“Okay,” I replied, “but ladies first.” He stared at me like he was trying to figure me out, and I smiled sweetly back at him, trying to hold back tears. I knew—I knew—that it would do me absolutely no good to cry. Crying would betray me to Sam, which I did not want to deal with, and much more distressing, it would betray me to Jared.
Moreover, I could not let Jared know how I still had strong feelings for him—and I also knew I had to keep my other secret. I still couldn’t understand my attraction to Jared, how it managed to persist after everything that had happened, but it made me angry at myself—and at him. So, when the Congresswomen brought up our relationship, I knew that I had to be the one to talk about it—otherwise, I would blow my cover. Besides, in terms of the blossoming of the saga of Jared and Anabel, I knew the perfect story to illustrate what had happened.
***
After I caught Jared going through my stuff, I was more than a little mad at him. I didn’t care what Sam had said, I felt wronged. He had no right to go through my desk. I was also angry that his actions had forced me to lie to my brother, and so, I thought about how to punish him . . . until it came to me. Brushing aside any moral scruples, I told myself the ends of this one would justify the means. So I avoided him for a couple days, and when I could take it no more, I decided to put my feminine wiles to work.
Okay, so I might not have had much experience using said wiles, but I’d seen enough movies to know what to do to get a guy excited. At dinner the night before, I had sneaked glances at him—and then I realized that Jared was looking at me in a way that reminded me of how my father used to look at Miss Marilyn.
I kept turning over in my mind what he had said to me—the flimsy excuses, how he was growing to care about me, and all that other absolute garbage. What drove me the most crazy was how Sam had said Jared was his best friend. If Jared was indeed his best friend, why was he hitting on me, his best friend’s sister? Now, I may not have had a lot of experience with relationships, but I knew what was wrong when I saw it. If he cared about Sam, he wouldn’t try to put the moves on me. And as for caring about me, well . . . I kept coming back to the same thing. The reality was Jared didn’t care one bit about me. He just wanted some.
“That’s all men really want, anyway,” I told myself, smoothing my favorite white dress as I stood in front of the mirror. Oh, my white dress. I wish I still had it. It’s a gorgeous number. My father had ordered it for me as a gift, and had not realized how immodest it was until the first time I wore it and he screamed at me to put on a sweater and not run around half-naked. As an insurance policy (it would ruin my resolve if I ran into Jonathan), I draped a powder blue sweater around my shoulders to bring out the color of my eyes. Jared Sorensen was not interested in me, I repeated to myself. Of course, my knowledge of relationships had, up until this point, been a result of what I had learned from movies and television. Until I was about sixteen, I had thought all couples were like Buttercup and Westley in The Princess Bride: sweet, romantic, and while sometimes dangerous, they always wound up happily ever after.
Then I discovered Sex in the City and concluded that all men were swine. It was a lot easier to watch these things that my father didn’t want me to see with my babysitter out of the way.
And for those reasons, I had made up my mind not to care about Jared.
Even if I had wanted to. Which—and I had to firmly remind myself of this—I didn’t.
On top of our fortress is a piazza-type area that I had seen Jared admiring. It has an incredible view, overlooking the forest on one side and the vast expanse of the Pacific on the other. I had caught him eying the site and had a hunch—call it women’s intuition—I would find him up there.
As I came up the stairs I saw him leaning over the rail. I approached him, letting my sweater fall from my shoulders. I leaned over the rail. “Beautiful view, huh?”
He started. “Anabel!”
“Yes, that would be me,” I said in my most offhand manner.
“Listen, I wanted to tell you—”
”Jared, I really—” I said at the same time. We looked at each other and laughed, and I could not deny that I liked the look on his face.
“I said some things I shouldn’t,” he began.
“Like what?” I asked innocently.
He opened his mouth, but then he paused, and took me in. “That’s some dress.”
“You ignored my question.” It was all a game to me, and my heart was racing.
“I have other things on my mind,” he muttered, leaning in toward me.
“Like what?” I asked, breathless.
