Kitabı oku: «The Complete Red-Hot Collection», sayfa 26
‘I don’t think you sleep much at all.’
She was too observant.
‘I didn’t kill them. That was never my intent. Intent is important.’ It was all he had left. ‘What’s your background, Rowan? Why do you sit in a director’s chair? What’s your intent?’
‘How about you call me Director?’
‘In a workplace situation that requires it, I solemnly swear that I will never call you anything else.’
‘You really are used to getting your own way, aren’t you?’
‘Firstborn child,’ he murmured. ‘It’s in my file. What about you? Any brothers or sisters?’
‘No. My parents were diplomats—children really didn’t fit their career plans, so they made do with one. I was raised by my grandfather. He was an Army general.’
‘How’d you get your director’s chair?’
‘Drive, forward-planning and connections. I decided I wanted to run my own covert operations team when I was fifteen.’
‘If I told you that I joined the secret intelligence service with all the forethought of an adrenalin junkie in need of his next fix would you smack me?’
‘Yes. Please tell me you planned at least some of this?’
Jared grinned at her censure. She was a strategist—no question. His skills ran more to being pointed in the right direction and doing what was needed. He’d had no problem with his approach whatsoever at first. Right up until he’d realised that he no longer had complete trust in the people doing the pointing. And then life had got increasingly difficult.
‘You could smack me. We’ll see how we go. I might even like it.’
‘The way I read it, you have a certain innate …’
‘Charm?’
‘Cunning,’ she corrected. ‘A wariness that stems from your lack of trust in others. And you have no small amount of luck. You’re tenacious and a natural-born leader. Corbin has a vacant sub-director’s chair. He’s put you up for consideration.’
Jared set his coffee down abruptly. ‘What are my chances of getting it?’
‘Corbin’s pushing hard. A few of the other directors have questioned your maturity and your ability to plan ahead. No one’s blocked you outright yet. That’s down to Corbin’s political clout, by the way—not yours. You’ve done no political manoeuvring whatsoever for over two years.’
‘Been a little busy elsewhere …’
‘We know.’ Rowan watched him steadily. ‘Do you want it?’
The pancakes were ready. He fished two plates from the cupboard, loaded hers up and took it to the counter. He pushed the sugar bowl towards her and swiftly quartered a couple of lemons. He added more butter to the pan. More pancake mix.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Where do you see yourself in five years?’
‘If I’d known this was a job interview I’d have worn a shirt.’
She let her gaze drop to his chest, but it was hard to tell whether she was admiring his physique or cataloguing the bruises on it.
‘You could always put one on now.’
‘How do you sleep?’ he asked abruptly. ‘How do you smile when people go down and don’t get up and it was your call that put them there?’
‘You’re talking about your sister getting shot?’
‘I’m talking about dead men and belief. How do you know that you’re doing the right thing? How do you know when you’ve chosen the lesser of two evils?’
‘Intel helps.’
There was a hint of sorrow in her words that commanded his attention.
‘Arrogance helps. You have to want to take control and believe that you’re the best-equipped person to do so.’
‘Maybe I did believe that I was the person best equipped to take down Antonov two years ago,’ he offered raggedly. ‘The one with the most determination. The one with the burning desire to do so. Not sure I believe it now.’
He’d opened up to her this much—he might as well let her see the rest of it.
‘I can’t settle. I don’t sleep. I feel like I’m peeling out of my own skin half the time. I came back for the wedding. I forced things into play so that I could be home in time for that. I’ve left loose threads that I need to go back and tie up and now you want to put me in a manager’s chair? I can’t do it. I don’t belong in a chair. I’m no manager and I can’t stand paperwork. All I want to do is clean up my mess.’
‘And how would you do that?’
‘I need to know what’s happening with Celik—Antonov’s kid. I promised him he’d be okay. I need to get to Belarus and put something in play there that might lead us to the last of Antonov’s moles within ASIS. I need to get to the families of the other two dead men and see how they’re situated. I need to finish this so I can sleep.’
‘You came back too soon.’
‘I had to.’
‘You put family first.’
‘I always will. You can’t be too surprised by that. It’s all I’ve ever done.’
He turned the burner off, took hold of the skillet and tipped the pancakes onto his plate. He sat down opposite where she’d been sitting and reached for the sugar.
