“I went to Caleb.”
Jaimie groaned.
“I know. I know, but, see, put yourself in my place. Imagine I’ve just told you some nut case is following me, that he’s been in my apartment. What would you do?”
Why argue? The deed was done. “So, you went to Caleb.”
“Right. He got all upset, too. He wanted to, you know, deal with Young his own way.”
“What a surprise.”
“He asked me for the details. Then he told me he’d take care of it. I said he couldn’t do that. You’d sworn me to secrecy.”
“And a lot of good that did me.”
“So Caleb said he’d ask someone he trusted to deal with Young. To protect you. And I said ‘who’ and he said Zach Castelianos.”
Could a person actually feel the earth slip out from under their feet? Jaimie had never imagined that possible; now, she knew that it was.
“He said—he said he’d ask—he’d ask Zacharias Castelianos? My Zacharias Castelianos?”
“What are the odds of Caleb knowing two guys with a name like that?
Tears scalded Jaimie’s eyes.
“James? Jaimie, I’m so sorry.”
“Yes,” Jaimie whispered. “Me, too.”
Zacharias had not come for her because he’d wanted her or needed her or longed for her. He’d come to her because her brother had asked him to do it as a favor.
She was a favor that one man did for another.
It was why Zacharias had taken her to the Bahamas, why he’d asked her to move in with him. How much simpler it was to watch over someone when that someone was living right under your nose.
“Jaimie? Honey? You still there?”
Jaimie wiped the back of her hand across her eyes.
“Still here,” she said, trying for bright and failing.
“Look, I probably put the wrong spin on this, you know? Castelianos took one look at you and, uh, and he, you know, got interested.”
“Of course,” Jaimie said, trying for bright again and still not managing it.
“I mean, you’re not stupid. If you feel something for this guy, he must feel something for you. You can’t just be a—a—”
“A favor. One ex-spook helping out another ex-spook.”
“No. I’m sure that it—that it—”
Lissa fell silent.
Jaimie’s heart felt as if it were going to break. Zacharias wasn’t her lover; he was Caleb’s all-too-accommodating pal.
Everything that had happened was a lie.
“Jaimie?”