An Affair of Vengeance (10 page)

A one-nighter a few years back had left her feeling sexually satisfied, but emotionally, she’d felt even emptier than before the encounter. Perhaps it was different for other people, like
the seemingly stoic men she’d trained with, but for Evangeline, good sex required her to feel a certain amount of trust in her partner. To feel vulnerable but yet not be taken advantage of is one of the great pleasures of sex. The surrender of control, the ceding of power, makes the ultimate release absolute and supremely gratifying. Evangeline couldn’t make it happen in one night. She couldn’t trust that quickly and couldn’t find physical satisfaction. Worse, the attempt had only magnified how alone she truly was, for few things are lonelier than emotionless sex.

Since that night, she’d accepted that there was no one in the world she could trust with her body. No one could understand her enough, even if they knew what she did, as a fellow Agency employee might. Her world was a lie, her identity a construct. But it was all by her own design, and until she left the service, there was no answer but abstinence.

With a mental lock on her desire, she tugged at the short hemline of her little black dress before marching across the street. The doorman swung open the glass door and she stepped into the air-conditioned lobby, her hair blown back by the change in air pressure. Standing under a crystal chandelier, she scanned the graceful assembly of Lucite, leather, and chrome.

And him. McCrea sat idly on a couch, staring out a window. His hot golden gaze traveled to her face.

God, he was beautiful, so much more than she’d allowed herself to remember.

Her breath strangled. A powerful urge to press her body against his both frightened and destabilized her, making her want to turn and run, his connections to Krai be damned. She should be capable of compartmentalizing desire. She’d never had to before, though. Up until now, it’d been easy to turn off that part of her consciousness.

But until now, she’d never met a mark who could light her on fire with a glance.

She stood her ground. She wouldn’t turn tail, not after so many years of clawing through the underworld to get to this point. She wouldn’t abandon her mission.

McCrea broke eye contact to check his watch—a sleek, gray metal thing—and she walked closer, reaching his couch in seconds. He didn’t stand. It struck her as rude, and she hoped he’d keep it up. She wanted to dislike him as much as possible, to distance herself from the sizzling effect of his lips on her neck.

“You’re late.” He brushed invisible lint off the sleeves of his black suit jacket.

“You waited.”

His left eye twitched. “Don’t get used to it.”

“I’ll do my best,” she said, happy with the heavy dose of sarcasm she managed to insert. Keep it light, she told herself. “Did you get the del Duque?”

“Chilling upstairs.” He nodded toward the oversized tote she carried. “What’s in the bag?”

“Serrano ham. Greek olives. Dried apricots. All the necessities for enjoying a glass of thirty-year-old amontillado.”

The tiniest of grins lifted the corners of his mouth. “You’ve done this before.”

“Once or twice.” The banter came easily, like they were old friends.

He took her hand. The connection was electric, like the time she’d touched a live wire when helping her father install a receptacle in their kitchen. Then, as now, she wanted to jump back, to fling her hand away from the power source.

But that would be absurd. She must play a role here. She must be the cool, calm, collected woman-in-control, even as she felt as skittish as an untrained horse.

He stood, his skin warm and refreshingly dry against her moist palm. “You know this is a bad idea.”

“Of course I do.” And she did, she truly did. The more they touched, the more they talked, the worse it would be. She flicked
him a sidelong glance as they walked toward the glass elevator. What would she say if she were in control of her desire and had no fear of it or him? “But bad ideas are always the most fun.”

“I don’t even know your name.”

Hers was an alias, and she had no reason not to give it. “Evangeline. Yours?”

They reached the lift. He touched the Up button and the doors swept open, the transparent space empty inside. She entered first, uncomfortable with him at her back. She spun to face him.

“I think you know my name.” He stepped in. The doors slid shut.

“Do I?”

“McCrea.”

“First or last?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Probably not. Which floor?”

“Fourth. That’s fifth to you Americans.”

She rolled her eyes and pressed the button. The elevator hummed, rising quickly. In the small space, they fell silent, the air between them thick and warm. She remembered the hardness of his stomach under her hands the night before, and the way he’d leaned into her at the market that morning, like he’d known how long it had been since she’d been caressed, and how vulnerable she’d be to the slightest contact.

