Mission: Marriage. Karen Whiddon
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