I find another listening device, though. Not big. Not thick. Just a small, hard circle stuck in one corner behind the lining that tells me that nothing I say is safe, no matter how many bugs I remove from my room. Shit. I leave it there, so they won’t know that I know it’s there.
But now, I feel more trapped than ever.
I have to get out. It doesn’t matter that I’ve got an hour before I meet my next contact. The room is stifling and unbearable at the moment, and I just want to get away. I grab the bag and check my wallet. It’s got money in it because I am meeting these men at cafés and restaurants and other public places.
I’ll go to one by myself. It won’t matter because they can hear everything I say, right? A mirthless laugh escapes my throat, choked back by a sob. I want to fling the purse away from me and leave this place.
But since I can’t . . . I’ll just run from the hotel room instead.
• • •
Five minutes later, I’m walking down one of the busy Miraflores streets, looking desperately for a warm, friendly place to go. The district is pretty, but it’s also busy. With my halting, barely remembered high school Spanish, I’ve been able to navigate the area. I’m getting fairly good at miming things such as eat, money, and where’s the potty room?
I pass a café that looks too crowded to be comforting and pause by a street vendor with a bright blue umbrella over his fruits and snacks. Maybe . . . maybe I’ll just walk for a bit instead of eating. But Fouquet and Duval are shitty captors and they forget to feed me half the time, and I’m starving.
When I’m not too anxious to eat, that is.
I contemplate a hot churro and pull out my wallet, when a man comes and stands next to me.
There’s a saying that shoe salesmen notice everyone else’s shoes. I guess I notice everyone else’s hands because I’m a hand model. This man has nice hands. He’s got a paper cup of coffee, and the fingers gripping it are long, tapered, but strong. Nice knuckles. His nails are well trimmed, too. The men that I have been meeting have bitten nails, short, jagged. Those are the signs of an anxious person. This man is not anxious.
He’s safe.
He looks over at me, and gives me a dazzling smile. In perfect unaccented English he says, “Need a recommendation?”
An American! I nearly throw myself at him and not simply because of his smile. He’s gorgeous. Thick, black hair, bronzed skin and a grin that could make panties melt from a hundred feet. And he’s standing right next to me? At the worst possible moment of my life? I can’t decide if this is the worst timing in the world or the best. “Just contemplating what I want to do about lunch,” I tell him, my voice breathless. I don’t know if it’s fear or attraction that’s making me all husky and soft-spoken but I don’t care.
I clutch the Louis Vuitton bag under my arm tightly as he leans in. “I know a great place around the corner,” he tells me. “Want company?”
CHAPTER THREE
RAFAEL
She is terrified.
The smile she so desperately tries to project trembles at the corners. And because I’m a sick fuck obsessed with her, I get hard. Granted it’s not because she’s scared witless, but because she’s standing so close I could touch her. If I were her lover, I’d wrap my hand around her waist. I would tug her close, grip her shirt, and tongue her so deep she’d feel it in her toes. And since this is clearly a fantasy, the cars around us would keep moving past, the pedestrians would circle around us like an iceberg in the waters, and life would carry on uninterrupted.
It is only for me that the world would stop.
I shouldn’t be here. I’m interrupting our task but I can’t stand that she’s afraid or that the asshole Fouquet has laid his hands on her.
“Company?” she repeats in an uncertain tone. “I don’t know. I really shouldn’t.” Her soft lips have turned down and worry has crept into her eyes.
And what eyes. They are different colored—one deep brown and one brilliant green. With her pale perfect skin and her unique eyes, she’s stunning to look at. It takes my breath away just to meet her gaze.
“Just for an hour? For a poor, lonely fellow American?” I give her my most winning smile.
Her own is shy, and some of the fear goes away. I’m glad to see that. She glances around weighing safety against her need to escape, her need for company. I worry she’s going to decline, but she looks at me again, then nods. “Got a place in mind?”
I gesture at the café I just came out of. It’s a French-style place but it serves food as well as coffee. As a bonus for Ava, the waiters are bilingual. “This one’s nice and not too noisy.”
She nods and ducks her head, stepping forward to go inside. I notice her grip on her bag is white-knuckled and tight. I move ahead to open the door for her, and she passes me as we go inside.
We grab a table at the back of the place, where it’s quieter. I gesture for one of the waiters to come over and take our order.
She wilts into the chair beside me and pulls the purse into her lap. “Thanks. So you’re American, huh?” She tilts her pretty head and the sun shines down on her makeup-covered bruise. She’s done a good job covering it up but it’s still visible. Under the table my hand clenches into a fist. At some point I’m going to take Fouquet into a private room and beat him until his teeth are falling out and he’s crying for his mother. “What are you doing here in Lima?”
“Visiting family,” I lie. “You?”
She blinks, as if taken aback. Maybe she doesn’t have a lie prepared. “Um, vacation.” Her hands clutch her purse. “Where are you from? Midwest?”
“Arizona.” Does it matter that she knows the truth of where I grew up? It’s not where I live now and I haven’t been back to that town since I left for the army at age eighteen.
“I’m from Ohio. A—I mean, Lucy Wessex.” She holds out her hand, the other clutched to her bag.
