Kitabı oku: «The Complete Red-Hot Collection», sayfa 24
CHAPTER TWO
HE’D MISSED BIRTHDAYS, two Christmases and two New Year’s Eves, but he hadn’t missed his sister’s wedding. That had to count for something.
So he’d been slightly late and utterly filthy? His sister Lena had still slotted him into her wedding party without a moment’s hesitation, before turning back to the celebrant and marrying his best friend, Trig—Adrian Sinclair.
That had been several hours ago now. The wedding dinner plates had long since been cleared away and the dancing was now in full flow beside the lazy snake of an Aussie river, with spotlit red gums soaring into the night sky. Jared had tried to be there in spirit as well as in body. He’d smiled until his jaw ached. He’d danced with the bride and he’d teased the groom. He’d stood until he couldn’t stand any more, and then he’d sat beneath one of the big old gum trees, his back to the bark, and let the party happen around him.
It had to be mid-evening by now—with many of the guests gearing up to kick on well into the night. Jared, on the other hand, could feel the adrenalin seeping out of his body and leaving a bone-deep exhaustion in its wake. He needed to find a bed and lie in it for a few days, weeks, months … He needed to find a place to be, a place to stay.
Damon had offered the beach house, and, yeah, maybe that would work for a few days. But people had a habit of dropping by the beach house, and what Jared really wanted was to be alone.
He watched with faint interest as Trig headed his way with a woman in tow. She’d arrived about an hour ago and hadn’t seemed the slightest bit perturbed that she’d missed the wedding ceremony or the food. Not a guest, he surmised. He didn’t quite know what she was.
Immaculately dressed—he’d give her that. All class, with slender legs and a pair of high-heeled shoes that he figured had cost a small fortune. Both his sisters had gone through an expensive shoe phase. He recognised the look of them, even if he couldn’t recognise the brand.
The shoes stopped in front of him and he looked up, his head resting against the tree trunk, steadying him, holding him.
Up close, he could see that the slender athletic form he’d been admiring had more miles on it than he’d thought. Up close, he could see that whoever had put this woman’s face together had had one hell of a liking for the unusual. She had a wide, lush mouth that tilted up at the edges, and wide-set eyes that tilted up at the edges too. Her nose was small. Her brown hair was short and boyish. Her ears weren’t big, but maybe—just maybe—they stuck out a little.
Together, her features made up a whole that was too odd to be classically beautiful and too arresting to be ignored.
‘Jared, I want you to meet Rowan Farringdon,’ Trig said. ‘The new Head of Counter-Surveillance, Section Five.’
Section Five. Jared tried to get his brain to work. Section Five was Eastern Europe, and when he’d left two years ago it had been headed up by Old Man Evans. Hard to say if she was going to be an ally Jared could use or not.
Probably not.
‘Your reputation precedes you, Mr West.’
Her voice came at him gravel-rough, with just enough honey at the edges to keep things interesting. She bent lower; she had to if she wanted to get a good look at his face.
‘You’re not as pretty as I’d been led to expect.’
‘Give me time. Bruises fade.’
She smiled at him then, careless and casual, and that smile …
That smile was a weapon.
‘Your sister suggested that you might want a lift up to the house. I have a car here.’
He’d noticed it. Black. Sleek. Probably armour-plated.
‘Why all the security for a wedding?’ He’d noticed them—of course he had. Fully a quarter of the guests here tonight were Special Forces and plenty of them were packing. As was the woman standing in front of him.
‘You know the answer to that one, cowboy.’ She smiled again, more gently this time. ‘We’re here for you.’
‘You’re not my section head.’
‘And for that I am truly grateful. You’ve made quite a mess. Bravo. But the fact remains that we’re here to take you to Canberra and make sure nothing untoward happens to you along the way.’
‘Give me the weekend and I’ll go willingly.’
‘Mr West …’ It was a murmur shot through with indulgence. ‘We’re giving you tonight, and for that you should be grateful. You were due back two years ago.’
‘Sorry I’m late.’ Jared shot her a lazy grin, just to see if it would annoy her. ‘You’re young for a director.’
‘I’m forty years old and cunning as an outhouse rat.’
She was ten years older than him.
‘Like I said …’
Her laugh came low and unfettered and slid straight into the number one spot in the list of things he needed to make this woman do again.
‘Don’t underestimate me, Mr West. And I won’t underestimate you.’
‘Call me Jared,’ he murmured, and then he caught Trig’s sudden alertness and switched his attention to his oldest friend—who was now his brand-new brother-in-law.
