Page 16 of Defended By the SEAL
He moved off her, helping to shuck the shirt from her arms when she struggled with it, and she averted her face as she walked to the bathroom. She wanted to cry, but knew the tears wouldn’t come. How could you weep for something you were choosing to throw away?
She brushed her teeth without looking at herself. She’d made a terrible mistake. It wasn’t her first, and it wasn’t bound to be her last, but it would certainly haunt her for the rest of their time in Maine.
She glanced at herself in the mirror. Makeup smeared, bags under her eyes. She sat back on the edge of the old clawfoot tub. What she needed to do next was horrifically clear.
Make sure Grandma’s safe, get the hell out of here, then get away from Leo Wilson for good.It was the only potential outcome that held any promise of long-term happiness for her. She’d come too far to be beholden to any man—her independence too valuable to concede—even for a love as great as this one.
For the first time in her life, she loved herself more than she loved anyone else. She loved herself enough to look out for her best interests. She loved herself enough to be alone, to take life on her own terms without fear of what would come or judgement of her failings in getting there. She loved herself enough to choose herself over Cowboy.
The repercussions, and her own traitorous heart, she would just have to get used to.
8
Cowboy woke up in a foul mood, the temperature in the room damn near frigid. He crossed to the window and pulled back the drapes, squinting against the blinding white beyond the glass, blowing snow filling his entire field of vision. He turned back to the room. Charlotte was nowhere to be seen, which made him grumpier, if that was possible. He dressed quickly and thought about last night.
She’d come to him looking to make love, and he’d been all too happy to oblige. It had been some of the most soul-shaking sex he’d ever had in his life, and he’d had some—the best of it with that woman right there. He’d thought it might mean something to her.
But from the moment she came back to the room, he knew he’d been wrong. You could have driven a tractor between them. She was damn near hanging off the opposite edge of the bed. He’d attempted to talk to her, but she’d shut him down with a handful of syllables and a tone that could freeze lava.
Why the fuck had she slept with him, then? If she was still just as adamant about them not getting married and needing a break, then why did she wake him up with that come-hither look in her eye, more desperate for his touch than he’d seen her in a long damn time?
God, to be wanted like that by her was like some sort of drug that twisted up his insides and filled him with pure euphoria. At least until she dropped him on his ass.
His phone vibrated. It was Moto. “What’d you find out?”
“He was an economics professor, that’s true. So’s the bank executive bit. However, he left out the time he was charged by the feds for sedition.”
“Sedition? Like plotting tooverthrow the government? What the hell did he do?”
“I don’t know much. I hit a cement wall looking into this guy’s backstory and had to call Jax Andersson. His contacts hooked us up off the record, but the picture’s incomplete.”
Jax was the original leader of HERO Force Atlanta, though these days he spent most of his time having tea parties with his wife Jessa and their two daughters. But he was hard-wired into the Pentagon through some relationships Cowboy didn’t really understand, and had long gotten HERO Force work doing things the US armed forces couldn’t touch with a ten foot American flagpole. “Tell me what you’ve got.”
“They confirm Vanderhoffen was charged with sedition in connection with a terrorist attack on an American embassy,” said Moto. “But I have no details. Not even the country the embassy was in.”
Cowboy frowned. “Okay.”
“I know he was part of an organization called the People’s Freedom Party, or PFP. They claimed responsibilityfor three terrorist attacks less than eighteen months apart, two in the Middle East and one on an oil tanker in open water.”
“Where in the Middle East?”
“Unspecified.”
“What flag was the ship flying?”
“Panama. But that’s probably just a flag of convenience.”
“So we have no idea who these PFP guys were really targeting.”
“I’m sure somebody knows, but I sure as hell don’t.”
Cowboy pinched the skin between his eyes. “Go on.”
“Get this. I couldn’t find any record of this in my databases because the charges against Vanderhoffen were dropped in exchange for his testimony in another case.”
“They dismissed charges ofseditionin exchange for testimony?”
“That’s what they said.”
