Protected by a Dangerous Man

by Cleo Peitsche

  “He didn’t,” I said with a sigh. “Why didn’t you take your phone?”

  “The lawyers don’t allow cell phones in the office.”

  “You could have left it in your truck.”

  Corbin’s eyebrows dipped together. “Considering that I gave you my word that I wouldn’t go looking for Henry, I’m trying not to be offended that you jumped to that conclusion.”

  He had given his word, true, but… “You once said you would lie to save my life.”

  With a quick head shake, Corbin said, “Forget it. This isn’t worth fighting over. I do want to know why you didn’t take yours.”

  “I was panicking, not thinking. Corbin, you saved my life. Thank you.”

  “He would have killed me, too,” Corbin said. “What happened today was self-defense.”

  I nodded. Better not to think about it too hard lest I conclude that Corbin was merely giving me an easy escape, shielding me from feeling responsible.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Nowhere,” Corbin said. “Driving. When we know where we want to be, we’ll head there.”

  I was already where I wanted to be, but that was too cheesy to say aloud, so I kept it to myself. “Normal,” I said. “That’s where I want to go.”

  Corbin took my hand in his and laced his fingers through mine. “Do you want to go home?”

  “Yes. No. I want… Would you make dinner tonight for Rob and Jennifer?”

  “That’s normal?”

  “We’ve never done it before but… I think it might not be a bad idea if we… I want to be around other people. Not just the two of us. Because then I’ll want to talk about what happened, and right now I just need to live with it a bit.”

  “You can always talk to me.”

  I squeezed his hand. “I know. But I just need some normal around me right now. Even if it’s borrowed normal.”

  Corbin had understood what I needed, because he took me to a spa downtown for a massage, manicure, and pedicure. He had the receptionist run his credit card, and he said he’d be back in two hours.

  I rarely took the time for pampering. Manicures were for women who worked at desks, not women who had to wrangle zip ties.

  After reading through the spa’s many massage packages, I opted for the sports renewal followed by a passionfruit scrub. According to the description, it was “for people who live hard and play harder.” I figured that qualifying for the first half of that was good enough.

  “You have excellent muscle tone,” my massage therapist said as she worked her fingers into my lower back. “A whole mess of knots between your shoulders, though. You carry your tension there.”

  “Do I?” I asked, my voice funny because my face was sticking through the donut hole of the massage table. I wondered what she would have said if she’d known the truth, that my boyfriend had tied me up and fucked me a few days ago and that was why my shoulders were stiff.

  Well, one of the reasons.

  “Absolutely. Would you like me to work those out for you? I’ve got strong hands.”

  “Yeah,” I said. As I stared down at the clean white floor, I found myself truly relaxing as she pressed and poked. An unexpected euphoria was settling over me, easing my troubles.

  I couldn’t let myself think about Henry. Massimo popped into my mind, and I wondered how he was holding up. Probably pretty well; he was tougher than he looked.

  A movie I’d once seen, or maybe it was a TV show, bubbled up in my memory. A veteran detective telling a rookie that when you don’t have new leads, you go back and review the evidence you do have.

  What evidence did I have?

  Nothing. A suspicious brother-in-law. Eyewitnesses stating that the dead man had been dating a married congressman. A pain-in-the-ass Neil who didn’t remember the attack. I wondered, not for the first time, if Neil could be successfully hypnotized.

  “Relax,” the masseuse said in a low, soothing voice. “You were doing so well.” She stepped away, and I heard the sound of oil pouring into her palm. “A few more minutes working on your back, and then I’ll start the passionfruit scrub.”

  Poor Massimo. Too bad he hadn’t gotten a real PI, someone with experience and the ability to help him.

  “Relax,” the masseuse repeated.

  “Ok,” I said, but my thoughts kept turning back to Massimo, Neil, Oswald, and Congressman Bowlst—he of the dreamy eyes. Suddenly I knew exactly which nail polish color I wanted.

