Chapter 77
77
Rachel
During the drive to the hotel, my conversation with Sean replayed in my head on a loop.
Does this mean… that Lars could be one of ours?
MI6’s? If he is, then why the fuck don’t WE know about him? It’s far more likely he’s with somebody else.
Then why was the Division Chief so blasé about it?
I don’t know. Maybe your boyfriend’s already in their sights and they’re getting ready to pick him up, and they don’t want us mucking it up for them. All I know is, if they don’t come to you with questions, then don’t bring it up. EVER. Because I’m getting the feeling we stumbled onto something we weren’t supposed to know about.
I wanted to ask Lars point blank –
But then I recalled the other thing Sean had said:
Rachel, if there’s a fire here – and there’s a fuck-ton of smoke, so it’s looking like there’s a goddamn fire – you can’t tip him off. If he gets spooked and runs, you’re looking at a Section 36.
Treason.
No matter what Lars was mixed up in, the situation was bad – but I was supposed to pretend I didn’t know anything about it.
I wasn’t sure if I could.
Then he opened the door, and I saw his smiling face…
The face that I loved…
And all my fears began to thaw the slightest.
He kissed me, and my fears began to thaw even more as I drank him in.
He pulled back and smiled. “It’s good to see you p>
“It’s good to see you, too,” I said, trying to hold back my worries.
He pushed back a strand of hair from my face. “What’s wrong p>
Should I ask him what he’s doing?
Should I tell him what we found?
Sean’s voice answered.
You can’t tip him off. If he gets spooked and runs, you’re looking at a Section 36.
But I had to say something.
I had to let him know that I was here for him.
If that meant he got spooked and ran, so be it. I’d deal with the fallout later.
“If you were in trouble… you’d tell me, right?” I asked.
He frowned. “Yes, of course p>
He didn’t take the bait.
Time to be a little more ‘on the nose p>
“And this new job of yours… you wouldn’t ever let it affect our future together, right p>
When he answered, he sounded angry. “Of course not p>
I’d had the exact opposite effect I’d intended.
“I don’t want to fight,” I pleaded with him. “I’m just really worried p>
His anger dissipated almost immediately, and he smiled. “I love you. I promise you, this new job will never come between us p>
I exhaled deeply. I hadn’t realized how stressed I’d been until he said that.
“…okay,” I said, and gave him a shaky smile.
I had to bolt a glass of champagne to calm down. It was actually kind of funny: the badass field agent with nerves of steel, who’d killed men with her bare hands – acting like a nervous school girl because her boyfriend might be up to some shady shit.
Part of me hated that. It made me feel weak. I’d never been afraid before, except in moments where I could’ve literally died.
Why was I so afraid now?
Then I realized that before I’d met Lars, I’d never really had anything to lose.
Now it felt like I had everything to lose…
And that terrified me.
I can’t lose this.
I can’t lose HIM.
I can’t…
I CAN’T…
When we started having sex, those thoughts were interfering with my ability to lose myself in the lovemaking.
I finally just had to push them out of my mind and focus on the feeling of his gorgeous cock inside me, the sensations in my body –
It worked.
For a while, pleasure was able to blot out the thoughts.
But as we lay in the darkness afterwards, and I heard his soft breathing as he slept…
All the fear came back.
And this time, there was nowhere to hide.