‘Jared …’
Trig looked faintly amused—or was it resigned? Maybe Trig had ESP, or maybe he’d simply known Jared so long that he could read every twitch, but somehow Trig had sensed his interest in this section head with the funny face and the whisky voice and the smile that was a weapon.
‘No.’
‘Yes.’
‘Really bad idea.’
‘I’ve had worse.’ Jared turned his attention back to the director and smiled.
Rowan Farringdon wasn’t slow on the uptake. ‘Listen to your friend, Mr West. I’d chew you up and spit you out before breakfast.’
‘I wouldn’t complain.’
‘Oh, but you would.’
Did the woman’s lips never stop tilting towards a smile?
‘If I get in that car with you am I going to end up at the farmhouse or in debrief?’
‘At the farmhouse for tonight. I give you my word. You don’t have to be in debrief until ten past nine tomorrow morning.’
‘Any idea what they plan to do with me after that?’
Her expression grew guarded and in that moment he got a glimpse of the razor-sharp politicking that could make a woman section head at forty.
‘I dare say that’ll depend on the way you play your cards from here on in. You can play? Right?’
He was handsomer than she’d expected, thought Rowan—and she’d expected a lot. His body was big, and brutally honed for fighting, and the close-cropped black hair on his head only added to his formidable air. In contrast, his face could have graced billboards or movie screens, and his mouth had a ripeness to it that would leave lovers dreaming for just one more taste. Great jawline and cheekbones—and eyes that had seemed soft and liquid-bright whenever he looked at his sister, but were sharp and assessing now.
This was the man who’d singlehandedly destroyed a hundred-billion-dollar illegal arms empire. Singlehandedly exposed a line of rot within the anti-terrorism unit he’d worked for that had stretched all the way to a sub-director’s chair. The fallout had been spectacular, and there was fierce debate as to whether there was still more to come—whether he’d withheld information … saved the best until last.
She would have.
‘Mr West, let me drive you up to the house and have a doctor take a look at you. My men are taking bets on how many ribs you’ve broken and whether or not you’ve lost your hearing. Odds are three to one at the moment that you’re simply a very good lip-reader.’
‘They just want to look at my lips.’ Jared West let his lips curve into that lazy smile again. ‘I get that a lot.’
‘I’m sure you do. And I’m sure you use it to your best advantage.’ She let her gaze linger on the lips in question, because they really were that good, but after a slow count to three she stopped and snapped her gaze back to his eyes. Control. She had it and she fully intended to keep it. ‘The fact remains that we’d like someone to take a look at you.’
‘Is that an order?’
‘Do you take them?’
He smiled again. ‘From you—I might.’
‘You could use a Taser on him?’ Trig suggested. ‘That might work.’
‘I could, but he looks rough enough already. If I killed him there’d be paperwork.’
‘Director, would you mind if I had a word with the groom in private?’ asked West.
He tried to make the words sound like a request—he did give her that. But he expected her to grant his request. That much was very clear.
Rowan wasn’t going anywhere until she’d figured out his health status.
‘Try over by the river,’ she suggested. ‘It’s private there.’
‘It’s private here.’
‘Mr West.’ Gloves off, then, and to hell with protecting his ego. ‘How about you stand up and prove to my people that you can still walk?’
His chin came out. His gaze was all fierce challenge—no weakness in it at all.
‘I can walk.’
‘I’d like to see that.’
But he didn’t get up.
Pride was a bitch.
‘See that he gets to the house. We’ve a doctor waiting for him.’
Rowan didn’t wait for Trig’s reply before heading towards her car. She knew what it was going to cost West to get moving again. She’d been monitoring his movements ever since Antonov’s super-yacht had blown up. The trail of destruction he’d left in his wake and his relentless drive to get home in time for his sister’s wedding had been truly spectacular. No sleep for the past fifty hours and he was beyond exhausted—his body was struggling to hold him upright.
The only thing keeping him upright was willpower.
This was a man who’d been streamed for command from the moment he’d taken his first special intelligence service entry exam. He’d excelled at every position they’d ever given him. And if you counted his time with Antonov as solo dark ops work, he’d excelled at that too. She’d been expecting a pretty face atop a fierce intellect—a will of iron and a predisposition towards making trouble.
She wasn’t disappointed.
‘Great walk,’ Jared murmured as he watched her walk away, all confidence and sway. And he still liked her ears.
‘Can you walk?’ Trig wasn’t going to be distracted.
‘I think so. I just can’t get up.’
