by Elise Noble
And not just any old part.
Alaric.
We’d been together once, only for it to end in disaster when ten million bucks’ worth of cash and diamonds had vanished from his custody. At the time, I’d been his fiercest defender. I’d put my job and my reputation on the line for Alaric fucking McLain, only for him to disappear as well. And I mean disappear. Poof. Gone. Believe me, I’d looked, and he’d given me nothing—not so much as a postcard—for almost a year. I thought he was dead. Hell, I’d even picked out an outfit to wear to his funeral.
Had I been in love? No, but I’d cared for him a great deal. His moonlight flit hurt.
Boy, did it hurt.
But deep down, I understood why he’d done it. The need to run from pain—mental pain, not physical—was ingrained in both of us, and I’d pulled a similar stunt myself a few years ago before I came to my senses.
What I didn’t understand was why he hadn’t told me about his daughter.
His fifteen-year-old daughter, a girl whose existence I’d only found out about by accident on Sunday. From Bethany, of all people, a woman he’d known for less than a week. Why had he trusted her with that knowledge but not me?
The question had eaten away at me for the whole flight back, and I was still no closer to an answer. Nor had I dealt with any of my emails or read the briefing notes for this afternoon’s meeting. Should I just ask him? Once or twice I almost had, but there was clearly a reason he hadn’t mentioned his offspring, and I didn’t want to make things any more awkward between us. Somewhere over the eastern seaboard, I’d decided the easiest option was to pretend the girl didn’t exist.
The problem was that before I found out about her, I’d offered Alaric the use of the guest house behind Riverley Hall as well as my help in finding Emerald. Finding Emerald again. Last time we’d gone after that damn painting, I’d ended up dodging bullets, so I was as keen to catch the thieves as him. Dish out a little payback, you know? But now I wanted to do it quickly. Get it over with.
Then the painting could go home to the museum, I could get on with my life, and Alaric and Bethany could head back to England and play happy families or whatever. As for the ten million bucks… I still wanted to believe Alaric was innocent, but my belief in him had wavered this week. If he’d lied once…
“Where are we going?” Sky asked. “And why are you walking so fast? Slap a number on your arse, and you could enter the Olympics.”
“I don’t like wasting time.”
“Is that why you spent twenty minutes staring into space after dinner yesterday?”
Guilty as charged.
“Shut up.” Deep breaths, Emmy. Don’t kill the brat. She reminded me more of myself than I cared to admit. “We’re going to meet the people you’ll be working with while I’m in Kentucky. Then I’ll give you a tour of the important parts of the estate and you can pick out a bedroom.”
“I could’ve got a tour with Bradley. Does he always hug people like that?”
“You won’t be spending much time in the hair salon or the movie theatre, which is Bradley’s main focus. And yes, he always hugs people. Why? Does that bother you?”
She hesitated. Too long.
“I’m just not used to it, that’s all.”
Liar. It did bother her. “Lenny doesn’t hug you?”
Lenny was her brother, the two of them bound not by blood but by circumstances. Lenny was also a junkie. As part of the deal with Sky, I’d agreed to pay for him to go into rehab while she was here, and we’d dropped him off at the private hospital before we left London. Which was another reason for my twitchiness. Because who else was an inpatient at the Abbey Clinic? My mother. I’d successfully avoided the bitch for over two decades, and I certainly hadn’t wanted to cross paths with her this week of all weeks.
Sky just shrugged. “Sometimes he hugs me. Not much.”
We reached the gym. I’d messaged Alex, my ex-Spetsnaz trainer, before we left the plane, so he was in there waiting for us. I felt a little guilty for palming Sky off onto him right after she arrived, but I didn’t have much choice. Bad guys didn’t care about my schedule. And Blackwood, the security company I owned with my husband and two others, was in a very different place than it had been when I arrived stateside. Back then, there’d been three of us plus a handful of contractors, and now we had thousands of employees on six continents. Turnover was in the billions. Taking a couple of months off to train Sky myself just wasn’t an option.