“Rafael Mendoza.” I always use my real name. There are those who believe aliases are necessary in this business, but a great deal of my success rests upon the fear that my name raises in the stomachs of my opponents. That fear often buys me precious seconds of hesitation. But it’s clear she’s never heard of me. And why would she? Before she fell into Duval’s grip, she was a model—although none of our research revealed any print or digital ads, unlike that of her roommate, Rose, who walks the runways in Paris, Milan, and New York.
I can’t figure out why anyone would find Ava’s creamy beauty lacking. Maybe Ava’s lush rack and bubble butt prevent her from being the clothes hanger that fashion demands. Whatever the case may be, Ava is starring in all my fantasies now. It’s Ava’s hot ass that I’m palming as I drill into her and it’s her dark hair that I have clenched in my hand as I pillage her body.
“Coffee?” I raise my hand to get the attention of a waiter again but it’s unnecessary.
A dark-haired, skinny man-child appears at her elbow and bends low because he’s been admiring what I can’t stop thinking about. “What would the lady like to drink?”
“Coffee is fine.” She gives him a brief flick of a smile.
“Nothing else?” he queries.
“You should eat,” I say gruffly. She hasn’t eaten much over the last two days. Fouquet is responsible for bringing her things, and other than the purse and one small bag of food, she’s been largely without.
“I’m not hungry,” she says, but an unladylike rumble betrays her.
“We’ll have a charcuterie plate,” I order. I hold up my hands about two feet apart. “A big one. You guys have that, right?”
The waiter scuttles with the order, leaving Ava alone with me.
She bites her plump lip and gives me a hesitant look. “Thanks for the food, but you shouldn’t have done that.”
Is she worried about the money? Duval probably hasn’t given her a dime. “I would’ve ordered it anyway. The serving portions here wouldn’t keep a bird alive.”
She smiles, a quick twist of her lips, as if she know
s that there’s nothing good about her current circumstances but still can’t keep her humor to herself. Every part of my body responds to hers so if she smiles, then I’m smiling, too, even though she’s neck deep in Duval’s plans to auction off information that could put an entire country at his disposal and I’m here to steal that information.
“You look bigger than a bird.”
I suppress the instinct to flex but it’s an effort. She speaks and I want to know how high I should jump and whom I should pound on the way down to make her life easier.
“Hence the big board of food.”
“Can I make a confession?”
Yes, please. Her soft-voiced question strikes me low and, predictably, I react. At least I’m sitting down and the table is covering my growing wood. “Sure.”
“I don’t like Peruvian food.” She grimaces. “I can’t recognize half of it.”
“I’ll eat all the weird-looking shit for you.”
She grins wide and I’m slayed. Holy fucking shit. There’s the smile I knew she was capable of. That smile is enough to power the entire city for one friggin’ night.
“No rain today,” she says lifting her head.
“Yes, it’s beautiful.” We both know I’m not talking about the weather.
She gives me a wry look. “That’s kind of cliché, isn’t it? Something a guy would say to a girl in a Nicholas Sparks movie?”
“I wouldn’t know. Haven’t seen a movie of his but this is Lima. It’s not exactly Paris.”
Her smile turns wistful. “I kind of wish I was in Paris.”
“I’ll take you,” I volunteer immediately. “Say the word and I’ll have you riding the elevator at the Eiffel Tower. You just tell me when.”
Those round cheeks of hers pinken, and it makes her strangely colored eyes even brighter. “Mr. Mendoza—”
“Call me Rafe.”
“Rafe,” she says, and my dick gets hard just the way she rolls my name around on her tongue. “I appreciate the offer but . . . now is really not a good time for me. Personally. Please don’t be offended.”
She’s trying to let me down gently. The look on her face is troubled and sad. And just like that, I go from giddy with lust to sober again. She’s not here for fucking fun. She’s here because she’s in danger and I’m distracting her, like a dick.
I need to get my business concluded. I tug my ball cap down and shift slightly away. I wonder what the keywords are, the secret mission code words to get her to open her purse and show me the sample.
“Why did you say you were in Lima again, Lucy Wessex?” That’s a shit fake name. She doesn’t look anything like a Lucy Wessex, which brings to mind a perky blonde from Connecticut whose daddy runs a hedge fund and whose mom, Muffin, bangs the tennis pro.
“I’m, ah, on vacation.”
“Been to the beach?” I’m picturing her lush figure in a tiny bikini.
“Not yet.” She looks sad. “Been too busy. I do love the beach, though.”
“I’d love to take you.”
She shifts uncomfortably. “Maybe I should go.”
Shit. I’ve been too forward. My hand shoots out to grasp hers. “No,” I practically shout at her. I take a deep breath and then manage to blurt out a few words to make me sound less like a madman. “No, please stay. I’m enjoying the company.”
Her skin feels like silk under mine. I’ll dream about this tonight. It’s not lust that I feel for her. I know what lust is. I’ve felt it every day since my cock hardened as a boy and I spilled into my sheets. This is fever, burning, life-changing mania. I want her more than I have wanted anything in my life. But that want will never be satisfied. I know this and still I linger over her skin. And worse? Worse, she allows it. I withdraw slowly, stealing one more moment of pleasure.
