He slanted his gaze her way, looking utterly sexy wearing dark sunglasses. “With the girls, you mean.”
She propped her feet up on the balcony railing. “You’re kind of possessive with your women, aren’t you?”
He turned his head to stare out over the balcony. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You made it clear you don’t want me fraternizing with other men. Are you always like this with women you fuck?”
He paused for a few seconds before answering. “No.”
Honesty. Interesting. “Then why are you like that with me?”
“Because you’re different than most women I fuck.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Just . . . different.”
She tried to keep her smile at bay, but couldn’t. “I see.”
“What do you think you see?”
“Nothing. Are you as confused about our relationship as I am, Spence?”
“We don’t have a relationship, Shadoe. We’re having sex. It’s great sex. We’re mission partners. When the mission is over, the partnership and the sex will end.”
She wouldn’t be hurt by that unemotional statement, because she knew he was trying to convince himself as much as her. “That’s what I keep telling myself. So why does it feel like more than that?”
“Maybe it does to you.”
“And maybe it does to you, too.” She stood. “I’m hungry. Let’s go grab something to eat.”
She left him on the balcony, refusing to turn around to see if he’d follow. If he didn’t, she intended to eat downstairs at the restaurant. She didn’t care. She was hungry and she wasn’t going to wait around to see what kind of mood he was in.
By the time she opened the door to the room, he was on her heels to close it behind them both. She marched to the elevator and jammed the button.
“You’re in kind of a snit this morning.”
The doors whooshed open. She stepped inside and jammed the Lobby button. “I’m not in a snit.”
“Yeah, you are. What’s bugging you?”
She stared straight ahead. “You are.”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t know.” Yes, she did.
“As far as I know I haven’t done anything—yet this morning—to piss you off.”
She turned to him. “Denial, Spence. This whole thing between you and me is just as confusing for me as it is for you. I know we don’t have a future together.”
The doors opened and two couples stood there.
“I know it’s just sex between us.”
She turned to the couples gaping at her. “Wait for the next one. I’m talking here.”
They stared, wide-eyed, while Shadoe leaned in and pressed the button to close the elevator doors. She tilted her head up to Spence, who had started smiling. When she glared, he held up his hands in surrender.
“You’re on a roll. I’m not about to stop you.”
“Yes, there’s sex between us. But there’s more. I know it and you know it.”
“Like what?”
She inhaled, let it out. “I don’t know. And that’s what makes me crazy. We’re so alike, you and I, even though you deny it.”
“We’re nothing alike.”
The doors opened at the lobby. Glad for the fresh air and the space, she walked out and turned to him. “You know, you’re absolutely right. We are nothing alike. Because I see the truth where you can’t.” She walked away.
He grabbed her arm. “Where are you going?”
“I need to be alone.”
“No.”
“Don’t tell me no. You’re not my keeper.”
He leaned in. “No, but I am your partner.”
“Which doesn’t mean that I can’t go enjoy a meal by myself. Give me some space, Spence. I need some time to myself.”
She jerked her arm away and walked out the front doors of the lobby, turned right, and headed up the street, not really knowing where she was going. But it was the French Quarter and restaurants were abundant. Within three blocks, she’d found a little café where she treated herself to a latte and a beignet, which she ate and drank inside the air-conditioned shop at one of the tables by the window. She enjoyed the bustle of tourists walking by as well as the time alone with her own thoughts.
She’d certainly had a classy temper tantrum back at the hotel, hadn’t she? And for what purpose? Because Spence didn’t see things the same way she did?
That shouldn’t come as a surprise to her, because he was right. They weren’t alike. They didn’t see the world in the same way. They didn’t come from the same background. The way she thought about their relationship may be entirely different from the way he thought about it. Which didn’t make her right and him wrong.
She was getting too emotional, too wrapped up in thoughts of Spence the man instead of Spence the partner.
That would have to stop.
This was her first mission. She’d have to concentrate on acting more like an agent, and less like a . . . woman.
Exactly the type of thing her father would accuse her of. That she was weak, emotional, that she couldn’t possibly hold up to the stresses and strains of a government job like a man could.
Bullshit.
She could do it, could separate her emotions from the job. The first thing that would have to go would be the sex. Too bad, because she’d really started to enjoy that part, figured it wasn’t harming anyone, wasn’t hurting the case, and in fact probably enhanced it. After all, she and Spence were supposed to be lovers. What better way to build on their cover than to actually act like lovers?
But she obviously wasn’t going to be able to f**k someone she worked with and keep emotion out of the equation, so the sex was going to have to go out the window in favor of concentrating on her job. The last thing she wanted was to bomb her first assignment and ruin her career, all because she thought with her pu**y and her emotions instead of her head.
And if she got any more wrapped up in Spence, that’s exactly what might happen.
Firmly resolved to make changes in her relationship with Spence, she finished up the last of her latte and went outside. The rev of a motorcycle engine behind her caught her attention. She turned and saw Spence parked on the corner.
She walked over to him. “Did you follow me?”
“Of course I did. I had to find you after I went to get my bike, but I drove around for a while until I saw you in the window.”
This whole resolve thing would be a lot easier if he wasn’t always around. And sitting on the bike looking sexy as hell.
“You gonna stand there and stare at me like that, or are you gonna climb on?”
