Page 28 of Undercover Shadow
I didn’t care for his tone. “Why are you acting like this decision is yours to make?”
His head cocked, and he glared at me the same way I was at him. “I suppose because I made the decision about Dunravin.”
“You did? Not Typhon?”
“We decided together in the same way we did Glenshadow.”
“No,” I said, turning to leave the room. He caught up with me before I reached the stairs.
“No? Leila, wait. You’re being?—”
I spun around on him. “Youdon’t make decisions on my behalf. Not anymore.”
His hand touched my shoulder. “Talk to me. What’s really going on here? Is this reaction because we agreed that our affair would end when we left Dunravin?”
“How dare you?” I seethed, jerking away from him.
“Idarebecause I don’t understand your behavior.”
Every muscle in my body went rigid in anger. My behavior? “I knew this was temporary as well as you did. It was the only reason I agreed to it in the first place.”
His eyes bored into mine in a way that said he knew I was lying. Which I was. But that was beside the point. What I needed to figure out—on my own—was what my next step should be. Should I agree to go to Glenshadow for the time being while I planned my ownextraction? That would make the most sense. It would give me the opportunity to reach out to my assets and craft a plan to disappear. It wouldn’t be the first time, even recently. It had taken Tag weeks to find me. This time, I intended for it to take months. Long enough for my shattered heart to mend. Long enough to move on from my obsession with Niall MacTaggert. To get over him.
“I know what you’re doing,” he said, leaning against the wall and folding his arms.
“And what is that?”
The bastard smirked. “You’re running, and I won’t allow it.”
8
TAG
The words left my mouth before I could stop them. We stood in the bedroom at Dunravin, morning light filtering through windows streaked with rain from the storm. It was zero seven hundred hours. The extraction wasn’t until tomorrow morning—we had another full day here, but I was already losing her.
Rather than argue, she simply looked at me with those eyes that gave away nothing, then turned and walked out of the room.
I followed her downstairs, my bare feet silent on the cold stone. She stood facing the window, still wearing my shirt from last night.
“We don’t need to do this again,” she said without turning around. “You’ve made your position clear. When we leave Dunravin, this ends. I accepted that.”
“Then, why are you planning to disappear?”
She turned then, one eyebrow raised. “What makes you think I’m planning anything?”
“I know you, Leila. I can see it—the way you’re already building walls, creating distance.”
“I’m being professional. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“You can’t just vanish. Not when?—”
“When what?” She cut me off. “When I was the one who spotted the surveillance? When I aborted the extraction to save both myself and the agent they were sending? I’ve kept myself alive for three years, Tag. I don’t need you to?—”
“To what? Care about you? Want you safe?”
“To make decisions for me.” She turned back to the window. “You and Typhon deciding I should go to Glenshadow. You deciding what’s best. Always you deciding.”
“I’m terrified of losing you.” The admission came out rough and desperate.
