"Are you sure this is a good idea, ma'am?"

"Please, just drive."

Clint gave me a worried glance but started the engine, carefully putting on the turn signal before pulling smoothly away.

"Would you mind going a bit faster?"

He remained silent, but the car did speed up infinitesimally. Inwardly, I cursed his determination to stick to the speed limit. I needed to see Linc, and I needed to do it right away.

As Clint braked at a stop light, a hideous thought popped into my mind. The stranger said I was an undercover job? What if he'd meant an under-the-covers job? Linc said he was divorced, but what if he'd lied about that too?

Back in Colombia, the two men responsible for holding me captive cheated all the time. Over the years, I'd watched a series of women parade through their beds, each leaving more broken than the last. I never wanted to be like them.

As buildings rushed past in a blur outside the windows, the streets got tidier, the houses got bigger, and my confusion gave way to fear and anger. Was Linc still with his wife? Had I unwittingly become his mistress? When I screamed his name in bed at night, what was he thinking? Was he trying to remember mine?

"This is Redwood Gardens, ma'am."

Well, one thing was for sure—Linc didn't afford a home here on his income from Holborn. Number eight loomed in front of me, streetlights illuminating the manicured front lawn and the Ford Mustang parked in the driveway next to Linc's Ducati. A pickup truck stood to the side under a tree. All his? A houseshare? Or his and hers?

"Should I wait again?"

"Yes. Don't you dare leave."

I slammed the car door and marched up the driveway, trying to think of something smart to say but coming up empty. A wrought-iron knocker in the shape of a lion graced the solid wood door, and I smacked it down as hard as I could.

Who would come? Linc? Another stranger? Or a woman?

I soon got my answer. The door swung open and Linc stood there in a robe, hair slicked back as if he'd just got out of the shower.

His eyes widened in recognition. "Sweetheart? What are you doing here?"

"Don't 'sweetheart' me. You lied."

"Not lied, exactly. I left a few things out."

Hearing him admit to his deceit broke something inside me, and I slapped him before I realised what I was doing.

"Like what? What didn't you tell me?"

He caught my wrist, eyes fixed on mine.

"Get off me!" Too many times men had held me down. When I tried to bring my knee up between Linc's legs, he sidestepped faster than I'd ever seen him move and pinned me against his front, facing away.

"Let me go!"

"Only if you promise not to try that again."

His grip loosened, but I stayed silent. I wasn't promising anything.

"Akari?"

"Sod off."

Listen to me—I'd turned into Emmy.

"I can explain."

"What, about your undercover job? Well, it worked out, didn't it? You got me under your covers, right where you wanted me. How many others, Linc? How many?"

"How many other what?"

"Women! How many women?"

"None. What the hell are you talking about? It was only you."

"What about your wife? Or whoever else lives here with you?"

"I live alone."

"Then why all the secrecy? Why not just tell me the truth, whatever it is?"

"Fine. The truth is Blackwood. I work for Blackwood, okay? I didn't tell you because I was ordered not to." His voice dropped. "I got assigned to look after you."

I went limp as the news sank in, then stiffened again.

"Who by? Emmy?"

"Who else?"

"I'll kill her."

He let me go and took a step back. "Good luck with that one."

"Why? Why did she do this?"

"Because when you went to Holborn you said you didn't want a team of bodyguards, and she wasn't about to let you out alone."

"So she...what? Told you to get into my panties?"

"No! My brief was to hang around at Holborn and make sure you stayed safe while you were on campus." He sat down heavily on the front step and hung his head. "I didn't think for a minute that I'd fall in love with you, but it happened."

"You lied to me from the start. On all those pretend dates..."

"They were real."

"Whatever. I spent weeks digging up the courage to tell you about my past, and the whole time you knew. Didn't you?"

Silence.

"Didn't you?"

"I didn't know about the scars, I swear. But I knew most of the rest."

My legs buckled and Linc leapt up, catching me before I hit the ground. He tried to carry me inside, but I grabbed the door jamb and hung on.

"I'm not going in there. I don't want to."

