Love Another Day

by Gina Robinson

  Emmett shrugged again. “I’m not sure you do, but you have something more powerful—a vested interest in the outcome. And that’s the best I can shoot for right now. You’re my best hope.”

  She pursed her mouth to one side and made a look of doubt. “Hope you’re not betting on this one, Chief. The odds are long.”

  Emmett laughed. “But the payout will be tremendous. I’d bet on a mamma bear protecting her cub any day.”

  Malene couldn’t help smiling back. He had a point. “Okay, give me the details—how has this woman fallen in love with him? When did they meet? What’s the plan?”

  “That’s the crazy thing—they haven’t met.”

  “What?”

  Emmett nodded. “She worked as a clerk in RIOT’s records department while completing her Ph.D. in mathematics and fell in love with his picture, the surveillance videos of him, and his dossier when she came across it.”

  Malene was taken aback and let her surprise show. She didn’t know what was worse—a girl mooning over Tate, or the fact that RIOT had a dossier on him and Emmett seemed unconcerned. Maybe the dossier shouldn’t have surprised her. Tate had dealt RIOT some heavy blows over the years; of course they’d be watching him. A man as handsome and outgoing as Tate wasn’t easily overlooked, she grudgingly admitted to herself.

  “Really? She fell in love with his picture, like a groupie, or a stalker fan? Spies have them?” It gave her the creeps thinking of some girl kissing Tate’s picture good night.

  Emmett nodded. “Something like that, though I’m guessing it was more like looking at points of compatibility on an online dating site. Sophia is a sharp girl. Has a high IQ. She’s sized up Tate’s dossier and seems to think he can save her. Or, at least, he’s her best chance.”

  “That’s not love. That’s a schoolgirl crush. Tate’s good enough looking, but, really? How old is she?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  Too young, Malene thought, with a tinge of jealousy even though she hadn’t a clue as to what this girl looked like. She could be a two-bagger for all Malene knew. But Malene was thirty-three, the same age as Tate. And irrationally, she didn’t like the competition of youth.

  “Well, her youth and inexperience certainly show, falling in love with a picture and a dossier persona.” She shook her head. “What does she want?”

  “She wants to defect from RIOT, escape and start a new life.”

  Malene fought to keep her jaw from dropping. “Is she completely crazy? No one escapes from RIOT. They’ll send their death squad after her. SMASH has a one hundred percent kill rate. She understands that?”

  This was going from bad to worse. She really didn’t need Tate falling in love with someone who had SMASH on her tail.

  Emmett nodded. “She’s a mathematician. She knows all too well the odds she’ll survive in the long run are incredibly stacked against her. But she’s also desperate. Sophia’s not a RIOT agent. Not a spy. She’s a civilian who works for them. And she had no choice in that.

  “Her parents got involved with RIOT when she was two. They were true believers in RIOT’s cause and involved her in their activities from the beginning. Indoctrinated her. She grew up not knowing any other kind of life or belief system existed. From the time she was a toddler she was in too deep to escape.

  “She grew up, went to college, got a doctorate in mathematics at the tender age of twenty-two, and was moved from the records department by Random to join RIOT’s elite encryption team.

  “But the more she saw of the operations, the more her conscience struck her. She realized she was on the wrong side, the side of evil. She couldn’t leave as long as her father was still alive. She has no siblings and her mother died when she was ten. Her dad just passed away two months ago, freeing her to risk escaping from RIOT’s Soviet-like grip.

  “She came across Tate’s files during the course of her work in college. Saw how many times he was suspected of thwarting RIOT’s plans, and knew that if anyone could help her, Tate was the guy. She developed a sort of hero worship. She’s been in love with Tate for some time.”

  Malene shook her head, resisting doing a lot of tut-tutting. “She missed a key point of compatibility—she must not have noticed Tate’s an only child, too. There’s a combo rife with the potential for disaster and head-butting. One of the absolute worst birth order combos. Never marry an only child.”

