Sweet Seduction Secrets (Sweet Seduction, Book 8): A Love At First Sight Romantic Suspense Series

by Claire, Nicola

“We had a dead drop,” I pointed out. One he’d used since while conversing with Amber.

  “I’d been tracked entering New Zealand,” he admitted, crossing his arms over his chest and staring down at me. “They knew I was here. I needed a story. We’re all being watched now.”

  Not just me, then. The Department was on universal alert. Why? Because of this operation? Or because the Director was walking a tightrope of secrets?

  “You make a move in there,” I said, nodding towards the door that led into ASI proper, “and it won’t be just me who puts a bullet in your head.”

  “My, my, Charles,” Caleb drawled. “You’ve gone all momma-bear.”

  I ignored his statement, well aware every single thing I did told a story, painted a picture, allowed this man to see who I’d become. He’d adjust his strategy, change the angles, write a new plan. And he’d do it all while making you think he saw nothing.

  Caleb Hart saw everything.

  I used to too once upon a time.

  Nick released the lock on the door and we all followed. Ben and Abi first, Jason behind them offering cover, Caleb and Ava, then Adam and me. I spared a glance at Carmel; she nodded her head in a surprising show of unity and returned her shotgun to its hiding place. The door clicked shut at my back and I felt like I took the first full breath I’d managed in months. Tension still coursed through my body, a pounding had started inside my head. But a weight of some sort had lifted from my chest.

  Simply by walking into ASI.

  It didn’t bear thinking about; once this Department debacle had been sorted, I’d be on my way. Leave these people to their lives; hopefully, relatively peaceful ones. Certainly, free of interference from a government agency.

  Nick led my former colleagues to an interview room, the same one Adam had fucked me up against the wall in and made me feel. I’m not sure if he’d chosen it on purpose, but heat rose up my cheeks all the same. I gritted my teeth and entered the small space, wishing the walls were farther apart, the roof higher up, the floor not so uneven beneath my feet.

  “Nice place you’ve got here,” Ava said. She’d been suspiciously quiet. Assessing, planning, devising. “I especially like what you’ve done with the cameras.”

  Yeah, they’d been counting them on the way in too.

  Ben and Abi had disappeared, probably to the medical room. Jason had too, no doubt to control to watch. Just Nick, Adam and myself, facing off against Caleb and Ava.

  Caleb let out a dramatic sigh. He didn’t sigh. He didn’t show emotion unless he wanted you to see it.

  So like I had been.

  “We’re not your enemy,” he said, pulling out a chair and sitting down. Ava followed his lead. Taking the seat opposite, covering the room as best as they could from only two sides.

  I almost smiled. But nothing about this was humorous.

  “Then who is?” I asked, moving to the head of the table, regardless of Nick’s seniority.

  He took the other end, closest to the door. His back to it, but then, no one he didn’t trust was outside this room. Adam sat down between Caleb and me; offering himself as a buffer. The underlying tension in the room felt like a thick blanket; shrouding us and making it difficult to breathe.

  No one trusted anyone. I’d even guess that right now Nick didn’t really trust Adam. His loyalties were in question. His desire to protect me a kink in the ASI armour. I wouldn’t let it be, if I could help it. The only way to break Caleb and Ava was to show a united front.

  “You know who, Charlie,” Caleb said. “You can’t have forgotten all of your training since taking this job.”

  The blow had been well aimed; I let it roll over me.

  “You said I know something,” I offered. “What is it you think I know?”

  “Must we dance around this?” he asked, leaning back in his seat and looking comfortable.

  I turned to Ava. “And you? When did you figure it out? Before or after you made me think you’d left the country?” Left me.

  Ava flicked a glance at Caleb; a barely there movement of her eyes. You might have thought she’d just blinked, but I caught it. She wasn’t here because he’d asked.

  “You suspected Caleb of going rogue,” I guessed.

  Caleb, for his part, didn’t move a muscle.