  It took over two hours before I was dressed and walking out of the spa, and while I didn’t feel reborn, the improvement was substantial.

  Corbin was sitting on a wood bench, one elbow on the curlicue wrought-iron armrest, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle. He had his eyes closed, his head tilted back to welcome the late-afternoon sun.

  He looked calm. I wouldn’t have said his face was tense before, but now I saw a difference in the smoothness of his brow. Looking at the perfection of his features, it was inconceivable to think that I could kiss this gorgeous man, and he would kiss me back.

  “Did you enjoy yourself?” he asked without opening his eyes.

  I sat on the bench next to him. “Very much. Thank you.”

  “Anytime, baby.” Corbin pulled me close, and I relaxed into him. “I still want to go up to the mountains. Please take some time off work. I need to get away, and I won’t leave you alone.” Even though he was asking nicely, I could tell he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  “Ok,” I said. The breeze carried a hundred different town smells: autumn leaves, fried potatoes from the burger shack, the burning oil of an old truck rattling by.

  “Thank you for not fighting me on it.” Corbin’s eyes opened, and I held up my hands to show him my nails. “Beautiful,” he said. “I like the little designs.”

  “You don’t think it’s too much?” I’d had my manicurist add white swirls to the bright blue base color. “I figured since I do them so rarely, I shouldn’t be boring. The color is Bowlst Me Over. It makes you wanna pass some laws, right? That is what Congress is supposed to do when they’re not bickering, right?”

  “Baby,” Corbin said with a laugh as he rose to his feet, “you’re never boring. Let’s get home. I have a dinner to cook.”

  Several hours later, I was helping him cook. Rather, watching him cook.

  “Could you pull out the cream?” Corbin asked.

  It was a fair question given that I was leaning against the refrigerator. Because of my heels and lacy white dress, I couldn’t lounge the way I normally did.

  After setting my wine glass on the counter, I opened the door. “What’s it look like?” I was used to cream coming in little cartons, just like milk, but Corbin had a knack for buying food in unexpected packaging. It was probably a rich person thing.

  Corbin looked at his phone, then nudged me aside. “We have company,” he said.

  “Already?” I wasn’t ready to share him, especially now, his muscular body brushing against mine as he pawed through the refrigerator. He was wearing dress pants and a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up. He hadn’t bothered with an apron, which I thought was ballsy.

  I should have stepped back and given him some space, but I was lightly buzzed and feeling warm in all the best ways.

  Maybe I’d misunderstood; my brother wouldn’t show up to a small dinner party half an hour early.

  “Can you play hostess for a few minutes?” Corbin asked. “I’ve got to watch my sauce.”

  So much for misunderstanding. I nodded, took a sip of the delicious white wine, one of several bottles Corbin had pulled out of his collection for the night, and exited the kitchen.

  A firm knocking was coming from the door long before I reached it—Corbin must have instructed the computer to buzz Rob and Jennifer into the building.

  “You clean up nice,” Jennifer said as I opened the door. “Here.” She handed me a bottle of wine.

  “And you look great.” But then, she always did. Her black dre
ss was a simple sheath that would have turned a normal woman shapeless, but Jennifer had super-genes. Most of her sleek dark hair was pulled into a bun, but her long bangs dusted her luminous eyes. She had the most even skin tone I’d ever seen. The only thing marring Jennifer’s cover girl allure was her no-nonsense expression.

  I peered past her, searching for my brother. Unless he was hiding in the glittery black clutch pinned between her elbow and her ribs, Jennifer was alone.

  Oh, boy… I guessed that explained her sour expression. “Where’s Rob?” I asked, stepping aside to let her in.

  “Sorry about arriving early, but I need to talk to you…” Her voice trailed off as Corbin came down the hall.

  “Jennifer,” he said. I didn’t miss the note of warning in his voice.

  “Corbin.” The temperature in the hallway seemed to have dropped ten degrees.

  I frowned.

  “Something smells delicious,” Jennifer said.

