Mission: Marriage: Bulletproof Marriage
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For the space of two heartbeats, he simply stared. Finally, he gave a slow nod. “I do.”
Though she was skirting the edge and moving closer to dangerous territory, she realized she wanted to know, at least this. “Tell me.”
He breathed a sigh. “The Hungarian.”
“That’s what I thought. Especially when you said he might be after me because of you. Why?”
When he looked away, the stab of grief felt fierce.
“It’s a long story,” he said. “And while you might be ready to hear it, I’m not sure I can tell it.”
“Don’t you think it’s time I knew the truth?”
Dragging a hand through his hair, he looked down, up, anywhere but directly at her. “Yes. But you deserve to know everything, all at once, and what I’ve done might make you hate me even worse.”
About to tell him she could never hate him, she bit back the words. Her chest ached. “After all this, you’re still hiding something from me?”
“No more than you’re hiding from me.”
“Quit trying to change the subject.” She shook her head. “I’m not hiding anything. This isn’t about me, it’s about you.”
His smile mocked her. “See? You can’t go on feeling responsible and guilty.”
“Easy for you to say. My entire team died. I didn’t. I’ve got to figure out what the hell I know that the Hungarian wants to keep silent or that he wants to discover.”
“Natalie, listen to me. You need to stop feeling responsible and trying to fix this. It might not all be you.”
She stared at him, heart in her throat.
“Some of what’s happened—hell, most of what’s happened—might be because of me.”
“You keep saying that. But I don’t understand. Tell me.”
Though he looked reluctant, this time he held her gaze. That was Sean, never one to back down from bad news. “They might have gotten word that I wasn’t really dead. The Hungarian knows if that were true, you would be the one person who could bring me back to life.”
“The Hungarian used me to get to you? That makes no sense.”
“You asked about my accident, my family’s accident? There was no car crash, no accident.”
Bewildered, she put her hand to her throat. “If you’re telling the truth, there was one hell of a massive cover-up. Even SIS has the car crash in their files.”
“No car. No crash.”
Briefly, she closed her eyes. “Why? Why would anyone go to such lengths?”
“To protect you from the Hungarian. He’s sworn a vendetta on me.”
The old-fashioned word seemed out of place, wrong. “A vendetta?”
“Blood feud. That’s why he slaughtered my family.”
“Slaughtered?” Closing her mouth, she squared her shoulders. “Is that what really happened, Sean? Your mother, father, sister—he killed them? All of them?”
“Yes.” He inhaled, the sound loud in the quiet room. “He murdered my entire family for revenge.”
“Why? Because of Kitya Renkiewicz, his mistress?”
He shook his head. “I killed Kitya, but I had no choice. If I hadn’t shot her when I did, she would have killed me. But the Hungarian didn’t give a rat’s ass about her. My problems with him started long before Kitya.”
“That doesn’t explain why you faked your own death.”
“You were next. The only way I could stop him from coming after you was for him to believe I was dead.”
“You couldn’t come to me, tell me what was going on? Instead, you engineered a massive cover-up and faked your own death?”
He nodded.
In disbelief, she stared. Her pain felt ten times stronger faced with the unbelievable extent of his lies.
“This is all you can come up with?” She wanted to hit him. “I was your wife, the one person you could trust. You let me believe you were dead, ripped my heart out, and this is your explanation? Sean, I grieved for two years. Your death,” she spat the word, “changed my life.”
“It changed mine, too.”
She wanted to weep. “It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever—”
“It worked.”
“No. It didn’t. You’re here now. I’m getting shot at. Nothing worked.” Raising her gaze to his, she let him see the depths of her bitterness.
“Nat, I—”
“No.” She lifted her hand, managed a careless wave. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Ah, but I do.” The rancor seeped through to her voice, and she let it. “That’s why you need to drop it, Sean.”
“But—”
“If you want to work with me, don’t say another word.”
Turning her back, she blinked back tears. Their marriage had seemed so different, so real. Based on mutual respect and trust and love, or so she’d believed.
That only proved what a gullible fool she’d been.
No more.