  Malene let out a breath, wishing she hadn’t made that mistake, she with her training in psychology. And further wishing her daughter wasn’t an only. She planned to find the right man and rectify that, make a sibling for Kayla. “The little darlings think they’re the center of the world, always want to take charge, and haven’t a clue about how to deal with the opposite sex. Not in the long run. I can only imagine the horror of two of them trying to get along.”

  “Her full name is Sophia Ramsgate. Her mother was Swedish. Her dad a good old American mutt, an expat who preferred Sweden and England to the good old U.S. of A. Sophia grew up in Sweden and Great Britain.” Emmett grinned and turned his laptop around for Malene to see.

  A stunning twenty-four-year-old beauty with deep blue eyes, lush blond hair, and a figure to die for, smiled out at her. A femme fatale of just the type to catch Tate’s eye.

  Malene involuntarily gasped. Was it just her imagination, or did Sophia look like a younger, prettier, more glamorous version of herself?

  “She’s certainly … Tate’s type,” she said slowly, frowning. It seemed a little too opportune to Malene that a sexy woman practically designed to catch Tate’s eye suddenly wanted his help escaping from RIOT. She latched on to her professional control and spoke dryly. “RIOT does realize that Tate and I ended badly?”

  Emmett cocked a brow and laughed. “You see the resemblance, too.”

  Malene was glad she wasn’t the only one. “It’s hard not to. If only I’d been that gorgeous.” She shook her head.

  She wasn’t begging for a compliment and the chief didn’t give her one.

  “Don’t let her looks now fool you—like I said, she’s smart. In the last six months she’s sexed herself up and made her looks over to attract Tate.” Emmett hit a button on his laptop and brought up a photo of a slightly younger Sophia—plain, but with good bone structure, no makeup, bad haircut, unstylish, baggy clothes, unflattering glasses, and a few pounds overweight. Certainly not the svelte, toned creature from the first picture of her he’d shown Malene. “This is her a year ago. She’s been following his career for years. She knows what kind of women Tate likes. Why wouldn’t she give herself the best chance of success?”

  Mal frowned at the before shot of Sophia. “Has she remade herself? Or has RIOT done it for her? That’s an exceptionally professional makeover. In my expert opinion, too professional.” She looked at the chief. “I smell a setup. You don’t think this is all just a little too convenient, that Sophia is simply too tempting a treat for Tate to resist? What are the odds?”

  She stared at her boss. The Agency wouldn’t risk helping a young woman escape from RIOT out of the goodness of their hearts.

  His grin deepened. “I appreciate your concern. We all feel the potential for a setup. But what would RIOT gain? We’ve checked her out thoroughly and her story holds water.”

  “And?”

  “In exchange for exfiltrating her successfully and providing her with a new identity and protection, she has promised to share her inner knowledge of how RIOT’s encryption squad works. Their encryption techniques, their encryption philosophy, the works. With the intel she could give us, we could put a serious dent in RIOT’s operations.”

  Malene understood the temptation for such valuable intel. But she didn’t like the risk to her family. “And if she double-crosses us and feeds us false intel?”

  “How? Our encryption experts will obviously check out anything she gives us before we act on it. She can’t go back to RIOT. If we cut her loose, she’s a dead woman.”

  What the chief said made sense, but Malene was
still wary. “When and how do you plan to exfiltrate her?”

  “RIOT is sending her to the Cheltenham Festival of Science as a guest speaker. The science festival is a big summer tourist event, half entertainment, half serious science. It’s the perfect spot to make an escape. Lots of people in town and ways to blend into a crowd and assume a new identity.”

  Malene’s heart skipped a beat. She knew all about Cheltenham. Tate had taken her on vacation there when they were dating.

  “As you know, Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ, is in Cheltenham. What else is RIOT up to? Are they trying to infiltrate Britain’s top code-cracking institution?” Emmett said.

  “Sophia initiated contact by approaching one of our agents in London and outlining her plan and demands. Ironically, at the Tower of London. Nice place to meet spooks, one of the most haunted places in England.”

  Yeah, Malene knew all about meeting spooks at the Tower. That’s where she’d met Tate.