He ignored her when she slipped in between him and the corner of the kitchen bench, one elbow on the bench as she studied him intently.
Had she squeezed in between him and another person at a bar, in an effort to get served, he wouldn’t have thought anything of her proximity. But there was a lot of room at this breakfast bar and she wasn’t currently using any of it.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked warily.
‘May I try something?’
‘I don’t know whether to say yes or no.’
She reached out and slid the back of her hand up his cheek and towards his temple … a soft caress that made his breath hitch and his body stiffen against the utter pleasure of it. Her hand didn’t stop there and soon her fingers were in his hair, scraping gently across his scalp, making his eyes close and his body tremble.
‘You’re touch-starved.’
Her whisky voice rippled across his senses.
‘We see it sometimes in those who’ve held themselves apart, those who’ve gone too deeply undercover for too long. I thought I saw a hint of it the other day in your sister’s kitchen, and then again in my office. You weren’t looking for it. You thought yourself attracted to me.’
‘I am attracted to you. How much more obvious do you want me to be?’
He caught her wrist, then deliberately brought her hand back to the counter before releasing her. He wasn’t going to act the Neanderthal the way he had the other day. He just wasn’t.
‘Move over,’ she said, and reached across the bench for her plate of pancakes and her utensils.
When she sat down beside him she let her lower leg rest against his, pinching his footrest instead of using hers.
‘Touch doesn’t always have to be sexual. Sometimes it’s about comfort and connection.’
‘Are you mentoring me?’
‘You did say I could. Are you objecting?’
‘Yes,’ he said firmly, and glared when she patted him on the forearm. ‘And don’t mother me either. Don’t need one—don’t want one. Don’t call me Oedipus.’
She smiled like a Madonna. ‘I challenge you to stay in casual body contact with me for five minutes and see if it relaxes you any. If it works we’ll get you a puppy.’
‘Don’t want a puppy, Ro.’ He gave her his full wattage smile. ‘I want a girl.’
‘And I thought you wanted me. How are your ribs?’
‘Better.’
‘The doctor said it would take weeks for them to fully heal.’
‘Almost better.’
‘It’s probably too soon for you to be playing contact sport as a way of encountering touch. There’s massage …?’
Her leg was already sliding against his as he moved his own leg around. ‘The frustration would kill me.’
‘Self-massage beforehand?’
‘Wouldn’t help.’
‘Maybe you could take dance classes? Start with a waltz … finish at the tango?’
‘No partner.’
‘The dance teacher would be your partner.’
‘You’re really serious about this touch thing, aren’t you?’
‘Are you feeling more relaxed than you were a minute ago?’
Surprisingly, he was.
‘Might not be about touch, though. Might be proximity to you. You could stay the night. There could be dinner out on the deck. A swim this afternoon. I could teach you how to kite surf.’
He wasn’t allowed to, on account of his ribs, but that wouldn’t stop him teaching someone else.
‘Wouldn’t I have to learn how to surf first?’
‘Oh, Ro … No. You don’t surf? Do you know what this means?’
‘That we may not be soul mates after all?’
‘It means you’re missing out on one of life’s great pleasures. Now I have to teach you how to surf.’
‘You mean right after you teach me how to swim?’
For a moment he thought she was serious, and then she smiled and he knew she was playing him. ‘You can swim. The General would have made sure of it.’
She laughed at that. ‘And then there was canoeing and sailing—diving and the rest. I swear that man should have joined the Navy, not the Army.’
He liked hearing those kinds of things from her, liked having her around.
‘Can you stay? We could swim or surf—the offer’s there. You could stay the night—there’s plenty of bedrooms. We could go out to dinner. There could be fresh seafood and bright stars in the sky. A playful breeze. There could be body contact and relaxation. I’m all for it.’
‘My flight leaves at midday. This is a work-day for me.’
‘There’s always next weekend. You could come back.’
Her leg rocked gently against his. ‘You’re very tempting. You already know this, so it’s not as if I’m telling you anything new. But you’re not in a good place right now, and I’m trying to figure out what I need to do for you in a work capacity and what I might be able to offer you in a private one. The answer to that second question being that if I know what’s good for me I’ll offer you nothing.’
