Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
He couldn’t go after her. Likely couldn’t stay here with her. He would have to go back to DC and make a show of going through the motions.
He hated his sister. He picked up the line. “Hey, Mom.”
She began to cry, and Drake moved back to the conference room.
It was going to be a long night.
* * * *
Taylor took the stairs as quickly as she could. She could hear Drake talking to his mother in the background, but the sound was definitely getting fainter. He was moving one way and she in the opposite direction.
Wasn’t that a good metaphor for their lives?
They’d come together for one brief moment, and now they were spiraling outside each other’s spheres again. Although he wanted to actively control hers even when he wasn’t involved.
He might have been able to do that at one point in time. The first time around, she’d been happy to leave the Agency and likely would have found herself in a relationship where Drake controlled much of how they spent their time. She would have moved where he’d wanted her to move and spent her time waiting for him because the relationship would have been the whole of her world. Not his. She would have been the sweet thing that waited for him at the end of each mission, but he’d missed his chance. If he wanted her in a neat box at this point, he would have to shoot her and stuff her in it. She was already thinking of how she could tie this John Smith—very creative there—to Julia Ennis, and from there she could start drawing some lines to corporations behaving badly and maybe start making headway taking them all down.
She’s not involved.
She could still hear him saying the words, still feel the need to stand up and tell him to fuck himself, but she’d held off. To show him so much emotion would be giving herself away. That was what stupid-girl Taylor would do. She would be hurt by the man who’d brought her such pleasure and then acted like she wasn’t worth working with. Smart operative Taylor was willing to keep up the rules of their game. There was work and there was play, and the two should never meet.
He’d looked so genuinely shocked at what his sister had done. Could that all be acting? She didn’t think so. She was starting to believe him when he said he hadn’t been a part of his sister’s betrayal, but he’d still shoved her away. He was right back to taking over her op, and she wasn’t about to accept that from him.
For the moment, she would concentrate on what she needed to do. Find out who John Smith really was and who’d gone to such pains to hide his true identity.
“Hey. Is something going on?” Brad came out of the room he’d been assigned to. The one with all the lube she was almost sure he’d been farting around with since strawberry-scented lube had a distinct smell. Brad was in a white T-shirt and flannel PJ pants. He pushed his glasses up his nose and looked like someone’s confused dad. “My phone is blowing up, but I can’t get anyone to call me back. There’s this tech who works with Drake…”
“Lydia,” she supplied. “He’s already talked to her. His mom got a call she wasn’t expecting, and now he’s got to deal with the consequences.”
“A call she wasn’t… Damn it. Tell me she didn’t.” Brad’s jaw tightened. “Was it Julia?”
She wished she could tell him no. “Apparently Julia is now demanding money for her own kidnapping. As money grabs go, it’s a creative one. Anyway, I’ve got work to do, and I think you should probably talk to Drake.”
He nodded but then moved farther into the hall, close enough that she could see the worry in his eyes. “I will but I think I should talk to you first. I’m going to assume you and Drake…found that place you seemed to find before.”
The man needed someone to remove the stick from up his backside. It was lodged in there pretty tight when it came to sex. He also wasn’t great with the metaphor. “The place where we had sex?”
Brad turned a slight pinkish color. “Yes. That is what I am referring to.”
“It depends on your definition.” She did not have a stick in any of her orifices. Although she’d had a tongue there recently, and it had been magnificent. She did not care who knew she was probably going to screw Drake Radcliffe in several ways. “If you’re one of those guys who thinks only dick in vagina equals real sex, then no. If you run the opposite way and touching of any kind between two adults is intimacy, then absolutely yes.”
Brad stared at her for a moment. “I’m not sure how to respond to that.”