by Susan Sey
Bernard leaned back in his seat thoughtfully. “I imagined you would,” he said. “Speak.”
She stood at rigid attention, her golden hair smooth as rain, her profile a study in outrage, and she began to do just that.
FURY BUZZED in her ears like a swarm of killer bees and Liz sucked in a breath through her nose, trying to grasp the threads of her previous calm. She should have expected this, she told herself. This was Patrick O’Connor she was dealing with, after all, not some junkie snitch. She should have seen the power grab coming a mile away.
But she hadn’t. She’d been blindsided by him, by the meeting, by the request. And why? Because on some stupid, unconscious level, she’d already given him a measure of trust.
Self-disgust dripped cold and slippery into her gut but she focused on the anger. On the bright, cleansing purity of her rage.
She said, “Mr. O’Connor has been a valuable source in the past but has also proven himself willing and able to break the law for little more than entertainment. Raising him to the level of private consultant gives him access to privileged and confidential information on the counterfeiting process that would be dangerous in the hands of a common criminal. In O’Connor’s, it could be devastating.”
Bernard turned his gaze to Patrick, who sat neatly in his uncomfortable chair. Just like the meek and upstanding citizen he pretended to be, Liz thought in disgust. “How long have you been, ah, reformed now, Mr. O’Connor?” he asked.
“Six years, I believe,” Patrick said. “I’ve been determined to use the second chance Agent Brynn afforded me to build a legitimate career. I felt I owed her that much.”
Liz folded her lips down tight and ignored him, directing her words instead to Bernard. “That sounds good, I know, but you have to understand. Nothing is sacred to this man. Not loyalty, not the law, not justice and certainly not a debt to me. He has no moral center, and if you remove my authority over him, he has no motivation to cooperate within the confines of the law as interpreted by the FBI and the Secret Service.”
“Mr. O’Connor?” Bernard turned to him, one brow lifted, waiting for his response.
“The record also shows that I have a long-standing and well-documented desire to see my sister safe from harm, one that’s prompted me to cooperate readily with FBI demands over the past six years. At great personal cost, if I may be so bold. At this point, I believe the FBI owes me the courtesy of acknowledging that. My participation in this case hinges on it, in fact.”
Her breath died in her throat, evaporated by the heat of her fury as the balance of power tipped his way again. She glared at Patrick, who simply looked back at her, one eyebrow cocked while those pale eyes of his laughed. A bolt of white-hot fury lanced through her, bubbled up and erupted.
“I won’t allow this,” she said, her words clipped and controlled, the terrible desire to inflict injury where she herself was bleeding giving her a cold focus. “I’ve worked my entire life for this badge. I paid for it with my own sweat and blood. I earned it and I honor it. Accepting Patrick O’Connor as my equal diminishes not only my badge, but everything I’ve worked for.” She watched him rather than SAC Bernard as her words dropped into the still, tense air of the office, had the bitter pleasure of seeing that perfect face go smooth and remote.
“Your objection is noted,” Bernard said. “And overruled. As of today, Patrick O’Connor will be accorded the status of an independent consultant to the FBI and will be compensated with hourly wages accorded to such. He will also be expected to sign an agreement as to his knowledge of the moral and ethical responsibilities of such a position and the penalties involved in violating any of them.” The look he gave Patrick was hard and penetrating. Liz watched through a haze of fury as Patrick nodded his understanding humbly. “Now get to work.”
TWO HOURS, one punishing run and a cool shower later, Liz was ready to admit that she owed Patrick an apology. She didn’t like it and she certainly wasn’t looking forward to it, but she hadn’t ever lied to herself and didn’t plan to start now. Keeping whatever twisted tendencies she had leftover from childhood in check required a brutal, uncomfortable honesty. About everything.
