by Dianna Love
“I didn’t use a condom.”
She waved her fork. “Oh, that. Not a problem. I’m on birth control. Have been for six years even though it was a wasted prescription for the past three. I wouldn’t risk being in situations like the jungle without it.”
The idea that she took birth control because of the chance of being raped sucker punched him. But his brain locked on her not having sex for the past three.
She paused, blinking then looked up at him slowly. “Or are you concerned about disease?”
“I’m clean, but I’ve never done that. Without a condom.”
“But you’re not sure about me?”
Margaux would rant and curse you up one side and down the other, but when it came to anything that touched her true emotions, she kept those locked up tight.
Vulnerability peeked from her gaze, as she waited to be judged lacking.
He stood on the edge of a dangerous cliff.
The wrong answer would shake the foundation of whatever was going on between them. “No, I’m not worried about that with you.”
Her face eased into a picture of contentment.
One that he was going to destroy.
He was destined to keep hurting her and hated every second of it, but when he woke up this morning he had to face that he had no choice but to do what was best for her and his men.
She cleaned the plate, set it aside and started pulling on her socks. “We didn’t really finish our conversation last night.”
He tried to break in. “About that.”
She kept on without taking a breath. “I know you’re not use to having a woman around but I’m not your average woman.”
No, she was extraordinary. “Margaux.”
“I’m a hell of a shot and good with hand-to-hand combat. You know I don’t have much jungle training, but I learn quick and—”
“Margaux!” He was dying with every word of enthusiasm that spilled out of her.
“What?”
Before everything between them went down in flames, he had to try to get something out of her. “Would you please tell my why you want to meet the Banker?”
“Oh, that?” She pulled on her other sock and picked up a boot that she propped on her lap. “He owes me.”
“Too vague.”
She stopped futzing with her shoes and stared at him. “Then you tell me what your interest is in him.”
Logan considered how much to share to get her to open up. “I need him to help me save someone.”
She studied him, and from the look on her face she was working through the same debate he’d just gone through. She said, “There was an op in Atlanta. He had someone killed and it cost me.”
Logan didn’t know what to make of that, but it sounded as if she really was not looking to work for the Banker. He’d decided that last night, but wanted clarification. If she was looking for revenge, he could kill that bird for her with his stone. He was already going to have to explain his actions once he captured the Banker and failed to hand him over to INTERPOL.
And speaking of INTERPOL, if they ever found out that Logan had someone in his custody whose fingerprints were part of the Paris bombing investigation and he failed to hand her over, he’d end up in prison himself.
But he couldn’t bring himself to give value to those suspicions or to put her through any more agony.
Even if he could explain all that, Margaux would still not forgive him for what he was going to do. “You can’t go with me and the team.”
She still held the boot and hadn’t moved, but her shoulders were rigid in defense. “What are you saying? Just get to the bottom line.”
“I’m sending you to a safe location until I complete this mission, then I’ll come get you.”
“I’m not stupid, Logan. If you’re sending me somewhere, it’s because you don’t trust me. And if that’s the case, you won’t be coming back. Or if you do, I won’t like where you take me next.”
That pretty much summed it up. “You’ll be safe.”
“Right. Like last time when you sent me off to the states. I made myself safe at that point. But you told me to forget you. I guess this is what it takes for me to finally listen to you.”
He waited for her to pitch her boot or curse him, but it was far worse than that when her face shifted with cold disdain.
“You may not believe me, but I’m doing this because I can’t risk anything happening to you.”
She put her boots on and stood up. “Save it. You were right last night. I was a fool to come back, but I’m done being a fool.”
Someone knocked on the door. “Truck’s ready, Cuz.”
Margaux sighed. “Fine. Tell them I’m ready.”
This next part was going to kill him. “Put your hands out front.”
Confusion raced over her face then her eyebrows drew tight. “You’re going to cuff me?”
He shouldn’t have to explain any more at this point and didn’t think he could talk past the lump in his throat.
She picked up her hands, wrist-to-wrist. “You really think I’d hurt one of your men?”
No, but she would get injured if she tried to escape. He’d made a mistake once and wouldn’t do it again. He unrolled the flannel sleeves she’d turned up twice and put the flex cuff around her covered wrists. Then he bent down and cuffed her ankles.
When he picked her up in his arms, she looked away from his face. This was tearing him up. He started to put her down and cut the cuffs, but Nitro knocked at the door and called out, “Nine minutes.”
He meant for the sat call from the Banker.
Logan said, “Open the door.”
He carried Margaux out and across the camp to the truck Party Man had driven through the road they’d uncovered this morning and sat her on the seat.
Party Man sat in the driver’s seat and Angel rode shotgun.
This wasn’t the way he wanted to see Margaux for what might be the last time if this mission went badly, but she wouldn’t look at him and he had a terrorist to make nice with.
Logan told Angel, “Call in when you head back.”
“You got it, Cuz.”
