He laughs. “You’re clever, Honey, but sometimes you’re really dumb.”
“I’m not fucking dumb,” I say, raising my voice and feeling the anger begin to course through my body like a rush of hot blood.
“Sometimes you are,” he says casually.
“No,” I reply, gritting my teeth. “I’m not.”
“I’m not here to argue. I just wanted a snack,” he says, bending over to open the small cooler at his feet.
I bite my lip and cross my arms, glaring at him as he goes about his business without a care in the world. I hate that he can be like this after getting me all riled up. Doesn’t he understand what he’s doing to me? He can’t treat me like a puppet.
I wish I could read past the smug expression on his face, but it’s impossible to break through it into his head. Normally, I’m quite good at reading people, but Carter dances behind an array of masks, never showing his true emotions unless he’s horny. Even then, I could easily mistake it for anger or cockiness.
“Get me a snack, please,” I say sharply. “I’m going back to my seat.”
“Have fun with Henry,” Carter jokes.
I glare at him, then I twist the plastic lock on the door to green and step out into the narrow hallway, thoroughly annoyed with Carter and his antics. I shake my head with bitter annoyance in my mouth as I sulk back to my seat.
Chapter Sixteen
Carter
It’s not my fault Honey acts like a princess. I’m not used to women like that. As far as I’m concerned, she should shut her sweet little mouth and follow orders like the rest of them, but she’s a different sort of woman. I suspect she won’t be easy to contain, and that could be a problem for me, but that’s not because I don’t like it. It’s because I do, and that makes me weak.
All my life, I’ve shoved my emotions down into the darkest pit of my stomach, swallowing them like nasty little pills of misery that I could get rid of by making them disappear from view. In reality, those emotions never went away. They clung to the lining of my stomach, waiting for the chance to resurface with an ugly vengeance and make me an emotional wreck.
I expected them to come back to haunt me someday, but I wasn’t expecting that day to be so soon, and I never in my life expected it to be over a woman half my age. I’m a little disgusted in myself, to be honest, but the pull of her mysterious ways is enough to push me further into this emotional trap.
Maybe Honey thinks it’s all about sex. Maybe she thinks I’m a beast of a man, just chasing after pussy and crime like there’s no tomorrow. Well, that would only be half true. I’m capable of a lot more, and although I hide my feelings, I still have them. I’m just not prepared to let her know that yet.
Honey glares at me on occasion for the rest of the flight, but she finally falls asleep right before we land, giving me a small moment of peace. She looks so nice when she’s sleeping, slumped over in her chair with her shoulders relaxed and her lips open ever so slightly. It’s adorable.
As the wheels of our private jet touch down in on the small runway in Africa, Honey’s eyes pop open. She’s shaken to full awareness by the rough landing, tossed around in her seat like a doll as the cabin rattles and shakes.
Finally, we come to a stop.
As soon as the seatbelt sign turns off, I’m up and out into the aisle, pulling my heavy bookbag from the overhead storage compartment, along with Honey’s green bag. She really likes that color, and I find that it suits her very well. If I had known before, I would’ve bought her an emerald ring instead of a diamond one, but she looks good in anything.
“Be careful with that,” Honey says as I sling her bag over toward her.
I raise an eyebrow as she takes it.
“It has my camera in it,” she says.
“Cute little spy,” I say, cracking a grin.
She glares at me, but it’s through a smile. “I’m just trying to get some pictures of the desert this time.”
“I’d be more concerned with keeping your head,” I say. “This isn’t the safest thing we’ve ever done.”
“I almost died there once. I’m wiser now,” she says confidently.
I look toward Henry, who gives me a knowing nod. He’ll look after her when I’m unable to. She might think she knows everything, but she only knows what she has seen, and at her age, she hasn’t seen a lot. I might appear to be cocky at times, but that’s only when I have all the winning cards in my hands. I know better than to underestimate my enemy, especially after George and Dean got picked off.
I’m still angry about all of that. Those were good men, and I need this to stop. If Bheka really is behind it, then he’s going to get a piece of my mind, and quite likely a closed casket funeral.
We all file out toward the exit, carrying our bags and bracing for the inevitable heatwave that rushes in when the door opens. The weather here tops out at around 105 degrees Fahrenheit, but 80 is enough to get you sweating like a sinner in church, and we have heavy loads with us.
I don’t like buying guns from black-market dealers in other countries. I like to bring the ones that I’ve trained with and used at home when I travel, thus the private jet. Nobody shuffles through your bags when you set everything up ahead of schedule and give money to the right people. It’s amazing how little it takes to