I hear a tiny hitch in her breath as I withdraw, as if she liked my touch, but since I’m a big, scary motherfucker with calluses on my hands, I know I’ve dreamt that sound up. But I pack it away with my other memories. I’ve gotten a good close look at her. I know what she sounds like—husky and warm. I’ve inhaled her clean scent and touched her satin-smooth skin.
It’s not much for other men, but for me? It’s more than enough.
“I have to go somewhere soon,” she admits. Her hand pulls from mine and goes protectively to the purse in her lap. I’ve seen her take that damn thing everywhere, even into the bathroom in her hotel room. It’s clear that’s the information she’s supposed to share. It’s clear I should be thinking about it and how to get it from her.
But all I can think about are her soft hands. “At least stay to help me eat the mammoth pile of food I just ordered.”
Her grin flashes again, and a small chuckle escapes her throat. “Can we eat fast?”
“We will throw down,” I promise. “Like wild animals.”
AVA
Rafael Mendoza is utterly charming. God, I wish I were here in Lima on vacation, like I said. I wish I were a carefree model that could pick up a beautiful man on a street corner and think this could go somewhere.
But I keep thinking about the meeting that’s going to take place shortly. I check my watch. In a half hour, I have to be at an entirely different café, meeting an entirely different man. The man the red folder is for.
I’m a little too fascinated by Rafael Mendoza, though. His manner throws me off. It’s the cagey way he answers my setup questions, like he’s more interested in watching me than what I’m going to say. That should worry me right there, but for some reason, it makes me feel . . . I don’t know. Protected? Maybe it’s because of his hands. It’s those nice fingers, and the calluses on his palms. I actually don’t mind calluses on a man’s hands, because they tell me a lot about a guy. They tell me he’s used to working with his hands. That he’s not afraid of getting dirty. That there aren’t the accompanying rings of dirt under those well-trimmed nails tells me that he’s also fastidious.
He’s also devouring me with his eyes, like watching me is more filling than eating that plate of meats and cheeses in front of us.
He watches me eat a few slices of meat and cheese, and then that grin tugs across his face again as I lick my lips. For a moment he looks rakish and utterly sinful. “Tell me about yourself, Lucy Wessex?”
I’m utterly flustered at that. What can I tell him that is safe? Private? “Oh, I’m pretty boring.”
“I shouldn’t think so.” He nudges the cheese knife at his side toward me.
I blink and look at the charcuterie plate in front of us. I’m eating, wolfing down food, but he’s not touching it. Didn’t he say he was hungry? Why is he not eating? He’s just . . . watching me. Like a hawk. Or a predator.
This is starting to feel like a trap. My heart pounds. “I . . . I think I need to leave.”
Again, his hand touches mine. “Stay. Please.” He gestures at the food. “You’ve hardly touched it.”
My stomach is rumbling, but I’m no longer hungry. There’s something off about this. Something too watchful about Rafael Mendoza. He’s giving me mixed vibes and I don’t know what to think. “I really do need to go.”
“Will I see you here again?” he asks. Again, he nudges the knife toward me.
His question flusters me even more. I shake my head, heft my purse under my arm, and then stand. “I’m leaving for home soon.”
“Be safe,” he tells me. He doesn’t get up. Instead, he picks up a piece of cheese from the plate and eats it, as casual as could be.
I watch him for a moment longer, my head whirling and full of confused thoughts. “Thanks for the food. I really do have to go.”
Then, I rush out the front of the shop and across the street, trying to keep my steps hurried but casual.
I pause to look back once I cross the street, to see if he’s still in the café. The table is empty. I glance around to see if he’s following me, but there is no one near, no one on the street other than a couple laughing and talking in soft voices under a nearby awning.
Rattled and not entirely sure why, I head down the street for the reveal.
• • •
An hour later, the show-and-tell is done and I head back to my hotel room.
I don’t relax until the door is locked and I sit back down on the edge of my bed. I’m trembling. The luxury purse feels like a ball and chain, and I wish to God I could pitch it out the window. I give it an angry toss onto the bed, feeling frustrated and unsettled.
I was so calm when I met the clients. Said my piece. Gave them the information. Sipped my drink. Left.
And yet I meet one handsome stranger in Lima and I’m all rattled. What is it about this guy that throws me off? Is it because, for the first time, I felt like someone actually saw me instead of Rose’s friend? Is it that I’m attracted to him and the timing is incredibly lousy? The thought unsettles me. I can’t afford to be distracted.
He . . . wasn’t after the information, was he? Was he using me to get what I carried? He hadn’t shown interest in the purse, but I don’t trust anyone anymore.
On a whim, I shift on the edge of the bed and open the purse. I pull out the red folder and flip through the sheaves of xeroxed copies inside. Some of them are of receipts. Some are of emails to a government agency. It looks legitimate, but what do I know? There are thin sticky notes highlighting passages that are inane, and the flags are placed at random spots. This one has a sticky flag by a request to purchase a stapler. I guess stapler must be code for something.
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