You Only Love Twice (6 page)

“He’s an asshole,” Adam agreed. “He’s kind of a bully, but
the dumb kind who pays really well and watches your back when you need it. I
still fucking hate him. And love him. At the end of the day, he’s my brother.
My brother whose shampoo I will change for Nair when he expects it least.”

Tag sighed and ignored Adam. “My point is, you don’t get to
do what you did. Goddamn it, Jesse, you practically begged her to shoot you.”

“And she didn’t.” She’d yelled something at him. She’d run
from her room and he hadn’t noticed a gun in her hand. He’d glimpsed her before
Simon had used his massive British body to tackle him down to the concrete.

“Well, we had broken into her room by then,” Alex pointed
out. “She used her placement on the balcony to get away from us.”

Who did she work for? His brain worked overtime, but he
could really only come up with one person. She would want to get away so she
didn’t have to admit why she was here. He couldn’t imagine Phoebe working for
The Collective. She wasn’t the type to do something bad for a mere paycheck.
He’d watched her babysit. When she picked up Carys or Tristan, she glowed in a
way a woman who was doing it for underlying reasons never could. She kissed and
loved those babies. She sang to them and held them close and when she thought
no one could hear her, she prayed for one of her own. He’d caught her walking
out of Aidan O’Donnell’s room with tears in her eyes. It was always there, that
deep well of pain he understood so well.

She didn’t work for a paycheck. She worked for a cause.

“She works for Ten.” He smoothed back her hair and noticed
the blood on her shins. Her skirt had hiked up and he saw gashes on her knees
and the lower part of her legs. “Think about it for a second and it makes
sense. He’s always hated me. She tried to run? Is that why her knees are banged
up?”

Tag’s eyes flared. “No. Ten wouldn’t.”

Alex sat back. “I don’t know. It kind of makes sense.”

“If Phoebe belongs to him, then he’s hidden it from
Chelsea,” Simon pointed out. “Though honestly, the fact that we imbedded
Chelsea with his group should lend a certain credence to him putting a spy in
ours. Think about it. She’s smart. She’s American and educated and we can’t
break her cover. That means some serious backing.”

Jesse knew truth when it struck him in the forehead. Phoebe
moved again. This time she jerked like she was having a bad dream. He cuddled
her close, trying to calm her. “She’s Agency. You can’t hurt her, Tag.”

A certain peace fell over him. Tag couldn’t shoot her and
dump her body somewhere. Jesse didn’t doubt for a second if he found out she
was a Collective agent who could hurt them all that Tag would do exactly that.
Tag could pull the trigger and not feel a moment’s regret when it came to
protecting his crew. But if Phoebe was Agency, she had a level of protection
around her.

“Why the fuck would Ten imbed a long-term operative?” Tag
let his head fall back, his eyes closing in obvious weariness.

“Me. He wanted to watch me.” There was no real reason to
watch Taggart, and Phoebe hadn’t honed in on anyone except Jesse. “He wanted to
see if they turned me. No one believes I made it out whole. I didn’t.”

“You’re not a traitor,” Simon said as he turned on to the
freeway. He would drive for a while before heading to the office again. “The
Army cleared you.”

“The Army got rid of me. An honorable discharge on the basis
of mental capacity doesn’t mean they believed me. It means they didn’t want to
deal with me anymore.”

“Jesse, no one here believes you had anything to do with the
deaths of the members of your unit. No one,” Alex said in a fervent voice.

He looked down at Phoebe. She sighed as she nuzzled his
neck. Now she got affectionate. Story of his life. “She does and so does
Tennessee Smith. Hell, so much of those months are a jumble in my head, I don’t
even know.”

Part of his torture had been using hallucinogenic drugs that
put him into a dreamlike state. When he would wake up, his chief tormentor
would try to convince him he’d done all manner of hideous crimes. He’d woken up
next to a girl one morning, her throat cut and her eyes open.

Only through working with Kai Ferguson had he come to accept
that he hadn’t killed her. Through hypnosis therapy he’d been able to remember
the truth. She’d been dead when they’d placed her in the room. Somewhere in the
daze of drugs they’d given him, he’d been able to remember the door opening.

This is a gift for you, my dog.

He felt the edges of his vision start to go dim, the way it
always did when he had an episode.

“Jesse?”

Phoebe’s voice brought him back from the edge. He took a
deep breath and let go. He wasn’t going to freak out. He didn’t have to listen
to that voice. He could listen to his own. Calm. Patient. He could be the man
he wanted to be. “Yes, sweetheart?”

The man he wanted to be was good, even to his enemies. But
damn, she didn’t feel like an enemy cuddled so close to him.

