Free Dare Me by Julie Leto Page B

her ear
that she couldn’t understand, which was fine with her, because she didn’t want
to hear.  Words had the power to destroy this tentative truce.
    Words, and the fact that they were on the staircase, which
while exciting at the moment, was not exactly comfortable.  She rolled off of
him, but unashamed and with no regret, she snuggled beside him and stared up at
the ceiling.
    Only there wasn’t a ceiling there exactly—it was covered by
a long, artfully cut mirror.
    She blinked.  How odd.
    “Macy, I want to tell you about the Chilean operation.”
    Dante caught her attention and she dragged her gaze away from
the mirror.  For a second, she wondered just how hot Dante had gotten being able
to watch her on top of him, but his eyes reflected a seriousness she’d once
easily trusted.
    Past hurts aside, she needed to hear his explanation. 
Before they parted ways again, she needed to hear how he would justify the
breach of her trust that had ruined their relationship—and her career within
the Arm.
    “Why did you pass my intelligence work off as your own?” she
asked.
    “Because Russell didn’t trust you.”
    His lie slapped her in the face.  “Russell?  He recruited
me!”
    Dante frowned.  “He was also hot for you, but you made the
mistake of falling into bed with me.”
    Macy didn’t want to believe that her mentor had mistrusted
her, but she couldn’t discount Dante’s theory, either.  Russell Rhodes had
brought her into covert ops after she’d served in the CIA for less than a
year.  He’d trained her himself, arranging for her to shadow him on missions
where she was the youngest agent by ten years or more.
    He’d never made a move on her, but that didn’t mean he
hadn’t been interested.  Learning to ignore flirting had gotten her through her
teen years, when the house had been full of her brothers’ many friends and most
of them, older and younger, had tried to make a play for her.  The same had
held true during college when she’d studied advanced mathematics and then in
the CIA.  Thrown into situation after situation where men outnumbered the women
ten to one, she’d become immune to subtle attempts at seduction.  A guy had to
practically hit her over the head to show her that his interest was sincere.
    Or whip her into a whirlwind of lust and desire as Dante
had.
    “Russell had the ear of the Joint Chiefs,” Macy said, unable
to voice the possibility that her name could have been sullied all the way to
the Oval Office.  “You’re saying he poisoned their minds against me because I
was sleeping with you?”
    Dante turned and stretched his legs, balancing on one elbow
so he could toy with her hair with his hand.
    “Yes, but he tipped his hand when he blamed you for the
information that leaked in the Boston operation.  Every agent in the field knew
that Jim Carlson had blown that deal.”
    Macy’s head swam.  These were operations that had happened
so long ago.  Before she’d become a trusted agent within T-45.  Back when she’d
been nothing more than a rank beginner in the Arm.
    “But Carlson died in Boston,” she argued.
    “Exactly.  He wasn’t around to take the heat, so you were
the sacrificial lamb.  Even if he’d lived, he might have turned the blame on
you, too.  He trained with all the men who ran the Arm, including some of the
Joint Chiefs.  You were a young, pretty upstart who they knew would soon
surpass them all.  Russell couldn’t prove his accusations, but he planted
enough seeds of doubt to have you red-listed.”
    Meaning she was an agent to be watched—an agent who might
not be trustworthy.
    Dante threaded his fingers in hers, working out the sudden
attack of tension with a soft massage.  “I pulled some strings and kept you on
the Chilean project, but when you found the intelligence we needed to break the
case, I had to make a choice.”
    Macy narrowed her eyes.  God, how she’d tried not to think
about that time, his betrayal, her