Metal filing cabinets lined one wall. Hope sprang. What if they weren’t empty?
She tugged open the top drawer of the closest cabinet.
Jackpot. Green hanging files stuffed the space. She pulled one out and held it up to the light. Labeled December of last year, it was stuffed with papers. She flipped through. Phone bills, payroll reports, and receipts for audiovisual equipment mingled with handwritten memos she couldn’t quite read and printouts of e-mail messages in very tiny fonts.
She’d stumbled upon Kral’s archives. The Agency would kill for this kind of information. She could barely make out words on the pages, though, and couldn’t know if any of it would incriminate Kral.
She tucked the folder back and opened the next drawer. Same setup, but from two years past. A peek into the third drawer held files from three years ago. The cabinets were neatly chronological, and her parents had been killed eight years ago. If he had records from that month in this room, something in them might point the finger of blame in Kral’s direction.
She knew what she had to do.
She stepped out of her platform sandal and kicked it up to her hand. After peeling away the rubber sole, she felt for a piece of fishing line she knew would be there. With the thin fiber held between her thumb and index finger, she tugged hard. A cylinder of cork popped free, and a digital camera the size of a roll of film dropped into her palm.
The device’s presence in her footwear was the reason she’d chosen those shoes over a more appropriate pair. The CIA-issued camera had one very powerful and very sneaky feature: a “dark flash” composed solely of infrared and ultraviolet light, invisible to the human eye but visible to the camera. With it, she could take perfect, if oddly green, pictures in a dark room without alerting anyone to her presence. Genius device. With just a faint gray shine from the moon brightening the room, she’d not get much of a look at what she photographed, but it couldn’t be helped. The best she could hope for was that the pictures wouldn’t be too out of focus.
She released the second-to-last drawer of the next cabinet and removed the folder for December. Paperwork, just like the first file she’d opened, and she didn’t try to decipher any of it. Rather, she photographed every page as quickly as she could. She would sort it out later. Seconds passed, but she was fast. The feeling of finally getting evidence against her enemy made her bold. A peek at her watch told her she’d been at work for nine minutes—a vastly longer time than she’d intended to spend—but she neared the end of December’s information. Capturing the whole fateful month was a worthy goal. She was determined to achieve it.
The folder felt thick with pictures she couldn’t see but could feel sliding around as she flipped pages. She clicked her little camera faster, eager to get the entire file on record before she absolutely had to scram. She turned over an e-mail printout, exposing a big black-and-white image tacked to it.
Something on the page caught her eye. It made her breath hitch.
It couldn’t be.
She stared at the dark photograph, but damn it all, there was no light in the room! She shook her head, telling herself that she’d examine it later, when she was safely ensconced in some CIA facility. She snapped a picture and flipped over the photograph. She couldn’t have seen what she thought she’d seen, anyway. Kral couldn’t possibly be so stupid as to keep such visual evidence here, in an unsecured room.
But then she remembered his eyes at dinner, and she wondered if he thought himself untouchable here, protected by armed guards, ancient stone walls, and miles of patrolled countryside. He hadn’t bugged their room, or at least not that they could find. A man who thinks he’s untouchable makes mistakes. Maybe he was so overconfident as to leave evidence of murder where she could so easily find it.
She took a second look at the curious picture. Leaning in, but not so close that moonlight turned to shadow, she saw that the photograph showed chaos in a crowded street market. The jagged remains of a small car were scattered around the center of the image. Bombed, from the looks of it. It had been a dark Renault four-door, exactly the sort of economical, reliable automobile owned by millions of people all across Europe.
And the very type of car her dad had been driving when he and her mother had been killed.
It was too much of a coincidence. There weren’t so many car bombings in the world that she could think this was anything other than what it appeared to be.
Her hand shook, fluttering the photograph like a flag in the wind.
She held a picture of her parents’ murder scene. She’d seen images of the aftermath before, of course. Reporters had arrived quickly after the explosion. International newspapers had been full of sensational photos for days afterward.
But Kral had his own file, and as far as she could imagine, no innocent, impartial businessman would have a picture of that horrific event sitting in his records. It wasn’t proof of his guilt, but it was the first solid link she had found since reading that cease-and-desist letter eight years ago.
Something thumped in the hallway.
Quickly, she slipped the photograph back into the folder, slid the folder into the drawer, and pushed the drawer shut. She ran behind a desk and crouched, camera in hand, waiting.
And heard nothing more from the hallway. She exhaled, relieved. After shoving the camera back into the heel of her sandal and replacing the rubber sole, she slipped the shoe back on her foot and started toward the door. She should have left minutes ago.
She reached out to grab the door handle but stopped short, her hand frozen as the knob began to turn on its own.
CHAPTER TEN
WITH NO TIME to dive for better cover, Evangeline drew herself flush against the wall as the door swung open into her body. She absorbed the impact of the handle into her stomach without a sound.
A lanky silhouette entered the room. She recognized the figure’s perfect posture and smooth gait.
McCrea.
