It took almost fifteen minutes to pass through the layers of security, but finally Miranda was shown to an office with two men who stood when she entered. One was tall and handsome with salt-and-pepper hair and a fierce expression. The other was also tall and handsome, but somehow friendlier looking.

She would know which was which even without the name tapes on their uniforms because Sam had briefed her about Mendez. She hadn’t been wrong. The man was the epitome of the word badass. Not the sort you’d want to cross, that’s for sure. No wonder Sam had declined to come inside.

“Agent Wood,” Colonel Mendez said, reaching out to shake her hand. He didn’t squeeze it like he would a man’s hand, and for that she was thankful. What was it with men who thought they had to squeeze the daylights out of a woman’s hand, anyway?

“Colonel,” she replied. She knew they knew her real name, but clearly they’d decided to go with her cover identity. She could roll with that.

The other man also shook her hand. “Welcome, Agent Wood. I’m Alex Bishop.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” she said, because even though this man was a lieutenant colonel, technically a rank below Mendez, the appropriate form of address in an informal situation was still colonel. She’d learned that working with the military in foreign embassies and bases around the world.

Mendez sat on one of the chairs arranged around a coffee table, and Lieutenant Colonel Bishop followed suit. Which meant she did as well.

Her heart thumped a bit, not because she was scared, but because she kept thinking about the moment she had to face Cody again. They would have told him she was alive, of course, which meant he’d had some time to think about it by now. But what was he thinking?

“I’m not going to prevaricate with you, Agent Wood. I don’t want you on this mission. But Ms. Spencer seems to think you need to be here, so here you are. You need to know, however, that you will obey orders as if you’re an active-duty soldier assigned to this organization. Any failure to comply and you’ll be sitting out the mission on the forward base we launch from. Is that clear?”

Damn, this man was harsh. Scary, intense, and yeah, even sexy in that way dominant men had. This dude was alpha dog all the way.

“Clear as rain, Colonel. I want my life back. The only way to get that is through Victor Conti. If that means taking shit from a bunch of military top-dog assholes to get it, then I’m your girl.” She smiled to soften the blow even while she cursed herself six ways to Sunday for taking the chance. She didn’t need to piss this guy off. Not now. Not before she’d even set foot in Africa.

Mendez barked a laugh. It was so unexpected that she flinched before she could stop herself. She hoped he hadn’t seen it. She glanced at Alex Bishop. He was grinning, though trying to hide it behind his hand. He lifted a brow at her, and she knew he’d seen her jump.

“You can take the shit or shovel the shit, I don’t care which it is so long as you follow orders and don’t cause trouble for my SEALs. But this operation is dangerous, Agent Wood, more dangerous than you or your handler perhaps realize. We’ll do our best to make sure you come back, but there’s no guarantee.” He paused for a long moment, and she felt the blood rushing in her veins. “Now, if you’d like to stay home, I can arrange that. Ms. Spencer doesn’t even need to know.”

Miranda refused to let him see how annoyed she was at the suggestion. She smiled as warmly as she could manage. She wasn’t giving up. Not now. Not ever. This man would know that by the end.

“No, thank you. I’m going.”

“Then we’ve got no time to waste.” He looked at his watch. “There’s a mission briefing in half an hour.”

He stood. This time she didn’t move. “Colonel…” Her pulse quickened.

“Yes, Agent Wood?”

“Cody… will he be on this mission as well?”

“He will. He’s a professional though. And he’s been told your death was a ruse. He understands why it had to happen.”

“I… uh, I’d like to talk to him. Before everything gets crazy, I mean. Is that possible?”

Mendez glanced at Alex Bishop. Something must have passed between them because Alex said, “I’ll get him, sir.”

Once he was gone, Mendez gave her a hard look. It wasn’t unfriendly, but it wasn’t warm either. “It was a damned rotten thing to do, though I’m as much at fault as anyone because I went along with it.”

