Epping, United Kingdom.

Robert stared at the name flashing on his phone.

Every time he saw that name, he feared the worst. Donna was a good woman, but she had a temper. If she got crossways with Orlando, who knew what would happen?

“Hello?” Robert pressed the phone to his ear.

“How do I know you never knew it was Tanya?” Orlando’s tone was warm, curious. He’d likely drank himself silly.

“I told you, the only person who knew the identity of the other agent was Quade. I can’t find anything on her.” Robert turned, pacing the living room of his empty house.

“That can’t be. Someone trained her. People would have worked with her. How did you not know?”

“All I was told was that she was a clean slate, someone unconnected to anyone. Whoever trained her doesn’t claim her.”

“You answer to someone. Who is it?”

“How many times are you going to ask me this? I was given this assignment by a joint task force. Your old friends want their dog back on its leash.”

“If the Americans or Brits trained her, I’d have found out about it before now.” Orlando’s voice grew quieter, as though he weren’t addressing Robert. “You’re right. The Israelis or the Koreans were most likely involved. They never liked me much.”

Robert jotted down Orlando’s musings with some of his own notes. It all went into the notebook he’d started the day Donna disappeared. Orlando’s questions focused on Quade, Tanya, and who they worked for, never what they’d passed on. Which meant that Orlando’s business up until a point was done. He didn’t fear Tanya’s knowledge on what he was planning, because he hadn’t decided what to do yet?

“We had fun in Korea, didn’t we?” Orlando whispered.

Robert kept his mouth shut.

Orlando had, by all accounts, maintained a tenuous connection to reality since his sister’s death. That thread could very well snap, and then he’d be a mad man with the means to incite a world war.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a lead on a good hit man, would you?” Orlando asked.

“That’s... I don’t have contacts in that world.”

“What good are you to me, then?” Orlando sighed and muttered something. “What does Tanya know?”

“She’s trained—”

“I’m not speaking to you,” Orlando snapped.

Robert’s teeth clicked together. He’d almost said too much.

“I think... I think I’ll make her life difficult,” Orlando said.

Poor Tanya. Robert had never met her, but he’d read her reports. Her intel and insight were valuable, but he could do nothing to help her. Not without killing his wife.

Friday. London, United Kingdom.

Isaac drifted awake bit by bit. The bed was the most comfortable thing he’d ever lain on. So why was he fully dressed? Wasn’t that a crime against luxury or something?

He cracked an eye open.

Light emanated from the partially closed bathroom door and steam billowed out.

He checked the clock. It was the middle of the night. They’d slept away the late afternoon and evening hours.

Great.

The others would know by default where he was at.

Usually, it didn’t bother him. He’d never hidden the fact that some of their assets, and even clients, liked the fantasy of bedding the bodyguard, but Tanya was different. She was a person with her back to a corner and nothing left. She needed them in a way that was more important than possibly any job he’d been part of to date.

For that reason, he wanted to protect her. Help her. Believe in her.

He rolled out of bed, his stomach growling, and swayed on his feet. Going by how much Tanya had eaten earlier yesterday, she had to be as hungry—if not hungrier—than him.

Room service would cost an arm, leg, and likely a nut, but then again he wasn’t footing the bill. Orlando was. Might as well take advantage of what they could for as long as it was an option.

“Tanya?” Isaac crossed to the door, but didn’t look in.

No answer.

The shower spat water on the tile floor of the stall, but other than that there was no other sound. If Tanya were washing up there should be different noises, splatters, splashing.

It wouldn’t be the first time she’d tried to trick him. The idea of being lured in here by her didn’t sit well with him. How much more would it take for her to trust them? Or was she guilty?

“Tanya? You in there?”

Isaac stepped to the side, pulled the bathroom door open and got a face full of steam. It dissipated after a moment.

Still no Tanya.

Little warning bells went off in the back of his head. Something wasn’t right.

He stepped on the tile, damp with condensation, and peered at the glass walls of the shower. Water beaded on the inside clouding the view within, but there was no mistaking the figure slumped against the side.

“Tanya! Hey.” Isaac bolted across the floor and yanked the glass door open. He stepped in, shielding her with his body.

