by Ivy Nelson
“A piece of advice?” Peter moved in closer to her and stared down at her. The girl didn’t even come to his shoulder she was so short. “Lose the glitter if you want anyone to take you seriously.”
Her face went red and Peter fought the urge to grin.
“Fuck off. I’ll wear whatever makeup I want. I’m taken very seriously. The number of bylines in the Post and the journalism awards in my office should be proof enough of that.”
“We’re not in your office, Miss Davenport, we’re in mine. And if you don’t want to find yourself in jail tonight, I would suggest you leave while you still can.”
“You haven’t heard the last of me, Mr. Mercer.”
“Agent Mercer,” Peter growled. “And what’s this about you investigating Upwood. Somebody just tried to blow him up. Shouldn’t you be investigating that?”
He was ready for her to leave, but he found it odd that she said she was investigating Upwood and not the bombing.
“I believe Corbit Upwood is dirty and I’m aiming to find out exactly what he’s up to.”
Peter opened the door.
“Out. Now. I don’t have time for conspiracy theories or a journalist looking to make a splash. If you don’t find anything, you’ll just make something up anyway. Why don’t you go to your office and get started on just that?”
Carrie marched past him and into the doorway.
“If you’re so certain I won’t find anything why don’t you answer a few of my questions. I’ve never printed a lie and I don’t intend to start now.”
“Out,” Peter growled, reaching for his handcuffs.
When she was gone, Peter loosened his tie. Damn woman was infuriating. He should have arrested her, given her an official record. As it was, her name would stay on a Secret Service watch list and she would have to go through a more extensive background check to get press passes to things like White House events, but it didn’t feel like enough.
He mentally kicked himself again. Carrie Davenport may have been a journalist, but she wasn’t Gigi and didn’t deserve his vindictive attitude.
Now if only he could get the blonde’s cute giggle out of his head.
4
♥♥♥
Carrie stopped in the center of the CIA Headquarters lobby and took a deep breath.
Just who the hell did Peter Mercer think he was? Right, the agent in charge of a secret service detail. He was domineering for a reason.
“Still here I see, Miss Davenport.”
Carrie jerked around and found herself staring up at Peter. For a brief moment she wished she’d worn heels instead of flats, so she didn’t feel so short next to him. Irritation or perhaps loathing poured off of him as he smirked down at her with his arms folded across his chest.
“I’m going, I’m going. I just wish I had filled my coffee cup one more time before I left.”
Peter’s eyebrows rose. “Seriously? I watched you drink three before I came into the conference room. Don’t you think you’ve had enough caffeine today?”
Carrie took two steps backwards. “You were watching me? What kind of freak are you?”
Peter closed the distance between them again. “The kind that observes those who could be a threat to the people I’m paid to protect. Now let’s go,” he said with a scowl as he gripped her elbow and steered her toward the entrance.
Carrie huffed and tried to jerk her arm away.
“I hope you don’t mind, Miss Davenport, but I’ll escort you outside. I wouldn’t want you to wind up on the wrong floor again.”
When she stuck her tongue out at him, she felt his hand twitch in the crook of her arm, and she stifled a grin. She was attempting to goad him into a reaction, and it was almost working. As they exited the building, two men in black suits were walking in. Peter recognized them.
“Agents, if you don’t mind, I need to make sure Miss Davenport gets into a cab and I’ll be right with you.”
Both men nodded and Peter kept steering Carrie towards the street.
“A cab will be here for you any minute Miss Davenport. I would advise you to stay far away from Director Upwood and the CIA. They can make your life more miserable than I can.”
Carrie just scowled and watched him walk a short distance to where the two agents were waiting.
She could barely make out what he was saying, but they appeared to be replacement agents for men getting off shift. With a hint of admiration, she watched the way he gave orders with quiet dominance that spoke volumes. The men respected him. She had a feeling most people did. His handsome features had her staring a moment too long because when he dismissed his men, he caught her gawking.
“Your cab is here Miss Davenport,” he hollered and turned on his heel as Savko and a man she didn’t recognize left the building.
Leaning into the window of the cab she asked the driver if he would mind waiting a moment.
“You heading home boss?” she heard Savko ask.
“Yes. I’ll be back in a few hours and we’ll finish formalizing protocols. I’m going to grab a cab. I’ll get my car from headquarters later.”
Savko and the unknown agent said their goodbyes and Carrie slipped into the cab before he could catch her watching again. Then she watched Peter climb into a cab of his own.
“Where you going, Miss?” the driver asked.
“Same place as the cab in front of us.”
“Are you serious right now? Why didn’t you guys just share a cab?”
Carrie panicked for a moment then said, “Ugh. Divorce. He won’t share anything with me anymore, including a cab. He sure didn’t mind sharing his dick with other people though.” The driver just stared at her.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be burdening you with this. But we’re meeting our attorneys so please, just follow that cab.”
She hoped her lie was convincing. It must have been because her driver didn’t ask anymore questions, just shrugged and pulled into traffic.
