The Fifth Doctrine: The Guardian Series Book 3

by Karen Robards

  Bianca narrowed her eyes warningly at Doc, who stood a few feet away in the reception area while she was still inside her office. Empty-handed now, he looked back at her with transparent horror. Everything from his twitching fingers to his too-rapid blinking betrayed his consternation.

  “Did you get the Lifson proposal finished?” she asked, referring to the cybersecurity recommendations they were drawing up for Lifson Industries.

  Doc took a deep breath. She could almost see the mental shift required for him to think about work. “Yes.”

  “Good. I need you to print it out and hand-carry it over to their office.” Her tone was brisk, no-nonsense: the verbal equivalent of a shock-busting slap in the face.

  “I was going to email it.”

  “Do both. Now. I want the hard copy in their hands by five.”

  “Now?” He looked aghast.

  “Now. Don Lifson is heading for the Middle East tonight and he’s afraid he won’t have a reliable internet connection for the next week or so. We’re going to make approving this proposal easy for him.” That Lifson had concerns about internet connectivity was true—he’d told her so in a phone call earlier, adding that for that reason it would probably be a couple of weeks at the soonest before he could get back to her about the proposal—but the idea of taking him over a hard copy was brand-new as of this minute, meant to get Doc out of there.

  Tell the truth until you can’t: it was one of the rules she’d been raised to live by. Just like don’t get close. If she’d followed that one, she wouldn’t be worried about Evie or Doc or anyone else right now, because she wouldn’t have let them matter to her. No emotional connections equaled one more layer of safety.

  Because sooner or later the people you cared about became your Achilles’ heel.

  And you became their funeral.

  “Boss—” Doc’s reluctance to obey was obvious in his tone, his face and every rigid line of his less-than-rigid body.

  The look Bianca gave him shut him up. Her unspoken message: Go. I’ll deal with this. Doc protested with a violent screwing up of his face: No way. Bianca’s brows snapped together: Get out of here. I mean it.

  Doc looked distressed. Bianca gave him one last speaking glare—do as you’re told—and closed her office door in his face.

  “Alone at last,” Colin said as the solid wood panel settled into its frame with a whoosh and a click. The sardonic undertone to his voice made Bianca’s grip on the knob tighten. Her office was large and appeared even more so because of the uncluttered nature of the contemporary decor, but she had the sudden unpleasant sensation that the walls were closing in.

  Turning to face him, she wrapped her fingers around the smooth, cool Lucite of the circular pendant that hung from her neck. It might look like an ordinary piece of jewelry, but its centerpiece was a gleaming silver throwing star. All she had to do to take Colin out now, this minute, was pop it free and hurl it at his throat.

  Then what? Watch him bleed out on her polished marble floor?

  Her lips compressed.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “You don’t call, you don’t write …”

  His tone might be light, but his eyes were watchful as they met hers. For all his casual perch on the edge of her desk, she could sense the tension in his body, his readiness to react. Well, he knew her. Knew something of what she was capable of. Would be prepared for whatever she might be getting ready to throw (literally) at him.

  Wait. Her hand dropped away from the pendant.

  “Funny,” she said.

  “You know, if you’re not careful you’re going to make me think you’re not happy to see me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Now that just hurts my feelings.”

  “How to put this? Boo-hoo.”

  He smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “For the record, I’m not a big fan of being roofied.”

  “Really? ’Cause I’m not a big fan of being stalked.”

  “Beautiful, what you’re not a big fan of is being found.”