‘We could try friendship?’ he offered. ‘Something simple. I’d like simple.’
‘You’d need to stop hitting on me. And—given that I have at least some self-awareness—I’d need to stop flirting with you too.’
Rowan smiled ruefully and turned her attention to the eating of her pancakes. They ate in companionable silence, and by the time Rowan had finished her pancakes and drunk her coffee Jared was feeling more at ease.
‘Get a massage,’ she told him as she stood to leave. ‘Go hug people. Use the beach and concentrate on the physical sensation of the waves breaking over you and the sun on your skin. Hold your hand over your heart and breathe. Concentrate on sensory details when you want to give your brain a rest.’
‘You’re giving me coping mechanisms for anxiety?’
‘You asked me how I cope with some of the decisions I’ve had to make over the years. I’m telling you what has helped me.’
‘Sex.’
Jared rubbed his hand across the back of his neck and tried to explain his thought processes before Rowan decided that he was hitting on her again.
‘Trig said I needed sex.’
‘It’s not a bad idea—provided that your partner knows what you’re having sex for.’
‘I’m pretty sure that telling someone I’m touch-starved and over-anxious and therefore need to have sex isn’t going to fly.’
‘Oh, I don’t know … With your face and body?’ She leaned across the counter for her black leather satchel. ‘It might.’
‘Are you flirting again?’
‘I hope not.’ She stood up and slung the satchel over her shoulder. ‘Time for me to go.’
‘Yeah.’ He didn’t want her to go. ‘Do you need any more on Antonov?’
‘No. That wasn’t the main reason I came here and you know it. I wanted to check up on you—see how you were tracking. I’m supposed to be gaining your trust, and that’s hard to do when you’re nowhere in my vicinity. I was also very curious as to whether you want that sub-director’s chair.’
‘Director—’ He knew she’d notice the name-change. He hoped she knew that he was replying to the chair now and not just to her. ‘I don’t want a promotion. I can’t think about that right now. If you want me to do what I do best, cancel my leave and get me to Belarus. Let me clean up my mess.’
She looked at him hard.
He waited.
Finally, she nodded. ‘Belarus it is, then.’
‘When?’
‘Any objection to coming with me now?’
‘None at all.’
‘In that case pack what you need and put on a shirt.’
Jared shot her a brilliant smile as he stood to do her bidding. Or his bidding. Either way, he thoroughly approved of the direction this beautiful friendship was going in.
‘Hey, Ro? The touch thing? I think it’s working.’
‘Nothing at all to do with getting your own way?’
‘Oh, you noticed that?’
She spared him a very level glance. ‘I’m setting you loose in Belarus for two reasons. One: I want that final head to roll and I have my own thoughts as to who it is—I just don’t quite have enough to nail him yet, and with your help maybe we’ll get there. Two: you’re not recuperating here in your brother’s beach house … you’re drowning, and I have rope that might save you. I suggest you grab it.’
CHAPTER SIX
BY THE TIME they touched down in the capital Rowan had done a whole lot of touching, brushing against and just plain standing close to Jared West, and the extended contact was beginning to take a toll on her senses. She liked the smell of him and the feel of him.
Everyone liked the sight of him. He’d changed into a business suit and he wore it to perfection. It gave him an air of authority and added a couple more years to his thirty. His wristwatch signalled the kind of wealth that got handed down from generation to generation. His grandfather, according to the records, had made a fortune in shipping, and his father had taken it into the investment banking arena and quadrupled it. Between Jared, his siblings and his elders, they had property on every continent and in most major cities.
For Jared to choose working for secret intelligence over all the other options available to him had been an unusual move. For him not to want to advance through the ranks now was more unusual still. She didn’t know what drove him—beyond family loyalty and wanting to clean up his mess.
‘Jared?’ she said as they stepped from the airport terminal and headed towards a waiting car. ‘Don’t make me regret my belief in you.’
He glanced her way, his gaze strangely searching. ‘What is it about me that you believe in?’
‘I believe that you want to see this through.’ She nodded to Jeffers, her driver, who had opened the door as she approached, sparing only a glance for Jared.
