She raised her eyebrow at him. "You think?"
He slapped water at her. "You can look smug when you want to."
"I know." She really hated the idea of turning her back on him to get out of the Jacuzzi. She didn't mind being naked, but she detested him looking at her back. For some reason, she couldn't overcome the shame, as if somehow she'd allowed the torture. They'd made certain she couldn't touch them, but maybe she could have scared them into believing she would have hunted them down. Now that she was older, that was exactly what she'd do, but back then, she'd been so frightened, and what they wanted from her had been repulsive. She'd loathed herself and her capabilities.
She waited until Jess shifted to first the stair and then the platform before she climbed out and made certain his chair was locked so he could swing into it. She caught up Jess's shirt and pulled it on.
"Chaleen was here tonight."
He straightened up in his chair, frowning at her. "I know that, Ken told me, but how did you know?"
She tried not to look or sound smug, since he'd just accused her of it. "I went out reconning tonight and saw her." She studied her fingernails. "Blew right past both of your enhanced supersoldier GhostWalker guards."
"You got past Ken and Mari? Both of them?"
"It was a walk in the park."
Jess studied her face. It was obvious she was telling the truth. "Ken sent Chaleen packing."
"If the CIA sent her here, Jess, it means they have suspicions that you're more than a SEAL, and if they think that, who knows who else does?"
"You think a foreign government has sent someone to spy on me?" He thrust with his hands, powering the chair through the house toward the bedroom.
Saber followed at a more leisurely pace, holding the edges of his shirt together around her. "Don't you think that's a possibility?"
"I suppose. But I think my radar would have gone off sooner."
Saber put on a burst of speed and caught up to him, catching at his chair to stop him. She waited until he'd turned to look at her. "So, Jess, what if something else is going on here, something not all about Whitney? Yes, I think he orchestrated our being together, but for what purpose? Just to grab me? Why go to all the trouble of the two of us living together for a year? If he provided the opening for the job and knew I'd take it--and who else could have known?--then why not grab me immediately before you called in the other GhostWalkers. Whitney had to have anticipated that move, right?"
"Yes. There isn't a doubt in my mind he wants us to have a child together."
"Well, I don't have a clue why he wanted me to read those files, but this suddenly doesn't feel like Whitney. I don't know why he'd do this when it isn't logical. Whitney may be a megalomaniac, but he has his own logic. He believes himself to be a patriot. He's not going to be giving other countries supersoldiers, so who is leaking the information? Who's looking for confirmation that you're enhanced?"
Jess shook his head, his expression thoughtful. "It isn't Chaleen. Her job is to find out what I'm doing besides working for Rear Admiral Henderson at NCIS. My team has been out on enough assignments to raise a few rumors, especially after the Congo incident. Senator Ed Freeman was involved with that. He's high profile. Maybe it has something to do with the Congo, or the senator."
She nodded. "He was my target. He and his wife. Whitney wanted them dead. He was in a recent accident and it's rumored he's in a coma."
"He was shot in the head and taken to an undisclosed location. They're keeping his condition very quiet, but you can bet every agency from here to hell and back is looking into it and there are going to be rumors and conjecture about an elite fighting team. Since the CIA was already suspicious, after the senator's disappearance, I'm sure they want answers. What was in his file?"
"Whitney considered him a traitor and wanted both the senator and his wife dead. He actually arranged for me to attend a state dinner and shake hands with the senator. The plan was for me to induce a massive heart attack, and when his wife knelt beside him to do CPR, I would aid her, long enough to release a blood clot into her system. Then I was supposed to disappear before she went down as well."
"You can do that?"
She was so small, yet she held so much power in her slender body. And it was somewhat disconcerting to think she'd been in his home, he'd introduced her to his sister and friends, and he'd never suspected that she could kill with a touch. The innocence in her eyes and the
youthful features were all the cover she really needed. No one would ever suspect her. As a shielder, not even Violet, the senator's wife, would have known that Saber was an assassin.
Saber shrugged. "I told you I could."
The significance of what Saber told him sunk in. She had left the house in full assassination mode. "You slipped past Mari and Ken in order to kill Chaleen, didn't you?"
She'd hoped he'd missed that. Jess didn't miss very much. "Someone was out there watching you. I was afraid they'd been sent to kill you, so yes, I thought I might do something about it in order to protect you, but I changed my mind."
"Ken came along."
She shook her head. "He would have been too late. If I wanted her dead, she'd be beyond help by the time he arrived. He almost stepped on me."
Jess shook his head, a slow grin of admiration escaping when he knew he shouldn't feel that way. "He's going to hate that."
"Don't tell him. Don't tell any of them." She ducked her head. "I don't want them to know what I do."
"Eventually they'll have to know. You're one of us. We work as a team."
"Assassins don't work with a team, Jesse. I go out alone. The orders come in and I play whatever part, slip in and out, and no one ever knows it was a sanctioned hit. I'm the weapon everyone's been looking for. I can take out our enemies and no one will ever be able to prove a thing."
"That doesn't negate the fact that you're one of us. We all have different--and lethal--capabilities, Saber. They'll understand."
"Do you really believe they'll walk up to me and shake my hand the way they did earlier? They'll be terrified."
"I'm not terrified of you, Saber," Jess said.
She lifted her lashes. "Well, maybe you should be."
A slow smile softened the hard line of his mouth. Her heart lurched. He looked so sexy. It was no wonder that she'd fallen for him--she would have without Whitney and his pheromones.
"You said that before. I like to live dangerously."
"You're a nut."
"Come on, baby. Let's go to bed." He held out his hand to her. When she put hers in his, he kissed her palm and then placed it on his shoulder so he could maneuver the chair through the wide hallways to the master bedroom.