by Lexi Blake
“Hey, where are you going?” Larry stood up.
But she was already jogging for the gate. She tossed it open and Owen was suddenly standing in front of her, the extra helmet in his hand.
“You done playing the field, love?” he asked.
She loved how tall he was, how petite he could make her feel. She moved through her days treating her body like the tool it was, but Owen reminded her she was a woman who needed attention and physical affection. And that she was a woman who needed to take a couple of risks. “Yes. I told Cathy not to try to set me up again. I don’t think she knows what I want.”
He towered over her. “Good, because I know exactly what I want and I don’t want to share. Walking out this morning was the hardest thing I’ve had to do in a long time. I’m going to be honest, I don’t like the idea of you seeing other men. I don’t have any interest in other women.”
“Okay.” She was done pretending and done playing by any rules other than her own.
“Just like that?” He put the helmet on her head, checking carefully to make sure it was secure.
“Just like that.” She went up on her toes and brushed her lips against his.
“What are you doing?” Larry stood on the other side of the fence, his hands on his hips.
“Diving in,” she said as Owen settled on the seat and held the bike for her to get on the back.
“She’s with me, mate, and I’m not giving her back,” Owen said, revving the engine. “Better luck next time. This one is mine.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist and held on for the ride.
* * * *
Paul Huisman wasn’t sure exactly what he was dealing with. His new “friend” was an odd one. Levi Green sat in a huge wingback leather chair that at one point in time had been Huisman’s grandfather’s and he looked over the gorgeous raven-haired woman who’d shown up exactly when Green had said she would.
His father’s mistress was also a spy. It was kind of hard to believe, but she’d dropped the sweet, shy act the minute she’d seen Levi Green.
It was rather odd having two spies in his office.
“What do you want? Obviously you know who I am,” the woman with the raven hair said. “And I’m not foolish. I know exactly who you are, or at least who you say you are, Levi Green.”
Green tipped his head her way, taking a sip of the ridiculously expensive Scotch Paul himself almost never drank. It was there for show, but apparently Green believed in enjoying the finer things in life. “Ah, Mo Chou, it’s good to know my reputation precedes me. So what is MSS interested in at the Huisman Foundation?”
“Well, we would have been more interested in the son had we known he has dealings with the Agency.” She looked Huisman up and down, assessing him with dark eyes. “I didn’t expect that of you. The way your father talks you can barely tie your shoes.”
Humiliation burned through him and hardened his resolve. If Levi Green could take his father and that bitch Walsh down, he would give the man anything he wanted. Especially since what he seemed to want was Dr. Walsh herself. “I assure you, I can do more than tie my shoes.”
The foundation would be his and then that mansion his father occupied would be his, too, or his father could see how much he enjoyed prison. It would be fun to have the man at his mercy for once.
Mo Chou sank into the seat beside Levi, turning her attention to him. “What do you want? The fact that I don’t have Canadian police knocking on my door means you want to deal. The fact that you’re here with Paul Huisman means you know what I want.”
“I suspect you’re interested in many of the high-tech medical research here, but more specifically in the treatments for cancer. Someone’s close and that could mean trouble for big pharma. What’s R&D up to now? You’ve got six of the top thirty-three pharmaceutical companies with research and development centers in China now. I would bet they might pour more money in if you could give them a heads-up on what’s coming down the pipeline.”
“Seven,” she corrected. “It’s an up-and-coming industry and one that we will take over. The jobs are better. It’s rough keeping the peasants down, you know. We need to offer them a bigger economy and more opportunities. Also, wouldn’t it be nice if our own state-run research managed to find a cure?”
“Yes, I can see that,” Levi agreed. “It would likely make China look more and more like a world leader. Unfortunately, I play for the other team. I can’t give you what you want.”
She stood. “Then have me arrested. I don’t care. There’ll be another one just like me here in a week. Hell, there’s already several of us in place, but I suspect you know that. I take it you’re planning a coup so you can get the intel for yourself.”
“Not exactly,” Levi hedged. “I do want something from the foundation, but not what you think. I need your help setting it up. Or rather setting her up. Mr. Huisman had his own plans in play, but I like to call an audible in the field every now and then. Would you care to explain what you’ve been up to, Paul?”
He would have thought this was all an elaborate plan to catch him red handed, except he’d witnessed Levi and his bigger, more muscular partner torture the security director of the Huisman building the night before. He’d been behind a two-way glass so there was no way for his employee to know he’d been there. The security head had yielded all the passwords needed to erase the camera footage from the night before. No one would be able to see Levi Green sneaking into the building, hiding from Dr. Walsh, and then searching her office.
He’d been certain in that moment that Levi had no plans to turn him over to his father.
He’d been just as certain that if he didn’t give the man what he wanted, he would be the one in that chair, and he wouldn’t come out of it again.
“I find Dr. Walsh to be in the way,” he said, trying for a perfectly bored tone. “In my way, specifically. She’s brilliant but she’s not much of a team player, if you know what I mean.”
