guy had probably been wearing the damn thing all day, but Jones looked like he’d just stepped off the front of a magazine—polished and smooth. That suit might fool a lot of people, just like the impassive face.
Taylor Jones projected the image of a cool, uncaring son of a bitch.
And very often, he was a cool son of a bitch.
Some of the others in the unit thought he had auspicious, lofty desires—maybe political aspirations.
They were wrong, Joss knew.
Taylor’s aspirations were simple and not particularly lofty at all. He wanted to put away the monsters. As many of them as he could. The men and women in his unit were the weapons he used to fight the monsters.
It was something he and Joss had in common; it was one of the reasons they got along well enough. They understood each other.
Normally. Right now, Joss was still pissed off. He’d been looking forward to that downtime. More important, he really hated it when Taylor had him get mind-fucked. It was a brutal, awful experience he’d had to do more than once, and each time, he hoped it was done, even though he knew better.
“Just how large an op?” he asked, snagging a French fry from Dez and popping it into his mouth. He’d polished off his Big Mac and fries on the drive over. He was still hungry.
Dez scowled at him. “Leave my fries alone.”
He winked at her.
“Children, please,” Jones said. He reached down and grabbed a bag, placed it on the table, and pushed it over to Joss. “You’ll end up dead of a coronary, the way you eat, Crawford.”
“Yeah, well, if it happens, just don’t let anybody send flowers . . . I don’t want flowers at my funeral.” He opened the bag and glanced inside. It was another order of fries. “Man, it’s like you read my mind . . . oh, wait, that’s my thing.”
“You’re so juvenile.” Dez glanced at him. “Who did you sync him to for the mind reading? Will it hold?”
“No.”
Joss and Jones spoke at once.
Dez arched a brow.
Jones gestured and remained silent.
“I’ll get overridden. Whoever you want to put in my head, it has to be at the same time. The previous gift will get wiped out—think of me as a computer, sort of. Each time I sync with somebody, whatever gift I had before gets erased. I get rebooted.”
For a second, Dez stared at him, her dark eyes unreadable, and then finally, she shook her head. “Man, that’s gotta really suck. How do you control it, taking it in like that?”
“Well, that’s the cool part.” He grinned at her. “As long as our brave and