Phoebe sighed as she stepped out of the room the next morning. Ten was on her immediately, as though he’d waited all night for the chance. He might have. He might have paced outside her bedroom door all night long, waiting for the shot at taking a hunk out of her flesh. He’d probably listened, trying to hear if they were fighting or fucking.

They’d done neither. She’d held him and then they’d gone to bed, his head on her breast, his arms wound around her.

He’d needed intimacy the night before. He’d needed to know she was there with him.

“Good morning.” The best way to deal with Ten was to brazen through. If she gave him a moment’s weakness, he would pounce like the predator he was. She nodded in his direction and then walked straight toward the coffee, letting her nose lead the way.

Ten followed, hard on her heels. “Good morning? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Nope. I’m being an optimist this morning.” It wasn’t true. She was sick to her stomach because she knew the op was almost over and so was her time with Jesse.

Unless he meant what he’d said and he really could forgive her. She wasn’t sure she could risk it. It might be better to know he still cared about her than to risk everything and lose it all. Maybe they could still see each other. She would have her work and he would have his and they could spend their free time together.

Because a week or two a year was better than nothing, right? Until he found the woman who wasn’t too damaged and he got married and had kids. Yeah, it would be great.

“Damn it, Phoebe. Do you understand what happened last night?” Ten followed her into the living area of the suite where a long table had been set with a buffet overflowing with fruit and yogurt and eggs, small pastries, and even a row of perfectly made crepes with whipped cream.

She just poured a cup of coffee. She didn’t really have much of an appetite. “I understand that Jesse had to face something most of us can’t even conceive.”

“He completely lost it.”

“Maybe, but I think in this case, it’s understandable. He heard that voice again. It was the voice that did it.” They hadn’t talked about it, just held on to each other, but it was the only thing that made sense. Phoebe had been well aware of where the camera was, but any subtle attempts to turn them had been rebuffed by the very elegant Mr. al Fareed.

Even when she hadn’t realized who he was, he’d scared her. Not in a run and hide sense, but she’d known he was a predator. Her instincts had flared the minute he stepped in her way.

It was in his face. He was actually an attractive man when she considered his features on a separate basis. He had everything it took to be quite handsome. Until she got to the eyes. His eyes were flat. Obsidian and flat, like a reptile’s. She’d seen those eyes in a crocodile or a shark. They held no hint of humanity or compassion. No humor.

Ten sighed and sank down into one of the chairs. It was easy to see the toll the last few days had taken on him. “Yeah. At least I think so. One minute I was watching you and the next he was taking off. Tell me it wasn’t as bad as it looked on the monitors.”

She wished she could. “The good news is it was contained to the back of the ballroom. He didn’t get very far in, but at least a third of the people there were well aware something odd was happening.”

“Then everyone knows.”

The gossip would spread very quickly. “Probably.” There was an upside to this particular clusterfuck. “It’s all right, Ten. Jesse needs to stay up here now. We should keep him out of the line of sight. We know who our target is. Now the rest of us gather intel on the al Fareed brothers.”

“Which one was it?”

Oh, he was so not going to love her answer. “I don’t know. His badge simply said Mr. al Fareed. Do you have pictures?”

“They’re practically twins,” Ten said with a grimace as he reached for his tablet. He slid his finger across the screen and passed it to her.

Two men stared back. The two brothers looked very much alike. Both handsome and lean. In the pictures they had, both men sported dark beards, but the man she’d met the night before had cropped his close. “I think it’s this one. Ibrahim. But I’ll be honest, it wasn’t until he started talking about war and business that I really looked at him. I was trying to play down my aggressive American side, so I tried not to look him in the eyes.”

“Probably a good play given what part of the world we’re in. I know it’s hard on female operatives, but we have to be sure here. I need you to take another look,” Ten said as though he found the request distasteful.

“I’ll make sure this afternoon. I’m going to sit in with Kamdar on a couple of the sessions. The al Fareeds are expected to attend. I’ll get you what you need and then we can build a case against him.” A case that would hopefully forever get the stain off Jesse Murdoch’s reputation. It might be the only gift she could give him.

“All right. I hate sending you back in. I take it everyone saw you walking out with him?”

It was a problem, but she wasn’t willing to scrap the mission because of it. “I’ll be fine. I’ll take someone with me. Hey, if he flees the conference, we know we’ve got him on the run. Once we’re sure of the name, we don’t need to stay here. We set up long-term observation and we get Chelsea digging into his past. We’ll find something.”

“You are not to go anywhere in this hotel without a bodyguard. I know you can handle yourself, but I’m not taking any chances.” He sighed and sat back. “When the hell did I lose control of everything?”

