Internal Affairs by Jessica Andersen

whisper.
    “I’m not the guy who cheated on you, Sara.” His eyes were steady on hers.
    “Yes, you are.” But she knew that was a lie. The old Romo had been a charming rogue who’d committed himself fiercely to the chase once she’d let him know that she was attracted to him but made it a point not to date men who went through girlfriends with depressing regularity. She’d eventually given in and gone out with him, then had fallen for him, but he’d only let himself fall so far. There had been a distance between them, a barrier she’d been unable to breach.
    With this man, though, there was no barrier that she could see. Stripped of his practiced game, he remained as fiercely protective of her as he’d been before, but he let her see it in him. His eyes showed his thoughts and feelings, and when he reached up between the front seats to touch her elbow in a brief caress that lit her bodyas though it had been so much more, there was an honesty in his touch that she didn’t remember from before. It was as though, in losing himself, Romo Sampson had found a new, different man. A better one.
    “Sara,” he began.
    “We’re here,” she interrupted, unable to deal with whatever he was about to say, knowing she wanted to hear it far too much. She turned into the small parking lot of the state park trailhead that Fax had chosen as a meeting place and saw two other cars already there, a dark green truck and a standard-issue sedan. “Those are Fax and Tucker’s rides.”
    As she rolled the hybrid to a stop, Fax emerged from his truck. A couple of inches under six feet, he was tough and compact, with dark hair, piercing blue eyes and a thin scar running through one eyebrow. He looked healthier than he had when Sara had first met him, fresh out of his own undercover hell. He hadn’t mellowed over the ten months, though, despite his engagement to Chelsea. If anything, Fax had grown even more intense as she had progressed through her FBI training, as though he was bound and determined to end al-Jihad’s reign of terror before the woman he loved wound up any deeper in the danger. Even now, he practically vibrated with deadly tension as he rounded his truck to join Tucker, who leaned back against his car, arms folded over his broad chest.
    Tucker was a couple of inches taller than Fax, with wavy dark hair, brown eyes and a swarthy tan and an air of unconstrained wildness that made him look more like a park ranger than a senior homicide detective.
    Both men wore bulletproof vests marked with theiraffiliations, and had guns on their hips. When Sara parked the hybrid and just sat there for a second, dithering, her friends moved to stand shoulder to shoulder, presenting a strong, united front. She told herself she should feel reassured by the sight. Instead, nerves skittered to life beneath her skin.
    “They’re going to kill me when they hear what I’ve done,” she said, mostly to herself.
    “They’re not going to touch you,” Romo said succinctly from the backseat, where he was still hunkered down, avoiding detection. “And for the record, the you-and-me conversation isn’t over.”
    Her throat went dry even as her blood revved in her veins. “What if I want it to be over?”
    “I can’t let it be over,” he said, and in his eyes she saw a raw honesty she’d never seen in his face before. “I don’t know what the old me did, exactly, and I sure as hell don’t understand why he did what he did, but I’m not that man anymore, Sara. And the man I am now wants his chance with you.”
    Her heart thudded unevenly in her chest. “I don’t do second chances.”
    “It wouldn’t be a second chance. It’d be a first one for the guy I am now.”
    A bubble of near-hysterical laughter rose within her. “For how long? As far as I know, you’re thirty seconds from being dragged back undercover. And even if that doesn’t happen, how long will it be until it all comes back, until the real Romo Sampson