On Her Master's Secret Service (19 page)

But he was working as a heavy for a nightclub that almost certainly laundered money for a terrorist. And he’d been held by terrorists for three months, more than enough time for a man to be indoctrinated into radicalism. Brainwashing was just another tool in a terrorist’s kit. Was Jesse Murdoch a sleeper? “Keep working that angle. I might need you to do some surveillance on him. Is Jake in town?”

He asked the question very quietly. Kristen didn’t need to know every single player he had on the board. He was willing to trust her, but only so far.

Adam nodded. “Jake and Serena are set up in a rental two buildings down from us in case we need him. Why doesn’t Kristen want the whole team here? Why does she want to split us up?”

“She thinks too many new faces around might cause some questions to be asked, but she doesn’t know how good my team is. Just keep it quiet. From what I understand, the crowd at the club is quite rowdy most nights. They’ll blend in nicely. I want someone to have eyes on her.”

Adam nodded. “Will do.” His voice came back to normal as Kristen walked into the living room. “You’ll be happy to know your place isn’t bugged.”

“Checked for that, did you?” She shrugged. “I expect you to be thorough, Adam. I’m an open book. Check any records on me you like.”

Adam crossed his arms over his chest as he studied Kristen. “I did. There aren’t a whole lot of them. I read a couple of your articles, but I was surprised you didn’t put pictures with the byline. Most big reporters do these days.”

She sank down onto a formal-looking couch, her shoes already tossed aside. If she was deeply disturbed by the fact that her place now looked like Hacker Central, she didn’t show it. “The celebrity ones do, yes. They don’t usually do deep-cover reporting. I’m part reporter and part investigator. I can’t do my job if I’m on the news every night showing off my designer duds. I’m careful about pictures getting out. Did you read the story about a Peruvian cartel working with the government there? I worked on that one for over a year. Don’t you think they would love a picture of me to hang on their offices? I cost a bunch of high-ranking officials their jobs. I don’t smile for the camera, but then neither do you, Mr. Miles. I didn’t find a Facebook page on you with five thousand friends and pictures of your pregnant wife.”

Adam’s whole body got tense. “How did you know she’s pregnant?”

“Because I traffic in information and I am damn good at my job. If I just wanted to connect Evans to the club, I could probably do that on my own, but I think there’s something more happening here. Beyond that, Evans is a very bad man and if I have to choose between a great story or justice for the people he’s killed and the women he’s torn to shreds, then I will choose justice, and I can only get that through men like you. So run all the little bug hunters through the house that you like. Tap my phone. Snoop through my computer and tell Little Tag in there he can give me all the nasty looks he likes. I’m not going anywhere, and he can’t intimidate me. I’ve been in shark-filled waters and managed to stare them all down.” She stood back up, gesturing to her left. “The kitchen is that way. Alex, I’m giving you and Eve the master suite because I’m such a romantic at heart. Sean and Adam can share the room with the twin beds and I’ll be next to them. There are balcony entries from every bedroom. Make sure the security system is off before you take a stroll. Goodnight, gentlemen. Tomorrow’s a long day. And, by the way, tell Sean that he’s nowhere near as hot as his brother. And if you want to ask how I know that, it’s because my eyes work.”

“It’s a nice speech.” Adam was still looking at her with suspicious eyes. “I hope you are who you say you are.”

She shrugged. “If you decide I’m not trustworthy, shoot me in the gut because it would be a real loss to mar my boobs. They’re real, by the way. Night.”

She walked off, not looking back.

“Holy shit, I think she scares me a little.” Sean edged back in the room having obviously heard everything. “You’ve pissed off every woman on the team today.”

Alex stared after her. She was interesting. “I didn’t piss her off. It was Adam.”

“I don’t like not being able to find the information I want on someone. Two grainy photos were all I could find of her,” Adam admitted. “Still, I can understand why she wouldn’t want her face out there. She took down a whole local government in Peru. I also read an article she wrote that linked the Russian mob to art theft in New York. Apparently because of her, several masterpieces that were lost during World War II have been recovered.”