Her eyes were dazed, and it was so obvious she was fighting
the drug with everything she had. “You need to hide. Don’t know who the order
came from. Promise me you’ll hide.”

“Who are you working for?” Tag asked.

The interrogation wasn’t starting now. No way. “Back off,
Ian. I get why you drugged her, but you’re not going to use it to manipulate
her. I won’t fucking have it. If this is how you do business, then you should
let me out here and now and I’ll take her with me. She’s my problem. Mine.”

Taggart sighed. “No one lets me torture anyone anymore.
Fine. We’ll wait until she’s awake. And I can figure out if she’s one of Ten’s
really fast.” He slid his finger across the face of his cell and put it to his
ear. “Hey, Ten. I have a serious problem. I need to borrow Chelsea. Yeah,
Adam’s getting his hair done. I need her to find out all she can about Phoebe
Graham. Yes, my accountant. I’ve got her in custody. That’s really not your
business. It’s got nothing to do with the Agency. This is personal and I’ll
handle it. She won’t be a problem after today. Sure. Thanks.” He hung up.
“She’s not Ten’s. He would have fessed up because the last thing he’s going to
want is me looking into her background. Ten knows when to fold his cards and he
didn’t.”

Jesse wasn’t so sure.

“Am I going to Sanctum, boss?” Simon asked.

Tag let his head hit the side of the van a couple of times.
“Damn it, no. We can’t go to Sanctum. The cleaning crew is there and they would
definitely have questions. Besides, Charlie texted me. She ate all the ice
cream. We have to pick some up for the shower.”

“Are you serious?” Jake asked. “We’ve kind of got a
situation here.”

“And my pregnant wife running out of ice cream is a
situation, too. We can sneak her up the back and question her in my office.
Once the women leave, we can move her until Chelsea comes up with something.
The good news is now she can freely use Agency resources, and we should have a
real name soon.”

Would Ten leave his agent behind if she was compromised?

Phoebe’s eyes fluttered open. “Jesse, I’m scared. Jamie
died.”

Who the hell was Jamie? “Hush, sweetheart. There’s no reason
to be scared. Sleep it off. I promise no one’s going to hurt you.”

“Jamie died. Can’t lose you, too.” She closed her eyes and
went still.

Who was Jamie and did it even matter?

“I’m not going to hurt her,” Tag said quietly. “But we need
to find the truth. This is your op, Jesse. You call the shots. Don’t fuck it
up.”

As the van moved down the freeway, Jesse prayed he wouldn’t.

Phoebe came awake slowly to the sound of screaming. Someone
wasn’t happy. It sounded far away, like there was a door or two in between her
and the source of the shouts. Female. The voice she heard was definitely female
and definitely pissed.

She kept her eyes closed because she knew she’d been
drugged. Likely with a sedative that also erased short-term memory because she
couldn’t remember what had happened.

Jesse. She’d gotten a kill order on Jesse. She remembered
that. She knew she hadn’t gone through with it. And then she’d run. It came
back in bits and pieces and then she’d felt safe and secure.

That had to be a dream.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t notice you bringing a
prisoner up the service entrance? Who do you think I am? I might be pregnant,
but my instincts are still good. You thought Eve’s baby shower was the best
time to interrogate a suspect? Are you kidding me?”

Ah, Charlotte Taggart, and she only ever screamed at one
person that way. Ian. Shit. She was back at the office. They’d managed to get
her from the hotel all the way back to the office. Everyone knew she’d betrayed
them.

Phoebe shoved that thought aside. Concentrate. There might
still be time to get out of this, but not if they knew she was awake.
Charlotte’s anger at Ian was something she could use.

She quietly checked her hands. Tied behind her back. It felt
tight and plastic. Zip tie. Her ankles seemed to be the same way. They were serious
about her not going anywhere.

Now she had to figure out how to get out before she missed
her check-in with Ten. She sent him a text every night to let him know she was
safe. If she missed he would likely rain hellfire missiles on someone. She had
to talk to her brother. She had to figure out why he would put a kill order on
Jesse. Whatever evidence he had, it was wrong. It had to be.

But all hell would break loose if Ten thought she was
compromised and captured. Luckily, she had some time. She could still get out
of this without giving up Ten.

She heard something moving and shifting, like something was
on the carpet, slithering her way. Her heart started to race and she couldn’t
keep her eyes closed. She would be giving up her best defense, but she couldn’t
help it. Something was coming at her.

Something pushed at her left arm, seeming to climb up her
body. And then it bounced and she felt something wet hit her skin as a cooing
cry of triumph could be heard.