She’d wondered when they were going to have this talk. There hadn’t been time before they’d had to come to Dubai. She sat down across from him. Ten could hold things in for a very long time, but it seemed he’d always been willing to open up eventually with her or Jamie. “Ace wasn’t your fault, Tennessee.”

“Hell yes, he was.” He looked straight on, his eyes stubborn.

She simply moved to where he was staring so he had to look at her. “You couldn’t have known. You did everything you could with the information you had. He came highly recommended. He passed every single test the Agency gave him. This isn’t your fault.”

“I’ve trained all my life to see things that aren’t there. From the time I was a kid, I knew I would do this job, and that fucker got past me.”

“He got past everyone.” She knew she was talking to a brick wall at this point, but she couldn’t help but speak the truth. Eventually it would get to him. “What happened at Sanctum wasn’t your fault and last night wasn’t really Jesse’s. He saw a threat, and not only that, he saw me standing next to the man who killed his entire team.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think about it that way. Jesus, Phoebe, now that I do think about it, I kind of want to run around until I find the fucker, too.” He leaned forward. “That man killed my brother. He tortured and killed my brother and I was thinking about the fucking op.”

“Which is what you were trained to do,” she pointed out gently. “It does Jamie no good for you to blow everyone’s cover. You have to be rational about this because Jesse can’t be.”

“How about you?” Ten asked, his voice softening. A somber smile slightly curled up his mouth. “You were standing right next to the man who killed Jamie and what were you thinking about?”

She set the coffee down and guilt swamped her as she admitted the truth. “I was thinking about Jesse.” She’d thought about Jesse all night long. How could she do that? “Ten, I’m so sorry. I thought about Jesse.”

Ten sat up, his hands on the table between them. “As you damn well should have. I wasn’t blaming you. I was pointing something out. You’re a fool if you think you can leave that boy behind.”

It took her a moment because she’d been so wrapped up in the drama with Jesse that she hadn’t given Jamie more than a passing thought. It had been right and good to offer Jesse comfort. It had felt like her right to hold him. “But I stood right in front of the man who killed my husband and all I could think about afterward was protecting my boyfriend from him.”

“Because Jamie’s gone, honey, and life is for the living. Hell, I won’t kick the boy’s ass for that fact alone.” He sat back, crossing his legs. “I knew Jamie better than you did.”

“I was his wife.” She was the one looking away now, but Ten wouldn’t allow her that comfort any more than she’d allowed him. He caught her eye.

“Yeah, well, you didn’t grow up with him and you weren’t his best friend. I think if he’d lived, you would have been, but you were both so young you never got past the mad in love stage. You didn’t have to really live together the way couples with mortgages and kids and crappy jobs have to. He put you on a pedestal and you’re doing the same with him. He wanted that mission. Do you know why he wanted that mission?”

“No.” And maybe she didn’t want to know.

“Because he wanted to best me. He wanted to head a team of his own.”

Phoebe shook her head. It went against everything they’d talked about. “No. We were getting out. We agreed that if we were going to have kids, we couldn’t put ourselves on the line like that.”

Ten reached for her hand, covering it with his own. “I know that’s what he told you and he definitely wanted you out, but it was in his blood. He tried to convince the director that he could run a black ops team better than me. He wanted my job or one just like it, and he decided taking on the truly dangerous operations were exactly what he needed to do to prove it.”

She wanted to pull away, but she couldn’t. All she could do was protest even though something in Ten’s words rang true. “No. Jamie loved you.”

“Hell, yeah, he loved me. We were brothers. You think brothers aren’t competitive as hell? You think it doesn’t burn the big brother’s ass when little brother becomes his boss? I’m not maligning Jamie. I’m just saying that you take all this guilt on yourself when you didn’t force him to go.”

Jamie wasn’t the only one she felt guilty about. Even if she accepted that she hadn’t forced Jamie into anything, she couldn’t wish away her other problem. “And Jesse? They were looking for Jamie. I’m the one who came up with the plan to send Jamie in. I’m the one who led the Caliph right to Jesse.”

“And a fucking butterfly flapped its wings halfway across the world and it rains in DC,” Ten argued back. “The butterfly had as much intent as you had. The asshole in DC who forgot his umbrella doesn’t blame the bug.”

He was throwing chaos theory at her? “That is a stupid argument.”

“And it’s true. You had zero idea it would turn out this way. You never intended to cause him harm and wouldn’t have proceeded had you known the outcome.”

Not even if Jamie had survived. She would never have placed a unit in that harm’s way. She hadn’t known the Caliph even existed. “No, I wouldn’t have.”

