Page 75 of The Blonde Identity

“I like who you are.”

His fingers made a slow sweep across her skin. “I swore I’d never be like him, sweetheart. That I wouldn’t use women. Leave them damaged or broken. I swore... But then I met Helena.”

“That wasn’t your fault.”

“Was tonight my fault?” Zoe saw it then—the ocean of pain and doubt Sawyer was swimming through, and she knew why he’d shared more in the last five minutes than he had in the entire time she’d known him.

“Is that what you think?” She didn’t know whether to be hurt or very, very angry.

“I followed in my father’s footsteps, but I don’t want to be like him.”

“You’re nothing like him.” She had to make him see, but all he did was push her hair away when it fell like a curtain around her face.

“That’s sweet, lady. But you don’t know him. Hell. You don’t even know me.”

“I know I wanted this. I know I wanted you. I know... I know you’d never hurt me.”

“I’ll kill any man who hurts you.” She felt his lips brush against her hairline, tracing over her fading bruise like he could heal it with a touch. “Even if that man is me.”

And then Sawyer closed his eyes. And slept.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Him

The first thing Sawyer thought when he opened his eyes was that he must be dead. It was far more likely than the alternative: that he had slept. That he had slept but hadn’t dreamed.

“Good morning.”

At the sound of the voice, he rolled and reached for his gun—was just starting to aim it when he felt cold air on his bare chest and remembered the room and the night and the woman who was dancing around the cabin’s kitchen, humming over the sound of frying food.

Zoe. Kitchen. Zoe. Humming. Zoe.Bathroom.Zoe. Bacon?

He uncocked his gun and rubbed his tired eyes. “What time is it?”

“Almost ten.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I must have made you sleepy.”

She looked sheepish. She might have blushed. But all Sawyer could think wasno, you made me forget. And then he almost said exactly that because, evidently, sleep didn’t make him sharper. It made him sluggish and slow and sentimental—the threeS’s that would probably get him killed.

When she cracked an egg in the pan, he heard the sizzle and his mouth began to water. “Breakfast is almost ready,” she called, so Sawyer pulled on his jeans and padded toward her in his bare feet, synapses starting to fire... slowly.

Something was wrong with that picture. His father’s cabin smelled like bacon and fresh coffee, and there was a woman dancing, humming...caringfor him there. No one had cared for Sawyer in so long that it took his sleep-addled brain a little too long to realize—

Zoe. The cabin. Fresh food.

“Where did you get all this?” he asked, already terrified the answer would be—

“There’s a town.”

He was going to kill her. Strangle her. Tie her up and... tickle her? Or something. Possibly a whole lot of something depending on how the first part went. “Damn it, Zoe. You can’t just go off on your own, looking like—”

“A rogue spy on the run?” She gave a long-suffering look over her shoulder and shrugged—actually shrugged! Like he was overreacting. Him. The man who (not to belabor the point)had killed an assassin with a negligee!

She slid two eggs onto a plate then added bacon and licked her fingers and, so help him, his anger faded into a much more dangerous emotion as thoughts of last night drifted through his head.

Zoe appearing at the edge of the steam-filled room.

Zoe perched on the bathroom counter.

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