Wincing, he looked at his brother. Burke’s face had shut down.
“Burke? Is there anything I can do?” Hilary asked. “You must be so tired. I can make reservations for dinner. You need to eat.”
Burke shook his head. “No, thank you. Not hungry. Get us back on a plane to Colombia.”
Hilary’s eyes widened, her lip forming a pout. “But you just got here. Burke, your wounds aren’t completely healed.”
A cold professional mask slid across Burke’s face. Cole was fairly certain that his own mirrored that desolation. “Give us a moment.”
Hilary nodded reluctantly and walked out of the room.
“I want to go to New York,” Cole blurted.
“What would it prove? And according to that report, she’s moved.”
“I want to lay eyes on this fucker. What’s his name?” Cole demanded.
Burke’s laugh was humorless. “Angus. He’s from Scotland.”
She’d married someone named Angus? “She can’t be serious. We’ve got to go.”
They could talk to her, force her to tell them just why she’d promised to wait when she’d obviously had no intention of being there when they came home.
Fuck, he still loved her. He didn’t want to let her go, but he couldn’t bear to see her with this man who had replaced them in her heart. He couldn’t see a ring on her finger and know he hadn’t put it there.
“We can’t go, Cole.” Burke scrubbed a hand over his hair. “She never called.”
“We didn’t call her, either.” He regretted that fact on a daily basis, but it had been too dangerous.
“When were we supposed to call, man? We’ve been deep undercover for months. We have to face facts. She didn’t love us. It’s over. Fuck.” Burke turned away. He stalked to his desk and picked up the phone. “Rafiq al Mussad, please. Yes, tell him this is Burke Lennox, and he needs to call me soon. We’re heading back to Colombia soon. We need to meet with him.”
Cole stared out his window. Miles separated him from Jessa, but even if she stood in front of him now, he wouldn’t be able to reach her.
His future was over. He needed a drink.
Burke continued to make plans, but Cole could see the rest of his life mapped out in a neat plan. Fight. Fight. Die. Alone. Maybe he would save a few people, but the only woman who could have saved him was lost.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Present Day – Dallas, Texas
Cole watched Jessa, his every instinct on overload. She was thinking something, up to something. She glared at him, then paced the small room, her feet padding across the floor in a quick step that told him all about her anxiety—and her anger.
Of course she was angry. In her head, they had lied, but it hadn’t really seemed like a lie at the time. It had been a cover. They went undercover enough that it was just part of the job.
But this particular cover had blown up in their faces. Burke could be as optimistic as he wanted. She wasn’t coming back. Not now that she’d decided what they really were.
Mercenaries.
He hated that fucking word. It sounded selfish, made them seem like men who sold their services to anyone with cash, who used their power and strength, no matter the cause and no matter who got hurt. That wasn’t him, but he wouldn’t be able to convince Jessa. Did he even deserve a chance to try at this point? He sighed. And how would their son regard them when he got older, grew up?
“So, how long do you expect me to live in a swamp?”
Cole watched her pace, her hands clenching and unclenching. She was ready to explode, and he was going to let her. Maybe if she bled off some of her tension naturally, he wouldn’t be tempted to throw her onto the bed and force orgasms on her until she relaxed. He liked that plan much better, but she didn’t want him. Uncle Martin had been right; he wasn’t good for anything. No one would ever love him.
Burke crossed his arms over his chest and stared straight at Cole. “Well? Don’t you have some caveman comeback to that one?”
Cole just shook his head.
“Not a single word?”
“No.”
Fuck. Burke wanted to bait him into losing his temper, and Cole refused to let him. Burke wanted him to grab Jessa and push pleasure on her until she melted in his arms, then pass her to his brother so he could give her more of the same. But Cole wasn’t going to give his brother the satisfaction of showing Jessa how much he loved and wanted her. Or of trying to break her down and soften her up for them. It was pointless. She wasn’t coming back.
Burke’s growl came from the back of his throat. His brother was getting really angry, a surprise since Burke rarely lost his temper. That was Cole’s job, but Burke seemed willing to take over for him. “Fine. I’ll do what I always do. I’ll fucking speak for you. Jessa, you’ll stay in the swamp for as long as it takes, until we tell you it’s all right to go.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Or maybe I’ll call the cops myself. He can’t possibly own every single one of them. Maybe I would be better off taking my chances with them than the two of you. At least they won’t lie to me.”
Cole felt his whole body flinch, like she’d hit him with a bullet. No, a bullet would hurt less.
“You’re not calling anyone.” Burke crossed his arms over his chest and intentionally crowded Jessa. He got right into her space, towering over her. “Do you honestly believe we haven’t tried everything we could in the short amount of time we’ve had? We have people calling the feds, the US Attorney’s office, the DA of New York. These things take time. That’s what Marco is counting on.”
“Or maybe he’s counting on the fact that he’s had months and months to prepare for this and he knows exactly what you’ll do at every turn, like just sitting here and waiting for him to come get us.” Her body was practically vibrating with anger.
“Do you think I like sitting around? Do you honestly believe I wouldn’t rather be out looking for this bastard? If I knew you’d be safe, I would. But I don’t know if this asshole is nearby, and driving around in the middle of the day is just asking for someone to spot us. So until dark, we’re staying. What the fuck else do you want me to do, Jessa?”
“Go back a year ago and change everything. Hell, if I could go back, I’d be smarter, see through you two. I should have known exactly what you were. I can see it so clearly now.” Her fists were little balls of barely contained emotion. Even her toes seemed curled, biting around the cheap carpet.
