Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 149641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 748(@200wpm)___ 599(@250wpm)___ 499(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 748(@200wpm)___ 599(@250wpm)___ 499(@300wpm)
The idea of having a woman like that at his side had brought him a hope he hadn’t imagined he could feel.
And then he watched her with her boyfriend.
“How’s your boyfriend?”
Her eyes rolled. “I told you Coop isn’t my boyfriend. I have never in my life so much as held that man’s hand.”
But he remembered how comfortable she’d been with the guy when they were in an actual sex club. Oh, he hadn’t even seen them together in fet wear. He’d been tied to a spanking bench during that part of the op, but there was zero way those two hadn’t gotten down.
And it burned a hole in his gut.
She wasn’t technically wearing fet wear this evening, but it could be. The evening gown had a plunging neckline and clung to her every curve. The sapphire color made her eyes more blue, her hair more electric.
He’d seen her with pretty much every hair color since they’d identified her as the mysterious Ms. Magenta, but she always seemed to come back to her eponymous color. Pink. Magenta. Hence, Maggie.
Since meeting in Australia, he’d tangled with her a couple of times, and he never knew what to expect. Was this the woman who shoved him off a plane over Mongolia or the one who saved his ass in a back alley in Bangkok?
He rather thought she did it on purpose. Always keeping him on a string, never letting him hate her or love her. Constantly keeping him in this weird place where he both hoped he would see her and dreaded the idea of working with her.
She stared at him for a moment, and the soft look in her eyes made him think she was going for seduction rather than violence tonight. “You look good, Ben.”
He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Which he hadn’t. Prepping for this op had been exhausting. He’d spent weeks identifying the man who would receive the dead drop this evening. Then naturally the Americans glommed on. He’d done all the work, but she’d secured the invitation they needed to get into the gala where the drop was taking place. “You’re talking to me again?”
She frowned. “I’m just remembering how you used one of my closest friends to prove a point? Lou could have died, you know.”
He felt his jaw tighten. It hadn’t been one of his finer moments. He’d seen a chance to prove Manny was behind the kidnapping of TJ Taggart and he’d taken it. He hadn’t meant to put Louisa Ward in danger, but he’d been there to protect her. “Somehow I think you and Cooper wouldn’t have allowed that to happen.”
She flinched slightly but covered it well. “You could have told us. You were right there in Dallas. We would have… It doesn’t matter now.”
It shouldn’t, but he still found himself moving closer. “It did matter. You didn’t believe me about Huisman. No one does.”
Manny had done an excellent job of masking his intentions. He’d “helped” Maggie’s boss and seemed like a perfectly reasonable man while Ben looked like a raging lunatic.
One slender shoulder shrugged. “Well, we believe you now, and we’ll take care of it.”
She was so fucking gorgeous standing there in the middle of Old Town. They were meeting in front of his hotel, and she seemed to light up the night around them. And he felt the white hot blaze of anger. “You think you can cut me out?”
She sighed. “I think I can’t trust you. I think I’ve spent months mooning over a man who would use one of my closest friends to prove a point.”
“I didn’t mean to.” She was being unfair. “And you’re not exactly an angel, or have you forgotten Mongolia?”
She flushed, the first sign that she felt anything about what happened that day. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.”
It was his turn to roll his eyes. “Then why did you kick me out of a plane at twenty thousand feet?”
“I didn’t kick you out.” Her arms folded under her breasts, making them even more glorious than normal. She regained her confidence and looked him in the eyes. “I simply took the last parachute. I fully expected you to follow me. Which you did.”
It had been the single most frightening experience of his fucking life, and that was saying something. He’d followed her out because the only other option had been hanging around so the bad guys could torture him before murdering him. He’d leapt out of that plane and turned his body into a bullet headed straight for her.
When he’d caught her, he’d wrapped his body around hers, looking desperately for the connection he sometimes felt when she was around. He’d clung to her and she’d…seemed to tolerate him.
It was her thing. She was hot and cold, and that was how she manipulated him.