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“Hardly.” He sets the mug down with a dull thunk. “It was a warning.”
My fingers freeze just above the desk’s edge. “Let me guess. This is where you tell me I’m a liability.”
He stands—slow, deliberate, arms folding like shutters closing over a view. “No. I’m telling you, I don’t give a damn who you’re shagging.”
I narrow my eyes. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“I care,” he says, stepping forward with that quietly lethal MI6 grace, “that you came to us half-shattered, looking for cover—and now you’re wrapped round Ryeland like seduction was the mission brief all along. Like you were running your own op from day one.”
My spine goes rigid. “Excuse me?”
“What are you playing at, Cherise?” His voice stays low, but the steel cuts deeper for it. “You here to dismantle Vallois? Make Hector bleed? Or is this some twisted revenge plot dressed in lingerie and a collar?”
“I’m not…”
“Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re using the man who had himself be declared dead to keep you safe. One moment you’re crying, the next you’re riding him like it’s your job. Pick a lane.”
He’s in my space now, close enough that I can smell the coffee and cold fury coming off him. But I hold my ground. I don’t flinch. I won’t.
“What do you want?” he demands, tone dropping to something dangerous. “Truly. Deep down. What’s the endgame here, love?”
“I want to scorch the bastards who tried to disappear me,” I snap. “I want Hector begging. I want Vallois bankrupted and bleeding. And I want to stop being treated like a bloody chess piece.”
His mouth twitches. Not a smile. A warning. “Even if it gets Ryeland killed?”
The question doesn’t echo. It lands—quiet, final, brutal.
I breathe, slow and hard. But I don’t look away. “Not pertinent. He’s already been dead once. And if we die trying to do this, at least we died for something that fucking matters.”
14
CHERISE
Logan’s stare sharpens, flint and frost, more challenge than question—like he’s daring me to flinch. “Because that’s the game we’re in now, sweetheart. You came charging into our world with fire in your eyes and vengeance dripping off your tongue, and you don’t get to pretend there’s no fallout. Not with him. Not with any of us.”
I flinch—just the barest dip of my shoulders, a subtle drop of my eyes—but it’s enough. Logan sees it. Of course he does. Like a predator scenting blood, he closes in, eyes narrowing with surgical precision. Suddenly, the air between us feels razor thin. One misstep, one breath too sharp, and it’ll all come apart.
“You think I’m a distraction.”
He huffs. “Distraction? No. You’re a variable he can’t mitigate. And Nick Ryeland lives and dies by control. You upset the balance, Cherise. You make him hesitate. You make him hope.”
He takes another step, close now, voice dropping lower, dangerously calm. “And when this op inevitably goes sideways—and believe me, it will—he won’t be calculating. He’ll be reacting. And that’s how good men die.”
I cross my arms, grounding myself in the only truth that’s ever kept me standing. “You think I’m weak. That I need rescuing. That I’m the type of woman who crawls into the nearest bed for safety or leverage. You’re wrong. The fire didn’t break me. It forged me.”
Logan’s expression doesn’t shift, but something in his gaze flickers. The smallest tic. “Then prove it.”
He leans back, just enough to give me space but not enough to relieve the pressure. “Tell me this isn’t about Nick. Tell me you’re not using him to rewrite a story you couldn’t survive the first time.”
I stare him down. “Feels like maybe I’m not the only one who underestimated me.”
He scoffs, raking a hand through his hair. “Bloody hell,” he mutters, accent roughening with frustration. “You two are a bloody time bomb. Either you’ll win this war, or you’ll light the match that brings the whole damned house down.”
Then his gaze cuts toward the elevator—toward where Nick probably is. He doesn’t say the rest. He doesn’t need to.
But I do.
“I love him,” I say, quiet but clear. “And not because he saved me. Because he sees me. All of me.”