  Their eyes locked. The reluctant attraction that had blazed between them from the first was there in that exchange of hard stares, along with hostility and suspicion and a whole host of other less-than-positive emotions. Bianca felt a tightness in her chest. Once, she’d thought they might have the potential to be something special to each other. She’d even thought they might be falling in lo-o-ove. Much as she hated to admit it, for one brief, shining (delusional) moment, visions of hearts and flowers and rainbows and unicorns had danced in her head when she looked at him. Then he’d handcuffed her to a boat rail, she’d retaliated by throwing him overboard, and the rest, as they say, was history. Discovering what she was had, for her, put a permanent end to any thought that happily-ever-after—falling in love, marriage, children, the whole white-picket-fence nine yards—was ever going to be possible for her. All the normal things that made up the normal life that was all she’d ever wanted were forever out of her reach. Truth was that she was something both more and less than human, and the knowledge scared as well as sickened her. The thought of reproducing, if she even could reproduce, brought a whole host of practical and ethical considerations with it that made her shudder. The thought that a man could love her, knowing the truth—well, she would never give anyone that chance. She might not like what she was—okay, she hated it—but facts were facts, however painful. Now what needed to be, and was, in her mind when she looked at Colin came down to Is he my enemy? Followed by Am I going to have to kill him?

  If she wished things were different, well, if wishes were horses …

  Her voice was stony as she said, “I repeat, what are you doing here?”

  “Vacation?”

  He’d given that ridiculous excuse for showing up in an unexpected place before. She hadn’t liked it any better then.

  She made an impatient sound. “How about you cut the crap and—”

  A tap at the door interrupted them.

  “Bee?” Evie called. “Could you open the door? My hands are full.”

  “Saved by the cookies,” Colin murmured.

  The look she shot him should have fried his eyeballs. Without replying, she opened the door.

  “I canceled Triad Services,” Evie said as she entered. She was carrying a large silver tray on which rested two steaming mugs of coffee and a plate with a selection of cookies.

  “Thanks.” Bianca body-blocked her from walking farther into the room even as a swift glance around the reception area revealed that Doc was nowhere in sight. The sound of the printer whirring in his office told her that he was presumably doing as directed and printing out the Lifson proposal.

  One problem on its way to being solved. Next item on the agenda: get rid of Evie.

  “I’ll take care of this.” She took the tray from Evie, who, clearly curious about her relationship with Guardian Consulting’s newest prospective client, frowned at her. Ordinarily, by this time Bianca would have had the client sitting on the black leather couch against the wall while she occupied the matching adjacent chair. Evie had served refreshments on the glass-and-steel coffee table in front of that couch countless times. The number of times Bianca had met her at the door, taken the tray and kept Evie out of the room? Zero. Bianca avoided the unspoken question in Evie’s eyes by the simple expedient of looking down at the tray. Under better circumstances, she would have found the sight, to say nothing of the smells, of hot coffee and buttercream icing alluring. These were not better circumstances.

  Evie said, “Hay called. He said he’s running late and will meet us at the restaurant.”

  “Good,” Bianca replied. She’d been worried about the possibility of Hay showing up at an inopportune moment. He would have been one more noncombatant to be gotten out of the way, and Hay, where she and Evie were concerned, tended to be a tad overprotective. At her tone, Evie’s eyes sharpened on her face. Bianca gave herself a mental kick for sounding relieved. “Listen, I need you to run over to
Celine’s—” the florist-cum-gift shop in charge of decorations, etc., for that night’s dinner “—and check out the gift bags for tonight. Make sure that they all have our discount card in them, and that the miniature paintings of the client’s buildings are actually of their buildings, and—”

  “You don’t trust Janelle Nash to see to that?” Janelle Nash was Celine’s general manager. Having used her for many a party, Evie swore by her.

  “It’s Friday the thirteenth, remember? Anything can go wrong. I want you to go over there and make sure nothing does. Those gift bags are important.” Bianca tried not to let it bother her as Colin, having abandoned the desk, loomed beside her to pick up an iced Santa Claus from the plate. Having him standing so close made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. Attacks worked both ways, and she knew full well how good at martial arts he was. While she didn’t expect him to make any immediate violent moves in her direction, her internal warning system clearly was not convinced. Besides, his proximity made taking him out that much more difficult if she decided to do it. A throwing star to the throat was far more impersonal, and thus doable, than, say, a palm heel strike to the nose. Ignoring him as best she could, she focused on Evie. “That’s the kind of detail that can make or break a business.”

