of doing so. Joel Wilson was the sole reason she had decided to leave the FBI. "Why are you here?"
Wilson flashed the boyish grin that he was so proud of. "I'm the one asking the questions around here." He reached out to touch her shoulder, but she took a quick step back. Wilson tried to cover and said, "You look good."
Hayek crossed her arms, her eyes glancing at the men behind Wilson. "Why are you here?"
"Well, it's good to see you as well, Sydney," Wilson said in an easy tone. "It's too bad I had to fly to the other side of the planet to run into you. Do you have time to grab a cup of coffee?"
There was no answer. Hayek couldn't process what she was hearing. Standing before her was a man who had tried to destroy her life. A man who had sexually harassed her and made her actually contemplate suicide. He knew all these things, yet here he was, standing in front of her, acting as if they were old friends.
"We're not going to have coffee," Hayek said, remembering how her therapist had told her she needed to be firm and unambiguous.
"That's too bad, because I could really use your help on something. I hear you're out at Langley these days."
"What I do is classified. None of your business."
Wilson laughed heartily. "You must not be aware of my new job at the Bureau. I'm running the Counterintelligence Division. You know . . . who watches the watchers, and all that stuff."
Hayek shrugged in an effort to convey what she was thinking, which was: I don't give a shit what you do.
Wilson leaned forward and with a suave smile said, "So your business actually is my business."
Hayek wanted to crawl out of her skin. She took a step to the side and said, "I need to be someplace right now." Two steps later he grabbed her arm.
"Slow down there, missy."
Hayek pivoted and came back at Wilson with her left fist cocked. "Take your damn hands off me!"
Wilson let go and put his hands up in the air. "You need to calm down. Striking a federal agent will land your pretty little ass in jail."
"How about sexually harassing a federal agent and stalking her?" After having kept it pent up for years, and thinking she was free from this imbalanced egomaniac, she could no longer keep her feelings bottled up.
Wilson had handled her before and he could handle her now. "I see that Arab temper of yours hasn't gotten any better."
"I'm half Lebanese, half American, you arrogant WASP."
Under his breath, but loud enough for several of them to hear, he said, "Hell hath no fury like a spurned woman."
"Is that what you tell yourself? You think stalking your subordinate and making up fake excuses to be alone with me and me shutting down your perverted attempts at getting me into bed somehow adds up to me wanting you?" Hayek had been over and over all of this in therapy with Dr. Lewis, the CIA's resident shrink. Hayek had been raised in a culture in which she was a disappointment. Her father, a Lebanese immigrant, had wanted her to be nothing more than a nurse. Women had their place in this world and it didn't involve a gun, a badge, and chasing down bad guys. He wanted to marry off his beautiful daughter at eighteen to one of his friend's sons. It was all arranged. She was supposed to begin providing grandchildren immediately. Without her knowledge a date had already been set at St. Maron's Church. Hayek, a gifted student, had caught the eye of her high school's guidance counselor. By the time her father announced his grand plans, Hayek had already been notified that she had not only been accepted to the University of Chicago, but she was going on a full ride.
Her entire world fell apart in just a few days. She defied her father and he in turn threw her out on the street. In a classic I-will-show-you showdown, neither Hayek nor her father backed down. The years ticked by and the distance grew and Hayek found out she could survive without her family. Her classmates at the University of Chicago became her new family and the FBI became her life. Hayek became a force of independence, promising herself that she would never be a victim. That she would never allow a man to dictate her life. She had done just fine until the deceitful and