watch over Lily.
The only problem? The more he watched, the harder he fell. Which was trouble. Lily was trouble. Without knowing it, she’d gotten to him, settled into his bones and turned his world upside down.
He looked up, caught Ben’s steady gaze and nodded in his direction. The tall, bald man didn’t return the gesture. Great. How was it possible that he’d pissed off both of them? Derek could engage with a tree. He knew no stranger. It was part of what made him so good at his job, yet here he was grasping at straws.
Time to do some serious damage control, because he’d just crashed and burned. Twice. Derek rose from his chair and made his way over to the counter.
Ben didn’t move.
Derek knew exactly who was staring him down, and Unit 67’s infamous Benjamin Tinsdale was not the man you wanted to go up against in a brawl. Of any sort. Derek swallowed his grin. Now was not the time to go toe-to-toe with this alpha.
“Good work on the shop.” Derek glanced around. “I like it in here.”
Ben crossed his arms over his barrel chest, tucked his hands under his armpits, didn’t smile. “What can I get you?”
Fantastic. He’d significantly angered this mountain of a man when he’d ticked Lily off. “Doppio macchiato.”
Ben turned toward the espresso machine, glanced into the mirror behind the coffee bar and watched Derek as he pulled the caramel-colored shots. “Be careful with that one.” He spoke in a low, deliberate tone.
What the hell? Derek caught that underlying threat. He hadn’t expected Ben to go there. This guy wasn’t messing around. Derek filed that away and switched gears. “It was just a friendly conversation.”
“Yeah, and I’m the fucking Dalai Lama.” Ben passed Derek his coffee. “I’d advise you to find someone else to have a friendly conversation with.”
Derek handed Ben a five-dollar bill. “Keep the change.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion, Moretti.”
The hair bristled on the back of Derek’s neck. Legend or not, Ben was no longer active and had no say in what Derek did or did not do on a case. Derek took a deep breath, toned down the internal sarcasm before he answered the man glowering at him. He needed Ben on his side, not as an enemy. Might as well learn to play nice. “I’ll take that into consideration.”
Like hell he would. With the undercurrent at ARME Industries rapidly shifting and the tension between his boss and Rowland James heating up, Derek really needed to read Lily in on this case. And sooner rather than later.
Tuesday, September 16, 8:00 p.m.
WHAT A NIGHTMARE. Every time Lily closed her eyes, she could see the blue of Derek’s. She could feel the warmth of his hands, his lips. Her heart raced at the sheer memory of his touch. She sat at the baby grand, her fingers flying over the smooth ivory. Her form of therapy. When everything around her seemed to fall apart, she’d lose herself in the soft melodies of Chopin. As her fingers raced, her mind flew to the past.
To who she had been.
She was 67’s best agent. And how could she not be? Both her parents had served Unit 67 before their untimely—and classified—deaths. Though it had snatched Lily’s family from her, she’d never given leaving this life a second thought—she’d been part of the black-ops world since her birth. It was part of her, entangled in the deepest recesses of her DNA. Had she been studied by psychologists, she would have blown the whole nature versus nurture argument straight to hell, because she wasn’t just one, she was both. She knew it well, becoming another person. Transforming to learn vital information, in order to protect and to serve.
Lily had loved every second of it.
Until Jackson.
The lonely melody of the piano matched her mood.
She let the last note slip quietly into the night, then reached for the goblet of Merlot and let the tart liquid wash over her tongue. She closed her eyes and opened her heart to remember her father’s calm voice. Once an agent, always an agent, sweetheart.
Lily swirled the crimson liquid in her glass. She wished things were different. But they weren’t. She wished she were different.
She wasn’t.
Dakota leaped to his feet, growled and rushed the front door. Setting the wine down, Lily grabbed the .45 sitting on the edge of the piano and flipped the safety. Gun drawn, she moved to the wall monitor and peered into the screen. George’s face stared back at her. Strange. Why hadn’t he just called up? She lowered the gun and pulled open the door. “George, what’s up?”
He held out his hand. “Another note from our friendly little stalker.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass.” She took the note, her curiosity sparked. “What did he say this time? Another apology?”
“He walked in with roses—”
“Roses?” Lily managed to choke out.
“I pitched them.” He smiled, his dazzling white teeth a stark contrast to his deep brown skin, and winked. “Didn’t figure you’d want them.”
She snorted. “You figured right.”
He grew serious. “He wanted to see you. I told him you weren’t available. The guy simply nodded, handed me the flowers and asked that I make sure you got them.”
“Ballsy.”
“I talked to Ben.”
Lily’s eyes narrowed. Of course they’d talked. They were both former 67, but the lifetime commitment that most agents made ran true in both men. Unit 67 trained them to be lone rangers, to think on their own and for their own, but every so often, a tight-knit group of lone rangers banded together—and Lily had found herself in the middle of one such phenomenon.
George—giant, scary-as-shit George—decided Ben Tinsdale, his newest trainee, was part of the family when the twenty-something, pissed-off ex-ranger had shown up at Unit 67, hell-bent on avenging the death of his unit. Ben had been looking for a fight, but instead, George introduced the young warrior to Lily’s parents, and just like that, a family of misfits had formed. It wasn’t unusual for them to check in with each other, especially when it came to her.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. And I don’t like it, or this Moretti guy, for that matter. This place—” George gestured into her loft “—has been off the radar far too long for some maverick to come along and jeopardize life as you know it.”
Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Lily leaned against the door frame and let him talk. The man was worse than a Sidewinder missile when he’d locked on to something. Which, by the determined look in his eyes, was now.
“George, I know.”
“Your father would be livid to know his daughter’s safe house had been compromised.”
Oh, dear lord, how long was he going to go on about this? She’d figured Derek dropping in on her would rattle George just as much as it had her, but she was a grown woman...and a trained operative. “I get it. And I haven’t agreed to anything yet.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, are you going to?”
“I don’t know.” And that was the honest answer. She didn’t. “But it beats the alternative.”
“Which is?”
“Sitting on my ass for the rest of my life. I loved my life, loved everything about it, and though I will be forever grateful for you and Ben, I can’t sit back and do nothing. Jackson may have