She opened her eyes and looked right at a diaper.

“Tristan?”

The baby was bouncing, using her bound body to pull himself
up and then to do that thing where he bounced and gurgled and looked so proud
of himself.

“No, that’s Aidan, love,” an Irish accent said.

Liam? She couldn’t move and now it wasn’t because her hands
and feet were tied. She was on her side and she could have rolled to get a
better view, but then Aidan would fall and he’d probably cry, so she stayed
perfectly still. “Do you want to explain why I’m a jungle gym?”

Li O’Donnell knelt down beside her. He was a gorgeous man
with inky black hair and green eyes to die for. He actually looked a lot like
her Jamie, but somehow she preferred Jesse’s blond hair and blue eyes now.
“Let’s say I’m running a little experiment of me own. Be careful. You’ve got
incoming.”

She felt something patting her cheek. A fat little baby hand
came into view and then Tristan was staring down at her, his eyes wide and
grinning like this was the funnest game ever.

“So you’re some kind of super spy,” Liam said.

She didn’t feel like one now. “Would you believe this is all
a misunderstanding?”

Tristan patted her hair while baby number three showed up,
though Carys was more of a toddler. Sean and Grace Taggart’s daughter plunked
herself down beside Phoebe’s head and started babbling to Tristan.

“Not for a minute, though I do suspect Ian’s wrong about
you. You see, I’ve been thinking about this for days. Ever since we discovered
you aren’t who you seem to be. Everyone else runs around protesting that they
knew it all along. Bloody liars, they are. You fooled everyone, but I think
somewhere along the way, you fooled yourself, too.”

Tristan chose that moment to lean forward and give her a big
gooey kiss. And then proceeded to gnaw on her ear. He was teething, but luckily
the little sucker hadn’t broken through yet. “Are you going to let the babies
eat me? I read somewhere that if you lie still long enough pretty much any
animal will try to eat you, even deer and bunnies. I’m a little worried babies
are the same.”

“Ah, the joys of Stockholm syndrome. You have a really bad
case of it, love. Tell me something. Were you really going to pull the
trigger?”

That was an easy question to answer, though it was made
infinitely more difficult by the fact that now she was trying to balance three
babies. “No. I wouldn’t have killed Jesse, but you have to know someone else
will. Please, Li. You might think I’m lying about everything else, but you have
to believe me on this.”

The door opened and she saw a nice pair of kitten heels
striding her way. They stopped right next to Li and tapped impatiently. “I
thought you were going to be the voice of reason here, Li.” Avery O’Donnell.
She knelt down beside her husband and her blue eyes were worried as she looked
down. “Phoebe, are you all right?”

“I’m covered in babies.” She would accentuate the positive
around Avery. This would be so much easier if she was dealing with Taggart. He
wouldn’t let babies kiss her, and he’d never sat up talking to her about life
and love the way Avery had. Phoebe had kept quiet, but she’d learned so much
about strength from the woman who had lost a husband and child and fought her
way back. She wanted to be Avery, not be her enemy. “So I’m pretty good.”

“Li, why don’t you let her go?” Avery asked.

He put his hands up. “Not my op, love. But I will make her
more comfortable. I’ve learned what I need to know. Come on, you little ankle
biters.” He stood and scooped up his son and Carys, hefting them easily and
with obvious affection. “Auntie Phoebe’s gotten herself into a mess, hasn’t
she? She thought she could be the big bad spy but she’s a softie.”

He couldn’t know that. It might be true but she was going to
defend herself. “I’m not a softie.”

“Really?” Li stared down at her. Tristan was still mauling
her ear in his sweet baby way. “You’re the super-tough spy who can’t even knock
a damn baby over to make herself more comfortable. You’ve been perfectly still
because you didn’t want to hurt any one of them. Face it, Phoebe. You got in
and we got to you. This is Jesse’s op. Tell him you care. This will go so much
easier for everyone if you drop any pretense of not caring. You love those kids
and I bet you love a few of us, too.”

Tears threatened again and she tried to blame the drugs
still in her system. She kept her mouth shut.

Li sighed and Avery picked up Tristan. She was alone again
and she felt it. Before she knew it, Li was gently hauling her up and she felt
her hands come free, though he kept her legs tied. He settled her on one of the
office chairs. Now she realized she was in the conference room with the big bay
windows and the view of downtown.

He shouldn’t have showed her such kindness, but then he went
further. “Aidan needs a bottle. Do you want to feed him?”

Stupid, stupid tears. She nodded and found her arms full of
baby boy. Avery passed her a bottle and Aidan cuddled right in her arms.

