Page 45 of Sasha’s Secret

To a funeral where only she among the attendees had known the true extent of his heroism.

Rocco pulled her closer, kissed her forehead, and tucked her into his body.

“I’m sorry. Were you and he…?”

Rocco was a man and only human—of course he’d want to know. “Yes. He was my friend as well as my partner, and… we were probably closer than we ideally should have been.”

The arms around her tightened. “We all need someone to be there for us. We need that person even more when we’re in a hostile environment.”

She should have known Rocco would understand, more than anyone—more than the average joe, anyway. The pain around her heart eased a little more. “All of us? What about you? Who do you have?”

His chest rose and fell beneath her cheek. “I think you can guess the answer to that, Sasha. We wouldn’t be here, like this, if I had someone.”

“Or if I had someone.”

It was important that he know that. Neither she nor Jack had been with anyone else while they were finding comfort with each other, something they’d agreed as friends, and there’d been no one in her life since.

“Do you miss it?”

For a split second, Sasha wasn’t sure what the “it” was. “Ah. You mean the adrenaline rush of saving the world one more time?”

“Something like that.”

Sasha considered her response. “It’s an easy question to ask, but not so easy to answer. One of the reasons I took this job was to ease my way out of the Agency. I had to get out after losing Jack, but the thought of stopping cold was… daunting. This was a halfway house.”

“So you’ll have a way back in at some point?”

“No. No way, not now. I may not know what I’ll end up doing when I leave here yet, but I do know that when I do leave—when, not if—it won’t be to go back there.”

“Good choice.”

“I think so. You’re probably wondering how I came to be here. After all, it’s not an obvious move. My former supervisor is Linzi’s godfather. I already told you she made enough of a name for herself to attract the wrong kind of attention before I came along. Even though that stopped, her godfather was still worried, so when I told him I was about to quit but had no idea what I was going to do, he came up with the idea that I become Linzi’s assistant. It was a win for everyone. I got myself a job, my supervisor got someone he could trust on the inside, and Linzi got someone to watch over her.”

“Makes sense.”

Rocco fell silent, but Sasha had the impression there was more he wanted to say. She wasn’t wrong.

“Are you happy, working for her?”

From the cautious way he asked the question, she wondered if there was more to it than the casual inquiry it appeared to be. She opened her mouth to give the glib response she’d offer anyone else, but then thought better of it. “Happy enough for now—for the long term, who knows? For all any of us know, it could all end tomorrow, not that I’m wishing that for Linzi. She may be difficult, but she’s also talented, and she has a drive to succeed. You’ve seen what she’s like in the studio.”

“Focused, I think is the polite word,” Rocco said dryly. “She knows what she wants.”

“And she isn’t going to let anything get in her way.” Sasha had seen plenty of Linzi’s single-minded determination, and the drive to achieve what she wanted that had sometimes mown down the unsuspecting. “What about you? Do you see yourself still in close protection five, ten years from now?”

Sasha didn’t want to admit to herself how invested she was in his reply, or why she was—that way lay madness. Instead, she tried to convince herself that the answer didn’t matter and she was merely making small talk.

At this time of the morning when you’re in bed with the man? Please.

Rocco rolled onto his back. “Cristo, I hope not. There has to be more to life than this.”

For half a second, her heart thudded into her stomach, fearing he somehow meant casual liaisons with women he met while on assignment, but then common sense reasserted itself. “You mean, putting yourself between a celebrity and some crazy with a gun?”

He gave a short, humorless laugh. “When you put it like that, this job doesn’t have much going for it. Only a lunatic would do this for a living.”

“I believe we make life choices for a reason. Every choice you’ve made in your life, every choice I’ve made in mine… without those choices, we wouldn’t be here, together, in this moment.”

Sasha wasn’t sure where the words had come from, but the more she thought about it, the more she believed it to be true.