Mine to Keep (Mine 2)

“I’ve killed, Skye. For my country. For you.” His shoulders rolled back, and he gestured to his plush office. “You think this place didn’t come at a price? It’s built on secrets. I learned plenty on a battlefield of blood and death. I learned to hunt my enemy, any place, any time. And I learned that, sometimes, you even have to be willing to fight the people who are closest to you…because those people can be the most dangerous.”

“I’m sick of secrets.” Her voice was thick with tears that she wouldn’t shed. “You should’ve told me. It was my life. Mine!”

“And what did you want me to do? To take you off the stage, away from the lights you loved, and tell you that my enemies might be after you? That there could be a man out there who wanted to hurt you, torture you, because of something I’d done?”

“I never loved the lights.” The words were a whispered confession.

He frowned, then Trace gave a hard, negative shake of his head. “I put protection on you until the threat was gone. I just wanted you safe.”

He wasn’t getting it. “You’re talking about my life.”

“I’m talking about the thing that matters most to me!” Trace leapt forward. His hands caught her shoulders. “I didn’t want you afraid. Not of me, not of the men that could come after you. I made a mistake. A stupid mistake, and I put you on their radar.”

“What mistake?”

His gaze held hers. “I took you with me. Fuck me, I took you.”

That made no sense to her. It didn’t—

“Your picture. I needed it, Skye. I needed you. But I should have left you behind, because by taking it, they knew my weakness. They knew that hurting you would break me.”

“Who is ‘they’?”

His fingers tightened on her.

“Stop it!” Skye yelled at him. “Stop keeping me in the dark and just tell me! Why do you think I can’t handle this? I survived a freak who kept me locked in a basement without food for days. I survived.”

His lashes lowered, concealing his eyes. “Some were traitors to our country. I worked Black Ops, Skye. It’s off the books, things too classified for most people to ever know.”

“I’m not most people. I’m the woman you kept in a cage, only I didn’t even know it.”

He flinched. She’d hurt him. In that moment, Skye actually thought…good. Now he felt some of the pain that was ripping her apart.

It didn’t seem fair that she should be the only one who felt as if her heart were being torn out. “How many guards?”

“Does it matter?”

He still wasn’t telling her.

“How long? Months? Years?”

His hands shoved into his pockets, but he didn’t back away from her. “Only when I received intel to indicate that you might be in danger.”

He’d taken her choice away. By not telling her… “Just what did they watch?” All of her personal moments? Her failures? Her successes? Her intimate time with friends…with lovers? Had eyes been on her then?

“They watched enough to make sure you weren’t going to be hurt. When the threats were gone, they pulled back.”

Fury seemed to choke her. “You should have told me.”

“I wanted you to have a normal life! I didn’t want you to be afraid all of the time—like you are now!”

Her breath sucked in. The pain hit her, even sharper than before.

“No, Skye.” Now he did back up, frantically, and his blue eyes widened with an expression of horror. “That’s not what I meant.”

“My nightmares,” Skye whispered.

His right hand raked through his hair. “I didn’t mean—”

“And I was afraid last night at the party. You were constantly keeping me close, weren’t you?” Her brows lowered as she thought about the ball. “Even when I was on the balcony, you had a guard on me. That’s why Noah was there.”

“Noah wasn’t the guard, but…” His chin notched up as he gave a grim nod. “Yes, I had protection on you.”

Every breath she took was cold. Ice coated her body and froze her lungs. Trace didn’t think that he was doing anything wrong. To him, she was the wrong one. The one who was afraid. The one who always needed protection.

Sharpe had said that Skye was Trace’s weakness.

Because I am weak?

Because she couldn’t survive in the dangerous world that Trace lived in?

“It doesn’t change anything,” Trace told her. His voice had softened. “So I had protection on you a few times. I was looking after you, the way I always have. My feelings for you are the same. And your feelings—”

A knock sounded at the door, cutting through his words.