Not this morning, though. This morning, they walked in twos and threes, chatting in small groups. There was even the occasional laugh. No one seemed to notice the guards walking along beside them. Olivia listened to the low conversations filtering back to her in her position about two-thirds of the way along the line. She could hear no English at all.
As she stepped under the archway that led into the foyer, a deep voice whispered close by her ear, in French. “You are playing a dangerous game, Olivia.”
She knew who it was without having to look. His French was flawless.
“I play no games,” she breathed back.
“Ibarra is Vistarian. They have a thing about honor. If you make him feel foolish, he will come after you personally.”
“I told you—”
His hand curled around her elbow. “Do not lie to a liar. It would only take one of these weaker ones to speak your name and Ibarra will have you in his sights.”
He stepped past her and kept walking. The business shirt and trousers, like her own suit, hid the better qualities of his physique. They could do nothing to hide the breadth of his shoulders or his height, though. The short sleeves displayed the strong forearms and thick wrists. She swallowed as her gaze travelled to his fingers—the fingers that had touched her lips and set off such unexpected fireworks in her last night.
Her elbow tingled where he had touched it. Olivia licked her lips and realized that just thinking about him and watching him was bringing her to a heated level of arousal she had not experienced in years. She ached with unfulfillment and she was merely looking at his back.
Looking for too long. She quickly dropped her gaze. Had any of the soldiers noticed? Her heart thundered. Had she given them a hint? An opening? She couldn’t afford to look at them to check.
She shuffled forward in the line, too afraid to look up. Instead she listened to the polyglot gabble of voices. The shine in the day had evaporated.
Defiance came at a price: Fear.
* * * * *
Calli came into the kitchen after the breakfast rush, looking for coffee. She knew Momma Rosetta would be there, but was surprised to find Minnie, too. Minnie was parked at one of the long benches, working on notebooks spread around the table in front of her, with a calculator, pencil, eraser and dozens of the local newspapers folded next to her hip.
Momma Rosetta poured Calli western coffee and silently handed it to her. Calli thanked her with a smile and sat on the bench opposite Minnie. “Whatever are you doing?” she asked.
Minnie looked up, blinking. “Oh, hi. I’m helping Momma Rosetta a bit.” She was frowning. Her gaze dropped back to the notebook in front of her.
“No, really. What are you doing?”
Minnie looked self-conscious. “Well, you said to make myself useful and Momma Rosetta couldn’t keep raiding the garden for supplies for all of us. Besides, Nick’s money doesn’t stretch that far. If you know how to shop properly, though, it can stretch quite a ways. I was explaining it to Momma Rosetta, only she doesn’t have time, so I did it myself, instead.”
Calli sipped the coffee. Startled, she looked down at the cup. It was good coffee. Great, in fact. She sipped again, almost moaning at the excellent taste of fine Columbian brew. She tilted her head to look properly at Minnie’s notebooks. “You’re shopping?” she asked.
“It’s a system,” Minnie said defensively. “There’s a dozen ways to skin a cat.”
Calli gave a small chuckle. “Well, if anyone knows about shopping, you do.” She tapped the notebooks. “Explain it to me.”
“Really?” Minnie asked.
“Economics professor, remember?” Calli reminded her.
“Almost professor,” Minnie shot back.
“Okay. Think of me as the Chief of Staff and your boss. Give.”
Minnie stuck her tongue out. She swiveled the notebooks around, picked up the pencil and explained the system she had devised. It took a few moments for Calli to grasp the basics. When she did, she was floored. It was simple genius and could be applied to not just food, but a whole range of supplies the loyalists badly needed. Everything from handguns to toenail clippers, medical supplies to magazines.
Calli tamped down her excitement and glanced at her watch. “You and I are supposed to meet at five today to plan your wedding. I’ll keep that meeting. In the meantime, can you let Duardo know Nick expects to see him at noon today?”
“You mean for the…?” Minnie asked, her nose wrinkling.
Calli grinned. “Yes.”
Minnie ruffled her hair with her fingers. “Okay.”
“Now, though, can you meet me in Nick’s office in…ninety minutes?”
Minnie turned the notebooks around to face her once more. “Sure, if you want.”
Calli got to her feet. “Bring your notebooks.”
* * * * *
Olivia sat in one of the big leather club chairs off in a corner by herself, sipping her virgin Bloody Mary. No one drank alcohol even though the Insurrectos offered an open bar at all hours of the day. Everyone instinctively understood that drinking would lead to loose tongues and lost inhibitions.
