She could handle a man twice her size and kill with the paper clip she held in her delicate fingers.

“Still want to talk?” Hunter knew the answer, but someone had to make the next move.

“Of course.” She finished clipping the document and placed it carefully on the corner of Joe’s desk. Everything about her was careful, calculated, and controlled.

“Have a seat,” she said, moving to the front of Joe’s desk, where she leaned a hip.

That had not been a suggestion but an order.

“Didn’t think this would take that long.” He sat down in the office chair facing her.

“You in a hurry?” she asked.

“Depends on what you and Joe have decided.”

“We haven’t.”

Ah, hell. They were going to lock him up and make him sweat out their decision. If he tried to disappear, they’d simply go get Abbie, who couldn’t leave her mother’s bedside now that she was improving. They both were.

Hunter owed a few more thanks, like to Dr. Murphy from Johns Hopkins, who’d determined Abbie hadn’t been given anything really harmful. Jackson had lied. Big surprise.

Abbie had gone home with her mother. Hunter wanted to see her so much his body ached from missing her.

He’d never been passive in his life and wasn’t starting now. “Why haven’t you made a decision yet?”

“We can’t agree.”

He leaned forward. “On?”

“I was ready to take you out of the field.”

She hadn’t said “permanently,” but this was Tee, so that was a given. He had no idea what he could say to sway her, so he waited for her to continue.

“Joe and Retter understand why you did what you did. It’s not that I don’t understand. It’s that I don’t care. I only care about our missions and our agents.”

He had nothing to gain by trying to bullshit her. “You’re right. No one should take the autonomy I did.”

She angled her head a fraction and raised one fine black eyebrow. “Why didn’t you realize that before now?”

“I wanted to kill the person who had taken Eliot from me.” He hadn’t expected to be talking about this, but he owed Joe and Retter for blowing the chance they’d given him to prove he could be a part of the team. If Joe was willing to speak up for him then Hunter could tell Tee the truth. “That was rage speaking. Eliot would have been pissed if he’d known. He wouldn’t care about stopping one assassin for payback. He worked for BAD to stop groups like the Fratelli, to make this country safe for the people he loved. I’ve finally realized I was actually doing a disservice to him and what he lived for by going after one assassin. If he was standing here today he’d kick my ass across this building and back for losing sight of the big picture.”

She didn’t speak, just kept piercing him with a stiletto-pointed gaze, so he continued.

“Regardless of what you decide, I’d like to attend Korbin’s memorial. I don’t know if he’s got any family, but I’m in if we’re doing something for them.” He wasn’t going to flaunt his money and say he’d cover it all. That would insult the rest of the team. He’d pay his share. That’s what a team member would do.

“I wouldn’t have believed it,” she murmured.

“What? That I could be honest?”

“No, that you could change my mind.” Her lips curved softly into a smile with only a hint of evil hiding. “You’re back on the team, but what about this Abbie? She’s in the media. Not our favorite people.”

“She lost her job with the media.”

“Make sure she doesn’t get another one.”

“How do you expect me to do that?”

“I don’t care how you do it.” Tee got up and walked around the desk, then leaned forward with her hands supporting her. “She knows about you and what you do.”

“She’s not going to say anything,” Hunter argued. “She doesn’t know anything about this location, the name of our organization, nothing that she could tell anyone, even if she would, which she won’t.”

“You sound pretty certain.”

“I am certain. I trust her with my-”

“Life?” Tee smirked.

Hunter didn’t have to think before answering this time. “Yes.”

“Really.” Tee straightened away from the desk and crossed her arms. “Did you get a new safe house?”

“Yes.”

“Going to share that location with us?”

“Not unless you want to be tied to the fallout if the CIA ever finds out about my houseguest.”

“No, we don’t, which is why we never pressed you before. Anyone else know about the location?”

“No.”

“But Eliot knew, didn’t he?”

Hunter shrugged. “Yes. What’s your point?”

“You don’t trust Abbie, so I don’t trust her. How do you plan to assure us she isn’t going to be a threat to our security?”

You need plenty of fluids.” Abbie held the cup so her mother could take a sip of vitamin-infused water. Dr. Murphy had released her mother two days ago to come home.

Abbie’s apartment still stank of tear gas, which reminded her of the deep fear she’d lived through. She’d packed a bag of clothes she washed as soon as she reached her mother’s house.

Her mother took the cup from her hand. “Don’t ignore me, Abigail. This is the first chance we’ve had to talk without Hannah in the room. What happened? Why did you lose your job?”

“Because the station is still spinning this to fix the backlash from me being involved when Gwen Wentworth was shot. They gave me a chance to save my name if I’d write an exclusive on my ordeal. I refused. When I started, I thought I’d like working for television, but I don’t want to share intimate details of what happened to me, so I can’t see myself asking someone else to do that. My reputation is shot in television.”

“I’m sorry, honey.”

“The only upside is that I hated working for a scumbag.” She smiled at her mother. “But I did hear some good news. Brittany’s grandfather fired Stuey. And I did get an offer from a regional magazine to report on Chicago’s who’s who in business and where they’re seen around town. They seem to think since I was seen with a Thornton-Payne I must be ‘in the know.’ ” She did the air quotes with her fingers. Filming documentaries might not happen in this lifetime with the dark cloud hanging over her television career.

“Oh.”

“Why do you sound disappointed, Mom?” Not that Abbie was doing backflips over this job offer or that she believed anyone in the Thornton-Payne league would ever speak to her, but it was a paying gig if she got it and meant reporting on the cream of the corporate world.

She might run into a Thorton-Payne, as in Todd, but not Hunter. The tug of pain caught her by surprise again.

“What about that idea you had to film children at different times in their lives for a couple-”

“No.” Abbie had once thought about creating video scrapbooks for parents. She’d saved the idea to start with her own family, because filming documentaries had always been her true passion. What was the chance she’d ever have little ones of her own? Zilch if she couldn’t have a family with the man she loved.

Falling for Hunter proved trust and love didn’t go hand in hand as she’d always believed.

Worse, she still loved that bastard.

He’d said he loved her, but he hadn’t trusted her.

She couldn’t accept one without the other and Hunter lived a life that didn’t allow for opening himself up totally to a woman.

“You’re awake.” Hannah strolled into the bedroom eating a dish of ice cream and carrying a second one she handed to her mother.

“I don’t get one?” Abbie asked, annoyed.

“You’ve got laundry to do.” Hannah shoved another spoonful in her mouth and moaned.

“I thought you wanted to stay a size six.” Abbie grabbed for the bowl. Hannah stuck it high in the air.

“Plumping up a few curves didn’t hurt you. I’ll take someone like that Hunter guy you were running around with anytime.”

Over my dead body. Abbie clamped her lips shut to keep from speaking her thoughts.