“You’re very quiet over there.”
She jumped. It hadn’t seemed like a lot of thinking, but maybe she’d chewed on it a lot longer than she’d meant to. “I don’t know what to say. And...to be honest I don’t know if I have a right to say anything.”
“You can ask and I can do my best to answer.” Gabe made the offer.
Hesitantly, Maylin went out on a limb. “Do you miss her?”
Hard to ask a question when you weren’t sure you wanted to know the answer. But it was important to know. She wasn’t good at communicating when it came to relationships, even if it was about a memory of good times gone by. Everything came out awkward and not quite the way she intended.
Gabe gave her question serious thought, his brows drawn together. “Yes and no. We had good times and we were good together back then. But it wasn’t something I craved after it was over. I think what I miss is the way we worked together. She was a good squad mate, excellent at her work. It’s hard to find people you can work with out there. There’s a sort of...easygoing confidence when you have good people at your back, and she is no longer one of them. Leaves an exposed spot. Does that make sense?”
“I’m sorry.” This time she wasn’t sure exactly why she had to apologize, but she wanted to.
“I am too. I trusted her.” Gabe ran his hand through his hair. “But the history is so you know who she is and what she is to me. It’s over. And you and me, we’re not sure what we’re doing, but it’s not a one-night thing. At least not to me. I want time for us to figure it out.”
What to say? He made it sound simple. What did she feel? “I’m glad.”
Stupid. Awkward. But it was what she was thinking. His story would take time to sink in and she couldn’t figure out more on the spot.
The corner of his mouth turned up. “Good. Hopefully I can add to that a little.”
Maylin blinked. “How?”
“Jewel’s other truth.” Gabe reached over with one hand and covered Maylin’s knee. The heat of his touch seeped into her skin. “She said you’d find your little sister faster with her and you wouldn’t have to go to the other side of the world to do it. An-mei isn’t lost in China. She’s here. In the US.”
Chapter Eleven
“This...is a really slow elevator.”
Gabe smiled at Maylin’s neutral tone. All things considered, she was holding up like a champ. Some women would’ve flipped their shit meeting an ex. And Jewel made confrontations with women a sort of sadistic stress reliever the same way some people walked into bars looking for a brawl. Add in how very good Jewel was at hand to hand combat, the average jealous woman ended up mostly broken and sadly humiliated. He did not want Maylin subjected to similar treatment. Especially since it was obvious Jewel had planned to take custody of Maylin.
Over his dead body.
Which was why he’d brought Maylin with him to Centurion Corporation headquarters. The hotel might not be secure enough, and he wanted eyes on her as much as possible now that Jewel, and Edict, had made a grab for her.
“We got the elevator out of a decommissioned submarine.” Gabe offered Maylin the tidbit of information. She rewarded him with an adorable expression, her delicately arched brows drawing together as she bit her plump lower lip. He could see the gears turning in her head as she tried to come up with reasons why they’d want to do that.
“Do all the buildings in the area have these?” she asked, finally.
Not a bad follow-up. “Other private military contractors might have made similar upgrades to their buildings, like this elevator and installing Thermopane or extra-thick glass.”
“I’m guessing the glass isn’t for energy efficiency.” Her lips twisted into a cute, wry smile. “Does it prevent people from listening in with those laser beam things?”
Or something.
Gabe nodded, though. Surveillance technology, bullets—the thick glass was a deterrent for a lot of things. “Not a bad guess. The elevators are actually safe areas in case the building is caught in the shocks from a nearby explosion. There’s safety mechanisms that clamp to the sides of the shaft, and extra shielding.”
She craned her head to look up at him. “Common concern for people in your line of work?”
“Let’s say we are potential targets and like to be prepared just in case.”
Hypervigilance, or some might say paranoia, but private military contract companies like Centurion Corporation had a tendency to build up defenses against the types of incursions they were hired to do themselves. Call it practice or peace of mind.
“It was an American submarine.” She was staring at the panel of buttons for each floor.
Gabe studied the panel. “Yes.”
Whatever she was seeing, he was missing it. He’d never been in a Chinese sub, but he didn’t think she’d ever been either.