So she felt more for Patrick O’Connor than she wanted to. Okay, fine. She admitted it. Some women, she knew, would simply have told themselves that they weren’t attracted, that there was no admiration there, no warmth, no . . . friendship, or kinship, or whatever you wanted to call that weird and electric connection to him that struck her on occasion like a lightning bolt from a clear blue sky. But because she couldn’t control what she didn’t acknowledge, she made herself acknowledge it. It was there. Fine.
But she hadn’t been in control today. He’d pushed her buttons and she’d given him what must have been a very satisfying show. And as a result, she’d said things that should never have seen the light of day, much less been splattered all over her boss’s office.
Not that she had a problem with the content of her little tirade. If pressed, she’d stand behind it, one hundred percent. Her boss had just put a man who treated the law like a minor inconvenience on equal footing with two women who’d devoted their entire professional careers to protecting the general public from men exactly like him. And that wasn’t right.
But the fact was that Patrick was helping her. Whatever his motivations, he was doing her and her agency a favor. Taking a few shots at Liz along the way was probably just a little bonus in his mind. If she’d been thinking straight, she’d have seen that.
But she hadn’t been thinking. She’d been feeling to the exclusion of all else, and she’d let an old fear take control. And though the FBI field agent’s manual didn’t cover personal manners, Liz knew better than to believe that blabbing her private opinion of another person’s character in front of not only that person but a room full of interested spectators qualified as exemplary conduct. Not even if the words were true.
She stuffed her running clothes into the hamper and buttoned herself into her sternest black suit, gave her hair one last swipe with the brush and slipped back into her sturdy leather flats. She didn’t bother with makeup, wouldn’t allow herself the girly pleasure. She’d face Patrick O’Connor, king of the beautiful people, with the face God gave her. Maybe Agent di Guzman would be with him so Liz could suffer by comparison. Let it be a penance of sorts.
She took a deep, calming breath, flipped open her cell phone and dialed his number. “Patrick?” She turned away from the mirror over her dresser. She didn’t want to watch herself do this. “It’s Liz. Where are you? We need to talk.”
Chapter 6
“IT’S ALL in the paper,” Agent di Guzman was saying. Her lipstick left a lush red imprint on the china coffee cup she sipped from and Patrick enjoyed the sight. It was so essentially female. “You get the right paper, you’re more than halfway to a good fake bill. Two sheets, smooth application of adhesive—one motion, you see?” She swept her hand through a smooth and delicate arc. “Press them together, and you’re there.”
Patrick gave her an answering smile that stayed carefully shy of the invitation he saw in hers. “You make it sound so simple.”
She shrugged. “It is. But there’s an art to it as well. Counterfeiting isn’t for dummies.”
“I didn’t imagine it was,” Patrick murmured, then watched as Liz stepped through the doors of his sister’s restaurant and spotted them. He’d been expecting her, of course. She’d called to say she was coming, and he’d been appropriately cool and noncommittal. He’d heard quite enough of her opinion of him today and had very little interest in a private replay of her public declaration.
He glanced over at di Guzman. They were seated at a café table in a cozy corner, beside rather than across from each other as di Guzman had about as much interest in putting her back to the door as he did. He watched her well-shaped brows elevate at the way Liz scanned the room, spotted her target and locked in on it. On him.
“Oh, my,” Maria said. “She’s . . . direct, isn’t she?”
Amusement curved her coral lips, and her air of casual invitation melted into something more like understanding. “You’d pick another?”
He lifted his shoulders at the flicker of compassion he saw in her dark eyes. “She’s honest,” he said. “Terrifyingly so.”
“That’s what I’ve heard,” Maria said. “Passionate, too. Dedicated. More committed to her convictions than her reputation.” She patted his knee under the table, but it was brisk rather than suggestive. “Looks like you two are going to go a round or two.”
Patrick sipped his lukewarm coffee. “Looks like.”
“I’ll let you get at it, then.” She rose just as Liz arrived at the edge of their table. “I need to lay in some supplies before we get started with Counterfeiting 101,” she said when neither of them spoke. “I should be ready in, say, an hour? Why don’t we meet at the Rapid Copy on Barrel Street, and I’ll run you through the basics.”
