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  “I either have to officially take leave, or go check in with the rest of the team. What do you think?” he asked again. “Can you get time off, too?”

  Veronica shook her head. “No.” Funny, her voice sounded so cool and in control. “No, I’m sorry, but I have to be on the cruise ship with Prince Tedric, starting tomorrow.”

  She could feel his eyes on the back of her head. She sensed his hesitation before he turned back to the telephone.

  He picked it up and dialed. “Yeah, it’s Joe Cat again. I’m in.”

  Veronica closed her eyes. He was in. But in for what? Something that was going to get him killed? She couldn’t stand it. Not knowing where he was going, what he’d be doing, was awful. She wanted to scream….

  “Right,” he said into the phone. “I’ll be ready.”

  He hung up the phone, and she felt the mattress shift as he stood.

  “I have to take a quick shower,” he said. “There’s a car coming in ten minutes.”

  Veronica spun around to face him. “Ten minutes!”

  “That’s how it works, Ronnie. I get a call, I have to leave. Right away. Sometimes we get preparation time, but usually not. Let me take a shower—we can talk while I’m getting dressed.”

  Veronica felt numb. This wasn’t her worst nightmare. This fear she felt deep in her stomach was beyond anything she’d ever imagined. She wanted to tell him, beg him to take the leave. She would quit her job if she had to. She would do anything, anything to keep him from going on that unnamed, unidentified, probably deadly emergency mission.

  And then what? she wondered as she heard the sound of the shower. She stood and slipped into her robe, suddenly feeling terribly chilled. She would lose her job, her reputation, her pride, for one measly week of Joe’s company. But after that week of leave was up, he would be gone. He’d go where duty called, when duty called, no matter the danger or risk. Sooner or later it would happen. Sooner or later—and probably sooner—he was going to kiss her goodbye, leaving her with her heart in her throat. He would leave her alone, watching the clock, waiting, praying for him to return. Alive. And he wouldn’t come back.

  Veronica couldn’t stand it. She wouldn’t be able to stand it.

  The water shut off, and several moments later Joe came out of the bathroom, toweling himself dry. She watched silently as he slipped on his briefs and then his pants.

  “So,” he said, rubbing his hair with the towel one last time, glancing over at her. “Tell me when you’ll be done with the Ustanzian tour. I’ll try to arrange leave.”

  “It won’t be for another two or three weeks,” Veronica said. “After the cruise, we’ll be heading back to D.C., and then to Ustanzia from there. By then, Wila will have had the baby, and—” She broke off, turning away from him. Why were they having this seemingly normal-sounding conversation, when every cell in her body was screaming for her to hold him—hold him and never let go? But she couldn’t hold him. A car was coming in five minutes to take him away, maybe forever.

  “Okay,” Joe was saying. She could hear him slipping his arms into his jacket and buttoning it closed. “What do you say I meet you in Ustanzia? Just let me know the exact dates and—”

  Veronica shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Okay,” he said again, very quietly. “What is a good idea, Ronnie? You tell me.”

  He wasn’t moving now. Veronica knew even without looking that he was standing there, his lean face unsmiling, his dark eyes intense as he watched her, waiting for her to move, to speak, to do something, anything.

  “I don’t have any good ideas.”

  “You don’t want to marry me.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

  Veronica didn’t move, didn’t say anything. What could she possibly say?

  Joe laughed—a brief burst of air that had nothing to do with humor. “Hell, from the way it sounds, you don’t even want to see me again.”

  She turned toward him, but she wasn’t prepared for the chill that was in his eyes.

  “Boy, did I have you pegged wrong,” he said.

  “You don’t understand,” Veronica tried to explain. “I can’t live the way you want me to live. I can’t take it, Joe.”

  He turned away, and she moved forward, stopping him with a hand on his arm. “We come from such different worlds,” she said. His world was filled with danger and violence and the ever-present risk of death. Why couldn’t he see the differences between them? “I can’t just…pretend to fit into your world, because I know I won’t. And I know you won’t fit into mine. You can’t change any more than I can, and—”

  Joe pulled away. His head was spinning. Different worlds. Different classes was more like it. God, he should have known better. What was he thinking? How could he have thought a woman like Veronica St. John—a wealthy, high-class, gentrified lady—would want more from him than a short, steamy affair?

  He’d been right—she’d been slumming.

  That was all this was to her.

  She had been slumming. She had been checking out how the lower class lived. She had been having sex with a blue-collar man. Officer or not, that was what Joe was, what he would always be. That was where he came from.

  Veronica was getting her hands dirty, and Joe, he’d gone and fallen in love. God, he was a royal idiot, a horse’s ass.

  He took the ring box from where it still sat on the bedside table and dropped it into his pocket. Damned if he was going to let her walk away with a ring that had put a serious dent into his life savings.

  “Try to understand,” Veronica said, her eyes swimming with tears. She stood in front of the door, blocking his exit. “I love you, but…I can’t marry you.”

  And all at once Joe did understand. She may have been slumming—at first. But she’d fallen in love with him, too. Still, that love wasn’t enough to overcome the differences between their two “worlds” as she called it.

  He should walk away. He knew he should walk away. But instead he touched her face and brushed his thumb across her beautiful lips. And then he did something he’d never done before. He begged.

  “Please, Ronnie,” Joe said softly. “This thing between us…it’s pretty powerful. Please, baby, can’t we try to work this out?”

  Veronica stared up into Joe’s eyes, and for a second, she almost believed that they could.

  But then his pager beeped again, and the fear was back. Joe had to go. Now. Reality hit her hard and she felt sick to her stomach. She turned and moved away from the door.

  “That’s your answer, huh?” he said quietly.

  Veronica kept her back to him. She couldn’t speak. And she couldn’t bear to watch him leave.

  She heard him open the bedroom door. She heard him walk through the hotel suite. And she heard him stop, heard him hesitate before he opened the door to the corridor.

  “I thought you were tougher than this, Ron,” he said, a catch in his voice.

  The door clicked quietly as it closed behind him.

  20

  The guys in Alpha Squad were avoiding Joe. They were keeping their distance—and it was little wonder, considering the black mood he was in.

  The “emergency” calling them all back to Little Creek had been no more than an exercise in preparedness—a time test by the powers that be. The top brass were checking to see exactly how long it would take SEAL Team Ten to get back to their home base in Virginia, from their scattered temporary locations around California and the Southwest.

  Blue was the only man who ignored Joe’s bad mood and stayed nearby as they completed the paperwork on the exercise and on the Ustanzian tour operation. Blue didn’t say a word, but Joe knew his executive officer was ready to lend a sympathetic ear, or even a shoulder to cry on if he needed it.

  Early that evening, before they left the administration office, there was a phone call for Joe. From Seattle.

  Blue was there, and he met Joe’s eyes as the call was announced. There was only one person