She was just as gorgeously untouchable as Knox remembered. Every bright red hair on her head perfectly in place. Hell, the woman had even put on lip gloss. He didn’t want to notice how shiny, wet and utterly kissable it made her mouth, but he was human after all.
Knox took a deep breath, preparing for the battle he fully expected. He’d faced terrorists, bombs, men with machetes and machine guns. He’d been shot, stabbed and had various body parts nearly blown off in explosions.
It had been a long time since anything or anyone had unsettled him.
Avery Walsh scared the shit out of him.
“Welcome aboard, Firecracker,” Asher said.
Firecracker. It was the perfect nickname for the woman standing in front of them, and not simply because her hair was a deep, dark red, the sun popping bursts of copper off the mass pulled into a tight knot at the top of her head.
Knox didn’t want to admit, even to himself, just how much he wanted to reach up and pull every last pin out of the mass just to watch it tumble around her ivory face.
Avery Walsh struck him as the kind of woman who was wound so damn tight that at the first sign of friction she could simply spark up and ignite—and not necessarily in the good way.
He much preferred women who knew how to roll with the punches and wouldn’t hesitate to explore a good time. The kind who were up for any adventure as long as it had fun written all over it. Something told him Avery wouldn’t know fun if it bit her on the ass, and was more likely to maintain the ice-queen persona than explode with lust.
Which was a crying shame.
Asher let his gaze travel up and down Avery’s body in an open invitation that the man didn’t even realize he was making half the time. It usually had women melting into puddles at his feet.
Reinforcing Knox’s impression, Avery simply stared at Asher, her mouth thinning into a tight line before she completely dismissed him. “Mr. McLemore, I understand you’re in charge of the Amphitrite.”
Knox leaned back against the railing crossing his ankles. “I sure am, doc,” he drawled.
“Avery.” Her icy eyes snapped with annoyance. They were gorgeous and clear, unbelievably pale, which only added to the impression that she could cut you with nothing but a laser glance.
These next couple of weeks were going to be brilliant.
“Remind me to murder Jackson the next time I see him,” Knox muttered at Asher out of the side of his mouth.
“Loralei might have an objection.”
A few months ago, Jackson and Loralei had been at odds, racing to see who could find the Chimera first. It turned out they’d both won. Not just finding the ship, but each other as well.
Shaking his head, Knox pushed away from the railing, sauntering closer to the good doctor.
The self-indulgent part of him wanted to set her off-kilter. To ruffle her feathers just to prove he could. But even as he crowded close, towering above her despite the heels, Avery simply stood her ground.
Knox was the guy the SEALs had called on to crack the most difficult men, to interrogate and terrify. On the surface he might seem laid-back and unconcerned, but he’d broken some of the most stubborn and highly trained enemy operatives in the business without resorting to tactics that skirted legalities.
Dr. Walsh didn’t even flinch as he came within an inch of brushing against her body. She kept her eyes trained completely on his, her face perfectly blank as she stared up at him.
“Let me know when we’re finished with the pissing contest,” she said, her voice smoky and even.
All right. Apparently they weren’t going to dance around this thing. “I don’t want you here, Doctor.”
“Avery. And you made your position abundantly clear during my interview, Mr. McLemore. But here I am.”
A smile bloomed across her face. What did she have to smile about? They were locked in a battle of wills, one he was beginning to worry he might actually lose.
But even as that thought flashed across his brain, her damn smile distracted him. It changed everything, taking her from remote and untouchable to downright breathtaking. It didn’t just brighten her face, the twinkle in her eye revealed the first insight he’d gotten into how she ticked.
She was enjoying this, even if she’d never admit it. Getting off on the tension and antagonism between them.
Interesting.
“Just so we’re both clear on where we stand,” he said.
The corners of her lips lifted higher. “I know exactly where I’m standing—on the deck of your ship. So I guess I win.”
Knox couldn’t stop his own lips from twitching. “For now.”
It bothered him, her flat-out determination to be a part of this project, even in the face of his obvious lack of enthusiasm. That only made more warning bells clang deep inside his brain.
Why had she pushed so hard to be involved, to the point of contacting Jackson several times even after meeting with the Trident team? Was it simply ego and a drive for another line on her résumé, or was there something more behind her eagerness?
His instincts told him it was the latter, he just couldn’t prove it. Yet.
Cocking her head, she said, “In a few hours we’ll be in the middle of the Caribbean. I don’t think you can change the status quo by then, especially considering you lost that fight the first time around, but feel free to try.”
* * *
INSIDE, AVERY WAS a quaking mess. She was bluffing, but then most of her life had been a bluff.
The problem was, this time someone was waiting to call her on it.
Anderson McNair had her trapped and there was nothing she could do about it.
Almost six weeks ago he’d walked into her office and informed her that he knew her little secret and if she wanted it to stay just between the two of them she was going to help him. Remembering that day made her stomach churn with anxiety and guilt.
Anxiety and guilt she’d been fighting for years.
It didn’t help that Knox McLemore intimidated the hell out of her. Not to mention that he could set her body on fire with nothing more than a scorching gaze.
From the moment he’d nearly run her over with his shiny black speed demon of a car—in the Trident Diving parking lot, no less—she’d wanted to hate him. But she’d needed to win the job more, and not simply because working on the Chimera was the kind of project she lived for.
If she failed and they hired someone else, Anderson McNair would ruin her reputation and sink her business.
Part of her had hoped Trident would award the project to someone else. Then the years of wondering and worrying would have been over.
But her life wasn’t the only one poised to be ruined. Her sister, innocent in the entire situation, would suffer as well. And Avery couldn’t stomach that.
McNair expected her to sabotage the assignment...to torpedo her integrity and announce that the wreckage wasn’t the Chimera, no matter what the evidence proved.
Her only hope was that Jackson Duchane was wrong and the ship they were heading toward really wasn’t the Chimera.
Best-case scenario—but her life never worked that way.
Avery couldn’t worry about that right now, though. She needed to concentrate on getting through the next five minutes without Knox McLemore realizing how vulnerable to him she really was.
A