“And you’re what?” She was frowning, making him want to lean down and kiss her until she smiled again. She’d wrapped her arms around her body and her soft, sweet-smelling sweatshirt—probably to keep herself from beating the crap out of him. “My hero? Ready to rescue me from my own feeble mind and the danger I can’t escape by myself?”
His recklessness as an agent had ruined her ability to trust his feelings for her, but he refused to let it destroy her chances to seize her freedom from the grasp of both her nightmares and her stalker.
“I’m your partner,” he promised, “from here on out. If you don’t want to deal with us once you’re free, I can’t make you. But you have to work with me against your stalker. Don’t throw away your chance to finish this, no matter the risk.”
“I’m a fairly risk-averse person.”
He raised an eyebrow instead of saying no shit. “Then tell me how to improve your odds. What do you need? You want to know all I know? Done. What else? You really want to stop what’s been happening to you? Let’s get down to business.”
“Now?” Shaw met his challenge with an unblinking gaze. “You said Dawson could have a team here in two hours. What can we do in so little time?”
“We can end this once and for all.”
“We?” Doubt in him, in them, dimmed her beautiful eyes.
“If you’ll work with me, yes.” He held out his hand to shake, as she had yesterday. The part of him that wasn’t an agent, the lover inside him who’d worshipped her body just a few hours ago, was desperate to pull her into the shelter of his embrace and beg her to refuse. “Partners?” he made himself say.
“Partners?”
“We’ll both be there when he shows himself.” Cole’s fingers itched to be holding his Glock. He was going to take the bastard down, but not before he gathered evidence and made the man suffer for everything he’d put Shaw through. “I’m not your father or your brother, who didn’t give a rat’s ass about you. I’m not Dawson or anyone else on the task force. This is me. I’ll protect you, like I always have. If you can’t believe anything else, believe that. No more giving up. Let’s finish this.”
Shaw sighed.
She stared down at his hand, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.
Then slowly, agonizingly slowly, she reached out and shook.
Chapter Seventeen
“How is all this going to fly with Dawson?” Shaw asked Cole, half an hour into their truce. “Or the people you answer to at the FBI?”
Sitting on his couch, they’d worked through their plan to flush out the monster from her nightmare. And somewhere during that process, she’d accepted how much she would always love this man who was once again protecting her. Amnesia or not, her mind had chosen Cole. When nothing else had made sense, she’d believed in him and in what she’d thought they were becoming together.
He hadn’t believed in return. How could he have and not told her the truth about himself and his assignment? Sure, he seemed to regret what he’d felt he’d had to do to protect her. And she was less inclined at the moment to throttle him with her bare hands. But how did she begin to trust in them again, when they’d once more failed so spectacularly?
Still, from the start, he’d been the calm center in her nightmare’s storm. Damn the dangerous omens that had been swirling around them, she’d gravitated toward him because he had believed in her. He’d helped her get stronger and believe in herself. And now he was demanding that she rise to his challenge again and work with him one final time. He was treating her as an equal, as the strong woman she wanted to get back to being. He was giving her the chance to end this on her own terms.
She’d wanted to hug him and whisper thank you into his ear. She wanted to sit with him for the rest of the night and ask a thousand questions, now that the lies between them were gone. She wanted her friend back, her lover, her soul mate—at least the soul mate she’d thought he’d been, someone who could give himself fully and trust the person he loved with his whole heart.
Instead, they’d retired to neutral corners. The energy between the two of them was finally clean. Their defenses were down for the first time. They’d focused on what they’d both learned how to do so much more successfully than they’d learned how to love—business. Her exit strategy from her troubles with her stalker and the U.S. government, and most likely from Cole’s life, was solid. Well, as solid as a sting to catch a madman could be.
Cole was determined to gain the upper hand against the maniac who was viciously destroying her career and her life for reasons she didn’t understand. She couldn’t imagine there was anything in the world sexier than this powerful, driven man. She’d never wanted him more. But what did he really want? He’d never said he loved her. He knew she wouldn’t believe him now if he did. But he was still there, fighting for her, making her long to keep him with her forever.