Mo Chou gave him a roll of her eyes that could have come from any American female. She’d been in the West for too long, it seemed. “You mean she’s smarter than you and more capable, and you don’t stand a chance against her in a fair fight so you’re going to play dirty.” She shrugged. “It’s not a bad play. I would do it if I ever found myself with someone smarter in the way. Ask Levi here. It’s his standard move. Didn’t you fuck your rival’s wife? I liked that one. Solo always thought way too much of herself.”
“Maybe I fell madly in love with her and wanted her for myself,” Levi said, his voice steady, though there was something about the way his shoulders had stiffened that made Paul wonder if this wasn’t a difficult conversation for the man.
It was the first time he’d seen the agent shake even the slightest bit.
“I doubt that. I would believe you would do it for revenge before I would believe there’s a beating heart in your chest. Everyone knows you’re the reason Fain got burned,” she said, obviously relishing having the CIA operative unsettled. “You’re not one to let anything get in the way of the job.” She turned back to Paul. “So how were you planning on getting rid of her? She’s got a sparkling reputation. I should know. I’ve done a careful study of every doctor in that place. I’m concerned with a couple of new hires, though.”
“Taggart plants,” Levi said.
Mo Chou nodded as though that explained everything. “Then this is about that crazy bitch Hope McDonald. Is he still trying to figure out who those boys were?”
“That’s irrelevant,” Levi insisted. “What’s important is that I want access to Rebecca Walsh and I want it now. She’s got something I need, and it’s more than a bunch of old research, though I want that as well. I need her in my custody and ready to work.”
The Chinese operative waved a hand as though it should be simple. “Why don’t you just do what the rest of us would do? Kidnap her and smuggle her out of the country.”
“I like subtlety, besides I have some very stuffy people watching me
right now. I have to be careful. This president is a little squeamish about torturing American citizens. Hopefully we can get his ass out of office soon and go back to the easy way. Until then I have to play this cool and that means finding a way to make Rebecca Walsh come to me.”
“That’s where I come in.” Paul was happy with the even tone of his voice. He could handle this. Yes, he was caught between vipers, but he had fangs of his own. “I began setting up Dr. Walsh a little over a year ago. She’s got a charitable foundation. She pays attention to the actual work she does, but she’s not as careful with the money. Over the course of the last year, I’ve managed to take around a million dollars from accounts Walsh has access to for her research at Huisman and funneled them to her charitable foundation as donations.”
Mo Chou’s scarlet red lips tipped up at the corners. “Aren’t you a sneaky one? Still, there are ways for a forensic accountant to track that back to you.”
“Well, I didn’t intend to actually have her arrested,” he admitted. “I intended to find the crime and have her fired. You know most of the time crimes like this aren’t reported to the authorities. It tends to cause our donors to worry we’ve been lax and think twice about backing us. I would have taken over the department and her research would have remained here at Huisman.”
“That’s changed,” Levi explained. “I need her arrested.”
Mo Chou nodded. “Ah, and you’ll be waiting right there to ‘save’ her, I suspect. You’ll agree to help get the charges against her dropped in exchange for her returning to the US and working for you. She might not. This isn’t exactly a hellhole. What’s Canadian jail like? I bet it’s the politest general population in the world. You would have better odds if we were in a Third World country. Or Russia. Fucking Siberia is the worst.”
“Jail is jail, and this is a woman who’s never faced a moment in her life when she wasn’t the smartest, most accomplished person in any given room.” Levi seemed much more comfortable now that he wasn’t talking about some woman named Solo and they’d moved on to his evil plans.
“I agree,” Paul added, feeling confident in this as well. His original plan to rid himself of Rebecca Walsh meshed beautifully with what the CIA agent needed. Once it had been explained to him, he’d understood how they could help each other. “She’ll do anything to stay out of jail. She’s been very sheltered.”
Mo Chou shrugged. “Well, I don’t care. What I care about is what you need from me, Levi, and what I get out of it if I can’t take the cancer research back to my bosses. I don’t see why I should help you.”
“I didn’t say you wouldn’t get anything out of it,” Levi said simply, as though he knew he held all the cards in this particular game. “What would you say if I offered you Ezra Fain on a silver platter?”
“I would say I would rather have the research,” she replied. “I could pick up a burned CIA operative in a heartbeat. Besides, he’s working with Taggart, and that man gives me a headache. You get him involved, you get his wife involved, and those other sarcastic bastards. Now, if you would like to kidnap Kayla Summers, I’ll kill her myself. That’s one I’d risk Tag’s wrath for.”
“Kay’s too much in the public eye now,” Levi replied.
Mo Chou’s eyes narrowed. “I want a copy of the research McDonald left behind and I want one of those boys. Shaw will work. Taggart will believe he could turn on the team. After all, wasn’t he the one who turned in Tag’s brother and sister-in-law? We can set him up while we’re setting up Walsh. I know our doctors would love to get a look at his brain, to see how the drug affected him.”
A chill went up Paul’s spine. They were talking about people. They were bargaining with real human lives.
They were powerful.
Levi held a hand out. “Done. I never could stand Shaw anyway. And if you get a chance to shoot Ezra when things inevitably go bad, do a guy a solid.”