Jared settled in beside her. Jeffers handed her a tablet and she took it and opened up her information stream. Jared didn’t ask anything else. He let her get on with it and looked out of the window, deep in his own thoughts.
It wasn’t until they were back in the corridors of Section that he spoke again. ‘How soon can I leave?’
‘I’ll need to bring you into my section and under my jurisdiction first. At the moment you’re Corbin’s.’
‘Will Corbin be a problem?’
‘We’re about to find out.’
They’d reached her office and Sam looked up, her cool gaze encompassing them both.
‘Director. Agent West.’
‘Mr West needs to book a flight to wherever it is he’s going. I’ll leave him with you.’
But Jared followed her to her door instead of taking his cue. ‘Don’t I get to listen in on your courtesy call?’
‘No. Try not to annoy Sam too much, Mr West. She’s perfectly capable of sending you to Belarus via Antarctica.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ he murmured.
She smiled encouragingly and shut the door on him with no little satisfaction. Back in her domain, back in control, and out of range of that killer smile and perfect body. He was hard on the senses, Jared West. Hard on the mind.
She wasn’t game to examine her confidence.
Rowan’s conversation with George Corbin didn’t begin well.
‘You can’t have him,’ he said curtly when she put her request to him. ‘He’s on medical leave.’
‘He’s back, he’s bored, and I need him for a job.’
‘Consulting?’
‘Fieldwork.’ She knew damn well that her decision to send Jared back into the field wasn’t going to go down a treat. No need to mention that the job was Antonov-related.
‘You’re crazier than I thought.’
‘Will you release him or not? He doesn’t want your sub-director’s chair, by the way.’
‘Maybe I never expected him to take it in the first place.’
She could hear the older director’s exasperation, loud and clear.
‘Maybe all I’m trying to do is get him looking towards a future in which Antonov’s reach isn’t his entire focus. Get him thinking about how to come out of this current situation with his career intact. Maybe I simply don’t like watching one of our best and brightest break.’
‘He won’t break. He’ll do what’s asked of him.’
‘Says who? Him? Or you? He’s not physically fit. He’s not mentally ready. What makes you think that if you send him out now he’ll even return? What makes you think he won’t end up in pieces?’
‘He’ll come back when he’s due back—and it won’t be in a body bag.’ She could picture Corbin’s cold grey eyes and his tightly drawn lips. ‘Do I need to call in favours?’
‘I don’t owe you any favours.’
‘In that case I’ll owe you.’
She could practically hear the older man calculating what he might demand of her. Nothing good.
Eventually he spoke again. ‘You can have him—but my objections are going on record.’
‘Thanks, George. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.’
Corbin hung up.
Rowan put the phone down, closed her eyes, and banged her head against the padded leather headrest of her chair a couple of times.
That had been so not what she’d wanted to hear.
If Jared didn’t come through with the name of that final mole she was screwed.
Several hours later Rowan had managed to wade her way through most of her work for the day. Tomorrow’s schedule was in place, Sam was finishing up, and the only memo sheet left on her desk was the one regarding Jared’s impending travel arrangements.
He was booked to go via Warsaw with his first flight leaving at four-forty a.m. He was scheduled to return four days after he got there. Six days in total—not nearly long enough for him to pay his respects to two dead men’s families, check on a kid in the Netherlands, and go after the name of Antonov’s final mole. His arrangements were flawed from the beginning.
Not a good start.
‘Agent West wanted to know what time you usually leave the office,’ Sam said as she shut down her computer and secured her desk drawers with the thoroughness with which one might secure a safe.
‘What did you tell him?’
‘She said I should be able to catch you about now.’
The office door was open. How Jared had managed to appear framed in it without either her or Sam hearing him was a testament to how quietly he could move.
She nodded to him, eyeing the carry-bag draped over his shoulder and the white plastic shopping bag that dangled from one hand. The plastic bag smelled strongly of chilli, basil, lemongrass and curry.
‘You told her I’d be back with food, right?’ he asked Sam.
‘I was just about to mention it.’ Sam turned her blandest gaze on Rowan. ‘I didn’t say you’d eat it.’
‘Is this a variation on Will you have dinner with me?’ Rowan asked him.
‘Or I can eat and you can watch,’ he offered with a sinner’s smile. ‘I’m hungry.’
