The Cinderella Mission

by Catherine Mann

  He’d clawed out of that pit once and knew he’d survived only half the man he’d been before. Even if he wanted to risk a relationship that could send him there again—which he sure as hell didn’t—he wouldn’t shortchange any woman by offering what little he had left. He would grit his teeth through the next two weeks of playing the attentive boyfriend and ignore his libido urging him to make it real.

  Flicking on an extra overhead light, Ethan dispelled the intimate haze with a fluorescent flash. He returned his attention to the spread of screens in front of him and focused on locking up security as tight as his nonfunctioning heart.

  Chapter 5

  Kelly’s heart stopped for five dizzying seconds.

  Standing in the Williams Manor weight room four days later, she tugged the voluminous robe closed as she left the massage room. “Geez, Brittany, I must not have heard you knock.”

  The teen slouched against a bench press. “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you. Sorry.”

  Not that she looked it.

  Kelly’s muscles twisted back into knots again. So much for the soothing effects of an early-morning massage Peter had just given her. She stepped deeper into the exercise room. “No harm done.”

  Other than the risk of a coronary. It also offered a reminder that she sure as hell needed to brush up on her awareness of her surroundings if she expected to watch Ethan’s back. Kelly tightened the belt on her white robe and nuzzled deeper into terrycloth, hints of massage oils lingering on her body. “Did you need something?”

  Attitude slumped her shoulders. “Mrs. Williams wanted me to let her masseur know she’s running a couple of minutes late.”

  “Peter’s cleaning up the table in the next room if you want to peek in and tell him.”

  Brittany looked longingly back at the other door leading to the breezeway into the garage—and thus Ethan’s apartment. Finally, she dragged her feet toward the massage room. Kelly wanted to tell the girl Ethan wasn’t around so she could take her drooling self elsewhere, but wouldn’t lend credence to her jealousy by voicing it.

  The master plan for getting over Ethan Williams was turning into a big bust only a few days into operation. The more she knew, the more intriguing he became. She’d been mesmerized by his brash, bad-boy smile back at ARIES. Now, she was entranced by his tenderness to his aging aunt. The contradictions intrigued her—a Jag owner never washing his car, a man with more money than many foreign governments choosing supermarket-brand beer instead of vintage wine.

  Something had to give soon, or she’d be in worse shape than when she’d buckled into his sludge-covered Jag.

  Kelly slid a hand into the collar of her robe and rubbed along a kink returning to her neck. Taking advantage of the mansion’s luxuries seemed frivolous, but Eugenie had insisted. And her back truly was wrecked from so much time at the computer, as well as in the gym.

  Or maybe from so much time at the computer and in the gym this week with Ethan.

  They’d both worked until three in the morning to accommodate time changes in overseas communications about banking transfers linked to terrorist groups. Brainstorming through security measures for the gala. Researching experimental advances made by the Marines in nonlethal weapons for use in a crowd of civilians.

  Given the long night, they wouldn’t be starting until ten this morning. Of course she couldn’t sleep in thanks to a certain too-hunkish-for-his-own-good partner.

  The outside door swung open, admitting a blast of cold air and a hundred-percent-hot Ethan in running clothes. Apparently he couldn’t sleep, either.

  He whipped the sweatshirt hood off his head and dusted snow from impossibly broad shoulders. Before the door slam finished echoing through the gym, Brittany popped back into the room. She breezed over to Kelly—that much closer to Ethan.

  The girl melted at his feet.

  Mitts off. Kelly didn’t bother to stop the possessive thought. Brittany had better keep her little paws to herself.

  For the good of the case, of course, Kelly reminded herself. Her country was counting on her to present a convincing act.

  Kelly flashed an apologetic smile. “Excuse me, Brittany.”

  Three bold steps took Kelly chest-to-chest with Ethan. She flattened her hands on his shoulders.

  Really nice shoulders. “Hi, sugar.”

  Sugar? Ewww. Her ineptitude was showing like a too-long slip.

  Muscles beneath her palms contracted into a sheet of pure metal. Suddenly Brittany’s melting seemed understandable.

