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Cole.”
    He couldn’t stop himself. “Your husband called you Nikki.”
    â€œLicense revoked. And don’t change the subject.” She launched herself toward him. “What about your SWAT and undercover work? The boys’ club where females are good only for recreation? You lived for it. Traded us for it.”
    Her sudden blast of anger caught him off guard. “That’s not what I wanted.”
    She stopped right before him. “Oh right. Then why are you on record in our divorce proceeding? I quote, ‘Marriage? Screw that. There’re too many women to fuck and there’s only one lifetime.’”
    His eyes flashed anger for the first time. “That was taken down by the duty officer the night I was arrested. I was drunk as a skunk, and I’d been working undercover in a biker bar. I was still in character.”
    â€œI know what you were doing. I was there. Remember?”
    Guilt knifed through Scott’s gut. He remembered. Would never forget it.
    â€œYou weren’t supposed to…” He groped for a better beginning. He wanted to explain how jacked-up miserable he had been juggling two lives and knowing he was losing on both ends. He wanted her to know that after she left him he’d staggered under so much regret he could barely function. So many things to say, to admit, to account for.
    He heaved his shoulders. “Things change. If you’d let me explain—”
    â€œDon’t even go there.” Her eyes, only two feet from his, were throwing off sparks that should have burned him to the ground. “Bastard. Rat bastard. For you to come here, after all this time and—and—”
    The catch in her throat so appalled her that Cole did an about-face. “Get out.”
    â€œRight.”
    Cole waited until she heard the front door close. Then she released Hugo, who bolted past her.
    She followed and watched as her partner sniffed every spot where Scott had stood or touched. He was memorizing the scent of the man who had upset her. Too bad she couldn’t explain to her partner all the complex reasons why. Especially, the long-absent feelings of familiarity coursing through her the entire time Scott had been here.
    When Hugo was done, he came back to her and leaped up to place his front paws square in her chest. She wasn’t a small person but Hugo didn’t have any trouble planting a big slurpy kiss on her face. His way of saying, I got your back.
    â€œI love you, too.” She leaned her head against his and hugged him tight.
    *   *   *
    Working nights was not something her body had ever completely adjusted to. When Cole woke up late in the afternoon, her head felt stuffed with cotton balls and her head throbbed. And then she remembered. She’d fallen asleep with tears staining her face.
    She was still angry. The emotion beat faintly behind her gritty eyes. But on another level, she felt calm. The confrontation she had longed for and dreaded for two years was behind her. There was just one teeny-weeny little problem left.
    She should just admit the hard pathetic truth.
    I still have feelings for Scott.
    She also hated Scott’s guts. And after what he’d done, hate still topped love.
    Cole let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding, and scooted off her bed.
    She made coffee and toast then brought the items to her dining room table where she sat and looked as objectively as possible at the pictures Lattimore had sent her.
    Someone needed to catch the assholes who had done this. She’d been asked to be part of that. But what about Scott? How much was seeing him again going to cost her?
    She opened her computer and ran him through the law-enforcement background-check system via her police department. He hadn’t remarried. Lived in an apartment in a less than desirable part of D.C. After nearly a yearlong gap in his work record he was now listed as a DEA agent, SWAT