It had been a long twenty-four hours since they’d escaped Pérez’s compound. Marc sat at a conference table in a secure room of the HMS Iron Duke, a British naval ship that had been in the area. Cat and Rhys sat with him. They’d been separated from Quinn almost as soon as they got on board. Blackwell had arranged a pickup, which should be arriving within the hour.

“I’m not leaving without seeing Quinn,” he told the officer who sat in the room with them. “I don’t understand the issue.”

The officer, a young lieutenant with pale skin and horse teeth, shook his head, arrogance rolling off him. “The issue, like I told you already, is that she has been confined to quarters. If she’s released, then at that point you may see her.”

“Our issue,” Cat said in a quiet voice, “is that we want to know why she’s confined to quarters.” She held up her hand when he would have said something. “If the information is above your pay grade, which it obviously is, then find someone who can answer the question.”

“Now,” Marc growled when the young man didn’t move.

“All right,” he said. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist.”

He left, and Marc waited all of thirty seconds before he opened the door to follow.

“Not waiting for permission?” Cat asked.

“Why bother when we know they’re not going to give it.”

She nodded. “We’ll keep them distracted.”

He smiled and started to prowl the ship.

It was big, but there were only so many places a guest could be confined to quarters. Marc made his way one deck below where they’d given him and the team a room to wash up in.

A solidly built young man who probably wouldn’t even be allowed to drink in the US stood in front of a door.

Bingo.

The kid stiffened when he saw Marc approaching. He didn’t want to hurt the kid, but nothing was going to stop him from seeing Quinn one last time.

“I’m sorry, sir, but this is a restricted area.”

He nodded his understanding and then yelled, “Quinn? You in there?”

A muffled voice answered from within. Then the door handle turned and Quinn appeared. She looked worse than she had when he’d carried her out. The bruising had purpled, and her face was swollen. She moved carefully, as if she were in a lot of pain. He wanted to gather her in his arms and tuck her into bed.

“You look like hell,” he said.

“Sir, you’re not supposed to be talking with the prisoner.”

Marc scowled. “Prisoner? What the fuck is going on?”

Quinn answered. “I was considered a rogue agent, remember? I have to clear my name before they’ll release me.”

“But everything on the flash drive should do that.”

She nodded. “Yes, but no one on this ship has the clearance to view the flash drive. I’ll have to wait until I get back to England.” She gave a weak smile. “At least it’s not a shoot on sight order.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“It’ll be okay, Marc. I managed to speak with Fletcher, Agent Bishop’s handler. He’s arranging for me to be released into his custody when I make it back.”

“Good,” he said. What could he say next? Anything to prolong the conversation, because he didn’t want to say good-bye.

But Quinn beat him to it. “Were you ever going to tell me Anna had survived?”

He sucked in a breath. “Shit. I forgot—”

“You forgot to mention that a woman I thought I’d left to die alone while fending off the criminals who’d tortured her was alive?” She pulled back. “I guess I shouldn’t have expected the truth from you, but…” She started to close the door.

His hand shot out, stopping it.

“Sir!” the kid said.

“Back off,” Marc snarled at him as he pushed past and into Quinn’s tiny bunkroom. It wasn’t much bigger than the bunk it held. Quinn stood nose to nose with him. Anger radiated off her.

“I told you as much truth as I was allowed at the time,” he said.

“When did you know Anna was alive?”

How could he make her understand? “It was need-to-know information.”

She crossed her arms. “You couldn’t tell me she’d survived? What about the night we—” Her gaze went to the kid in the passageway listening avidly to them.

He shut the door on the kid. “Honestly, Red, I wasn’t thinking about anything but you that night.”

She rolled her eyes. “Cut the charm. You’re not getting out of this that easily.”

And something about the way she said those words made his heart lighten, almost as if she expected him to grovel more than once, which meant she wanted to see him again.

“I will take all night to apologize to you when this is over,” he said.

She put on a smile, but her eyes dimmed, and his radar went off.

“What are you thinking, Red?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I look forward to your apologies, but I think it’s time you left.”