Trig held out his arm and Jared grasped it—high near the elbow, a climber’s grip. Next minute he was standing, and gasping, trying not to pass out or throw up or both. Two harsh breaths after that Lena materialised beside him, swathed in wedding dress white, with her hand wrapped around his other upper arm to keep him balanced.
‘You’re heading up to the house?’ she wanted to know.
‘In a bit.’ There was the small matter of having to get there on his own two feet to consider first.
He could walk.
Couldn’t he?
‘Use the bed in the master bedroom.’
‘You mean your bed?’ Their wedding bed? Unlikely. ‘Yeah—no. Pretty dress. Maybe you should step back a bit.’
She didn’t, and he bit down hard on his nausea. Lena never had been inclined to do as she was told. She was a lot like him in that regard. Instead she stepped up into his space, put a hand to his cheek and studied him with worried eyes.
‘You look awful. Like you’ve been through hell to get here. Tell me you’re not going back?’
‘I can’t tell you that, Lena.’
She got that stubborn set about her jaw that boded well for no one.
‘Got some cleaning up to do,’ he offered gruffly. ‘Nothing too strenuous.’
‘Do you still have a job?’
‘Could be I’m not flavour of the month.’
Trig snorted.
‘What did the director say?’ asked Lena next.
‘That we’re leaving tomorrow.’
‘Did she tell you that there’s a doctor waiting up at the house to check you over? She called for one two minutes after she laid eyes on you.’
‘Women will fuss.’
‘Don’t you dare lay that line on me. Or on her, for that matter. If I’d walked into your wedding looking like you do you’d have dragged me to the hospital two minutes after I arrived.’
‘I’m going,’ he muttered. ‘Stop looking at me as if I’ll break.’
‘I had a year of people looking at me like that.’
‘I didn’t look at you like that,’ he protested faintly.
‘Yeah, because you weren’t here.’
‘I’m here now. Lena.’
It sounded like a plea. It was a plea. For mercy. For absolution. And she really needed to step away from him soon—before he ruined her dress.
‘I’m going. I’ll find a bed. Do whatever the good doctor says.’ He covered her hand with his own and leaned into her touch. A moment of weakness—a tell for those watching. And there were plenty watching this little exchange. ‘I’m going. I was just enjoying the party, that’s all.’
He took one breath and then another. Stepped forward.
And the world went black.
CHAPTER THREE
‘STUBBORN, ISN’T HE?’ Rowan said to the hovering bride, in an attempt to put her at ease, while a local doctor recently persuaded to make house calls ordered the groom and one of her agents to lay Jared West on his back on the bed.
The bedroom décor was a mix of rainbow meeting Venetian chic, and the unconscious Jared looked decidedly out of place in it—never mind his hastily cobbled together wedding attire. Once a wolf, always a wolf … no matter what clothes he wore.
‘You have no idea,’ Lena said glumly. ‘I should have let you escort him to hospital the minute he got here.’
Jared’s eyelids lifted mere millimetres—just long enough for him to glare at them momentarily before they lowered again.
‘What’s his name?’ asked the doctor.
‘Jared West,’ said Lena. ‘Pain in the arse extraordinaire.’
The doctor grabbed a small flashlight and bent towards the patient. ‘Jared? You with me?’
Jared grunted what might have been a yes.
‘I’m going to check your pupils for responsiveness to light. This won’t hurt.’
‘Not concussed. Concussion was three days ago. I’m over it,’ Jared mumbled, but he proceeded to co-operate.
‘Glad to hear it. Does that diagnosis come with a medical degree as well?’
‘Comes with experience.’
‘Is he always this argumentative?’ Rowan asked Lena from the end of the bed.
‘Yeah, that’s him. He prefers to call it persuasion.’
‘Got any bumps on the head?’ the doctor asked his newest patient.
‘Couple.’
Jared let the doctor examine them.
‘What about your neck? Any stiffness there? Movement okay?’
Jared had his eyes closed when he answered. ‘My neck’s okay. Shoulder’s wrecked.’
So much for the busted eardrums theory, thought Rowan with a sliver of relief. If Jared could answer the doc’s quiet questions without watching the older man’s lips, he wasn’t deaf.
‘You’re not deaf,’ she said, and was rewarded by the faintest curve of Jared’s lips. ‘There goes a week’s wages for at least half of my agents.’
‘Yeah, but the other half will be richer for it.’
‘What’s he like when he really smiles?’ Rowan asked.
Maybe it wasn’t an entirely appropriate question to voice, but it never hurt to be well informed and armed for the battles ahead.
