Jason watched Tate’s face, the brief, haunted look that flashed in his eyes. He wasn’t Special Forces anymore, but some things Tate had done during his military days obviously still preyed on his mind. “You’re loaded, Colter. You have a good family. Why did you do it?” Jason wondered why someone with Tate’s privileged background would join Special Forces. In fact, Tate was the only billionaire he knew who had even enlisted in the military when they had billions of dollars in the bank.
Tate shrugged. “Because I could. I’m a damn good pilot, and I thrived on the adrenaline for a long time. We did some good things, saved some lives. It was worth it.”
Tate could be an annoyingly arrogant son of a bitch, but Jason respected him. No doubt he had saved lives. “You’re not in Special Forces anymore. What’s the excuse for not having a woman now?”
“What was yours?” Tate shot back at Jason.
“I was obsessed with Hope,” Jason admitted readily. His fixation with Hope had always been in the back of his mind every time he was with a woman. Hopefully, he could fuck that fascination away now that he had her. They’d probably be sick of each other after a day or two together.
Tate squirmed. “Yeah. Well, I guess I just haven’t found a woman worth obsessing over. Thank God,” he mumbled in a low, fervent voice.
Jason ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.” His mind was blurry from lack of sleep, and his head spun from finding out so much about Hope that he hadn’t known. Maybe finding everything out now was a good thing. Maybe the fact that she was obviously a compulsive liar and not the sweet woman he thought he knew would cure him of his compulsion to fuck her, make her his. He sure as hell hoped it would. Unfortunately, even though he was pissed, his protective instincts were still present and even stronger now that he knew she ran into danger all the time. Regrettably, he also knew the Hope he had known was still there. He’d sampled her sweetness on their one night together over the holidays, and that taste of her had just left an agonizing desire for more.
I don’t know who she is now.
“Get some rest.” Tate got up from the recliner. “Do you need anything else?”
“I have to find a way to get Hope’s cat,” Jason answered with a grimace. “Hope was only planning to be gone for a few days. I don’t know if anyone is taking care of her cat.”
“I’ll deal with it,” Tate replied nonchalantly. “I’ll drop the cat off later. It’s a short helicopter ride.” He strode to the door and opened it.
“Tate?” Jason raised his voice so Tate could hear him across the room.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t you want her address?”
Tate smirked. “I hacked her computer. I have it.”
“Keys to her condo?”
“I’ve never met a lock I couldn’t pick,” Tate told Jason arrogantly. “Later.” He closed the door behind him.
“Cocky bastard,” Jason grumbled as he went to the door Tate had just exited and locked it, although he was actually more angry with himself than he was at Tate. Colter had actually helped him reach an objective: stop Hope from marrying somebody else, a man who, most likely, cared nothing about her and had to have been sponging off Hope for years if he’d never gotten a job. His other reasons were connected to his main objective and were just as urgent, but purely selfish.
Jason tried to pacify his guilt by telling himself that Hope would end up happier in the long run, but that didn’t help him now. That damn, niggling voice inside his head was back, and he couldn’t seem to quite close the door on his emotions entirely. Granted, the voice wasn’t loud enough to stop him from doing what he needed to do, but it was annoying to have some regrets about basically kidnapping Hope, even if she had gone with him willingly, albeit completely intoxicated.
He sat back down with her computer, unable to stop himself from perusing every bit of data he could find. Tate had left the computer open, and seeking out information on Hope was just too big of a temptation. Desperate to piece together her life, he tried to fit all of the data together. Some of it made sense; much of it didn’t.
She had a lot of emails from a guy named David. Was this the mysterious fiancé? I don’t even know the guy’s name! Although, most of the emails exchanged were nothing more than meeting sites and travel plans. There was nothing romantic, and very little personal information exchanged. David was apparently in Oklahoma, from what Jason could surmise.