Relieved, intrigued, and annoyed all at once, she stepped out from her hiding place and fit her hands onto her hips. “What are you doing here?”
He spun around in a defensive stance, ready to fight. He dropped his fists when he saw her. “Me? What are you doing here? I told you to stay in the courtyard!”
“I’m not a dog.”
“Right. If you were a dog, you’d be able to follow simple commands.”
“I’m not under your command, remember? What are you looking for?”
“You. You can’t just disappear like that.”
“You were gone. What else did you expect me to do?” she hissed.
“I expected you to do what you were told.” He reached for her arm. “We have to go. Everyone else’s gone to bed. We have no cover.”
She let herself be tugged to the doorway. He peered out into the blackened hallway. After a moment, he stepped out and signaled for her to follow. They turned left to make for the nearest staircase. Six quick, quiet steps later, a cackle of drunken laughter peeled out from the wine cellar’s open door.
Not everyone had gone to bed.
The wine room lay between them and the stairs. They couldn’t go past it without revealing that they’d been somewhere they didn’t belong. McCrea reacted first, grabbing her wrist and pulling her down the passageway, away from the laughter and around the corner into a corridor she hadn’t yet walked down. At the far end was another stairway leading up. They raced to it. At the bottom, they paused. McCrea’s eyes connected with hers. She nodded. His hand tensed around hers.
Now.
Together they scurried up the stairs and popped out onto the ground level behind a screen of potted palms. The moonlit square was bright, cool, and empty. Chlorine sharpened the breeze that whipped through the fortress, but it smelled like freedom to Evangeline. All they had to do now was get across the flagstones and up to their suite.
She stepped out from behind the plants and began to walk toward the far stairs.
Kral’s singsong voice bounced off the walls, but she c
ouldn’t make out his words. He sounded muffled, like he wasn’t in the courtyard. Yet.
She sped up, feeling McCrea behind her.
Then came the click of Kral’s footsteps, growing louder. Closer. And a musical whistling that sent a shot of adrenaline through her veins.
Go. Now!
She sprinted for the safety of the stairs that led up to her room.
But before she got two strides, someone grabbed her from behind and leaped into the air. The bottle she’d been holding slipped out of her grasp. Glass shattered against tile. She fell, hard and fast, straight into the pool with a body on her back, her skin slapping the flat water like a thunderclap. Chemical-laden water stung her eyes as she sank to the bottom. Water rushed into her nose. Whoever had tackled her still had his arm around her. He pulled her up now as she wriggled to get away. His strong arms jerked her once in a clear reprimand, and she let herself be drawn up. They reached the surface and she gulped in a great gasp of delicious air.
“It’s me, damn it,” McCrea whispered in her ear. He was behind her, and treading water like a polo player to stay afloat. “Take off your shoes.”
“What?”
He growled and gripped the hem of her dress, tugging it off over her head. It snagged on her ears, and for a moment she was blind. Fear bubbled up, threatened to make her panic. She ripped the fabric from her face and kicked off her sandals. They floated to the surface. She watched them go, thinking that the pictures she’d taken might be ruined.
Then his hands were on her waist and he flipped her around to face him. His upper half was bare. He’d taken his shirt off, probably flung it aside before he’d tossed her into the pool. Her breasts, covered only by a thin lace bra, bumped against his broad chest as she kicked and paddled to stay afloat. Stripped and soaked, they looked like a couple engaged in an impromptu intimate liaison, and she understood that this was exactly how McCrea intended it to appear to the fast-approaching Kral.
She knew what she’d have to do. Another performance. Her heart cracked open and wept at the thought, but she lifted her chin, ready.
McCrea touched the back of her neck and she melted into him, glad for the warmth of his skin against hers. Then in one swift, sure movement, he found her lips with his. She closed her eyes, letting his mouth engulf hers. No plunging aggression, no demands; the kiss was intimate and restrained. He was gentle, almost shy, and she felt her body responding.
No. She commanded herself to hold back. It was supposed to be a show piece, nothing more. She didn’t have to really want him in order for Kral to be convinced of their theater. But how she wanted his hands on her skin, his tongue in her mouth! Her back bumped against the pool wall and their kiss deepened. His body pressed hard against hers, his arms holding her tightly, afloat in the water. Even as she tried to think of things that would keep her body cool—multiplication tables, a recipe for apple pie, and the results of last year’s congressional elections—his touch overrode her desire to remain detached.
Screw apple pie. She slipped her tongue into his mouth. His hands caught and tangled in her wet hair, but she liked the sensation of capture with him. The raw pleasure of kissing him so engrossed her that she nearly forgot why they’d jumped in the pool in the first place.
“There you are!” Kral’s voice rang in the courtyard.
“She desired a quick swim,” McCrea explained.
Kral laughed. “Never stand between a woman and what she wants, especially when that thing is you.” Footsteps clipped closer to the edge of the pool. “Where’d you run off to, my dear?”
She cleared her throat, and then turned to face him. “Got distracted by your wine. You have an amazing collection.”