“Jesse won’t blame you. He might be surprised, but he won’t blame you and he won’t let you walk away from him. That’s the only hope I have now that Jamie might rest in peace knowing he got what he wanted.”

“What’s that?”

“You happy. I was the best man at your wedding. I took Jamie out for a bachelor party of two because the last thing he wanted was a bunch of strippers when he had you. I say I took him out, but all we really did was pick up a bucket of wings and go back to his place.”

She laughed, the memories coming back and somehow whisking away the bad ones. “Mine wasn’t much better. I went to a club with some of the girls from work and spent all night texting Jamie.”

Ten smiled, real tenderness in his expression. “Still better than his. I bought a case of beer and we watched football and talked about you. After the game was over, he flipped through channels and found a freaking marathon of those wizard movies. He made me watch one. Couldn’t you two have found something more masculine to bond over?”

Even though the thought brought tears to her eyes, they were sweeter now. They weren’t sad. They reminded her of how nice it had been and not simply of what she’d lost. When had that changed? When had thinking of Jamie become something wistful and not an ache in her soul? “Nope. Those are our books. He kissed me for the first time while we were reading on the patio. At first I thought he only read them because I liked them, but Harry won him over in the end.”

She’d started reading them when a librarian had suggested the first book. She’d been at an inner-city school, one of the rougher foster homes. She’d read that first book so many times the librarian swore she wore it out. When Franklin Grant asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she’d asked for her own copies. Jamie had started reading them even though Ten had teased them that they were for kids. Jamie hadn’t cared. He’d wanted to have something to talk to her about and they’d spent hours reading and talking and watching the movies. They argued over whether Hermione should end up with Harry or Ron. Silly things, but it had brought them closer.

“Do you know what I asked him that night?” Ten’s question brought her back to the present. “I asked him why he was getting married. I wasn’t being rude. I just didn’t understand it. He said he wanted to make you happy. He said if he wanted one thing in the world it was that you would never be alone again, never be unhappy again. This tragedy goes past him dying. He would hate the fact that you can’t move on, that you can’t find a way to live. You think you honor him by being miserable, but it’s not true.”

She was saved by the door to the far suite opening and Erin walking in. Phoebe turned quickly and tried to shove the unwanted emotion deep because Ten was starting to get through to her. He was starting to make sense, and that meant she would have to choose between a life with Jamie’s memory or one with Jesse. She wasn’t ready.

Except maybe she was. It had been right to hold Jesse. It had been right and good and she couldn’t work up the will to fight it. Something deep inside wondered why she would even try.

What if she got a second chance? Should she turn it away because she didn’t trust it? Would she take back loving Jamie so she didn’t have to lose him?

Was she that much of a coward?

“Back off, minor Taggart,” Erin said as she strode into the room. She wore slacks, a white button down, and a smart-looking blazer this morning. Her hair was in a neat bun. She was ready to play the role of the hard-nosed businesswoman with the singular exception of her shoes. She had fuzzy bunny slippers on, but they were ruined by the nasty edge to her voice. “I don’t need your advice.”

Theo was right behind her. He looked like he’d gotten as much sleep as Ten. “I’m just saying you have to watch out around that guy. He’s a playboy.”

Erin’s eyes rolled. “Funny, you sound just like that douchebag who told me I was dressed like a slut.”

“I never said that.” Theo looked over at Ten like Ten could help him out. “When did I say that? What does that even mean?”

Ten held up his hands. “I got nothing except to tell you that hookers don’t give a shit what you say. And I know a couple of very flexible ones.”

Her brother was a giver.

“Hey, did you blow Murdoch? Because he looked like he could use it.” And Erin was pure lady. She grabbed a plate and started filling it up.

“Oooo, someone got a little something?” Hutch asked as he walked out and immediately grabbed a Danish. “I thought we weren’t supposed to get laid here. I got a very strict ‘no touching the locals’ lecture and Erin threatened my balls if I looked at her the wrong way. What’s your problem with a man’s balls, woman? They’re sacred.”

“They’re delicate so that’s where I strike. Are you made of sugar, dude? How do you stay so thin?” She didn’t wait for Hutch to reply, simply shook her head and turned back to Phoebe. “So did you fuck Murdoch so hard he forgot all about his troubled past?”

Phoebe couldn’t help but laugh, but Theo frowned.

“Don’t make fun of her. Just because Phoebe’s got a compassionate heart doesn’t mean you should tease her.”

Simon stepped up to the buffet, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “You weren’t angry with him? I was a little worried that you rushed him off for a private dressing down. I stayed up in case he needed me.”

