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He wanted to knowhe needed to keep her safe "I take it things did not go ith your daughter"

"Not as I would have hoped, but as I predicted," she said with a deep sadness in her eyes "She forgives , and that’s cos and tears"

Pain, loss, and regret all radiated off her in waves He walked past the coveredhis ar "Seeht have a little understanding for the difficult decision you had to make You sacrificed a lot to keep her safe"

"Don’t make excuses for me" She pressed a hand to her throat "You don’t have to pretend to be nice anyet close to me, to do whatever it took, to be whoet under et it Now the need to playact is over"

Playact? She thought he was pretending to care about her? He couldn’t let her go on believing that, but he wasn’t sure how htly, but even that brought back memories of their kiss and howis an act You should also know the best covers for agents are the ones that blend the truth in with the fiction That makes it easier not to trip up"

Her chin tipped proudly, but he could have sworn her eyes held a tentative hope that fired him to clasp both her hands and continue

"If I had just wanted to get close to you, the simplest ould have been to pretend I was in love with someone else, perhaps a heartbroken ho could never love again" He’d played that role before on a prior mission in Cairo "I would have created a backstory to keep you at ar close to you"

"Instead, you chose to be lanced down at his hands holding her "Friends don’t kiss"

Why was shethis difficult? Perhaps because she did not want the sa too cautious? Too honorable? Frustration chewed at his already overtaxed self-control "That’s because I do not want to be your friend, daiven all you have been through today" His hands slid up her arms to hold her shoulders Finally, he allowed himself to vocalize his deepest wish since he’d first seen her "But I want to be with you, romantically I always have"

"Oh" Her eyebrows shot upward as quickly as the plane outside cliht sky

"Oh? That is all you have to say?" He had bared his pride to her, and she could only say… "Oh?"

"It’s the always part that I’ beams across her incredulity "Always?"

The power of that first ain, the sense that he had been waiting for her his whole life "Fro in your classrooether some kind of project for a bulletin board You had the saddest look on your face All I wanted in that moment was to make you smile"

He still did

"I remember the day you arrived, that led her head to the side, her beautiful face so dear to hi about ether when I ca on the wall or even use as a doorstop I needed to know that I’d left a part of rooves into her face, weighting down her words More of that pain swelled from her and he realized that was the wall between them She couldn’t allow herself to be happy "Annie, I know you and I areen eyes "All of that doesn’t matter The reality is, I let her down I let my boys down… ain, just like she had the first day he met her She blinked and two fat tears rolled down her cheeks "I don’t think I could live with ain"

"Annie…" His voice caainst his chest, breathing in the familiar scent of the hand lotion So many times he’d walked by that bottle she kept on her desk and resisted the urge to lift it to his nose "I s for you have never been an act"

"Still? Even after everything I’ve said?" she asked, all the self-doubt in her voice tearing him up inside "The kind of person I am--a woman who could leave her husband and her children?"

Decades ago when he’d begun his undercover career, he ed her, back when he’d been stuck in very narros of right and wrong He’d seen too much since then to live that way anymore Life was far more complicated

"Annie, you are not perfect Neither am I No one is This is likely the worst possible time to tell you, but I loved you the first tiot to know you better only made me love you more It made me want to leave behind my old job and teach by your side in reality To have the privilege to keep right on loving you"

More of those tears flowed froest woman he’d ever met "Sam…"

He touched her mouth "You are not alone any to speak, but he stopped her again "Just think about what I said I do not want an answer nohen so much is turned upside down in your life I only told you so you would know, you are not alone anyhtly, then held his hand to her chest "It’s that simple for you to commit?"

"Not sier than you to think through this"