  The chief winked. “She won’t defect for anyone other than Tate. She has it all figured out—she wants Tate to meet her at the festival and spirit her away.”

  Malene frowned. She felt a lot of things about Tate, most of them distinctly not nice, but she didn’t want her daughter to be fatherless at five years old. Tate had made a solemn promise he’d be around to pay for Kayla’s college and walk her down the aisle, and Malene meant to hold him to it. “And Tate rushed to take this assignment, despite the risks and potential for walking straight into a trap?”

  Emmett’s look said everything. “You know Tate. He loves a challenge.”

  “And beautiful women.” She shook her head. “Does the man have a death wish?” Sometimes she suspected he did—it was called a thrill-seeker gene and not a day went by when she didn’t worry that he’d passed it on to Kayla. She was already showing signs …

  “Tate thinks the payoff’s worth the risk. You can see why I need my best team on this assignment,” Emmett said. “Meaning you, with your vested interest in making sure Tate comes home alive with his heart intact.”

  “And the fact that I look like Sophia.” Malene knew how the chief’s mind worked. “I can go along with Tate with my authentic paperwork and simply switch identities with her, allowing her to escape on my passport with Tate while I disappear.”

  The chief just smiled. “What do you say?”

  “How are you going to sell this “take your ex-wife on assignment” to Tate? I’m not an agent and he doesn’t need much cover-life help.”

  Emmett’s eyes danced with malicious delight. “That’s where you’re mistaken—the girl is nervous about Tate’s being recognized and being put under tight surveillance. She stipulated that he must spirit her away undercover.”

  Malene’s heart raced with real professional excitement now. This was getting more and more interesting by the minute. Tate undercover? That was simply delicious.

  “You sure know how to twist a girl’s arm.” Malene bit her lip and smiled to herself as one evil thought after another occurred to her. “Can I make him gay?”

  That might keep him out of Sophia’s bed and prevent him from falling in love with this girl. She really didn’t like the vision of Kayla walking down the aisle as a flower girl in Tate’s wedding to a RIOT mathematical genius. Or the thought of seeing the beautiful babies Tate and Sophia would make.

  Emmett laughed. “I already said Tate’s job is to seduce her. Hard to do if he’s gay. Sophia’s expecting a charmer, even if he is undercover.”

  Malene shrugged. It had been worth a try. “But you will let me torture him a little?”

  “No torturing. I can’t afford to have him distracted in the slightest.”

  “He’s going to be distracted no matter what we do. You’re absolutely no fun sometimes, Chief.” Against orders, or not, she was going to dress Tate in the itchiest wool sweater she could find. Wool irritated Tate’s skin. Other than in a suit, he never wore it.

  Tate had a lot of itches she planned to interfere with, including an insatiable sexual appetite. For now, wool would have to suffice as her weapon of choice.

  “You’ll take the assignment?” Emmett said. “You’ll have to be away from Kayla on location in Great Britain until we have Sophia safely hidden away.”

  “Do I have a choice?” She smiled back at Emmett’s smug smile. He knew he’d won. The thought of fieldwork and creating a cover life for Tate was simply too enticing. And messing with Tate and saving him from himself? The thrill of that went without saying.

  “I’ll do it. Mom will take Kayla. She loves having her.” She bit her lip and shook her head. “The things a mother does for child and country.”

  Emmett laughed. “I need you to get on it immediately.”

  Malene nodded. “Sure thing, Chief. What do you have in mind? What’s my cover story?”

  The chief arched a brow. “Don’t you mean Tate’s?”

  “No, mine. I’ve never had one before. Mine’s going to be a lot more fun.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Tate sat in Dulles International Airport, outside the security check, waiting for his ex-wife, Mal, to arrive. They were traveling together to Cheltenham, England, as mathematics professor Tate Stevens, Ph.D., and his trusty graduate student and research assistant sidekick, Mallie Green.

  What the hell had Emmett been thinking assigning her as his cover-life artist for this mission? And insisting she go into the field with him—lunacy. First of all, Tate worked alone. He certainly didn’t need Mal, or any woman, for that matter, tagging along to scare Sophia off. It was going to be dicey enough convincing her he was falling in love with her so he could bring her in. He didn’t want to give her any reason to bolt.