“Why would I be mad at Jesse? Now the rest of you are idiots and we should talk about that.” She warmed to her subject because it was so much easier than the last one. “You treated him like he was the bad guy. Yes, he shouldn’t have taken off like that, but he was trying to do his job. He was supposed to identify the Caliph. He couldn’t see his face on the tape. Why didn’t anyone try to follow him on camera? He had to have walked past a camera.”

“I totally tried after I stopped watching Murdoch take the stairs three at a time,” Hutch said around his third Danish. The boy really could eat and he seemed to prefer sweets.

“Hutch did try, but al Fareed kept his face down until he got back to his room,” Ten admitted.

“So he knew we were watching. Did anyone think to follow him on foot? Hutch could have given you directions.” She didn’t wait because she knew the answer. “No. You didn’t because you were all too busy making Jesse feel like shit.”

“Baby, it’s all right.” Jesse stepped from their suite, his hair still wet from a shower. He was in jeans and a T-shirt and no shoes, and she wanted nothing more than to jump all over him and forget everything that was happening. When he kissed her, she couldn’t think about anything except him. “I knew why they were doing it. Now they know I’m here. He knows I’m here. Even if he didn’t see me himself, he heard about the crazy American who seemed to be looking for someone. He’ll have brought up the tapes and despite the hair color, he’ll remember me. A master doesn’t forget his unfinished work.”

The thought chilled her. She couldn’t stand the fact that the Caliph very likely knew Jesse was here. She got up and poured him a cup of coffee, one cream and two sugars. The least she could do was help him get ready for the day. He needed her support. “Come and sit down.”

“I think that’s my line.” He walked to the seat anyway.

“Not today. It’s mine today.” He could Dom her all he liked, but she was going to take care of him today. She handed him the coffee and then made a major decision on the spur of the moment. If she was in, she was going to be all in, even if it was only for a few more days. She sat down on his lap, nestling against his chest and letting her head find the crook of his neck.

She felt him sigh, a long, pleasurable sound, and then he relaxed around her.

“Ten, what’s my damage?” This time when he spoke, any hint of timidity was banished. “How can I fix it?”

Ten shook his head and then plowed forward. “It will help if you don’t show your face today. Stay in here and review the tapes. Phoebe’s right. He’s got to have screwed up at some point. We’ll catch him and you’ll identify him and then we’ll go from there.”

 Phoebe winced a little as she hadn’t exactly given them all the information she’d acquired either. “We might have a bigger problem.”

Erin’s eyes widened. “Shitballs. We didn’t mention what we found. Damn. I’m blaming even littler Tag for that. He distracted me with his obnoxiousness. I’ve been getting the same lecture for twelve hours.”

“Well, that’s because you won’t listen,” Theo said.

“Erin, what have you found?” Simon asked with a sigh.

Erin exchanged a look and nodded, giving Phoebe the floor.

She sat up as properly as she could while she was still on Jesse’s lap. It was odd, but it seemed to give him comfort so she was going with it. “The little prick who’s working for the senator had the newspaper article from the Sanctum explosion on his desk. He seemed very interested in Jesse’s death and he had two names written down.” This was the really bad part. “Ian Taggart was the first one. Ian was listed in the article so I suppose he might have gotten it from there.”

Ten had gone utterly still, as though he knew there was a rattlesnake in the room and it was about to bite him. “Who was the other name, Phoebe?”

“Tennessee G. Smith.”

“Shit.” Ten rose to his feet and immediately got on the phone. “Damn it. I’m sorry. I know it’s late Charlotte, but I have to talk to him.”

Her brother walked into his room and the door slammed shut.

“I find it interesting that he called Big Tag and not his director,” Erin mused.

“He’s worried there’s a mole,” Jesse said. “That’s it, right?”

“The name Tennessee Smith doesn’t appear in records,” Phoebe replied. “Only the Agency is supposed to know his name, and even then only men with the proper security clearance. When he works with anyone outside his circle, he goes by the tried and true.”

“Mr. Black,” Simon supplied. “Yes, I’ve met a few of those in my time.”

“After the problems Taggart had, he took to calling himself Mr. White, but it’s all the same. It’s there so you don’t ever really know the name of who you’re working with. I know you won’t believe me, but it’s as much for your protection as his.”

“Sure it is.” Erin set her plate on the table. “So someone figured out his name. Big whoop.”

“Ace knew his name.” Jesse’s hand smoothed up and down her back. “We have to assume he gave the Caliph all the intelligence he had on the team. We know he was in contact with him.”

