a halt at a very unwelcome sight-the charter speeding off back toward open sea.
Maddie could only stand there and stare at it, feeling the bottom drop out of her stomach. “He wasn’t supposed to do that.”
“No,” Brody said, calm. “He wasn’t.”
Calm was good. She felt his hand at the small of her back. “Breathe,” he murmured in her ear. “You’re not breathing.”
No, she wasn’t.
The Jeep parked, and the driver got out.
Standing at her side, gaze on the Jeep’s driver, Brody kept his hand on Maddie’s back. “Let’s get this over with and get back to the fun stuff,” he murmured for her ears alone.
“What’s that?”
“Anything to do with getting wet and naked.”
“Leena,” Man In Black said.
Maddie blinked and glanced at Brody. Leena?
“You’re late. You know Rick hates late.” He looked at Brody. “Who’s this, the husband?”
Maddie swallowed. “Uh-”
Man In Black raised a brow, waiting.
“Could-” Maddie licked her suddenly dry lips. “Could we have a moment?” She waggled a finger between her and Brody.
Man In Black nodded curtly and leaned back on the Jeep, arms over his massive chest, face impassive.
Maddie pulled Brody a few feet away for some dubious privacy. “He thinks I’m Leena,” she hissed.
“Actually…” Brody glanced at the guy. “I’m not sure he thinks at all. You see the size of his neck? It’s got to be ten times the size of his brain.”
“Leena didn’t come,” she whispered, both relieved and terrified.
“Yeah.” Brody cut his gaze to the empty dock. “But we did.”
“Yeah.”
“And the charter’s gone.”
Which really sucked. “Which leaves us at their mercy.”
“Okay, I really hate the sound of that.”
She did, too. “I have to be Leena.” She looked at him. “It’s the only way.”
“What? No.”
“Well, I can’t be me!” she whispered harshly. “Don’t you see? If I’m Leena, all Rick wants from me is some work, and then I’m free to leave again, assuming I convince him I’m not running away.”
“Jesus. This is suicidal. You know that.”
“What choice do we have? The boat’s gone. If I’m Maddie, well…I think that might be a bit of a health hazard for me.”
He swore beneath his breath. “Your life is too complicated.”
“I told you!”
Brody looked over at MIB again. “Christ, I’m crazy for agreeing to let you do this.”
They had no choice. None at all. Brody wore tan khakis and a white shirt. His eyes were a cool, give-away- nothing gray, and his wind-tousled hair fell carelessly across his forehead. Did he look like a husband? Her husband? She hoped so, because holy mother of God, he was who he was and didn’t do pretense for anyone.
“I’m not going to screw anything up,” he said, obviously reading her mind. “I know what we have to do.”
Well, she was glad someone did, because she didn’t. She was putting him directly in danger, and the thought wasn’t an easy one. If anything happened to him, if anything at all went wrong, she’d never forgive herself.
Never. “Remember,” she hissed. “I’m-”
“Yeah, yeah. You Leena. Me ball and chain. Got it.”
“No.” She was doggedly determined to make sure he had everything straight. “She’s different than me. I’ll be different. I’ll be quiet. Demure.”
“Your virtual opposite, you mean?” He put his hands on her arms and looked into her eyes. “I get it.”
“Do you? Because Leena wouldn’t marry a scowling badass. You need to act…beta.”
“Beta?”
“Yeah. Easygoing. Laid-back…”
“That’ll be new,” he admitted.
“Can you try for…refined?”
He let out a low laugh. “I’ve never been refined, not from the day I was born in the gutter or the day I crawled out of it.”
She stared at him as he put his sunglasses on his nose and said nothing else. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t-”
“Hey, no use fighting the truth, right? We both know what I am and what I’m not. Let’s just do this.”
Yes, they needed to do this. But she was realizing something about the tall, tough, enigmatic man in front of her. He wasn’t one-hundred-percent badass at all, and that brief flash of vulnerability had just proven it. “Brody, about that refined thing-”
“Let it go.”
“I’m really sorry-”
“Jesus.” He took her hand. “What does let it go mean?”
Odd how she suddenly wanted to hug him, which would have to wait. For now, she squeezed his fingers, hoping she was imparting some comfort.
His big, warm hand closed on hers, but he said nothing, whatever he was thinking lost behind his reflective sunglasses. His hair was blowing back, his shirt billowing out, and she took a good long look, struck by what he was doing for her. Without question, he’d put himself on the line. He had doubts, lots of them, but that hadn’t stopped him from being here for her.
And she had to admit, it was a bit staggering. Suddenly, she wished she’d spent all of last night in his arms, that at the very least, she’d kissed him for longer when she’d had the chance on the charter boat.
That she hadn’t yelled at him.
Eyes on the man at the Jeep waiting for them, Brody lifted their joined hands to his mouth.
Had he read her mind and was offering genuine comfort? Or had he just begun the acting portion of the program and was simply playing her husband?
Then he turned his head, lifted his glasses, and met her gaze, his own steady and sure. “You okay?”
She swallowed the unexpected and slightly horrifying lump in her throat. “Always.”
He smiled, the one she’d seen a thousand times over the past year. The one that said he was on top of his world and knew it, the one that said that on his watch, nothing would go wrong.
He was truly there for her, and for that moment, Maddie couldn’t seem to muster up Leena’s persona, not to save her life. For that one beat, she was Maddie, just Maddie, and she could only stare at him, wanting him, caring about him, completely overcome with emotion and desperately trying to beat it back.
God, she needed a grip, a big one. “Brody?” she whispered.
“Yes?” His mouth quirked again. “Wife?”
Was it wrong that from deep, deep down came a longing and a yearning she couldn’t explain, except that for the first time in her life, she liked the sound of that W word?
Wife.
Clearly, she was losing her mind. She looked out at the water. “This island, this compound…it was my childhood home.”
“You’ve said.”
“It wasn’t a happy place.”
He’d been eyeing MIB at the Jeep, but met her gaze, his own solemn and surprisingly understanding. “I’m getting that loud and clear.”
She had no idea why she was going to tell him this. Maybe so he could really understand the need to pull this off, maybe because she had to explain the danger she was putting him in so that if he wanted to walk away, he could.