Page 10 of It's Always Been You

“If I have to, yes.”

Nate barked with laughter, although there wasn’t much humor in it. “Kidnapping is a class-1 felony where we’re from, my friend. You can kiss your reputation and business goodbye.”

“She’s my wife.”

“Not according to her.”

Travis realized his friend was going to poke holes in all his plans. They were not the type of best friends that stuck their heads up each other’s asses. They could be blunt and to the point and keep each other honest. This didn’t mean Nate didn’t annoy him, which was particularly true at this moment when it concerned what he wanted most: Sarah. Or Caitlin—he’d call her that, if that was what she wanted. If that was what made her feel comfortable.

Just then, the door opened, and Ms. Lopez stepped into the room. The scowl on her face indicated her displeasure with what had transpired.

“I’d like to go on record, that what you did was the stupidest way to win your wife back,” Ms. Lopez said.

“You neglected to tell me she had amnesia. How the fuck did you think I was gonna react when she tells me she has another man?”

“I had to protect her best interests. People are after her. It makes me worry what she really knows.”

“Do you believe I’m her husband?”

“I do, Mr. Blake. And I’ve talked to Ms. Kincaid at length to calm her down. I’ve shown her the evidence of your claim that proves she’s your wife, and she’s considering this.”

“Considering,” Travis repeated the word before his eyes flashed angrily. “What do you mean considering?”

“She may not want to leave the embassy with you.”

“The fuck she isn’t. Where would she go? And didn’t she say there were people after her?”

“That’s what I tried to tell her. You own a security business. Who best to keep her safe if not you?”

“Thank you.” Hell, that was the first compliment this woman had paid him.

“Don’t thank me yet. Now, the CIA wants a word with her, and I suggested that you and I should be present. She was amenable to that.”

Travis looked at Nate who grinned at him. Finally, some headway.

When the threeof them emerged from the room, Travis immediately sensed something amiss. The guard in front of Sarah’s room was missing, and there were droplets of dark liquid on the floor. Blood. His anxiety deepened when Ms. Lopez sprinted in front of him and barged into the room, Travis close at her heels.

Sarah was gone, and there was an unconscious guard on the floor with an apparent gunshot wound to the neck.

Nate cursed a blue streak behind him as Ms. Lopez picked up the phone to alert security.

Travis had one thought in mind as his eyes followed the bloody tracks on the floor, smeared purposefully by a shoe. Sarah had left them some breadcrumbs, and he was going to get her back.

Caitlin was numb.The news that she had a husband had thrown her for a loop, but it was the news of Jase’s death that eventually caused her to implode into a crying mess. He was gone. How could he be gone? Caitlin should have stood in front of the car and insisted he take her with him.

Whoever was after Jase could still be after her. And Ms. Lopez was insisting that this man, Travis Blake, could be the only person to keep her safe. Wasn’t it convenient that the man was also her husband? What if Travis Blake was telling the truth that Jase was the one who took her from him?

It’s time for you to stop running. I’m not the one you love.

Did he mean Travis? That she loved Travis?

So had Jase been lying to her all along?

Caitlin admitted there was something viscerally familiar about Travis when he walked into the room. Her mind didn’t know him, but there wassomething, although fleeting, that drew her to him. Of course, he being a damned good-looking man skewed her senses a bit. And then he opened his mouth and nothing but hateful words spewed forth.

No. They weren’t hateful. Her words were, for that was genuine pain in his eyes when she had scorned his claim that she was his wife. And she had flaunted another man in front of him.

Caitlin cringed with guilt.Adulteresscame to mind. Was it adultery when she had no frigging clue that she was married?

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