I reached for him.
Let me amend that. I tried to reach for him, but couldn’t. And the reason I couldn’t—I quickly discovered—was because my wrists had been tied to the metal bars of the bed. I attempted to bend my knees and found my ankles had also been bound.
I was now fully awake and glaring at my husband.
And the goddamn fire ants were back in my brain, pouring scalding formic acid all over the place.
“Christ, you’re scary sometimes.” He sat back suddenly, like he was afraid I might bite. This was intelligent of him because the thought had crossed my mind.
“What did you do?” My tone was misleadingly calm.
“You can’t come.” He frowned at his hands and cleared his throat. “You’re, uh, too much of a distraction.”
“You have to be kidding me.”
“For once, I am not kidding. I could barely sleep. I kept waking up to nightmares of you being captured.” His voice was gentle and sincere, and he was gazing at me with a haunted expression. “They are not kind to women who are captured.”
I believed him about the dreams.
But I was still pissed off he thought he could leave me behind. I was a CIA field agent. What the hell?
“How is it my fault that I’m a distraction for you? Maybe you need to sort through your issues instead of tying me to a bed.”
“Darling, you’ll always be a distraction. No amount of singing Kumbaya or bullshit getting in touch with my inner goddess is going to change that.” Now his tone was flat, considerably less gentle, and his dark eyes flashed with intensity.
“Unbelievable,” I said to the ceiling, tempering my urge to scream at him by reminding myself where we were, and that I couldn’t afford to reprimand him loudly.
He stood and turned, grabbing the weapons bag from the floor. “I’ve left you the SIG X-Five and,” he slapped a stack of hundred-dollar bills on a table by the door, “here is some cash if you need it.”
“Where did you get that?”
“I stole it from the house last night. I figured it might come in handy in case of an emergency, and they weren’t going to miss a measly ten thousand dollars. Listen, I’ll move the rest of the money, and if I’m not back by tomorrow morning, go to the US consulate in Lagos. Hitch a ride with Dr. Evans. Just, wait until it’s safe.”
I tested the binding at my wrists. He’d used gauze and hadn’t made them tight. I would be able to escape the restraints in thirty minutes, thirty-five tops.
“I know what you’re thinking.” He gave me a knowing look. “Don’t do it. Don’t follow me.”
“This is you discounting me. Again. This is you being a bully and not respecting my contribution. Again.”
“No. This is me overwhelmed with crippling panic at the idea of something happening to my wife.”
“Thank you for proving my point. You think you have the right to make unilateral decisions for both of us, for our family, and then you wonder why I go around your irrational mandates. If you don’t want me to freeze you out, then you have to recognize that my opinion matters!”
“Of course your opinion matters.” He lifted his hands and let them fall to his thighs, like he was exasperated at having to point out the obvious. The proceeding pause and reflection was almost cartoonish before he added, “Just not about this.”
I growled, losing my cool, because he was still trying to put me off with humor. “I swear to God, Greg Archer, if you leave without me I will . . .” I stopped, wondering what I should threaten, what I was willing to deliver—because I refused to bluff.
He stilled and stared at me, waiting for me to finish, as though sensing the seriousness of the moment.
“What will you do?” he asked, not taunting but rather bracing for my ultimatum. “Because I would rather you hate me than watch you suffer or die.”
“I won’t hate you. I will never hate you.” I never would. “But it would hurt me, deeply. And I don’t know how long it would take for me to forgive you.”
Greg hesitated and I could see him warring with himself, which was progress. But I didn’t want him to make the right decision because he dreaded my threat. I wanted him to make the right decision because he respected me, saw me as his partner, and recognized the value of my contribution.
I tried a different approach.
“Remember when you found out I was a CIA field agent?”
His eyes sliced to mine and he grimaced. He didn’t answer at first, but the flare of intensity behind his gaze told me everything I needed to know.
At length he said, “I promised I would never bring it up. And I haven’t.”
Despite his terse, caustic reply, I pushed. “Remember how angry you were?”
Everything about him grew rigid.