Chapter Ten

Ghost

B efore I turned over the engine, her voice hit the cabin.

"I heard what she called you." Laced with hurt and full of accusation, she lobbed the verbal grenade onto my lap with the same quiet desperation in her tone that she'd had when she'd asked me to save her mother.

"Not here." Starting the SUV and throwing it into gear, I drove down the ranch's long drive.

The second I turned out of Christensen's estate and the wheels hit the county road, she took direct aim. "She called you her husband."

I glanced at the only woman who had the power to destroy me. "I'm not." Not legally or any other way. I was already married.

"That is not what she thought."

"I have never lied to you, Safiya." Withheld intel, not answered questions, not told her the fucking terrorist behind her kidnapping was still alive—I'd done all of that, including not telling her how I'd wound up in her three-foot world in the first place. But I'd never intentionally lied to her. "I am not married to her." I reached for her hand.

Hurt, she pulled away and reupped her accusation. "That is not what that young blonde woman thought."

The irony was, despite my number eighteen being na?ve, she knew exactly where she stood with me. But that wasn't something I was about to tell the woman I'd purposely never disclosed the full truth to. "The less you know, the better. Not because I want to withhold information from you, but because it's safer for you not to know."

For ten seconds, she breathed in fire, then she took aim. "I am not ignorant. I know there are others like me. You disappear for months at a time. You come to me smelling like other women. You are always short of words, and you never stay for more than a day. I have never complained, and I am not ungrateful. I know what you have done for me, what you have provided, and at great expense. I know you must work at something to pay for everything you provide. I have a college education because you gave me a laptop and paid for tuition even though you never owed me. You rescued me, and that was more than enough. I have never wanted or needed to ask you for more." Her voice sank. "But now I am." Her hands clasped, and she shifted in her seat. "I want to leave."

The force of the blow was worse than every blast wave and hit I'd taken as a SEAL.

Gripping the steering wheel, I only kept my tone even by sheer will. "You can't." It wasn't safe.

"I am not asking."

"It's not safe." Especially not now.

"You are not safe."

I gave her that one. "No, I am not." I glanced at her to see if pulling over and putting my hands on her would turn this conversation around.

Jaw locked, hands gripped, she sat rigid as hell.

Touching her would absolutely make a difference. I kept fucking driving. "Your safety is directly linked to my mental well-being, which means there's nowhere more secure for you right now than with me." Until I deposited her at a safe house. Then I was going to have to rely on my satellites and years of prep.

"I do not trust—"

Fuck this. I gripped the back of her neck and cut her off. "We're not finished."

She flinched, but then her tone came down ten levels. "I have nothing to finish with a man who is with other women."

Holding her firm, knowing she could've interpreted my comment any number of ways, I chose my response carefully because there was only one meaning behind my statement and she'd zeroed in on it. "I am not legally married to any other women. I do not cohabitate with any other women, and I am not romantically involved with any other women."

Her tone took another nosedive, straight into hurt. "How many?"

I mentally exhaled over the fact that she wasn't asking to leave again, but then stalled because this was the other landmine I had to navigate. "How many what?"

"How many other women are there like me?"

Gauging her tone, knowing damn well that perception overrode reality but unwilling to risk her safety with intel or apologize for my actions, my mission, I calculated the answer to a question I knew was eight years in the making. Then I fucking avoided it. "You have a college degree because you put in the hard work and did the classes."

"Do not do that. Do not change the subject to avoid the real conversation."

Checking the rearview mirrors, then the time, I pushed past the speed limit. "I'm acknowledging your accomplishment, Safiya." I was proud of her, but saying it out loud after I'd already said it to another woman today felt too damn close to something I didn't want to admit to.

Her voice dropped as she subconsciously threaded a finger under the necklace I'd given her. "You already did that when you took me to my graduation."

A new level of guilt hit.

I didn't take her to her college graduation. I'd shown up at the house an hour after the ceremony started and put her in a stolen vehicle. Parking behind the arena and sneaking us in through a service entrance, I'd stood next to her as we hid backstage while they'd called her alias. Then I'd hooked the gold chain with a filagree heart around her neck and driven her home. A glass of champagne later, the only time I'd ever convinced her to have a drink, I'd winked at her and told her I was proud of her because I was. So damn proud.

Then she'd flashed me one of her rare, shy smiles, and I'd destroyed the moment.

I'd destroyed us.

Standing in the kitchen of the house I'd bought her, my necklace around her throat, wearing a dress I'd picked for her, she'd fucking smiled at me like I was her beginning and end, and I'd snapped.

My control gone, my demons edged in, and I knew I couldn't stay.

I'd planned to.

I'd arranged my weekend around her graduation.

Two nights. Two damn nights I was going to hold her in my arms and fucking pretend I could keep her. Pretend I was the type of man she needed.

But then she'd smiled at me, and I knew I couldn't stay without fucking her.

Smiling back, knowing I was going to destroy her, I'd leaned down and inhaled her pureness for a single fucking second before I'd kissed her cheek and got the hell out of there.

She hadn't smiled at me since.

It'd been two years.

But the woman kept a picture of me.

Of us.

Of the one time I had held her.

The only time I'd let my control slide around her because I'd needed her, she'd happened to text with a false alarm, and I used the excuse and gotten on a fucking plane.

I remembered it like it was yesterday. It'd been early on, and I'd had a few absolute shit days. I'd lost one of the other women before I could get her out. I'd almost been compromised. I was getting in my own head, and all I'd wanted was to hold the dark-eyed girl that'd asked to touch the fucking ocean.

Flying in, stalking the house, seeing half the shutters closed, watching her in her bedroom as she'd curled into a ball with her cell phone held in both hands, I'd waited until she'd fallen asleep. Then I'd let myself in and gotten in bed with her.

For six hours, it'd been torturous fucking heaven.

My cock hard and my head fucked, my lungs had filled with her purity, and I was out. It was the last time I'd slept well.

It was also the only time someone had gotten the drop on me.

I hadn't realized she'd taken the picture with her cell phone until the next time I'd come to check on her, and saw she'd fucking framed it. Irrationally pissed for reasons that had nothing to do with her breaking protocol, I'd taken the picture.

She'd deserved better back then.

She still did.

I glanced at her. "You should've walked that stage at your graduation."

Her soulful dark-eyed gaze met mine.

Then the sheepherder girl from Turkey who'd saved my ass with a single piece of intel that'd cost her everything once again gave me a free pass.

"I never needed a degree. I only wanted to learn, but I take my question back." She turned in her seat. "Knowing how many women you have will teach me nothing I do not already know."

I didn't respond.

I drove.