Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
A soft knock rapped against her bedroom door. Simone stared up at the ceiling as she sprawled on the bed. Not sleeping. Not even close to sleeping.
Not crying anymore, either, so that was good.
But glaring. She was hardcore glaring at the ceiling.
The soft knock came again.
“Go away!” Simone called. Then…hell. He was shot. He might need me. She tossed aside the covers and marched for the door. With an angry hand she wrenched the door open. “Do you need my help with your wound?”
And, no, one swift glance told her that he did not.
Because he had a white bandage around his upper arm.
His bare upper arm. Ryan had ditched the soaking, white shirt.
He’d ditched his black dress pants. His shoes and socks.
He wore a pair of gray jogging pants that clung to his hips, and his insane abs were on full display.
He looked big, foreboding, and far too sexy.
Damn him. Was it just too much for him to occasionally look rumpled and unkempt?
He propped his non-injured forearm against the doorframe and leaned toward her. “I’m a liar.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. You’ve been lying to me from day one.” Granted, she’d been doing the same thing but…
At some point, the lies got old. Was it so wrong to wish that she could be honest with him? That he could be honest with her?
“Lying is part of my job, but I was always good at pretending. Long before I joined the CIA, I was good at lying. I was good at fighting. I was good at killing.”
Goosebumps rose onto her body.
“I started in the Marines,” he revealed. “Semper Fi.”
She shook her head, not understanding where this was going.
“Always faithful,” Ryan explained. “Semper Fidelis. That’s the motto of the Marines.
I protected. I defended. I served my country, and I made a difference.
Never even thought about becoming a spy back in those days.
Didn’t even appear on my radar, not until my brother Nash had a sudden career change and became a spook. ”
Why was he telling her all of this? “Was he a Marine, too?”
“Nah. Nash was supposed to be a doctor. That is what he is going to be. Now. But life—fate—was twisted back then, and he had to make hard choices. I didn’t even know why he was changing everything.
He didn’t tell me. When, normally, Nash told me everything.
All I knew was that something was wrong, he was walking into danger, and I couldn’t let him walk that path alone.
” A twisted smile came and went on his lips.
“So I followed him into the CIA, and I discovered that I am a very good liar. I am very good at manipulation. I’m good at compartmentalizing my life.
At not letting emotions get in the way of a mission.
I’m good at becoming someone new every few months or every other year. ”
She curled her arms around her stomach. “Is Ryan Quinn even your real name?”
“Funnily enough, it is. The CIA built me a very solid background using that name. I don’t employ it on most missions, but I did on this one.” His gaze held hers. “Is Simone Sailor your real name?”
“Simone is my real name.”
“But not Sailor?”
“My father was a sailor.” Memories whispered through her.
Of a time when the feeling of water on her skin hadn’t been terrifying.
Her father had taken her out on the water again and again.
She’d been sailing her own small Sunfish sailboat by the time she was four, but he’d been beside her. Always beside her.
Until he wasn’t.
Ryan’s arm slid away from the doorframe. “You chose it for him.”
She shrugged. But, yes, she had. She used the last name of Sailor because it was part of a happier time.
“I’m a liar,” Ryan told her again.
“I think we’ve covered that part pretty thoroughly. No need to rehash.”
“I didn’t intend to fall for you, but I did.”
She’d misheard. Simone shook her head. “Quite sure you told Jezebel that you were not falling for me.”
“That part was the lie. And she called me on it.”
Her body tensed.
“I met you, I knew you’d be useful to me, so I asked you out that first day. It was never supposed to go past being a purely platonic, casual experience between us. But I went out with you, and I…liked you.” Gruff. A little awkward.
She’d liked him, too.
“Sometimes, you meet someone, and you realize that they know you. More than that, they get you. The more I learn about you, the more secrets that are revealed, I realize that you get me, Simone. You don’t flinch away from who I am or what I’ve done.
You saw me kill a man, and you barely batted an eyelash. ”
“You killed to protect me.” She’d been grateful to be alive. Besides, she only batted her lashes when she was trying to play innocent and throw someone off balance.
“I’d kill to protect you a million times over.”
Her gaze cut away from his. “That would be a lot of dead bodies. Totally unnecessary. Overkill, some would say.”
