She snips at my hair again.

  I can’t help myself. “You still love Ladd?”

  “Mmm-hmm. I love him because he created Ethan with me. We share parenting responsibilities as a team. I love him because he’s an amazing father to our son. I love him because even though his heart was not meant for me forever, it deserves to be whole and healed. So if there is anything between you two still, I encourage you to act upon it.”

  Immediate denial of such a thing causes walls to go up. I want to deny ever even knowing him, and yet here his ex-wife is telling me to try to make something work with a man I hurt all those years ago. It’s impossible. He would never forgive me, and he would never give me a second chance.

  And because this woman seems wise in ways I can’t comprehend, I admit, “It’s too late. Too much damage.”

  “Bullshit.” Britney cuts another piece of my hair. “If it were too late, that would mean Ladd didn’t care for you. And if he didn’t care for you, there is no way in hell he would be risking his life and leaving our son or me near the time of my delivery to help you. There’s no way he would have gone down there to rescue you in the first place. There were plenty of other capable people to get you out. Ladd cares about you greatly. That is never, ever going to change.”

  I’m speechless. She’s ambushed me and created feelings that are both horrific and joyful.

  Yet I dare not attempt to hope.

  I dare not even make an attempt to do what she suggests, to try to have something with Ladd once again.

  While she may think she knows what’s going on, filled with an optimism that might just be part of her inherent character, there is no way I could ever bridge the gap between Ladd and me.

  There’s just no way.

  CHAPTER 14

  Ladd

  It took seven and a half hours to get from Pittsburgh to Miami. After I packed my bag, I spent some time with Ethan explaining what was going on. I’m transparent with my kid about what I do for a living, but I only give him age-appropriate information. I also took some time with Britney, thanking her profusely for stepping in to help. I know she’s got a lot on her plate with her impending delivery, but I would not want to leave Ethan with anyone else. I have protective measures set up with Jameson to watch over them both, which will allow me to concentrate on Mejia.

  We made it to the Pittsburgh Airport without delay, and it took another hour to board the private jet and get in the air to Miami. We landed, picked up a rental car, and checked into a hotel. Tomorrow we’ll leave bright and early for the two-and-a-half-hour flight to San Salvador.

  There should be absolutely no way in hell for Newman or Mejia to know that Greer and I are headed there. It’s near to impossible for them to know we’re in Miami right now, unless they’ve somehow managed to track us magically. We’re comfortable with separate hotel rooms, and that is probably for the best. While I still have conflicted emotions raging through me regarding Greer, sharing a hotel room with her would be disastrous. There’s no way I would be able to look at a bed with her in proximity and not have my thoughts go in a very dirty direction.

  Such a mistake to have given in to our desires earlier this week. If my moral fiber were stronger, I would’ve been able to walk away and not have given her a second thought. But my resolve was nonexistent the minute she stepped into my arms, and there was no choice but to fuck her the minute we kissed.

  To complicate matters, I’ve learned that Greer tried to look me up ten years ago. Now my head is all kinds of fucked up.

  I have no clue why she came to see me. Was it mere curiosity?

  Would my life have changed had she gotten out of the damn car and approached?

  I would’ve never left Britney… not with her pregnant with Ethan and us recently married. No matter how much I’d loved Greer in the past, my loyalty was to Britney. But maybe she would’ve told me something that would’ve made it better.

  Maybe she would have given me a reason to forgive her.

  And all it would take for me to know the answer is to knock on the adjoining door between our rooms and ask her.

  But I don’t.

  I’m still too mired in old bitterness, suffocating under a layer of confusion, because now that she’s back in my life, all those memories and feelings are welling up inside me.

  It’s too easy to remember how much my heart would leap when I would see her. Or how my body would react at the thought of touching her. The woman had such power over me, but it’s not something I’m ashamed of. I had the same power over her.

  The thing that bothers me on such a deep level is that since she’s come back into my life, she has power over me again. My body still reacts when I think of touching her, and my heart trips when she walks into a room. And I’m trying really hard to make all that go away.

  I think back to the last time I saw her, remember how painful it was for both of us. I choose now, like I did all those years ago, to blame her for it entirely. Makes it easier to move on.

  Greer had just told me a corny joke and she roared with laughter. It was so stupid, it would’ve never even drawn a chuckle from me. But her sheer delight in being a dork is what got to me. It was her laughter at herself that had me laughing right along with her as we rolled amidst a tangle of sheets.

  Greer lifted her hand to brush hair out of her face, and the diamond ring I bought her three days after she’d accepted my proposal winked at me. It looked good sitting on her slim finger, although we would have to tuck it away in a safe deposit box whenever her next mission came about.

  I knew the diamond would look even better with a wedding band beside it, and the ceremony was in four short days.

  We came to San Diego as a sort of pre-wedding vacation, although we’d planned a short honeymoon for after the ceremony. The wedding would be held in Ramona where her parents lived, but we declined their invitation to stay in their home because frankly, our lovemaking could be boisterous and noisy.

  And we were in the throes of love.

  We were not about to settle it down.

