Chapter 11
BLOOD IN THE WATER
Jamie’s thoughts screeched to an ugly halt in his head before his brain kicked back into gear.
His sister’s surprise was rapidly morphing into anger, the kind of icy fury he knew well from his mother’s reaction to the decisions she didn’t approve of when it came to his life.
Jamie had forgotten that Leah was more like their mother than their father in all the ways that mattered.
“What are you doing here?” Jamie asked, taking a step toward her. “Please tell me you didn’t bring any friends with you.”
“Not after Mother said you were using the Kensington house, which you never do. What is going on?” Leah’s gaze darted from him to Kyle and back again, brows furrowing. “What is this?”
“You didn’t answer my question, Leah.”
“Oh, don’t you dare give me your captain’s voice, Jamie. I’m not one of your subordinates. I’m your sister.”
“Who should’ve known better not to interrupt a mission,” Jamie snapped back.
“I didn’t know you were on a mission!”
Jamie stared at her, turning her words over in his head. “Our parents didn’t tell you?”
“As if they tell me anything about your choices other than to disagree with them.”
Leah folded her arms over her chest, planting herself in the doorway.
Out in the hall, Katie hand signaled at Jamie they were leaving before grabbing Sean and hauling him away.
Jamie shoved aside his worry about Sean witnessing him and Kyle kissing—a little voice in the back of his head wondered if he could blame it on their cover of needing to be together—before he gestured at Leah to come farther into the office.
“Kyle?” Jamie asked tightly.
“Yeah, I’m gone,” Kyle said, slipping out of the room without looking at him.
Jamie bit back a growl of frustration as Leah moved out of the way so Kyle could close the door behind him.
Leah looked at the holographic map of London Jamie still had up and the glowing command windows lining the desk with far too much curiosity.
Jamie closed everything with a quick verbal order the computer instantly obeyed.
“What are you doing here?” he asked again, turning to face his sister.
“I was in Paris, remember? I said I was leaving New York for a bit.”
“If you were in Paris, what made you come here?”
“I got an invitation to a gala from a friend.”
Jamie went still, mind latching onto that revelation. “Close friend?”
Leah shrugged. “More a friend of a friend. It looked like fun.”
Jamie knew his sister wasn’t one to turn down a party, so long as it was worth her time, but the timing was suspect.
Anger, sudden and biting, coursed through him at the thought of someone playing with his sister’s life.
“Was it by chance the Winter Gala being held at the Victoria and Albert Museum?”
“Yes. Did you get an invite as well?”
“You could say that. It’s our mission.”
Leah blinked owlishly at him. “Come again?”
“I’m not discussing it with you because you don’t have the clearance to know what’s going on. Suffice it to say you aren’t going to that gala, Leah. I’d put you on a jet going home if I thought it’d do me any good.”
“You can’t tell me what to do,” Leah retorted. “If I want to go to the gala, then I’m going!”
“Like hell you are,” Jamie ground out. “This isn’t a game, Leah. That gala is a front for criminal activity, and I’m not risking your life.”
“Are you just saying that so I won’t go, or is that the truth?”
“Do you think I would be in London, risking our family’s good name, if there wasn’t a damn good reason for me to?”
Leah pursed her lips before reluctantly shaking her head. “You’re showing up on the gossip sites, and I know how much you hate that, which is part of the reason why I decided to come to London. This isn’t like you.”
“It’s what I have to be for the mission.”
“Is that the excuse you’re going to stick with for kissing a member of your team? He’s one of the two we haven’t met yet, right? Which one is he? Kyle or Alexei?”
“We’re not discussing this, Leah.”
“Oh, we’re discussing it, Jamie. You talk and talk all the time about following the rules for your job, that you can’t be seen with Father for his campaign because there are laws against politicizing your uniform.
All that talk, Jamie? Just bullshit from where I’m standing if you’re screwing a member of your team. ”
Jamie flinched at her words but couldn’t immediately deny them, not when denying them would mean denying Kyle. “It’s complicated.”
“Then uncomplicate it.”
Jamie raked a hand through his hair, biting the inside of his cheek. This was not the conversation he wanted to have, but apparently, they were having it. “We’re undercover as a couple for this mission because I needed a partner.”
“Really,” Leah drawled.
