by Elle Kennedy
“What’s your name?”
Swallowing, she lifted her head to meet his eyes.
And was stunned by the odd combination of heat and desperation she saw in them.
“Noelle,” she murmured.
“Noelle.” His voice came out hoarse. “I’m James Morgan, but everyone calls me Jim or Morgan.”
Jim. What an ordinary name for a man who was anything but.
“What brings you to Paris?” She was incredibly proud of herself for managing to speak in a steady voice when her entire body was consumed with erratic jolts of heat.
“I’m here on vacation. I have three weeks’ leave, so I thought I’d travel until I had to report back to the base.”
“The base . . . Are you in the army then?”
“Yeah. Doing my second tour now.”
“That’s nice. Do you enjoy it?”
His blue eyes flickered with . . . a glimmer she couldn’t quite decipher. “I do. I enjoy it a lot, actually.”
“Good. It’s important to love what you do.”
“It is,” he agreed before slanting his head pensively. “What about you? What keeps you busy?”
“School.” Noelle shrugged. “I graduate from high school in the spring.”
She’d purposely emphasized the words high school so he would be aware of her age, but he didn’t seem distressed by it. She knew he was older—she would pin him down at twenty-one, maybe twenty-two—but the age difference didn’t bother her either.
Waves of tension moved between them. Or maybe it was awareness. She couldn’t be sure, couldn’t quite understand it, but she knew she wasn’t the only one feeling it. Jim’s pulse visibly throbbed in his throat, as if his heartbeat was as irregular as hers. And his eyes . . . they never left hers, not even once.
“And afterward?” he prompted. “What will you do then?”
Run.
Run and never come back.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Before she could blink, his hand breached the space between them and found hers. The burst of excitement that went off inside her was immediately replaced by the ripples of pain that seized her injured fingers.
Jim must have noticed her agitation, because his eyes narrowed. “You’re hurt,” he said flatly.
Surprise filtered through her. “I—”
He was peeling off her brown leather glove before she could protest, and when her hand was exposed, a deep frown puckered his mouth.
She saw exactly what he did—two black-and-blue fingers swollen to twice their size and unpolished fingernails that had broken and bled beneath René’s heavy boot.
“Who did this to you?”
His low growl startled her, as did his astute assumption that her injury was no accident. When he gently ran one callused fingertip over her thumb, tears pricked her eyes, but she desperately fought them off. She refused to cry. Crying was a show of weakness, and Noelle was not weak. She would never be weak.
“You need to see a doctor,” Jim said hoarsely.
“No! No doctors,” she blurted out. “I’m fine, honestly. It was a clean break. I’ll just tape them up when I get home.”
His eyes flickered with surprise, and she could have sworn she glimpsed a gleam of admiration.
But he didn’t capitulate, just spoke again, sternly this time. “Your hand needs to be x-rayed at the hospital. There might be damage you’re not aware of.”
“No doctors,” she repeated.
“Noelle—”
She set her jaw. “No.”
The lump of panic jamming her throat doubled in size. He couldn’t force her to see a doctor, could he? Hospitals and doctors left paper trails, and she couldn’t risk leaving a trail that her father might find. Douglas Phillips had raised her to be strong. He’d passed his warrior genes on to her, made sure she could take care of herself.
What would he think if he knew she’d allowed René to have power over her? How ashamed would he be?
Jim released a heavy breath. “Fine. If you won’t go to the hospital, at least let me take you to see a friend of mine.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “What friend?”
“An old army buddy. He runs a small medical practice in Seine-Saint-Denis,” Jim explained, naming one of the more run-down neighborhoods of the city. “He’ll keep the visit off the books if I ask him to.”
Uneasiness swam in her gut, making her hesitate.
“Nobody will ever know you saw him, I promise.”
The total assurance in his tone was impossible to ignore. God, she believed him. She believed that when this man made a promise, he kept it.
“All right,” she whispered. “I’ll go.”
“Thank you.”
Their gazes collided and locked, and that unsettling and thrilling sizzle of connection traveled between them again.
Noelle couldn’t tear her eyes away from his. Her surroundings faded. The wind died into utter silence. She’d never felt this way before. Ever. And she couldn’t even begin to put into words why she was so drawn to this man.
All she knew—right there, right then, on that cold and cloudy autumn afternoon—was that her entire life was about to change.
Chapter 1
Present day
Noelle raised her cigarette to her lips and took a deep drag, sucking the smoke and chemicals into her lungs before exhaling a plume of gray into the night air. The apartment across the street was dark, save for the one light shining in the study where Gilles Girard was currently sipping on a cup of espresso. She’d been watching the Parisian barrister for three days, and she knew that after he indulged his caffeine fix, he’d move on to the bottle of Rémy Martin on the mahogany bar. The guy had expensive taste in cognac—that was for sure.