She couldn’t trust him, mustn’t relax with him. He sensed too much about her. He couldn’t be allowed to touch her again.

The elevator slowed, leveled off. The doors hissed open, and she stepped out into the stone-tiled hallway through which she’d so recently sprinted. She let him take the lead down the hall.

He stopped in front of his room and turned, his face a mask of calm. “Last chance to run.”

She advanced toward him slowly, placing one foot in line with the other. Taking great care with the movements of her
body was one way of maintaining control. “Should I be running from you?”

“Without a doubt.” He slipped his card through the door’s reader.

“But you seem like such a nice man.”

He laughed—that made twice now that she’d heard him express any kind of mirth—as he held open the door to his suite. “Now I really think you should run.”

“I’m obviously a terrible judge of character.” She slipped past him and into the large suite alight with the yellow warmth of a fading sun. The layout was familiar, with a large bed near the windows at the far end, and a seating area closer to the door. She dropped her tote bag full of groceries on a coffee table and her purse on the sofa as she strode to the French doors, which looked out over the drab backstreet. She remembered it well, having dangled over it just hours before to record his meeting with Ménellier.

“Fabulous view.”

“Indeed.” He’d followed her inside but hadn’t progressed far, lingering near the stairs that led to the loft. He stared at her and so wasn’t referring to the alley.

She shivered. Apparently, he needn’t be close to have an effect on her. She glanced around for the minifridge and found it hidden under a low shelf of highly polished wood, maybe teak, attached to the wall opposite the king-size bed. Inside its cold confines rested the tall, dark bottle of del Duque. She pulled it out. “There’s my girl,” she murmured. “Would you like a glass?” He came up behind her again like a cat, quick and quiet.

She whirled around, pressing the cold bottle between her breasts. “No. I prefer to swig expensive wine straight from the bottle, thanks.”

“Of course.” He held up a pair of tulip-shaped wineglasses. “But I do have
copitas.”

“Copitas?
” She blinked hard, surprised to see him holding the specific type of stemware that enhanced the aroma of good sherry. “Well, that changes everything. When did you have time to track those down?”

“Concierge service can be most obliging.”

“Ah. I suppose that’s who bought the wine, too.”

“Indeed.” He accepted the offered bottle and walked to the coffee table, where he sat and poured two glasses of sherry.

“Do you do anything for yourself?” She joined him on the small leather sofa, crossing her short legs high and tight, twisting her lower half into a helix. She liked the sense that she gave herself a hard shell, unbreakable and impenetrable.

“Only the important things.” His eyes strayed from the wine to her ankle and upward to her thigh, which she then realized was far too revealed by her manner of sitting. She adjusted her legs and his brow flickered. He dropped his attention back to the half-full glasses of pale amber liquid.

“And what’s important to a guy like you?” she asked.

“A guy like me?” He scratched at his chin, half-covering a smile. “What sort of guy am I?”

“The irritatingly obfuscating sort who answers questions with questions.” She took the glass he offered and sipped. The sherry lingered on her tongue, thin in texture but round in flavor, tasting of salted hazelnuts and buzzing with the strength of its high alcohol content. Without a whisper of sugar or fruit, thirty-year-old bone-dry sherry wasn’t the easiest wine in the world to drink, but its flavor was incomparable. She savored it.

“Is it what you expected?” he asked.

“Nothing ever is,” she said with a laugh and took another slow swallow. The alcohol began to warm her mouth and then her throat. Soon, it would heat her veins, and she’d begin to feel its effects on her judgment. Like most CIA field operatives, she drank regularly and had built up a higher-than-average tolerance
to alcohol, but this stuff was strong, and she needed her full brainpower. One glass would suffice, and it should be enjoyed slowly. Poking around her tote bag, she found the snack containers and placed them on the table. “Olive?”

“Absolutely.” He opened the lid of one, inside which small green mounds glistened, but then glanced at her. “Toothpicks?”

