You Only Love Twice (4 page)

He didn’t want to live in a world where she betrayed him. He
simply didn’t.

Phoebe’s breath caught as Jesse stopped in the middle of the
sidewalk. Her hands were shaking. They never shook. She was always cool as a
cucumber when she was on assignment. She went into what she liked to call “work
mode.” The minute she’d gotten the signal that she had an assignment, her brain
shifted to a place where all of the emotional shit fell away and a cool
precision took over.

She wouldn’t admit it to Ten, but the McKay-Taggart
assignment had been difficult in a way they never could have expected. She’d
walked into that office expecting to spend her time figuring out how Taggart
worked and how he fit in with Jesse Murdoch. It should have been simple. The
workplace was often where her ops took her. She really did have a degree in
accounting. It gave her insight into money situations and that told her a lot
about the people around her. In her dreams, she’d wanted to discover they were
working for the enemy or at the very least worked against Agency and US
interests. She could safely shut them down and get Murdoch sent to Guantanamo
Bay where he belonged.

And then she’d started having lunch with Grace Taggart.

And then with Serena Dean-Miles and Eve McKay.

And she’d actually met Jesse Murdoch.

She’d gotten soft—even about Big Tag, who hid a massive
heart under about fifty miles of sarcasm. She’d seen all the pro bono work he
did. He charged the hell out of corporate clients and then turned around and
found some ex-Marine’s missing daughter for free.

She couldn’t even think about Charlotte Taggart without
smiling.

She’d gotten lost in the group, caring for their daily
troubles and woes and smiling at the way they took care of each other. It
reminded her so much of how she and Jamie and Ten had been all those years ago.

In the beginning, she’d counted the days like a prisoner
waiting for a pardon, and now she worried about the call that would end Phoebe
Graham. Phoebe Graham was klutzy but reliable. She babysat kids and held Jesse
Murdoch’s hand, and only the faintest memory of being Phoebe Grant made her
hold off on pressing her body to his, on spreading her legs and taking Jesse
deep inside so there was no space between them. Her dreams had turned from
tender reunions with her husband to finding out what it meant to be Jesse’s
sub.

She’d lost herself so deeply that getting that text had
jarred her.

She stared through the scope, wishing everything could fall
away. This was the moment when her brain should go on autopilot. Her training
would kick in and it would be like some other Phoebe did this job. No emotion.
No fear. Just the moment and a bullet for the target on the other end of the
scope.

Jesse’s arms went wide and she heard herself gasp. The door
to the balcony was open and she could hear him in the distance.

“What the fuck are you waiting for, Phoebe?” Through the
scope she could see how his eyes flared. “You want me? You want to take me out?
Do it!”

Panic threatened. He knew she was here. Jesse knew she was
here. She stared through the scope. He was standing there with his arms spread
wide, inviting her to do her job.

She couldn’t. She couldn’t shoot him. She looked through the
scope at the face she’d come to care for and knew that no matter what that text
had said, she couldn’t hurt him.

She
was thoroughly and utterly compromised
.

And he was just standing there. He was standing there making
himself a huge target. What if there was a backup? It happened sometimes.
Sometimes the person who sent the kill order would watch from nearby to make
sure his or her order was followed and to bear witness to the act.

Or to deal with failure.

Where would Ten be? What the hell had he found that would
cause him to place a kill order on Jesse? The only reason Ten would ever place
a kill order was because he feared a coming attack.

Jesse wouldn’t attack anyone. Well, not anyone who didn’t
trigger his very righteous PTSD.

Ten was wrong. Wrong. Jesse had to get out of here. He had
to hide.

Just as she was about to shove the rifle aside and run to the
balcony, there was the terrible sound of her door cracking open and a whole
bunch of yelling.

Taggart was here. Her heart started racing and she had two
choices. She could try to get away or try to warn Jesse.

She didn’t even think about it. She jumped from her sniper’s
perch and ran through the open doors, her bare feet hitting the concrete of the
balcony. She ran until she hit the railing.

“Get down! Get down!”

But she could see that he was already down, his body covered
by a man in a dark suit. Simon. His partner had done his job. Ten wouldn’t take
out Simon Weston. There would be too much fallout. She had some time to figure
out what was going on. All she had to do was get away from Taggart and get to
her brother.

“Give me one reason I don’t kill you right now,” a dark
voice said.

Taggart was right behind her. From the sound of his voice he
was still in the suite, but the door was open so it wouldn’t take more than two
or three steps for him to get to her. Once he put hands on her, it would all be
over. Shit. She put her hands in the air because she had zero doubt he would
take any reason she gave him. So she needed to come up with something really
fucking fast.

“It’s not what you think,” she said evenly. Calm. She needed
to stay calm.

“I think you’re a liar, Phoebe, and I’m going to figure out
what you’re doing here. Si, do you have that fucking maniac under control?” Tag
asked.

“He’s not a maniac.” Sometimes she didn’t like the way
Taggart talked to Jesse. Oh, she understood it on an intellectual level. It was
a guy thing, but it bugged her because Jesse wasn’t crazy and he wasn’t stupid.

“Your opinion is not needed,” Taggart said.

She could see Simon touch his ear. He was likely telling
Taggart that he would take care of things.

“You have to get them off the streets. There could be a
backup.” She wasn’t going to prevaricate or play coy. Now that she was staring
this thing in the face, she knew she’d been lying to herself for a long time.
She didn’t know what had happened in Iraq, but she couldn’t be Jesse’s
executioner and she couldn’t stand here and watch it happen either. “They’re in
danger until you get them out of here.”

