Page 39 of Breaking Danger (Ghost Ops #3)

She looked over her shoulder and smiled at him, did another little complicated dance move and bowed. “Ten years at Mrs. Purcell’s Dance Academy. Did classical ballet, jazz, ballroom. If you ask nicely and if I can find a pair of tap shoes I can tap dance for you.”

God. Sophie tap dancing. He’d pay good money to see that. Wait. They’d stolen millions from the cartel. He had lots of money. “I’d pay a million dollars to see you tap dance for me.”

Sophie laughed then looked at his face. Her pretty jaw dropped. “You’re serious.”

“As a heart attack. The very first chance I get to find tap dancing shoes, you’re on.” He stacked the hot plates on a tray and walked over.

“Do warriors dance?”

Fuck, no. “Two left feet, sorry.”

“I’ll bet I could get you to do a mean salsa.”

Jon stared. “You mean those complicated Latin American steps? No way.” He shuddered at the thought.

“You spent time in South America. You told me you spent two years.”

He shook his head, breathing in the luscious smells coming from the food. He dug in. It tasted as good as it smelled.

“Colombia, which is like a country from another galaxy. And I was undercover, trying to stay alive. Not much dancing going on.” Shooting and torturing and whoring and coke-sniffing, yeah. Dancing? Not so much.

“Come out dancing with me and you’ll be Fred Astaire in no time.” She’d found a blue tracksuit in Anna Robb’s closet that looked great on her. She was more slender than Anna Robb so it hung loosely but the color brought out the deep blue of her eyes and accentuated her pale, perfect skin.

He laughed. “I find that hard to believe, but you’re on.”

They smiled at each other, then suddenly their smiles faded.

For just a moment, they’d lived in a little bubble of alternate reality, the world as it once was.

But outside this beautiful home was the world as it was now.

Millions dead, entire cities burned to the ground, monsters ravaging the streets.

It would be a long long time before anyone danced again.

Sophie hung her head, a stricken look on her face. A single tear welled over, tracked down her pale cheek.

Tears. Fuck no. Jon would do anything to make her feel better. Anything.

He wiped away the tear with his thumb. “What would have happened if we hadn’t met right now?”

Sophie’s face lifted. “What?”

“If we hadn’t met now but, say, a year ago.

What would have happened? Because, you know, we’ve got something going here.

” He waved a finger between them, then heaped her plate with slow-cooked peppers, roast lamb and warm corn bread.

“So given that there’s…chemistry—" which was a mild word for what he was feeling. “Given that, how do you think it would have played out? You’d take me dancing, okay. Maybe I’d take you target shooting. And then?”

She sniffed, gave a soggy half laugh. “You’d take me target shooting ? Is that your idea of showing a girl a good time?”

He had no idea. He’d never had a real relationship, never courted a woman, never even thought of it. He had fuck buddies and even they were occasional. He tended to disappear in and out of women’s lives. Nobody missed him when he was gone and it was mutual. Easier that way. Safer.

“Well, since it’s a mind exercise, let’s suppose I wasn’t in black ops, I was in something else. Something like?—”

His mind pulled a blank.

Sophie cocked her head, looked at him carefully. “What were you good at in college?”

This was exactly the point where Jon started lying.

He’d invent some bullshit about what a great time he’d had in college, how he’d played football and scraped by with gentleman’s Cs.

He’d spin funny stories about what he’d done and he’d be perfectly plausible and he’d remember every single word he told her, just as he remembered every single word of every single bullshit story he’d told every woman.

But Sophie was different. Those beautiful eyes were sharp, intelligent and kind. It was the fucking end of the fucking world. He didn’t have to keep anyone’s secrets anymore. Not Uncle Sam’s, not Ghost Ops’s, not even his own.

He could—and he felt a sharp thump of shock in his heart—he could tell her the truth. Be himself.

“I didn’t go to college,” he said, looking her straight in the eyes.

“I went straight into the military where it was discovered that I have an aptitude for combat and for undercover work. By that I mean I have an aptitude for lying. I don’t like saying this but it’s true.

But I swear to you, right here, Sophie, that I will never lie to you.

And you are the first person since I was 9 years old I have been able to say that to. ”

She reached over, held his hand tightly.

“Going into the military made a lot of sense for you. It became your surrogate family.”

