Page 41 of Covert Temptation

And the one thing her life kept circling back to—she was still very alone.

EIGHT

Aheaviness that had nothing to do with the snowstorm blowing in settled over Dante. He stepped inside the house and closed the door but kept his hand on the knob, ready to fling it open again.

She’d given her word she wouldn’t leave. The SEAL part of him didn’t want to believe her, but the man in him, the one who held the trembling woman in his arms last night, already did.

He released the handle and stood there for a long beat, head bowed. He thought that building the fire ring would give Kennedy something to look forward to doing outdoors, to alleviate the feelings of being trapped.

But it backfired.

His time as a SEAL trained him to sense when someone was close to snapping.

He didn’t believe Kennedy was going to snap. She just was very…unhappy.

He drifted to the window and watched her. Still crouched in front of the fire pit, her stare was fixed on the cold twigs, unmoving.

In demanding a promise that she wouldn’t run, he’d broken the tenuous trust between them. He saw that now.

The urge to go back outside and talk to her, to try to fix things gnawed at him, but why? He was her bodyguard. They weren’t friends.

But we are lovers.

The pang hit low in his gut, a reminder of his slip.

He couldn’t let it happen again.

He returned to the computer and went back to digging through her email account. Using his knowledge of tech, he was able to recover every email she ever sent or received.

With the rattle of the old pipes the only sound breaking through the silence, he set to work, redirecting her emails through a program. Everything would be scanned by a government system.

Now and then, he darted a glance at the window. Kennedy was on her feet now, arms folded, hair streaming in the wind. A new place in his body gave a pang, and it was much higher than the last.

He shot off a message to Con, keeping him abreast of the situation. He didn’t get a reply from his commanding officer, but he didn’t expect one either. Con was busy leading the Charlie team. Whatever time he didn’t devote to his country was showered on the love of his life, Sophie.

Dante threw another glance at the window. When he ensured that Kennedy wasn’t coming inside, he continued to search her emails.

She didn’t communicate with her family here either. No check-ins. Just dead air.

He knew that feeling more than he cared to admit.

There wasn’t even a random email from a dating site. Kennedy had no ties to any men.

The woman was stunning. How was she not dating?

In her cloud storage, he dug up a few photos, but they were just landscapes snapped in various countries. One photo stopped him.

Kennedy and Alyssa, standing side by side, smiling for whoever snapped the photo. The backdrop told him they were probably in South America. The lush green landscape and thefaded blue sky enhanced the photo, but the women were the real stars.

Sitting back in the chair, he pressed a fist to his lips. Kennedy seemed so alone in the world.

Not unlike any of them on the Blackout team.

Even her social media account was fake. Diana Prince. Not personal at all. She left no digital footprint besides photos of her and Alyssa together and anything professionally related.

Leaning forward, he opened a search on his system and dragged the image of Kennedy and Alyssa into it. It would take some time to populate data on the photo.

While he waited, maybe he could find some pancake mix in the pantry and whip them both up some breakfast.

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