“You asked me to marry you.”
“And you said no.” He didn’t think he was bitter over that anymore, but maybe he was. And not necessarily because of her. If he’d married Sam, maybe he could have avoided the resounding heartbreak that came later. The woman who had come later and who had been taken away when his feelings for her were still so new and overwhelming.
Sam blew out another cloud of vapor. “I did. My bad.”
Mendez couldn’t help but laugh. “You aren’t in the least bit broken up about it either.”
She grinned. “No, I guess not. I’m just pissed off at all the great sex I could have been having if I’d said yes.”
He leaned down and kissed her, then licked a nipple while she gasped. “Look at it this way—if you’d said yes and we’d gotten married, we’d have ended up divorced and not speaking to each other. And we definitely wouldn’t be fucking now, would we?”
“No, we wouldn’t.” She brought her foot up and rubbed it over his crotch when he straightened, laughing as she discovered his hard-on. “We could go another round before you leave.”
He sighed. “Wish I could, but I got to get back.”
“You’re still worried about your operator, aren’t you? Daniels, right?”
“Yeah.” He knew Fiddler and the girl had made it to Paris and that Hawk had set them up with everything they needed. But he didn’t know what Androv was up to other than the typical intel he had on the man. He couldn’t send assets into the mix right now, and it was killing him not to be able to do so.
He’d asked Sam, but she’d been uncertain she could do anything from her end. She grabbed her robe from the bed and stood up, putting it on and belting it. Her eyes were sympathetic as she gazed up at him. “This thing with Congressman DeWitt has really got you wound around the axle, hasn’t it?”
DeWitt shouldn’t be anyone important as a junior member of the House Armed Services Committee, yet he seemed to have made it his personal mission to turn a critical eye onto everything HOT. He’d been busy whipping up interest in Congress for an investigation into HOT’s operational scope. One wrong move right now and DeWitt would have all the ammunition he needed.
Not to mention that Mendez hadn’t forgotten what Ian Black had said to him once. DeWitt… watch him closely.
“It happens with every administration,” he told Sam. “Remember when the president and the joint chiefs kept the NRO a secret from Congress back in the seventies? Now they’re paranoid about everything the Pentagon does.”
She set down her e-cigarette, put her arms around him, and hugged him tight for a second. “Let me try again, okay? I’ll see what assets we have in Paris that can help.”
He pushed her hair back from her cheek. “What do you know about Ian Black?”
She seemed to hesitate for a second, but then she frowned. “He was disavowed a few years ago. He’s gone rogue from what I understand. But how do you know him?”
Every instinct he had told him to be cautious here. If Sam didn’t know that Black was still with the agency, it wasn’t his place to tell her. “I ran into him in Qu’rim. He’s an interesting character.”
“He’s a traitor.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“You sound as if you don’t believe it.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment. “You know as well as I do that nothing is as simple as it seems in this business.”
“If the agency tells me he’s a traitor, then he is.” She picked up her e-cigarette and put it to her lips. But her fingers trembled slightly as she did so. It surprised him and puzzled him.
But he didn’t mention it. He’d learned as a Special Operator that some of the smallest things were often some of the most important. Instead, he smacked her on the ass and grinned.
“Good-bye, Sam.”
She returned his smile. “Bye, Johnny. I’ll call you if I have any news.”
IT WAS dark when Sophie woke. It surprised her that she’d slept so long, but she didn’t remember getting up even once. She went and took a quick shower, then put on the robe hanging on the back of the door. When she opened the bedroom door, she fully expected to find Chase watching television or cleaning guns.
But the room was dark and empty. She moved toward the bedroom he’d said he would take. The door stood open. She peered into the darkness, trying to make out a shape in the bed or hear the sound of his breathing.
But there was no sound, no movement. Sophie spun with a cry and rushed back into the living room. The apartment was empty. Just empty.