Spy to Die For

“It’s kind of important,” he said.

Kind of. As in not entirely. He mentally kicked himself for the hedge.

“All right.” She tapped something, then raised her head. Her eyes were a bit glazed. He was surprised to note the shadows under them. Had she been working that hard?

He supposed so. He had too, but he always worked hard. He rarely thought about it.

“It’s about us,” he said. He had never used that word before, us, and it made him nervous.

A small frown creased the spot just above her nose. He wanted to caress the frown away, but he was too far from her. He had initially thought of moving to the copilot’s chair before having this discussion, but was now glad he hadn’t. He needed the distance. He wanted to focus on the words, not on that magical physical pull between them.

“We haven’t talked about the future,” he said.

She shrugged. He didn’t like the reaction, but he pushed forward.

“I initially worried that talking about the future was wrong because there was no guarantee that I’d have one,” he said. “But I think if we present this information to the Guild, and they deal with Heller and by extension, the Rovers, I’ll be fine. I’ll be able to make choices. And so will you.”

She didn’t say a word. For a moment, he thought she would turn back toward the navigation panel in front of her. He wasn’t even sure she understood him.

“I don’t have friends, Jack,” she said. “Most people would consider that a warning sign.”

A warning sign of what? He almost asked the question, but decided not to get sidetracked.

“I think you do have friends,” he said. “You just haven’t noticed.”

Her lips thinned, but that flat expression remained on her face.

“Besides,” he said, “I’m not talking about friendship here.”

Her frown grew deeper. “We’re loners. We work separately. We come from different cultures.”

“And we’ve had a hell of a run these last few weeks,” he said. “We get along really well.”

“Because of the sex,” she said.

The words stung him. He hadn’t thought that. He wondered how she could.

“No,” he said. “Even without the sex. We’ve talked about a lot of things, examined a lot of things, spent quiet time together—”

“And you think that’ll last past this trip?” she asked.

Now he was feeling defensive. “Don’t you?”

She shrugged again. “I’ve never been in this situation before.”

And it sounded like, from her tone, that she didn’t want to be in the situation now.

Still, he pressed on. “I would like to continue spending time with you.”

That sounded too vague.

“I’d like some kind of relationship,” he said.

Less vague.

“Maybe even something perman—”

“Jack,” she said, her voice cold. “I don’t make attachments. I thought you knew that.”

Then she turned around and went back to the navigation panel as if nothing had happened.

His heart ached. He’d never really felt like this before, as if he’d been gut-punched when no one touched him.

“I’d like you to make an exception,” he said.

She didn’t respond. He thought about repeating himself, but knew that she’d ignore that as well.

Maybe he hadn’t been unclear earlier. Maybe she had just been ignoring him, hoping he wouldn’t continue to bring the topic up.

She had made herself very clear from the beginning. A one-night stand. She had said she liked him, but nothing more. No words of love during lovemaking—or rather, sex. And she didn’t make attachments.

He did. She had known that.

But apparently, being the kind of person she was, she either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t cared.

He turned his chair back toward the research screen, but he couldn’t concentrate. He’d never been in this situation before. No woman had interested him like Skye. He hadn’t ever felt this way about anyone.

He loved her.

And apparently, she did not love him back.

Chapter 49

If this trip had taught her anything, it was that she knew nothing about people. Skye bent over the navigation panel, pretending that nothing had happened. She felt Jack’s gaze on her back and she knew when he had turned away.

She had a gut sense of people, but only as it pertained to her. Were they safe? Were they honest? Were they people she needed to spend time with?

Whether or not they were into something bad or good, it didn’t matter if it didn’t concern her.

She’d been thinking about the conspiracy for days, knowing that she had probably missed a hundred clues, primarily because she hadn’t cared about the future of the Guild. She had only concentrated on leaving it.

And now this, with Jack. She had been very clear. She didn’t make friends. She wasn’t warm and cuddly. She was brittle and breakable and she wasn’t going to change. Eventually, he wouldn’t find her intriguing. He would find her irritating, and he would leave her one day just like everyone else had.

The best way to avoid that was to avoid the attachment.

No one came back. Everyone left.

How she felt about him didn’t matter because he would never return the emotion. He might think he loved her, but he didn’t. He was only responding to the sexual connection and once that faded, then he would move on somewhere else.

He was talking about a future now, but once they had survived all of this—once they had made it to that future—he would want out.

Everyone did.

Her fingers kept missing the edges of the screen. She finally had to stop trying to work the navigation panel and flatten her hands against her thighs. She needed to get ahold of herself.

I don’t have friends, she had said to him.

And he had said, I think you do have friends. You just haven’t noticed.

Could that be true? How could she have friends if she hadn’t noticed? Weren’t friends like pets or children? Didn’t they require care and feeding and constant attention?

The fact that she didn’t know these things meant that she wasn’t attachment material. She had purposely not learned any of it.

But she did care about some people back at the Guild. The idea of them getting caught in the crossfire of whatever might happen disturbed her more than she could say.

Just like the idea of Jack getting killed disturbed her. That was why she had joined him in the first place, even after that spectacular one-night stand. She wanted to know he was surviving out there, living his life.

Was that friendship? Or was she just being selfish?

And how could she tell the difference?

She wanted to ask him, which was rich in irony. He was the only person she trusted to tell her how friendship worked.

And she was going to walk away from his.

Only he’d been clear: he hadn’t wanted friendship. He wanted “some kind of relationship.” He wanted something “perman—” She had interrupted him, because she hadn’t wanted to hear the word permanent.

She hadn’t wanted to contemplate it. It would be too tempting. Like chasing after her parents after they