‘Apparently you’re also very fragile—I’ve been hearing that all day. This had better not be your version of the Last Supper.’
‘If it was I’d have chosen the lobster instead of the duck.’
Not for a second did he let her see whether her words had got to him. And then his gaze skidded to her mouth and hers went to his for more than a count of three.
Damn. Rowan dragged her gaze back to the rest of his face and motioned him into her office.
‘See you in the morning, Sam.’
Sam nodded and left without another word. Jared walked past Rowan and headed straight over to the panelled bookcase that doubled as a door that led through to her private apartment. He knew how to open it and didn’t wait to be invited inside—just strode on through.
Perhaps he expected her to follow.
Warily, she did.
Rowan didn’t use the apartment often. She kept a few changes of clothes there, a few emergency toiletries in the bathroom cupboard. Sometimes she ate there. But not often.
‘You know the layout of my office and you know my favourite food. What else do you know?’ she asked as she leaned against the doorframe and watched him make himself at home.
‘Have you eaten since you ate my pancakes this morning?’
She hadn’t.
‘That’s what I thought.’
He found plates in the cupboard and cutlery in the drawer. He fished napkins from the bag and she let him, more focused on his economy of movement in such a small kitchenette space than on his words.
‘I bought a boat today.’
‘What kind of boat?’
‘An oceangoing yacht.’
‘Do you miss Antonov’s yacht?’
‘That was a floating fortress, not a yacht. I don’t miss it specifically. I do miss being at sea.’
‘You work in Canberra. How often are you going to use this yacht?’
‘Not as often as I’d like, but I won’t be the only one using it. Lena went halves on it with me.’
‘That must be nice.’
She didn’t mean for him to stop serving up the food—heaven forbid—but he paused long enough to slide her an enquiring glance.
‘Having siblings to share things with,’ she elaborated. ‘Do you have a favourite sibling?’
‘Lena’s closest to me in age. Closest to me overall.’
And Lena had just married Jared’s best friend.
‘Lena followed you and Adrian Sinclair into the service. You made a good, reliable team, the three of you. You led, and mostly they followed. And then Lena got shot while the three of you were checking out an abandoned biological weapons factory in East Timor.’
Jared’s lips tightened.
‘Adrian stayed to look after her. You, on the other hand, went rogue, trying to pin down who was responsible for hurting your sister.’
‘I had a handler. I didn’t go rogue. Serrin knew what I was doing.’
‘I’ve read Serrin’s notes,’ she countered mildly. ‘Frankly, they made me wonder who was running who.’
‘Still not rogue. I worked within the framework that was there.’
He handed her a plate piled high with red curry duck, plain rice and Asian greens.
‘Where’s the wine?’ she asked.
‘You don’t drink.’ He said it with utter confidence.
‘We really are going to have to stop letting your brother use our database as his personal information library.’
Jared smiled and shoved a forkful of food into his mouth. Rowan looked at her plate and headed for the little table in the room. She walked over to it, pulled out a chair and kicked another one out for him. He joined her moments later.
Corbin’s words of warning slid insidiously through her mind. Don’t bury him. Don’t send this man to his death.
She didn’t want to. ‘What’s in Belarus?’
‘Churches, city squares, a fine fear of the Motherland and a man Antonov wanted to impress.’
‘A man Antonov wanted to impress?’ The only people she could think of who might fit that particular criteria would be hellishly hard to access. Rebel leaders and legitimate ones. People of power. ‘Does this man have a name?’
‘Ro, you haven’t even tried your duck. It’s really good.’
‘Do you know how to find him?’
‘Yes.’
‘And then what?’
‘I think he knows who Antonov’s main mole within Section is.’
‘Assuming you’re right, you still have to get that information out of him.’
Jared said nothing.
‘Are you going to bring him in?’
‘Wasn’t planning on it.’
‘It’s an option.’
‘Given who he is, it’s really not.’
Something to chew on … ‘Does your sister know that you’re going back out there? Does Sinclair?’
‘No.’ Jared kept right on eating.
Rowan nudged his foot with hers. ‘Will you tell them before you go?’
‘Wouldn’t want to worry them.’
‘Withholding your whereabouts from them isn’t going to make them worry any less. I thought you’d have learned that lesson by now?’
