Page 85 of Danger Close

“I’m more powerful thanyouthink.”

“Why court trouble?” Her voice was so miserable that if I were in any other mood, it would make me crack in despair. But I was sour today.

I grabbed her chin again, forcing her to look me in the eyes so she knew that I meant every single word. “Because he hurt something precious to me.”

Her eyes shut, and a tear slid down her face. “I’ve dealt with this for almost thirty years. I’ve run from him for twenty. I was fine… Iamfine. I can just—”

“No. This ends. I will end it. I will endhim.”

She whimpered as the tears began to fall and I wiped them away with my thumb, careful not to smudge the meticulously placed mascara and foundation.

“Just let me go. Let me run. I will leave, and take the danger away. I won’t be a bother to you. To Trinity. To anyone…”

“No.”

Not when I just got her back.

Not when I just got my family back.

“Just let me leave,” she said softly, and I wanted to be a soft man. I wanted to be the gentle kind of person who would be able to talk her down from the ledge with pretty words and gentle assurances.

But I wouldn’t know gentle if it punched me in the face.

“You’re not going anywhere.” I said it firmly, towering over her. “Do not test me, Teri.”

There was too much at stake. For me, for Trinity, for her… we had a fucking audience with some of the country’s biggest players, and the mother of the bride disappearing too soon would cause chatter. The kids did not need the Pentagon watercooler gossip to be about trouble in the bride’s family.

Christ, I wish I could have been a camp counselor instead of a professional spy.

My job was to convince with coercion, or kill with prejudice. I didn’t know how to Win Friends and Influence People without the use of blackmail and torture. Neither technique was helpful under these circumstances.

“You’re going to say two things to our daughter,” I growled, staring down my lover with a curling resentment in my chest. “You will tell her congratulations, and that she’s beautiful. Got it?”

I stuck a reprimanding finger at her nose, towering over her as she looked up at me with those stubborn, cerulean eyes.

“Who do you think you are, Cobra Guerro?” I’d been demoted from Joe to Cobra. “You have overestimated your role here.I am not your wife.”

Well ain’t that swell.

“Baby, I don’t need a ceremony and a piece of paper to bend you over my knee if you keep acting like a brat.” I kinda wanted to take those words back, but well, they were out there.

She turned absolutely beet red. “Howdareyou!”

The image of her across my thigh, ass bare, squirming in pleasure as I teased her naked body with pleasure and pain…yeah I fucking dared.

“You’ve been in her life for two minutes and you think you can tell me how to talk tomydaughter?” Her eyes narrowed, wrinkling on the edges. “Who is this guy she’s marrying, huh? How do you know he’s good enough for her? You tell me to stayaway from his father, and yet, you seem to associate with him just fine.”

She was trying to hurt me. She was pushing me away. Thirty years ago, that would have worked. But I’m fifty years old, and I’ve seen too much and done too much to put up with this bullshit.

“Kai’s taken a bullet for our kid. They’ve saved each other again, and again.” I clenched my teeth. “Pretty confident he’s earned this.”

“Why would he need to take a bullet for her? What kind of life has she been leading that would require such a thing?”

I love her. I truly do. But sometimes, she really did lose the plot and go off on an unimportant tangent.

“We are staying through this reception,” I said, getting us back on track, “and you will play fucking nice, and not ruin this for our daughter.”

She stared up at me, and I looked down at her. I didn’t care that we might make a spectacle of ourselves.