It was the last thing she’d expected Jake to say. It was the last thing she wanted to talk about. Not when she was both physically and mentally exhausted. “I’ve put it behind me, Jake. Maybe you should, too.”
“I want you to understand why I did what I did.”
“I understand all too well what happened.”
“If you did you wouldn’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you expect a knife in the back at any moment.”
“Isn’t that what you did? Put a knife in my back?”
His hands flexed on the wheel. “Not by a long shot.”
“You manipulated me.”
“I didn’t manipulate you. I sure as hell didn’t use you.”
“You slept with me. You made me believe you cared. Then later I find out that all along you’d been planning to wire me for sound and send me back to Ian. What would you call it?”
“I came up with that plan before—” He bit off the sentence, his jaw clamping shut. “Before I…before we became involved.”
“And that makes it all right?” She lowered her voice in a poor imitation of his. “Oh, if I’ve slept with her, I can’t send her into the lion’s den. But if I haven’t slept with her, then it’s okay to risk a woman’s life as long as I get my man.”
“How many times do I have to tell you? I did try to abort the sting,” he said. “But you had your own ideas, didn’t you?”
“I knew I was the best way to get to him. But I hated you for thinking of using me that way. Especially after—” Everything we shared, a cruel little voice chimed in. But Leigh couldn’t say the words. She didn’t want Jake to know just how profoundly he’d touched her in the few short days they’d spent together. She would never open herself up like that again.
“I didn’t know you when I came up with the plan. I thought you were—” He glanced over at her. “I thought you were like him. I thought you were part of his organization. I thought you could handle it. Besides, there were agents standing by. If you’d gotten into trouble they could have been there in two minutes.”
“A lot can happen in two minutes.”
His gaze meeting hers flashed a dark emotion she couldn’t quite read. “You were with him a hell of a lot longer than two minutes.”
Leigh felt herself flush and looked away. She’d never told Jake what had happened the night Sean Cutter had wired her for sound and sent her into Ian Rasmussen’s North Michigan Avenue penthouse. She’d never told another living soul. But she knew several of the agents at MIDNIGHT Agency knew. After all, they’d been listening in while she’d sold her soul. While she’d gotten Rasmussen to incriminate himself. But it had cost her something precious. A piece of herself she would never be able to recoup….
“Don’t you dare condemn me for what I did.” Her voice shook with anger. Shame and self-recrimination rose inside her. It had taken her six years to realize the wounds Ian Rasmussen had put on her soul would never fully heal. The best she could hope for, she’d realized, was that someday she would learn to live with them.
JAKE WASN’T SURE which was worse, knowing that she’d slept with Rasmussen to induce an incriminating statement, or knowing he was partly responsible.
He’d never been a jealous man. But the thought of Leigh with Rasmussen made him see red. Made him feel like a son of a bitch because the sting had been his idea. After all, Jake Vanderpol always got his man. No matter what the price. No matter who got hurt. In this case, he figured everyone involved had seen plenty of hurt, especially Leigh.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a moment.
A breath shuddered out of her. When she turned to him, her eyes were so haunted it hurt him to look into them. “It’s done,” she said. “Over. In the past. I did what I did. But so did you, Jake.”
Judging from the pain etched into her features, he figured the ordeal wouldn’t be over for her for a long time to come. “You did an incredibly brave thing, Leigh. I’m sorry you had to do it, but your going back to Rasmussen was courageous.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking, getting involved with him in the first place.” She shook her head. “I was incredibly stupid.”