She let his heat sink in even as she pointed out the problem. “I can assure you that my brother has never revealed his middle name to anyone on his team.”

Theo shook his head. “I don’t know it. I’m closer to Ten than most.”

“Does the G stand for George?” Hutch asked.

Jesse huffed. “Obviously it stands for Grant. He considered the man his father. Why didn’t he change it legally?”

And they teased him for being dumb. “He didn’t want a big paper trail connecting him to me and Jamie. He’s paranoid. Until he flipped out when he thought Tag was going to murder me, none of his team knew he had a sister. I was just a fellow employee.”

“So we have bigger problems,” Simon mused.

“Yeah, we’ve got another damn mole and one who’s close to a senator.” Hutch reached for a pastry. “So now we need to figure out why that drunk boy knows Ten’s super secret middle name. He really looked more like a George, you know.”

“So you’ll look into Albertson?” She shot Hutch a pointed look. “Like now?”

Hutch grabbed another plate. “Fine. You know other people on this team get time off.” When no one replied, he just shook his head. “Fine. I’ll go wake up Chelsea and she’s going to be irritable.”

“Send her my love,” Simon said with a wave. He looked back at Phoebe and Jesse. “And you two get ready. Phoebe has a session soon and you need to look through the footage.”

“Simon?” Jesse started.

“I’ll go with her. I won’t let her out of my sight,” Simon promised.

“Thank you, brother,” Jesse said with obvious relief.

So Simon was the only one he really trusted. She should have picked someone from her own team, but that didn’t mean anything now. Jesse was her team and he would feel better with Simon watching over her. She wasn’t going to question him.

She turned her head up when Simon left to clean up and Erin and Theo continued bickering over breakfast. She and Jesse were left to themselves. “Are you okay?”

His hand came up, smoothing back her hair. “I’m as good as I can be, thanks to you. Your brother should have fired me.”

“Not if he knows what’s good for him.”

“Phoebe, I screwed up last night. I put us all in harm’s way.”

“You had a bad moment.”

“And that one moment could get us all killed. I don’t want you to go out there today. I want you to come with me and we’ll go to the airport and we won’t even go back to Dallas. We’ll go somewhere no one knows who we are. We can just hide.”

“Jesse,” she started.

His hand came up and he put a finger to her lips. “I said that’s what I want to do. What I’m going to do is tell you to be careful because you’re precious to me.”

How was she supposed to resist him? The universe was cruel and oh so kind. She leaned forward and kissed him. “I promise.”

He wrapped his arms around her and they sat that way until it was time to go.

* * * *

Six hours later, Phoebe stood beside Simon as the session on new ecological laws in First World countries came to a close. It was the third session she’d sat through and the final one of the first day of the conference. Frustration threatened to bubble over. “I didn’t see the al Fareed party at all.”

Simon nodded shortly and leaned over to speak to her in a quiet tone. “I didn’t either. I think we have to believe they might have left. There’s a private meeting this evening, but Kamdar isn’t invited to it. It’s only oil companies.”

She looked around, but found not a single familiar face beyond Theo standing guard in the background.

They were running out of time and their prey was proving to be elusive. The conference itself was only four days. If she couldn’t identify the man by then, she feared they would lose him. He knew what was happening. It would be easy for him to simply disappear into his country and start his work all over again.

Business is always war and war is always a matter of business. The words had played through her head. What else had al Fareed said? She reached up and tugged on Simon’s suit coat, stopping his forward progress. “He was interested in Kamdar.”

Simon turned to her. “That’s not terribly surprising. He’s rather making himself a massive target. I hear he was talking about putting them all out of business last night. He’s an interesting fellow, but I’m afraid these very conservative men are going to find him arrogant and obnoxious.”

“That’s what al Fareed said. Interesting. He said the king was an interesting man with interesting friends.”

“I don’t think anyone would argue with that.” Simon looked at his watch. “Tea’s about to be served. We should walk through before we give up for the evening. We’ll make sure we’ve got surveillance on his suite and that boardroom, but we can’t simply stand around and hope to catch sight of him. It’s more important than ever that we keep our cover.”

He didn’t understand. “I think he was talking about Jesse. It was in the way he said it. I think when he was talking about Kamdar’s interesting friends, he was talking about Jesse and possibly Ten.”

“But Jesse hadn’t blown up when you met al Fareed.”

“That’s my point exactly. ‘Business is always war.’ He said that and that I shouldn’t get caught in the middle. He was specifically talking about the king of Loa Mali at that point. We never figured out who paid Eli Nelson to blow up Kamdar’s first experiments with green energy. That explosion should have set him back years.”