Oh, no. He wasn’t leaving until he’d figured out what was going on in that head of hers. “I think—”

The door swung open. Beyond the red-faced kid stood the buck-toothed officer and an older gentleman with lots of gold on his epaulets. “I believe you’re in the wrong room,” the older officer said in an I-eat-ships-for-breakfast voice. “Your ride is here. It’s time you got off the Iron Duke.”

Damn it. “This isn’t over,” he said to Quinn. He wanted to kiss her, but she stepped back.

“Good-bye, Marc.”

He refused to say the words. “I’ll see you soon, Quinn Sinclair,” he said quietly instead.

* * *

A few days later, a sharp knock woke Quinn from a nap and a young officer opened the door to her bunkroom. She struggled to stand. She ached everywhere. Her cuts and ribs had been bandaged, but it would take her awhile to heal, the doctor had said.

Awhile for her body to heal. How long would it take her heart?

She firmed her lips. It was silly to keep thinking Marc would show up again. He’d left the ship. But she couldn’t suppress the surge of hope every time someone knocked on the door.

“Follow me, please.” The officer turned smartly and strode away.

Nice of him to account for her injuries. When she stepped into the passageway, the asshole stood at the far end, tapping his foot.

Fine. She smiled brilliantly at him. No way was she letting him get to her. She followed him at her own pace—or maybe one that was a bit slower than she could actually manage.

He led her topside. She stepped on deck and squinted into the afternoon sun glinting off the ocean waves and breathed in the fresh, salty air. Wind blew her hair around her face. It had only been a few days, but being confined in a world of gray bulkheads with no access to the outside wasn’t for her. She stood still for a moment—her eyes closed, the sun warming her skin—and just breathed.

“Let’s go.” The officer jerked his chin behind him.

A helicopter, its rotors turning slowly, waited on the pad built for it. Two men in military police uniforms waited at the edge of the pad.

This wasn’t good.

Where was Fletcher?

* * *

The woman behind the desk wore a navy suit, black-framed glasses and had her blonde hair cut into a stylish bob. Her demeanor said she’d been in command for many years and was comfortable with it.

Quinn stood before the woman’s desk at attention. Susan Nelson, Damien’s boss, had yet to look up from where she flipped through a file. It had been three days since the bird had picked her up from the Iron Duke. This wasn’t RHQ Credenhill, near Hereford, where the SAS and the SRR were located. Either Fletcher had lied to her, or he had no idea where Quinn was. Either way, it didn’t bode well for her.

She again had been kept in a small, windowless room for the last few days. The woman in front of her should have been the one in custody, not Quinn. Her two guards waited outside the room to return her to her cell. Quinn’s fists tightened at her sides as she waited for Nelson to acknowledge her.

Nelson, whose scheming had caused Damien’s death.

Fuck this.

Quinn crossed her arms and lowered her chin so she could stare directly at Nelson. “Why the fuck aren’t you in prison?”

Nelson lifted her head, her eyes narrowing. “Private Sinclair—”

“Trooper Sinclair.” She’d earned the British Army’s Special Forces rank when she’d passed the grueling training and been accepted into the SRR. No way was she letting this woman take that away.

“Not anymore. You’ve been demoted because of your crimes and expelled from the SRR.” Nelson smiled at Quinn’s gasp. “It’s amazing, really, how simple it was to turn this to my advantage. You’ll be spending the rest of your life behind bars.”

Quinn’s stomach dropped, but she didn’t let her glare go. She’d go down fighting. “Too many people know. You can’t hide me away.”

The woman crossed her arms, mimicking Quinn. “Of course I can.”

A loud knock sounded and a tall, dark-haired man entered the room, his sharp features set in a cool smile. Four civilian bobbies stood in the hallway.

Nelson stood and planted her hands on her desk. “What are you doing here, Fletcher?”

This man with his dark, arrogant gaze was Ethan Fletcher, the SIS agent Anna had wanted Quinn to find. “I’ve come to arrest you, Nelson, for crimes against the Crown.”

“You can’t do that!”

His smile widened but didn’t warm at all. “Oh, but I can. I have all the evidence I need.” He waved the policemen inside. “Take her away.”