God, she’d wanted a baby with Jamie. She’d been ready to
give up work and stay home and be the kind of mom she’d never had.

Lately when she dreamed, her baby had blond hair and blue
eyes.

The door opened and she heard Charlotte yelling at her
husband. “What? Are you going to execute her in front of the children?”

Charlotte did have a flair for overstating her case.

“No, baby. I was going to wait for their naps.” And that was
her boss.

Not her boss. God, it had gotten so jumbled in her head.

“Hey, are you all right?” Jesse walked through the open door
and her heart almost stopped.

And it nearly broke because the way she felt about him was a
betrayal. She was Jamie’s wife. She could still feel him at night…except lately
she thought about him less and less. It had been two years since he’d died and
the world kept moving and she was the only one who could stop it. She had to do
that for him.

She composed herself. “I’m fine. My legs hurt though. Could
you get the zip ties off me?”

“Who do you work for?”

“I work for Ian Taggart, though I suspect he’s going to fire
me.”

“Phoebe, I need to know who you work for.” Jesse’s voice was
harder than she’d ever heard before. His jaw had tightened, and when he stood
in front of her she could have sworn he grew a couple of inches.

“Phoebe Graham. Accountant. 1266745.” She held the bottle,
though Aidan’s hands came up over hers. She wasn’t sure how she could ever
thank Li and Avery for these last few moments of sweetness. When this was done
and she was back at whatever house she would live in from now on, she wouldn’t
be the same. If Ten allowed her, she would go back to China and bury herself
there. She wouldn’t make friends. She wouldn’t watch babies. She would do her
work and wait to join her husband again.

She wouldn’t think about Jesse. She wouldn’t remember what
it felt like the first time his hand had found hers and for a minute she’d felt
safe again.

“Do you work for Tennessee Smith?”

Damn, but she always knew he was smarter than anyone gave
him credit for. She was fairly certain she didn’t react to it at all. “Who is
that? Are you talking about that guy who comes in from time to time? The one
with the Southern accent? Why would I work for him?”

“Avery, would you please take the baby?” Jesse asked.

Avery stepped up, giving Phoebe a little smile. “Sorry. Li
and I should probably move the kiddos. I think Grace is going forward with the
party after Charlotte stops yelling at Ian. We’re pretty sure the cake won’t
last so this shower is happening. If you think about it, it’s really kind of
fitting. Shower and an interrogation. It welcomes Cooper to the family
properly.”

Li had Carys and Tristan in either arm. He stopped in front
of Jesse. “You need some backup?”

Jesse’s face was perfectly stony as he shook his head. He
didn’t even look Li’s way, his eyes steady on her.

Pissed. This was what Jesse Murdoch looked like when he was
pissed. She’d never seen this side of him. He was usually so casual, so tender
and polite with her. When she’d first met him she’d spent months studying him
and trying to figure out who the hell he was. She’d envisioned him as hardened
and cynical, as though she would be able to see his darkness immediately.

She saw a little of it now. She was shocked to find out it
didn’t have the effect on her she thought it would have.

Jesse was always sweet. When he looked at her with such
softness on his face, she couldn’t help but think about Jamie and the way he’d
been.

She wasn’t thinking about Jamie now. Her body tightened at
the way Jesse leaned over, his eyes hard and that sensual mouth of his a flat
line. He put both his hands on the table and squared his shoulders.

“What is your mission?”

A simple enough question and she wished she could answer him,
but that answer led back to the one question she had to ignore. “To keep
McKay-Taggart’s books in tip-top shape.”

“Do you think I can’t handle you, sweetheart?” The words
rolled from his mouth, dark and deep and rich.

Was this the man who spent his nights at Sanctum? She knew
what happened there. There was no question in her mind when she dismissed him
for the night, he went to Sanctum, and she’d come to loathe the place though
she’d never been inside. All she could see was Jesse finding the affection and
comfort she couldn’t provide. She’d closed her eyes more than once and been
able to see him making love to another woman, but she’d never really seen him
like this. She’d expected he was just as sweet when he made love as he was with
her.

What if he was dirty?

“Do you think if you put me off enough I’ll walk away and
let you be? The time for that is over. It was over the minute you pointed that
rifle at my chest. I know I’ve been following you around like a pathetic moron
for months, but that’s over, too. It’s going to be my way all the way from here
on out.”

Her heart was thumping in her chest, her body warming.
Arousal. At least she remembered what to call it. She’d felt it with him
before, but Jamie always hovered between them. When Jesse would reach for her,
she would see Jamie’s sweet face and back away. Jesse wasn’t reaching for her
now. He was clearly drawing battle lines, and something about it called to her.
A primal energy started to run through her system.