With a sigh, she got on the back of the bike. Spence throttled up and rode them out of the French Quarter, headed out of the downtown area, away from the tall buildings, and across the bridge. The cool air from Lake Pontchartrain provided blissful—if only temporary—relief from the oppressive heat. He took them up north around the lake and into the woods—deep into the woods, where families lived in white trailers nestled alongside one another like refugees.
She knew what they were—survivors of Hurricane Katrina—people who’d lost their homes and everything else. They stayed and were waiting to rebuild. Some waited a very long time.
Spence pulled down a dirt road where broken trees littered the landscape. He turned off the bike, and Shadoe climbed off to take a look around. Nothing along the landscape but trees that looked like they’d been haphazardly scooped up by a giant bulldozer and shoved miles along the dirt, shredding the terrain along the way.
“Why are we here?” she asked, turning to see Spence standing on top of a mound.
“You want to know why we have nothing in common? This is why.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I grew up here.”
She whirled around, searching for a house. “Where?”
“Right where you’re standing. This used to be a mobile home park. We rented one of those dinky ones. A one-bedroom. Trevor and I slept in the living room on a sofa bed.”
She couldn’t imagine. “Where is the park now?”
“It got swept away with the flood. Everything’s gone.”
Her stomach dropped. “How do you know?”
“I came back and worked here for a while afterward. To help out.” He wasn’t even looking at her now. “I had to do something. This was my home. Now it’s just dirt.”
It wasn’t just dirt. There were memories that couldn’t be washed away. She couldn’t even fathom losing your home, everything that had once been your childhood. All those memories, gone in an instant.
She moved to him and laid her hand on his shoulder. He jerked away and pivoted to face her.
“I’m trying to make you understand, Shadoe. This was my life. Dirt as my backyard. No paved sidewalks. Not even my own room. Dogs barking. Crime everywhere. No big yellow school bus. No smiling parents. Nothing like what you had.”
Her stomach clutched in pain for the child who had been denied love and tenderness. Despite what he thought . . . she knew. And it was time she shared her side with him.
She found a fallen tree trunk and sat on it. “I had a beautiful home on two acres. I didn’t need the big yellow school bus because Daddy always drove me to school. He didn’t trust anyone else to do it, and my mother was always off doing . . . something else that she thought more important. When Daddy was on duty or for some reason couldn’t take me, Mother had one of the servants take care of me.
“Because Daddy was a high-ranking military officer, security was always an issue. It wasn’t like I could play out on the street with other kids. We lived in an isolated area. Our property had fences—tall fences that I couldn’t see out of. Only the best for my father, you know. Mother hated it. She wanted to live in the city. She was from New York, a socialite. She’d moved to D.C. after she and my dad married, thinking he’d get out of the military and make a career in law or politics, not realizing that the military was my father’s choice of career.
“She thought she could change him. But he came from a strong military background, one forged by his great-grandfather and followed by his father and his brothers. My mother, though strongwilled herself, didn’t stand a chance in changing a Grayson.”
Spence had sat on the dirt in front of her. “And you ended up in the middle of it all.”
She shrugged. “It was fine when I was at school. I managed to make a few friends.”
“Yeah, I know how that is. It only got ugly when you went home.”
“If he made her stay home, she drank. And when she drank, they argued. He didn’t want her to drink. Actually, there were a lot of things he didn’t want her to do.” She raised her gaze to his. “My father had a lot of rules.”
“For you, too, I’ll bet.”
She allowed a smile. “I broke his cardinal rule the day I was born. I wasn’t male. His brothers all had male children. He had a girl child. And, oh, how they tortured him about that. He never lived that down. I was his biggest failure and because they never let him forget it, he never let me forget it.”
Spence picked up her hand. “Most men would be thrilled to have a daughter.”
She laughed. “Marshall Grayson isn’t most men. He was always outstanding in everything he did. And he got everything he wanted.”
“Except a son.”
She nodded. “He blamed my mother for that, too.”
“Uh, doesn’t he understand how biology and genetics works?”
“It didn’t matter. He wanted to try again for a son, but for some reason my mother never got pregnant. Personally, I think she hated him and couldn’t bear the thought of having another child with him. My guess is she took birth control pills and didn’t tell him. I wasn’t an easy pregnancy, and of course I ruined her figure, or so she told me over and over again. She said she’d never want to go through that again.”
Spence rubbed her hand with his thumb. “Nice thing to say to a child.”
She shrugged. “They never said nice things. I don’t really think they were aware what they said, or that words could hurt.”
“But they still hurt, didn’t they?”
She looked down at the ground. “Yeah, they did. You allow them to hurt you for a while, until you steel yourself against the words they hurl at you so they don’t have power over you any longer.”
“Why did she leave?”
Her gaze snapped to his. “How do you know that?”
He had the decency to dip his gaze. “I peeked at your file. Figured you had read mine so I wanted to know who I was going to be working with.”
She sighed. “Thief.”
He grinned. “Well, yeah.”
Then she laughed, unable to help herself.
“Go on. Tell me more.”
“Things got ugly right after my twelfth birthday. The arguments were growing worse; my mother took more and more trips away. I remember hearing them screaming at each other one night, so I crept out of my room and hid at the top of the stairs. My father said if she was going to be gone all the time, she might as well be gone permanently. Mother said that suited her just fine, but he wasn’t going to saddle her with me, because she wanted a fresh start—without a kid as baggage. She was still young, still beautiful, and she could start over again.”
“Jesus, Shadoe.” Spence got up, moved to the tree trunk, and put his arm around her.