“Fine.” Liz looked like a small, blond thunder cloud.
“Sure,” Patrick said, unable to resist giving di Guzman another slow, warm smile. It warmed another several degrees when she bent to retrieve her briefcase and rolled her eyes at him where Liz couldn’t see. Patrick made a point of watching her saunter to the door. Liz remained standing.
“I need to speak with you,” she said, her voice as stony as her face. “In private.”
Patrick lifted his coffee. “Mind if I ask why?”
She looked like a woman about to swallow bleach. “I want to apologize.”
The cup froze halfway to Patrick’s lips. He set it back down with a tiny, startled chink. “Excuse me?”
“Apologize.” Liz gritted the word through her teeth. “You’re familiar with the concept?”
“In connection with you? Not precisely.”
She sighed and some of the starch left her spine. “Listen, you deserve to be mad at me. I was a raving bitch to you earlier, and you have every right to be pissed. But I’m going to apologize, and I’d consider it a personal favor if you didn’t make me do it in front of all these people.”
She waited a beat. Patrick just studied her.
“Well?” she asked.
“I’m thinking.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” she snapped.
“All right, all right,” he said, pushing away from the table and taking her elbow. “Let’s use one of the meeting rooms on the third floor. I hope you’re planning to make this worth my while.”
She glared at him, but he just ushered her politely to the stairwell.
Patrick picked a meeting room at random and waved Liz in ahead of him. No excuse for bad manners, after all. A long conference table filled the room, polished to a high gloss and surrounded by square chairs and dreamy water-colors. Liz stalked in, ignoring the chairs in favor of pacing the carpet like a caged animal. Patrick selected a seat at the head of the table for himself—the seat of authority. He figured that when Liz finally finished debasing herself by apologizing to a known felon, she’d be good and pissed to find she then had to sit at his elbow like a supplicant.
He considered her for a moment, this fierce little woman the universe kept flinging at his head. She was like an avenging angel, raging through the world with her ruthless sword, cutting down the guilty with a certainty that Patrick envied with all his heart.
She’d slapped at him today but had done so with nothing more than the truth, and he found his anger fading with each turn she took around the long room. Maybe he should let her off the hook, he thought. What more fitting way to pay for his sins than to willingly accept her judgment of him? He didn’t disagree, after all. But his pride wouldn’t allow it.
He could accept her leash, her authority. He had in the past. He’d protected her, helped her, wanted her, knowing the whole while that she simply endured him. But he hadn’t known that she’d felt stained by his very presence, and he’d been unexpectedly hurt to find out. But he’d be damned to hell and back before he’d let her see that. So he kept his mouth shut and let her pace.
Finally, she swung around and faced him from the far end of the room. Without twitching a muscle, Patrick braced himself for more of the truth, disguised as apology.
She opened her mouth, shut it again, then sighed. She shook her head and walked back to him. She ignored the subservient seat at his elbow, instead leaning back against the edge of the table next to his knees, her arms banded over her stomach.
“I said some ugly things to you today,” she said, her gaze direct and very, very blue. “I had no cause to say them, not in private, and certainly not in front of others. I apologize.”
Her eyes had always been a problem for him. The color of bruised forget-me-nots, they should have been limpid pools of innocence, but they weren’t. At first glance, she was all blond sweetness, but Patrick saw more. He saw the knowledge, the awareness, the darkness that swirled around in the depths, and he’d always wondered what had put it there. He’d never asked. He wouldn’t now.
“You believed it,” he said with a shrug. “Why shouldn’t you say it?”
“Truth isn’t always synonymous with right.”
“Sometimes it is. For example, this suit is just an insult to your figure. Why do you tolerate it?”
“My clothes are fine,” she said, rolling her eyes. “For the work I do.”
“If you’re undercover as a small-town sheriff with an allergy to natural fibers, sure.” He reached out to finger the fabric of her lapel. “But I thought we closed that particular case three years ago.”
