Page 121 of Diamond In The Rough

“He said I was a whore and that I sold my body for the job.” My voice cracks as some sporty-looking reporter shouts from the stands of a baseball game. Could be volleyball. “He said the government was my pimp, and I was nothing but a slut.”

“He discovered you were undercover,” she breathes, learning things about my case she’s yet, to this date, to be told. Roscoe knows. Because I tell him everything, always—though not the specific details of Micah’s actions inside the bunker that night.

I didn’t share that his hands touched my body, even when I asked him to stop. Or that his lips took mine, even when I begged him not to.

There are some things best left unsaid between a man and a woman.

“I don’t know how he figured it out.” I bring my hands up and press my thumbs to my eye sockets. “We were fine. Everything was normal. Then he got a phone call and everything came undone.”

“Who called him?” She grabs my wrists and yanks them down until my eyes open and stars dance where I’d rather see. “Whoever called him narced on you.”

“Yeah, well…” I peel my limbs from her grip and stare up at the ceiling. “I don’t know who. I don’t know how. I don’t know what triggered it. But once he knew, he knew it all.”

“Could there be a leak at the Bureau?”

“I dunno.”

“Could there be?—”

“Jazzy. I don’t know. I don’t care.”

“You don’t care?” Her eyes flare wide. “You’re not pissed this person blew your cover?”

“They exposed the lies I’d been telling. It’s not their fault I was a liar.”

“They put you in danger!”

“I put myself in danger. Working when clearly,” I point up to my ear, “I wasn’t medically ready to. Determined to bag a big fish and some respect after that botched case from last year. I didn’t want to be known as the agent who fucked everything up and couldn’t close on Carbone. So I jumped in to the Malone file. I dove in head-first, excited at the idea of going down in New York’s gangland history books. I never had to sleep with him to do the job, though.” Firming my lips, I shake my head. “I never even had to go to his home. Or enter his club. I could have said no to all of that.” I swallow as a pathetic sob rolls along my throat. As it threatens to come out on a squeak that would only strip another layer of self-worth from my soul. “I was in it for the wrong reasons, Jaz. And then I fell in love, which means I was really in it for the wrong reasons.” I trap my bottom lip between my teeth and bring a hand up to swipe beneath my eye. “I can’t tell if I sold my body for the job. Or if I traded my job for love.”

“What do you…” She gulps, noisy and nervous, as her eyes flicker between mine. “You keep saying love, and I just… what do you expect to do with that?”

I drag my gaze back to the television and shrug. “Nothing.”

“Do you want permission to be with him? Do you want me to tell you no? What is it you want?”

I want it to not hurt so much.

“Neither.” I draw a long, shaky breath, and release it again on a sigh. “I can’t be with him. It’s impossible. And I don’t need you to tell me no; I wouldn’t listen anyway.”

Her brows pinch in my peripherals. “So you’re going to be with him?”

“No.” I exhale. “I just meant, my heart wants what my heart wants. So if I was walking along that path, your permission would change nothing. Even though you’re my best friend,” I admit. “Even though I love you and respect your thoughts?—”

“This isn’t one of those times,” she concedes. “The heart wants what it wants.”

“Yeah.” I set my elbow on the arm of the couch, then my chin in my upturned hand. “Too bad he would kill me if I dared walk inside his property again.”

“You don’t think he’d?—”

I choke out a laugh, the first I’ve experienced in weeks. Though it verges too dangerously close to hysteria for me to enjoy it. “I don’t think, I know. There’s no coming back from this.”

“Did he hurt you?” She looks down at the hand I leave resting in my lap. Then to the yellowing bruise circling my wrist, finally healing after weeks of tenderness. “Besides tying you up,” she rasps. “Did he hurt you?”

Yes.

“No. He was interrogating me, but he didn’t hurt me. He couldn’t do it.”

“Because he loves you, too?” Her voice rises an octave. Two. “That’s got to mean something, right?”

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