  Evie’s answering look said, Seriously? “Since when have you been superstitious?”

  “Evie, just do it.”

  “This looks delicious,” Colin said, referring to the cookie he was holding. The blandness of his tone told Bianca that he’d found her exchange with Evie entertaining.

  “You should try the coffee,” Evie urged, smiling at him. Bianca knew that smile: it meant she liked him.

  Probably now was a good time to remind herself that Evie had really lousy instincts when it came to men.

  “I will,” Colin promised. His long fingers curled around the handle of a mug as he picked it up. A tactical mistake, Bianca judged: a cookie was one thing, but holding a full cup of coffee would definitely slow him down. He would be aware of that, though. Since she was all but certain that hurling hot coffee at her wasn’t his style, that meant he had no intention of launching anything physical in her direction for at least the next few minutes.

  Good to know.

  Also, a good time for her to attack?

  “Why don’t you go ahead and take off for Celine’s,” Bianca said to Evie. “It’s Friday, and the traffic will be horrendous. And once you’re done there, you don’t need to come back. I’ll meet you at the restaurant at seven.”

  “But—” Evie’s gaze moved from Bianca to Colin. A speculative look came into her eyes. Bianca could read the exact moment when she decided that she knew what was going on, and the exact thought that came into her head: Oh my goodness, they want to be alone.

  Controlling an impulse to grimace, Bianca confirmed that with a barely-there wrinkle of her nose when Evie, face alight with interest, met her eyes again.

  “Okay,” Evie chirped, and said to Colin, “It was a pleasure meeting you.”

  “The pleasure’s all mine.”

  “Lock up behind you,” Bianca called after her as, with a final knowing look thrown her way, Evie exited. The last thing she needed to be worrying about was any reinforcements of Colin’s entering the premises before she’d finished dealing with him. Having Evie lock up would slow that down, at least. “Oh, and make sure Doc’s out the door before you leave, would you, please?”

  “Will do.”

  There was a note in Evie’s voice that told Bianca she was picturing a little Afternoon Delight between her friend and the hunky newcomer once they were alone.

  Which was way better than having Evie suspect that a death match was potentially in the offing.

  4

  Nudging her office door closed with a foot, Bianca turned to find Colin standing right behind her. He was so close she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. His nearness triggered an immediate frisson of physical awareness: on some deep, visceral level, she realized, she had not quite let go of the connection between them. And she always tended to forget how much bigger than she he was.

  Yeah, well, the point to focus on here was, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

  “Nice woman,” he said. Now that they were alone, he seemed to take up way more than his fair share of space. She supposed it was because she was hyperaware of him.

  “Yes, she is.” Having her hands full of tray was a tactical disadvantage, but on the other hand, it provided an excellent excuse for her to put distance between them without advertising that that was what she was doing. Skirting him, she headed for the coffee table.

  “She a secret ninja, too?” It was a gibe.

  Bianca’s brows snapped together. “No. She’s just the receptionist. She knows nothing about anything.”

  “Glad to hear it. Unless that whole ‘with child’ thing she’s got going on is a sham. In that case, hats off to whoever came up with it. It’s a solid defensive tactic, I must admit.”

  “Trust me, Evie’s really pregnant.” Reaching the coffee table, she set the tray down and turned to face him.

  He was watching her. “Beautiful, where you’re concerned I’ve learned not to trust anything.”

  The security monitor on the wall beeped, letting her know that the outer office door had been locked and the alarm activated. She shot a glance in its direction, then looked back at Colin. With Evie and Doc both out of the way and her hands once again free and his full, she wasn’t likely to get a better chance.

  Carpe diem.

  Maybe it would be better to first find out everything she could about the situation.