  Then he cupped her face. “Hey, Kel.”

  Snowcap liquefying. Flood alert!

  She needed to remember his attentive boyfriend gig was just an act for their audience. But, man oh man, his gaze scorched over her face and down to the V of her robe with such convincing power the man deserved an Oscar. Even she believed he wanted her, and she knew better.

  Her fingers curled to grip the warm cotton of his sweatshirt. “Why are you here?”

  “To see you.” His hands dropped to her waist, searing through her clothes to her skin. “I missed you.”

  “We just had breakfast together an hour ago,” Kelly improvised.

  A gasp sounded behind them. Hell’s bells. She hadn’t meant to insinuate a shared three-egg omelet in bed.

  “Is my aunt around?” Had he pulled her forward or had she swayed? Not that it mattered, since her hips brushed his either way.

  She was drowning in her own meltdown. “Eugenie’s on her way over to meet up with her masseur, uh, Paul?”

  “Peter.”

  Who could think anyway? “Right.”

  He glanced over her shoulder. “Brittany? Did you need something?”

  “No, sir. All done.” She sashayed past, blasting Kelly with a glare behind Ethan’s back, before flouncing away. The door thudded after her.

  Ethan’s hands slid from Kelly’s hips.

  Ohmigosh, did they ever slide in a tingling stroke that seemed to take forever. She wanted…she wanted…

  More.

  He stepped back. “Sorry about all that.”

  “No problem.” Liar.

  “Let Aunt Eugenie know I’m looking for her when she’s through.” He jammed his hands into the stomach pocket of his sweatshirt.

  Footsteps sounded in the hall. “Yoohoo,” Eugenie called. “Peter! I’m on my way. Hold on.”

  The wiry masseur stepped from the back room, a dark pump bottle in hand. A spa and salon owner, Peter Miller still made special trips out for his best client.

  “No need to rush, Miss Eugenie,” the man enunciated with a news-broadcaster-style boom, sounding more like Peter Jennings than Peter-the-masseur. “The oils are warming.”

  Ethan’s aunt bustled inside wearing a tomato-red kimono. “What’s the blend of the day?”

  Peter cradled his concoction like a carnie sideshow salesman. “For Miss Eugenie, a centering mix of atlas cedar, sandalwood and frankincense to promote inner peace.”

  Eugenie flattened a hand to her chest, her long exhale ending with a smile. “Perfect.”

  “But first…” He thrust the bottle toward Kelly. “A welcome gift for you, my dear. Use three capfuls in your bath water.”

  She clasped the cool glass in her hands. “Thank you, Peter. The serenity blend you used earlier smells lovely.”

  A grin multiplied his wrinkles. “No-no.” He sidled between Kelly and Ethan. “This is a special romance blend for the young lovers. Sweet orange for happiness. Sandalwood to relieve loneliness, dwelling on the past and cynicism.”

  Did the guy have some kind of crystal ball tucked under his massage table?

  “And finally,” he pinched the air, “ylang ylang, imported from Indonesia.”

  Okay, that might not be so bad since it had been an element in her welcome candle.

  Eugenie clasped her hands together. “Yes, ylang ylang, for euphoric union.”

  Kelly willed herself not to wince. Apparently the guy did have some kind of insight into her psyche. “T
hanks, Peter.”

  “Kelly, dear,” Aunt Eugenie called, halting her at the door. “Why don’t you enjoy the hot tub or have a swim?”

  Kelly smiled without actually agreeing. Somehow she suspected her tense muscles wouldn’t be cured by any amount of massages, hot tub stints or ylang ylang.

  Standing beside his smirking aunt, Ethan planned to flush every ounce of Peter’s ylang ylang straight back to Indonesia.

  He did not need images of Kelly in a scented hot tub.

  Judas-freaking-priest. He was already more frustrated than a sixteen-year-old-boy watching cheerleader tryouts. Thank you very much, Aunt Eugenie and Peter.

  Ethan led his aunt into the privacy of the supply room, all the while trying his damnedest to stifle fantasies of Kelly wearing a heated blush and nothing else. He shut the door. “How’s it going with Kelly?”

