Page 26 of Special Ops Seduction

“That’s because Iamtense.”

“I’ve seen you throw yourself into situations that would drop most people flat. You never flinch. But you’re afraid of the man who raised you?”

Bethan felt her lips twist. “I wouldn’t say I’m afraid of him. But ask yourself how many generals you’ve enjoyed spending time with.” When Jonas grunted, she nodded. “Exactly. Now imagine that’s your run-of-the-mill family dinner every night when Dad’s home.”

“Point taken.”

“Do you enjoy spending time with your father?” she asked before she thought better of it.

And the Jonas she knew best slanted a look her way, his dark gaze a condemnation and a curse, and iced over besides. “We both know you already know the answer to that, Bethan. Is this really the night you want to start playing games?”

Bethan caught herself before she stumbled, a humiliation she wasn’t sure she would have survived. “Was that an acknowledgment that we have a historyandhave had personal conversations? Impossible.”

“I haven’t seen my father in over a decade,” Jonas said flatly. “Last I heard he was homeless in Vegas, but I can’t confirm that.”

She felt horrible for bringing it up, but she suspected that was what he wanted, so she kept her expression neutral. “Do you—”

“When the mission involves my family, I’ll be happy to discuss them in detail,” Jonas growled at her. “Until then it not only isn’t relevant, it risks blowing our cover. Is that what you want?”

“We walked around the outside of the house to make sure no one could be lurking around, listening to us talk,” Bethan said mildly. “I’ve been scanning the area as we go and have seen no sign that anyone is positioned to overhear a word. But I take your point. Feel free to stop glowering at me at any time.”

And she took a little more satisfaction in that than she should have. But then, she’d warned him that she was petty.

They rounded the corner of the house and she knew, instantly, that her father had arrived. There was that hushed anticipation in the air. Staff hurrying this way and that.

Jonas reached over and linked their fingers together as they walked toward the small crowd on the west patio. And she obviously couldn’t think too closely aboutthat, so instead, Bethan tried to remember the last time she’d seen her father in person. Not for some time, she thought. Not since before she’d gone to Alaska. She’d worked through last Christmas, and though she’d seen her mother and sister in Washington, D.C., in the spring, her father had been unavailable.

The way he always had been.

When she and Jonas stepped onto the patio, Bethan felt a little charge that she was pretty sure was sheer relief that there were more people there, not just her immediate family. Ellen’s bridesmaids and friends were there with their dates, all of them looking like the Ivy League hedge fund managers, bankers, and lawyers they were. A collection of people she instantly categorized as Santa Barbara residents—her parents’ West Coast friends—because theylooked the part, with their carefully curated effortlessness. Her mother and the women she’d gone to Scripps with, all dressed in different versions of the same outfit as they laughed and clinked their glasses together.

But Bethan’s gaze zeroed in on her father, standing apart from the crowd as he usually did, because he liked to give the impression that the Pentagon might call him at any moment. In fairness, it might.

Jonas got instantly more intense as he walked beside her—something she likely would have sensed regardless butfeltin her own hand because he was still holding it.

Do not think about the hand-holding, she ordered herself.

Instead, she focused on the scene before her. Because her father had two other men with him, and both of them were on their list.

“I guess it’s go time after all,” Jonas muttered around a smile.

“Rangers lead the way,” Bethan replied automatically, because that was the Rangers’ Creed.

“All the way,” Jonas replied, giving the standard answer.

And then, suddenly, it was easier to pretend. Maybe because there were people here, some of them several drinks toward merry already, and they were a kind of buffer. Maybe because she had always pretended where her father was concerned.

Maybe because Jonas’s hand tightened around hers before he released it, and she tucked that away somewhere inside her where she kept each and every one of his very rare real smiles.

But it was go time, so she jumped into her character. The version of Bethan Wilcox who would date a man who was not only a mercenary but ran a firm filled with them, who wore flowy dresses that proclaimed her femininity instead of her lethal capacity, and who was simply here at a cocktail party with her date.

She and Jonas wore matching smiles. He laughed and shook hands and was generally impressive. And when Bethan pretended this was just an op, not her family, she found it was a whole lot easier to sparkle along with him.

By the time they got around to her father’s little power cluster, she had almost forgotten to be apprehensive.

“Hi, Dad,” she said, shrinking a little and hunching her shoulders, making herself smaller as she smiled at him.

And it occurred to her, unpleasantly, that making herself smaller and looking ineffectual was something she did when someone had a gun on her. When they didn’t expect her to fight back or mount a counterassault.

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