by Trish Loye
Fine. She smiled brilliantly at him. No way was she letting him get to her. She followed him at her own pace—or maybe one that was a bit slower than she could actually manage.
He led her topside. She stepped on deck and squinted into the afternoon sun glinting off the ocean waves and breathed in the fresh, salty air. Wind blew her hair around her face. It had only been a few days, but being confined in a world of gray bulkheads with no access to the outside wasn’t for her. She stood still for a moment—her eyes closed, the sun warming her skin—and just breathed.
“Let’s go.” The officer jerked his chin behind him.
A helicopter, its rotors turning slowly, waited on the pad built for it. Two men in military police uniforms waited at the edge of the pad.
This wasn’t good.
Where was Fletcher?
The woman behind the desk wore a navy suit, black-framed glasses and had her blonde hair cut into a stylish bob. Her demeanor said she’d been in command for many years and was comfortable with it.
Quinn stood before the woman’s desk at attention. Susan Nelson, Damien’s boss, had yet to look up from where she flipped through a file. It had been three days since the bird had picked her up from the Iron Duke. This wasn’t RHQ Credenhill, near Hereford, where the SAS and the SRR were located. Either Fletcher had lied to her, or he had no idea where Quinn was. Either way, it didn’t bode well for her.
She again had been kept in a small, windowless room for the last few days. The woman in front of her should have been the one in custody, not Quinn. Her two guards waited outside the room to return her to her cell. Quinn’s fists tightened at her sides as she waited for Nelson to acknowledge her.
Nelson, whose scheming had caused Damien’s death.
Fuck this.
Quinn crossed her arms and lowered her chin so she could stare directly at Nelson. “Why the fuck aren’t you in prison?”
Nelson lifted her head, her eyes narrowing. “Private Sinclair—”
“Trooper Sinclair.” She’d earned the British Army’s Special Forces rank when she’d passed the grueling training and been accepted into the SRR. No way was she letting this woman take that away.
“Not anymore. You’ve been demoted because of your crimes and expelled from the SRR.” Nelson smiled at Quinn’s gasp. “It’s amazing, really, how simple it was to turn this to my advantage. You’ll be spending the rest of your life behind bars.”
Quinn’s stomach dropped, but she didn’t let her glare go. She’d go down fighting. “Too many people know. You can’t hide me away.”
The woman crossed her arms, mimicking Quinn. “Of course I can.”
A loud knock sounded and a tall, dark-haired man entered the room, his sharp features set in a cool smile. Four civilian bobbies stood in the hallway.
Nelson stood and planted her hands on her desk. “What are you doing here, Fletcher?”
This man with his dark, arrogant gaze was Ethan Fletcher, the SIS agent Anna had wanted Quinn to find. “I’ve come to arrest you, Nelson, for crimes against the Crown.”
“You can’t do that!”
His smile widened but didn’t warm at all. “Oh, but I can. I have all the evidence I need.” He waved the policemen inside. “Take her away.”
After Nelson—cursing them both—had been hustled away, Fletcher stepped back and studied her. “You’re Quinn Sinclair?”
Her heart seemed to freeze and then pound out of control. Was she going to be taken away again? She swallowed. “That’s me.”
“It’s good to finally meet you. I know your brother, Jack. He’s looking forward to seeing you.”
Four weeks later…
Quinn sat up in bed and threw off the covers. Sweat coated her skin. That dream had been intense, but then every time she dreamed of Marc, it was hot and intense. Just like him.
I’ll see you soon, Quinn Sinclair.
She was getting better at not thinking about him during the day, but her body seemed to remember him every night. She sucked in a deep breath, held it and blew it out long and steady. Her pulse slowed.
She looked around the sparse bedroom of her tiny flat. She didn’t have much in the way of things. She spent so much time training or on missions that she’d hardly been here. Her room in Colombia had shown more personality.
She pulled a pillow over her eyes to block out the blank white walls.
Marc hadn’t shown up like he’d seemed to promise on that ship. And in reality, he hadn’t actually promised anything. Her mind knew that she’d probably never see him again. It was time her body realized it too.
She was one month into her two-month leave after her extraction from Colombia. Agent Fletcher, with the help of Agent Anna Bishop, had cleared Quinn’s name and brought down the key players in the drug trafficking operation. The gossip magazines had had a field day with the story of Prime Ministerial Candidate Lowell being involved with a Colombian cartel.
Quinn had mostly recovered from her injuries and apparently Anna was recovering too. Quinn had briefly met with her in the hospital. Anna’s eyes had been haunted, though she’d smiled and thanked Quinn. They’d both decided they should get to know each other when they weren’t covered in bruises. The best part of this whole misadventure might actually be that Quinn got a friend out of it.
Quinn pulled the pillow off her face and stared at her white plastered ceiling, trying to be optimistic about her future.
At least the SRR had taken Quinn off the blacklist. Apparently her brother, Jack, wasn’t on the SAS shit list anymore, so she didn’t need to be either. That and the fact she’d helped derail a corrupt politician’s plans to be prime minister.
All good things. She tried to smile.