  I tickled her slightly at the ribs, bending in to brush my lips across her temple. She giggled some more and when I pulled back, I admonished, “I forbid you from teaching our children corny jokes.”

  Greer’s eyebrows drew inward, her expression morphing from amusement to confusion. “Children?”

  “Yeah,” I laughed. “The two or three kids we’re going to have and to whom I forbid you from ruining with corny jokes.”

  Greer leaned back from me, her tone hesitant. “We never discussed kids.”

  “Not directly,” I agreed. “But you love kids, and I love kids. When people get married, they have kids.”

  “I love other people’s kids,” she replied softly, and that was the first indication that things were not going to be okay.

  We got into a long debate. I realized I did not know Greer as well as I thought I did. I learned that the woman I was about to marry did indeed love children, from babies to toddlers and even rambunctious teenagers.

  “But I have a career,” she explained. “The type of work we do… it’s not conducive to raising children.”

  It went quickly from debate to argument. It became sexist on both our parts. Ashamedly, I realized I had assumed she was the one who, after giving birth, would naturally stay home with the children while I continued my CIA career.

  Greer pointed out that she did not want to give up her career.

  Not even to have children with me.

  “Someday,” she said in a wistful tone as a means to appease me. “Someday, when I’m ready to retire… we can think about it.”

  “We’ll be too old for kids,” I snapped.

  “I’ll retire early. When we’re in our early to mid-forties, it’s still plenty of time—”

  “Don’t,” I said sharply. So sharply, she slammed her mouth shut.

  I didn’t want to hear her excuses. I didn’t want to hear a plan that was foolish and not within my line of thinking. I didn’t want to wait until our forties to have kids.

  I wanted a family, and I wanted it now. It’s why I loved Greer. I wanted to build a forever with her, and to me, that meant children and the proverbial picket fence and a golden retriever. When we issued words of love, devotion, and commitment, and we talked about being together always, I’d just assumed it meant in a way that would build our legacy together, which included children.

  Except it didn’t mean that to her.

  We fought like we’d never fought before. We both staked positions firmly in the ground and refused to budge. I begged her to give it some deep thought, and she cried that she didn’t need to. She wanted her career right now. It was so antithetical to what I wanted, I couldn’t understand how she didn’t want the same as me. It felt like the deepest betrayal.

  Our discussion broke down, me angry and Greer frustrated. I slept on the couch that night.

  The next morning, I’d hoped maybe she would have thought about it more. Would be willing to change her mind for me.

  Instead, she came into the living room with red, swollen eyes, like she’d been crying all night.

  I’ll never forget her last words to me.

  “I can’t be what you need. You deserve more.”

  I know she’ll never forget my last words to her. “You’re right. I do deserve more.”

  And like that, we were over.

  I showered, packed my stuff, and left. I didn’t look back.

  The next day I sent her an email arranging a time I’d get the remainder of my clothes and personal effects. She never responded, and she wasn’t there when I showed up. I was broken.

  I didn’t see her again until I rescued her from that basement cell in El Salvador.

  I move to the minibar and check out the contents. I consider a bottle of Jack, but I really don’t want it. It would only serve to put off the inevitable.

  My head swivels, and I look at the interconnecting door. There are so many things that bother me about Greer. It’s the fact I loved her so thoroughly, and yet she ended up being a stranger to me in the end; it’s the fact that I’m still drawn to her in inexplicable ways. I’m bothered and annoyed by my renewed feelings, and yet the thing that bothers me most is that I’m not sure I ever once, in the past twelve years since we split, wondered what this did to her.

  I was so focused on my own heartbreak, and I was so intent to place all blame on her shoulders that it was very easy for me to assume—making her even more of a villain—that our breakup had no effect on her at all. I’d assumed all these years that she simply moved on and had a happy life without me.

  And now that I know she came looking for me, well… it makes me question what I thought I knew.

  Was she heartbroken too?

  Did I ruin her life the way I thought she ruined mine by not making a better attempt to find common ground? She’d offered somewhat of a solution… that we wait for kids and focus on our careers, but I’d wanted no part of it. All I heard was that she didn’t want to make me happy.

  Was I the one who killed our relationship by being inflexible and placing the blame on her shoulders for not wanting children right away?

  Did I fail to really listen?

  The answer is just on the other side of that door.

  CHAPTER 15

  Ladd

  I knock on the interconnecting door and listen intently. I have no clue if Greer went straight to sleep. Part of me hopes she has. While I need to have this conversation, there’s another part of me that doesn’t want to.

  It’s dismay that should slam into me when she opens the door. Now I’ll be faced with an unpleasant conversation and perhaps a truth that could throw into doubt everything I thought I knew. But it’s straight-up lust that sizzles through me as Greer stands there in a towel, her shoulders still dewy from a shower or bath. Her hair is wet, already combed and slicked back from her face, the ends barely tickling her shoulders. With her color back to its original and the haircut she had when we were together, it’s like traveling into the past.