The truck drove away, dragging Logan’s heart behind it through the ruts and dirt.
He was already regretting sending her away a second time. Logan walked back to Nitro who handed him the sat phone.
Logan checked his watch. “If he calls on time, it should be in twenty seconds. If we had synchronized time.”
They stood there, waiting. The call came through dead on the second. That was disconcerting in itself. Logan answered, “Dragan.”
A refined male voice that sounded fortyish said, “I am the Banker.”
“But anyone could call themselves the Banker,” Logan pointed out, letting his caller know that he expected some form of confirmation.
“I was quite impressed with your escape in South America.”
That wasn’t the first thing Logan had expected the Banker to say, but it had him curious. “What do you know about that?”
“Everything. It was your test. I arranged the entire event. I had to decide between you and the unfortunate losers.”
Shit. The bastard had set him up to be killed just to decide who to hire. But what about Margaux? “Was that test for only me?”
“Actually, it was, and I was surprised by the woman. She is something special.”
Logan gripped the phone hard enough to crack the case. “Clock’s ticking. Where are we meeting?”
The Banker gave him the address of a signature hotel in downtown Denver. “A car will pick you up downstairs at 0900 tomorrow morning.”
And that car would be filled with three armed men and a bag to put over Logan’s head. “What’s my assurance that you won’t kill me?”
“If I had wanted you dead, I would have had you killed in the jungle. There were several perfect opportunities for my sniper. One was when you two first escaped and sat on that boulder waiting for the tablet to disinfect your Ziplock ba
g of river water. You looked so peaceful.”
The scope of what the Banker had set up just to test him surprised even Logan. But the Banker had a point. He could have killed him—and Margaux—at that point. Logan agreed to the meeting and was ready to end the call when the Banker added one more stipulation.
“Bring the woman.”
“No. You deal with me.”
“Are you saying you aren’t a team? That would be ... opportune. I have uses for a woman with her talents and I’m sure she has many.”
The sexual innuendo in that prick’s voice hit a raw spot. Logan said in a dark voice laced with threat. “She’s mine.”
Nitro lifted an eyebrow at that declaration.
The Banker’s smooth demeanor never changed. “I see. Very well then. Bring the woman and we’ll discuss my project.” He hung up.
Logan fought the urge to smash the phone against the nearest tree.
Nitro scratched his chin. “I’m going to make a wild guess that you have to take Margaux with you. Is that right?”
“Yes.” And now the Banker thinks Margaux and I are together.
“How do you plan to convince her to go?”
“Beats the hell out of me.”
“She probably will.”
Logan sent Nitro a withering look and lifted the phone. He punched the number for the phone in the truck and got Angel. Logan told him, “Bring Margaux back.”
Angel called over to Party Man, “Turn around. Logan wants her back.”
Margaux released a string of curses that could be heard two continents away.
Nitro cringed. “Good luck fixing that, Cuz.”
CHAPTER 35
Logan signed his name as Kevin Sims on the guest documents at a boutique hotel in downtown Denver. Upscale elegance, but quiet and with exceptional service. More importantly, it was a block down from the five-star place the Banker had designated for the pickup point.
Nitro and Angel were enjoying a room in the signature hotel instead. They’d be in place tomorrow morning when Logan showed up for the car ride.
With Margaux.
He finished the registration and turned to take her elbow. “Ready, sweetheart?”
She smiled and gave him a moment of hope until she leaned in to whisper, “Take your hand off or I’ll break every finger that touches me.”
Swallowing a sigh, he released her and lifted the handle on an overnight bag while she walked to the elevator. The ride up was as much fun as the ten hours it had taken to convince her to join him, ride down from the mountain camp and buy decent clothes for her.
Getting gutshot at point blank range couldn’t be much worse.
She swept out of the elevator when the doors opened on the fourth floor then waited for him to lead her to the room. The shoulder she turned to him was so cold, icicles should be hanging from the ceiling.
Once they were both inside the suite, Logan started in on her. “If we don’t work this out, the Banker will get spooked and back out.”
“I can do my part. Worry about yours.” She pulled off the North Face jacket and tossed it on the sofa. Next went the fluffy gray scarf, leaving black jeans that hugged her sexy ass, a burgundy sweater and weathered-looking Frye boots that gave her three more inches of height.
If only that outfit had come with a sweet personality adjustment.
But truth told, he didn’t want that. He just wanted the real Margaux back—the one he’d had when she’d busted them out of that hut in the jungle—back before she’d recognized him. The real her, barbs and all, wanting him as much as he wanted her.
She walked over to gaze out the window that overlooked snow-capped mountains.
“What do you want me to say, Margaux? I was sending you somewhere safe. I still don’t want you here, but—”
“You need me for a prop. Again.” She turned around and leaned on the window frame with her arms crossed. “I came back to you with an offer to work together. That wasn’t enough to change your mind, but now you need me and you want me to be happy about it. I said I’d go with you. That should be enough.” Damn it, she was right. He’d have to tell her everything about his background for her to understand, and he’d like to be able to come clean but he couldn’t. Not when he had no idea who had trained her and for what reason.