‘I haven’t seen it for a while,’ Lena said. ‘But historically it tends to be pretty lethal. Nations fall. Angels weep. That sort of thing.’
‘Amen,’ Jared mumbled.
‘See, if he wasn’t all beat up I’d thump that arrogance out of him,’ offered Lena. ‘Because I love him.’
Her eyes filled with tears and she turned away before her brother could open his eyes and see them.
The doctor picked it up, though, and his next words were soothing. ‘He’s conscious, he’s coherent—’
‘No blood coming out of any orifices. I’m perfect … Got any painkillers?’ the patient said next.
‘For what?’
‘Ribs.’
‘Sit up and let’s have a look at them.’
Jared moved to a sitting position on the edge of the bed with a little help from Trig. He also accepted help when it came to the removal of his borrowed suit jacket, but he unbuttoned the shirt beneath it himself.
He took his time, but Rowan figured that the delay had more to do with Jared’s current lack of fine motor skills than with any real desire to delay the process. Finally the shirt came off, to reveal a sweat-stained bandage held in place with silver electrician’s tape.
‘I dislocated my shoulder at one point as well. But I got it back in.’
‘Yourself?’
‘A bathtub helped.’
‘Jared, can you raise your arms above your head?’
‘Last time I tried that I woke up two hours later, facedown on the deck.’
‘When was that?’
‘Three days ago.’
‘Any additional problems since then?’
‘A crucifying lack of sleep.’
‘Jared, I’m going to check your lungs and heart. Then you’re going to raise your arms for me while I do it all again, and then you’re going to lie back down while I examine your ribs more thoroughly.’
Jared nodded.
Rowan tried to afford the man some privacy, but it was hard not to stare at the spectacular bruising that bloomed across his sculpted chest as the doctor unwound the bandage. He’d taken a beating, this man. And then some.
The doctor listened to his lungs and heart with a stethoscope and then poked and prodded around his stomach and lower still while everyone else stood and watched. And then, as the patient began to raise his arms and the doctor began to press on his ribs, he passed out again.
‘May as well keep going,’ said the doctor as he caught him and eased him back onto the bed with impressive nonchalance.
Jared came round moments later but stayed right where he was, encouraged to do so by the doctor’s hand on his shoulder.
The examination continued and the doctor finally made comment. ‘Without access to X-rays, I’m thinking he has four substantially cracked ribs.’
‘Show-off,’ muttered Lena, her voice ragged with worry. ‘What else?’
‘Soft tissue damage—as you can see. Probably some compression damage. Do we know what hit him?’
‘We know there was a series of explosions on board a yacht, and we can reasonably assume that Jared was thrown around by them. He also drove a truck through a warehouse wall and rolled a four-wheel drive in the desert.’
That was all the detail a civilian doctor needed.
‘All of which happened two to three days ago.’ She looked at the physician. ‘He’s been travelling ever since. Does he need a hospital?’
‘No,’ said West. Conscious again. ‘I’ve already been to one.’
Not by my reckoning. ‘Where?’
‘In … um …’ His voice drifted off. ‘Might have been Budapest. X-rays. Strobe lights. Everything. They gave me pills.’
‘Sure it wasn’t a disco?’ she offered dryly.
‘I like you,’ he said.
‘Can you remember the name of the pills?’ the doctor asked.
Jared snorted. ‘No. They were good, though. Kept the packet for future reference. Pocket.’
The doctor leaned down and rifled through the shirt on the floor, pulling out a small container. ‘How many did they give you?’
‘Five.’
‘Two to three days ago, yes? It says here one a day. Where are the other two? And don’t tell me you doubled up on them.’
So the patient said nothing.
‘What are they?’ asked Lena.
‘Cocaine derivative. Explains his ability to keep going, perhaps. And why he’s crashing so heavily now.’
‘Yep,’ Jared muttered. ‘Sleep.’
And then abruptly he tried to sit up again, with limited success.
‘Why are there strawberries? Am I in the bridal suite?’
‘No,’ Lena told him. ‘You’re in the spare room.’
Jared subsided somewhat, but kept eyeing the strawberries warily. ‘And those? Growing in the giant stripy teacup?’
‘What about them?’
‘Why?’ His voice conveyed vast layers of confusion and a complete inability to comprehend such a thing.
‘Her house, her rules,’ offered Rowan. ‘Don’t over-think it.’
His eyes opened to slits. ‘Does your spare room have strawberries in it?’
‘I don’t have any room to spare.’
