Shaking, Becca led the small group up the corridor toward Operations.

She’d always found the muted whisper of life support reassuring, but now, with one of her team injured and an unexpected group of armed men demanding her team’s work, the noise was eerie and unsettling.

And Ethan. If she was honest with herself, Ethan was the reason her world was thrown clear of its normal axis. The rest was just a distraction.

She twisted her watch around her wrist, attempting to divert herself from the edge of fear that thrummed through her muscles. Her mind was in free fall. What were the chances of them meeting? Millions to one. Her frizzed-out brain refused to calculate anything more precise.

She took a breath. Work was the focus she needed. Dealing with these men and getting her team home safe.

They didn’t respond to the distress call.

The knowledge bounced around in her brain like an irritating insect. Something else had brought them here. Something in the research samples they hadn’t noticed? Despite their idiosyncrasies, all of the scientists working in the habitat were damn good at their jobs. If Triton had found something that piqued their interest, someone on her team damn well knew about it.

The idea solidified in her mind. As soon as she’d confirmed the identity of Chief and his men, she’d have another look at all the most recent samples. There had to be a pretty significant reason for an armed team to be sent down in a sub to collect research that was already scheduled for uplift in five days.

Chief’s long legs quickly caught up with Becca, making the corridor space cramped. The aristocratic man with the high cheekbones was directly behind her. He hummed in a low monotone that rasped against her eardrums. She resisted the urge to look back at Ethan, having to content herself with the burn of his presence along her spine. The air was too thick, fighting against her lungs, and the sides of her vision shimmered slightly as if the room were spinning.

She took a surreptitious glance at Chief’s uniform. Black and more black. No insignia. No rank markings. Were they military? The absence of any identification suggested mercenaries. Especially if they were working for Triton. Ethan was a mercenary? She kept her eyes straight ahead while agitation churned through her bloodstream.

It’s nothing.

His words blazed through her mind. His features had been icy perfection. No emotion, no distress. His voice had been so cold. She meant nothing to him?

Dizziness washed through her. It was all she could do to keep one foot in front of the other, while her body burned as memories of Ethan heated her insides, sparking an emotional response that she’d thought long gone.

Em slipped her arm through hers. “You okay?”

Becca risked a glance over Em’s shoulder. Ethan was all hard, oiled movement embodied in black. “Yes,” she mumbled, not trusting herself to say any more.

But Em wasn’t going to be dissuaded. “You looked really cut up back there.” Her voice lowered to a discrete whisper. “The dark one, you know him, don’t you?”

There was no point in lying to Em. She’d find out sooner or later. “We were married.” The words sounded distant. Like someone else was saying them. Over the years, her personal life had become a smaller and smaller corner of her existence until the only thing that remained was her professional career. That was the facade she presented to the world. That was the way she stayed sane after…everything. It was how she got her work done and didn’t end up in a mental institution.

Em stifled a squawk. “Married?” she hissed. “You never said.”

Becca shook her head. “It was a long time ago, Em.” Heat flared across her chest and collarbone. There was no more hiding from the ghosts that’d haunted her for years. Her past had well and truly caught up with her.

“You divorced?”

Damn. “Not here, Em.” She took Em’s hand and squeezed it. “It’s all water under the bridge.”

Em’s mouth turned down in disbelief but she gripped Becca’s hand back. “I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”

Becca forced a smile that was plastic and unreal on her face, but it did the trick and Em pulled her into a quick sideways hug. “We’ll be out of here in no time,” she whispered into Becca’s ear.

But until then, he was right here. Undoing it all, hardly having spoken a word. Undoing her. Undoing everything she’d fought to become. Loosening the knots she’d bound around her heart in self-protection.

“Yes,” Becca replied. “Let’s focus on getting home.”

Em released a long exhalation. “Green grass. Yellow sunshine. Can’t come soon enough.”

Becca nodded in mute agreement, but her mind’s eye wasn’t filled with pictures of sunny days. Images of Ethan crashed through her instead. His smile first thing in the morning as he grinned at her over the coffee pot. His hands sliding up her thighs and cupping her backside while he tugged her close into his heavy warmth. His eyes winking a shared joke at her when someone said something he thought was silly. He’d always had a daft sense of humor.

Her hands knotted at her side.

This was getting her nowhere. Blood throbbed in her temples. She flexed her hands. Ethan and all the baggage he came with was her past. Nothing more. It was awkward and difficult that he was here, but they would speak to Triton, arrange evacuation for Redd, then she’d see what needed to be done about the research. Although that last bit niggled at her.

Still, the list comforted her. She sensed her feet finding solid ground once more. Her life shifting back onto the correct axis after Ethan’s stormy eyes had knocked everything off kilter. He’d demolished her heart all those years ago, and it had taken her this long to build it back up into something resembling normality. She wasn’t about to throw all that away by letting him anywhere near her damaged emotions. Not while she had a job to do.

Her hand closed on the doorframe of Operations, but she hesitated as strong fingers gripped her elbow.

Ethan.