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there until this assignment is over.”
    Kimberly stood stiffly before him,
breathing in carefully through her nose as she gritted her teeth with the
effort it took to restrain her sarcastic reply. This was a farce if she had
ever heard of one. How in the hell had it happened?
    “Richard, I don’t believe this is a
good idea…”
    “It isn’t your place to make that
determination,” he said coolly. “The order has come down from the Capitol
itself. There is no other option.”
    Another deep breath. Deep breaths,
she reminded herself. She could control the explosion building at the top of
her head; all she had to do was breathe. At least, that’s what that arrogant,
soft-spoken martial arts expert had told her.
    “Then I’ll resign.” It wasn’t a
threat. It wouldn’t be the first time she had resigned from an agency, and she
doubted it would be the last.
    “You could do that.” Decker nodded
his head slowly, watching her dispassionately as she stood before him. “You’re
a big girl, Kimberly, you can do whatever you want to. If you want to keep
running. Or, you can face the fact that there will be times you’ll have to
knuckle down and accept the inevitable. Especially if your father is chosen as
the vice presidential hopeful in the next election as is rumored.”
    So the rumors were true. Just what
she needed.
    “I don’t consider it running…”
    “Well I do, dammit,” he growled. “I
put my ass on the line to hire you, if you remember correctly. I didn’t think I
was bringing on a damned quitter.”
    She almost flinched. He didn’t
raise his voice, but Richard Decker didn’t have to, his dark brown eyes could
slice you in half when he felt the need.
    “It’s a trick,” she argued,
dropping the pretense of subordination as anger fed the resentment that had
been building within her for weeks. “It’s not his first, it won’t be his last,”
she said as she spoke of the father she had given up on years before.
    She shook her head, fighting the
need to confide in the only person who had reached out to her in years.
    Richard Decker wasn’t just her
employer; he and his wife had become friends of hers. They had supported her
need for independence from her father, and had provided her a quiet, peaceful
retreat in their home when she had needed it. Turning him down ate at her soul,
but the risks were too great.
    “If you walk away from this
assignment, then you can kiss your future in security work goodbye. You’ll
never get another decent agency to hire you. And you know it.” He leaned back
in his chair, his arms lying comfortably on the sides as he regarded her. “Is
that what you want?”
    She resisted the urge to clench her
fists. “You know it isn’t,” she said heatedly. “But this is insane, Richard.
There’s no more a threat to Raddington and myself than there is to you. It’s
another of his asinine little plots, nothing more.”
    “And we can’t be certain of that,”
he retorted. “Until we are, you will take this assignment Kimberly, and you
will do it to the best of your ability. If for no other reason, than for me. I
really don’t relish the ass chewing I’ll get from my boss if you pull out.”
    Emotional guilt. She hated that and
he knew it. He knew it and he was using it against her anyway.
    “That’s low,” she snarled.
    “But effective.” He leaned forward
once again. “You’ll take Matthews, Adams, Lowell and Danford with you. They’ll
take shifts patrolling the main grounds while you stick close to Raddington.
Stay with him. Just until we’re certain.”
    Stay with him, close to him, be in
the same house with him. Kimberly wanted to groan miserably at the thought. The
past week had been hell already, the arousal that normally taunted her was
turning into a torment. She dreamed of Jared, craved his touch, his kiss. The
emptiness that echoed between her thighs seemed to echo through her soul now.
    He wouldn’t take “no” for an answer
for long. He