Her Spy to Hold (Spy Games Book 2) (26 page)

He’d traveled the short distance between the door and the bed and was now in her space, looming over her, almost six and a half feet of pheromone-stimulating male.

“Forgive me if I’m skeptical,” she said. “The whole mad dash for freedom in the middle of the night didn’t scream warmth of affection to me, let alone love. Since I know you aren’t a complete jerk, the takeaway I got from it was terror.”

“And you’d be right.” He cupped her face with his hands and bent his knees so he could look in her eyes. “You’re smart and beautiful. I already knew I wasn’t your type. Then I finally figured out you don’t need me either. And it hit me that I had too much to lose by sticking around. It was too late for me though. I was already hooked.”

She wasn’t about to be swayed by a few pretty words from a man who got paid to lie, or be distracted by his sheer male magnificence. She’d made both those mistakes before. More than once. But she understood self-preservation and when his actions were framed in that light it became harder to remember what he’d done that was so wrong.

“Now I’ve forgotten everything I planned to say to you,” she complained.

His hands slid to her shoulders. “Why don’t you start with why you’re here?”

“I was going to take you up on your offer.”

He laughed with genuine amusement. “The hell you were. You’re easy to read when you’re angry. If I hadn’t been working, you would have punched me in the face, then turned around and flown back to France on the next available flight.”

“I considered that too,” she admitted. “It was going to be one or the other.” He was standing so close now, every bone in her body wanted to melt. She was so
easy
where he was concerned.

“To clarify, I was offering an exclusive relationship,” he said. “That should have been my first clue that I want a lot more from you than a few days of sex here and there. Not that the sex isn’t fantastic,” he added, “but I’m after more. And I’m not sure I can give you what you’re after.”

She refused to feel hope. It was too soon and she wasn’t over her anger and hurt. “Why don’t you tell me what you think that is.”

“Family? Home? Roots?”

“What century did you grow up in?” she asked. “What about me or my career would give you the impression that those things are on my radar right now?” Then the truth struck her. “
You
want those things.”

Because he’d never had them. Not in the traditional sense. With a career diplomat for a father, and now his own work with CSIS, Kale had moved around his whole life.

“Bite your tongue.” He, however, appeared as dumbstruck as she was by the possibility.

She started to laugh until tears spilled from her eyes. “
Your
biological clock is the one ticking. Wait until that news breaks on Asgard. Iron Man will love it.”

The shock hadn’t yet left his face but he managed to recover his sense of humor. “I’m not admitting to any biological clock. And Iron Man would never find out anyway, because he has nothing to do with Asgard. Except for Asgard on Earth, but that’s a fairly recent development. We have got to broaden your reading habits, babe.”

Typical. He was trying to deflect the conversation from what mattered and turn it into a joke. He wasn’t getting off that easy this time. It was going to take more than
I love you
and a funny distraction to make up for the past three weeks of misery she’d suffered.

“If you read one of the textbooks I’ve written I’ll read every one of your comic book suggestions,” she said.

“That textbook… Is it first year undergraduate?” he asked, sounding cautiously optimistic.

“No way.” She wanted him to suffer. “Fourth year advanced.”

He clutched at his heart. “As long as we aren’t putting a time frame on this deal, because it sounds like it might take me more than a few days ‘here and there’ to satisfy you.”

“Would you be OK with that?” Irina asked. They seemed to be talking about the same thing, but she was more cautious by nature and had to be sure. “I don’t think either one of us should be making any big commitments at this point in our careers. A family, a home… Those things can wait. I’m not ready to work as an independent consultant just yet. You definitely aren’t ready for a desk job or being more selective about assignments. Could you be happy with a long distance relationship? And coordinating our vacations so we can spend them together?”

“That right there, babe, is why you’re the woman of my dreams.” He kissed her, then turned more serious. “All kidding aside, if it makes you happy too, that’s all that matters to me. I love you, Irina. I’m blown away by how much. I know you won’t believe this but I was ready to quit my job and come find you, only you beat me to it.”

“I believe you.” She smiled at him, her heart beating ten times too fast. “Based on what I saw today you had something big on your mind. You definitely weren’t at the top of your game.” Laughter rumbled under his ribs before it erupted above her head in response to her words. “For what it’s worth,” she added, “I knew I loved you the day I told you our sex life had been caught on tape and you made me laugh about it, then forget how it was all your fault.”

“Harsh. Also untrue. I found out about that camera after the fact. We were both victims. But since I stopped paying close attention to your false allegations after you said you loved me, we’re good.” He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. “You still angry with me?”

“No.” She was as guilty of keeping her feelings to herself as he was. They had a lot to learn about each other and communication was key, so she’d make her position more clear going forward. “But if you run out on me again you’re a dead man.”

“I wouldn’t dare now that I know how easy it is for you to find me.” His lips grazed her throat, his hands drifting lower to settle her tighter against him. “This is going to work out, Dr. Babe. I promise.”

She believed that too.

Epilogue

They’d been together for two years. Five months ago they were married.

Irina was packing for a three week vacation in Barbados. Kale was in the shower, humming a really bad version of a Sam Smith song. They’d decided to make Regina, Saskatchewan their home because her mother’s health had declined and her father needed the occasional respite from nursing.

Fortunately Irina’s consultancy work kept her as busy as she wanted to be. Right now she’d freed up her schedule because Kale had been away for the better part of two months, and although she’d joined him for a weekend here and there, they were looking forward to spending alone time together without any outside commitments or interruptions. This was to be their delayed honeymoon. Kale wanted to surf. She planned to sit in the sun on the beach and catch up on her comic book reading. He’d kept up his end of their bargain while she was about ten issues behind.