Carrie sat back with a smug grin. Peter Mercer could be an ally if he knew what the director of the CIA was actually up to. Of course, this whole plan could backfire, and she could wind up in jail for stalking, but Carrie opted not to focus on that little detail. Instead she studied her notes and tried to think of what the hell she was going to say when she got to Peter’s place.
• • •
“So, I’m the first to arrest her,” Peter said out loud as he scrolled through a background check that had just come through on Carrie Davenport.
“What was that?” the cab driver asked?
“Nothing, just talking to myself,” Peter said.
Looking back at his phone he continued reading. The woman had graduated with honors and had a degree in journalism and political science. She had been a journalist ever since. The lack of a record surprised him for some reason. She was a spitfire and had to have pissed somebody off enough to slap cuffs on her. That thought brought up images of the petite woman in handcuffs and now it disappointed him that he hadn’t been the one to arrest her this afternoon.
Damn it. There he went having inappropriate thoughts about the journalist again.
He stared out the window and watched the city fly by. He hadn’t intended to settle in D.C. after the CIA, and yet here he was. The job with the Secret Service landed in his lap after a particularly harrowing mission, and he had been ready to leave the company. Especially after his confrontation with Corbit Upwood. How was he supposed to know the man would wind up director of the CIA?
Peter let his eyes wander back to the background report on Carrie. He wondered how quickly he could get more information on her from the internet. Then he remembered her bragging about bylines from the Post. In seconds, he had the Washington Post website up and searched for Davenport. Sure enough, several dozen results appeared. A simple Google search for Carrie Davenport Journalist brought up even more results. She had seen some things.
He clicked through article after article. Corruption, crime, sexual assault. She’d reported on
everything and just from a glance she wasn’t kidding when she said she didn’t print lies. Her stories seemed balanced but hard hitting and backed with solid facts and evidence.
Holy shit, he thought as he read an article she had done on a drug cartel. Attached to the piece was a video of her at the Mexican border talking to undocumented immigrants, one of whom turned out to be a wanted drug runner. Crazy woman could have gotten herself killed.
The girl definitely took risks and didn’t take no for an answer. Her article catalog read like the diary of an adrenaline junkie. No wonder she drank so much coffee. Now he wondered if the purple eye shadow was part of some investigation she was working on. At a strip club maybe? It was right up her alley and it would make her question to Upwood make sense.
Half a dozen articles later his eyes went wide again. If he was reading this article right, she was in Afghanistan at the same time he was. And Iraq. She’d done a piece on sexual assault in the military and actually traveled to war zones to speak to female soldiers. A lot of anonymous sources. One of them sounded familiar, and he grimaced as he thought of walking in on Corbit Upwood with a young soldier. Now he wondered if that soldier was one of Carrie’s sources.
Peter hadn’t been in Afghanistan much longer after that and after a few more assignments with the agency, he had transitioned to the Secret Service.
It had been a good decision on his part to leave the CIA. He enjoyed being in the Secret Service and hoped to move up the ranks. Being named director was the goal, but that was a political appointment that could be hard to get depending on who the president was. For now, he just wanted to get his own field office.
Thoughts of Upwood reminded him of Carrie’s question this afternoon. If she was digging into Upwood, why was it important to know if he had been at a high-end strip club? Now he was curious. His finger continued scrolling the article he had pulled up and a smile spread across his face at a picture of the tiny woman in a helmet and bullet-proof vest somewhere in the middle east. Damn if she didn’t look cute as hell.
Curiosity got the better of him and he flipped over to Twitter where he quickly found her account. Pithy and sarcastic described most of it. Then he found a photo of her in a cocktail dress and he felt his heart skip a beat. She had morphed from cute to fucking gorgeous in a single photo. Her blonde hair fell in soft curls around her shoulders and he could see subtle hints of pink throughout it. Her smile was infectious, and he wanted to know more about her. But she was still a journalist, and that was a strike against her. The fact that she likely didn’t share his… proclivities was strike two. Still, her blue eyes stared at him through his phone screen and he couldn’t help but hope there was no strike three.
They sat at a red light when he glanced in the cabs side mirror. Wait a minute. Isn’t that the cab she’s in? “That crazy woman is following me,” he said out loud. Definitely strike three. He shook his head. It occurred to him to get out of the cab and climb into hers, but he decided to let her think she was getting away with something. Maybe he would get the pleasure of cuffing her himself after all. Not that handcuffs were really his thing, he much preferred rope.
Clicking out of her Twitter, he flipped over to the phone app and made a call.
“This is Special Agent Mercer. I need a quiet investigation into somebody that was snooping around my protectee. Give me a full report on Carrie Davenport. I’ll send you all the details. Have it to me by tomorrow afternoon but keep it under the radar. I don’t want to spook her; I just want to know what she’s working on.”
By the time he ended the call, they were nearing his apartment and Carrie Davenport was still behind him.
Time to see how much fun he could have, he thought as the car came to a stop.
5
♥♥♥
Carrie swiped her credit card through the kiosk that hung on the back of the cab driver’s seat, tossing in a hefty tip since he’d done her a solid and followed Peter’s cab.