The lawyer’s west end private residence was located in the sixteenth district, one of the most prestigious areas in the city. That told her he had the required cash to procure the services of someone like her or, at the very least, represented clients who could afford her. But she didn’t trust the man. Granted, she didn’t trust anyone, but Girard’s out-of-the-blue request was definitely fishier than most.
He’d contacted her via several middlemen, though that alone wasn’t unusual, considering her number wasn’t exactly listed in any phone books. No. What made her uneasy was the urgency she’d detected in his voice. The job must be done as soon as possible. There’s no room for delay. The harried plea had rung with desperation, and in Noelle’s experience, desperate men spelled nothing but trouble.
Which was why she now lay there on the dark roof opposite Girard’s, flat on her stomach with a rifle at her side and binoculars zoomed in on her prey. Watching, waiting.
Girard lived alone. No wife or kids, no household staff. He was in his late fifties, and his choice of attire told her he was an old-school-aristocratic kind of guy. Anyone who wore perfectly pressed slacks, a cashmere Burberry sweater, and a Gucci scarf around his neck in the privacy of his own home was someone who clearly valued luxurious items.
Noelle adjusted the zoom on the binoculars and studied Girard’s handsome features and groomed salt-and-pepper hair. There was something very . . . jaunty about him. And honorable—he seemed like a man with a moral code.
So why was he trying to hire a contract killer?
Frowning, she snuffed out her cigarette on the roof and extracted her cell phone from the pocket of her tight-fitting leather coat. A moment later, her field glasses revealed Girard reaching for his own phone.
“Bonjour?” came his baritone voice in her ear.
“It’s me,” she answered in French. “It’s time to continue our little discussion.”
She clearly saw the man’s face stiffen through her zoom lens. “You ended our last call very abruptly,” he said in annoyance. “It was quite rude.”
“
I told you. I had to check out a few details.”
“You had to dig into my background, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“And are you satisfied with what you found?”
“For the most part.” She lazily ran her free hand over the barrel of her rifle. “Who is your client?”
“I already told you, I can’t reveal that. But I can assure you my client has no shortage of funds. He is more than capable of paying your fee.”
“Good to know,” she said lightly. “But I don’t like working for shadows, Mr. Girard.”
“Then I’m afraid we’ve got nothing more to discuss. The identity of my client will not be disclosed, mademoiselle. This is nonnegotiable.”
Irritation flared inside her. Christ, sometimes she wished she’d gone into a different line of work. Secretive men were goddamn infuriating. And yet she didn’t disconnect the call—her curiosity had been piqued the moment Gilles Girard had contacted her, and she wasn’t the kind of woman who walked away from a puzzle. Or a challenge.
“All right,” she conceded. “I can live with that.”
“Good. Shall we discuss the details then?”
“Not over the phone.”
“Fine. We will meet tomorrow?”
“Tonight,” she said briskly. “We’ll meet tonight.”
“I’m afraid I’ve already retired for the night.”
“No, you haven’t.” Chuckling, she zoomed in closer with the binoculars and saw the flicker of alarm in his dark eyes.
“What makes you say that?” he asked carefully.
“Well, I’m looking at you as we speak, Gilles, and your fancy-pants clothes don’t look like pajamas to me.”
Noelle got great satisfaction from seeing his gaze dart around wildly, as if he expected her to pop out of a closet and ambush him.
She laughed again. “Don’t worry, monsieur. I’m not inside your house. Yet.”
She tossed the binoculars into the sleek black duffel by her side. As she gracefully rose to her feet, the warm August breeze lifted her blond ponytail and heated the back of her neck.
“I’ll see you shortly, Gilles,” she told the panicked man. She paused in afterthought. “Oh, and I suggest you don’t reach for that pricey cognac of yours.”
Suspicion floated over the line. “Why not?”
“Because I poisoned it.”
His startled curse brought a smile to her lips. “Y-you . . . H-how . . .?”
“Don’t you worry about that, honey,” she answered as she quickly disassembled her rifle, while balancing the cell on her shoulder. “Out of curiosity, who’s the target?”
There was a pause. “I thought you didn’t want details over the phone.”
“Not about money or method. Names are fine.”
She zipped up the rifle case, then tucked it next to the duffel—she’d leave both on the roof and collect them after her little tête-à-tête with the good lawyer.
“Ah. All right, then.” Girard hesitated. “The target is a soldier. Well, a former soldier. He now works as a private military contractor.”
“A mercenary.”
“Yes.”
Shifting the phone to her other shoulder, she patted her jacket to make sure the weapons beneath it were secure, and then she walked across the gravel-littered rooftop toward the wrought-iron ladder at its edge.
“He’s used various aliases over the years,” Girard continued, “but he’s currently operating under the name James Morgan.”
Noelle froze. “What did you say?”
“Morgan,” Girard repeated. “The target’s name is James Morgan.”