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Now it was his turn to grin. “A little, yeah.”
“Sorry, I was panicking. You were my only hope, and you didn’t help me.”
Those words.
Fuck.
He flinched as the memory hit—sharp, sudden, and too painful to ignore. It was like shrapnel lodged beneath the surface, healed over but still capable of causing pain without warning.
Amrain.
Another country. Another woman. But the words were exactly the same.
My only hope.
You weren’t there.
She’d been searching for a way out too, desperate for someone to save her. And he’d let her down.
Worse.
She was dead because of him.
The weight nearly crushed him with its heavy familiarity. He took a shuddering breath and looked away.
This was who he was now. A broken soldier.
A walking fucking disaster.
Hannah was still talking, her voice drawing him back to the present. “So after all that, when I got to the gates, I was exhausted.”
He had to ask. “What’d you do to piss them off?”
She hesitated, twisting her fingers in her lap. “That’s what I was trying to tell you outside. I stole a top-secret document. It was a sensitive official memo, for the Prince’s eyes only. Obviously, they want it back.”
He was taken aback. She was a surprise a minute, and the questions kept piling up.
What was in it?
Why risk everything?
How had a civilian gotten this close to the prince?
There was one thing that explained all that… “Are you working for the U.S. Government?”
She recoiled, the question landing like a slap. “You mean like CIA? God, no. I’m not a spy.”
He studied her face, looking for cracks. “You sure? How did you get the job at the palace?”
“I applied, like everyone else.”
At his disbelieving look, she leaned forward. “My grandfather’s from Syman, okay. He taught me the language when I was a kid and that gave me the edge over the other applicants.”
“But you’re still American,” he said, watching her closely.
“Exactly,” she replied, nodding. “That’s why the prince hired me. He’s been working on strengthening ties with the West.I was recruited through an international agency in D.C. It’s administrative work, nothing more.
Tom wasn’t convinced. He let her talk, watching every shift in her posture. “Then how did you get your hands on a classified document?”