Page 81 of My Temptation

“Don’t you want to get him?”

“Not at the risk of something happening to you,” I admitted. “That’s too high of a price to pay.”

She studied me closely, and I waited for the question I’d been dreading. She was too smart not to know this was about more than our situation, and I wouldn’t lie to her if she asked. “Is that the only reason you don’t want to work with me anymore?”

“Honestly?” She nodded, and I continued. “No, that’s not the only reason.”

“It’s because I lied about not being interested in men.” When I only continued to stare at her, she kept talking. “You don’t understand what it’s like being a woman in this field, to be taken seriously for your work. I learned early in my career that if I lied about my sexuality, I could avoid unwanted attention but also get them to focus on my work.” She gestured toward the window. “You were there. You saw how Striker was ready to dismiss me. You heard what he said about how it affects an all-male team when a female joins. The worst part is, he’s right. I have to work twice as hard to prove myself, and that doesn’t mean it will change the fact that the men on the team will still feel some type of competition.” She paused and lowered her voice. “I’m not proud of it, Ethan, but it works.”

I narrowed my eyes. “It didn’t work for me.” When she dropped her eyes, it was obvious she knew all along. “You knew how I felt?”

“Not at first.”

“When we got here?” When she nodded, I continued. “You could've told me. We had plenty of time to talk while waiting around.”

She closed her eyes briefly. “Maybe I should have, but it could’ve made things harder for us. We were both already attracted to each other. Working together would’ve been really distracting if you knew the truth.”

I ran my hand through my hair. I had no idea she was attracted to me. I was blinded by my own feelings, guilt, and frustration to even notice if she gave me any signs that she felt that same pull.

What we did tonight flashed through my mind, and I shook my head. “Do you have any idea how much I hate that we basically had an audience tonight? An audience to something I’ve wanted since the minute we met, but not like that. Never like that.”

“So you’re not into voyeurism, then?” she teased, but I wasn’t in the mood.

I threw open my door. “Nope.”

“Ethan.” She pushed open her door and came around the front of the SUV to meet me. When she laid her hands on my chest, I stopped walking. I wasn’t even sure who I was angrier with. Her for telling me the truth when I was past the point of control, or myself for losing control. “I’m sorry. I really am. I’m used to working with a group where I have to be on the defense all the time. I’m not used to this team. I’m not used to feeling accepted and valued, so I did what I always did and pretended to be something I wasn’t, but that wasn’t fair to anyone. Especially you.”

“Were you pretending in the club?”

“It would be easier if I was,” she answered honestly. “But no, I wasn’t pretending.”

I closed my eyes and looked over her head across the parking lot. The first woman in years I’d been interested in, and I couldn’t do anything about it even after she admitted wanting me too.

Looking back at Mila, I frowned. “I told Brody I could keep them in check, and I failed.”

“Keep them in check?” Her eyebrows drew together. “What does that mean?”

“My feelings for you,” I admitted. “I told him I could handle this and promised it wouldn’t affect my concentration when I was working with you.”

“It wasn’t only you,” she reiterated. “Look, we’ll just keep this between us. No one needs to know we slipped up.” I started shaking my head, but she kept talking. “We’ve made it this long and have been able to ignore our attraction. We can do it a little longer. It’s not like we’re starting a relationship. We’re attracted to each other and got caught up in the heat of the moment.” She tilted her head to the side. “That’s all it was.”

That’s all it was. Those words played on repeat in my mind. Maybe that was true for her, but that wasn’t true for me.

“We just put it aside for now. We’ll figure it out after the case is over and we return to New Hope.”

When she mentioned the case, I decided to go back to talking about that. It was safe. It didn’t make me have to think about why it felt as if I just lost something. Something I never actually had. “We don’t have any more leads in this case. We’re at a dead end. It’s time to do something else or go home.”

“Let’s go to the bar one more time,” she suggested, talking fast, knowing I would refuse it. “Samson invited me in, and I think he liked your refusal. I’m not sure why, but it seemed that way. He told us to reconsider and come back tonight. If we go back and nothing happens, then we’ll throw in the towel.”

I ran my hand around the back of my neck. “I don’t know...”

“We’ll go inside and call Brody. Tell him we need one more night and if we get nothing, then we’ll call it a dead end.”

“Mila—”

“I’m making a promise to you, Ethan.” She cut me off. “I won’t do anything to put myself in danger. But something is there, and we’ve essentially gotten past the guards. No one else in our group will get that far. We've already built a rapport with these people. We had a conversation with Samson. That’s a hell of a lot of progress to just ignore.”

She was right. I hated it, but she was right, and like her, I wanted to finish what we started. I just wasn’t willing to compromise her safety or mine to do that. “We have to be smarter this time.”

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