The chatter had not abated. Already the soldiers guarding them were stirring uneasily. They did not like being excluded. They did not like the absence of fear.
Daniel sat at the end of the bar. He had not looked at her once. Despite that, she knew he was watching the guards’ growing restlessness and blaming her.
Fear built in her like a swelling balloon. She focused on Daniel. His contempt was worse than being invisible to him.
With a convulsive jerk, she tossed back the remainder of her drink, got to her feet and walked to the bar, taking a path that delivered her right next to Daniel. She ordered another virgin Bloody Mary in Spanish, requesting that the drink be made with actual tomato juice, not tap mix, plus Worcestershire sauce, which sent the barman to the other end of the bar to fulfill her request.
“You bumped into me two days ago in the lobby,” she said to Daniel in French. “You apologized at the time. I am betting you cannot tell me what I was wearing that day.” She didn’t look at him. It would alert the guards that they were talking.
“I’m betting it was trousers and a shirt, just like today.”
“You’re extrapolating,” she hissed. “You have no idea what I was wearing. You didn’t process me at all. I was a body you had to walk around.”
Silence. Then, “I know you had two pockets in the front of your trousers. You carried your hotel key in the left one. I’m betting it’s there now.”
Her heart jumped. She stilled the impulse to reach for her room key, which was right where he said it was.
“You should carry it somewhere else. It’s far too easy pick from the front pocket. Or the back one, come to that.”
Her breath grew faster. “Are you some sort of gentleman thief?”
“Nothing of the sort.” She could hear the laughter in his voice.
“Yet all you focused on was the raid-ability of my attire.”
“You asked what I saw. I told you.”
“In other words, I was quite invisible to you.”
Ten seconds passed. “Yes.” His voice was low.
Her heart thudded. “Thank you,” she told him.
“Damn you.” There was a note in his voice that she couldn’t identify. Fury?
The barman put her drink in front of her.
“Gracias,” she murmured. She picked it up and sipped. Pretty good, under the circumstances. It still had far too many vegetables. She made a display of reaching for a paper napkin and pulling out all the celery and limes, wiping them off and laying them on the napkin. As she worked, she spoke.
“If you’d bothered actually looking, Daniel, you might have noticed that underneath these trousers and shirt, I wear a stretch lace thong and no bra. My shirt is silk. You should try picking my pocket sometime. You might be in for a surprise.”
She turned to go and looked directly at him. He was staring
at her openly.
It was the first time she had stood this close to him in good light, when she had his full attention. The effect was breathtaking. She was abruptly aware of the fact that his knee was a bare inch or so from her hip and she had to fight the impulse to sway closer to him so that her belly would rest up against his thigh as he sat on the stool.
His eyes were drilling into her.
She recognized she had baited the wrong man. Only, it was too late. She had already thrown the line out there. This wasn’t someone she could fool around with. He wouldn’t let her make mistakes. He wouldn’t forgive errors. He would leap on them.
Now she understood why his contempt had buried so deep and had hurt so much. It abruptly became clear why she wanted him to look at her with something other than disgust in his eyes. He was strong. Far stronger than her. That was an astonishing novelty. She could read his strength in his eyes, the unyielding steel core.
She coupled this strength of character to the male center of him and Olivia knew she was lost. Even sitting on a stool while she stood next to him, he seemed to tower over her, although she was five foot ten. His shoulders were wide, his thighs heavy with muscle and the forearm leaning casually against the bar was corded with muscles and tendons, looking capable and strong.
His jaw rippled. In the single moment that had passed as her perception shifted, his gaze did not release her. “Are you trying to seduce me?” he asked. His voice was low and seemed to caress her whole body.
She was glad of the trousers she wore. They hid her trembling legs. She drew in a breath that scalded on the way down. Daniel’s eyes would not let her go. She wanted nothing more than to lean against him. It was a matter of inches and every cell in her body reached for him, throbbing for his touch. Instead, she forced herself to step away. The guards would notice in a moment if she did not.
“I can’t seduce you,” she said, forcing her voice to emerge even and low. “I’m invisible to you, remember?”
His eyes—blue the same color as the sky on a hot summer’s day—widened just a little, enough to let her know she had struck home. She turned and walked away, fighting for even steps and dignity. Her legs were rubbery. She was lightheaded. By the time she lowered herself into her club chair once more, her hand was shaking badly with the effort to look normal. She put the glass down and didn’t dare pick it up again for another fifteen minutes. Not until the ice had melted and the cubes wouldn’t rattle against the sides and draw attention to her.