“Go to sleep, Sean.” Without waiting for an answer, she got up, turned off the light and sat in the chair by the window.
“What about you?” His voice, combined with the room’s darkness, made her ache again.
“I’m going to sit here awhile.” She kept her tone curt. “I’ve got a lot to think about.”
Sean dreamed. For the past two years, he’d been unable to forget Natalie’s kiss. Or the feel of her body, supple and welcoming, wrapped around him while they made love.
Now, in his dream, he kissed her again, with all the ferocious passion pent up inside.
Instead of kissing him back, in his dream she froze, her huge amber eyes wide open.
He tried to deepen the kiss.
She made a sound of denial against his mouth.
Stunned, he backed away. What the hell was this? He knew she was angry with him. He didn’t blame her. But he’d been certain her fury would melt the instant his mouth touched hers. Always, always, always, the touch of his lips had made Natalie melt.
Not this time.
Made of ice, she hadn’t softened as he moved his mouth over hers. Hell, she hadn’t even parted her lips.
Had she really gotten over him so completely?
In his dream, sorrow engulfed him as he realized she had.
Worse, she didn’t understand why he’d done what he did. If she couldn’t handle that, how would she deal with the rest of his past?
He’d given her up to save her life. During the two years away from her, he’d almost managed to convince himself that he had no regrets.
He’d been lying.
The intensity of his pain woke him. Fully awake, he punched his pillow.
“Does your leg hurt?” Natalie’s voice, from across the room.
“Like hell.” Nearly as much as his heart. He pushed himself to a sitting position and clicked on the lamp, looking for her.
With her legs curled under her, she occupied the room’s single armchair. He couldn’t help but remember how she used to sit, head tilted just so, lost in the pages of a good book. This time, she’d been sitting in the dark, as lost in her thoughts as he’d been in his dream.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Blinking, she stared at him. The hostility in her voice dropped the temperature in the room ten degrees.
“You’re in no condition to go after anyone. I’m going to ask Corbett to get you out.”
He tried to move, to push himself out of the bed, but couldn’t make his leg go anywhere. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Sean, I’m perfectly capable of taking the Hungarian down alone. As it is now, you’ve become more of a liability than an asset.”
Stung, he bit back a sharp retort. “You’re using my leg as an excuse.”
Her reply was short and sweet. “Sorry. Sue me.”
He couldn’t believe the sweet irony of their situation. “Look. You can’t just dump me. You wanted to tag along with me to protect me, and the entire reason I wanted you nearby was to protect you.” He laughed, a tired, bitter sound, even to his own ears. “Admit it. And I’m not done protecting you yet.”
“I don’t need your protection.”
“Nor I yours.” He wished he could kiss her, hard and quick, like he had in the old days.
But he couldn’t, so he wouldn’t.
“How about a truce?” Her quiet question surprised him.
“I didn’t know we were at war.”
She shook her head, her short spiky hair making her look as if she’d just climbed from his bed. She was almost unbearably sexy.
Damn and double damn.
Swallowing, he collected his thoughts and tried again. “Look, we both want the same thing, right?”
She nodded. “I want to find him.”
“And learn who he is and why he—”
“Did what he did.”
“Yes.”
He held out his hand, bracing himself for the cool slide of her fingers into his.
“Let’s work together.”
“We’ve already tried that.” She didn’t take his hand. “You’re wounded. You need to go home. Once you’re healed, you can rejoin me.”
“I doubt you’d be alive.”
The statement didn’t appear to faze her.
“Such confidence you have in me,” she drawled. “Why don’t you let me worry about that, and you go back to doing what you do best—protecting your own ass.”
The barbs were getting sharper. He elected to opt out rather than continue slinging words.
“You know me. A little thing like this leg won’t get me down. We make a good team, Nat. Always have, always will.”
“Our marriage is over.”
He swallowed. Though she hadn’t meant it to be, that sentence was the most hurtful of all. “I’m not talking about our marriage. We are a working team, colleagues. You know that neither of us can get to the Hungarian alone. And to try to do so is suicide. Quit being so stubborn and admit it. Before you get yourself killed.”
Tilting her head, she considered his words, forced by their vehemence to put aside her personal feelings. “You may be right.”