“Sky, meet Alex. He’ll teach you how to fight as well as exhausting you on a daily basis. Alex, this is Sky. Watch out for your nose. She’s sneaky.”
He leaned down—and I mean down because he stood at six feet seven—and peered at my face.
“You should have been faster to block. You have been slacking, da?”
I should have known better than to expect sympathy. Alex didn’t know the meaning of the word. I turned to Sky.
“Make him sing falsetto, honey. Go for the privates.”
“I’ll do my best.”
See? That was why I liked her.
“You get the rest of the day off. Report here at five o’clock tomorrow for your first session.”
“Five in the morning?”
“Yes, in the morning. This isn’t a part-time gig. You’ll do mornings with Alex, and in the afternoons, Carmen’s going to teach you to shoot. Evenings are for tradecraft, plus my friend Sofia’s gonna tell you all about plants.”
“Plants? I’m meant to be training as a special ops whatever, not a bloody gardener.”
“I’m well aware of that. You’ll work with Black or me when we’re available, and if we’re not here, someone else will fill in. After a month, we’ll change the evening and afternoon sessions so you work on languages and other skills. But you’d better get used to Alex’s ugly mug because you’ll be seeing a lot of him.”
“What about weekends?”
“This isn’t prison. You don’t get time off for good behaviour.” But I also remembered how frustrated I’d been to have no time whatsoever for fun and relented slightly. “If you perform in line with expectations, we’ll schedule an afternoon off each week starting next month.”
“That’s…that’s…”
“I never said this would be easy. If you want to leave, the door’s right there. But if you want to be the best, you have to train the hardest. Do you want to be the best?”
She swallowed hard and faced up to Alex. “I’ll see you at five.” Then to me, “Who’s Carmen?”
“Diamond.”
I’d been waiting since dawn to hear that voice. Nobody else was in the living room at Riverley, so I flung myself into my husband’s arms and got rewarded with a kiss that took my breath away. I didn’t care. He could have it all. What was mine was his.
“I missed you,” I finally managed to mumble, balancing on tiptoes because he was only half an inch shorter than Alex.
He pinched his thumb and forefinger together. “I was this far from getting on a plane to London last week.”
Because of Alaric. I already knew that. Black had a jealous streak that ran a mile deep, and even though I’d craved his touch, I was glad he’d stayed away. If he’d come, it would have meant he didn’t trust me. And trust was everything.
“Me and Alaric are just friends now.”
“I know that. But it doesn’t mean I have to like it. Where is he, anyway? I thought he was coming back with you.”
“He did. He’s in the guest house with Ravi and Bethany.”
Black raised one dark eyebrow a fraction. “Ravi, I’m familiar with. Who’s Bethany?”
“The girl who worked for the dodgy guy that restored Red After Dark. After he fired her for asking too many questions, Alaric gave her a job as his PA.”
“A pity hire?”
“Maybe. I think he also fancies her, so who knows?”
They’d gotten awful close, awful fast. Was I jealous? No, not really. Above all, I wanted Alaric to be happy the way I
was with Black. Was Bethany the right girl for him? I had no idea. She seemed nice enough. Kind but nervy. Book-smart but naïve.
“And Sky? Where’s she?”
“Asleep. She’s not used to jet lag, and she’s got an early start tomorrow.”
“Which bedroom did she pick?”
“The Egyptian room at my place. The one with hieroglyphics on the walls and those weird pots in the corner.” Handmade by an artist in Luxor, apparently. Bradley had gone to pick them up personally, although I suspected that was just an excuse to hook up with his boyfriend, who happened to be running an archaeological dig out there. “Sky said she wants to see the pyramids someday.”
Perhaps I should explain our living arrangements? I mean, how many couples had two houses next to each other? Well, Black had inherited the Riverley estate from his parents, but I’d always found it kind of dark. Gothic. We might have been married for close to sixteen years, but our original drunken wedding had been more of a scheme to help my citizenship application than a declaration of love, at least on my part. And back then, I’d made no bones about the fact I hated the house. So Black had bought me a plot of land next door as a birthday present and helped me to build my dream home. Little Riverley was the sun to Riverley Hall’s shadow.
