Page 17 of Dangerous Obsession

He shrugged. Was the man trying to make him feel better? It sure as hell wouldn’t work. “But not the hard drive. That drive and the program are now in the hands of my client.”

“Your client,” Jade said flatly. “You’re a thief.”

Her words still had the power to pierce him. “Mercenary. I do jobs for powerful people. Whatever needs to happen, I make it happen.”

“A thug,” Jade pressed. “A thief. A lackey. A liar. A traitor .”

He didn’t have anything to say to any of those words, each of which hit him like a bullet, one after another.

“Who was your client?” Maxim asked quietly. He had his arm around Jade’s shoulder protectively.

For the first time, Cole felt jealous of him. He didn’t deserve to feel that way, but he hoped Max understood what a lucky bastard he was to have a woman like Jade love him.

“I don’t know. From what I could figure out, they were Eastern European. That’s a lot of ground, though. They wanted to remain anonymous, and as long as the money’s there, I was happy to oblige.”

“You sold us out for money.” The sorrow in Jade’s eyes was quickly turning to fury. Maybe it was best that Maxim had his arm around her. He might be able to stop her from running over here and pummeling him.

Or maybe he deserved exactly that.

“I did. I sold you out for money.”

He didn’t tell them that he’d changed inside when he’d been with them.

He didn’t tell them how he’d fallen in love with them.

He didn’t explain that he’d tried to put the client off their trail and claim that he’d failed to find the program.

And he didn’t mention the blood money he’d transferred back.

Most of all, he didn’t tell them that he’d stolen the drive to keep them safe.

That he’d done it because he was afraid the client and his thugs would come here and try to take the program by force.

Or that he was too frightened to face the two people he loved most and tell them the truth.

And now he’d lost his chance and lost their love, and he deserved whatever else came his way.

He kept all of that to himself. Why? Because he didn’t want to diminish their rage at him. He didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for him.

He did not deserve it. Not pity, not forgiveness. Nothing.

MAXIM

Maxim stared at the man he believed he’d fallen in love with and used every bit of self-control to keep himself from punching him in the face.

All the calming techniques of meditation that he’d mastered came into play now. It was a near thing. He might not have managed it if he weren’t touching Jade too. Her body pressed against his and helped keep him somewhat calm. Her presence soothed him. She helped him remember what was important.

He wasn’t furious because Cole had stolen the hard drive with an AI program that might spell the end of personal privacy forever. He wasn’t pissed that Cole had stolen a yacht worth millions.

No. He was pissed that Cole had hurt Jade.

The look of sorrow in her eyes had broken his heart.

She blamed herself for this. Maxim didn’t blame her one bit.

They’d both fallen for Cole. He claimed he was a mercenary, but he was really just a con man.

He’d gained their trust, manipulated them to win their hearts, and ultimately betrayed them.

So Jade could never be at fault. If anything, she’d kept her suspicions of Cole until Cole saved him from being trapped in that undersea wreck.

He saved your life.

He had. Max couldn’t deny it. But neither could he deny that Cole had done it to finally lower Jade’s guard. To shake off her suspicions and get her to fall for him. It was only after Cole rescued him that things got hot and heavy between the three of them. That said everything that needed saying.

But he helped bring the two of you together again.

Yes. There was that. He didn’t know what it meant either. Why would the bastard do something so…kind? It made no sense.

Unless, of course, it was just another part of his plan to seduce them, lower their guard, and slip past their defenses. Now it made sense. Cole had arrived, realized that Max still loved Jade and that she still loved him, and he’d set to work.

Why don’t you ask him the truth?

He took a deep breath. Did he care? Did he really want to know Cole’s twisted version of the truth?

More than that, would that “truth” hurt Jade?

She’d endured more than enough already. All he wanted to do was keep her safe.

To wipe away those tears. To see that rare and beautiful smile of hers again.

But yes, he knew that he did care. If he felt anything for Cole, he needed to let the man explain himself one final time.

But first, he wanted Cole to understand something very important.

“Your client didn’t get the program he wanted,” he said softly.

Cole flinched so hard it looked as if he’d been punched. “What?”

“The AI program. The advanced algorithm, quantum-learning program I created for the government that everyone has a hard-on for? It’s not on that drive.”