  Second, he and Mal got along now about as well as the Agency got along with RIOT—they generally wanted to kill each other. He blamed himself and Mal’s jealous nature. He’d thought when he married her that she understood that sometimes sleeping with other women was simply part of the job.

  Third, while Mal was an excellent cover-life artist, she wasn’t a trained agent. Oh, she could shoot with the best of them, but a gun wasn’t her most efficient weapon. No, she wielded words like a pro, cutting as efficiently as if using a stiletto. He knew—he’d been the recipient of her knife’s edge too many times. He didn’t want her sharp tongue anywhere near Sophia.

  And last—she was a horror at math. Could barely balance a checkbook. He wasn’t a math genius, but he had a degree in computer science and knew math as well as any engineer. What he didn’t know, his eidetic memory would help him fake his way through. Without one, how was Mal going to convincingly play a mathematics grad student? He shuddered as he thought about how he’d have to cover for her. Could he claim she was mute?

  Tate had reasoned, begged, and even pleaded with the chief to let him go solo. He didn’t need a cover-life artist. He didn’t do disguises when he went undercover. He was an out-in-the-open agent.

  “You do this time,” Emmett had said. “Our contact in London says Sophia insisted she will contact you. Not the other way around. She’s nervous about being discovered and killed. Very skittish.

  “You’re to go to Cheltenham undercover as Dr. Tate Stevens, professor of mathematics. She specified the name. That way she’ll know whom to contact. She says you’re too well-known in RIOT circles as yourself. She can’t be seen anywhere near you. You’ll have to go undercover and in disguise.”

  Emmett had given him an up-and-down look and scowled. “It’s too damn bad you’ve never taken the trouble to learn how to use a disguise. They can be extremely useful.”

  Emmett was a master of them.

  “She also said you’re to dress the part of a geek to throw RIOT off. There will be plenty of them around.” Emmett shook his head. “I need you to be a sexy geek. There’s no way you can carry that off without help. Malene’s your only hope.”

  Tate had sighed deeply and resisted pounding the arm of the chair he sat in. “Let her pack me a bag, but does sh
e have to come with?”

  “She does. She’s your master of disguise in case things go wrong and you need to escape without attracting notice. Malene can get you new IDs, new costumes, new identities by wiggling her little finger. You need her on-site this time.” Emmett looked amused at Tate’s discomfort.

  The chief was well aware of why Tate’s marriage to Mal had failed. This mission was like rubbing it in her face and Tate knew it.

  “Then assign someone else for the fieldwork. Anyone else. Call Kendra back from her mommy leave. Tell her I need her. Offer to give her a nice bonus, whatever it takes.”

  “And be slapped with a lawsuit?” Emmett’s eyes twinkled. “She’s not leaving her weeks-old baby to dash off to England, no matter what I offer her. I can guarantee that.

  “This is a delicate operation. I need my best personnel on it and Malene is it. Besides, her resemblance to Sophia plays in our favor.”

  Tate had scowled. It was hard to argue with the chief’s points. “How am I supposed to seduce a twenty-four-year-old RIOT agent with Mal watching my every move?”

  “I doubt she’ll be watching you that closely.” Emmett had laughed. “Learn how to use a disguise. And maybe next time I’ll think about letting you go solo.” And then Emmett had dismissed him, sending him to research and development to pick up his gizmos.

  Tate had an uneasy feeling about this whole operation and setup. He believed in his sex appeal—he had as healthy a male ego as the next guy—but a college girl falling in love with his picture and file? It seemed a little too fantastic to him. It could happen, he supposed. But he didn’t trust RIOT. Were they behind this? And if so, what mayhem did they have up their sleeve?

  The brass and intel and data crunchers at Langley had run through all the intelligence and data. Done thorough background checks. Sophia checked out in every regard. Her father had recently passed away. It was the perfect time to break away and escape RIOT’s death grip on her life.