She slapped his hand away with an automatic motion that nearly had him smiling at her again.
“I closed it,” she said. “No thanks to you.”
He smiled at her. “Then why are you still wearing this . . . thing?”
She glared at him. “Can we please get back to the subject at hand?”
“By all means.” He leaned back and stretched out his legs. “Just trying to help.”
“I know.”
He blinked. “You do?”
“Sure. I mean, any idiot can see that you really buy into this whole better-living-through-fashion thing. And I get that. I don’t understand it, but I get it. You think nice clothes equal happiness and you think I could be happier.”
“A lot happier.”
She ignored that. “My behavior today wasn’t nearly as well intentioned.”
“No?”
“No.” She looked so miserable that Patrick wanted to wrap her up in his arms and soothe her in spite of himself. But he didn’t. She wouldn’t appreciate the gesture, and he wasn’t looking for another insult to his raw ego this afternoon. “I wanted to hurt you.”
“Liz. Darling. Whatever for?” He injected just the right note of lazy amusement into the question.
“You know damn well what for,” she snapped. “I’ve worked my ass off for my badge. It means something, to me and to everybody I admire. And to you it means nothing. Less than. How can you be my equal behind it, under it?”
“I can’t,” Patrick said flatly. “God knows I don’t want to be.”
“Then why the hell did you ask to be?” The words exploded out of her with a gratifying lack of control. Another little push, Patrick thought, and he might finally see behind that damn badge of hers. He knew he shouldn’t, knew she was balancing on an unfamiliar edge, but God help him, he desperately wanted to see her. The real her.
“Why are you here, Liz?” He slouched down in his seat and shot her a lazy smirk.
“To apologize,” she said. Through her teeth.
Patrick laughed softly. “Are you? Or are you just worried that I’m going to take my ball and go home?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, though he suspected she knew quite well.
“Come on, Liz. We’re all grown-ups here. We’ve been pretty honest so far today, let’s just keep it rolling. You spoke the truth as you see it; don’t back off it now. You’re a badge, I’m a
criminal. You’re the handler, I’m the weasel. You’ll tolerate me in the name of justice, but at your discretion and on your terms. But I’m Joe Average now, at least in the eyes of the law, and that changes things between us. Levels them out a bit.” He leaned toward her on one elbow, propped his chin in his hand and considered her with narrowed eyes. “I’d give good odds that you thought long and hard after our little meeting today. Came up against the bitter truth.”
Liz held his gaze, unflinching. “And that would be?”
He rose slowly, flattened one hand on the table to the left of her hip and leaned in. He was close now, close enough to catch the scent of her rising with the heat of her skin. “I’m not your lapdog anymore, Liz,” he said, his mouth a breath away from the lovely pink shell of her ear.
“I never thought you were a lapdog,” she said. Her voice was wary, but Patrick noticed that she didn’t move away from him. Fear and courage, certainty and doubt. She was such a paradox, his fierce little angel.
“Liz. Darling.” He drew back just far enough to look into those wide, troubled eyes. “You’re a wretched liar. But it hardly matters. I’m not pulling out of the investigation.”
She stared at him, suspicious. “Why not? I was horrible to you today.”
“Fate, I suppose,” he said, and turned to hitch a companionable hip onto the table beside her.
“Fate?” She frowned up at him.
“Mmmm,” he said, pleasing himself by flicking at one of the tasteful gold hoops in her ear. “Fate. That’s why I went to work for you in the first place all those years ago.”
“I thought you were trying to spring your sister.”
“That too.” He smiled at her. “But nothing in life is free, is it, Liz? The universe demands balance, and even thieves have to pay sometime. When you dropped into my life, I figured my bill had finally come due. So I paid. For years. But fate’s still throwing you in my path, Liz, and I have to wonder why.”
“Fate doesn’t throw me anywhere.” She screwed that curvy mouth of hers into a humorless line. “I make my own decisions and I decided a long time ago that fate’s nothing but a handy place to put the blame when you don’t like your life.”