Her legs were drawn up tight to her chest and her arms were wrapped around her knees. Her shoulders shuddered. The constant beat of the water muted her hushed sobs. This close, there was no mistaking them.

“Hey, hey, hey.” He knelt next to her, ignoring the water soaking his clothes, and reached for her. “Tanya?”

“Go away.” Her voice broke on each word and she didn’t look at him.

He reached out and grabbed the robe hanging on a hook.

“Come on, let’s get you out of here.”  He draped it over her nude body.

“Isaac...” She lifted her head long enough to level a red-eyed glare at him.

Good, she knew who he was and likely where.

“I know, I’m an asshole.” He scooped her up and edged out of the shower, careful to keep the spray of water off her.

He carried Tanya to the vanity and set her down on the edge. She tucked the robe around her and drew herself up to her full height. The haughty picture was ruined by the too-large robe and tendrils of hair sticking to her face. Her red, puffy eyes betrayed how long she’d been in there. Either she was really good at tiptoeing around or he’d been that tired to not hear her.

Isaac spared a moment to and shut the shower off and snag two towels.

“That’s one hell of a way to wake up.” He rubbed one towel over his face and head.

“You didn’t have to do that.” Tanya accepted the other towel and began drying her hair, but her heart wasn’t in it. The set of her mouth, the crease of her brow... She was struggling.

“I didn’t know if you were having another panic attack or what.”

“It wasn’t a panic attack. I don’t have panic attacks.” She swiped the back of her hand across her cheeks. “It was just a dream.”

Isaac swallowed down his urge to call bullshit and merely nodded. He’d seen the lost, almost disoriented dilation of her eyes, how erratic her breathing was, all of it. Her denial didn’t change things, but she needed to hold onto something, so he’d let her believe the lie for now.

“A dream?” he asked.

“You wouldn’t understand.”

The hell he wouldn’t.

Isaac braced his hands on the sink and stared into the porcelain bowl. He needed to get through to Tanya. So far, the normal tricks hadn’t worked. He’d built some rapport with her, but not enough. If he wanted her to be real and honest with him, he had to go there first.

“About once every five weeks, I dream about the day my brother had his head blown off.”

Tanya went still. He was hyper-aware of her head turning, eyes boring into the side of his head. He lifted his chin and glanced at her, taking in the slack jawed stare.

“Sorry... Not trying to one up you or anything, just... I’m trying to say...I understand dreams you don’t want to have.”

“I’m sorry about your brother,” Tanya said.

“Yeah, me too. He was the good one”

“Better than you? Is that possible?” She tilted her head to the side.

“Hey, now, you’ve only seen me at my best.” He smiled, glad he’d gotten her to think about something other than whatever terrorized her. Even if he did have to mention his deceased brother.

Tanya stared at him a moment longer, her gaze warm. The corners of her mouth quirked up. She glanced away first, covering half her face with her hand.

“Did you fall? Hit your head?” Isaac cupped her chin.

“No.” She pulled out of his grasp.

“Just a bad dream?” He leaned against the vanity at her side, her knee brushing his hip.

“Yes, okay?”

“You want to talk about it?”

“Would you want to talk about your dream?”

“Sometimes I do, but no one really wants to listen anymore.”

“Why?”

“Because he died years ago, and everyone else wants to move on all ready.”

“But not you?”

“I have what’s called classic survivor’s guilt.” He smiled, but it was forced.

“I’m glad you’re here, for what it’s worth.”

“Your turn. What woke you up?”

Tanya hugged her arms around herself. She didn’t have to confide in him, but he wanted her to.

“It’s stupid,” she whispered.

“I doubt it.”

“It is. And it’s always the same. I’m sleeping, but I hear footsteps. Heavy ones. I wake up, crawl under my bed to hide, and the footsteps keep coming. It’s an unending loop. At some point, I wake up covered in sweat and realize it wasn’t real. It’s stupid.”

“A standard form of torture is exposing someone to the same thing over and over again. A song. A show. Something that drives people nuts because they can’t stop it. I imagine the tension of lying in the dark, listening to ominous footsteps has the same affect.”