‘You probably let people crash in your room instead.’ His lips quirked. ‘I like it.’
‘Jared,’ said Lena sternly. ‘Director on deck, remember? Less flirting—more respect.’
‘Why are you still here?’ Jared asked. ‘Shouldn’t you be at your wedding reception? All I’m doing right now is going to bed.’ His voice softened. ‘It’s okay. I’m okay. I made it here, didn’t I? Don’t make me regret the effort.’
‘If you need a hospital, Jared, and you’re lying about having been to one already, I swear on my new husband’s soul that I will make you regret it.’
‘She’s vicious,’ Jared told his best friend. ‘I hope you factored that in?’
The groom smiled, wide and warm. ‘Get some rest.’
‘I would if you left.’
The bride and groom made their exit, with Lena glancing back over her shoulder and warning her errant brother to be good just before the door closed behind them.
Only then did Jared allow his face to reset into a grimace of pain. ‘Hey, Doc? About those painkillers …’
‘On a scale of one to ten—one being zero and ten being unbearable—how much pain are you in?’
‘If I lie perfectly still I can get it down to about a seven.’
The doctor told him to stay in bed and rummaged through his black medical bag for two little blue pills. He got a glass of water to wash them down with.
‘This is going to knock you out. You may shower in the morning when you wake. No sudden movements. Preferably no more boat explosions or motor vehicle incidents.’
He looked at the patient and expanded his list.
‘No surfing, boxing, skydiving or martial arts training. No weights, rock-climbing or kayaking. Getting the picture?’
‘Loud and clear.’
‘Gentle swimming … floating, paddling. Pretend you’re three again. Shouldn’t be too hard, by the sound of it.’
Rowan liked this elderly smalltown doctor.
‘Listen to what your body is telling you and you might just come out of this in better shape than you deserve.’
Rowan liked this doctor a lot. ‘You’re not looking for casual work on an as-needed basis, are you? Because your bedside manner could really work for us.’
‘I’m two years away from retirement and I’ve seen everything I want to see and then some when it comes to medical emergencies. I don’t need to see any more of those.’
Pity.
‘Hey, Doc …’ the patient mumbled. ‘Do you think she’s got a funny face? I think so. But I really like it.’
The doctor sighed. ‘That’ll be the painkillers kicking in.’
‘Great voice too,’ Jared told them next. ‘Makes me think of sex. Does it make you think of sex?’
‘Son, you need to get some rest. Stop fighting it.’
The doctor slid Rowan a glance, his smirk in no way hidden.
‘You might want to leave before he proposes.’
‘I might want to hear it for blackmail purposes.’ Come to think of it, she might just want to hear it for her own selfish reasons.
But it was a moot point. The man on the bed was already asleep.
‘Do we have the all-clear to fly him elsewhere in the morning?’
The doctor nodded. ‘Get him X-rayed as soon as you can … keep him hydrated, keep an eye on him.’
‘Thank you for your co-operation.’
‘Not a problem—no matter what my wife says. Always a pleasure to help our special intelligence service.’ The doctor smiled his charmingly distinguished smile. ‘Who do I bill?’
Jared woke in a bed that didn’t rock with the rhythm of the ocean. It wasn’t his bed—he knew that much. His bed for the past two years had been a narrow bunk beside the engine room of Antonov’s super-yacht. It had been a floating fortress, locked down so hard that no one had been able to get near it undetected, and it had been more than capable of sinking anything that tried.
His bed hadn’t been soft, like this one, and his bunkroom sure as hell hadn’t contained a chest of drawers beneath a wooden window. Was that a pot full of strawberries sitting on top of it? He thought he remembered being puzzled by them last night as well. Because … why?
He opened his eyes a little more, turned his head and discovered lime-coloured sheets and a floral magenta and green comforter. If this was a motel he was clearly in the lollipop suite—but he didn’t think this was a motel.
He rolled over onto his back and winced at the pain that seared through his body. There’d been a doctor at some point last night. The doctor had told him that his estimate of two cracked ribs had been a little under. There’d been pills last night too, and then there’d been blessed oblivion.
He was at Lena’s farmhouse. He remembered now.
And he could use a couple more of those painkillers.
He heard a door open and then footsteps that seemed to stop at the end of the bed. He opened his eyes a little more. Pretty was his first thought. Funny was his next.
It was the woman from last night. He remembered her mouth and her ears. He didn’t remember her eyes being quite such a tawny vivid gold.
‘You awake?’