“And just what are we?” Burke challenged. “Lay it out, sweetheart. Put it all out there.”
“You’re liars.”
Cole closed his eyes. That hurt almost as badly as the idea that they were mercenaries. Did she think they lied to everyone or just sweet virgins like her, looking for affection? Did she believe they really made money off saving or taking human lives? Probably. He’d been called worse, but never by someone he cared about.
“We were undercover. Did you want us to walk around giving the bad guys business cards?”
“In the end, it didn’t matter. They seemed to have figured out who you are. They were way smarter than I was.”
“Of course, they figured it out. We had to file a ton of paperwork to get the feds to accept the evidence we’d collected. We had to put the bad guy away. Don’t act like we’re the villains in this scenario. We were the ones saving the women, and you know it.”
“Well, you didn’t save me, did you?” she said acidly.
Cole felt his fucking heart almost stop at the question. Unlike her previous rantings, this question came out of her mouth with a hint of vulnerability that broke his heart. The hurt in her eyes was raw, like it had been scrubbed to bleeding with steel wool. Guilt churned in his gut.
Burke softened up a bit. He reached out for her. “Sweetheart, we didn’t know you needed us or were in danger. The minute we thought you were, we came for you.”
The vulnerable girl was gone in a heartbeat, righteously angry female taking her place. “I wasn’t talking about that, you asshole. I was talking about the fact that you left me alone and pregnant, and if Marco Delgado hadn’t decided I would make a spectacularly good Judas goat, you would never have come back for me.”
“We would have checked.” Burke’s hands came back down, his fingers twitching as though they really wanted to be on her. Cole knew his brother. Burke thought if he could get his hands on her, he could smooth their way back. Cole didn’t think Jessa wanted to be placated. She wanted to fight, and they were the only available targets.
“Would you? Or would you have just moved on to the next job and the next female who was stupid enough to buy into your routine?”
“It’s not a routine, and we would have checked on you.”
She turned those big green eyes on him. Cole felt his heart stutter. “Would you, Cole? Really? Would you have come looking for me, a woman you thought was married?”
“No.” He’d died a little the day he’d heard about her marriage. A piece of himself had shriveled, and he’d buried it. He wouldn’t have gone back. He wouldn’t have wanted to see her with her husband. “We’d already discussed it and decided to leave you in peace.”
“Goddamn it, Cole. Can you think for two seconds before you say something? Why are you sitting there? I know you love her. Why are you just letting her tear us apart?”
“We can love her all we want, but we’re not together, Burke. I can’t tear us apart because she’s not going to let us close to her again.”
And it hurt like hell. Cole had never felt more alive than when he’d been with Jessa. With her, he’d felt like he’d been good at something other than his fucking job. He’d been good at loving her.
Then he’d fucked up.
He watched as Burke spewed angry words her way, and she yelled right back. Yes, he’d fucked up. Brutally. He had told Jessa the truth. They wouldn’t have gone back. Cole knew he would have taken job after job after job until it killed him. That fucker Landry had lied to him about Jessa’s marriage, and he’d swallowed every damn word. He would have gone to his grave heartbroken, loving her…and believing that she belonged to another man.
“Have you thought about the fact that Caleb is our son?” Burke challenged.
“He’s probably Cole’s son.”
“You think that matters to me? That I give a shit?” Burke shot back. “We’ve shared everything since the moment we were conceived. In my heart, that is my son, and I’ll be damned if I let you shove me out of his life.”
She was toe to toe with Burke, her face more alive than he’d seen in hours. She was flushed, her hair sliding out of its ponytail with every shake of her head. Little tendrils of red hair escaped to flutter around her face. She was so goddamn beautiful. Even when she was screaming at them, Cole was utterly fascinated with her.
Could he really let that go—her go—because he was worried he was everything she accused him of being? Was he going to let his uncle keep taunting him from the grave? Jessa wasn’t married. She’d given birth to their son. Cole still fucking loved her. She’d cared about him once. Maybe…Burke had a point.
Cole paused and really watched her. He’d been mired in his own misery and hadn’t looked beyond her beauty, her anger. But now he did. His eyes narrowed. It was as if she wanted to…provoke them. For a fight? Or something else?
“You shouldn’t be in his life at all,” she insisted.
“How can you say that, Jessa? He’s our son. We’re his fathers.”
“You didn’t care enough about me to call and find out that you had a son, but I’m supposed to believe you’re suddenly going to be dads of the year?”
Burke gritted his teeth, clearly nearing the end of his control. “I’ve explained that.”
“You gave me an excuse. How hard would it have been to pick up the damn phone?” She turned to Cole. “There were three months between the time you left and I returned from Scotland with my supposed husband. Three months. Ninety days in which you could have called me. Ninety days of me waiting and believing that you’d abandoned me.”
She said it with an angry growl, but there was something else underneath. Burke continued to argue his case. Cole frowned, working to shove aside his own guilt and misery, his uncle’s destructive words. He watched her. She just kept picking at them, getting more frustrated with every one of Burke’s comebacks.
“Just admit it, Burke. You found a dumb virgin who gave you two exactly the kink you two wanted, then you left with no intention of ever coming back. You’d gotten what you wanted and you were through. And you.” She turned to look directly at Cole, her gaze laced with some sense of anticipation, like she sought something. “You’re sick. Perverted.”