But being Mrs. Black had grown on me, as had the hideous old monstrosity of a mansion, and when Little Riverley had accidentally got blown up a few years ago, I’d moved into Black’s house and never quite gotten around to leaving again. Sometimes, we stayed at Little Riverley for a change of scene, and I still kept my horse at the stables there. If Sky wanted to use the place, I was glad—it deserved to be lived in properly again.
Black pressed his hips into me, letting me feel the goods. “So we’re alone?”
“Yes, but—”
“Why is there always a ‘but’?”
I gave his ass a good squeeze. “More of a rain check. I have a call with James in half an hour.”
“What is this? Catch-up-with-your-exes week? Should I invite Nick over? Xavier? Jed? Luke? Is Gideon in town? How about Sofia?”
Yup, the green-eyed monster had reared its ugly head again.
“Chill, it’s just work. Research stuff.”
“What kind of research?”
“We think Red After Dark was brought to the US by Senator Carnes’s assistant. Former Senator Carnes. And today, he endorsed—”
“One of his party’s opponents. Yes, I know.”
The video had been short and sweet, but Carnes had definitely given Devane his wholehearted backing.
“But do you know why?”
“No. Do you?”
“No, and that’s why I want to speak to James. I bet he’s been asking the same question. Don’t you want to hear his take on this?”
“Yes,” Black admitted. “If Kyla Devane wins that seat, the ripples will be felt across the whole country.”
“Then sit in on the call. I should probably fetch Alaric too since this is his case. Let’s get some answers.”
Because if anyone could fill in the blanks on a political conundrum, it was the President of the United States.
CHAPTER 3 - ALARIC
“SHALL I MAKE dinner?” Bethany asked. “There’s a whole load of food in the fridge. I presume we can use it?”
Alaric couldn’t remember the last time a woman had cooked for him. Probably a decade ago at least. Emmy burned everything, and his parents ate out practically every night. That wasn’t to say he’d always had to fend for himself—Judd was a budding chef, so he cooked if they were in London, and if Naz wasn’t on yet another fad diet, he wasn’t bad in the kitchen either. Ravi’s cooking skills were on a par with Alaric’s—neither of them would starve, but if they wanted to impress a date, they took him or her to a restaurant.
“Dinner would be great. But if you’re tired, Emmy has a housekeeper, and she always leaves ready-made meals in the main kitchen.”
With the amount of food on hand at Riverley, Alaric had never been able to work out how Emmy wasn’t the size of a rhino. Certainly he’d put on weight every time he spent a few nights there.
“I’m tired, but I don’t think I could sleep right now,” Beth said. “Does that sound weird?”
“It’s not every day you change your life completely. Your body’s still adjusting.”
And Ravi was dealing with jet lag too. He’d gone to take a nap because in the morning, he’d be travelling to the Hamptons to snoop around a media mogul’s mansion. Life at Sirius didn’t stop just because Alaric decided to take off on a personal crusade.
“I guess. Any requests for dinner? I’d better get started.”
“Don’t rush. I have a conference call later and some research to do first, but I can eat afterwards if need be.”
“Should I come and take notes for you or anything?”
“That’s not necessary. Someone’ll record the call. And it’s not until ten o’clock.”
“Ten tonight? Who’s still working that late? Or is it a time zone thing?”
“The call’s with James Harrison, and according to his public schedule, he’s been busy all day. So I imagine he’s fitting us in before he goes to bed.”
“Oh, okay… Wait. You don’t mean the James Harrison?”
“The president? Yes. If anyone can shed light on the situation with Senator Carnes, it’s him.”
“But…but… Are you joking?”
Beth was cute when she got flustered. Maybe Alaric should invite her along to take notes.
“No, I’m not joking. He’s just a politician. I thought you’d be used to hanging around with that type of person. Doesn’t your father run in those circles?”
