Page 38 of Toxic Vengeance

She gave him a wary look, then nodded. “Fine. One minute.”

What he had to say would take longer than a minute, and he wanted privacy. “Let’s take a walk.”

For a moment he thought she’d refuse, but then she nodded and stepped back outside.

“Are you okay?” he asked as they took the gravel path along the back of the house. She had to be upset about Penny, tough act or not.

“Yeah. Just disappointed and angry.”

Zack still wasn’t sure how much of the real Eden he’d known back when they’d been together. She was closed-off now, so different than the relaxed, carefree woman he’d known. He wanted to know this one too, so much it wound him up inside.

It had rained all night in Edinburgh, but here the skies were clear. A bright half-moon lit their way as they headed around the side of the house and up the lawn toward the pasture bordering the stable. He had so much to say. God, where to start?

He kept his hands in his coat pockets, an extra deterrent to keep from touching her. There was no point in delaying this conversation any longer. Keeping it inside was killing him. “I looked for you after you left me,” he said quietly, unable to stand the distance and hurt and lies between them a second longer. “I never stopped looking for you.”

She stopped beside him, staring out at the moonlit hills surrounding them as the silence spread. “I didn’t want to hurt you. Or to put you in danger.”

“You knew what I did, who I was. But you didn’t trust me, or that I could make that decision for myself?”

She finally looked at him, and the impact of her gaze nearly drove the breath from his lungs. In that moment he was finally seeing her for who she truly was. A woman who’d spent her life as a weapon, moving from one op to another, never getting close to anyone. Except him. “It was too dangerous. For both of us.”

He absorbed that in silence for a moment. He was sick of lies and secrets and half-truths. “Was any of it real?”Please say some of it was real.

Her expression shuttered before she broke eye contact and stared out at the surrounding hills. She was silent for so long he didn’t think she would answer. Then, “I was more real with you than I’ve ever been with anyone else.”

It came out so quietly he barely heard her, but her words made his heart pound. “How real?”

She slanted him a look but didn’t answer.

He pushed. “Which is the real you? The woman I knew, or the one standing in front of me now?”

“Both,” she said after a moment. “The one you saw was the one I always wished I could have been.”

The answer made his whole chest hurt. She’d never been free to be who she wanted, who she truly was inside. The Program had taken away her choice. He couldn’t imagine living like that, hated that she’d had to. “Then that must mean you felt safe with me before.”

She still wouldn’t look at him, but nodded. “You made me wish my life could have been different.”

His whole body tightened. It took all his restraint not to reach for her, pull her close and ease the burning ache in his chest. To take away the loneliness he sensed in her. “Maybe it can be now.”

“No, it can’t.” She met his gaze again and he could sense the battle now, the yearning pitted against her need to stay detached. “How much of it was real with you?”

There was no point in lying. He still wanted her, more than ever. “All of it. Except that I was working for the CIA. Which you already knew about.” He’d been more authentic with her than anyone else.

“It’s not a good idea.”

“Why the hell not? I know the truth about you now, and I’m still here. I set my career aside to help you and this team, and even though you don’t trust me completely, I haven’t turned any of you in.” What more did he have to do to prove himself to her?

Eden exhaled and shook her head, her dark curls bouncing against her shoulders. “Christ, I was stupid to stay with you as long as I did.”

“Why?” he demanded. Why was she denying herself the possibility when the proof of the others was right in front of her?

“Because I should have gone to ground immediately when the threat against me first broke, but I didn’t. I broke all the rules to be with you, and it almost got me killed.”

“What do you mean,” he said, a chill spreading through him.

She let out a hard exhalation. “Someone must have seen me go into the hotel at St. Petersburg. They caught up with me partway to the train station, would have shot me dead if I hadn’t noticed him at the last moment and acted first.”

Jesus. “I didn’t know.”

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