“You think it could have been al Fareed.”

“I think it’s bigger than that.” The lines were starting to be drawn in her head, faint at first, but getting stronger. “I need to think about it for a while.”

She needed to think about al Fareed and The Collective.

How had he known where Jesse’s unit was going? It hadn’t been a random IED that took them out. There had been nothing random about any of it.

That unit was headed back in from a mission. She needed to talk to Jesse. He was the only one left who could tell her anything.

The thought made her sick, but she had to tell Jesse the truth. He needed to know.

“Are you all right?” Simon looked down at her. “You went pale.”

She shook her head. “I’m good. Let’s do a quick turn through the tea and then head up for the night. The al Fareed brothers will be in the oil meeting hatching all sorts of nefarious plots. They won’t be at the dinner for the poor people.”

By poor people she still meant seriously rich, but the men who would be in the private meeting were the world’s wealthiest oilmen.

Was it also a meeting of The Collective?

She followed Simon out, her thoughts running amok. It was like this when she was considering a puzzle. Chaotic at first. It was hard because there was so much information and she had to sift through, to sort it into something that made sense.

How had the senator’s aide known Ten’s middle initial?

How had al Fareed known about Kamdar’s “friends” before Jesse had outed himself? Now that she thought about it, he’d used words that would have a direct impact on Jesse. He’d talked about dogs and leashes, his voice becoming sharper, as though to highlight what he was saying. As though he’d known Jesse was somewhere listening to him.

And Ace. She couldn’t forget Ace. He was the link. He’d been placed, but by whom? Yes, it seemed to be al Fareed on the surface, and certainly he’d been there to do the Caliph’s bidding, but no Middle Eastern oilman could have that much influence on the Agency.

Not without help from the inside.

She was grateful for Simon because she likely would have gotten lost without him. She didn’t really see where she was going. She saw the puzzle in front of her.

“Have a seat.” Simon held out the chair for her. “I’ll get us some tea. We’ll put in an appearance and then we’ll leave. Don’t move.”

He walked toward the elegant buffet.

“Well, well, if it isn’t the whore from last night,” a low voice said.

She looked up and there was her old friend Albertson. He was dressed in a perfectly cut suit, his hair slicked back, and a ten thousand dollar watch around his wrist. Still, his eyes told the tale. They were bloodshot and tired. She started to stand because there was zero point in arguing over his opinion of her. “I’ll excuse myself since you can’t seem to be a gentleman.”

He reached out, catching her elbow. “I might have been a gentleman if you and your friend hadn’t drugged me. Did you think I wouldn’t catch that, bitch?”

“Since I did nothing of the sort, no, I didn’t think you would. Let go of my arm.” She glared back at him. “As drunk as you were last night, I’m surprised you remember me at all.”

His lips curled in a sneer. “You were counting on that, weren’t you? Too bad you were working with a pro. I’ve had far more to drink and still managed to fuck some dumb bitch and maintain my memory of the encounter. I’m not stupid. You tried to roll me last night. Since my wallet was in place, I have to think you’re looking for something else.”

“Hey, take your hands off her. Now.” Theo moved in, his big shoulders encased in a suit. Despite the well-tailored look, there was no way to mistake him for anything but muscle.

Albertson let go of her arm and stared for a moment. “Shit. For a minute I thought you were…” His face went red and he held his hands up as though giving in. “Hey, the lady and I were just talking. No big deal. She needs to understand that when she plays with fire, she’s going to get burned. But then you should know all about that.”

Theo stared at him. “Why would I know about that?”

“You’re old enough to know that a man can lose the things he loves the most, the places he feels most comfortable in if he doesn’t know when to back off or who to be friends with,” Albertson said pointedly.

Theo’s eyes narrowed. “Is that right? You want me to deliver a message to my brother? Because that’s sure what it fucking sounds like.”

“I don’t even know who you’re talking about,” he replied with a smile that belied his words. He was enjoying playing with them.

“It’s okay,” Theo promised, taking her by the elbow and gently bringing her to his side. “You might not know who he is, but I promise you, he knows who you are. Tell the senator hello from a lowly bodyguard. And if you come near her again, I’ll cut your balls off and make a toy out of them for my cat. I don’t actually own a cat, but if I have your balls dangling on a piece of string, I’ll get one just for the pleasure of watching it bat your boys around. Am I understood?”

Albertson took a step back, but he didn’t take his eyes off her. She could feel him watching her as Theo walked toward Simon.

“I suppose I can order us tea for the suite.” Simon sighed and put the cups down before walking toward the elevators.

