Dead Ringer by Jasmine Cresswell

Author:Jasmine Cresswell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Twelve

Rick could barely credit what he’d just allowed to escape from his mouth. But he’d tried everything else, he thought despairingly. Now he seemed to have no choice left but to tell her some of the truth. Unfortunately the General had been correct to instruct his lieutenants to kidnap Charlotte. She was the one point of vulnerability where he was concerned, and the General had exploited that weakness with his usual brilliant insight.

Rick had bought himself time by kidnapping Charlotte first, before Sean and Ryan could get to her. Unfortunately the fact that she was sitting six feet away from him didn’t mean his ability to make rational assessments had been restored. Worry about keeping his actions hidden from the General, not to mention Sean and Ryan, was compounded with worry about keeping the FBI off his ass so that he could insure her safety. The plain truth was that having Charlotte around compromised his judgment. He was wasting far too much effort keeping his feelings hidden as opposed to concentrating on the myriad other problems at hand.

Keep your eye on the prize, boyo. And while you’re at it, keep your hands off Charlotte’s body and quit thinking with your dick.

She was staring at him with an expression of mingled doubt, indecision and horror that he should have been able to view with indifference, and couldn’t. At this point, with all that was at stake, what the hell did it matter if she didn’t like him much, and trusted him even less? What he needed right now was a vigorous kick in the butt to restore his sense of perspective and reorder his priorities.

“What are you talking about?” Charlotte perched on the edge of her chair, her body stiff and awkward with tension. “Wh-what do you mean, you’re trying to prevent a nuclear explosion?”

“Just that,” he said curtly. “Perhaps you’ve already heard about the would-be nuclear terrorist the FBI arrested last spring? He was a petty criminal who’d converted to Islam and decided he could find salvation by offering his services to Al Qaeda. He’d made it his mission in life to get the radioactive material necessary to produce a dirty bomb. He was halfway toward succeeding when agents moved in and arrested him.”

She nodded. “Yes, I read about that. According to the papers, he seemed to believe he could bomb the United States into accepting Islam.”

“If not that, he hoped at least to inflict a crippling blow on America, so that Muslim countries would be in a better position to take what he considered their proper place as leaders of the world.”

Charlotte pushed impatiently at her hair, which had fallen in a seductive sweep across her eyes. “Somebody should have pointed out to him that being the only superpower isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s no fun being the target of every loony-toons this side of the planet Jupiter.”

Rick shrugged in rueful agreement, keeping his attention focused rigidly on what they were discussing, rather than his overwhelming urge to take Charlotte to bed.

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