“So I’m torturing myself.”

“That’s not what I said. Terrible things happened to you—”

“Yeah, but, if I were diagnosing myself,” she flattened her hand to her chest, “this is self-inflicted.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because...I helped bring other women and girls into Dad’s twisted mess.”

“That wasn’t your fault. You were a kid.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that there are women out there who wouldn’t have been violated if it weren’t for me.”

“I want to tell you that you were a kid, and you were in a no-win situation. If you didn’t do what you were told, you might not be alive, you might not have brought the authorities in... But, I also get not letting it go.” He turned and leaned on the vanity, staring at the glossy tiles across the room. “They tell you all the things you should feel, how to get better, but it never really works, does it?”

“No.”

Tanya sniffled and lifted a trembling hand to her cheek.

“Hey. Look at me?” He took her hand, squeezing it tight enough she couldn’t shake.

She didn’t meet his gaze, but she did peer at him through her lashes.

“You’re a strong person, cupcake. You don’t get to be this strong without taking some big hits. I can’t say it will for sure get better, but I’m here for you, okay?”

She jerked her head.

“Good.” He smiled and rolled his options around a moment. “You still want me to leave you alone or—”

“Hug me?”

“I can do that.”

Isaac leaned in and folded his arms around her. She held onto him, burying her face in the crook of his neck. Her body shuddered, but she didn’t cry. He squeezed tighter, as though he could fit all those cracks back together.

Undercover was a hard gig. Abigail had spoken briefly in his presence about the fracturing that could happen to an agent who spent too long under the stress of a job. It’d sounded like an odd theory at the time, but now holding Tanya and listening to her, Isaac understood far better than he wanted to.

Someone with her history tossed into another high intensity situation, alone at that, would have a breaking point.

The guilt was something he got on a personal level. No matter what anyone said he couldn’t forgive himself for being the brother that survived. He had the weight of one person on his shoulders. Tanya bore the imagined responsibility for dozens of women forced into a cult. The strength it had to take for her to move forward, to do something about it, that was truly remarkable. If she didn’t break down at some point, she wouldn’t be human.

Tanya lifted her head from his shoulder and relaxed her hold just enough to straighten. She stared at him, her gaze roving over his face as though she were reading him like a book. What did she see when she looked at him like that? Was she searching for something? What was on her mind?

“I’m going to ask you to do something, and I want you to consider it before dismissing it, okay?” She was so serious now.

“What’s on your mind?” He pushed her hair behind her ear. Who did she want him to kill?

“I want us to have sex.”

Isaac stared, aware his mouth was now hanging open.

“Before you say no, I have reasons.” She tightened her hold around his neck.

Of course she did.

He swallowed and closed his mouth.

“I’m listening...”

“First and simplest, sex is a relaxing activity. Endorphins, dopamine, all that stuff.”

Isaac bit back a snort. Relaxing activity. That was one way to describe it.

“Second, and much more complicated, I’ve not always been able to...pick my partners.” She stared at his chest.

His mind stuttered to a halt.

It was something he’d guessed at, but avoided thinking about.

She’d been engaged at thirteen in a cult to a man who was likely old enough to be her father, if he understood correctly.

If she was the undercover agent they suspected, she’d been thrust in Orlando’s way to catch his interest. Isaac couldn’t think too hard about what that meant because he didn’t want to. The idea of that sleazy man anywhere near her had Isaac’s hands curling into fists.

Tanya wanted to piece herself back together any way she could. She was a fighter, distinctly aware of her disadvantages—and how to fix them. He had to respect a person with that kind of inner strength.

“You aren’t saying anything,” she whispered, betraying some of her nerves.

“I’m just processing it all,” he said. “Unlike you, I just woke up.”

“You can say no, it was just a thought.” She glanced away.

“Why me?” He stroked his hand up and down her back.

“Because I don’t think you would use sex against me. I think you enjoy people.”

“Pegged me there. I should be honest with you. I have a bit of a reputation...” He’d never said as much to an asset before, but again—Tanya was different.

“Of what? Sleeping with people like me? I guessed as much from the looks. You aren’t against the idea?”