“You sound a lot like your brother,” Phoebe told Theo as the doors closed.

“I guess the ability to threaten a man runs in the family,” Theo replied. “He was an asshole and he was lying. He thought I was Ian. I talked to Ian last night. He says he doesn’t know who this guy is.”

“I don’t think he’s our problem. I am interested in his boss, though.” The doors opened again and she heard Ten shouting.

She picked up the pace, shoving through the door that led to their rooms.

“Listen to me.” Ten was red in the face, his boots ringing on the marbled floors. “You don’t understand what I’m doing here.” His head turned down and a low growl came out of his mouth. “You can’t…yes. I understand. Yes, sir. By morning. Good-bye.”

“What was that about?” Jesse looked up from his seat next to Hutch.

Ten locked eyes with Phoebe and she could see the beast that was always just under his surface. She watched as he subdued it and shoved it back down. When he spoke he was calm again, though his words were clipped, his annoyance plain. “We’ve been recalled to DC. Hutch, shut her down. We’ve got to be packed and ready to go. They’re sending a plane to pick us up early tomorrow morning.” He turned back to Simon. “Agency only, man. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“What?” Phoebe shook her head, trying to wrap her mind around the words. “Why would they call us in? Who called us in?”

“The executive director. He’s revoked my privileges. All operations under my command now have to be approved. I’ve been demoted and if I don’t show up in DC tomorrow, I’ll be fired.”

It was so much worse than being fired. “They threatened to disavow you?”

He nodded sharply. “You know what that means.”

It meant that Tennessee Smith would cease to exist. He would have no name, no passport, no home or bank accounts in the United States. He would be a ghost.

Ten turned to Jesse. “I swear to you, I’m going to figure out what’s going on and we’ll handle the Caliph. If I have to have the fucker assassinated, I will. But I have to find out what’s going on first.”

“I think it’s the senator,” Phoebe said. “I think somehow he’s working with al Fareed.”

“Proof?” Ten asked.

She shook her head. “I have a whole lot of conjecture, but I need to know who recommended Ace. I was right about that. He couldn’t have made it on an Agency black ops team without some serious recommendations. Who was it?”

Hutch turned to his keyboard and his hands flew across it. He sat back and then tried again. “What the fuck? Boss, I don’t have access to those records. What the hell? I’ve got the security clearance. Why am I blocked?”

She exchanged worried glances with Ten. They weren’t just being called back. Ten’s job was on the line and he was about to have his life picked apart by bureaucrats because he’d stepped into something none of them understood yet. Phoebe made her own command decision. “Simon, get your wife on the phone or better yet, get Adam. They could be watching Chelsea. Her job is on the line, too.”

Simon snorted, an oddly elegant sound. “She doesn’t particularly care one way or another. If the Agency fires her, she’ll just go to work for Tag. I’ll call Adam as well. We’ll have an answer soon.”

Jesse stood up. “I’ll start looking for flights for me and Si and Erin.”

There was something about the way he said it that made her wary. Already, they were splitting up. Hutch and Theo were moving toward each other, talking in low tones. Simon walked out of the room. Erin and Jesse exchanged a glance.

“You’re not going to leave, are you?” Phoebe asked.

Jesse’s jaw went stubborn. “I don’t have to answer to the Agency. I answer to Ian Taggart. We’ll see what he says. I suppose you’ll be on that plane.”

What did he expect her to do? “I would think you of all people would understand the chain of command, Jesse. I was ordered by my superior officer to return to base.”

He stared for a moment as though he could imprint his will on her. “You can choose. You don’t have to work for them. This isn’t Ten telling you what to do. This is someone with an obvious agenda. They are working against our mission.”

“Those people you’re talking about run the CIA.”

“Oh, and there’s never been corruption there. Now who’s being naïve, Phoebe? You want to be on that plane, I don’t think I can stop you. Erin, go talk to Kamdar. Explain what’s going on. We still need his cooperation in order to continue.”

Erin nodded and like the good little soldier she was, trotted off to do his bidding.

“They can’t stay,” Theo said, his eyes widening when he realized what was going on. “They don’t have any backup. They don’t have anyone who can help them out if they get into trouble. If they get arrested, the government won’t do a damn thing about it. She can’t stay here.”

Phoebe kept her eyes on Jesse. “He has a point.”

Jesse shrugged. “I never expected the government to help me out anyway. What I do have is Ian Taggart, and I assure you he won’t leave my ass in a prison for months and months. We’re not the Agency. We don’t take our time or wait for the right political situation. We don’t leave our men behind.”

His words hit her squarely in the gut.

