He mulled the Los Angeles skyline behind her as he considered his response. “She’s my trainee,” he finally replied, knowing the response was weak. There was no excuse for abandoning his job of tracking the South American operations and rushing off to save Eva.
At least, no excuse that he cared to admit to his boss.
“Was your trainee,” Temperance corrected, her frown as dark as her suit. “You left Rio”—she rose, hands pressed flat against the desk as all five foot two inches of her loomed over him as much as possible, her shoulder-length, bright red hair swishing forward as she fixed her dark blue eyes on him—“and left your supervisory post when you were expressly told not to. I want to know why, because the whole ‘she’s my trainee’ excuse simply doesn’t work. I know you, Quinn, and I know there is more to the story. So share.”
What was he supposed to say? That while he was training Eva, he’d crossed the line? Fell in love? Had a relationship with a subordinate?
And now that they were apart, he worried about her when she was on a mission? So much so that he was compelled to check on her?
That would only get them both fired.
He met Temperance’s angry glare with his own. She might be the youngest V.P. to serve HRS, but he’d risen as fast, gaining the Director title less than two years after he left the military and joined the company. He’d give her the respect she deserved—she’d earned it and more—but he wasn’t going to grovel. Not for Tempe. Not for anyone. “My trainee. My responsibility,” he reiterated.
Without a blink of an eye or a twitch of brow, she continued to stare him down. A full ten seconds later, the head of HRS gave a snort of disgust and sat back down. “So it’s like that, is it?” A small, disarming smile turned up the corners of her mouth.
Trying to get him to relax his guard? He kept his gaze on hers, not falling for the ruse. “It is. Brazil is a cake job, and Jack is capable of holding down the fort. This was a complicated mission. I wanted to see her in the field for myself. It’s why you gave me the South American branch, isn’t it? To watch over the operatives.”
Her smile stiffened but didn’t disappear. “I don’t disagree, but there are other operatives in South America with less training, and I’ve never seen you go to their aid.”
She picked up a pencil and rolled it between her palms. “Don’t you trust her?”
Damn it. She was backing him into a corner.
“Of course I do,” he said, trying to guess her next move and stalling as fast as he could.
She gave him another stare that signaled her exasperation. “If that’s true, then the botched rescue isn’t my biggest concern. It’s over. Done. And Dr. Bennett is safe. What bothers me is why you felt compelled to come to her aid. Can you tell me that much?”
The honest truth was that he didn’t know why he did what he did. Eva was capable of handling herself. Deep down in his gut, he knew that much was true.
Despite that, he’d tracked her every move. Read every report she’d managed to send. And when it came time for pickup, he promised himself that he’d stay away but instead, had found himself doing everything possible to be included in the retrieval.
And he had no idea why he’d decided to jeopardize his career for a woman who hated him.
“I don’t know,” he said, being honest for the first time since he walked in the office.
“Wonderful.” She snapped the pencil in two.
The sound signaled the end of the first round, but he knew it wasn’t over. Not even close.
With measured moves, she put the broken pieces in a desk drawer and carefully closed it. “Let’s discuss what to do with Eva.”
His mouth went dry as the desire to protect Eva overwhelmed him, but he resisted the urge to cough or show any form of discomfort. It’s Temperance, he reminded himself. Not the enemy. She only wants what’s best for Eva and the company—same as me. “What is there to discuss? It all worked out.”
“She screwed up a major operation.”
“Once the cover was blown, we didn’t have a choice but to remove her from the situation.”
“Have you forgotten about Claire Akers? She’s still being held by FARC, thanks to Eva.”
The young woman held hostage? Her rescue was going to cost the company both in image and cash. Not that he cared about either. But for Eva, the failure went even deeper. For her, it wasn’t the money. It wasn’t even about Claire.
It was duty. Payback to the Universe for getting Eva off the streets of Bogotá and to the US. Survivor’s guilt for leaving the other orphans behind.
Temperance continued. “Getting Akers out just became a lot harder. She’s already been held captive for over two months.”
And three months was the magic number when the FARC guerillas moved their captives from camp to camp in an effort to make retrieval impossible. An obvious, simple ploy, but successful. In some cases, so successful that captives had remain imprisoned for almost ten years while families tried to raise ransom money to pay off the terrorists.
He didn’t want to see that happen to a client.
To anyone, for that matter. Money be damned.
“Eva didn’t have a choice,” he said, but the words sounded forced.
She leaned back with a sigh. “Is that what you want on record?”
“Big risk. Big results.” He quoted the company motto to new recruits. “It’s why people pay us huge fees. We minimize risk, and if it all goes to hell, we take care of it.” He leaned in. “She did what she could in a bad situation. I would have done the same.”
“You wouldn’t have screwed up.”
“In all fairness, you don’t know that. It’s field work, Tempe. We’ve both had ops go bad. And I could have left her there to retrieve Claire. I pulled her out. That was my mistake.” The comment was one last effort to get Eva, and himself, off the hook with minimal repercussions.
Temperance shook her head. “You and I both know it was the right call. She wasn’t safe. Not after killing the guard inside the camp.”
“We don’t know that.”
