Page 22 of Toxic Vengeance

She didn’t slow or look back, making it clear she wasn’t going to wait and didn’t want to be close to him. If they were being tailed, he couldn’t tell.

He stayed within fifty feet of her as she walked to the tube station, then boarded the same car as her heading east on the Piccadilly Line while she completely ignored him.

Wherever she was taking him, he intended to get some sort of closure. Find out exactly who she was, who she worked for, and then why she’d left him so abruptly.

They’d take care of business first. Then he was getting answers and walking away for good, no matter how much he still wanted her.

****

Having Zack so close and yet out of reach was a subtle form of torture.

Eden was hyper aware of everything about him as he followed her into the hotel room twenty minutes after leaving Covent Garden. She was keyed up, on edge about being alone with him. He might still try to capture her and turn her over to the CIA, but it was their history that made Eden so nervous now.

As a precaution, Trinity had tailed her to the café and back, wearing a disguise. Eden had told her to stand down via her earpiece before entering the hotel. The other Valkyrie was now outside in the hallway, ready to step in if anything went wrong. But Eden was almost certain Zack wasn’t going to hurt her, and if he tried to drug her and carry her out of here, Trinity would intervene the moment they stepped out of the room.

Still, it took everything Eden had to keep her face impassive and mask her body’s reaction to his nearness as she stepped inside the room. She shut and locked the door, then faced him and folded her arms. He stood less than ten feet away, looking around the room, the woodsy scent of his cologne filling her nose, tormenting her with memories of the way it had been between them. Making her yearn to erase the invisible divide keeping them apart now, and feel that hard body up against hers again.

“Okay, we’re alone, as requested,” she said, all business. The sooner they got this over with and he left, the better.

He faced her, those storm-gray eyes full of suspicion and a heat that threatened to make her toes curl in her boots. “Are we?”

“Yes.”

“No cameras?”

Just her earpiece, transmitting everything to Trinity and Rycroft. “Does it matter?”

“Yes.” His closed expression bothered her. There had been a time when he’d been so natural and easy with her. Then she’d had to walk away.

He was definitely going to ask her about why she’d left. She didn’t want anyone else overhearing any of that. It was private, and no one else’s business.

Reaching up, she removed the earpiece, switched it off, then tossed it onto the dresser beside her. “There. Now what about you?”

“Just my phone. No comms or wires.” He pulled it out so she could look at it, then held his arms wide, his expression mocking. “You wanna search me anyway?”

“No.” She wasn’t touching him. And enough with the pleasantries—she wanted intel. “Do you have any idea who might have hired your friend to kill my handler?”

“Back up. Who are you working for? The NSA? CIA? Rycroft?”

She owed him that much. “When I met you in St. Petersburg that last time, myself. Now I’m part of a team.”

“What team?”

She sidestepped the question. “I want to find out who killed my handler and who’s targeting me and the others.”

“What others?” Frustration burned in his gaze.

Eden eyed him, trying to read his expression and wondering what was going on in his head. He’d been in touch with his CIA contacts. Had doubtless told his handler about this supposed meeting with Rycroft. What was he after? What was his angle?

He gave a hard exhalation. “Look, you blew two of my missions, and I lost a good friend yesterday. In both St. PetersburgandSevastopol my team was working on something way bigger than Terzi, and each time you killed off the only men who could give me the intel I needed.”

She wasn’t sorry. “First, your friend killed my handler and tried to kill me. Second…I had my reasons for those kills.”

His expression hardened, turning him into a remote stranger, reminding her that she’d never known the real him. “Enlighten me.”

Being alone together in this intimate space was starting to get to her. She couldn’t read what was going on in his head, but she was thinking about being in other hotel rooms just like this one together, and the things they’d done to each other.

Like him pinning her to the shower wall or the bed with his big, hard body. Reducing her to quivering helplessness with his touch, his kisses. The way he’d held her, woken every nerve ending with his hands and mouth before satisfying the molten desire inside her.

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