He also remembered her voice. His body heartily approved of her voice. ‘Mmm …’
She wasn’t just any woman. She was a director of counter-intelligence and he was in deep trouble. She wore a white collared shirt, dark grey trousers and a thin silver-coloured necklace that looked as if it would break the minute someone tugged on it. She was older than him by a few years and then some, and he was attracted to her, aware of her, in a way that he hadn’t been aware of a woman for a very long time.
‘We met last night,’ he offered, in a voice still thick with sleep.
‘So we did.’
No rings on her wedding finger. No rings anywhere on those slender, expertly manicured fingers.
‘Not sure I remember who you are, though. Memory’s a little fuzzy.’
Could be he was winding her up—just a little. Could be he wanted to see if her eyes would flash with irritation at having to introduce herself again, section director being such a forgettable position and all.
But her eyes did not flash with irritation. Instead, crinkles formed at the edges of them as she smiled, slow and sure. ‘Oh, you poor darling man. I knew you were confused last night, but I didn’t know you were that far gone. I’m your sister’s wedding caterer.’
‘I see.’
He really didn’t see.
‘You don’t remember begging me to give you a lift to the nearest motel?’ She looked so guileless. Damn, she was good. ‘Because I did. Take you to the nearest motel, I mean. But the night manager took one look at you and remembered that he didn’t have any vacancies. I was a little sceptical, but he was very certain. He figured you were either going to puke all over the room or die in your sleep, or both, and apparently that’s bad for business. Also, you had no ID. He didn’t like that either.’
Jared smiled. He had no idea where she was going with this story, but he figured he might as well let her run with it. Or maybe he just liked hearing her voice.
‘What happened after that?’
‘I offered to take you to the hospital.’ She leaned her forearms over the slatted wooden bed-end. ‘To which you said an emphatic no. You then told me I had the sexiest mouth you’d ever seen.’
‘I did?’ He might have thought it. He didn’t think he’d said it.
‘I was swearing at you at the time. Trust me, I was surprised too.’
Jared let his gaze slide to her mouth, all shapely and tilted at the corners as if she was always ready to smile. “You shouldn’t have been that surprised.’
‘And then …’ she said, and followed those words with a very long pause. ‘Then you said that if I gave you a bed for the night you’d give me an orgasm I would never forget.’
‘I— What?’
‘I know. An offer too good to refuse, right? I mean … I have this mouth, you have that face … I think you’ve cracked a rib or four, but we could have worked around them. So I brought you here and offered you coffee, but you said if it wasn’t Turkish you didn’t want it. That’s when I got my first inkling that we might not be soul mates.’
We might not be wha—?
He was almost awake, and thoroughly confused, and, okay, he might have offered her a good time at some point—it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility—and the coffee line sounded like him, but still.
‘And then you told me that the ripples in my hair reminded you of deep ocean waves—in the moonlight, no less—and I figured we might just be soul mates after all. I’ve been wrong before.’
‘I did not say that. I would never say that. Your hair’s too short for ripples. It’s unrippleable.’
‘I gave you a glass of milk and three prescription painkillers and you groaned your gratitude. It was a deep and growly groan. Very sexy. I still had faint hope of an exemplary orgasm. Ninety seconds later you were asleep.’
She was better at this game than he was. He was playing injured, for starters. But maybe, just maybe, she was the better player.
‘You can stop now, Director. I know who you are.’
‘Of course you do.’ She shot him a very level gaze. ‘You need to stop playing me for a fool, Mr West. You need to stop looking at my mouth. And then you need to pay attention to what I’m about to say.’
He eased into a sitting position, wincing as he slung his legs over the side of the bed. At least he still had his trousers on. He remembered bandages too, but maybe they’d been coming off rather than going on. Either way, they were nowhere to be seen. Neither were any of his other clothes. Possibly because they’d been filthy.
He eyed the suitcase in the corner with interest. ‘I’m listening.’
‘You need to know that there’s no record that you were working for us during your time with Antonov. No one’s going to claim you as their dark pony. You’re on your own.’
That got his attention. He dragged his gaze from the suitcase back to the section director standing at the end of the bed. ‘So you’re throwing me under a bus?’
These things happened when you came back covered in filth rather than glory.
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, but she didn’t deny it.
‘I want to talk to my handler.’
‘Then talk. Because right now the closest thing you have to a handler is me.’
‘No offence, but I don’t know you.’
‘No offence taken, but I do hope there’s someone in-house that you’re willing to talk to. I’ll be in your sister’s kitchen, Mr West. As for you, it’s time to get dressed. My people are almost ready to leave and you’re coming with us.’