He eliminated even more of the distance between them.
His hand slid under her chin, and, slowly, carefully, he turned her head so that she looked at him once more.
“I lied when I said that I wasn’t falling for you.
I lied to Jezebel, and, like I told you, she immediately called me on it.
Jez always does that. Calls me out on my BS. ”
Her heart raced far too fast. “You’re telling me what you think I want to hear. You’re trying to manipulate me. You want my help, so you’re attempting to smooth things over. Unnecessary. I already promised to cooperate with the CIA.”
“No, I’m not interested in manipulating you. I’m telling you what I need to say. Because I don’t want to be a liar with you. I want you to know me. All of me. Not just surface level.”
Her gaze drifted over him. “Your surface has some interesting tattoos.”
He’d mentioned that he’d gotten both real and fake tattoos. Kinda like the man himself. Real and fake. Real hero. Fake asshole billionaire?
But as she studied him, her gaze became caught on the dragon tattoo. Such an impressive beast. Every scale seemed to be alive with energy and dangerous intent.
“I got that one for my sister. Agnes…she lost someone very special to her a long time ago. His murder changed her life. She became someone different, and all she wanted was for the killer to be brought to justice. I was helping to hunt him. But when you hunt monsters for too long, you can become one, far too easily. You can become something that other people fear.”
Her arms stopped hugging her body. They fell to her sides. “I am not afraid of you.”
“I know. Maybe you should be, though, because where you are concerned, I can’t compartmentalize. I can’t shut down my emotions. I can’t keep my control, no matter how hard I try.”
They were hours from dawn. From the promised meeting with Frederick. For an end to the mission.
When they parted ways, she’d never again get to do the things she wanted to do with Ryan. With him. To him. “Did you help your sister? Did you stop the monster?”
“Her monster is gone.”
“That’s good.” She rocked forward onto the balls of her feet. “Why are you sharing so much with me?”
“Because I never told anyone else all of this. Because I want you to be the one who carries my secrets. Because I will not betray you again.”
Her lower lip trembled. “It’s easy to make promises. Not so easy to keep them.”
“I want you.”
I want you, too.
“I’m not just talking about right now, right here, though, hell, yes, I do.” His stare was so focused. So hot. Scorching. “I’m talking about forever.”
Shock had her stepping back. “You—you can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because liars don’t get forever. That’s not what happens to people like us.
” They weren’t made for happy endings. A happy ending would not be in the cards for her, she understood that.
They didn’t have a bright, shiny future just waiting in the wings once the mission was over.
They only had the dangerous here and now.
“Who says we can’t have forever?” Ryan wanted to know.
But she shook her head. “What are we going to do? Get a house with a picket fence in a small town? Take the kids trick-or-treating and hold Easter egg hunts in our front yard?” Mocking words but…
The image…
The idea…
The temptation…
I want that life. A secret whisper in her mind.
She wanted a home. She didn’t care if the town was big or small.
She wanted a family. Trick-or-treating. Oh, but she could design an amazing haunted house and she could scare everyone and she’d dress up as a witch and laugh as her own little demons rushed home.
Maybe a son with dark eyes like Ryan’s. Or a daughter with her smile.
No. That life is not for me.
She couldn’t have fantasies like that. Fantasies like that hurt too much.
They reminded her of when she’d been a kid and she’d used to dream and wish that her parents would come back.
That it had all just been some terrible mistake.
They weren’t really dead. They were going to show up, at any moment.
With her cat. And they were going to go back home.
And she’d ride in her Sunfish with her dad.
And she’d go trick-or-treating. Finally get to wear the dragon costume that her mother had so carefully made for her that last year.
A costume she’d never gotten to wear because the car accident had occurred three weeks before Halloween.
I can’t have fantasies. I can’t have dreams.
“We could do all that,” Ryan said, speaking thoughtfully. “The house with the picket fence. I happen to know a really great city on the bay, and the sheriff there is top-notch, though I am a bit biased when it comes to Agnes.”
What?
“Or, we could let you run through Europe. Jezebel happens to think that you have all the makings for a fabulous spy.”
A spy. A life with more lies. No, thanks. She was full up on lies.
“Exciting places,” Ryan murmured. “Big cities. A new background story every few months.”