He’d been left behind. In essence, she’d left them both there, Jamie to die and Jesse to be tortured.

“We looked. Do you think we didn’t look for you?” The question came out on a shaky breath as every one of her insecurities bubbled to the surface. All the guilt she’d started to toss out settled over her again.

Jesse took a step toward her. “I’m talking about the present, Phoebe. Not the past. You are so damn caught up in the past, I should have known what you would think.”

She turned and walked away. She couldn’t have this argument with him. Not when she was leaving and he seemed determined to destroy himself. It struck her quite forcibly that she could lose another man she loved to that animal because Jesse couldn’t think straight about this. He couldn’t control himself. Last night had proven it. He needed to step back and let Ten handle it.

Did she just think that word? Did she put that word into her head? Love? She couldn’t love him. She couldn’t save him. Hell, she hadn’t saved Jamie. She didn’t even deserve a chance with Jesse. She just didn’t.

“Hey, Phoebe. Stop.” Jesse followed her into the hallway.

She couldn’t face him. Her carefully constructed walls were rotting at her feet. She was the reason Jesse was here now. If she’d been better at her job, he would likely be back in Dallas, going on with his life.

She killed the men she loved.

Her chest was far too tight as she opened and closed the door to the bedroom. She needed time. The lock clicked into place and she looked down at the way her hands were shaking. She was caught. Trapped, just like when she’d been a kid and she knew something was wrong but she couldn’t do anything. No one wanted to hear her cry. It made things worse. She needed to cry, but it was stuck inside. Everything was ending. She was losing Jesse and maybe her job, and she might cost Ten his. She wanted to wail and punch and fight and all she could do was try to drag a breath in.

“Phoebe?”

She couldn’t right now. She stayed silent. He would get the hint. Maybe in an hour or so she would be able to face him with some hint of dignity.

How could she walk away from him? How could she fucking not?

“Baby, I need you to step back,” Jesse said. “Do it. Now.”

The door came crashing open and there he was, rebalancing himself after kicking the damn door in. His shoulders were squared and his jaw formed a hard line as he stepped inside.

“What did you do?”

A stern look lit his face as he walked in and shut the door as best he could. “I told you. No more doors between us.”

“There’s going to be a couple thousand miles between us by tomorrow. You planning on kicking their asses, too?” He wanted to be the tough guy? She could do that, too. She’d practically written the book on how to bury what she was feeling deep.

So why was her every emotion simmering right under the surface?

“Stay with me.”

She couldn’t do that. She couldn’t watch him put himself in the Caliph’s orbit again. “Come with me.”

His eyes held a steely will as he towered over her. “Marry me and I will.”

“What?”

He stepped forward, getting into her space. “I meant what I said. Marry me and I’ll follow you. Marry me and I’ll quit if that’s what you want. I’ll find another job. Hell, I’ll try college or something.”

She stared up at him, not quite sure she’d heard him correctly. “You love your job.”

His hand came out, his fingers brushing across her cheek. “I love you more, Phoebe. So give me a reason to walk out of here with you. I’ll pack us up and we can sleep at the airport. I’ll be the first one on the plane.”

He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t leave McKay-Taggart. She couldn’t ask him to do that. “You love your team.”

“I do. I love you more.” He said it so simply, as though the words didn’t threaten to change the course of her life.

She started to turn away. “I can’t.”

He gripped her elbow, hauling her back. He pulled her close, not giving her an inch of space. “Then I’ll take what time I have. Until you step on to that plane and out of my life, you belong to me. You’re fucking mine. Nothing comes between us. Not your brother. Not the Agency. Not that ghost you keep holding on to. Tonight, you’re mine and you’re going to obey every command I give you, and the first one is take those damn clothes off and get on your knees.”

Her breath hitched. “I can’t.”

His head dipped, his lips hovering above hers. “You can. You think I don’t know what you need? You think this is all for me? It’s not. You’re on the edge. You need an excuse to cry, to let go, and I’m going to give you one. I would do this for the rest of our lives. I would take care of you, but you won’t let me so I have one last night to love you. My way.”

“I can’t love you, Jesse. Not like you deserve, but you should know that I will miss you every second of every day.”

“Every second of every day I want you to remember this.” He pressed his erection against her, moving until his hard cock rode right against her clit. “Remember every second that you could have had a man who worshipped you with his body and soul. You could have had a man who thought of you all the time, who put you first.”

“I don’t deserve that.”

He breathed a sigh and his eyes softened a bit. “And there is the real problem. I’ll show you that you’re wrong about that, too. On your knees.”

Hands shaking, she dropped to her knees, ready to give him everything she had.