Page 15 of Married to the SEAL
“Rubbish. I don’t need to listen to advice from my staff.”
“She’s just had a baby. She’s tired and overwhelmed and stressed. You asked her to marry a stranger and she did that for you. Then you insisted she share her private space with me and you shamed her when she objected. Now you want to make sure she doesn’t have a confidant in me. And you wonder why she doesn’t trust you?”
Vasile stood up, his height a near-perfect match for Matteo’s. “You will be replaced. I will call Mr. Wilson and tell him your services are no longer required.”
“The ceremony is done. There will be no replacement. Grace is my wife.” The grandfather clock on the wall struck seven. “Time for the reception, unless you’d like to go out there and explain to them why your daughter’s new husband won’t be attending?”
The two faced off for several moments.
The phone on Vasile’s desk rang and he picked it up. “Yes?” he snapped.
The color seemed to drain from Vasile’s face.
“When?” he asked, then he was quiet, listening. “Get Talia in here.” He hung up the receiver and looked back at Matteo.
“They just found a bomb at a baseball game. More than five hundred people in the stands, not counting the players. They are sending the bomb squad to diffuse it.” He leaned back in his chair. “This isn’t the first time—”
Matteo held up his hand to stop Vasile from talking, then held a finger to his lips to warn him to be quiet. He picked up a pen from the president’s desk and wrote on a small pad. THE ROOM IS BUGGED.
Vasile furrowed his brow and raised sharp eyes back to Matteo’s.
“I’d like you to show me around the grounds if you have time,” said Matteo.
“I suppose I can do that.”
9
Cowboy wason the firing range with five potential new hires. Today he was testing their knowledge of weapons and their ability to shoot on target under stress.
His cell phone vibrated in his pocket as the recruits emptied their magazines, and his cock tingled. Charlotte had been texting him inappropriate pictures of herself for the last two hours, telling him to come home.
Her plan to move in with her brother hadn’t quite worked out since Cowboy wouldn’t let her out of his bed.
Talk about working under stress.
He couldn’t look at that shit without getting hard, so he ignored it, taking his ear protection off when the last man turned toward him. “Nice job. For our next challenge, I want you to suit up in full body armor and head out to the outdoor range.”
His cell phone vibrated again. She was insistent, and he liked it. Maybe he would go home for an extended lunch break. He licked his lips before realizing it was a phone call and checked the caller ID.
Red.
“I need to take this. Suit up and take a break until I’m through.” He answered the phone. “’Bout time you checked in,” he said. “I was beginning to think you ran off to Vegas with some hooker and got married. Oh, wait… That’s right. You’re already married.”
“How’s it going without me?”
“Pretty good. Running some drills with a few recruits.”
“Anybody good?”
“Too early to say.”
“How many women are you looking to hire?”
“At least two. But we need to bring on two or three more guys. Give us some flexibility. Like now, you’re off in Lala Land for three months and we don’t have a pilot. I mean, shit — Logan can technically fly a plane and Hawk can get the bird in the air, but I wouldn’t get on board with either one of their asses unless the alternative was flaming lava and The Rapture.”
“Yeah. We could use more redundancy. Maybe even bring on another tactical guy like Jax, now that he’s spending more time out of the office.”
“I was thinking about that. I’ll bring it up to him. How’s it going over there?”