It meant her next assignment would probably be in the Middle East with a small detachment of her unit. It was what she wanted. Her stomach roiled at the thought of who could be in charge of her next mission.
The SRR hadn’t let her down, she reminded herself; only the corrupt sods who had wormed their way into the government. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to fully trust a politician again after this fiasco, but she could always trust her unit.
Her stomach growled. She needed breakfast. She didn’t move, though, just kept staring overhead.
Going on assignment meant she’d have no way of seeing Marc again. It was why she’d requested the full two months leave, even though a month into it she was going stir-crazy with boredom. Her friends in the unit were either on training missions or out on ops. She didn’t know her neighbors because she was hardly ever here. So she spent the days by herself. She’d wanted the full two months, though, because it postponed the finality of never seeing Marc again. But at least she was using the time to forget Marc and get her head on straight.
Sort of.
Her hands clenched around her covers. Marc was inaccessible to her, just as she was inaccessible to him. An ordinary soldier wouldn’t be able to track her down.
But if he was special operations like she suspected, surely he had access to information…
She suppressed her sigh, swung her feet out of bed and plodded to her kitchen. The operators of the SRR were some of the hardest in the world to find. No matter who he worked for, and how much he wanted to find her, it wouldn’t be easy. And honestly, she hadn’t tried to find him.
She opened her fridge and stared at the contents. Eggs. Some cheese and some wilted lettuce. She didn’t even have any sausage for a proper fry-up.
Sure, she’d searched online for Marc and found nothing, but she hadn’t dug any deeper than that. She still wasn’t sure she should find him. What would happen if they did connect? Would he feel threatened, knowing who she actually was, like so many of the other guys she’d tried to date? Or would his feelings be different, now that the danger had passed?
Besides, Canada and England were a long way from each other. Maybe it was better to leave their time together as a memory. A heady affair on a mission, something to savor in tough times.
It was time to move on.
24
One week later…
Quinn perused the shelves of the bookstore. No more romances for her. She needed a thriller of some kind. Or maybe the latest literary bestseller. Tonight she planned on having a glass of wine and reading a good book. She had two weeks left of leave and she was going to put them to good use and enjoy herself.
She’d considered a beach vacation or a cruise, but she’d just spent five months in a gorgeous country. She missed the UK. And the idea of being stuck on a boat with a bunch of strangers for a week made her freak out. So she spent her days working out, reading, and wandering different parts of the UK. She spent a weekend in London and another camping in the Lake District, but all of it left her a bit deflated. She usually enjoyed being by herself, but she couldn’t seem to muster up the energy to have fun.
It’s because you miss him.
How could she miss a man she barely knew?
Her phone rang.
“I’ve booked you a flight to Montréal,” her brother said. “I have to go there for my new liaison post, and you should come.”
She smiled. It had been so nice to see Jack these last few weeks. “I still don’t understand why the SAS needs a liaison for a civilian security company.”
“You’ll understand when you see this company. Maybe you’d like to work for them too.”
“Doubt it. I’m not sure how you stand not going on missions, Jack. I’ve had six weeks off, and I’m going out of my mind. I think I’d go completely crazy working for civilians.”
He laughed. “Hereford isn’t exactly a hotbed of fun. Just come to Montréal with me. You’ll enjoy it.”
She’d never been to Montréal, let alone Canada.
Marc lives in Canada.
Maybe. She wasn’t really sure where he lived. Just because he’d said Canada didn’t mean he hadn’t lied. They’d both lied a lot to each other. And Canada was a big place. There was no way she would run into him.
She would go only to see a new place and spend some time with her brother before her next mission. She wasn’t going because of Marc.
“Okay,” she said, suppressing her burst of excitement ruthlessly. “I’m in.”
Two days later, Quinn followed her brother into a tall office building in downtown Montréal. She’d resisted coming yesterday and had spent the day exploring the gorgeous city. “Why do you want me to see this place so bad?” she asked her brother again.
“Seriously, Quinn, can’t you just trust me? Stop asking questions and let me show you EDGE Security.”
As soon as she entered the building, she knew something was off. Tiny cameras that she’d been trained to spot covered the lobby.
Jack strode toward an elevator set off by itself. Private. Probably reinforced. But against what? The call button was a biometric palm print scanner.
“What is this place really?” she asked Jack.
“Wait and see.”
The elevator doors opened, with two more cameras and another scanner inside. This one was a retinal. “This is pretty high security.” She studied her brother and then the scanner again. “The type of security you’d find in a military or covert government unit.”
Jack’s face gave away nothing. But she knew her brother, and sensed rather than saw the smugness in him. The humor.
“Is this some kind of joke?”
His lips twisted, and she knew he was covering up a smile. “We’re almost there.”
The doors didn’t ding but slid silently open. She was out and in the hall, assessing the place for threats. Something about this made her feel as if she were walking into enemy territory.
There was a receptionist behind a large semicircle of a desk. The woman had steel-gray hair, glasses, and the demeanor of a dragon guarding her lair.
“Relax, Quinn,” her brother said. “You look like you’re about to kill someone.”
“Tell me what this place is,” she said quietly.
“I don’t have permission to do that.”