  Eugenie strolled from shelf to shelf, her fingers trailing over stacks of bleached towels and industrial-sized jugs of antibacterial hand soap. “You tell me. How do you think she looks?”

  That loaded question held more firepower than his 9mm. “The clothes look…nice.”

  Understatement of the year. Every day, Kelly sported a new adjustment, minor alterations that sent his head spinning.

  Pierced ears one day, with tiny pearls drawing attention to delicate skin he’d never noticed before. Another day, the arms of her sweater tied around her waist, leaving a silky shirt out there for him to see and want to touch. But the white robe was his favorite, hands-down. Or hands-on would sure as hell be nice.

  Aunt Eugenie was a serious masochist.

  “I’d like to introduce her around a bit, give her some familiar faces for the night of the gala.” Eugenie adjusted the sash on her kimono without looking at him. “Nothing fancy. Just some friends of yours around the pool.”

  Ethan leaned back against the refrigerator stocked with sports drinks. “You remember this isn’t real, don’t you?”

  “Of course. A dinner will smooth her way at the ball since she’ll know more people.”

  “So you think she’ll be ready?”

  “Tomorrow we have an appointment with the hair-dresser.”

  Panic kicked him at the thought of all that magnificent hair on the floor. “You’re not going to cut it?”

  A Cheshire-cat smile creased her round face. “No.”

  The woman knew him too well. Damned good thing she wasn’t the enemy or his ARIES status would have been busted long ago.

  Something he wouldn’t let happen, especially not now. He wanted that information on his parents.

  “What really happened the day my parents died?” The question fell out of his mouth.

  His aunt blinked, just once, but enough to surprise him with how a single question had shaken her.

  She turned to the shelf of bottled oils and nudged them in line. “What do you mean?”

  “It was an open-and-shut case, right?” He waited, not that she seemed inclined to offer anything up before she had those bottles in regimental order. “My au pair sold me out to kidnappers. The actual attempt went to hell when my father tried to evade the car chasing us and my parents died.”

  Long-ago echoes pounded through his memory, sounds of crunching metal, screaming tires. The burn of the seat belt digging into his waist as the car slung to the side. The betrayal of seeing his au pair, Iona, watching from the car beside.

  Finally, Eugenie faced him, eyes sheened with tears now as they had been when she’d picked him up in Switzerland after the accident thirty years ago. “Thank God the authorities had already been alerted so we didn’t lose you, too.”

  “How did they know to come?” Ethan shot straight for the hole in the story that had niggled at him through a sleepless night. “There wouldn’t have been a ransom request yet.”

  She didn’t blink. Didn’t move. Didn’t answer, not right away. Not more than four or five seconds passed, but more than enough to make Ethan wonder.

  Then his aunt patted his face. “Your parents were late with a promised call. I was worried, so I called the authorities.”

  “That makes sense.” So why the hesitation?

  “Of course it does, since that’s what happened. Why all the questions now after so long?” She tucked her trembling hands into her robe pockets.

  Those shaking hands shut him down faster than any anger or frustration. This woman had been through enough grief for two lifetimes.

  “No reason.” He slung an arm around her shoulders and dropped a kiss on her silver head. “Go enjoy your massage.”

  When had her shoulders started to curve forward? She was growing older, sixty-five now. She deserved to be bouncing grandchildren on her knee…or taking them kayaking in Alaska.

  He felt damned bad that he couldn’t be the son she deserved. He would do just about anything for his aunt.

  Except that.

  He couldn’t pull off the family gig, even for her. Memories of the childhood kidnapping attempt dogged him as Ethan tried to piece together childhood impressions of speed, his mother’s screams, his father’s hoarse shouts—and blood, so much blood.

  How could he subject a wife and kid to that possibility? A very real possibility, given his career choice and bank balance. He’d give away all the money in a heartbeat if it would make a difference. But there were people who would always believe he’d secreted it away.

  None of it mattered anyway since he wouldn’t be marrying. He understood the fragility of life too damned well.

