around her injured ankle, how he’d kissed away her tears in his tree house. Yes, he was capable of great passion, too—she remembered the angry blaze of his eyes all too clearly—but essentially his military side and his human side existed in reasonable harmony. Despite the great trials he’d been through.
And look how he was with Leighton. Firm, but fair. Patient. Gentle.
He may well kill for those he loved, but he was at least capable of deeper emotion. For the first time, she wondered if perhaps her father would have been a difficult man to love even without his military background.
‘Looking for breaches of security in the ceiling panels, Romy?’
Her body stiffened with sudden tension. It was too soon. She pushed herself to her feet. ‘Clint…’
‘How are you?’ His words weren’t exactly cold but they were a long way from warm.
‘I’m fine, thank you.’ Oh, so painfully polite. ‘Is there something you need?’
He stepped into her tiny office and closed the door. Her blood pressure rose instantly. ‘I need to ask you about something.’
‘Actually, I need to ask you something, too.’ Stay away from my son.
He leaned on the doorframe, tipped his head towards her.
She took a deep breath. ‘Why have you been talking to Leighton about being in the military?’
He frowned. ‘I haven’t.’
Who else would have? ‘He knows you were a soldier. Now he wants to be one.’
He studied her carefully. ‘Then it’s not from me. And you know I can’t agree that’s a terrible thing.’
‘Despite everything you’ve been through?’
He nodded. ‘Even so. But that doesn’t mean I talk to him about it. I can barely talk to my shrink about it—do you imagine I offload onto an eight-year-old boy?’
She frowned. ‘You told me about it.’
Caution slammed down over his eyes. ‘Inappropriate impulse.’
Oh. Awkward silence fell between them. She rushed to cover the pang his words caused. ‘I don’t want him idolising you. What you were.’
‘Yes, because that would be a crime. Seeing as I’m pond scum in your eyes.’
Her heart squeezed. ‘You know that’s not true.’
His irises bled to the green of a storm-tossed dam. ‘I appreciate your upbringing was a very difficult one and I can understand how that might have left you with a skewed view of the military,’ he said. ‘But I happen to be enormously proud of the work I did in the Defence Force, the lives I saved and the difference I made to my country…’
‘Clint—’
‘I can’t suppress that for you, Romy. It’s a part of who I am and I’m through apologising for it. I am a member of the Australian Armed Forces, proud to have served my country, proud of my actions in conflict and proud to still belong to Strike Force Taipan in whatever capacity I can be. Deal with it.’
And there it was. Out in the open. Only he looked as surprised to have said it as she was to hear it.
The ball of tension in her chest tumbled and rolled and trebled in size, pushing on her heart and swelling with pride. Pride for Clint. It was far more important that he accept that part of him than she did. She nodded.
‘Okay.’
‘Okay…? That’s it?’
It physically hurt to speak. ‘You shouldn’t apologise for doing something you believe in wholeheartedly. Your core values. I won’t ask you to.’
‘You ask me in a hundred little ways, Romy. I feel it every time I’m with you.’
Shame washed through her. That’s how she used to feel with her father. She heaved in an unsteady breath and tried to move away from her desk but there was not far to go when he was taking up so much of the room. ‘What did you need to see me for?’ she finally got out, needing to move to safer territory.
He glared at her, dark and intense. Veiled. Not surprising given their parting on Friday night. ‘Do you trust me, Romy?’
With my life. ‘Wh…why?’
‘You didn’t tell me about my brother.’
Romy frowned and glanced at her computer screen. How did he know? ‘Uh, there wasn’t much to tell before today.’ Before she got this morning’s email from her contact in Chicago.
‘Did you think I wouldn’t believe you?’
‘I…’ She shook her head to clear the confusion. She pulled her focus off his overwhelming presence in her miniature office. ‘He’s your brother…I didn’t want to—’
‘Tell me now. I want to hear it.’
Lord…She’d wanted time to prepare for this…to even work out what it could mean. It wasn’t something you just announced. But he was asking. Waiting.
She reached into a low drawer and pulled a file out, then passed the sheet on the top to Clint. ‘Justin never worked at the Joliet Grosvenor.’
His eyes froze over on the paper and she hurried on. ‘There’s no record of him even being registered in the Hospitality Association in Chicago. He would have to have been, to work front desk in a major hotel.’
‘What is this?’ His voice was as brittle as the orchards in a frost.
Confusion muddled her mind. ‘Justin never worked—’
‘I heard what you said.’ He raised pained eyes to hers and shook the paper. The blaze in his eyes could have combusted it in his hand. ‘You investigated my brother?’
Her breath stopped. The room shrank around her and an enormous hole opened up inside her. ‘What were you talking about?’
‘Justin behaving…inappropriately at the fundraiser.’
Octopus hands were just a blip on her radar compared to what came after with Clint. She’d all but forgotten Justin’s drunken pawing.
A deep scowl dropped over the angles of his face. ‘Why the hell are you investigating my brother?’
Romy could have apologised. Begged his forgiveness. But when her antennae were vibrating so wildly she knew better than to back down. There was too much at stake. Clint’s heart. She took a bolstering breath around the tightness in her chest. ‘Why would he lie to you?’
‘Am I part of your investigation now?’
She took the hit. Prepared herself for more. To protect him. ‘Why would he lie, Clint?’
‘Who says he is