He turned and looked at me. I gazed straight back into his eyes, and before I knew it he pulled me close to him and firmly pressed his lips to mine. I was so startled, I lost my balance, but he tightened his grip around me and I gave in to him. My arms weren’t my own as I wrapped them around his neck, and that only made him kiss me more urgently, more deeply. It was like we were suspended in time, and for a moment, all that mattered was me and Jared. I was reeling for an instant, but then I pulled myself apart from him and turned away, horrified. I was already losing this. I struggled to clear my head and take control of the situation.
“You kissed me,” I gazed into the ocean, trying to conceal my shock. Feeling calmer, I ventured a glance at him.
He looked shamefaced. “Yeah, I did.”
I tossed my hair. I could work with this. “You seem upset,” I observed, in what I hoped was a cool and detached manner.
He looked away, keeping his arms crossed over the rail. “Well, I didn’t . . . that is . . . Anabel.”
“Jared,” I returned.
“I didn’t—that is, I shouldn’t have kissed you. If your brother, let alone your father knew . . . I apologize,” he said, staring into my eyes.
I shifted my gaze to the waves. The sun was beating down, and I thought about how wonderful ice-cold water would feel right now. My heart still thudding, I contemplated shimmying out of my dress and jumping into the water right then. I would probably die on impact, but it would solve a lot of problems.
“Anabel?”
“Yes?” I turned back to him.
“I apologized.” There was a bit of an edge to his voice.
“I heard you. And I have to admit, I’m quite offended.” I picked up my sweater and threw it onto a chair. “Is it hot out here?”
He swallowed. “Quite. Why are you offended?”
I crossed my arms and glared at him. “Did you not like kissing me? Am I not a good kisser?” I leaned backwards against the rail, making sure to thrust my chest out a bit. “Not that I’ve had a lot of practice, but really, I didn’t think I was half bad.”
Jared looked taken aback. I almost lost my composure and laughed at the look on his face. Then he slowly said, “No, that wasn’t it.”
“What then? You find me repulsive?”
“Anabel, for crying out loud! You’re not a bad kisser, and no, I do not find you repulsive.”
I beamed at him. “Oh, so you want to give it another go?” I then proceeded to invade his personal space.
He looked at me, incredulous. “What the devil has gotten into you?”
“Oh, come on, Jared,” I moved toward him. “I’ve seen the way you look at me. At the same time I can’t sit here and pretend like I’m not attracted to you.” I pressed my body against his and whispered in his ear, “It doesn’t have to mean anything, you know. We can have sex just to have sex . . . and you’ll leave, and that will be that.”
I felt his breathing change, as he murmured, “But Anabel, what about Sam . . .”
I looked around. “I don’t see him here.”
“This isn’t right . . .”
“Shh,” I whispered, “isn’t this what you want, Jared?” I slowly ran my finger down his chest.
I heard a sharp intake of breath, and then he uttered, “Yes—”
I broke away and smiled at him. “Well, today doesn’t work for me, but maybe some other tim
e then.” I picked up my sweater, turned on my heel, and marched off, trying to hold back the giggles as a slew of profanities erupted from Jared’s mouth.
It’s not easy to get Anabel Martin’s panties in a twist. Jared would do well to remember that. Or so I thought, anyway.
***
Sam looked appalled. “You made that up. Please tell me you made that up.”
I looked down, ashamed. “I’m sorry, Sam.”
The council members all exchanged glances, but I was pretty sure any image they had of me as the poor innocent victim had flown out the window. I turned around and ventured a glance at Matt, but he wouldn’t catch my eye.
I still didn’t know what he did. Sam had been very elusive on that point.
So I sneaked a glance at Jared, who looked smug. He sat back in his chair, his arms folded, smirking at me. “You shut up,” I admonished him.
“I did not say a thing, babe,” he grinned, self-satisfied.
“I think now is a good time for lunch,” proclaimed Ms. Fischer. “Mr. Sorensen, we will hear from you after the break.” They filed out, and Sam was still staring at me like he had never seen me before.