  All thoughts of having a serious discussion evaporate, and I am nothing more than a man standing there looking at the only woman who has managed to push his every button. A woman who could get me excited by snort laughing or by washing dishes while humming. Put a naked Greer Hathaway in a towel, and it’s lust overload.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks, head tipped slightly.

  Of course she would assume something is wrong, as I have no reason to talk to her tonight. We’re not friends who would chat from boredom or a need to be social. We’ve already hashed out the majority of our game plan to bring in Mejia.

  There’s absolutely no reason for me to be standing in the doorway of her room right now, and yet I doubt a speeding train could knock me out of the way.

  “Ladd,” Greer says with annoyance. “What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong is I didn’t expect you to answer the door wearing that,” I grouse, nodding at her towel.

  She glances down at it, then back to me, something playing at her lips that’s a cross between ire and amusement. “Would you prefer I wear nothing?”

  Christ. Had she been wearing nothing, there’s a good chance I would’ve shed my clothes already and had her beneath me on the floor. Thank fuck for small miracles.

  “What do you need?” she asks, sounding short on patience.

  “I need…” I rub at my jaw anxiously. I need what? “I just…”

  Greer frowns. She knows me well, that I’m never at a loss for words.

  What do I need?

  So many things I couldn’t possibly begin to count, but only one that stands out as dire.

  I step into the room and reach for Greer.

  It’s sudden but not startling as she doesn’t back away. My arms yank the towel from her body, and I’m not sure who moves first, but our arms are around each other and our mouths turn devouring.

  My hands move and wander shamelessly over Greer’s body, exploring dips and valleys I still remember by heart all these years later. Her hands work at my clothes, pulling and tearing to free me so she can reciprocate.

  Sometimes… fuck… we’d just lie in bed for hours and stroke each other’s skin while we talked after making love. She knows my body as well as I know hers. She’s touched every inch of me a hundred times.

  The soft skin and all these dips and valleys… she feels exactly the same.

  No, better because it’s also new again.

  Time is irrelevant, but at some point we’re on the bed, both of us naked, and I’m so hard for her that I hurt. Because my fingers are demanding, I know she’s wet and ready for it.

  Throughout all our foreplay, neither of us says a word. Not an endearment, no encouragement, and no affirmation that this feels good. We know it does by the sounds we produce, but words are off-limits. We don’t want to break the spell.

  Greer is under me, and as I reach down to push her legs apart, she rolls with a hard push on my chest. I’m flat on my back and she straddles me. Her hand goes to my aching dick, and she strokes it hard, causing my eyes to nearly roll back in my head.

  “Condom?” she rasps, her eyes glazed with lust.

  “Condom?” I repeat, my head fuzzy with an insane need for her.

  “Tell me you have a condom,” she demands, hand stroking me hard.

  I shake my head, more to clear it than denial. I do not have a condom. I had not slipped one in my wallet after our last encounter.

  I lift my head, take in Greer straddled over me, my cock in her hand and just inches away from what I know is going to feel like heaven.

  “I’m safe.” My words stutter as I try to keep my wits while she continues to jack me. “If you tell me you are, I’ll believe you.”

  Greer’s hand stills, and her eyes cloud a bit. “You’d believe me? You’d trust me to tell you the truth?”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Greer,” I snarl, jackknifing up on the bed and putting my arms around her back. Her hold on my dick relinquishes, and I pull her in so we’re face-to-face. “I’m getting ready to take you into a life-or-death situation and you’re my only backup. Of course I trust you. I’ve never not trusted you… ever. Despite everything, my trust in you has never diminished.”

  Something painful flickers across her face, but it’s gone as quickly as I recognize it. In its place is a thin haze of sorrow, and her hand comes to my chest to push me back down to the mattress.

  When we were together, it was rare I’d ever let her be on top. Greer is an incredibly strong woman both physically and in spirit. But she’s a woman who likes to give up control in the right circumstances and to be dominated. She told me once that she never feels as delicately female than when she’s in bed with me, and it’s something I took to heart.

  But right now, her hand encircling my cock again, I can tell by her expression she needs to be on top. And it’s not to dominate me but rather… to apologize.

  To try to gift me with the pleasure of her body and by demanding I lie back and enjoy. We both know it will never make up for anything between us, and I don’t have the heart to tell her that no matter our position, it will feel just as good if I’m doing the work, but I believe that somehow Greer needs this.

  So I give it to her.

  Lifting her hips, she inches forward on her knees, using her hand to guide me to her wet core. I groan at the first touch of her hot flesh against mine, memories flooding back at the recognition of her perfect body accepting mine.

  Greer slides down onto my shaft so slowly, I grit my teeth and clench my ass cheeks so as not to buck upward into her. It’s torture, but of the sweet variety.

  Rocking and circling her hips, she works herself onto my girth until she’s fully seated. A soft sigh escapes her lips. My hands move to her thighs, smooth up to her hips where they rest lightly. I have no intention of interfering with whatever she wants to do.

  Time seems to stand still as our eyes lock. I can’t look away, but when she moves her hips, my eyes inadvertently close from the intense pleasure she creates. It’s not just her movement that assaults my senses.