“Thank you so much.”
“Good luck with the divorce, mine finally wrapped up last month,” the driver said as she stepped out of the car.
When she looked up, Peter leaned in the window of his cab paying the driver, so she hung back and watched him as her own cab pulled away. Peter’s suit jacket was raising up a little and from what she could tell, it looked like his ass wouldn’t be half bad to stare at.
As he straightened and the yellow car drove off, Carrie approached. His back was still to her.
All that time in the cab and she hadn’t thought of anything clever to say. Honestly, she didn’t even know why she was here. It wasn’t like he would spill the beans on the man he was protecting, that would get him fired. This had been a stupid idea. She could blame caffeine and a lack of sleep if she wanted but deep down, she knew it was more likely her fascination with a certain infuriating Secret Service agent. Just as she was about to backtrack and hide in a bush, he turned around.
“You must really enjoy being in handcuffs, Miss Davenport. Too bad I don’t have mine with me.”
“I’m sure you have a gun.”
His eyebrows shot up. “I’ve heard of kinky but that takes the cake. You want me to shoot you?”
“What? No!” Carrie said, her face scrunched in confusion.
“Didn’t think so. Is there a reason you’re following me? Looking to add stalking charges to your record? How did you get the cab driver to follow me anyway?”
He was so damn smug.
“I’m not stalking. I told the cab driver we were getting divorced, and you refused to share a cab with me. Turns out he just went through a divorce of his own and sympathized.”
A slow smile that nearly melted her spread across his face. He was a handsome man, but that smile was mind blowing.
“I’ll give you credit for creativity.”
“High praise coming from you.”
“Well if I’m not handcuffing you or shooting you, then what are you doing here?”
His question caught her off guard, though she should have been expecting it. “I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions,” she managed to say with some confidence despite the fact that she had no idea what she was going to ask.
“I can’t talk to the press. It’s against policy,” he said.
“Your boss is up to something shady.” It wasn’t something she should reveal, but she had already let the cat out of the bag about what she was doing while she was at CIA headquarters so it couldn’t hurt to see if he knew anything.
Peter looked confused. “Director Higgins?”
“Who’s Director Higgins? I’m talking about Corbit Upwood.”
“He’s not my boss. I’m protecting him. Big difference. Director Higgins from the Secret Service is my boss,” he explained.
“Word is Upwood doesn’t want the detail.”
“People rarely want a protection detail. It usually means somebody is trying to kill you.”
“Fair enough.”
“I really have to go Miss Davenport. Unless you want to have dinner with me.”
Carrie took a step back. “Dinner?”
“Well, if we’re getting a divorce it really only seems fair that we have at least one date before we split up.”
Before she knew it, he had closed the distance between them. What was he doing?
“For a reporter you sure are cute,” he whispered, pulling her close.
“I… I am?” she murmured.
And then his mouth was on hers and the scent of his shampoo filled her nostrils. Clean. Masculine. It was something she could have smelled for hours. His tongue was probing between her lips, and she realized that while she had been inhaling his scent, she had involuntarily opened her mouth to him and damn it if she wasn’t kissing him back. Standing on her tip toes, she wrapped her arms around his neck.
And then he pulled away.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Carrie’s hand fluttered across her lips before she recovered enough to s
ay, “You’re right. We are getting divorced after all.”
“Cute.”
“So you keep saying,” she said as she took two more steps back, hoping to put a safe distance between them. His lips had felt so good covering hers she could see herself repeating that particular activity, and that was definitely a bad idea.
“How about dinner and you let me lay out what I think Director Upwood is up to,” she offered.
His eyes darkened and folded his arms across his chest. “You should go home before I arrest you, Miss Davenport. This is your last warning.”
“Are you serious right now? You just freaking kissed me.” Carrie started toward him, but he put out a hand to stop her.
“A mistake I won’t be repeating I can assure you. You’re a journalist. Journalists only want one thing and it certainly isn’t the truth.” His lips curled up into a sneer and his voice dripped with disdain. The man had a serious problem with reporters.
Following him home had been a stupid idea, but she was here now and didn’t want to give up so easily.
“I really think you should hear me out. I can tell you that Corbit Upwood is not a good man, and he’s definitely up to something illegal.”
Peter was on her in a split second, and his hand gripped her face as if she were an errant child. “I don’t deal in rumors and anonymous sources. If you don’t leave now, I’ll call the police and I’ll have the Secret Service launch an official investigation into you. I promise you don’t want that.”
She wrenched her face from his hand and stumbled backwards. It killed her to let him have the last word, but this wasn’t going anywhere productive and she was going to make things worse if she didn’t go home and get some sleep.
“Goodnight Agent Mercer. I’m sorry I followed you home.” With that, she turned and walked away, leaving him staring after her.
Later that night in her apartment, she tossed and turned. Three Red Bulls and four cups of coffee were keeping her up. Propped up by pillows, she did a quick search for Peter. The internet wasn’t helpful. As far as she could tell he’d done a stint in the military and was recruited by the CIA.