“Thank you. I try very hard to give my guests nothing but the best experiences while they are subject to my hospitality.” Kral grinned ear to ear, like a jester. “Just keep to the common areas. My guards shoot to kill. You understand, of course?”
“Of course.” McCrea’s deep voice was a purr against her ear.
Kral left, walking up a far staircase and disappearing from sight, but they were far from safe. Kral was suspicious. He’d pointed out that his guards were watching, ready to shoot to kill. Evangeline figured it was necessary to continue the ruse of an intimate liaison, just to be sure.
McCrea must have agreed, for he lowered his mouth to hers once more, but this time mechanically, as though the whole scenario were a mission that he was reluctant to complete.
Which it was, she cautioned herself. As much as she knew they shared a connection, this business in the pool was just that: business. She understood—agreed, even—which was exactly why she needed to stop herself from feeling anything more for him. Right now, before she got in any deeper. They were temporary partners. Any emotional or physical needs she quenched with him now would only find themselves thirsty again in a few short days. The thicker the ties, the more painful they were to sever, and severed they would be, eventually. That was the job. That was her life. As loudly as her body and soul cried out for a little companionship, she wouldn’t willingly take on more bonds that she’d only have to cut.
Yet, the show must go on, and right then, she couldn’t be sure that they were putting on a believable ruse, not with the fresh coldness coming from his end.
So she let her mouth fall open at the pressure of his tightly pursed lips and ran one of her hands across the short, bristly hair on his head. He’d shaved it recently, judging from the very short growth. She appreciated the fact that he didn’t bother much with his hairstyle. No gel congealed under her fingertips. Just a whisper of fuzz on a hard, hot skull. She spread her fingers around the back of his head and kissed him harder, not pushing but yielding, encouraging him to explore further. She moved her fingers on his body as they kissed, over the smoothness of his earlobes, and then the muscles in the nape of his neck. There she massaged the strength under his wet skin.
He pulled away from her mouth to lean into her touch. He took a deep, gasping breath. She knew that she’d awakened him, and that she should stop, there, before she sent them back into something from which they’d not easily return. Evangeline pressed her lips to his chest and paused, her mouth on his skin, feeling the rhythm of his body course through his veins. His heart knocked hard against her mouth. Her legs wrapped around his waist, and she could feel his blood pumping down there, too, even more vigorously than it did at his chest. Not just pumping, but filling.
He was growing aroused.
She met his eyes. Usually cloaked and unreadable, right then they burned with an unmistakable urgency. He wanted her.
God help her, but she wanted him, too.
She tumbled her tongue into his. He returned her aggressive passion measure for measure. His hands gripped her butt and pulled her full onto his hips, his hardness a thick, hot ridge that filled the space between her thighs. His lips ran up her neck, then across her ear. His tongue probed inside the shell of her ear. Shivering, she flexed and extended her toes and pressed her knees firmly around his ribs. Her pelvis formed to his. Just like when they’d danced—they fit. Matched. Nearly merged, but for the small matter of underwear and woolen suit pants.
Her brain interceded with a last-ditch warning. Push him aside, it warned, but it was too late. With his arousal between her hip bones and her fingers clawing his back, they’d soared well past the mission parameters and over the edge into real passion. What was the point anymore in trying to save herself from the pain of their eventual separation? She already felt more bonded to him than she’d ever felt with any man before. It would already hurt like hell to let him go. She may as well get her fill of him while she could, so she would at least have the memory of him to keep her warm when she was alone again.
But as their kiss continued and he moved against her, rubbing her with an erection so long that she couldn’t feel its terminus, she knew she’d never have her fill of him. And it wasn’t enough to mold her body against him. She wanted to dive into him. Be lost in him. Become one
with him.
Her mouth went to his again. She rolled rhythmically against his sex, which was firm and slightly rounded, folded up against his belly by the inelasticity of his pants. His hands seized her ass so forcefully that she wondered if she’d have ten tiny, circular bruises on her cheeks in the morning. He lifted her up and down against himself, his tongue moving in her mouth to the same slow beat. She clenched his back, his ribs hard beneath undulating layers of lean muscle.
His body quaked against her each time her hips rolled. His fingertips drove into the flesh of her thighs with each shuddering wave. She knew he wasn’t the sort of man who would lose self-control at a moment like this, but she didn’t think it would take much more from her to bring him to completion.
Or her to completion, really. With his tongue sweeping the inside of her mouth, she imagined his other thickness sliding inside her as well. Filling her, stretching her, joining with her. They’d be one. Her desperate loneliness would subside, for a little while, at least.
She wanted relief. She wanted togetherness. She wanted everything with him. Consequences be damned. She’d picked up the shattered pieces of her soul once before. She could do it again.
She reached underwater.
McCrea’s eyes snapped to attention when her hand shifted to his fly.
He gasped and pulled back. Wordless. He was good at wordless. Her whole sense of self fell to her feet as she realized that he was rejecting her honest advance. He didn’t feel what she’d felt, didn’t want what she wanted. Already, her heart began to splinter, but she wouldn’t cry. Couldn’t. He didn’t need to know that she’d taken any of it personally.
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