Now Cole looked as if the last of his hope had been ripped away. He looked stricken, defeated. Slowly, he ran a shaking hand against his bristly hair. “What was on there?”

“A shell program. Oh, and a bunch of malware and trackers I designed. When your client attempts to access it, he’s going to get quite a surprise.”

“Where is the real program?” Cole asked in a quiet voice utterly unlike him.

“Why would we tell you?” Jade challenged, glaring at him.

God, he loved the hell out of her. She hadn’t known that the hard drive she’d spent years faithfully taking out of the safe and resetting a shredding program every five days had contained nothing on it but cleverly disguised garbage and cleverly hidden malware and tracking programs designed to ignore her specific tablet and attack everything else like angry bees.

She ran with it anyway, backing him up even though he knew she had to be pissed at being kept out of the loop.

He would hear about it later, for sure, but right now, she was letting him have this moment.

As he’d said, he loved the hell out of her.

“You don’t understand,” Cole said. “You need to give it to me. These bastards, they don’t play games.

As soon as they find out I didn’t give them what they wanted, they’re going to come here.

Lots of them. With guns. Looking to take it by force.

The only reason they didn’t do that in the beginning was because they were afraid you’d destroy it somehow before they could get their hands on it.

” He took a step toward them, the desperation in his eyes very clear to see.

“I didn’t want to steal the drive. Hell, I refunded the money and told them you didn’t have it.

But they didn’t believe me. Either I delivered it, or they would kill you and take it. ”

Ah. So that was it. Maxim took a deep breath. There was clearly more to this story. Cole wasn’t simply the villain he seemed so eager to make himself out to be. He seemed to want them to hate him. Maybe he felt that he deserved their scorn and anger. But Maxim was far more interested in the truth.

“You were right, though,” Max said simply.

Cole’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean? We don’t have time for bullshit games.”

“You were right. I don’t have it. I destroyed that program as soon as I realized the threat it posed. I shredded every last byte and purged it from the world. No government or corporation or criminal organization will get its hands on it now. It was too dangerous.”

That information seemed to shock them both, but especially Cole. “Then why pretend to have it? Why go through the trouble of some elaborate, crazy ruse that would only lead to someone like me showing up?”

“I’ll tell you. First off, I thought I’d covered my tracks better than I apparently did.” He frowned and rubbed his chin. “Second, it was leverage. No one believes you when you say you don’t have something they want.”

“You expected it to be stolen eventually. That’s why you put a tracking program on it and all that malware.”

Jade shook her head, a tight smile on her face. “It was a kind of digital ‘fuck you’ to the thieves, right?”

“Exactly. I’ll send a message to some contacts I have at Interpol and the FBI. I’ll give them the ability to digitally track the drive and maybe take the criminals down.”

“Do you think that will work?” Jade demanded.

“Not likely. Unless they’re extremely stupid, they’ll smash the drive as soon as they figure out it doesn’t have what they want. Or after it attacks their systems. But it’s worth a try.”

He turned to Jade, looking down into her beautiful face. He cupped the back of her graceful neck as he held her close. Simple love for her filled his heart.

“So,” he said quietly. “There’s more to his story than he’s letting on. Now that he knows the truth about the drive, we should give him a chance to explain himself.”

“Why?” she demanded, so much conflicting emotion caught up in one simple word.

“He saved my life. He made me realize how much I love you and helped me see that nothing was worth keeping us apart. That our love was the most important thing in the world. Oh, and he brought the yacht back. That should count for something.”

For a moment, Jade only stared deep into his eyes.

He could still see the pain there. Pain from the betrayal.

She was worried too. It was her job to protect his life, and she took it very seriously.

Now they knew they had dangerous enemies out there.

Enemies who knew where they were. Enemies who would be furious they hadn’t gotten what they paid for.

Finally, she nodded and turned back to Cole. She stared him directly in the eye like a woman prepared to battle to the death. “Do you love me?”

The question caught Cole off guard. Hell, it caught Maxim off guard, and he knew how direct Jade could be.

Cole blinked at her, emotions flickering across his face, too many and too fast to read.

But Cole never dropped his gaze. He never looked away. And finally, he gave his answer.

“Yes.”