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Her cover had worked too well. Alix Petrova was a trained field agent who had seduced, deceived, and even killed dangerous men. But Natalia Vermulen was an innocent personal assistant who’d just married the boss, and as far as her new husband was concerned, his duty was to keep her safe, not lead her into harm’s way. So she had no argument when, as they lay in bed-her head on his chest, her hand on his shoulder, the early-morning light, reflected from the ocean, playing on the walls of the yacht’s master bedroom-he told her, “You can’t come with us tonight.”

“I understand,” she said. “It’s just… I want to be with you. I can’t help it.”

There were tears welling in her eyes. As she blinked them away, she realized that they, at least, were genuine. She truly felt like crying, even if she was lying about why.

He felt the flutter of her eyelashes against his skin.

“It’s okay,” he said, wrapping his arm around her and holding her tight against his body. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what I have to do. I had some crazy notions, but what I’m planning is going to be a lot simpler, and a lot safer now.”

She could sense him gathering his thoughts, almost working up the courage to speak again, the way men did when they were about to say something personal, a revelation that would leave them exposed and vulnerable.

His voice was thick with emotion as he said, “Now that I’ve found you, I have something to live for again. I think I lost that for a while. It affected the way I thought, even made me a little crazy. Not now. There’s still something I have to do, something that matters. But I love you too much to take dumb risks…”

He smiled, lightening the mood, catching her eye as she looked up at his face.

“Just really smart risks, ones worth taking.”

“It makes me scared, not knowing what’s happening to you,” she said.

“That’s what you get for marrying a soldier, even an ex-soldier. It’s really tough, having to stay at home, not knowing whether the person you love is dead or alive.”

“How did Amy manage it?”

“I don’t know. When I went to ’ Nam, we were just kids. She’d only recently turned twenty-one, had the party just before I shipped out. All those years, left on her own so many times. You know, she never once complained… Oh, God, I didn’t mean… I wasn’t comparing you…”

She squeezed his shoulder in reassurance.

“Don’t worry-I was the one who mentioned Amy. I like it that you remember her with love. It proves that you are a good man.”

Vermulen shifted his weight. The arm that had been wrapped so protectively around her pulled on her shoulder, so that she was rolled off his chest and onto her back. Now he was on top of her, his mouth pressing on hers and his legs forcing her thighs apart with a strength that she could not have resisted, even had she wanted to. So she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled their bodies together.

As they began to make love, she was smiling. Her happiness was as real as her tears had been, but once again, the reason was not the one that Kurt Vermulen might imagine.

He was leaving her alone on the yacht for the night. Then, perhaps, she might have the chance to escape.

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