The King (Gentlemen Rogues 2)

"Sorry that my mood couldn't be elevated for everyone."

His fingers grazed my elbow. "That's not what I meant, Saff." He sighed and tried again not to do that Gabe thing that he always did when he shut me out and shut me down. "What I mean is you're the life of this place. Your energy fills it. The agents, the staff, everyone, they love you for it. That's all. So when you're not like that, we notice. Everybody notices. You feel what you feel, and you should. You've been too locked away for too long. No one expects you to be happy all the time. No one wants that. It would be weird. But the fact that we see you smiling and laughing again, up to no good… It's good to see. It means you're alive."

I gave him a harsh nod. "Can I go now before you start analyzing the choice of color I’m wearing today?"

“Yep. The recruits are almost done up in polygraph."

"Anyone really good at beating the machine?"

“Yeah. There's one. I wish I could explain it, but he's cool as ice. One second he's actually pretty easy to read. The next he has ice water for veins. He's unsettling."

“You must love him."

My brother just laughed. "He's all right."

"Sounds like he'll make a good agent."

“Guess we'll see."

We parted ways at the hall on the way to the pool, and I turned into the women's locker room. Automatically I tapped in my code for my locker and then undressed without giving much thought putting on the uniform. When I pulled out my change of clothes, I frowned when I saw the wrapping at the bottom of my locker. I reached down and pulled it out, frowning at the purple tissue paper wrapped in a knot. It was my favorite color. Wrapped so neatly and tightly. It was carefully done.

My heart started beating faster as I glanced around the locker room, even knowing I was alone. My skin prickled and my breathing became shallow.

You know what this is.

There was no fucking way.

He couldn't have. There was absolutely no way that he could have.

And there, standing in my joggers and a sports bra, I ripped into the wrapping paper. My heart squeezed as I saw the inscription on the outside of the diary. I laughed at the fact that it wasn't at all profound, it wasn't even that witty or clever, but it was my mother's. Life is short, you might as well eat chocolate. And before I knew what I was doing, I sank down to the floor holding the diary against my chest, letting those tears that had pricked in my eyes earlier finally spill over. All that time I’d been holding myself together, trying to keep it together, I finally broke.

Lachlan King had broken me.

* * *

Lachlan

Touching her was admittedly a mistake.Okay, sniffing her had been the mistake.

Giving no fucks about decorum or what was proper or what I had promised her that I would do, I’d inhaled her scent and touched that soft patch of skin right at her hip bone. God, I’d been hard ever since. And edgy. I couldn't fucking think straight.

There'd been a few briefs about a new terrorist group we were trying to place an agent in. So I’d been doing a lot of research on that, but by and large, I’d been able to stay the hell away from her until today.

"Mate, you are having one hell of a day. You need to go hit the showers or the pool or get a workout in because you are edgy as fuck."

I snapped to attention and growled over the computer monitor at Saint. "What the fuck did you say?"

"Case in point."

"What are you on about?"

“I'm not sure you're aware, but we are trying to track down Remy O’Clare. We're doing research into past crimes, blah, blah, boring. And you are sitting there with your teeth clenched so tight I can see every fucking muscle in that carved Adonis jaw of yours. Mate, relax or something. Because Christ you are going to crack a fucking molar."

I forced my jaw to relax. "So now you care about my dental hygiene."

“It's not really about the hygiene I don't want one of your chipped teeth to come flying out of that ugly mug of yours."

"Please, I’m prettier than you."