Page 11 of Jacob

“You’re… Jacob Black.” The words were low, hesitant. As if she expected him to contradict her.

He didn’t move.

She blinked, baffled. “How can you be Jacob Black?”

Fair enough. Start from the easiest question. “I changed my name legally when I joined the navy. I didn’t want to share a name with my father. If I could have changed my DNA I would have. I couldn’t. But at least I could get rid of his name. Black was my mother’s maiden name.”

Her beautiful eyes turned shiny, then welled with tears. Jake moved forward, instinctively, and she backed up a sharp step, hands out to ward him off. “No! Don’t come closer!”

A tear rolled down her cheek. Jake gritted his teeth, clenched his hands. Alex crying and him not taking her in his arms seemed alien, unnatural. It didn’t compute in his head. And it was fucking hard keeping his distance. The only thing that allowed him to do it was the panic in her voice and the pain in her face.

She drew in a sharp breath, breath wheezing in her lungs. Her shoulders slumped. She hastily buttoned up her blouse.

“I looked for you,” she said simply. “Everywhere. Every city I was in, I checked for Jake Simpson. Found a few, too, only they weren’t you. I checked on the internet, constantly. I couldn’t help myself and hated myself for doing it, but it was a compulsion. Over the years, with every single new social media site, I’d check for your name. Facebook, LinkedIn, Meetup, GooglePlus, Skype, Tik Tok, Twitter then X. All of them. I even tried the dating sites, until I had to get off, for my sanity. For years and years. Until about ten years ago, any city I travelled to, I looked your name up in the phone book, first thing on entering the hotel room. Half the time I didn’t even take my coat off until I’d looked for you in the white pages, while they existed. Thought I was looking for Jake Simpson. Stupid me.” She gave a harsh laugh and wiped at her eyes. “All this time I was looking for the wrong person. It was my guilty secret, no one knew except for a shrink I once saw, to see if I could get rid of the compulsion.”

Jake’s heart turned over in his chest.She’d been thinking of him!She hadn’t forgotten him! Yes!

Her face tightened with anger, eyes narrowed until only sky blue glints were visible. “Is that asmileon your face, Jake? Or should I call you Jacob? Is this ajoketo you? Does it amuse you that I kept looking for you all these years?”

“God no!” He stepped forward, not wanting her to think that for one second, but stopped when she scrambled backward. As if she were afraid of him.

She was wounded, he could see that. As if she’d taken a bullet to a vital organ. He couldn’t stand it, knowing she was hurting, but he didn’t know what to do. If he could, he’d fast forward to when all this was over, after he’d explained, after she’d understood, when it was all okay.

He had no idea how he’d get from here to there, but he would. It was the most important mission of his life. He and his SEAL team had stopped two coups, rescued a kidnapped ambassador, taken down an ISIS cell. There’d been an old saying about SEALs dating back to DEVGRU days in Vietnam. That few SEALs lived past thirty. Jake had. He’d done hard, nearly impossible things since he walked through the recruitment office door eighteen years ago. So there was no question that he would get Alex to trust him and then share her life with him. He didn’t know how, but he would get there.

That might be far in the future, but it was coming. It had to. Because she was never leaving his side again.

Right now, though, she was in pain and she was angry. Worse—she was in trouble. Nobody came to Black Inc. because things were fucking fantastic. They came to him because they were in deep shit, because something dangerous and nasty was going down. The kind of things Black Inc. saw on a daily basis often led to death and destruction.

Alex. In trouble. It made his bones weak, just the thought of it. Instinctively he held out his hand for her. She flinched and shuddered.

“Don’t touch me, Jake. Or rather,Jacob.” The slight hysteria in her voice was gone. She stood straighter, face blank, voice calm and remote. Completely in control. “I don’t want you to touch me.”

Jake was a problem solver, but he didn’t see a way out of this. Not now, at any rate.

He let his hands drop to his sides, kept perfectly still. “You came to me, hon…”

He swallowed the word.Honey.He’d been about to say honey. He wanted to be free to say it all. Honey, sweetheart, darling. Love.

That wasn’t love he was seeing in her eyes, however. He’d have to take this one hard step at a time.

“You came to me because you have a problem and I’m good at problem solving. My company is good at problem solving. So why don’t we set all of this to one side and deal with whatever it is that’s wrong?”

“Wait a minute.” Alex’s eyes narrowed. “Are you handling me?”

“No.” He looked her straight in the eyes. He was a brilliant liar and could pass any polygraph. Any SEAL could, but he was particularly good at lying. It was why he’d been able to stay undercover for so long.

He wasn’t lying now. He wasn’t handling her, he wasn’t trying to diffuse her anger. She had every reason to be mad at him, to distrust him. She’d learn to trust him again, though. He’d spend the rest of his life working on it if he had to. But right now, she had a problem and he wanted to help her. Had to help her. Everything else he was working on suddenly became secondary in importance. Alex’s problem was top priority.

She stood still, searching his eyes. She could look all she wanted but all she’d see was his resolve.

A sigh. “If I didn’t have this… issue. If I weren’t so worried… I’d walk right out of here and you would never see me again. Trust me on this.”

She meant every word. He bowed his head, keeping his eyes on hers. “Understood.”

Silence. She was still studying him openly.

It didn’t make him uncomfortable. She had every right.

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