He believed her. There was something deeply sincere about her. She could be playing them all, but he didn’t think so. “That had to piss people off. The Russian mob doesn’t like to have their schemes revealed. So she’s a smart woman. She hasn’t lied about anything.”

“Yet,” Sean said.

“What is your beef with her?” Alex had to admit that he kind of liked her. She was tough.

Sean frowned, looking at the hallway she’d disappeared down. “I don’t know. It’s the way she looked at me. Like she knew me. I just have a feeling, but then I’ve been out of the game for a while now. I’m going to go start dinner. Hopefully she has something I can fix. And I’m so much hotter than Ian. The woman obviously needs to have her eyes checked.”

Sean walked off toward the kitchen, and Adam moved back to his room.

Alex stared at the ocean in front of him. The entire back wall of the condo was floor to ceiling windows. Because of their height, from where he stood it looked as though there was nothing but endless ocean in front of him. The sun was starting to set, the sky turning orange and red.

Such a lovely sight.

He heard a shower start up. Eve. He had every right to walk into that room and watch her shower. He had every right to join her.

“Hey, she has excellent taste in Scotch, man.” Sean was grinning, holding out a couple of tumblers and a bottle of
Glenlivet
.

“Pour me a double, man.” Alex took his liquid gold and let himself out on the balcony. Warm wind brushed against his skin. He stepped up to the railing and could see the roll of the dunes and green palmettos that covered them.

There was plenty of time to figure out how much danger they were all in. Tonight he had to decide how to handle the fact that he was going to sleep next to Eve for the first time in years.

If he slept at all.

* * * *

Eve moved out of the bedroom to the balcony. The master suite was located on the ocean side of the condo, and she could see the moonlight glimmering off the waves. The sound of the surf was methodical and soothing, but she couldn’t find a way to calm herself.

Alex hadn’t spoken more than two words to her at dinner. He’d talked to everyone else, but ignored her except to see that she had what she needed.

He’d made sure she had the choicest cut of steak and had put a large portion of
truffled
mashed potatoes on her plate before getting his own helping.

And she’d eaten it even when she knew she shouldn’t. Damn Sean. She couldn’t pass up his artistry. Maybe she would need those training sessions.

“Go back to bed, Eve.”

She’d already been to bed, and there was no way she could sleep in that big bed while waiting to see what Alex was going to do. She’d half expected him to walk in and demand every right she’d denied him for the last five years. She had to make him see that she hadn’t betrayed him. “I knew you wouldn’t call off the op.”

He had a glass in his hand. She couldn’t tell exactly what was in it, but she would bet it was Scotch. All the men in her life seemed to turn to Scotch. “Did you?”

He’d shrugged out of his shirt when he’d walked through the room ten minutes before. She’d rested there in bed, waiting for him to come in and start laying down the law as her Master, but he’d simply turned off the security system and slid out onto the balcony wearing nothing but a pair of jeans that hugged his ass.

“Yes, I knew there was no way to stop you, so I came with you. Amanda can’t handle an op like this. You were being reckless when you chose her to watch your back.”

He took a long sip from the glass before answering. “I have Sean to watch my back. I just needed Amanda to look pretty and keep her mouth closed.”

She took a long breath and prayed for a little patience. “Which just shows that you don’t know her at all. Amanda isn’t known for keeping her mouth shut. She likes to insult every single female around her. She also has a deep-seated need to please whoever she considers to be the alpha male of a group. What happens if she decides Chazz is the alpha male?”

Alex turned, an arrogant look on his face. “Really? That little weasel?”

He wasn’t thinking at all. “Just being the biggest and the best looking doesn’t make you top dog, Alex. Chazz has power, and Amanda would be attracted to that.”

He frowned and ran a hand over his nearly non-existent hair. There was maybe a quarter inch of his dark brown hair left. He’d buzzed it, and he’d been right to do it. It changed his features, making him look harder, leaving nothing to detract from the stark, masculine lines of his face. “Fine, I should have vetted her better, but you had no right to replace her without consulting me. This is my op. I don’t want you here.”

Well, he couldn’t put that any more harshly. He didn’t want her. Fine. She could handle that. She was tough, and he was stuck with her now. “I can do the job, Alex. It’s not my first rodeo. I will grant you I don’t have the field experience that Ian does, but until Ian decides to hire another couple of females, you’re stuck with me. You needed a woman for this job and you needed one you can trust.”

