Page 30 of SEAL's Fake Girlfriend

“Got a tail,” Eric suddenly snapped out.

They were being pursued? Rhianne strained to see. She didn’t have Eric’s powerful binoculars, though.

“Charlie, you on it?” Eric asked.

“Yep,” Charlie assured him. “Coming up to the spot now.”

The spot? Getting her bearings, Rhianne realized they were near to where she and Eric had stashed the rental car, what felt like a lifetime ago.

“Go!” Charlie ordered, slowing, and both Eric and Ian opened their doors and half-leaped, half-rolled from the still-moving Jeep. “Rhianne, keep down, okay? You’re doing great.”

“I… Thanks.” She wanted to scream and shout, demand answers, but that would have to wait. Wait until Eric and Ian had done whatever they’d planned. She glimpsed them hurling themselves into the rental car and reversing it from its spot at the side of the road.

The vehicle continued in reverse. Were they trying to block off their pursuers’ car? Before she could ask, the loud bang of vehicles colliding shattered the night.

“What happened?” she demanded of Charlie, scrambling for night vision goggles—hell, anything that would let her see. Because Eric—

“An offensive driving maneuver,” Charlie answered. “Nothing we haven’t done a dozen times before to immobilize a pursuit vehicle and take out the vehicle’s occupants. It’s a move that tends to catch them by surprise.”

Yes, they probably wouldn’t expect the car in front of them to act as a reverse battering ram, if there was such a thing. Straining to see, her heart in her mouth, Rhianne caught sight of movement, and heard shouts in Spanish, then the crack of gunshots.

“It’s okay.”

She must have flinched, her reaction betraying her fear, because Charlie sounded more big-brotherly than ever.

Was it, though? What if it wasn’t? She almost forgot to breathe, waiting in the near darkness, and then jumped when dark figures streaked back toward the Jeep and wrenched at the doors—Ian and Eric, returning unharmed.

“Go!”

Ian gave the order this time, and Charlie went, bumping them down the hills to where the lights of Tijuana waited below.

16

No one spoke a word all the way into the city, for which Eric was grateful. He flexed his fist, which was aching from where he’d dealt with the guards back in the hills, and he caught Rhianne watching him out of the corners of her eyes. He could tell she had a lot she wanted to say—most likely more accusations to throw at him, more recriminations, among other things—and while he didn’t want to hear them, he had to. They had to talk.

He was startled to realize how badly he wanted to take her in his arms, soothe her into letting her tears flow. While he was frustrated and upset at her actions, at the way she’d clearly shown that she didn’t trust him at all, he still ached to comfort her. But then, he knew his comfort wouldn’t be welcome. Rhianne was in no state of mind to accept it. And Eric wouldn’t be the one she’d turn to for that.

They passed through the Zona Norte, and Rhianne gave a quick glance at the Hotel Rio when they passed it. They wouldn’t be returning there. Within minutes they were in a more international area, driving along a wide, brightly lit street with big hotels on either side. Charlie slowed and turned into the parking garage of one, then held a guest pass-card to the reader, allowing them to enter.

“Stay down, Rhianne,” Charlie instructed, making a slow circuit of the garage, his headlights on full beam, sweeping into the empty spaces. He found one to his liking and parked.

Eric didn’t need the hand cue from Charlie to fan out to the left as he exited the Jeep, any more than Ian needed a signal to check the right flank, with Charlie verifying that straight ahead was clear. They exchanged sharp nods, and Eric opened Rhianne’s door. She got out without any assistance, her body tense. She didn’t even look at him.

“You booked rooms here?” Rhianne’s voice echoed in the vast concrete space, and she pointed upward, indicating the tiny hotel.

“Yeah, but we’re not staying here. This way…” Charlie indicated another SUV parked at the end of a bay near the back, one they all piled into.

Ian was the driver for this next short leg of the journey from the more upscale tourist area to the business district until they reached the forecourt of a small hole-in-the-wall motel between two large skyscrapers. “Charlie and I got a room here,” he said. “Paid cash, no questions asked. The original no-tell motel.”

“Whatever. Let’s just get the hell inside.” Charlie led the way.

Walking from the vehicle, Eric automatically scanned his surroundings, mentally noting exits and escape routes. A lot of the other rooms seemed empty, which was good. Last in, he’d barely closed the door behind him before Rhianne exploded.

“How could you call in Ian and Charlie and not tell me?” she railed, her fury almost pinning him to the door at his back. “How could you have a diversion planned, one I didn’t know about? We were in it together,Eli, in case you’d forgotten.” She stabbed a finger in his chest as she spat out his fake name. “And if we’d actually worked together the way we were supposed to, we could’ve gotten Robyn out!”

Everything in Eric wanted to lash out with some accusations of his own. Something about howshewas the one who kept them from getting Robyn out—that they’d had a plan and that she’d blown it all to hell the second she’d gotten up and started yelling. She’d put both of them in danger. She’d putRobynin danger. She’d put every girl being auctioned off at risk, and all because she’d refused to follow through on the plan they’d madetogether.She knew what was at stake, and she’d thrown it all away in the heat of the moment by insisting on doing it all her own way. Well, her way had been an unmitigated disaster.

He wanted—so, so badly—to say all of that. But her voice had cracked as she delivered that last sentence, and in spite of himself, Eric couldn’t help but feel the depth of her distress. It was enough to make him hold his tongue. Barely.

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