Page 38 of Covert Temptation

What he saw wasn’t a traitor with nefarious intentions. He saw a daughter checking in on her parents—crazy as they were—from afar, and she didn’t interact with them in any of the posts.

Her email was a private account and showed nothing but a few pieces of junk mail. The last message sent had been to Alyssa, practically proving she really didn’t have another friend in the whole wide world.

Emotion swelled inside him, hot and unfamiliar. Dante drew a deep breath through his nose and held it, letting the air stretch and burn his lungs.

Kennedy hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d only left a trail of pink blossoms and family scars…and loneliness.

He thought of how desperately she clutched at him whenever he shifted in sleep, like she was afraid that he’d disappear and she’d wake alone to cold sheets.

She’d spent weeks on her own in that safe house, with only occasional check-ins to make sure she didn’t require anythingand hadn’t run. But that wasn’t caring. It was hardly treating her like a human being.

Guilt spread through his conscience, thick and spiky.

She might have gone behind his back to enter his computer system, but he owed her an apology.

Dante exited her profile. He couldn’t see any evidence of suspicious activity.

But they still had reasonable cause to believe she could be a traitor.

He felt the burning need to strike fast, to uncover the truth they’d been searching for. If that meant getting closer to Kennedy in hope that she would reveal her secrets…was that a game he was willing to play to protect his country?

Even as the idea came to him, he knew he couldn’t uphold that kind of duplicitous behavior. He’d never justify falling into bed with her as a method of uncovering espionage.

Last night hadn’t only been about lust. Her laugh, her body, her stubborn streak—that told him she was more than just eye candy and a brainless shopping habit—they were all picking apart his defenses. He was already one foot too deep.

Whether Kennedy Bloom knew it or not, she hadn’t just hacked his computer.

She was hacking intohim.

* * * * *

Kennedy stood under the shower spray so long that the hot water ran out. It was just as well—there was no amount of water hot enough to make her feel better about her life.

After carefully dressing in leggings and her ecru Mongolian cashmere sweater again, she took a moment with her appearance. Even though she had nobody to look good for, it had always been her armor.

She brushed her hair and used a few mists of hydrating toner on her face with a grimace. The travel-sized bottle wasn’t going to last forever, and at this point, she had no way of telling when she might be free.

She swept lip balm over her bottom lip and then rubbed them together. Her reflection in the mirror showed a woman with too much in her past and a future that was at a standstill. Her eyes weren’t filled with any life either.

With a big sigh, she stepped out of the bedroom. No sounds drifted from the living room, but that didn’t mean Dante wasn’t sitting there working.

Her nerves kicked in. He must have seen her new login. She hadn’t exactly gone to lengths to hide what she’d done. She’d been careless, but the urge to check on her parents after so many weeks had taken over.

She should just come clean with the SEAL. Tell him what she’d done. It would smooth things between them, and maybe some of that awful tension throbbing in the air would dissipate.

The living room was unchanged, other than some of the shadows in the corners had been chased away by morning light. The blanket she dropped haphazardly on the sofa was still where she left it, pooled on one cushion. But Dante wasn’t at the desk.

She swung toward the kitchen. Twenty-three steps to the front door, with no Dante in her way.

She strained to hear any sounds. Maybe he went to lie down? He probably hadn’t gotten the recommended daily amount of sleep last night.

A quick check of his bedroom showed another empty space, neat and orderly with his black duffel sitting at the foot of the bed, zipped up and ready to go at the drop of a command.

“Dante?” Her voice cracked in the silence.

Worry stole through her. She traipsed to the kitchen to peer out the windows at the driveway. Seeing the SUV still parked there only filled her with a small trickle of relief. Her overactive imagination had seen too many action movies to stave off the adrenaline kicking into her system.

“Dante?” she called out again, only to be met with more silence.

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