Jon nodded, throat tight.

“But…besides shooting and fighting and lying, what else were you good at?”

“Computers. I have an affinity for computers.” In virtual reality, you could be anyone you wanted to be. And computers were cool and logical. Unlike people, you could always figure them out. People didn’t operate on binary code.

“Okay. Let’s work with that. Because clearly if you were constantly on mission we wouldn’t have been able to date in any meaningful way. So…let’s suppose you worked for some computer firm in Silicon Valley and we met at, let’s say a party. In San Francisco. Does that work for you?”

“No.” Jon shook his head. “Absolutely not. Because if I were a civilian I wouldn’t work for anyone. I’d own the company.”

“Oh!” Sophie face lit with amusement. “So you’re rich ?”

“Damn straight.”

“Okay, then. This gets better and better. So I go to a party, which I normally do rarely and reluctantly, and lo and behold here’s this handsome blond guy, very rich, owns his own company.

I’m not particularly in the market but he’s got these incredible ice blue eyes and he’s ripped and let’s remember he’s rich and I go—whoa. ”

“And me?” Jon helped himself to seconds of everything. “I meet this stunning geek. A scientist who looks like a movie star only better and I get turned on by the thought of her in a white lab coat.”

Sophie laughed. “There is nothing sexy about lab coats, Jon. Trust me on this.”

He waggled his eyebrows. “A lab coat and nothing else?”

She thought about it, grinned. “Okay. That would work. So—we meet. We’re both attracted. What happens? And I warn you I’m not tremendously smooth in social situations.”

“Well.” Jon took her hand. “I take your hand and look deeply in your eyes and ask you some incredibly intelligent questions about viruses.”

“And am I expected to ask you some incredibly intelligent questions about computer code?”

“No. Just standing there and breathing would do the trick. That would’ve worked for me. And I would’ve asked you out to dinner the next evening. And the evening after that, and the one after that.”

“No coy games?”

“Man, no. Coy’s not my thing. I want something, I go after it.” Jon couldn’t think of something he’d wanted and hadn’t made a beeline for. It had just never been a woman before.

“Well, frankly. I don’t think I would have said no. A year ago, though, I was working pretty long hours. I don’t know if I would have been free for dinner all the time.”

“I’d have come down and invited you out to lunch. You have a lunch place?”

“You’d drive down from Palo Alto every day to take me out to lunch?” At Jon’s decisive nod, she shook her head at his looniness. “Okay, yes. I do have a lunch place, around the corner from the Arka building. This really nice Asian fusion fast food eatery. Buffet-style. Not chic but good.”

“I don’t need chic and even marginally good is fine. Considering how much crap I’ve eaten in the field. So—I’d drive down to have lunch with you. As often as I could.”

“That would have been so nice,” Sophie said softly, curling her hand around his.

Would have, could have…all of this belonged to a world long gone.

A world that actually never was, because Jon wasn’t a successful entrepreneur, a man with a good job and a bright future.

Before the shit came down, he’d been a warrior turned outlaw with no ability to offer any woman, let alone a woman as bright and desireable as Sophie, any kind of future.

So this little fantasy was doubly impossible.

But…shit. It was enticing. He could see it, feel it, he could almost taste it, this alternate universe.

The one where he got to meet Sophie, woo her, wed her even because—why the fuck not?

Why should he be the only one incapable of having a wife, a family?

The Ghost Ops team had been chosen precisely because they didn’t have families, and were very unlikely to create any.

If you’d held his feet to the fire, he’d have sworn Mac and Nick were like him—completely incapable of love and bonding.

And just look at them now. They were heads over heels in love with their mates and Mac was going to become a father, as weird as that sounded. So why should he be different?

His drive to become a soldier just as soon as humanly possible came straight from the horrors of his childhood. From his visceral understanding, learned well before he had the words to express it, of how dangerous and violent the world was. Particularly to the small and weak.

He hadn’t even formulated to himself his desire to sign up.

It had seemed as natural a next step as breathing.

The military, with its emphasis on team work and structure, had seemed God-given at the time.

Not to mention the fact that he relished the training.

The harder, the tougher he became, the better.

His every waking thought had been to make himself strong and never be a helpless victim again. And to make sure there were as few people like his parents and Popper as possible in the world.