“I trust you, Quinn.”
That sounded almost ominous, but he couldn’t afford to toss her words back in case she was telling the truth. Besides, she was a friend. And he valued their friendship. “And what has this trust earned me?” he asked, taking the bait.
“A new operation.”
Sounded easy enough. But her smile widened into something almost predatory, and the striped tie around his neck felt like a noose.
…
“You can come in now, Ms. Torres.”
Eva stopped pacing and pivoted to see Temperance’s door open at the far end of the hallway and the V.P. standing with her hand on the doorknob.
And she’d used Eva’s last name. Sweat dotted Eva’s forehead, and she wiped it away.
“Thank you.” She wondered what had taken the petite redhead so long to call for her. Despite Quinn’s insistence that Temperance wanted to see her ASAP, they’d left her waiting for close to thirty minutes.
She assumed it was a purposeful move to unnerve her, so she responded by following Temperance into the room with a confident stride, shutting the door behind her.
Quinn sat in one of the two visitor’s chairs, his expression blank.
He started to rise, and Eva shoved past to take the empty chair next to him, the black faux-leather squeaking as she settled into the seat.
His unmistakable sigh of exasperation as he retook his seat almost brought a smile to her lips. But she kept her gaze forward and empty as she waited for the axe to fall.
Across the wide, wooden desk, Temperance held out a single sheet of paper. “Your next assignment.”
Assignment? The wave of relief almost knocked her off the chair. No firing. No reprimand. And no forced leave. Her hands shook with the realization that she hadn’t blown her career. She clenched them tight, twice, to calm them then reached out and took the paper.
Escort: Felix Bennett to Washington D.C.,
spanned the top of the single page. Underneath were flight numbers and a brief itinerary. Excitement changed to disappointment. This might not be a formal punishment, but it was as close to one as they could get without being official.
“This is a babysitting job.” She tried not to sound insulted. She knew she should be grateful, but it wasn’t in her. She needed to prove herself. To make up for losing Claire.
“Courier job,” Temperance countered.
Eva kept her temper at bay, resisting the urge to rip the page into tiny pieces. “I’m better than this. You know my skill set. What I can do,” she said her voice low. “Let me—”
“Take it,” Quinn interrupted.
“Stay out of this.” She shot a quick glance his way, but he remained immobile, eyes forward.
“I’m trying to save you from yourself,” he replied.
“I never asked you to save—”
Temperance held up her hand, palm out, stopping Eva midsentence.
“Your skills are not the point,” she snapped. “I know you can shoot a gun. Your physical and undercover skills are excellent. Frankly, that, and the enormous investments we made to train you, are the only reasons you’re still employed.”
She laced her fingers together in front of her. “It’s your decision making that concerns me. You know the rules. You wait until it’s safe. For both you and the client. I don’t care if the extraction is planned. If you miss it, we’ll make contact as soon as possible and proceed from there. That’s how we work. That’s how we keep people from harm. Including our own.”
Eva ducked her head to hide the shame that stained her cheeks. But she couldn’t have left Felix and tried later. “That could have taken months. He wouldn’t have made it much longer. He was getting weaker by the day.”
Temperance retrieved a file from the drawer of her desk, acting as if she hadn’t heard. “Of course, none of that matters, because you didn’t follow procedure. Instead, you killed a guard and blew your cover.”
“No one knew I was the one who helped Felix.”
“That wouldn’t have lasted. FARC had a traitor in their camp, and they’d have found you. We both know that, and frankly, losing the opportunity to retrieve Claire pisses me off enough. Do you see my point, Ms. Torres?”
Ms. Torres. Eva almost cringed. Her mistakes sounded bad when spoken aloud. Worse in front of Quinn. “Why is he here?” she asked, pointing a thumb at him.
“Because I have better things to do than babysit you. He will be handling your assignment,” Temperance replied, her words clipped. “You want to complain, talk to your boss.”
Eva snatched the paper off the desk but stopped herself before she wadded it into a ball and tossed it at the man next to her. For all she knew, this was a test of her reaction to stress. If it was, she was failing.
With careful deliberation, she set the paper back down and smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle in her black pencil skirt.
The question that nagged her was why did Temperance want Quinn to run this mission? Granted, it wasn’t the first time he’d been in charge of one of her ops, but shouldn’t he be back in South America, telling other agents what to do?
Why was he staying here?
Did the reason matter? The quiet, sensible voice inside her head asked. She had to accept the operation, even though it galled her, or find a new job.
She took a final moment to make sure her long hair was still wound up in its tight French twist. Perfect. Professional. “No complaints,” she said. The words sounded as insincere and snarky as they felt, and moments after she spoke, she wished she’d kept her response to a simple nod.
Temperance’s cheeks flared red. She rounded the desk and loomed over Eva. “I don’t care if you feel this assignment is beneath you. I don’t care if you are embarrassed that you screwed up. You should be embarrassed.”
Eva fought to keep her voice under control. To not scream the words. “He would have died.”
“He would have lived. You would have made sure of it. That’s your job. And you would still be in Colombia, and Claire Akers wouldn’t be left waiting while we started over with a new operative.”
