his gaze hardening, as she stared back at him. This was the man who was determined not to feel, not to get too close, and to make damned sure he didn’t love.
He was so damned stubborn he had her back teeth grinding. She could see the pure arrogance settling around him with heavy determination. The cool distance he kept between himself and the world was pushing her back now.
“You’re not leaving, are you?” Pulling her shorts on, she secured them with fingers stiff with irritation. “You’re just pushing in and taking over, no matter what I want, or what I think of it. You barge in, make me insane, fuck me until we’re both screaming and then pretend it never happened.”
His brow arched. “I would never pretend it didn’t happen as I fully intend it will happen again. As for Sorrel, his organization was so well hidden that even after authorities confiscated his estate and went through his files, they were certain they were missing high-level lieutenants. We could get lucky and capture one of them for interrogation.”
So much for cuddling, sweet nothings or time for an after-glow. Sorrel’s past associates that had been captured had been stubborn and arrogant during initial questioning. She’d learned after joining the Elite Ops that those associates had sung like canaries once Jordan had turned them over to Israeli Mossad interrogation specialists.
“Perhaps we’ll get lucky and it’s just a rumor that doesn’t pan out,” she said hopefully.
John Vincent’s sources were damned impeccable though. He and his wife, a former CIA agent and heiress to billions, had built an information pipeline that spanned several nations.
“I doubt it,” and he sounded damned confident.
“There’s a first time for everything,” she replied with a flippancy she didn’t feel. “Just because someone knows where I am, or who I am, that doesn’t give them a reason to search for me, or to want to hurt me.”
She didn’t want to deal with the danger again, the fear, the knowledge that nothing in her life was secure or safe.
Looking around the kitchen, she remembered the feeling that had swept through her when the real estate agent had shown her the house and property.
A sense of belonging had eased through her that she hadn’t felt since the day she had walked into the Elite Ops base. She’d stared around the sunlit kitchen, the large open living room, and she’d known she could make a life there. It was the same feeling she’d had when she checked out the local landscaping company for sale.
The employees were willing to stay on if the owner needed them, she’d been told. It was as though fate had laid everything she needed right at her feet, and now fate was taking it away.
“One of these days we’ll have a home, Tey.” Her mother’s smile, weary and showing her diminishing hope, hadn’t reached her eyes the night she had held her daughter to her as they hid among the bridge people in New York City after one of the many times Sorrel had nearly found them.
Their clothes had been ragged, but they had been warm. Teyha had been terrified, shaking with fear, and all too aware of the resignation beginning to edge into her mother’s determination.
“Just think,” her mother had whispered as she kissed Tehya’s forehead and pulled their blanket tighter around her. “A real house. With doors and windows and electricity. We’ll have a little garden in the back.” Her mother’s hand had trembled, her voice had trailed away. When Tehya had looked up at her, a single tear had been easing down her cheek.
“Momma?” Tehya had whispered, the sight of her mother’s tears so rare, they were a frightening thing.
“You’ll have a house,” her mother had promised her, her gaze suddenly stronger, determined, as Tehya had always remembered it. “One day, Tehya, you’ll have a home.” That memory, all but forgotten, was almost shocking. A little house with the perfect garden in the back. A place of serenity and security.
She looked around, saw the dream she hadn’t truly realized she’d accomplished until now. Until she discovered that her past was attempting to steal it from her. Until she had realized she would rather face the demons of her past than to allow them to take her home.
Jordan watched as she surveyed the rooms of her house and he saw the weary somberness that came over her expression, the sheen of tears she was fighting back. In the haunted depths of her eyes he saw the realization