“You know I am.”
Ignoring this, she continued. “If we’re going to be a real team, we need to lay down some ground rules.”
This should be interesting. “Like?”
“I’m in charge.” She said it so smoothly he wasn’t certain he’d heard correctly.
“Uh, no.”
She cocked her head, crossed her arms, and merely looked at him.
Still sexy as hell. But ten times more infuriating.
“Natalie, sweetheart—”
“I’m not your sweetheart.”
He tried again. “I’ve been doing this sort of thing far longer. I’m a trained assassin, for pity’s sake. I’m older, stronger and male.”
“So? Men lead and women follow, is that it?”
Since she had it pretty much in a nutshell, he didn’t see the need to elaborate. “You’ve got it.”
He waited for the explosion.
Instead, she threw back her head and laughed.
It was a truly amused, gut-rolling, belly-shaking laugh. The sort of laugh a confident woman had, a woman who knew what she was and where she was going.
Natalie had never, in the entire time he’d known her, laughed like that.
He stared at the beautiful woman who’d been his wife and finally acknowledged the truth. She’d become a stranger. Two years had passed, an eternity of living separately, time enough for both of them to change.
Though he might long for things to be as they’d been, too much water under the bridge ensured that could never happen.
Yet he couldn’t stop wanting her.
Despite the desire coiled in his gut, Sean had to sleep. Though his restless mind and tumbling thoughts tried to pump him full of adrenaline, his exhaustion was so complete that he found himself nodding off in the middle of Natalie’s next question.
“What?” he repeated, groggy and slow and wishing he could simply wrap himself around her and drift off to sleep.
“Get in the bed,” she repeated. “You look like you might pass out at any moment.”
Grateful, he crawled for the pillow, barely registering her touch as she tugged the blanket over him.
Outside, the rain beat steady and heavy, drowning out the noise of the traffic and the city. Sean’s last thought as he drifted off to sleep was how he’d give anything to wake up with Natalie warm and willing in his arms.
Chapter 6
“Sean, I need the truth.”
He started, yanked up out of a light doze. The soft question came out of nowhere, the dark room amplifying the sensual sound of her breathing, of her silky voice. “I gave you the truth.” Blinking, he cleared his throat. “Honestly, I told you what really happened.”
“No. You told me pieces.” Her tone made it clear she thought there was more. “You left part of the puzzle out. The biggest piece. What’s the real reason the Hungarian wants to destroy you?”
His heart thudding dully in his chest, he swallowed. She’d asked the one question he’d dreaded for so many years. The one question that, if he answered, might completely and utterly destroy whatever speck of love remained in her heart for him.
Propped into the corner of the high-backed chair, her elegant neck looking impossibly long, her short, copper-colored hair sticking up in wanton disarray and her half-lidded amber gaze appearing sultry, she made him want her all over again.
He couldn’t help but wonder if she knew her beauty struck him dumb. Fervently, he hoped she didn’t.
While he stared, she stared back. Finally, she narrowed her eyes, the dim light from the lamp making them appear to glow golden. “Are you even awake enough to talk?”
He could have taken the coward’s way out—told her he wanted to go back to sleep and they’d talk about this in the morning. But he was tired of running, tired of hiding. And, even though he’d given her a partial truth, he was damn sick and tired of having her think he’d disappeared because he didn’t care.
“I’m waking up.” Sean couldn’t help but wonder if she remembered the way he always woke around her—aroused and ready. She used to love teasing him, until they both were panting and breathless.
Damn. Remembering didn’t help his current situation at all. Pushing himself up, he plumped up the pillow and propped it against the headboard. He was careful to keep the blankets piled on top of his lap.
“At the time, I believed I had no choice.” It was the closest he could bring himself to admit he might have, in the awful grief and rage, made an error in judgment.
“I thought our marriage was based upon trust. Love. Respect. You’ve proved me wrong with your lies. You weren’t the man I thought you were, Sean.” Her voice broke. “The man I loved.”
He opened his mouth, closed it and swallowed. In this, with secret upon secret upon secret, he wasn’t even certain where to begin. There were some things he’d believed he would never have to tell her.
