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“As far as I can tell, they all came in on the same transport at about sixteen hundred hours,” he said evenly, instead of debating rank-and-file status with a bullheaded marine. “I want to know where they’ve been for the past two weeks. Any questionable meetings, any suspicious moves by staffers, any tense phone calls. Anything and everything. Got that?”

“Loud and clear,” replied Lucas, with a chorus of assent in the background.

Jonas ended the call, but not before he heard more laughter, because everyone was always having a lot more fun than he ever did.

Unclench, he advised himself.

Which would have been excellent advice if he could see his way clear to taking it.

Because he was out of control. He knew it.

And it was all her fault.

Bethan Wilcox, the only woman who had gotten to him since his mother had relinquished that position by default. Because Jonas had disappeared into the navy and never returned, putting himself beyond her reach at last.

But even as he thought that, shoving his phone into his pocket and looking at that monstrosity of a house, he knew it wasn’t fair. In his more charitable moments, he liked to think that Sabra Day Crow had done her best. It was just that her best sucked.

Hard.

Bethan’s best, on the other hand, had never been anything but impressive.

It wasn’t her fault that despite all the years he’d spent disappearing into various roles in support of whatever mission parameters he was following at the time, this one was messing with him. That was all on him.

Because the last thing he needed was the tactile, physical memory of the soft bare skin of her lower back imprinted on his freaking hand. Like he’d slapped it down on a stove, then held it there, like an idiot.

Jonas stared down at the hand in question as if it were on fire, flexing it and then straightening it again.

He had absolutely no desire to head back into that party. But since when did he pay any attention to his desires? Desires were for regular men. Jonas was about duty. And he was the one who’d volunteered for this mission.

It was on him if he was finding it a little more sacrificial than he’d imagined.

What did you imagine?he asked himself harshly then, as the plush laughter of rich men floated toward him and the last of the light flirted with the sea in the distance.Familiarity hasn’t bred contempt yet when it comes to her. It isn’t going to start now.

But that, too, wasn’t particularly helpful.

The simple, indisputable facts were these: Bethan had been attached to the same unit he was. Jonas himself had been a plant, maneuvered into place because there were concerns that that particular unit, in that particular horror of a desert, was involved in shady situations. Or situations more shady than necessary, out there whereshadywas just a regular Tuesday.

He had been getting to the truth of what was happening when their convoy had been attacked. Everyone had died. Except Jonas and Bethan, and that was because Bethan had bodily dragged him from the burning vehicle, pausing only to take out the circling enemy with a few well-placed shots.

Then she’d held their position throughout a long, lonely night in a dangerously exposed area while they waited for help to come in the form of an air extraction.

It had taken Jonas a solid six months to recover from what had happened to him there. That night, he’d been certain that his number was up at last. That he’d beaten the odds too many times and fate had stepped in at last.

He’d been ready for that night since he was a kid.

And now he had to live with the fact that all this time, he’d thought that he’d face death like a warrior. Silent. Stoic.

When instead, he’d treated it like an opportunity for a deathbed confessional.

And Bethan Wilcox had heard every single word.

More than that, she’d soothed him. He had a perfect, viciously clear recollection of his head in her lap, her fingers in his hair, while his voice rang out as if it would never stop telling her his secrets.

Though he didn’t know if he actually remembered that or if that was what they’d told him in the hospital. The story of how they found him. The story of Bethan with her weapon in her hand, keeping watch over him.

All those things he’d locked away inside seemed to shift then. Alarmingly.

Jonas made himself breathe, because history couldn’t help them here. And she should know better, anyway.