  Hell yes, he intended to make sure Kelly Taylor was in tiptop condition before that gala. He trusted that her sharp mind could wrap around anything that came their way. But physically, she would be at a disadvantage and that, Ethan couldn’t allow. He would continue to be her personal trainer nonstop, whatever it took to turn a desk jockey into a primed and ready agent.

  Kelly’s feet pounded the sidewalks in day nine of Ethan Williams’s Operative Training School of Torture. With forty-degree weather melting away the snow, Ethan had insisted on an outside run. The man was a machine.

  She saw another massage in her future. Adding Aunt Eugenie’s formal dancing lessons on top of all the other physical fitness training left Kelly with muscles twisted in more knots than were on that hundred-year-old oak in her path.

  She didn’t even dare relax in the hot tub anymore since she’d almost scalded herself. Sure she’d fallen asleep, but she could have sworn she set the water temperature lower. Thank heavens Ethan had woken her before the accident resulted in something worse than red toes.

  Her only respite from the physical exhaustion came in the form of meetings at ARIES with Carla Juarez and Robert Davidson to coordinate security for the embassy ball. She’d never thought she would see the day she would long for an afternoon at a desk.

  Jogging a sloshy pace around another oak, Kelly focused on one foot in front of the other. She forced her hands to unclench inside her woolen gloves.

  She wasn’t a couch potato by any stretch, having already compiled a personal exercise regimen in preparation for the time she would be called up to serve in the field. She’d thrived on surprising Ethan with her endurance, something he obviously hadn’t expected to encounter.

  Of course, then he upped the pace again. But she would prove she had something more to offer to this operation than her knowledge of languages.

  One foot in front of the other, she distracted herself by drilling Ethan on basic European greetings. Even though her lungs threatened to burst from his killer pace, she had to admit the open spaces offered less temptation than the privacy of his loft apartment or the gym. He also seemed to comprehend the nuances of the language better conversationally than when she presented him a written list.

  Kelly adjusted the wooly band over her cold ears. “Forms of good evening or hello. Spanish?”

  “Buenas tardes.” He exhaled steady puffs of white. “Christ, Kelly! This is rudimentary crap.”

  And repetitious crap gave her something to think about besid
e the burn in her legs and an attraction that wouldn’t quit. “Italian.”

  “Ciao.”

  “German.”

  “Guten Tag.”

  Didn’t the man ever tire? She inhaled another icy gasp. “And my favorite of all languages—the language of love— French.”

  He stumbled. “Au revoir?”

  “Bonsoir,” she corrected. “Rudimentary, huh?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” The white clouds of air exploded faster as he pounded around a corner. “I’ll bet you dream in multiple languages.”

  “On occasion.”

  Ethan’s steps slowed. Kelly wanted to shout her relief, but didn’t have the energy. He’d probably quit early for her and she didn’t care.

  She slowed her steps to a cool-down pace. “Different languages seem conducive for different activities.”

  He kicked aside a chunk of sludge, trailing behind. “How so?”

  “German has a strong, guttural sound. It’s good for focus and punch in a run. Run. Lauf. Laufend. Jog. Trotten.” A gust of wind dipped the temperature. “Cold. Frostig.”

  Her feet slowed to a halt. Kelly bent over to grab her knees and suck in icy air. She huffed through at least ten chilly breaths waiting for him to answer before calling, “Ethan?”

  Where had he gone?

  “Ethan?” She looked behind her.

  And found him doing the last thing she would have expected. The one thing guaranteed to throw a whole new, confusing, frightening…dangerous complexion on their working relationship. She found Ethan Williams…

  …checking out her rear view.

  Ethan tried to drag his eyes from Kelly’s backside. Wind pants had never looked so good.

  He told himself fifty times over he had no business staring at a fellow operative that way, regardless of how perfectly curved, soft, inviting…

  Damn it, time to move to a safer language. Ethan stepped level with her again. “How about cooking?”

  Kelly searched his face for two gusting bursts of wind before straightening. “Italian, of course.”

  “What about Spanish?”

  “Is for dancing.” She started walking again toward the entrance to the mansion’s gym.