When we get to the bedroom that evening, I go to take a quick shower while Julian responds to a couple of urgent work emails on his iPad. By the time I come out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around my damp body, he’s put the tablet away and is beginning to undress. As he pulls off his shirt, I sense an unusual excitement within him, a pent-up energy in his movements that hadn’t been there before.

“What happened?” I ask warily, our earlier conversation fresh in my mind. Things that excite Julian are, more often than not, something that would make me shudder. Pausing by the bed, I adjust the towel, strangely reluctant to bare myself to his gaze quite yet.

He gives me a brilliant smile as he sits down on the bed to take off his socks. “Do you remember when I told you we had some intelligence on two Al-Quadar cells?” When I nod, he says, “Well, we succeeded in destroying them and even captured three terrorists in the process. Lucas is having them brought here for questioning, so they’ll be arriving in the morning.”

“Oh.” I stare at him, my stomach churning with an unsettling mix of emotions. I understand what ‘questioning’ implies in Julian’s world. I should be horrified and disgusted by the idea that my husband will most likely torture those men—and I am—but deep inside, I also feel a kind of sick, vengeful joy. It’s an emotion that disturbs me a lot more than the thought of Julian interrogating them tomorrow. I know these men are not the same ones who murdered Beth, but that doesn’t change the way I feel about them. There is a part of me that wants them to pay for Beth’s death… to suffer for what Majid did.

Apparently misinterpreting my reaction, Julian rises to his feet and says softly, “Don’t worry, my pet. They won’t hurt you—I’ll make sure of that.” And before I can respond, he pushes down his jeans to reveal a growing erection.

At the sight of his naked body, a wave of desire washes over me, heating me from the inside out despite my mental turmoil. Over the past couple of weeks, Julian has regained some of the muscle he lost during his coma, and he’s even more stunning than before, his shoulders impossibly broad and his skin darkly tanned from the hot sun. Raising my eyes to his face, I wonder for the hundredth time how someone so beautiful can carry such evil inside—and whether some of that evil is beginning to rub off on me.

“I know they won’t hurt me here,” I say quietly as he reaches for me. “I’m not afraid of them.”

A sardonic half-smile appears on his lips as he tugs the towel off my body, dropping it carelessly on the floor. “Are you afraid of me?” he murmurs, stepping closer to me. Lifting his hands, he cups my breasts in his large palms and squeezes them, his thumbs playing with my nipples. As he gazes down at me, I notice an amused, yet slightly cruel glint in his blue eyes.