  “Who else knows about me? My name, and that I’m here in Savannah?” Her throat felt almost as tight as her chest. Her voice had a certain raspy quality as a result. Her fingers started to stray toward her pendant, but she caught herself in time and redirected the movement into tucking a strand of hair behind her ear instead. She didn’t want to focus his attention on the pendant. She didn’t want him to realize what it was, unless and until it was time to use it.

  If his answer was no one else, the smartest thing she could do was kill him now, before he had a chance to share her whereabouts with the dark forces that wanted her dead. The question was, would killing him be enough to keep herself safe? Or was it already too late?

  “Legions.” He was no longer looking at her. Instead, he turned his cookie this way and that, examining it.

  She made an impatient sound. “I’m serious.”

  “So am I.”

  “Durand? Does Durand know?” Laurent Durand was a high-level Interpol official. He’d been hunting Mason Thayer for years, basically playing Captain Ahab to Mason’s great white whale. Colin had been working for Durand and hunting Mason, too, at Durand’s behest, when they’d met. Mason was the world-class thief and con man who’d raised her to be his partner in crime, the man she’d spent her whole life thinking was her father, Richard St. Ives, only to discover in the last few weeks that he was not—that he was, in fact, Mason Thayer, a former elite CIA assassin whose original mission had been to find and kill her and her mother before, for whatever murky reason, he’d experienced a change of heart and informally adopted her. The man who had recently both betrayed and semi (“semi” because his effort had been minimal and could have gone badly wrong, which would have left her dead) saved her.

  The man whom she had loved as her father for her whole life, until she’d found out under the most brutal circumstances possible that he was not. The man who hadn’t killed her, whom she now trusted about as much as she trusted that she would live to be a hundred. Her feelings for him were a jumbled knot of confusion and pain. Her discovery of the truth about him, about herself, about her whole life, had knocked her world off its axis.

  She was still recovering.

  Colin said, “If I said no, would you believe me?”

  She would not. She—

  Watching him, she lost her train of thought.

  He was
sniffing his coffee. Suspiciously.

  The significance of that, coupled with the way he’d examined his cookie, burst upon her. Apparently the way they’d parted in Moscow had left a lasting impression on him.

  She folded her arms over her chest. “Oh, for God’s sake. The coffee’s not drugged. Neither is the cookie.”

  He shrugged and shot a look at her. “Fool me once—”

  “What, do you think I keep drugged refreshments on hand for chance visitors?”

  “I must admit, the thought crossed my mind.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  “Forgive me if I choose not to chance it.”

  He set the mug and the cookie down on a corner of her desk.

  Leaving his hands free. So much for her strategic advantage.

  “Your loss,” she said, nettled. “They’re really good cookies.”

  To illustrate, she picked up a Santa cookie identical to the one he’d rejected. Holding his gaze, she took a large bite and mimicked savoring the crumbly sweetness with exaggerated pleasure. “Mmm, yum.”

  He appeared unmoved. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  Swallowing, she shot him an unfriendly look as she discarded the rest of the cookie. She really wasn’t in the mood for crumbly sweetness.

  “Mason’s not anywhere in Savannah, if that’s why you’re here. And other than that, I have no idea where he is. Not that I’d tell you if I did.” Colin had been trying to use her to get to Mason since they’d met. As ambivalent as she felt toward her former presumed father at the moment, she still wasn’t about to aid in his capture. As she spoke, her hand found her pendant, curled around it. It would be so easy…

  His eyes followed the movement, narrowed. “I’m not here for Thayer. I’m here for you.”

  A beat passed in which the world seemed to stand still. “At least you’re honest.”

  “Unlike some people, I try to be. When I can.”

  “So what’s the plan? You can’t arrest me. You’re a civilian contractor with no power to do anything except call the cops, or the feds. If you were going to do that, you would already have done it. My guess is that you don’t want anybody official to know you’re here. And if you think you can pull off some kind of rendition and hijack me away somewhere by force, or you’re planning anything else violent, well, good luck with that.”