"All right, all right. Easy. I'll put you down." He lowered me to my feet, and I took his place on the step. After a few seconds he knelt in front of me and tried to take my hand, but I snatched it away and squashed it into my lap.

"I can't believe Emmy did this," I said. "All I wanted was a bit of freedom."

"She didn't realise how far things had gone, not until the weekend. Trust me, she's furious as well."

Trust him? Yeah, right.

"The driver told her about our trip to the zoo?"

"She spent most of yesterday evening chewing me out. Her final words were 'if you hurt Akari, I'll make the ninth circle of hell seem like a vacation.'"

"She won't really, will she?"

"Probably. Sleeping with the principal's a pretty big no-no for a bodyguard." He sighed and leaned back on his heels. "Doesn't matter, anyway. Anywhere's going to be hell if I'm not with you."

When he looked up, there was a spark of hope in his eyes, but I soon extinguished it.

"Better get used to the heat then. That stuff in Afghanistan, how much of it was true?"

"All of it."

"And the PTSD?"

"That's real as well. I first met Emmy back in my army days, and when I got discharged, she gave me a job that wasn't going to have me flipping out every other day. I owe her a lot."

Didn't we all? I wanted to believe him, but with my world turned on its head, I struggled to sort the lies from the truth. "I need to think about this...this..." This colossal mess. This train wreck of a relationship. "This situation. At the moment, I don't know if I ever want to see you again." He tried to take my hand once more, but I batted him away. "Stop it."

"Please don't write us off, sweetheart. I'll never lie to you again, I promise. I can quit my job, well, jobs, and it'll be just the two of us."

"You'd do that?"

"Polishing floors is the most boring thing I've ever done in my life."

"I meant Blackwood."

"Yes. I love working there, Emmy's demands aside, but for you I'd walk away."

Okay, that was big, but still... We'd got off to a shaky start. "I've got to think this through. I'm supposed to have another recital this week, and right now, I can't even remember what an octave is."

"Can't help you out there, but take the time you need. Just promise me you won't make any hasty decisions."

"I need to go now."

"I love you, sweetheart."

"Goodbye, Linc."

I fought back tears as I climbed into the car. Oh, I'd cry all right, but later. I had a phone call to make first.

"Where would you like to go, ma'am?"

"Don't 'ma'am' me. You knew what was going on as well."

"Shall I take you home?"

"Yes."

I punched Emmy's number into my phone, and it only rang once before Emmy picked up.

"Akari. I've been expecting a call."

"Why? Just tell me why?"

"Why do you think? You're almost thirty, but you've never spent any time in the real world. You wanted freedom, and we wanted to make sure you were safe and that nobody took advantage of you. Come on, you have to admit Linc was a good compromise."

"It doesn't feel like it from where I'm sitting."

"I suppose the execution of some parts of the plan could have gone a little better."

"Will you stop doing that?"

"Doing what?"

"Talking about me like I'm just a name on a page. I'm a living, breathing person."

She took a deep breath, and I imagined her pacing the room as she spoke. I'd noticed she had a habit of doing that. Her husband would block her way sometimes and point at a chair, but mostly she'd glare, step around him, and carry on.

"If we had to start from the top again, we'd do things differently. It's been a learning curve for me, too. This whole love thing is confusing as hell."

"But does he love me? I have no idea now."

"He loves you enough that when I told him to back off last night, he told me to go fuck myself. A physical impossibility, but luckily I have someone to take care of that for me."

Ah yes, her husband. The only other man in the world whose arms I felt safe in, even if he did scare the hell out of me at the same time.

And Linc? I didn't fear him, but right now I was so angry with him, Emmy, and the whole situation I felt I'd self-combust. "So, now what? You've screwed with my heart, I fell in love with a stranger, and now I'm supposed to carry on with life? How?"

"That's a question only you can answer. Linc's gonna stick around for a while if you want him."

"I need space. Space to think."

"I'll make sure you get that."

I hung up the phone and threw it at the privacy screen in front of me. The glass cracked, but Linc's face still glowed back at me through the shards, and I burst into tears. I'd been through agony in my life, but the pain of a broken heart scored through me like no other.