  “I couldn’t be sure,” she admitted. At least I wasn’t the only one who had doubted. “Of either of you,” she added. “And I did leave. Then sneaked back in under an alias when no one was looking.”

  “Ava,” Caleb finally said. “You wound me.”

  “The Department message fooled me,” she offered.

  It fooled all of us. I’d never stopped to think he was playing them at their own game.

  “So what’s the official cover?” I asked him.

  “I’m on-call,” he advised. “I was to court you, keep you entertained, so you wouldn’t see them coming.”

  “So why no more messages via the system?”

  “You deleted the first. They knew you were on to them.”

  They knew. Time was up. Had been up for some time at a guess.

  “How long have we got?” I asked.

  “When they don’t hear back from Thibault, they’ll make their move.”

  “Any more sleeper cells?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” Caleb offered. “Ava?”

  “I wasn’t even aware of you,” she snapped back. She’d always hated being kept in the dark.

  “What now?” Nick asked, reminding us we were airing our dirty laundry in public. Well, as public as ASI ever got.

  “Now we must prepare,” Caleb said easily, as if commenting on the weather.

  “How did you know?” I pressed.

  “About the Director?” Caleb clarified. I nodded for him to go on. “When my jobs dried up after Hong Kong.”

  “They think you know something too,” I guessed.

  “I’ve given them every opportunity to ask,” he replied. “But all I seem to get of late is silence.”

  “Your handler?”

  “Equally as surprised as me.” Unlike Mal. “Or so he says.”

  I looked toward Ava. “And yours?”

  “I’ve been busy,” she admitted, but then a furrow appeared on her brow. “Too busy. I’m meant to be tracking suspected terrorism activity in south east Asia. They’ve had me hopping from country to island and back again for the past nine months.”

  “They didn’t want you near me,” I said.

  “Or me,” Caleb offered.

  “Am I any less capable of uncovering the rot?” Ava demanded, put-out that she’d not been sidelined like us.

  “You didn’t enter the warehouse in Guangzhou,” I offered. “You were on the periphery.” As always. “And besides, you’re far more important to them than we are. We can be replaced easily. You cannot.” Snipers of Ava’s calibre were hard to come by. Their training alone took years.

  “Speak for yourself,” Caleb quipped. “I began my education in the arts back when I was six.”

  A sudden spark of pain speared through my cerebral. I flinched, closing my eyes tightly and lifted a hand to my temple.

  “Charlie?” Adam called, but it felt like it was from miles away.

  A glass of water appeared in my hand, Adam’s larger one wrapped around it, holding it steady, bringing it up to my lips. I took a sip, allowing him to care for me. Uncaring of the image we portrayed. The weakness I showed.

  The pain made cognitive thought impossible.

  I took several more large swallows before lowering the glass to the table, hearing the echo of its clink on the surface rattle around the silent room.

  “How long have you been getting headaches?” Caleb asked.

  I hadn’t been, just a pounding now and then.

  I shook my head, albeit gently. I’d started to feel a little sick.

  “Any memory loss?” Caleb pressed.

  I lifted my eyes to his.

  “Nausea?” he added.

  What the hel
l? I was panting, I realised; quietly, but still.

  A strained few seconds passed. Everyone tense. No one daring to speak for fear of setting off a chain reaction. Nick watched on avidly. I felt the camera lens above us bore into the top of my head. Ava had stilled, like a bird on a branch, camouflaging herself, protecting herself. And Adam had turned his back on Caleb and was looking at me.

  It was his eyes I met first. A challenge there; he knew. He knew I’d been suffering from headaches, from nausea and God knows what else. He knew. Even though he barely knew me. It had been long enough. Long enough for him to crack my shell, to peer inside, to see me.

  I’ll catch you, his look said. I’ll catch you.

  “What are you saying?” I asked Caleb, but my eyes were locked on Adam’s.

  Caleb cleared his throat in a very un-Caleb-like manner calling all of our attention.

  “You too?” Ava asked.

  “Have you?” Caleb immediately shot back. We all watched as Ava shook her head.

