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“Continue,” he prompted.

She picked up her previous train of thought. “Presumably, I knew as much as you did about what we found in Cuba, so I was as big a threat as you to reveal that we found chemical weapons.” She frowned. “But since they didn’t formally detain me, I have to rule out the information about the chemical weapons as the cause of your arrest.”

Alex looked startled at that.

Shock. She’d actually outthought the genius for once?

She continued more enthusiastically, “Also, why separate us, specifically? Sure, it might make you more controllable. But this is an army base?—"

“Naval base,” he corrected.

“Full of soldiers. If they can’t keep you in line, nobody can.”

He smiled faintly at that.

She finished with, “What’s the big deal about the two of us being together?”

Alex frowned. “My impression is the CIA thinks you keep me stable. That I won’t go off the reservation if you’re around.”

Her? Influence him to be anything? As if.

“While that’s hilariously wrong, if that’s the case, why would they take me away from you?”

A nasty connection dropped into place in her mind. She spoke slowly, feeling her way through the logic. “Alex. Not only did they take me away from you, but they gave you drugs to make you paranoid. What if they weretryingto destabilize you? Could they have been trying to make you suspicious of me, intentionally?”

He tilted his head, considering. “Seems like a bit of a stretch, but it is certainly plausible.”

“What do I bring to you besides, umm, stability?” she asked.

“That’s easy. Predictability. Control.”

“You’re always in control of yourself.” She added under her breath, “Sometimes too much.”

“I meant external control of me by my handlers. I’m known to have feelings for you and Dawn. Threaten the two of you, and I’m forced to limit my choices. Stay inside the box.”

She was dismayed that he thought she was such a big vulnerability. “I’m sorry. I never meant to be a vulnerability to you.”

He shrugged. “It was my choice to get involved with you. My fault.”

Fault? She was a fault in his life? Apparently, she’d been a mistake for him right from the beginning. He’d tried to warn her, but she’d ignored him and thrust a relationship and even a daughter on him whether he liked it or not.

The two of them would never make it as a couple if all he saw when he looked at her was a potentially lethal error in judgment. The last thing she wanted to be to him was a fatal weak spot.

Oh, God. He was right to leave her.

A sob escaped her, and she bit back its sibling as it bubbled up in her chest.

“As soon as this is over, Alex, I’ll let you go. I get it, now. If my being with you puts you at so much risk, we can’t ever be together. I’ll walk away and never look back. I love you too much to be the cause of your injury or death.”

For an instant, his gaze went turbulent with an unnamed emotion. As quickly as it had come, all expression drained from his eyes. His face went smooth and still, completely unreadable. Lord, she wished she knew how to do that, too.

Her vision swam in tears and she looked away from him hastily. The computer screen was the only nearby target for her unseeing stare.

She collected herself and said fiercely, “Let’s finish this. The sooner the better. Every day we’re together puts you at more risk.”

He made a sound that might be a laugh half-formed, or maybe something else…like pain. Either way, he placed his hands on the keyboard and started to type.

He played the machine like a virtuoso, and she couldn’t begin to understand the lines of code that flashed across the screen almost too fast to read. But she did recognize the Central Intelligence Agency seal when it briefly flashed up on the monitor.