“No, and I think I understand what you’re trying to do. Replace the bad memories with good ones. This job had to have been hard on you, and you’re trying to regain ownership back of yourself, mind and body.” Usually, he was just delivering on the fantasy fulfillment of a fling for some spoiled rich girl. Besides, everyone deserved a good time and no one got hurt. What Tanya needed was deeper and more complex. It was downright intimidating on a level that Isaac wasn’t used to.

“That sounds about right,” she said.

“How long did you think about this?”

“Not long.”

“Maybe we should eat first—”

“It’s a yes or no question. I’m not asking for you to do anything else. I don’t expect...more.”

“Are you sure I’m the right man for the job? I mean, you might not like my performance.”

“I don’t appreciate your sense humor.”

“If you’re looking to have sex to relax, then you have to be willing to relax.” He jostled her slightly and her tense body wobbled.

Tanya just kept frowning.

He was attracted to her, physically, and he plain liked her. There would be no complications because when someone finally came for her, she’d be whisked away and protected for what she knew. This, right now, was simple human connection, pleasure and fulfilling a need. Something besides a thrill or a fantasy. If he could support a woman like Tanya, why shouldn’t he? How many people did she open up to enough to trust with a request like, please make me orgasm?

Isaac leaned in and kissed Tanya’s cheek. He felt the muscles in her face constrict and her whole body go tight. He slid his lips along her jaw, content to lick the water drops off her skin.

They’d almost kissed once, and though he’d known it was an act, there’d been heat behind her eyes. Real feeling that wasn’t faked.

“Kiss me,” he said against her cheek.

Tanya turned, only a little, and their mouths met. The sensation of a thousand miniature explosions lit up his body from head to toe. A heady, rush of lust sent all his blood rushing to his groin.

The need was real.

She tugged on his shirt and her arm around his neck tightened. He stepped between her legs, forcing them apart and bringing their bodies more into alignment. He slid his hands down to her hips and tugged her closer. Despite the chill of his wet clothes, her heat was close to burning him up.

If a single, brief kiss were any sort of indication of what it could be like between them, he was prepared for good, if not great.

“Do you require an audition?” he asked, keeping it light.

“Wasn’t that what you were doing?”

“Well, a kiss proves chemistry. It doesn’t say anything about my sexual prowess.”

“I see.” She leaned back and frowned.

“I’m messing with you.” He jostled her slightly. “The whole point was to relax.”

“You haven’t said yes or no.” She pulled the robe closed a bit more.

“It’s a bit more intimidating when a strong, confident woman says she wants to sleep with you for your dick magic.”

“I did not say—”

“I’m playing around.” He pinched her chin playfully. “I just wanted to see if we really did have chemistry. That it wasn’t all in my head. I think we could have a lot of fun together.”

“Oh...”

“You should tell me what you like.” Isaac leaned into her. He was going to do this, and he’d do it right, because this wasn’t just about getting a few moments of pleasure.

“Just...anything is good.”

“Anything? That’s a little dangerous. What if I stick it in your butt?”

“Isaac.”

“What? I’m just saying, I know you have specific ideas in mind. You should tell me. Don’t make me guess.” He stroked her back and fought the urge to grin. Her cheeks had the faintest tinge of pink on them. “Do you like to be on bottom, lying down, sitting, what?”

“On top,” she muttered.

“I figured.” The way he saw it, Tanya needed the control. She had to regain bits of herself she’d given up pursing other goals. This was just one way to fit it all back together.

“What is that supposed to mean?” She frowned at him.

“You just seem like an ‘on top’ kind of girl.” He grinned and pushed her hair over her shoulder, exposing her neck. She’d somewhat relaxed again and the robe gaped open. “Now, how about some warm up?”

“What do you mean?” She narrowed her gaze.

“I mean like, oral?” He quirked a brow. “More kissing?”

“Oh, well, I guess if that’s what you want.”

“Cupcake, we’re talking about you here.”

“Me?” Her eyes fluttered wide with surprise.

“Tonight it’s all about you.”

Isaac was going to enjoy this far more than he should.