  My eyes found Caleb’s. “What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I never get sick, and I sure as hell never get headaches. So whatever it is, it is not natural. It’s induced. And there appears to be fuck all we can do about it.”

  “What’s changed in your routines?” Nick asked.

  Everything, I wanted to say, but bit my tongue.

  Caleb glared at him, but did deem the question worth answering.

  “I started digging into Guangzhou.”

  “The Director,” I said.

  “Fuck,” Ava breathed.

  “But how?” Adam demanded.

  Nick’s phone buzzed. He pulled it from his pocket, stared at the screen, then flicked eyes up to the camera dome and nodded.

  “Tell us about your training?” he asked, as if we’d divulge sensitive information such as that. “In particular,” he added, “when it started.”

  “What are you thinking?” I demanded, instead of answering that time-bomb.

  “Not me. Eric,” Nick advised. “Just a theory he’s working on.”

  “And that theory is?” Caleb queried, clearly not needing to ask who Eric was.

  “Better if you don’t know that yet.”

  Bloody hell.

  I let out a frustrated breath, then said, “We can’t tell you about our training.”

  “Charlie, who are you trying to protect?” Adam asked softly.

  I turned my head to look at him and smiled. It just slipped out. I hadn’t intended it to. Maybe it was his caring tone. Maybe it was the I’ll catch you look he kept throwing my way. But I smiled. And it was genuine.

  Maybe it was just because of Adam.

  I’d changed. And this man was responsible. But I couldn’t seem to get angry over that fact.

  What had my life been like before? A whirlwind of danger and intrigue and broken ribs and bruised knuckles. I still felt drawn to those things. Probably always would be. But they’d been couched in secrets and innuendo and lies and betrayal. Caleb and Ava had saved me.

  But what the fuck had Mal and the Director ever done?

  I trusted this man, I realised. I trusted him to catch me.

  But how far would we fall?

  “You,” I said, and he frowned in puzzlement. “I’m trying to protect you.”

  “You don’t need to protect us,” Adam started.

  “She’s right,” Nick interrupted him to say. Then he shifted his icy gaze to me. “But it’s too late, specialist. We’ve already seen inside the warehouse.”

  Guangzhou. He might not have been there, like Caleb had been, but he knew. He knew about the drugs and the cartel. About Wayne Pascoe and Jacques Thibault. And about the Director.

  I turned my gaze to Ava. I’d pulled her far enough in to this now too.

  Guilt washed over me; a strange sensation. They all knew too much. Ava they’d handle like they were somehow handling Caleb and me; headaches, nausea, memory loss. But what would they do to ASI?

  It was too late for them to retreat. Too late for them to run.

  It was too late for all of us.

  “My training started when I left university,” I said, my voice steady and strong, even if my insides were hollow.

  “Mine started when I entered a government sponsored orphanage at twelve,” Ava offered. My breaths all but stilled. The room spun.

  I couldn’t seem to get off the merry-go-round. One minute I was cool and collected. The next… I was not.

  Caleb started chuckling. “Fucking orphans,” he spat. “They’re a dime a dozen and no one gives a flying fuck about them.”

  His eyes met mine. And I knew. He was an orphan too. A different orphanage than mine or Ava’s. Different foster homes too, at a guess. Or maybe they were the same, just visited at different times so we wouldn’t cross over.

  But one thing was probably similar, although I couldn’t remember clearly enough to be sure.

  All of them would have been sponsored by the Department.

  All of them would have been controlled, directed by, the Director.

  “Operation Evolution,” I whispered. I’d always thought it referred to the evolution of the future, moulding our country into a safe haven, protecting it from the natural disintegration of society seen around the world. We’re the front-line. The silent wave you never see before the tsunami of the military. We slip in, we cut off the problem at the root, and we slip out again, unseen.

  We protect our country. We die for our country, if need be. So no one else has to.

  “Operation Evolution,” Caleb repeated on a murmur.

  Not the country’s evolution, but ours.

  I doubled over and regurgitated what was left of my lunch all over the interview room floor; sweat coating my body, trembling throughout my limbs.