  “Corbin’s a great cook.” It was a stupid comment—she surely knew his history as a professional chef. “Would you like a drink? We opened an amazing white wine…” I couldn’t remember the type.

  “That would be lovely,” Jennifer said, and silence descended upon us.

  My eyes narrowed. Apparently I was supposed to get the drink so Corbin and Jennifer could do… whatever it was they wanted to do. Try to kill each other, by the look of it.

  “Well, I’ll go get that for you,” I said, starting to feel miffed. No one noticed, so I walked back down the hall. When I turned toward the kitchen, I stopped.

  Corbin was saying something. A warning, it sounded like.

  Then Jennifer responded, but Corbin cut her off. “… None of your business…”

  I felt my eyebrows shooting way up. Maybe this was about Henry. In any event, I’d hear a lot better if I was out there with them, handing Jennifer her drink, so I quickly splashed a few inches of wine into a glass.

  Corbin nearly collided with me as I turned around. “You two can relax,” he said. “I don’t want to burn dinner.”

  “Is everything ok?”

  He dropped a kiss onto my forehead. “Yeah, baby. We’re just disagreeing. As usual. She’s having a hard time accepting my decision.”

  My heart beat faster. “About not going to Paris?”

  “About everything,” he said. “When I invited her, I asked her not to bring it up. I’d appreciate it if you did the same. This is supposed to be a pleasant evening, right?”

  “Absolutely,” I said, nodding. I scooped up my wine glass and carried both to the living room, where Jennifer was staring out the window.

  Her features were still pinched as she turned, but she did a passable job of smoothing her face into a smile. “Thank you.” She accepted the glass, held it up. “What shall we toast?”

  New beginnings, I thought. “To a nice evening, with no emergencies,” I said.

  Her smile tipped toward genuine. “You’ve had a long week, haven’t you?”

  I made a noncommittal sound, but I guessed she knew about Henry. That was an interesting decision on Corbin’s part. He hadn’t told anyone about disposing of Zak’s body. If he hadn’t been trying to protect me, would he have?

  Did I want to know the answer?

  “Hors d'oeuvres,” Corbin announced. He brought two small trays into the living room.

  “It’s lovely outside,” Jennifer said, taking a miniature square of toast topped with white bean dip and truffle oil. “Would it be rude if we went onto the balcony?”

  “Not at all,” Corbin said, but that edge of warning was back in his voice. I threw a curious glance his way, but he was already heading toward the kitchen.

  It was a lovely evening, soft and mild. According to the forecast, this would be the last warmish day for at least a week, and maybe until the spring. After all the meteorological abuses wrought by the long summer, I was fine with that.

  Sighing, Jennifer leaned forward and stared into the falling darkness. She ate her piece of toast and licked her fingers. I glanced back inside at the trays. The hors d’oeuvres looked like artwork. While he was cooking, Corbin had given me little tastes here and there, just enough to tease. I was about to slip inside to grab one when Jennifer said, “Audrey, do you trust me?”

  “Um… yeah.” It wasn’t like I could say no, but as I thought about it, I realized it was true. She’d treated me well during my reluctant stay at the safe house earlier in the year, Corbin trusted her, and Rob had feelings for her. “Why?”

  She sighed again, even deeper. It might have seemed like an act, but when she looked at me, her eyes were brimming with sadness.

  “It’s about Corbin,” she said. “You and Corbin.”

  Chapter 26

  My nervous laugh rang out unevenly. “If you’re trying to give me a heart attack, congratulations.”

  “I value my friendship with you and your brother,” she said. “I don’t want to say what I’m about to, but someone needs to tell you. If Corbin hadn’t walked away in Paris, we never would have lost the informant.”

  “Excuse me? What did he walk away from?”

  Jennifer’s face went pale. “Oh, god. I… I just assumed he’d told you.”

  “Told me what?”

  She inclined her head and rubbed her brow. “This is embarrassing,” she said with a little laugh.

  Once again, Jennifer had information that I didn’t. “So?”