“I just thought it would be a way to put him in his place. I felt like he was wronging the both of us, treating me like that. And I thought it would be a way to get him back. You know, tell him I’ll put out and then take it away.” I shrugged my shoulders. “I just figured he wasn’t used to rejection.”
“I can’t even look at you right now,” he stated. “Behaving like that . . .”
I touched his arm. “Please don’t be mad at me. I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted to get back at him, you know? I didn’t know any better!”
“You didn’t know any better?” He repeated. “You know what? It’s no wonder what happened with you happened. I am at a loss, Anabel.” He stood up and walked away. I crossed my arms and put my head down on the table. I had broken my brother’s heart, and he had cut me down. I could not go any lower.
And then, of course, he was there. “Hey.”
I looked at him through the pile of my hair. “What?”
“I heard what Sam said. You didn’t deserve that.” Jared stopped, and then asserted, “You definitely didn’t deserve what happened.”
“I don’t want your pity.”
“Still, it was uncalled for. Anabel . . .”
“What?”
Jared was smirking at me. Again. “I can’t believe you told them that.”
I turned my head back so it faced the table. “I had to tell the truth, right?”
“You just didn’t show yourself in the best light, is all. I’m surprised that you would do that for me.”
“I didn’t do it for you. I did it because it was the right thing to do,” I muttered.
“Well it was nice of you. Made me look a little less awful. Made you look a little less pure.”
I sat up and looked at him. “Jared, I was behaving like a horny schoolgirl, I don’t think there was any way to portray myself so I looked good.”
“You could give your own revisionist history.” He was smiling at me now. I smacked his arm.
“Stop that,” I ordered. “It doesn’t work on me anymore.”
“I doubt that very much, love.”
“Leave her alone, Sorensen,” came a voice. I smiled hopefully at Matt. He didn’t smile back. “Anabel, I’ve been instructed to take you to eat.”
“I’m not hungry,” I grumbled, but I got up anyway and left Jared there, staring at the both of us openmouthed.
Which was what he deserved, after all.
I had to almost run to keep up with Matt. His legs were longer than mine. “Thank you for getting me out of that. I was uncomfortable.”
“I bet,” he agreed. “What do you think you can keep down?”
“Um, there’s a smoothie place around the corner, I usually—wait,” I stopped, realizing that he knew. “Did Sam tell you?”
He gave me a curt nod, and I wasn’t quite sure why, but I felt a sense of disappointment. Even though I couldn’t quite explain it to myself, for some reason, I didn’t want him to know. I looked down at my shoes, suddenly unsure. “How long have you known?”
“I knew it the moment I saw you,” he admitted. He leaned in a little closer, and in an undertone said, “I don’t think this is the best place to be discussing this, Anabel.”
I agreed. So I let him buy me a strawberry banana smoothie, and I sipped it in silence as he walked me back. I kept looking at him, puzzled. “What do you do for my brother again?”
He caught my eye briefly, and then looked straight ahead. “I’m a bodyguard.”
“Are you Secret Service?”
Matt looked down. “I was. Now I’m private.” He gently slipped his arm around my shoulders to guide me away from an oncoming mob. “We should get you back into the hearing. There aren’t quite so many onlookers in there.”
“Thank goodness for that,” I proclaimed. “A much smaller audience to see me make an idiot of myself.”
He raised an eyebrow. I continued, “It’s bad enough that I’m making poor Sam relive this again, but—”
“Sam can take care of himself. Just tell the truth, Anabel. It will be fine.”
I nodded, and then smiled at him. “Thanks. It’s nice to have a friend. Even one that my brother has to pay for.”
He laughed then, and I was pleased as I sat back down next to Sam, whose color had returned. “I’m sorry I left you like that,” he told me.
“I’m sorry I pained you like that,” I offered.
“It’s because I care about you,” he said.
“I know,” I returned. “But this is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better, and you know that.”
He nodded, and we both looked up as Jared stood to tell his side of the story.
