He no longer looked cowed and weary but rejuvenated and as malicious as ever. And his sudden appearance told her that he hadn’t let go of his vendetta. Fury clogged her throat at the thought that perhaps this was what he’d meant by his threat in the bar at the Savoy—that every time she thought she was happy, and doing a good job, he would appear and destroy everything. And then she realized he had someone with him, someone she knew. Emile.

She froze, eyes fixed on Emile’s face. His smiling face, but the smile was not one of joy at seeing her. It was the same callous smirk he’d tossed her at the Stork Club in Manhattan the night she found out he’d sold her off to the highest bidder. She knew instantly that it wasn’t coincidence he’d palled up with Warren. And if she’d thought she was mad a moment ago, now she was raging, the strength of it burning her throat and her eyes like white phosphorus.

“Jessica May,” Emile drawled as if they were breezy acquaintances.

Before Jess could speak—before her anger collided with her hurt that Emile, a man she’d once loved, would betray her again—Dan stepped forward.

“I’m Lieutenant Colonel Hallworth,” Jess heard him say to Warren. “You might remember me from the last time you tried to lock Captain May up.” Dan didn’t let Warren interrupt. “I’m the CO here. I heard that Captain May had been eating K-rations for two weeks even though the recommended length of time is ten days. I thought she needed to be shown some hospitality. She’s not missing. I know, and everyone here knows, exactly where she is. Her orders say she can leave the field hospital with permission from a CO. I gave her permission.”

“That’s not what her orders mean,” Warren said, anger roughening his voice. “It means the CO of the hospital.”

“It doesn’t say that,” Dan replied evenly. “It just says permission from a CO.”

Of course Warren was too good to show how he felt at being dressed down by a lieutenant colonel. “I’m just looking out for those of the weaker sex. Nobody can blame a man for that. But I see she has you to take over from where Emile left off.”

Warren smirked at Dan. Emile grinned at Warren.

That Emile would find satisfaction in watching someone smear her reputation made Jess finally explode.

“Yes,” Jess spat, “even though Lieutenant Colonel Hallworth has been fighting for more than thirty days without rest, we’ve managed to conduct a clandestine sexual relationship in which I, jeep-less, run through the ack-ack bombing each night to find whatever trench or tent or abandoned village his battalion is holed up in, have my way with him without anybody else seeing or hearing, then run back through the ack-ack bombing to arrive at my tent at the hospital just in time to get up and face the new day as fresh as a daisy. It’s hard to see how that kind of stamina would make me a member of the weaker sex!”