“Yes, but his friends are crusty old MPs, not hot…uh…” Now her cheeks turned bright red. “Uh, the President of the United States is kind of a big deal. I don’t understand how you’d even get a call with him. Er, no offence, I just meant… I’ll stop talking now.”
Alaric couldn’t help laughing. “Emmy’s husband went to school with him.”
And Alaric was ninety-five percent certain that Emmy used to fuck Harrison too, though she’d never openly come out and said so. But Alaric had seen how Harrison looked at her, and also the way Black glared at Harrison with open hostility whenever he caught him doing so. It was remarkably similar to the scowls the man shot at Alaric.
“Really? It’s nice they’ve kept in touch.” Beth spoke with a touch of wistfulness. “Have you spoken to President Harrison before?”
“A handful of times, but only once since he became president.”
And that had been under awkward circumstances. When Alaric had heard that an unidentified female had been quarantined in the aftermath of a biological terror attack, Naz had ferreted out the details, and Alaric had known right away there was only one woman clever enough and crazy enough to get into that situation. Emmy. Breaking into the facility where she was being held had been his first step back into the light as well as a challenge to himself. Was his undercover game as good as it used to be? Could he still sneak into a heavily guarded military base? It turned out the answer was yes, but he hadn’t realised Harrison would be there until he found himself facing off against a dozen Secret Service agents. It probably hadn’t helped when he’d put two fingers to Harrison’s temple and told him his security was fucked, but adrenaline had a lot to answer for, and hey, he’d lived to tell the tale.
That day, Harrison had looked like shit, clearly worried about Emmy. Black hadn’t been in much better shape. It would be interesting to see the two men together again, to find out whether the dynamic between them had changed. In the old days when Harrison was a mere senator, Black had held all the power. Would he make any concessions to the president? Harrison still jumped when Emmy clicked her fingers. Alaric had glimpsed the message she’d sent him on the plane earlier—Devane - WTF???—and this late-night phone call was no doubt the result.
“Well, er, wow. Good luck. Is that the right thing to say? I’ll make something yo
u can reheat whenever you’re ready.”
Beth could act smooth and polished when she put her mind to it, but Alaric liked how she was so openly awkward in private. There was no second-guessing with her. She wore her heart on her sleeve, or at least, what was left of it after her prick of an ex-husband had done his worst. Alaric had messed up too when they first met—they’d gotten too close, too fast, and he’d taken a hasty step backwards before he ruined her. With his reputation still in tatters and his wanderlust unsated, he was in no position to consider a relationship. And Beth was too fragile for a fling.
That didn’t stop Alaric from feeling like a shit for sleeping with Ravi two nights ago, though.
He blocked the memories out as he bent to kiss Beth on the cheek. “Anything you’d care to cook will be superb.”
This wasn’t a regular presidential phone call. Emmy, Black, and Alaric clustered around a tablet in a conference room at Riverley while Harrison was on a couch in what looked like his personal study, the space devoid of the usual hangers-on who sat in on his calls. Was anyone else listening from the situation room? Black got straight to the point.
“Is this a private call?”
“Does it look as if I’m on official business?”
Not in jeans and a faded Def Leppard T-shirt, no. Alaric noted that Harrison sidestepped the actual question, but Black seemed satisfied with the answer.
“You remember Alaric McLain?”
Harrison gave him a tight smile, a day’s worth of light-brown stubble speckling his jaw. “How could I forget? You’ll be pleased to hear the Secret Service has tightened up its procedures.”
Good news for the country, bad news if Alaric wanted to bypass security again. “Excellent.”
“And I never did thank you personally for the information about Likho.”
Ah, yes. The supervirus Emmy had tangled with. The dirt had come from Naz, who was a treasure trove of secrets. When he quit his job at SVR—Russia’s foreign intelligence service—he’d walked away with more than a stapler and a “Good Luck” card. The Russian government would still be trying to kill him if he hadn’t faked his own death.