Chapter 7—Jared
After Anabel left me, I nearly lost control. Watching her retreating figure, I kicked a chair in frustration. I was incredibly mad at her display of . . . well, what was that? I turned and leaned against the rail, breathing heavily, until I had pulled myself together.
Sam had totally underestimated her. If he knew what she was doing, he’d lose it. “Who does she think she is?” I muttered aloud. If she thought she could get away with that, she was gravely mistaken. How dare she pretend she was this sweet, innocent, little girl, and then turn around and behave like that?
I’m not going to sit here and claim to be an expert on morality, but I’ve never pretended to be something I’m not. Anabel knew what I was, she’d said it herself.
She, on the other hand, had fooled me, and for that matter, her brother. It’s no wonder her dad wanted to lock her up. In my mind, she was as bad as I was. Worse.
But even as I decided that, I also felt furious at myself, and all sorts of recollections of how Sam had explicitly told me how much he trusted me with his sister’s welfare were running through my head. I could just imagine explaining the whole thing to him. I did not do this. She did this. I just came here to do a job, and she got mad because I was going through her desk to make sure her father hadn’t bugged her room. Sam hadn’t been kidding about her temper. She had screamed at me and thrown me out of there before I knew what was going on.
That wasn’t what bothered me though. The worst part was she had gotten under my skin, and I had never allowed that to happen before. She wasn’t even the sort of girl I would normally go after—if I had seen Anabel on the street, I would’ve just kept walking. No. I knew it then. She was off limits, and that’s what this was about. Nothing more than a reaction to her brother telling me to leave her alone. It’s not like she was special. She was pretty, and rather smart, but there were ten million other girls like that in the DC area alone. It was obvious that I wanted her because my every instinct was to stay away.
There would be no more of this, I told myself. Just do your job.
Needless to say, I immediately took a very cold shower.
I avoided An
abel for the rest of the afternoon. When I arrived to dinner that night she had put away the sexy white dress in favor of something much more puritan. Part of her hair was pulled back and the rest flowed around her face, making her look softer and sweeter than she had earlier. I thought I had my temper under control, but I got annoyed when she refused to make eye contact with me and only said, “Good evening, Jared,” by way of greeting.
“So Mr. Sorensen,” began Jonathan Martin, deigning to notice me, “have you found any useful information for Sam? Or has my stepson sent you here to merely make me uncomfortable?”
“Daddy, Sam’s what, ten years younger than you? I don’t really know if you can call him your stepson,” pointed out Anabel, dabbing at her mouth with her napkin.
“That’s enough, Anabel.”
“I’m just saying,” she continued, “it’s not even like you were ever really his parent, he never lived with you.”
“I said that’s enough.” The cold rage behind those words seemed to intimidate everyone at the table but Anabel, who looked like she was about to retort. However, last thing I needed was Jonathan and Anabel starting an argument at the dinner table, so I jumped in. “Mr. Martin, I’m not here to cause any trouble. I have my orders, and it looks like I’ll be leaving here even sooner than anticipated.”
“What? Why?” asked Anabel, dropping her fork. Then she froze. I think that question had escaped her lips before she could think, and she tried to cover it by saying, “When I talked to Sam, he said you’d be here for at least three weeks. I mean, you’re here on behalf of the United States Government. Shouldn’t you do a thorough job?”
“I think I’ve seen everything that I need to,” I told her, and she blushed a bit. She looked uncomfortable—and upset. Excellent.
“Have you come to any conclusions?” Her voice trembled a little, and her eyes gave away everything. I knew she was scared I would tell her brother what she’d done. And I had no interest in putting her mind at ease—I wanted to torment her a little. Like she had done to me.
“Well, I’ll call Sam in the morning, report to him what I’ve found, and we can go from there.” I smiled cordially at Jonathan Martin. “I really appreciate how kind you were to me during my stay, sir. Your daughter is lovely, and she has provided me with wonderful company. I do not regret the amount of time I spent with such a charming hostess, but I wish I had seen more of the business side of the facility. Perhaps tomorrow morning you could give me a tour?”
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