He held up a hand to forestall her next verbal strike. “That’s the truth. But we met last year before he even came onto the team. We just never stopped seeing each other.”
Leah shook her head, the loose curls of her long blonde hair brushing against the tight line of her shoulders. “You have some nerve, Jamie.”
“Why? Because I want to find some happiness in this life? My job is important to me. I have never lied about that.”
“Fucking a teammate is a good way to lose it.”
“Do you think we both don’t know that?”
“I don’t think I know you very well at all right now to make that assumption.”
Leah stared at him, her expression the blank, cool mask Jamie was used to seeing when she faced the public or the media.
Not her own family. It hurt that he’d driven her there.
Jamie pressed his lips together, swallowing against the painful lump in his throat.
He loved his sister, and he’d never wanted to hurt her, but he unintentionally had through wanting to find his own bit of happiness.
Choosing between his family and everything he wanted had never been so starkly shoved in his face before tonight.
But Jamie was a Marine, and a Marine never ran from a fight.
“You know I do what’s right,” Jamie said in a low voice.
“I have always done what’s right. For the country, for the family as much as I can, and for myself.
How Kyle and I go about our relationship may not be by the books, but he’s who I want to be with.
I’ll leave you to decide what you want to do with that information. ”
“You’re honestly not going to tell me not to talk?” Leah asked, her mask cracking a bit.
“I don’t think it would make a difference if I did. And I’m not going to ask my family to lie for me.”
Leah had always been one to toe the family line more than he had, but she’d had her own ways of acting out.
Leah’s resistance just never almost got her killed.
She was more apt to live her life on social media with her friends around what duties their parents deemed her old enough to handle for their various charity sponsorships and the businesses the family collectively oversaw.
“You should have told me,” Leah said after a strained moment of silence. “You told your team before you told me. I feel that says everything about our family relationship right there.”
“They found out because Kyle and I couldn’t keep this a secret from them. We’re in each other’s pockets too much for us to hide it.”
“And they were okay with lying about it?”
“We didn’t ask them to keep quiet. They offered on their own.”
“So they’re complicit in hiding your relationship as well? Isn’t that everything you’re against, Jamie? How can you just throw all that you say you want away for one person?”
The words Jamie wanted to say weren’t for his sister to hear, so he didn’t give voice to them. “Where else would I find someone who understands what I’ve lived through if not a fellow soldier? Wanting that connection isn’t a crime.”
“Except when it is. You outrank him, Jamie.”
“Do you honestly think we went into this relationship blindly? We both know the risk involved here.”
“I sure hope you do because this is absolutely the stupidest decision you’ve ever made.”
“I’m not changing my mind.”
“I’m well aware of how stubborn you are.” Leah huffed out an angry sigh and reached up to fiddle with the dainty gold necklace hanging around her throat. “You’re really not going to ask me to lie for you?”
Jamie shook his head, never looking away from his sister’s face. “I won’t ever ask that of you.”
It would be easier if he did and she agreed, but they were past that point now.
Leah knew, and she was just one more person who had the power to ruin Jamie’s life.
It would hurt more if she did because she was his sister, but he wasn’t going to put her in the position to keep his secrets for him.
Leah would talk, or she wouldn’t. He and Kyle had always known being together was a risk.
Jamie just thought maybe they’d get more than seven months together.
“You make it so fucking hard to stay angry with you,” Leah finally said.
“I’m sorry.”
She stared at him, eyes still bright with accusation, but the anger was fading. “Is he worth it?”
Jamie only had one answer to that, and the honesty came out raw in his voice. “Yes.”
Leah nodded, more to herself than to his declaration. “I’m hungry.”
Jamie didn’t dare ask about her intentions and merely took the change of conversation as a break from an argument he knew wasn’t finished. “Okay.”
“When this is over, I’m visiting you in DC. Both of you.”
She didn’t mention their parents, and Jamie held on to the tiny, delicate hope that maybe his sister wouldn’t spill his biggest secret to the world at large.
“Okay.”
“I want you to stop keeping the important things in your life from me. I’m not a little girl anymore. You don’t need to protect me.”
To Jamie, she would always be his little sister and always need his protection, but he knew better than to tell her that right now. “I’ll try not to.”
“I’m still mad at you.”