  “Charlie!” I heard Adam yell, or it could have been a whisper.

  And then nothing but black. And pain. And a sheer piece of fabric blowing in a non-existent wind.

  Chapter 30

  My Name Is Charlie

  Charlie

  I'd never known fear like this. I'd never been incapacitated by it. I'd never allowed myself to feel. But what else could it be that made me so vulnerable in front of so many people?

  If not fear then what? And that was the problem, wasn't it? I feared what it could be.

  I wasn't where I had expected to be, I knew that much. For a moment my fear precluded awareness, but the softness of the bed beneath me and the silence of the room, save Adam's slow breathing, finally registered in my mind. I was not alone and I was no longer in the interview room.

  My head pounded; a matched staccato to my heartbeat. My chest hurt; a tightness that bordered on panic. I could feel a fine sheen of sweat grace my skin.

  I shivered and Adam stirred. He probably wasn't even asleep; I couldn't have been out for long. But I kept my eyelids closed and feigned slumber, while my body reluctantly caught up with reality.

  I'd fainted. At least, I guessed that's what I'd done. Puked up my guts and passed out in the epitome of “damsel in distress.” A temptation impossible for a man like Adam Savill to ignore.

  Hell, it was probably impossible for Nick Anscombe to ignore, too. But Caleb and Ava? They would have been appalled.

  "I know you're awake," Adam's soft but deep voice announced. "And in case you're wondering, we're alone."

  "I know we're alone," I said, resigned to my fate. I slowly opened my eyes and took in the familiar surroundings; the bedroom we'd shared. One of many available to staff within ASI, set-up to handle any length of lockdown.

  I checked my watch, suppressed the sigh that wanted out when I realised I'd been out for more than an hour, and then pushed myself to a seating position; back to headboard, legs drawn up to my chest - ready to move if need be - eyes locked on Adam, sitting opposite in a chair.

  He hadn't done anything as cliché as hold me while I recovered. But he hadn't left my side either. I glanced at the door and then the pos
ition of his seat and offered a rueful smile.

  "You're guarding me," I said. "The question is, are you guarding me against them or them against me?"

  "What do you think, Charlie?"

  I didn't know what to think. My life had turned upside down and inside out. Back was front. Top was bottom. And spies couldn't be trusted.

  "Where's Caleb and Ava?" I asked, instead of offering an answer. It’d been rhetorical, I was sure. At least, I chose to take it that way.

  "Contained," Adam replied succinctly. He looked me over; purely professionally, little emotion showed on his face right then. "How are you feeling?"

  Trying to pull on some of my well trained reserves, I smiled. It didn't feel right; not calculating or manipulative. Nothing that I could use to take control of the situation.

  "I'm fine," I offered, barely preventing myself from snapping.

  Adam let out a sigh, clearly not believing me. I wouldn't believe me either. I was so far from fine, I might as well have been back in fucking Guangzhou.

  "Hart wasn't surprised," Adam suddenly announced.

  "About what?"

  "About you collapsing." And there you have it; the elephant in the room.

  "Not that he'd let you see anyway," I offered.

  Adam leaned forward on his seat, elbows to knees, eyes still locked on mine. The deep blue looked troubled, but only fleetingly. He was acting more and more the spy as I became less and less one. It would have amused, but nothing about this was funny.

  "What do you know about PSYOPS?" he asked out of no-fucking-where.

  Or not. That sickness that plagued me of late took on a whole new meaning. I suddenly realised I was rubbing my stomach. I stared down at my hand in acute mortification, my breaths coming in small uneven pants. Operation Evolution.

  I lifted my eyes to Adam's face and swallowed.

  "Eric knows a little about it," he went on, as if I wasn't just having a major meltdown. "Took part in some experiments when he was back in the Army. Says it's progressed from his days, but what he does know is enough."

  He leaned back in his chair again, the first sign that he was agitated talking about this. He was hiding it well, but it was there. In the constant need to be moving as though the topic itched at his flesh.