She knew her career was over with that one little piece of
advice, but there was nothing else she could do.

“If you think I believe a word you say, you haven’t studied
me hard enough. Turn around very slowly. I would deeply enjoy putting a couple
of holes in you. I don’t like being played.”

Oh, but she’d enjoyed playing him. At least at first she
had. He’d been a challenge and she’d needed it at the time. She’d enjoyed
knowing things Taggart hadn’t known. She’d waited and watched for the moment
his supposedly dead wife would return and get her revenge on him.

And she’d watched as they’d fallen in love again, her heart
aching because she’d finally figured out that he hadn’t been the one to push
Charlotte Taggart away. He’d been mourning her for years.

The way she mourned Jamie.

She stared out as Simon rolled off Jesse and started hauling
him up. Jesse looked up, his eyes meeting hers.

She wanted to reach out to him, to talk to him, to beg his
forgiveness.

He turned away as Simon hauled him into the restaurant. It
didn’t escape her attention that they’d sat in that Mexican place for hours not
weeks before, and for a little while she’d forgotten why she was there. She’d
been Phoebe Graham, not Phoebe Grant, and she remembered the moment she’d
leaned over and brushed her lips against his and it had been on the tip of her
tongue to invite him to stay the night. She’d been ready to sleep with him.
God, she’d been ready to cheat on her husband.

Tears filled her eyes. She’d gotten soft here. She’d gotten
soft around their damn kids and their lives and how they took care of each
other.

“I said turn the fuck around,” Taggart barked.

It was all over now. Her life at McKay-Taggart
was done
. She wouldn’t be Phoebe Graham again. They wouldn’t
ask her how she was or invite her to lunch. They wouldn’t joke around her. She
would have to leave her little apartment.

She would have to start over and all alone this time because
she wouldn’t have Ten with her anymore. She’d been so compromised he couldn’t
trust her again.

When she managed to turn, she saw Taggart hadn’t come alone.
Her big probably-was-a-Viking-warrior-in-a-different-life boss had a SIG
trained on her, but Alex McKay had a Beretta and Jake Dean was standing behind
them. She couldn’t see what he was holding, but she was sure he
was armed
to the teeth.

Not that he needed it. Any one of the three men in front of
her could kill her without a weapon.

Unfortunately for them, she was pretty good herself, and she
only had one person in the world left who gave a damn about her. She had to
protect Ten at any cost.

She glanced to her left. The balconies were staggered. If
they were uniform, then there wasn’t a balcony under her, but there should be a
balcony one floor down and to her right. If she was wrong, she would be seeing
Main Street up close and personal, but maybe that wouldn’t be so bad either.
Maybe that would be a good way to go.

“We can do this the easy way, Phoebe,” Taggart said. “You
come back to the office with us and we’ll have a chat.”

She could guess what that chat would be about and how
friendly it would be. It would likely involve a bit of torture. She’d been in
this position before. She still had a few scars from her brief time with
China’s MSS.

Somehow she thought Taggart would be kinder. Yes, he was a
badass, but she was also female and she could play on that with him.

Or she could get the hell out while the getting was good.
She should remember how to do this. The whole first fifteen years of her life
were about survival and then she’d had respites of time. The year with
McKay-Taggart hadn’t been reality. This was reality.

She turned to her right and leapt over the balcony wall,
adrenaline pumping through her system like a freight train. Immediately to her
right was the fourth floor balcony suite. She threw her arms out, almost
missing it.

“Goddamn it!” she heard Taggart yelling.

But she couldn’t think about him right now. She barely caught
the edge of the balcony, her knees smashing into the railing. No time to think
about pain. She let it go, focusing on one thing only. She pulled herself up
and threw one of her throbbing legs over the railing, making it to the floor.
Without a second to breathe, she was on her feet again and happy that the hotel
believed in French doors. She kicked with all her might right in the middle,
where the laws of physics were on her side. The door slammed open and she ran
through paying absolutely no attention to the man and woman who were probably
really fucking shocked to have their midday tryst interrupted by an intruder.

She ignored them, the door to the hallway her only goal.
There were three men who would be following her, but she had to think about
Simon and Jesse, too. They wouldn’t stay on the sidelines, and the
McKay-Taggart group believed in communications. Taggart would have already told
his whole team that she was on the move. She needed to go out the back or find
a hidey-hole. She needed to get to the street. She could lose herself on the
street, hop on the train, and disappear into the city.

Her mind moved a hundred miles an hour as she slammed out of
the suite and into the hallway. She had no doubt one of them would be hard on
her ass. She sprinted down the hall to her right because it made more sense to
go to her left. The elevators were to her left, but she was looking for the
stairs at the far end of the hotel.

She took a turn, but she could hear someone behind her.
There was no way to mask the sound of feet beating against the floor at a dead
run.

She had to be faster. She turned on the heat, forgetting
about the ache, neglecting the pain. It was easy to forget the physical, but
the sight of Jesse putting his arms wide and yelling for her to take him out
wouldn’t go away. She ran without thought to the way her lungs burned.

She could hear the man behind her getting closer. The door
to the stairs was ahead. She saw it. She could make it. Distraction. It was
what she needed. She hit the door and then stopped, swiveling on her bare feet.
She held the door slightly open, waiting for the inevitable.

Human nature was her friend. When barreling through a door,
almost no one used his or her bodies to slam a door open. It was normal and
natural for a hand to press through first, and she used it to her advantage.
The minute she saw that hand start to slip through the door in an attempt to
push it open, she slammed her body weight against it and caught the arm with a
hard crunch. She
was rewarded
with a shout and a moan,
but she doubted she’d done more than bruise him.