“It wasn’t my choice. I was following orders.” She hoped he understood the significance of that statement. She’d followed orders. She would follow orders even when she didn’t like the order. Because she wasn’t stupid and she was well trained. As well trained as his people, even if he didn’t think so. “If I had it to do over… Well, I’d still follow orders, but I’d fight harder for a different way.”

He nodded. “Good to know. I understand you wanting to talk to him, but don’t be surprised if he’s unwilling to forgive you for it. McCormick’s a good SEAL. He thought he was helping you. He’s not going to be happy about being deceived, no matter the reason for it.”

Miranda swallowed the knot in her throat. Why did she care so much? He was nothing to her. They were nothing to each other. They’d had sex. That was it. And yet the thought of Cody looking at her with contempt— Well, that managed to make her feel rotten.

“I understand, Colonel.”

He studied her for a long moment. “I hope you do, Agent Wood. I sincerely hope you do.”

* * *

Cody stopped outside the conference room door. Miranda was inside. Miranda, the woman he’d thought was dead for the past six weeks. The woman he’d thought he’d failed. She was fucking alive. She’d faked her own death. With the help of Samantha Spencer and the CIA, she’d faked it right there in the desert and left him to deal with the consequences.

Oh, he knew she’d been told to do it. That Samantha had the idea Miranda needed to be dead to smoke out the mole. But fucking hell, she’d never thought once about telling him what was going down?

Not fair, Cody. She was obeying orders.

Yeah, fuck. Orders. He knew all about tough orders. And yet he’d thought maybe there was something more between them. Some level of trust that meant they had each other’s backs. He didn’t know why he’d thought that, come to think of it. She’d never once given him any reason to believe he could trust her. She’d been vulnerable that night at the safe house. She’d told him about her childhood, about Mark Reed. And then she’d melted in his arms.

No reason to think there was trust between them.

A wall of anger built inside him, swelling outward, threatening his cool. He had half a hangover and he was cranky as hell. He didn’t bother knocking. He simply twisted the knob and pushed the door in. A woman whirled toward him. She was standing near the far wall, her fingers clenching a cup of water. For a moment he couldn’t believe it was her. She had red hair, not gold. Shoulder length, not the long locks she’d had before. Her eyes were green instead of whiskey-gold.

But the face was Miranda’s. The line of her jaw, the slight tilt of her nose. The plump, pink mouth with the little bow in her top lip.

She blinked at him, her chest rising and falling a little faster than normal, or so he thought. Her lips were parted ever so slightly, as if she wasn’t sure what to say now that they were face-to-face. She wore a white button-down and black slacks. She looked like a fucking government agent.

She is a government agent.

“Hi,” she said softly, her voice quavering just a fraction. Those pink lips parted in a smile. He hardened his heart as he stared at her. Because, fuck, he wanted to take her in his arms and hold her tight. He wanted to bury his face in her hair and squeeze her to him.

The last time he’d seen her, she’d been bleeding out on an Arizona dirt road.

Except she hadn’t been bleeding out at all. Fake blood. Capsules fired from a modified gun at close range. Remembering how empty and helpless he’d felt, and that it had all been a ruse, helped to keep his anger alive in that moment.

“I’m glad you aren’t dead,” he said coolly.

She swallowed visibly. “I’m glad too.”

Her tongue darted out to lick her lips, and his groin tightened. Fucking hell, no way. It wasn’t fair.

“I’m sorry, Cody. I did what I was told—but I hated it.”

“You didn’t hate it enough to tell me the truth.”

“That’s not fair. I was obeying orders. I couldn’t tell you the truth.”

He snorted as he stalked into the room. He kept his hands shoved into his pockets just in case he was tempted to reach for her. “I went out of my way to help you, Miranda. I was ready to fight for you.”

Her brows drew low for a second. “Don’t lie to me, Cody.”

“Like you lied to me?”