Her gaze snapped to his. He’d just confirmed what she thought. This was some sort of covert government unit. “But Canadian?”
He smiled. “Liaison, remember?”
A military liaison. So this place had military ties. “EDGE Security” it said on the wall. The words below read, “We go to the Edge so you don’t have to.” She snorted. “That’s just a tad cheesy.”
“I’ll be sure to tell the boss that. Estelle, is Commander Knight in?”
The woman glared at them. “Mr. Knight will see you now, but not your companion.”
What?
“Don’t worry,” Jack said in a low voice. “I’ve a friend who’s coming to show you around.” He paused and his lips pressed together. “If you don’t want to see the bloke, just tell Estelle to grab me and I’ll take you home.” He strode off to a door behind the dragon lady.
Quinn blinked. If she didn’t want to see his friend…? She almost snarled. What was going on? She prowled around the reception area, ignoring the dragon lady’s pointed remarks about couches being put there for guests. Three more cameras hid in unobtrusive places and every time she came close to the dragon lady, the woman’s hand veered under the desk.
Panic button.
Marc watched Quinn prowl the reception area like a caged tiger. He stood in the computer room while Mike, the head of IT, used cameras to track Jack and his sister into the building and up to EDGE.
She looked beautiful. Her face was a bit paler, making her hair seem brighter. All the bruises were gone, and she moved well, so she’d healed without incident. He was glad. That was why his heart had squeezed at the sight of her.
He’d been so disappointed when she hadn’t come yesterday. Jack had promised to make her come today.
He couldn’t believe it had been five weeks. It hadn’t taken more than twenty-four hours to realize Quinn Sinclair was Jack’s sister. Jack, who’d helped EDGE take down a terrorist in London only a few months previous and currently dated Dr. Charlotte Singh, EDGE’s head of research.
That had helped immensely with finding her. Marc would have set out the next day to track her down, but they’d been assigned a new mission almost immediately. And for some stupid reason, he hadn’t asked for the time off. Because he hadn’t known how she’d react to him. Not after their parting on the HMS Iron Duke.
He should have just taken the mission off. It had been a month-long surveillance operation. Cat had chastised him daily to stay focused, but his thoughts had kept returning to the battered face of his do-gooder.
As soon as he’d returned, he’d spent the next week convincing Jack to bring his sister over to Montréal. If she came to EDGE, it would be easier to explain without him breaking his promise not to reveal anything about the operation.
Quinn stalked closer to Estelle, her face almost in a snarl, her quick gaze catching everything the woman did.
His heart beat faster, and he grinned. Time to face his tiger.
Quinn was being rude to the receptionist, but she was tired of not knowing what was going on. Was her brother testing her in some way? She wanted to shake some answers out of the receptionist, and the woman seemed to know it. Her hand strayed again to that spot under her desk.
Quinn tried to smile, which only made the receptionist frown.
Okay. So the smile might have been more of a teeth-baring grimace.
Footsteps echoed from down the hall, distracting her. Jack’s friend finally deigning to show himself. Quinn turned from her pacing to face the newcomer.
Her breath didn’t just catch, it stopped.
He’d shaved off his scruff.
She devoured him with her gaze, his intense blue eyes capturing hers.
Marc walked with confidence toward her. There was no surprise on his face. She stiffened. There was no surprise on his face.
She looked around. This company�
�
“This company is a cover for the unit you work for?” she asked.
Marc smiled and nodded. “Your brother works with us from time to time.”
A thought had her clenching her teeth. “Did you know who I was from the start?”
His eyes widened. “Hell, no. I wouldn’t have touched Jack’s little sister.”
A lance of pain went through her. She crossed her arms. Hold it together. “I’m not sure if that’s an insult or not.”
“It’s not, Red.”
Hearing the nickname he used for her made her heart twist into a painful knot. She rubbed a hand over the spot. “So…is that why you didn’t come see me?” She hated the way her voice was so quiet, as though she’d lost her confidence somewhere.
Marc moved closer. “I meant to find you, but I was called out for a mission.”
A mission. Her shoulders slumped. “The mission always comes first,” she quoted. This had been a mistake, coming to this company, coming to Montréal. Secretly she’d hoped to run into Marc. But what did she think seeing him again would accomplish? He had his job and she had hers.
“No.” Marc’s hands gripped her arms. “I was stupid. I shouldn’t have accepted, except…the last time I saw you…” He pressed his lips together in a slight grimace. “It felt like you were done with me. So I let myself go on a mission.” He shook his head. “I was wrong. You were injured and couldn’t find me. I should have reached out to you sooner.”
He should have. Those words made her sound like an obligation. But reaching out was a far cry from what she actually wanted.
“You wouldn’t have been able to find me,” she said instead.
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I was in custody for a week and on my way to civilian prison.”
Marc took a step closer. “What the fuck? What happened?”
She shrugged off his concern. “It’s fine now. Fletcher worked his magic. My name is clear, and I’m back with my unit.” She had to remember that. Her place was with her unit. It was a place she’d struggled and sacrificed for. She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. She was a fucking SRR operator. She wouldn’t be his second choice, even to a mission.