He tried a logical approach. “I thought you’d be happy about being included in this meeting.”
“My happiness has never been part of the equation where you’re concerned.”
Ouch. He’d earned that. “We can’t go into this at odds with each other and survive.”
“You might not, but I will.”
Logan had hoped things would thaw between them by now, but she was holding onto her fury with an iron grip. Not that he could blame her. From where she stood, he was the same asshole who had destroyed her safe haven six years ago.
Then sent her away thinking she hadn’t mattered to him.
He’d do the same thing to keep her safe again, but he regretted how it had ended in Paris.
That was something to be dealt with later on. He was running out of time and had to know what she would do when she stood in front of the Banker. Would she cause a conflict or would she work with Logan when she had no motivation to do so? Your fault asshole.
That brought him back to finding out what was driving her to meet the Banker. First he had to get her to negotiate. “What’s it going to take for you to meet me halfway?”
She pondered his question, tapping her finger against her arm. “The truth about what you’re up to.”
Leave it to Margaux to go straight for the jugular. No subtly there. “Why do you need those details?”
“Because I need to know what you’re planning to do for the Banker.”
“And you think I would commit a terrorist attack for him?”
She glanced away. “To be honest, no. If I had thought that I wouldn’t have...”
He finished that sentence in his mind. She wouldn’t have let him touch her last night.
“This is down to the wire, Logan. It’s time to decide if what you’re shielding from me is worth blowing this meeting. I’ve come to terms with what the Banker has cost me and at this point I’m more concerned about not supporting a deadly plot.”
Choosing his words carefully, he said, “I’ll tell you what I’m after and trust you to do the same for me.” He didn’t get any response from that, so he pushed on. “I do need the Banker and I am trying to work a deal with him, but to save someone. Not to kill people. You remember me telling you about my family?”
She was interested now. “Yes. Was any of it true?”
“Parts,” he admitted. “I do have a brother and he was in college when I met you, but he was in a Russian university, not in France. He’s the baby in the family at twenty-six, but ambitious. I tried to convince him to do something else, anything, but he signed on to be part of the Russian security force.”
Margaux’s staid expression changed, but to one of suspicion.
Logan mentally edited as he continued, sifting in enough of the truth that might convince her he meant what he said about not harming anyone. “My brother was part of a team investigating a potential terrorist infiltration. He was leading the investigation. The terrorist figured out who was after him and turned the tables by planting an evidence trail that put my brother in league with the terrorist. He’s in a prison in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. He’s been beaten and I don’t think he’ll survive much longer. I have one chance to get him out and I need the Banker to make that happen.”
“How does the Banker play into that?”
This part got a little trickier, but he was determined to be as honest as possible. “I need the terrorist who set up my brother, alive, to make a trade.”
“So you’ve never been a part of terrorist operations?”
Telling her the truth on this point was a gamble, but no more than Logan had already put at risk to save Yuri. “No.”
“What about your international repu
tation?”
“You don’t think a reputation can be manufactured? How else would the Banker consider meeting me?” He watched for a sign that he’d broken through her doubt, but nothing firm showed. “You said I don’t trust you, Margaux, but that’s not true. I just gave you information you can use against me to destroy my mission, because without your help when we meet this guy I stand to have wasted eleven months my men have worked deep undercover to help me. I’m risking that you could cost my brother his life.”
“You really are one of the good guys?”
“Yes. I hunt people like the Banker.”
“Are you CIA, MI6, or some other international acronym?”
He considered how much he could say and still tell the truth. “No. My team and I are part of what you might call a very old brotherhood. We don’t talk about it so please don’t be hurt that I’m not telling you more.” He had something else to get off his chest. “I was trying to save my cousin when we first met. If you believe nothing else about me, know this—I wanted you more than I’d ever wanted anything, but had to let you go to keep you safe.”
Margaux’s shoulders lost the tension that had held them stiff for hours. She scrubbed her face with her hands. “I need some time to digest this.”
His throat was tight. “I didn’t use you in Paris.”
She lifted a hand. “Stop. You’ve said enough. Paris is done. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“It’s not done until you know the truth.”
“Why does it matter what I think? That was a long time ago.”
Because I can still see the way it haunts you. Because I fell in love with you in Paris and don’t want to give you up again even though I know this won’t end with us together. That was why he wouldn’t tell her just how much she meant to him. He wouldn’t do that and walk away again. “What you think matters because you matter. You did then and you do now.”
She drove her fingers into her hair, shaking her head. “Don’t do this to me, Logan. Don’t make noises that sound like this thing between us is more than short-term and disposable.”
“I can’t offer anything beyond short-term because of the way I live, but it’s never been disposable. I wanted to keep you. I left that morning with plans of coming back and—”