“If it helps, I’ll be more clear: you are not going alone.”
She kissed his neck. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
She set the letter aside, turned off the side table lamp, and settled against him. He held her for a long while as they sat looking out at the dark waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
After months of longing and a turbulent day, he had Kira in his arms. He would happily spend the night in this chair, but she needed a good night’s sleep because tomorrow was likely to be just as dangerous.
He kissed her temple and said, “Why don’t you head to bed? I’ll take a shower, then sleep on the couch.” The only bedroom had a single, queen-sized mattress. Sharing would be too intimate for their current situation. Not with her wearing only thin satin and him in boxer briefs and a T-shirt. He’d be rock hard with nowhere to escape.
“You’re bigger than me. I can take the couch.”
He shrugged. “I’m a SEAL. I can sleep on the ground if I have to.”
“But you don’t have to.” She climbed from his lap and stretched.
“I won’t take your bed, Kira. I’m fine with the couch.”
He’d placed his duffel in the only bedroom when they first arrived. Now he followed her inside to grab his toiletries. On top of his duffel was the bag of books he’d purchased this morning. It had been soaked by the sprinklers, and the damp paper ripped as he set it aside to reach into the duffel to grab his Dopp kit. The book he’d bought for Kira fell out and hit the floor.
She reached down to pick it up. “Shame about the book.” She studied the cover. “Maybe it will dry if we set it out in the sun tomorrow?”
“Toss it. I’ll buy you a new copy.”
“Throw away a book? That’s sacrilege.”
He laughed. “I’m sure the author won’t mind. It’s destroyed. He’ll get an extra sale.”
“I mind. I’ll see if I can dry it.” She removed the dust cover. Beneath, the hardcover was etched with the title and author name. Rand felt a tremor as she traced the gold letters that spelled Reece Foresman with her finger before flipping it open.
Rand held his breath as she painstakingly separated the wet pages. Peeling them apart with infinite care. Blank page. Title page. Copyright. A second title page with author name and publisher logo.
Finally, she reached the dedication.
Her gaze was idle until the name must’ve caught her eye.
Then she sucked in a sharp breath and held up the open book. Her eyes were wide with surprise. And there were the words he’d agonized over in late December, two weeks after she’d been abducted:
For Kira. A Valkyrie and a Siren.
Chapter Thirty
“You are Reece Foresman?”
Kira was having a hard time wrapping her brain around what she’d read on the page, but Rand’s unsure smile told her it was true.
“Yes?” He cleared his throat. “I mean, yes. Yes. I am. But you can’t tell anyone. Only like…only eight or ten people know, and one of them is my sister. None of them are Freya or Morgan.”
Rand was New York Times bestselling author Reece Foresman. The author whose book she bought at the airport and read more than half of on her flight.
“So…last December, when you suggested the cover story before we went into Gillibrand’s offices…you were telling the truth and pretending it was fake?”
“Well, I’m not mega-rich or anything, which was also part of the cover story. My second book only released last month. But yeah, I knew I could pull off the author thing if needed.”
“And you keep it a secret because you’re a SEAL?”
He nodded. “You might be wondering how it happened.”
She laughed. “A little, yeah.” Not a little. No, she was desperate to know.
“So…about four and a half years ago—a few months after the deployment when I met Morgan—I was back stateside and was injured during training. It was bad. I needed surgery. Months of rehab. My whole future was in doubt. I didn’t know if I’d be able to return to the team. I was frustrated and, frankly, scared. I had no clue what I would do post-Navy, let alone post-SEAL. And I was bored and anxious. To escape, I started writing this story I’d been kicking around for years. I liked writing. It gave me something I could control. It wasn’t long before I thought I had something. I knew it needed polish, but it held together. I changed it up because once I thought about publishing, I couldn’t write about SEALs. I adapted the plot to the kind of work Pax and Cal had done on their deployments. Next thing I knew, I had a Green Beret thriller set in North Africa. Then I did the most foolish, clueless, newbie writer thing and emailed my favorite military thriller author. Told him I was a SEAL and liked his work, and I had a manuscript, but didn’t know what came next.
“Thank god the guy was amazing and didn’t see me as competition or anything like that. He told me to send him the first three chapters and he’d give me his honest opinion. A week later, he was referring me to an agent and a literary attorney. The attorney helped me set up a trust that completely separates my legal name. Even my publisher only knows I’m in the military and a special operator, not which branch or command. The Navy signed off as long as I stay away from everything SEAL and keep my fiction fictional. Nearly three years later, the first book was out. It hit New York Times, which was cool, but I couldn’t exactly celebrate. My sister made me dinner and my niece ate too much dessert and tossed her cookies on me, but she would have done that whether I was a bestseller or not.”
Kira laughed and was taken by surprise at the rush of emotion triggered by the realization he was trusting her with something no one else in her circle knew. And he said it shyly, even nervously. This big, badass SEAL was nervous about her reaction.
But then, she’d read half of his first book and given him her opinion of it just this morning.
She set the wet book that had been dedicated to her aside and slipped her arms around his neck. She planted a solid kiss on his lips and said, “Congratulations on hitting the Times. I understand that’s a big deal.”
“Would I have gotten that kiss even if I wasn’t a bestseller?”
“Absolutely not.”
He laughed. “How about this one?” Then he kissed her, and it wasn’t sweet or gentle. It was hot and carnal as his tongue stroked hers. She melted into him, kissing him back with all the emotion that surged through her.
She was breathing heavily when the kiss ended, her belly swirling with heat. Desire tugged at her core. “Yes, that kiss was just because you are you. Now explain how—and why—you dedicated the book to me. Aren’t you afraid someone will figure it out?”