After Nelson—cursing them both—had been hustled away, Fletcher stepped back and studied her. “You’re Quinn Sinclair?”

Her heart seemed to freeze and then pound out of control. Was she going to be taken away again? She swallowed. “That’s me.”

“It’s good to finally meet you. I know your brother, Jack. He’s looking forward to seeing you.”

* * *

Four weeks later…

Quinn sat up in bed and threw off the covers. Sweat coated her skin. That dream had been intense, but then every time she dreamed of Marc, it was hot and intense. Just like him.

I’ll see you soon, Quinn Sinclair.

She was getting better at not thinking about him during the day, but her body seemed to remember him every night. She sucked in a deep breath, held it and blew it out long and steady. Her pulse slowed.

She looked around the sparse bedroom of her tiny flat. She didn’t have much in the way of things. She spent so much time training or on missions that she’d hardly been here. Her room in Colombia had shown more personality.

She pulled a pillow over her eyes to block out the blank white walls.

Marc hadn’t shown up like he’d seemed to promise on that ship. And in reality, he hadn’t actually promised anything. Her mind knew that she’d probably never see him again. It was time her body realized it too.

She was one month into her two-month leave after her extraction from Colombia. Agent Fletcher, with the help of Agent Anna Bishop, had cleared Quinn’s name and brought down the key players in the drug trafficking operation. The gossip magazines had had a field day with the story of Prime Ministerial Candidate Lowell being involved with a Colombian cartel.

Quinn had mostly recovered from her injuries and apparently Anna was recovering too. Quinn had briefly met with her in the hospital. Anna’s eyes had been haunted, though she’d smiled and thanked Quinn. They’d both decided they should get to know each other when they weren’t covered in bruises. The best part of this whole misadventure might actually be that Quinn got a friend out of it.

Quinn pulled the pillow off her face and stared at her white plastered ceiling, trying to be optimistic about her future.

At least the SRR had taken Quinn off the blacklist. Apparently her brother, Jack, wasn’t on the SAS shit list anymore, so she didn’t need to be either. That and the fact she’d helped derail a corrupt politician’s plans to be prime minister.

All good things. She tried to smile.

It meant her next assignment would probably be in the Middle East with a small detachment of her unit. It was what she wanted. Her stomach roiled at the thought of who could be in charge of her next mission.

The SRR hadn’t let her down, she reminded herself; only the corrupt sods who had wormed their way into the government. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to fully trust a politician again after this fiasco, but she could always trust her unit.

Her stomach growled. She needed breakfast. She didn’t move, though, just kept staring overhead.

Going on assignment meant she’d have no way of seeing Marc again. It was why she’d requested the full two months leave, even though a month into it she was going stir-crazy with boredom. Her friends in the unit were either on training missions or out on ops. She didn’t know her neighbors because she was hardly ever here. So she spent the days by herself. She’d wanted the full two months, though, because it postponed the finality of never seeing Marc again. But at least she was using the time to forget Marc and get her head on straight.

Sort of.

Her hands clenched around her covers. Marc was inaccessible to her, just as she was inaccessible to him. An ordinary soldier wouldn’t be able to track her down.

But if he was special operations like she suspected, surely he had access to information…

She suppressed her sigh, swung her feet out of bed and plodded to her kitchen. The operators of the SRR were some of the hardest in the world to find. No matter who he worked for, and how much he wanted to find her, it wouldn’t be easy. And honestly, she hadn’t tried to find him.

She opened her fridge and stared at the contents. Eggs. Some cheese and some wilted lettuce. She didn’t even have any sausage for a proper fry-up.

Sure, she’d searched online for Marc and found nothing, but she hadn’t dug any deeper than that. She still wasn’t sure she should find him. What would happen if they did connect? Would he feel threatened, knowing who she actually was, like so many of the other guys she’d tried to date? Or would his feelings be different, now that the danger had passed?

Besides, Canada and England were a long way from each other. Maybe it was better to leave their time together as a memory. A heady affair on a mission, something to savor in tough times.

She finally pulled the eggs out of the fridge, even though she was no longer hungry.

It was time to move on.