Now, he knew he had no choice. If they were ever to have a second chance together, Natalie had to know everything.
She misread his hesitation as refusal. “Cut the crap. Tell me everything.”
Everything. He closed his eyes and sighed. The rest of what he had to tell her tasted like bile, though he knew someday she’d have to know the truth.
All of the truth, no matter how much it hurt.
“Start at the beginning, so I can keep this straight.” Her clothes rustled as she moved. “Begin with the family reunion.”
Though his feud with the Hungarian went back much further than that, the family reunion was a good place to start. Natalie had been scheduled to arrive close to the same time as his parents. A missed flight had saved her life.
Clearing his throat, he began. “What the Hungarian did to my family earned him a special niche in hell.
“I arrived on the island early, planning to surprise my folks and you. I’ll never forget jumping out of the rented boat and jogging toward the main house, full of excitement.
“The pool of blood on the front porch was my first clue something was wrong.”
He tasted bile and swallowed, forcing himself to continue. “Bloody footprints in the foyer had me running for the den. My family was there—or what was left of them. The killers had dragged them into the center of the room and tossed them in a horrible, bloody heap.”
Eyes wide, she watched him. “Dead?”
“Oh yes. They were all dead. Brutally murdered. Missing limbs, or eyes or heads. From the expression on their faces, they’d suffered horribly before they died.”
The blood leached from her face. “I’m so sorry.”
Ignoring her, he continued. “Frantic, my first thought was for you, my wife. I couldn’t find you. Your body wasn’t in the bloody carnage of all that remained of my family. I searched every inch of that doomed vacation house. Nothing. Nada. Zip.
“As if losing my parents and brother and sister weren’t enough.” Again he swallowed, blinking back tears. “I couldn’t bear losing the woman I loved more than life itself, too. But I couldn’t find you.”
“I wasn’t there,” she reminded him, softly.
Ignoring her, he went on. “For one terrible moment, I believed you’d been taken hostage by him, a man who had no problem ordering the brutal torture and slaying of innocent people. But when I turned on my cell phone to call the police, I found the message you’d left while I was in flight. I played it back. Your cheerful voice seemed out of place as I stood in the middle of the bloodstained room and played it, again and again and again.”
“The message I left telling you my flight had been cancelled.” Her whisper was hoarse, the pain in her voice as raw as his own.
“Yes.” He didn’t tell her that right then he’d fallen on his knees and thanked God she was alive. Natalie was alive. As long as she lived, the Hungarian hadn’t won. She’d been spared the sight of the carnage, of the message written in blood on the living room floor.
This is only the beginning. We’re not done.
He’d known then. The Hungarian had done this to make him pay.
The blame for all these deaths could be laid squarely at his feet. The murders were his fault. Repercussions always had a way of catching up with you. He should have known that.
But even then, even grieving and hurting and furious, he’d tried to figure out a way to save Natalie. Because he’d known the Hungarian wouldn’t rest until she’d died a horribly slow death, just to punish him. Sean had wanted to spare her that fate. So he’d died instead.
Now, once again, he faced the consequences of his actions. Proving no one ever got off scot-free.
“Sean?” Her voice brought him back from the horrific memories. “Why didn’t you contact me, tell me what was going on?”
“I couldn’t risk it. If anything had happened to you …”
“I’m a trained SIS agent.” She sounded impatient. “I can protect myself.”
“I wasn’t thinking clearly. I’d just lost my entire family.” It was the first time he’d admitted it, even to himself.
He cleared his throat. “Nat, if I hadn’t died, the Hungarian would have killed you. You wouldn’t have seen it coming. Then he would have put a price on my head.”
“What did you do to make him hate you so much?”
Ah, the six-million-dollar question.
He took a deep breath, both dreading what he had to say, and relieved that he could finally say it, struggling to find the right words. Awash in pain he hadn’t allowed himself to feel in twenty-four months, two weeks and three days, he knew he couldn’t break down in front of her. Not now, when every word he said could impact his future.
Their future, if he dared to dream of such a thing.
“Years ago, before I met you …” Despite his resolve, he choked up.