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking his hand and thereby sealing the deal. “I kind of like having the two of you at each other’s throats. Or rather at Solo’s…”
Levi sat back, his eyes going cold. “Leave her out of this. And I expect you to follow my instructions to the letter. I need you to meet with Walsh next week. I’ve set everything up.”
They were acting like he wasn’t even here. He’d been the one to set the plan in motion. Without him, they would have nothing to back up the narrative they intended to build. “I want something, too.”
A single brow rose over Levi’s light eyes. “I rather thought getting rid of Walsh was your prize.”
Yes, but they’d made him think so much bigger. “I want to get rid of my father. Permanently.”
“I’ll kill him on my way out,” Mo Chou agreed with a wave of her hand. “I don’t mind. Really, I hate the bastard and he’s a terribly selfish lover. And if he called me exotic one more time I was going to kill him anyway.”
“Then it’s a deal,” Levi said before leaning forward and explaining the plan.
Paul sat back, a calm coming over him he hadn’t expected. Control. He was taking control for the first time in his life.
He would have what he wanted, and then the world would see who the truly strong Huisman was.
He sat back, thoughts of revenge playing through his head.
* * * *
Owen stared down at her, her head in his lap as he sat back against a tree in Clarence Square Park. They’d found a bit of shade, but there was a chill in the air so she was wearing his leather jacket.
“You’re sure you don’t want to find something better than hot dogs.” He’d taken her from a gorgeous, upscale café and they’d driven all around Toronto. They’d stopped in Yonge-Dundas Square and eaten from a street vendor, sitting underneath the red umbrellas, the city rising around them.
“I liked it,” she said with a sigh. “And I like it here. It’s pretty.”
What she seemed to like most were the dogs. There were plenty of them here. She’d stopped and petted a couple, talking to the owners in an open, friendly way.
He put a hand on her head and smoothed her hair back. He loved this intimacy with her. Anyone who walked by would see nothing at all out of the ordinary. They would see a couple spending a lazy Sunday together, enjoying the lovely weather.
Why couldn’t they be exactly that? What would the world be like if he hadn’t made that single mistake? If he’d been able to meet her as the old Owen Shaw? Would he have fallen for her quirky beauty and brought her home to meet his mum and sister?
Or would he have been the bastard who couldn’t see through her cardigans and glasses and intellect to the raw woman beneath, the one who seemed to somehow complete him, bring him some semblance of peace?
“I like it here, too.” But he had to remind himself over and over again that he had nothing to offer her. He would be in her life for a few weeks and then if everything went perfectly, he would disappear. He could leave her with an explanation, that his job was going to take him back to the States or even Europe, and sure they might talk sometime, but he wouldn’t see her again.
He’d enjoyed the afternoon with her far too much for his peace of mind. There had been a few moments when he’d worried she was going to sit back down at that table with her date, but otherwise the day had been perfect.
Except that he knew what was happening back at her place. Ezra and Robert were going through her apartment. They were invading her privacy, stealing her secrets, and he was the one making it happen.
Guilt gnawed at him when her eyes opened and she looked up at him, completely trusting. “I thought we were playing it cool, Shaw.”
That brought about a genuine smile. “Never believe a man who wants to get under your skirt, love. He’ll tell you anything you want to hear. I never wanted to play it cool. I see something I want and I do what I need to make it mine.”
“That is very caveman like of you,” she said with a smile.
“I never said I was much of a modern man.” But he was. Or
at least he had been. According to what he’d learned about himself, he’d been perfectly happy to fuck and send whoever he was fucking along their happy way so he could fuck someone else. He’d broken more than one heart, that man he’d been.
“I don’t want to see anyone else, Owen,” she said quietly. “I thought I should, but I couldn’t stand that man, and it was about more than the fact that he talked about his dog so much. It was because it felt wrong to be on a date with him when I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
Well, in this case he didn’t have to lie. “I spent every moment between the time I left and the minute you hopped on my bike thinking of ways to see you again. Robert gave me the most terrible time for it.”
It had really been Erin, but Robert had gotten his punches in, too. Sarcastic bastard. Maybe he should have gone easier on him about the whole Ariel situation.
“So we’re going to try this thing?” She asked the question so seriously it would likely have made the old Owen flee in terror.
All the new Owen could think of was how much he wanted to really try with her. “Yeah, I think we are. I’m not interested in other women. You’re all I can handle.”
“And I’m never letting anyone set me up again. Ever. I’m only dating men I meet in the elevator,” she said, a sparkle in her eyes.
Brat. He let his hand shift under the leather jacket, giving her nipple a nice twist that had her squirming.
“Owen!”
“No one was looking until you yelled, love,” he replied, knowing damn well there was a smirk on his lips.
Her face was flushed as she sat up and wrinkled her nose his way. “We’re in public.”
“Then don’t be a brat.” He reached over and pulled her onto his lap. It made it much easier to nuzzle her neck. And to whisper into her ear. “Don’t think I won’t take what’s mine wherever I want to. The minute you got on the back of my bike, you became mine.”