  She tapped a fingernail against her wine glass. The melodic ringing was the only sound for several seconds. “We worked hard to convince Corbin to return to the field to see this mission through. Don’t you see what a unique position he’s in? He’s trained, and he’s the only person his ex-wife would trust. He’s the closest thing she has to family.” She slowed the tapping and took a deep breath. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.”

  Even though I was dying from curiosity, I said, “So don’t.”

  “But it’s important that you understand what’s at stake. We have a chance to capture a tremendous amount of intelligence, but Corbin won’t do it. He backed out in Paris to be with you, and it cost us. Resources. Time. Lives are at stake here, Audrey. You have to let him do this.”

  “Me?” I asked, laughing in disbelief. Like I’d ever been able to control anything Corbin did. “I’m not standing in his way. In fact, I begged him to go to France once Audrey was found.” It felt weird saying her name aloud. I’d been thinking of her as the ex for so long, I’d almost forgotten that Corbin wasn’t the only thing she and I had in common.

  “You did?” Jennifer sounded stunned.

  “Believe it or not, yes, I did. I pleaded with him to go. I offered to come along, in case he was worried about my safety here, but he said no. I think he’s done.”

  “He was done before, and he came back,” Jennifer pointed out.

  “I guess you’d better hope he’s got another ex-wife who will come back from the dead. It’s not about me, Jennifer. It’s about him.”

  She tapped her glass faster and faster, then abruptly stopped. “Yeah. Maybe you’re right.” It was her turn to laugh nervously. “I guess I’m losing my touch.”

  “Somehow I doubt that,” I said automatically, but my thoughts traveled back to those last few days in Paris.

  The night the uniformed men had swept through our lavish hotel suite was burned in my mind. The day would have been memorable anyway because Corbin had taken me to see where he used to live.

  That was when something had shifted, when the wedge between us had fallen away.

  Now I knew what the wedge was. All along, Corbin promised that our relationship had nothing to fear from his ex, that he loved me, wanted to be with me. I hadn’t believed him; things between us were changing. I’d felt it in the core of my being.

  I turned to Jennifer. “When you popped up out of nowhere at Deli-licious in August, I thought you were right, that he missed the work. That I wasn’t enough.”

  “I never said that,” Jennifer pr
otested.

  “Maybe not, but that was how I took it. Once I learned his ex was in the picture, I was so worried about him going back to her that I forgot to keep my eye on the real threat. How could I ever compete with the excitement of his work?”

  “So don’t,” Jennifer said.

  I smiled. “I couldn’t. This was Corbin’s decision, and after some of the shit I’ve lived through recently, I understand why he had to walk away.”

  Jennifer cleared her throat lightly. “I don’t suppose you’d want to ask him to reconsider, now that things here have calmed down?” She shifted her position to look at me. “He must want to see her, and he could ask questions, get details she won’t share with anyone else. He could observe her. Let me put this into perspective. When he flew to DC last week, the DNI personally asked Corbin to do this.”

  “Who?”

  “The Director of National Intelligence.” She nodded, eyes gleaming. “The DNI and the head of our bureau never agree on anything. Except this. That’s how vital this operation is. France is desperate to secure his help.”

  And now it was coming together. He’d been so tight-lipped after DC… “You wanted him to go back to her, didn’t you?”

  Jennifer blinked. “No, Audrey—”

  “I’m sorry. To pretend to get back together.”

  “Think about the work, the opportunities. He’s a legend,” she said. “His skill set—”

  “No. I don’t want to hear about that.” Not after Henry.

  “I wasn’t only talking about… I mean…” She took a long, hard drink, and when she lowered her hand, the glass was empty. “Oh, forget it,” she said almost sourly. “It wasn’t my idea to drag him back into this. He used to be my boss, and now they’ve got me trying to recruit him. Nothing personal.”

  “I know. It’s your job.” I couldn’t manage a smile. This was the kind of sacrifice-anything mindset that Corbin had been trying to break free of. And to a certain extent, he had, apparently. Because he was with me and not on a flight to Paris.