Page 12 of Steel Vengeance
He’d come here to rest, to clear his head, but instead, Sloane kept creeping into his thoughts. The image of her in that slip—the one that clung to her like a second skin—kept flashing through his mind. He could still see the way it molded to her hips, the soft curve of her waist. It stirred something in him, something he hadn’t felt in a long time.
And that’s what bothered him most.
It had been over a year since Soraya’s death, and not once had he looked at another woman. Not like this. The guilt hit him hard, twisting his gut. His late wife’s face flickered through his mind—the way she used to laugh, the warmth of her touch. She’d been everything to him, and he’d lost her. Now, he was thinking about someone else, feeling something for someone else.
He clenched his fists, closing his eyes to block it out, but Sloane’s face lingered, that spark in her eyes pulling him in. How could he be attracted to another woman? Not now. Not yet. It felt wrong.
But no matter how hard he fought it, the pull toward her was undeniable. And that scared the fuck out of him.
CHAPTER 7
Sloane smiled at her class, a lively group of women eager to improve their language skills. Some arrived quietly, wrapped in full burqas, while others wore modern clothes paired with headscarves. Not everyone had permission from their husbands or families to attend.
The Women’s Empowerment Group provided the classes for free, knowing many of the women couldn’t afford to pay—or wouldn’t be allowed to, even if they could. Aaliyah, the American-Pakistani woman who ran the center, had told her about a recent incident when an angry man stormed in and dragged his young wife out of class by her hair. “Right in front of everyone,” she’d said, shaking her head.
Since then, they’d hired a security guard, with strict orders not to let anyone in who wasn’t on the list or working at the center. His presence gave the women a sense of security they hadn’t had before.
The lesson began, but as she taught, Sloane’s mind drifted to the wild-looking American soldier who’d broken into her apartment the night before. He’d held her at gunpoint, but what should’ve been a terrifying experience had somehow turned into an unexpected partnership. She had nothing new to report to him yet, but the thought of seeing him later made her shiver in a way she couldn’t explain.
It was crazy. He was pushy, demanding, arrogant—and dangerous. The simmering anger he carried around, the kind that could explode at any moment, should have made her wary. He wasn’t in control of it, no matter how much he thought he was. She’d seen that flash of obsession in his eyes when he’d talked about Omari.
He was as much a prisoner of his hatred as she was of their arrangement. He might be controlling her now, but his own demons controlled him, making him unpredictable.
So why did the thought of seeing him again send goosebumps across her skin?
Matthew didn’t have that effect on her, and she was crazy about him. Although, she had to admit, Matthew had started to feel more distant in her mind. Blurred around the edges. She hadn’t even spoken to him in the three weeks she’d been here.
“We have to maintain absolute radio silence,” he’d told her before she left. “All communication goes through Jeremy, and it has to be via email.”
She still didn’t understand why. No one was bugging her phone. No one even knew she was here. What harm would one phone call do? But orders were orders, so she hadn’t argued.
The rough-edged soldier, however, kept creeping into her thoughts, uninvited.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Could you repeat that?” she asked, flashing an apologetic smile at a woman in the front row who had asked a question.
Focus,she told herself. She could think about him later.
It was midsummer, and by the time she got home around six, there were still a couple of hours of daylight left. Two hours until he arrived.
On her way back, she’d stopped at a small grocery store to pick up bread, vegetables, and spices for a stew. Cooking always grounded her, reminding her of her grandmother, who had taught her the basics after her father had passed away.
Her grandmother had also been the one to teach her Urdu, a language that had been passed down through the generations. Her great-grandmother had been born here, and Sloane had always been told she looked like her—a resemblance she’d noticed in the grainy black-and-white photo that had sat on her grandmother’s mantle. Now, three generations later, Sloane found herself in the country of her great-grandmother’s birth.
She’d expected to feel some sort of connection when she arrived, but it hadn’t happened. The land still felt foreign to her, despite the language. But that’s why Matthew had recruited her—because she spoke it fluently.
Her thoughts wandered back to the day her life had changed. She’d been standing in the school playground, waiting with Freddy, one of her students, whose father had not arrived to collect him. Another teacher had been chatting with her in Urdu when Freddy’s father had swept in, full of apologies.
Apologies. A business meeting had run long.
She remembered the way he’d smiled, charming and self-assured, his tailored suit and expensive cologne making it clear he wasn’t just any businessman. She hadn’t known it at the time but meeting him would set off a chain of events that would change everything.
Normally, it was his wife who dropped off their son—a coiffed blonde who drove a flashy red convertible, always perfectly put together. After school, it was a younger woman, dark hair pulled back in a bun, who picked Freddy up. The au pair, maybe? A nanny? Either way, both parents were obviously too busy, too important, to be deeply involved.
She had no idea that Friday afternoon how much her life was about to shift.
Sloane letherself into her apartment. Damn, it was stifling hot. She opened a window, but it didn’t help much. It just let in the metallic meat smell from below.
A cool bath would help wash off the sweat of the day and cool her flushed cheeks. It had absolutely nothing to do with wanting to look nice for him.