“I needed one who wouldn’t fuck everything up.”

Hurt flared through her system. “Are you calling me incompetent?”

He sighed and turned around again. “No. I would never call you that. I’m calling you a distraction I don’t need. I need to be sleeping or working on this case, but my dumb ass is standing out here thinking about the fact that I haven’t kissed you on the lips in five years and I feel like a stupid kid hoping I don’t fuck it up.”

Her heart softened immediately. God, she hadn’t thought about what it would mean to really be here with Alex. They’d been on plenty of undercover operations before, but never one that forced them together with such intimacy. Somehow, the thought of kissing Alex scared her far more than the operation. She’d been able to hold herself apart from him because she’d only allowed him sex and discipline. Kissing was different. Kissing was intimate.

She’d never forgotten the way Alex had kissed her—like she was the only woman in the whole world and he couldn’t get enough of her.

Kissing was dangerous.

“Alex, maybe we should talk about this.”

“All you ever want to do is talk. I’m not your patient. I’m your husband.”

Just the word could make her ache. “We’re divorced. We have been for a long time.”

He laughed, a bitter little huff. “I’ll always be your husband. Just because you chose to sign a piece of paper and forced me to sign it too doesn’t mean I don’t feel like your husband.”

“I didn’t force you to sign anything.” And in her calmer, more reflective moments, she could even admit that the divorce had been a drastic measure. She’d wanted to jar Alex out of the angry place he’d been in and force him to see her again.

He’d simply signed the papers and continued to look for Michael Evans.

“I asked you what you wanted and you said you wanted a divorce, so I gave it to you, but I didn’t even move out of our house, Eve. It wasn’t until we moved here that we didn’t share a house.”

But he’d moved from their bed the night she’d come home from her ordeal. He’d sat up in a chair beside the bed, watching over her, but he hadn’t slept beside her because she couldn’t stand to have anyone touch her at the time. The trouble was, even after a few weeks, they had still been sleeping apart. “It was obvious to me that our marriage was over. You didn’t sleep with me. You barely touched me.”

His free hand gripped the railing of the balcony, clenching around it. “You had been raped. I was trying to give you time.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think you really wanted me because he’d had me. All the rest was just physical impulses and a measure of guilt from you. Do you want the truth? I didn’t really want the divorce, but you didn’t seem to want me anymore so I gave you an out.”

He turned to her, the glass crashing to the ground. He didn’t seem to care that he’d just broken a glass. “I never wanted an out. I wanted you. I tried to touch you and you flinched every single time. You couldn’t stand to have my hands on you because deep down you blamed me for what happened to you. Don’t you dare deny it.”

She was suddenly so damn tired. She moved to the side, well away from the glass. “I don’t deny it. You refused to listen to me. You thought I was wrong about Evans. Hell, you still think I’m wrong otherwise you wouldn’t be here. This is ancient history. Why are we talking about it now?”

Now both fists were clenched at his sides as he followed her. “Because it’s still here. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. I’m sorry I was an arrogant prick who fucked up his job so badly that he could never go back. And I can’t tell you how sorry I am that you’re the one who got hurt because of it. Don’t you think I would change places with you if I could?”

Which only proved that he didn’t know her at all. “I wouldn’t want that. Did I blame you? Yes. Was that fair? No, of course not. Do I still blame you? I don’t blame you for what happened, but I blame you for everything that happened afterward. I blame you for trying to be some kind of vigilante when I needed you to be my husband.”

And he would never understand that. She turned, but his hand was on her arm, pulling her back. He loomed over her, his face shadowed by the moonlight. His mouth was turned down, but his eyes roamed every inch of her. “I didn’t know how to reach you. I didn’t even think I had the right to. What he did…”

“Is over, but you won’t let it be over. It will never be over for you, and that’s why it can’t work between us.” Tears made the world a blurry mess because it really came down to that. He wouldn’t be able to let go. Not now. Not even if he found Michael Evans and somehow managed to kill him. For Alex, it would never really be over.