Redeeming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 9) Read Online Free PDF

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    If she hadn’t invited Isaac to move in with her, he’d still be home in Miami. Alive. She’d held his hand as he slipped away after his body had been crushed in a boating accident. And only Jared had been there to keep her from drowning in grief. The man she’d wanted to turn to had vanished into his job. Just like Charlie had promised her he would.
    He blinked and then nodded once, disappearing through the doorway. His heavy footfalls faded, and the hollow feeling in her chest expanded as all her internal organs burned.
    Head to her desk, she let hot, angry tears fall until she’d counted to thirty. And then she pulled herself together to go into a very long budget meeting that she was already late for. Besides, she’d spent months crying over Isaac, and it had never changed the fact that her brother had left her too, just like every other man she’d counted on.
    She had too much to do to dwell on the past.
    Working for FARC had little glamour, but she loved every last part of her job. The research center was doing amazing things with dolphin cognition, and some of the theories she’d developed for her thesis had landed the foundation a huge grant. It was only later that she’d learned Jared had been behind it. By then, she’d already enmeshed herself deeply with both the project and the man, clinging to the lifeline he’d provided far longer than she should have. And then she was too afraid she’d lose her job if Jared pulled his funding.
    She was weaker than she pretended. Weaker than she’d ever admit to someone strong and true like Charlie St. Croix. She wasn’t the same woman he’d met two years ago. Hell, he’d probably never glance twice at her if they’d met for the first time today.
    Audra sank into a chair between Gilly Thrake from Accounting and Carl Mbango, the head of Public Relations. Jonna Self, FARC’s director, started up the discussion in her island lilt, and Audra squinted at the PowerPoint over the woman’s shoulder.
    Two hours later, she left the meeting and got all the way back to her office before realizing she hadn’t registered a word of what had been said.
    Fifteen minutes in the presence of Charlie and her whole world had turned upside down. Funny, he’d done that to her the first time too. The difference here was that she couldn’t fall into him like she once had. There was way too much water under that bridge.
    The problem was that her heart kept reminding her that she and Charlie were both excellent swimmers.

S eeing Audra once today hadn’t been enough of an evisceration, apparently, or Charlie would have gone back home like he should have.
    But they weren’t done. Not by a long shot.
    He never should have engaged when she’d brought up why he’d broken things off with her. The minefields surrounding that period of his life… he couldn’t let any of it out of the box. Guilt gnawed at his insides nonetheless. Why, he had no idea. He didn’t owe her any explanations, not after she’d fallen into Anderson’s bed so easily. Not when the betrayal still felt raw and bitter.
    This time, he’d avoid that subject to a fault. There was no room for emotions, a mistake he wouldn’t make twice. Aqueous was his primary concern, and Audra hadn’t given him enough time to lay out his education proposal. She could at least grant him five more minutes since her report was causing his current problems. But instead of letting her work schedule dictate the circumstances of their discussion, he’d try this a different way.
    He leaned against the bus stop sign and waited for Audra to emerge from FARC. When she finally strolled through the glass doors just after five o’clock, it took her approximately two seconds to notice him and even less time than that for a wary guard to snap down over her expression.
    “Are you waiting for me?” she called over the street noise of babbling tourists, ancient cars, and the clop of mounted law enforcement on horseback.
    “Maybe.” Did