Under His Watch Read Online Free PDF

popular fictionalized history of Alexander the Great’s conquests—he had given it to her the previous week, after reading it himself in an attempt to familiarize himself with her work, in order to protect her better. Ryan had found the story much more gripping than he had expected, and he had given Charity the book a little shyly, knowing she knew all the facts, but hoping she might enjoy seeing what the masses were reading when it came to Alexander. She had been nice enough to say that she loved reading anything that made what she did sound exciting.
    What next? he thought. Now that he knew the thing had more layers than they had seen, he also knew that Charity wasn’t going to give up. Ryan had to decide whether he should try to keep this job, for Charity’s sake and for his own, and he had to decide it right now. Then, if he did go ahead, he needed to decide how to lay down rules for Charity that would work for both of them.
    Then, past that tricky business, if he navigated the shoals involved, lay the main question: what he should do about the attraction to her that he couldn’t deny any longer.
    “Alright,” he said, sitting down across from Charity. “I cleaned your PC. It was malware triggered by your browsing activity—something in the Mithras database told your PC to reach out and find the content the bad guys wanted to send you. Voila , death threat and a frozen PC.”
    “Okay,” Charity said. “But now that you’ll stay, I’ll be safe.”
    Ryan gathered fully now that Charity had dropped her objection to being spanked, which was interesting in and of itself. That could come from duress, though, or it could come from elsewhere.
    “I’ll stay until I think you’re safe with someone else,” he said guardedly.
    “No,” Charity replied stubbornly. “It’s going to be you.”
    Ryan sighed. “Okay, we can talk about that in a few moments. Something else came up, from my friend’s analysis of the malware, that you have to know about because it’s going to affect whether you keep going with your research and, if you do, how.”
    “What?” Charity asked, an adorable horizontal crease appearing on her brow.
    “My friend is convinced the government is involved somehow.”
    Now Charity’s eyes went very wide. “Why?”
    “The malware was too advanced to be a corporate thing. It used code that’s top secret, and my buddy only knows about it from having done computer work as a SEAL.”
    “Wait…” Charity said. “That makes sense. There was a document in the Project H files that made no sense before—and now it does.” Her face and voice showed enormous excitement. “There are rumors of a resistance movement in Handristan. The US government must be helping them!”
    Ryan shook his head. “Don’t jump to conclusions, honey.” He realized that it was the second time he had called her honey, and stored the fact in the back of his mind for further analysis. “In my experience, you never, ever know who’s on what side. All that matters is whether you’re going to stop putting yourself in danger.”
    “But if it’s the government, they wouldn’t hurt me.”
    Ryan gave a bark of laughter. “Think about that. I’m not as sure as you are that it’s true, but even if the CIA doesn’t go after you, this might be somebody else’s black op, and those who are just known as ‘somebody else’ don’t tend to play by the rules. I think your danger just got bigger, not smaller, Charity.”
    Her mouth twisted. “But now that I have you…”
    “Okay, let’s talk about that,” Ryan said. “You haven’t mentioned spanking…”
    Charity made a sour face.
    “No faces, young lady, or you’ll go straight over my knee.” Ryan said it experimentally, to test Charity’s apparent resolution. Her face straightened out immediately.
    “I did ask you not to spank me,” she said quietly.
    “Correct me if I’m wrong, honey,” Ryan replied slowly, “but when you did that, you sounded like a