Tempe was wrong. She wasn’t there. Hadn’t seen the hopelessness in Felix’s eyes. “I couldn’t let him stay there until HRS decided to set up another extraction, Tempe.”
“That was not your decision to make, and you do not get to call me ‘Tempe’ today,” her boss snapped. “Under the circumstances, that’s Ms. Smith to you.” She fixed her icy stare on Quinn. “Deal with her,” she said and stormed from the room.
As soon as the door shut, Quinn attacked. “Couldn’t take it with a smile and a thank you, could you?”
“And I’m sure you said, ‘Thank you very much. May I have another?’ when she said you had to babysit me.”
His face darkened, and she scored herself a mental point.
“You should have trusted me,” he shot back.
Trust? She almost laughed at the idea. “Trust you to do what’s best for me? I think we tried that one already.”
He flinched as he realized she wasn’t talking about the job anymore. No, she was talking about them. About how she’d told him that she was falling in love with him, and he’d ended it, telling her that it was for her own good.
He hadn’t called their relationship a fling, but in the end, he treated it as such.
A part of her hated him for that. For taking what she felt and throwing it away. “We all know what matters to you,” she said, driving the point home.
His cheeks brightened. Two against zero, she tallied in her head.
“One has nothing to do with the other,” he said, recovering.
“You’re asking me to trust you,” she said. “I’m simply pointing out that you have a sketchy track record.”
“I came to Colombia for you.”
“Why?” She pushed for the truth that he seemed unable to admit. Quinn was an enigma and his reasons unknown, but she was sure of one thing—whatever he did was to further his own career and had nothing to do with protecting her.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he reached over and took her hand in his, the warmth of his touch seeping into her skin.
She swallowed hard, staring as her fingers curled around his of their own accord. God help her, she knew she should resist, but she’d been unable to defy his tenderness when they’d been a couple, and she was as powerless now.
She blinked, and in that moment of darkness, she found herself remembering the way he kissed the back of her neck. Stroked her bare skin. Reached for her in the dark, taking his time to make her feel as if she were important.
And how he left her because his job mattered more than anything she might have to offer.
Her eyes snapped open, and she yanked her hand from his, folding her arms across her chest.
He looked away. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” His voice sounded husky, as if the mere act of saying the words hurt.
“If it makes you feel better, the pain was fleeting,” she replied, hating her need for revenge. But it was all she had when the truth was that she’d spent weeks crying over him. Missing him. Missing them.
Their breathing filled the silence that spanned the space between them, and when he faced her, there was no ache in his eyes. Not a single shred of wounded pride. Just the job and his part in it.
She felt like a fool. That was what she got for wallowing in her emotions—something Quinn himself had taught her was foolish and dangerous. Best to stick to the mission. To the job.
“Trust in anything or anyone was never a factor,” she said, guiding the conversation back to work before it got any more sidetracked by the past. “Get me an assignment that means something. That shows what I am capable of.”
His mouth pressed tight. “It’s this or nothing. Besides, Felix asked for you specifically. Apparently, you’re the only one he trusts.”
She knew that tone. It was the same one he’d used when he’d left her, and it broached no argument. She
’d survived his leaving. She’d survive this, too.
Retrieving the assignment letter from the desktop, she folded into quarters and tucked it in her suit pocket. “Why are we leaving tomorrow? Shouldn’t he stay in the hospital a few days? Don’t want him dying now, do we? We could lose money,” she said, unable to keep the sarcasm from her voice.
He rolled his eyes at the comment, then leaned back, and the chair squealed beneath his weight. “He wants to see his daughter, and he’ll be fine, since you’re going monitor him every step of the way. You’ll have a set of checkpoints. When you reach them, you call me, and I can use the locator to make sure both you and Felix are where you’re supposed to be.”
Did they think she was that stupid? “What? No leash and collar?”
He refused to take the bait. “It’s a test.”
“It’s an insult.”
He shrugged, not bothering to disagree. “Get it over with, and I’m sure your next assignment will be more exciting. Possibly even involve gunfire.”
She smiled at the joke, but then she remembered that this was punishment and that in the end, Quinn held her career in his hands. She scooped the file from the desk and rose. “Promise?”
Chapter Three
Eva ran a fingertip along the fabric of the Gulfstream seat and stretched out her jean-clad legs. HRS’s private corporate jet could hold up to eight passengers, but at the moment, there was only herself, Felix, and two pilots. A quiet, uneventful flight—like Quinn had ordered.
Jerk.
She consoled herself with a reminder that once Felix was reunited with his daughter, she’d head back out into the not-so-quiet field.
“Are you sure Pauline will be excited to see me?” Felix asked, interrupting Eva’s thoughts. “We parted on such bad terms.”
Facing each other with a small table between them, they’d had more than a few hours to chat. Still frail from his ordeal, he wore slacks and a loose, beige shirt that covered the scars from the beatings received at the hands of the FARC guards. And there was an emotional fragility that didn’t surprise her. He’s been caged and brutalized. Anything less than brittle would be shocking.
Risking It All for Her Boss: A Heroes for Hire novel (Entangled Ignite) Page 3