She also had something to tell him and she wasn’t sure how he’d take it.

She was pregnant.

They’d decided to stop using precautions and let nature take its course, but neither one had expected nature to be paying such rapt attention. She was happy, and excited, and terrified, all rolled into one pregnant and hormonal package. Kale had an uneasy relationship with his father, she had discovered, which made him nervous about his own abilities in that department. The fault, from what she’d observed, wasn’t Kale’s. While she liked his family overall, and his youngest brother in particular, his father came across as pompous and entitled sometimes. Fortunately—or not, depending on whether she asked Kale his opinion—her reputation impressed the senior Mr. Martin enough to satisfy him with his son’s choice in a wife.

The suitcase was open on the rumpled bed and Irina was standing over it, trying to decide whether to pack bikinis or stick to a one-piece since she wasn’t very tall and the baby bump, fast approaching three months, was already noticeable when Kale came up behind her. He nuzzled the side of her neck, cupping her abdomen with his palms. His wet hair, unbound, soaked the collar of her nightie.

“When were you planning to tell me about the baby?” he whispered into her ear. “My birthday? Because that’s six months away.”

She spun around in his arms. Her eyes widened. “How did you know?”

“After everything we did last night, you think I wouldn’t notice the places where you might have—” He stopped and reconsidered whatever words he’d planned to utter. “Changed shape in the past month?”

She ran her palms over his broad, naked chest, her elbows pressed into his rock-solid stomach a few inches above the towel knotted at his hips, her heart beating hard for a couple of reasons. “You OK with it?”

“Have a little more faith in me. I’m a trained observer. I learn from other people’s mistakes. I’m already nailing this whole husband gig. The dad part’s going to be a piece of cake.” He patted her belly with such pride in his eyes it made the baby do twirlies inside her. “This little dude will be rock climbing by his first birthday.”

“What if the little dude’s a girl?”

“Then she won’t be getting out of this house until she’s at least thirty-one.”

“No double standards I see.” Irina kissed his chin, which was all she could reach while in her bare feet. “That’s OK. She’ll be so busy learning to write code she’ll never miss the outdoors.” She chewed on the inside of her lip and stared at the base of his throat. “Are you as scared as I am?”

“I’m not at all scared. You shouldn’t be either.” Kale kissed her, his happiness contagious. “We’re an awesome couple. We’ll be even more awesome parents. We’re going to love this baby until it begs us for a brother or sister to deflect all our attention. This kid won’t be able to make a move without us finding out. We’ve got connections and skills.”

Irina sighed with relief. “I’m happy you’re happy, but suddenly I’m also a little terrified on this poor child’s behalf.”

He sobered, turning serious. “I promised when you came to London to find me that things would work out and so far we’ve been doing just fine. Now I’m going to promise you that a baby is going to make things even better. And if we have more kids down the road imagine how fantastic our lives will become.”

Irina had never been much for imagination. Until Kale came along her world had been about technology and scientific data. It amazed her sometimes how much things had changed, not just for her, but him as well. Things were changing again.

And for better, not worse.

Note to Readers

Thank you for choosing
Her Spy to Hold,
the second book in my
Spy Games
series. Kale and Irina were a fun couple to write. And in case anyone is interested, long boarding really has happened on the North Mountain in Nova Scotia. You can find it on YouTube. Crazy kids.

Canada prides itself on its freedom of information policies and public disclosure, and CSIS, Canada’s spy agency, isn’t exempt. If you read the actual
Canadian Security Intelligence Act
, however, you’ll note there’s a great deal of ambiguity to their mandate, and my
Spy Games
characters have chosen to exploit it. They are spies, after all.

Next up is Harry and Lies’s story in
His Spy at Night
. Her name is actually Marlies because I like it (if we’d had a daughter that would have been her name), but when I shortened it, wow, was that name appropriate. The proper pronunciation is
Lees
, with a soft
s
, by the way, but still…

Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank Author E.M.S. for their formatting expertise; Syd Gill of Syd Gill Design for the beautiful cover; and Nancy Cassidy of The Red Pen Coach for her editing skills.

And of course, a special thanks to Annette Gallant for being my first reader and a great friend.

About the Author

Paula Altenburg
lives in rural Nova Scotia, Canada, with her husband and two sons. Once a manager in the aerospace industry, she now enjoys working from home and writing fulltime. She should probably get more exercise. Visit her at
www.paulaaltenburg.com
to view more of her work and to sign up for her newsletter. You can also follow her on Twitter:
@PaulaAltenburg
and friend her on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/PaulaAltenburgAuthor
.

Other Contemporary Romance Titles

by
Paula Altenburg

Spy Games series:

Her Spy to Have—Book One, available now

Her Spy to Hold—Book Two, available now

His Spy at Night—Book Three, coming in September 2016

Broken Hearts series:

I’ll Love You Forever—Book One, available now

Book Two—TBA

Book Three—TBA

From Tule Publishing:

Her Secret Love

From Entangled Publishing:

Her Secret, His Surprise

Desire by Design

Read on for an excerpt from
His Spy at Night
, Harry and Lies’s story.

Excerpt from

His Spy at Night

Harry and Lies’s story

by Paula Altenburg

His Spy at Night
, Harry and Lies’s story:

She liked that Harry was a gentleman throwback to another generation. It set him apart. She enjoyed having him pull out her chair and open doors for her too. Every woman liked being made to feel special. But not when it came to her job.