Jared scowled. ‘I’ll phone them from the airport. Satisfied?’
‘Beats having Sinclair and your sister contacting me for your whereabouts. I’m all for delegating my excess workload. You’re on record for this trip, by the way. Check your inbox. You’re liaising with a new informant on my behalf.’
Jared’s scowl had morphed into something a whole lot more thoughtful. Rowan studied his face—the refined masculine beauty of it, the cuts and bruises that hadn’t quite faded from it. She was risking her neck for this man and she still didn’t really know why.
Take a deep ops agent, fresh from two years in the field, driven by a personal vendetta and deep feelings of failure and responsibility, one who had a dislike of authority and a bad case of alienation and expect him to be a team player?
No. A team player he wasn’t.
The best Rowan could do was give him the space he needed to get the job done and hope that there were pieces of him to pick up afterwards.
‘Jared, are you up to this?’
‘Yes.’
She wanted to believe him.
‘Yes,’ he repeated. ‘I know you’ve probably had to convince, connive and bury my psych report in order to get me back out there this fast, but I won’t let you down. Trust me.’
She nodded—because it was a more positive response than telling him to please stay alive.
She took a couple of mouthfuls of the curry. ‘The duck is good.’
‘Yeah.’
They finished the rest of their meal in silence. It wasn’t a companionable silence—more like a heavy, expectant waiting. Jared cleaned up. Rowan helped. His shoulder brushed against hers—the chambray of his shirt soft and well-worn against the bare skin of her shoulder—and her nipples pebbled tightly beneath her bra. She had a jacket somewhere. Wouldn’t hurt to put it on and get the hell gone from here before the mind-melting awareness between them turned into hot, sweaty sex.
‘If I was ten years older would you take my attraction to you more seriously?’ he asked.
So much for ignoring the elephant in the room.
‘It’s not the age difference.’ Nothing but the truth. ‘Given your experience with life, loss and the demands of intelligence work, you’d be a good match for me. Your body in its prime would just be a bonus.’
‘Is there someone else in your life?’
‘No.’ Not for years.
‘Who do you get intimate with?’
‘Since the director’s chair? No one.’
‘Well, that can’t be healthy. How long do you plan on keeping the chair?’
‘It’s hard to say. It was my end-game. I got here a little sooner than expected. Now I’m regrouping. Starting to plan ahead.’
Next thing she knew she’d be revealing that sometimes she questioned what had driven her to this and whether the power she now wielded had been worth the sacrifice. The gruelling hours and the responsibility. Always having to watch her back on account of the power games people played. She could count on one hand the number of people she truly trusted.
Even Jared trusted more people than she did.
‘You could set your sights on the top job,’ he said. ‘Run the division.’
‘I could. That’s likely to depend on the mistakes I make in this job and the never-ending politics. Are you going to be a mistake on my résumé?’
‘No.’ He held her gaze. ‘That’s not the plan.’
‘Then what is the plan? You come in here this evening, bearing food—’
‘People eat in this building all the time.’
‘Yes, in the twenty-four-hour cafeteria.’
‘Never seen a director eating in there yet. You could have asked me and my duck to leave.’
‘And I will—but not before you give me the name of your informant.’
‘And what will you give me in return?’
‘Permission to leave the room and the country.’
‘I want a kiss.’
Nothing but challenge in the rough purr of his voice and speculation in his eyes.
‘Because that’s not going to undermine my authority at all?’ she offered dryly.
‘You’re a little hung up on authority, Ro.’
‘It comes with the territory.’
‘Last chance,’ he offered. ‘You want a name; I want a kiss. Think of it as a trust-building exercise.’
‘Or blackmail?’
‘A freely given exchange,’ he countered smoothly.
‘If you don’t return—if you crash and burn or simply decide that your attention is needed elsewhere—my head is going to roll unless I have something to bargain with. I’m trusting you to do your job, and I have precious little reason for doing so other than gut instinct. I want the name of your informant and I want you back here in six days—free of all Antonov baggage, clearheaded and fit to work.’
‘Then do I get my kiss?’
‘Then you gain my trust—and, for what it’s worth, my respect. Finish the job, Jared. And then we’ll talk relationships and sex.’
