She poured some water into a bowl and placed it beside the cat.
The cat stopped eating, looked up at her, blinked slowly, and went back to eating. “Girl,” Ella said. “With that much attitude, you’ve gotta be a tough chick. I think I’m gonna call you Chica.”
The cat sniffed delicately, which Ella took as approval.
Now that the cat was cared for, Ella walked to the den and located the computer on the coffee table. She knew Jude had a communications room somewhere in this house, but she didn’t have time to search for it. She needed information now.
She opened the computer, again surprised to find no password protection. It was outfitted with security and encryption though, probably thanks to Vivi.
She made a cursory search of the databases on the hard drive, searching for Vivi’s signature spying software. Ella found none, so she proceeded to the Internet. She’d only had time to send Brody a limited amount of information last night before Jude had pulled at her attention. She’d uploaded the information she had on Dresden’s mansion in Ukraine, and then she’d disconnected. It had been quick.
The computer pinged a few times, searching for a secure connection, and once she had it, she looked up the date first. She’d been with Jude for three days. Damn.
That didn’t bode well for Anna Beth Caine. But Brody was on it now. The woman had hope.
Next, Ella pulled up everything she could find on Noah Caine, a.k.a. the Piper. She scanned several entries, committing them to memory for later recollection and dissection. She had a nearly photographic memory and a propensity for languages. That’s what had drawn the CIA’s eye.
After that, she looked up Anna Beth Caine and found absolutely nothing. No mention of either Cameron or Anna Beth.
She pulled up Google and logged into one of her many Gmail accounts. She searched quickly for a response from Brody about the thumb drive she’d sent him the other day—the one she’d retrieved from the train station at Cameron Markov’s behest. There was nothing from her teammate.
That foreboding feeling she’d felt during the last year returned in full force. Brody was a crack at deciphering code, and if he couldn’t get it, he’d turn it over to Vivi. Ella had known the risk of Endgame getting the information before she did, but she’d felt the benefit outweighed that risk.
“Damn it,” she said around her thumbnail.
She penned a quick email to Vivi Granger and had just wrapped it up when she felt, more than heard, Jude enter the room.
“Just couldn’t wait, could you?” His voice held no small amount of accusation.
She looked over at him and noticed his shirtless chest and hooded gaze. Her hands itched to touch him, and her mouth watered for a taste. “I just emailed Vivi. If I’m hiding anything from you, I’m sure she’ll tell you what it is.”
Jude walked over to her, taking the computer from her hands and placing it on the coffee table. He sat in front of her on that same table, just watching her.
“Can we eat first?” she asked.
“I could eat,” he responded, face blank, tone equally so.
She nodded and stood. He grabbed her hips and held her in front of him. She glanced down, intent on asking him to let her go, but his words stopped her.
“I don’t ever want to wake up without you in my bed. Ever again, Ella. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Her heart melted into a great big puddle at his feet. She brushed his hair off his forehead. “Oh, Jude, I can’t promise that.”
“Just give me the words, Ella. I’ll help you hold to them,” he promised her.
“What you’ve yet to realize is that I’m always with you, Jude. You hold my heart in your chest. You have from the moment I saw you. Corny, right?” She laughed mirthlessly. “I’ve loved you from the first time our eyes met. You were as much of a storm in my life as the one raging outside.”
He nodded and kissed her palm. “You don’t know what it was like…” His voice trailed off, breaking at the end as his pain at her desertion communicated loud and clear.
“I don’t. I left. I didn’t give you what I should have, which was my trust. I’m responsible for that. I have to live with that for the rest of my life. But, Jude, until I’ve finished this, I can’t make you any promises other than that I’ll love you until the breath leaves my body.”
He stood then and ran a hand through his hair. “Don’t say that! Don’t you talk about dying!”
She fell back to sitting on the couch. He stalked away from her, and she sat there accepting what she’d done to the man she loved and resolving to somehow fix what she’d torn apart.
Pans banged in the kitchen, and she followed the sounds.
He moved with contained violence. It shimmered in the air around him, but Ella wasn’t afraid of her man. He was mad for her. Not at her.
He stopped what he was doing, dropping a pan on the floor as he stalked to her. “What is going on? Tell me right now.”
“Let’s eat first, Jude. A truth?” she queried softly.
He nodded once, his eyes burning into hers.
“I really need you to put a shirt on. And I’ll make this truth a twofer. I’ll tell you everything after we eat.”
She had to. She’d waited too long already. After what he’d given her in that bedroom, she needed to shed any preconceived notions about protecting Jude. She’d hindered him way more than she’d ever protected him, and in the process, she’d nearly destroyed them both.
He drew in a deep breath, and she felt the violence recede. He ran upstairs and came back wearing a gray T-shirt. Jude walked over to the pot he’d dropped moments ago and picked it up.
“You want a really late breakfast or lunch?” he asked her cautiously.
“Lunch.”
He nodded and began gathering the