She didn’t flinch, but what made him say that, in particular? Was it a reference to the toothpick tracker she’d dropped on him the night before? Was he trying to tell her that he’d found it? She supposed toothpicks were appropriate for eating olives, but there was the chance that he’d said the word simply to see how she’d react. So she just shrugged. “Sorry. Fingers?”

“It’s fine.” He reached for an olive. His hands were large and his fingers long, which wasn’t surprising given his height, but she couldn’t help but be distracted by their size and shape. They were beautiful, just like the rest of him.

He popped the olive into his mouth, the lightly stubbled skin around his jaw stretching as he chewed. “How do you like Marseille?” he asked, leaning back against the couch and taking another sip of sherry.

“It’s dirty, stinky, and violent. But beautiful, too, and so vibrant. So alive. I love it and hate it at the same time.”

“Why do you stay?”

“I don’t know. The good outweighs the bad, I guess. When that changes, I’ll go.”

“Back home?”

“No,” she answered, too quickly. She wondered what he’d make of that. “What about you? How do you like Marseille?”

He shrugged. “I don’t think much about it.”

He gave away nothing. She leaned back. “Then why don’t you leave?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it. I said I don’t
think
about it.”

“You don’t think about where you are?”

“Not really.”

“That’s terrible!” She smiled, hoping he’d smile along with her. He did, though tightly. “Is there any place in the world worthy of your attention?”

“A place worthy of my attention?” he repeated and savored a mouthful of wine. “This couch might be.”

“It’s a good couch,” she agreed and drank again. Her blood was definitely warming. She suspected that his might be, too. His tongue was loosening, however slightly. This was good, all part of the plan. Get close—but not too close. Befriend—but not bed. She’d done it countless times before. She could do it again, with this man, even if he was the only one to make her heart race with a whisper.

“And this sherry. Damn fine choice.” He reached for a waferthin slice of
jamon
.

“I’m so glad you appreciate it.”

“Great ham, too,” he said.

“The pride of Spain.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“The market where you cornered me.” She said it casually, to remind him that he’d approached her, not the other way around. Was he still so certain she’d been following him? “It has a great deli.”

“Good to know.” He ate another olive. “This is fantastic. I don’t eat enough.”

Revealing a weakness? How unusual. She hardly knew what to say. “Why not?”

“No time.”

“You’ve made time tonight.”

“You seemed to need the company. I took pity on you.”

She froze, temporarily shocked by the truth of it. But he was only referring to what she’d said—she’d asked him to drinks.
She’d said she had not wanted to drink alone. So she laughed lightly and swirled her sherry. “Drinking alone is for alcoholics. I always make sure there’s at least one other person in the bar.”

“Does the bartender count?”

“Only if he asks me how I’m doing.”

“Most women wouldn’t admit to such things.”

“I’m not like most women.”

He smiled, the skin around his eyes finally softening. “You are not.”

The sun had set, slowly turning the room gray, but streetlights began to flicker to life outside, illuminating the sky, the interior of the suite, and the hard angles of her companion’s face with a yellow-green glow. It was nice, she decided, to sit on a smooth leather couch and drink expensive wine with an enigmatic, melancholy stranger. He didn’t seem dangerous anymore. He seemed vulnerable, and she wasn’t sure what to do about it. Should she go for the metaphoric kill early, or should she wait? Most assets weren’t turned in the first meeting, but every now and then, she came across one so consumed by guilt or fear that the mere suggestion of providing information to the US government caused a dam within to split wide open. Some didn’t even want money. They just wanted to be cleansed.

“Stop,” he said.

She turned, surprised. Exquisitely calm, he held his nearly empty wineglass loosely in his right hand. His left arm rested along the back of the couch.

“Stop what?”

“Stop thinking so hard.”

The simplicity of the command made her want to comply. So she did, for a minute.

“Here,” he said, and took her empty glass. “More?”

She studied the bottle, unwilling to meet his eyes. “Please.”

He filled hers halfway and handed it back. “Why me?”

“Why you, what?”

“Why’d you pick me?” He dropped his chin, staring hard at her. She sensed that he’d shifted closer to her, within touching distance now, but it was hard to tell in the dark.