She took a step forward, then halted abruptly. Her face twisted in anger and pain. “You were going to take me in! You’d been ordered to do it, and you would have done what you were told to do. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t. Don’t you dare tell me you’d have disobeyed a direct order from that very scary colonel you call a boss.”

It was his turn to swallow. “I wasn’t going to abandon you. I told you I’d help clear your name, and I meant it.”

She scoffed. “You’d have done what you were told, the same as I did. Don’t try to tell me otherwise. You got a call that morning, just like I did. You didn’t tell me what it was about. You didn’t tell me you’d been ordered to turn me over to Sam at the Vegas airport.”

He gritted his teeth. “I was working on it. There was still time.”

She set the cup down and folded her arms beneath her breasts. Those lush breasts with the thick, gorgeous nipples he’d sucked until she’d squirmed and cried out beneath him.

Goddamn. Don’t think about that.

Because thinking about it made the blood rush to his cock.

“You would have come up empty-handed, cowboy, and you know it. There was no way out. For either of us.”

He swore. And then he glared at her. “I watched you fucking get shot to death out there, Miranda. Even if I’d taken you in as ordered, you’d have been alive. I wouldn’t have spent six weeks living with the memory of your death or the fact I couldn’t save you. Do you have any idea how hard that was? How much I blamed myself for not preventing you from walking out in front of the truck like that?”

He thought for a second her eyes were glittering. Tears? But then she sucked in a breath and picked up her water again. She took a sip, her eyes downcast. When she finished, she fixed him with a green stare that was more than a little bit disconcerting. Miranda’s eyes but not Miranda’s eyes.

“I can’t fix that, and I’m sorry. But we both know how this game is played. We know what we are, Cody. I did what I had to do the same as you would. The same as you will. We’re warriors in a fight bigger than we are. We adapt and improvise, and we hopefully come out alive. I want Victor Conti, and I want to know who betrayed me. That’s why I’m here. I hope we can work together and that this won’t be a problem between us.”

He could only gape at her. A problem between them? She’d fucking pretended to get shot in front of him, and now she wanted to just sail on as if it was simply something that had to be done?

He closed the distance between them because he was furious, because he couldn’t quite stop himself. Because he wanted a reaction, goddammit. He wanted her to flinch, to blink, to do something. Anything. She took a step back as he loomed over her. Her pulse throbbed in her neck. That satisfied him.

It also made him angry with himself. What kind of man was he that he used his size and strength to intimidate a woman?

He rocked back on his heels and gave her space. He didn’t miss that her gaze darted to his chest—and lower. For a fraction of a second, she glanced at his groin. But then she met his eyes evenly, her green ones somber and resigned.

“I hate those fucking contacts,” he growled because he couldn’t say any of the other things he wanted to say. “They aren’t you.”

Her breath hitched. “I think that’s the point.”

“The hair is hot though.” Now shit, where had that come from?

She dropped her gaze. “Thanks. I hated cutting it—but it’s just hair.”

“Where did they send you?” he asked, trying to cut through the mire of feelings rolling through him.

“Luxembourg. I spent time tapping into Victor’s banking files. He’s been transferring a lot of money to Jorwani.”

Cody frowned. “I’d have thought it was the other way around. Okonjo had to get his guns from somewhere.”

If he stared hard enough, he could almost see the whiskey color of her eyes beneath the green. Though he was probably only fooling himself. She wouldn’t look at him for long though. A few seconds and then her gaze would dart away again.

“Yes, we all thought that. But the money is definitely transferring in. He’s buying something.”

“Any thoughts on your mole?”

Her gaze whipped to his again. Her lips parted. And then she shook her head. “He or she is very careful. Not a peep in weeks.”

“Until Conti fled the country.”

“Right.”

There was a knock at the door. Cody went over and jerked it open. Money stood there with a sober look on his face.

“Been sent to fetch you both. We’ve got our orders. Bugging out in six hours.”