Blind Ambition Read Online Free PDF Page A

wrong?” She kept her voice low so it wouldn’t carry.
    He reached over her head and tugged a small piece of twine loose from a branch. “This is the right spot, but my boat is gone.”

CHAPTER THREE

    FUCK AND DOUBLE FUCK. HAD someone seen him, or had opportunists run across the dinghy and appropriated it for themselves? Or maybe he hadn’t tied it down as well as he thought. He was careful out of habit and necessity, but that didn’t mean he never made a mistake.
    However it had happened, they were screwed. And Alyssa, or rather Alexa —would he ever get used to that?—was in no shape to run all over the island with him, looking for another boat. Not to mention he was struggling to keep his head straight with her so close.
    He’d spent the entire trip to St. Isidore locking away the raw ache that still cut through him when he thought of her, building an impenetrable wall around his emotions. A wall he needed in order to do his job. And it had worked right up until he’d caught the guard pinning her to the floor. He might have been able to rebuild his defenses had he not seen her battered face and the terror in her eyes.
    That look had made him want to kill the guard and rush the rebel camp with guns blazing. The fuckers had hurt her. He was afraid to imagine what else they’d done.
    No matter how much he’d steeled himself, seeing her again, holding her, was like taking a sucker punch to the gut. She tempted him from top to bottom, and holy hell, he’d forgotten just how much. He was such a goddamned fool for letting her get to him like this.
    Focus, Molina.
    “Your boat?” she asked, startling him out of his thoughts. “I can’t leave the island.”
    “I just rescued you. What the hell do you mean you can’t leave?” He shifted his rucksack to his back. How the hell was he supposed to get her to safety? He stood and put his hands on his hips. Maybe he could intimidate her into cooperating.
    She pushed up to stand, wincing with the effort. He caught her arms and pulled her the rest of the way, releasing her before he gave in to any of his stupid urges. Like bringing her closer for a kiss.
    “There are people here who are important to me,” she said, catching his gaze. She pressed a hand to her stomach. Alexa’s voice broke and her eyebrows lowered as if tears would soon follow. “I have to make sure they’re okay.”
    He stared at her for a full minute, his brain firing thoughts from so many directions he didn’t have a clue where to start. The passion on her face brought back memories of the first time he’d seen her.
    His team had been on the island several days, distributing supplies and ferrying the wounded. He was bringing in victims pulled from the rubble of the small university in Sancoins, providing medic services for the ride in a school-bus-turned-ambulance.
    She met the bus and started triaging patients as they were carried or helped out the back door, directing the paramedics to the correct station.
    Dan and Mick carried a litter with a young man who’d been buried under a lab table and was probably going to lose his arm. Dan had looked into Alyssa’s tropical blue eyes as he stepped down, and time had slowed to a crawl. His whole focus narrowed to her face, her voice, the aura of confidence, compassion, and purpose that surrounded her. He operated on autopilot for the rest of the day, half of his brain on the wounded, the other half on her.
    He’d never experienced anything like that moment before or since. Something inside him had shifted, as if creating a void within him that was meant to be filled only by her.
    And holy hell, he was losing it. Going soft as a marshmallow. Get a grip, dumbass.
    For all he knew, one of these people who were so special to her was another man.
    “Dan?” Her voice brought him back to the present.
    He reined in his thoughts, rebuilding the wall brick by brick. She lied about who she was. She threw your feelings in your face. And he finally knew why.