Restless, he almost got up from the bed. But she hadn’t moved from her chair. Who knew—maybe all that psychology crap was right and allowing her to be in a seated position, and thus dominant, while he reclined on the bed, would make her feel better. And maybe, just maybe, help her understand. There was so much more he needed to say.
Yet once again, the words stuck in his throat.
The tears shimmering in her eyes nearly undid him. “It’s really awful, isn’t it?” she whispered.
He nodded, the truth catching in his throat, choking him. The most horrible lie of all.
But before he could think about how or even whether to begin, she got up and sat beside him. She placed her hand on his arm, sending shock waves through him. For a moment he simply existed, breathing her scent, feeling her touch, and felt he’d finally been allowed a glimpse of heaven.
“I—” he tried to begin.
Her voice as soft as her touch, she asked, “Instead of going into hiding, why didn’t you go after him and kill him? Make him pay for what he’s done? You were—are—an assassin. Some say the best. If anyone could bring the Hungarian down, it would be you. How could you allow a bastard like that to live?”
Wincing, he looked away. “That’s the same question that’s haunted many sleepless nights.” His insides churned. “I wanted to. God, how I wanted to. But I knew it would take time to find him. Your life was at stake. I couldn’t keep you with me always, and I couldn’t use you as bait—too much risk. Yes, I wanted him to pay, but I wanted you to live more. I made a snap decision, dazed by grief, full of rage.”
“So you faked your death.”
Put that way, his choice sounded cowardly. In truth, leaving her, making her a widow, had been the most difficult thing he’d ever done. Bar none.
“I had no choice.”
She shook her head. The grief in her expressive eyes mirrored that in his heart. “That’s where you’re wrong. You did, Sean. You did. I would have helped you hunt him down and kill him. Back then, we made a hell of a better team than we do now.”
Shoulders shaking, she got up and walked away, to the only place she could go, the small lavatory, leaving the rest of what he had to tell her trapped on his tongue.
Staring after her, he wondered if she’d ever understand. Or if she’d ever forgive.
And she didn’t even know the worst of it.
It took half an hour, but Natalie was reasonably certain she’d managed to hide all signs of her bout of weeping. Except for the red eyes, and she was banking on the dim lighting to hide that.
She’d halfheartedly hoped Sean had fallen asleep while she’d hidden in the bathroom, but when she opened the door he still waited, sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands.
Despite herself, her best intentions flew out the window. “Are you all right?”
“Fine.” Straightening, he looked away. “Remember, there’s more I’ve got to tell you.”
The bed dipped as she sat down beside him. “You can do that later. I think I’ve had enough for one day.”
“But—”
“Seriously. Unless what you want to tell me will endanger my life if I don’t learn it, let it be for one more day. I can’t take any more today, okay?”
Finally, he nodded. The stark relief that flashed across his handsome face was painful to see. Especially since she felt the same—as if she’d dodged a bullet.
“Then let’s talk about something else.”
“What?”
“Anything,” she said. “You choose.”
“Tell me why you’re here, hiding from your own agency. Why you called Corbett and not SIS for help.”
“My entire team was slaughtered in SIS headquarters. Cut down in cold blood, without warning. Since SIS was breached once, I have no doubt it could be breached again. I don’t trust anyone there at the moment.”
“Breached?”
“We had a mole. Roland Millaflora. You might have heard of him.”
“But he was captured, right?”
“Yes. But I don’t know who he was working for, or worse, if he had help inside. So I’ve cut myself off from headquarters. As far as they know, I’m on the French Riviera.”
She yawned, then stood up and started to move away. “Let’s get some sleep. I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”
“Not yet.” His gaze darkened. “Come here, Nat.”
She opened her mouth and closed it. “Why?”
“Just come here.”
Suspicion had her frozen before she remembered he was a wounded man. Moving to his side, she reached for the water glass to refill it. “Do you want more water?”
He grabbed her arm, tugging her toward the bed. “No. I want you.”
Shocked, she stumbled and nearly fell. Righting herself, she perched on the edge of the bed, empty water glass still in hand. “You’re … you’re hurt, in pain.”