* * * * *
Once Olivia had walked away, Daniel kept the same posture and attitude, and maintained the same expression. He didn’t let anything about his external appearance change an inch. Inside, though, he slipped the leash on the chaos and let it race through his system for a few blessed moments. He let his eyes drift closed, shuttering them over the maelstrom that must surely be visible there.
Olivia Davenport. He knew who she was now. Just the first name alone was enough for him to recall the rest. A junior diplomat for the United States, part of the team overseeing the democratic handover of power after the revolution in Vistaria. She had a building reputation. He now understood why her reputation was growing.
Olivia was right. She was his age. Up until this morning he had been able to keep her a well-blended part of the scenery. She had blasted apart that defense inside eight—no, six hours, with an offensive worthy of Wellington himself. He reached for his glass of sour punch and wished it was single malt scotch.
Fuck, he swore silently.
His body was a strung bow of tension, wound up so tight a single pluck could destroy the balance, blow him apart and send the pieces flying. All it had taken was a single look into those huge, deep blue eyes, so different from his own.
I can’t seduce you, Daniel. I’m invisible to you. So calm. So indifferent. I’d sooner bed a walrus.
Daniel gave in to the need to move. He dropped his head into his hand and massaged his temples with his forefinger and thumb. His whole skull was throbbing.
Her eyes. All he could see was her eyes. Staring at him. Plus the blue shirt that matched her eyes exactly. Silk, her voice whispered. Then there was the unfettered breasts he now knew lay beneath the shirt. His hands itched to stroke her through the shirt. To tease the buttons open. To have her panting as he slid the lacy thong from her body…
He realized where his mind was wandering and swore to himself. His body had tightened up again and his extremities pounded with the effect of the potential images. Those legs! He could see them, feel them wrapping around his waist.
He stood up abruptly and as he fussed with the last of his drink, he carefully adjusted his trousers to hide as best he could his raging erection before turning to face the room.
She was reading a National Geographic, her long legs crossed, the gorgeous blonde hair the color of sea foam piled up on the back of her head. One black clip held it all there. His hand twitched to pull out the clip and watch the long tresses tumble back down around her shoulders.
Christ, get a hold of yourself! He strode over to the barrier ropes, compiling stumbling, badly phrased Spanish to ask for permission to go to the washrooms, knowing the little humiliation of having to ask would please the Insurrectos enough to let him through.
It would also give him a chance to get away from her presence, which was drawing all the oxygen from the room.
* * * * *
Minnie tapped on Calli’s office door, her notebooks under her arm. She stuck her head around the frame and backed up a step when she realized she was interrupting an earlier meeting. Nick, Duardo and a captain she didn’t know already sat in front of Calli’s desk.
Calli stood up. “Minnie, come in,” she called in Spanish.
Minnie stepped into the room. “I’m interrupting.” She responded in Spanish as well.
“No, this is your meeting.”
Minnie clutched her notebooks. “Then I’m officially confused.”
“I want everyone to hear what you told me this morning. I want you to walk them through it, too.”
Minnie grimaced. “Calli, this stuff is just shopping.” She felt sweat pop out at her temples. “You don’t call in the President of the country for a shopping trip!”
Calli’s eyes narrowed. “Duardo, quickly—”
Barely before she spoke, Duardo had moved. His arms were under Minnie’s, holding her up, moving her to his chair, propping her up. Minnie gripped the edges of Calli’s desk as Nick took her notebooks from her and gasped in big gulps of air. After a minute, she nodded. “I’m okay.”
Duardo cocked his head. “We can reschedule.” He glanced at Calli. “No?”
“If we must,” she agreed.
“No, let’s get this over with,” Minnie said. “I’m only going to get rounder and sicker if we delay.” She held her hand out for the notebooks and Nick gave them back.
Duardo indicated the captain sitting on the far side of Calli’s desk. “This is Captain Rubén Rey. He is the loyalist army’s quartermaster and a computer geek. Calli thought he should hear this, too.”
Rubén Rey nodded at her. He looked impossibly young to be a captain, but intelligence shone from his eyes. Minnie nodded back.
Nick leaned forward. “Tell us about this scheme of yours,” he coaxed. “Calli says you can shave twenty percent off the household food budget as Rosetta had it set.”
Minnie snorted. “Try forty-five,” she said. She flipped open her notebooks and spoke.
Fifty minutes later, she came to a halt, drained of information and with a new respect for Rubén Rey. He had done most of the cross-examination, carefully probing her scheme with some surprising questions she hadn’t considered before, even coming up with some efficiencies she leapt on with delight, scribbling them down on a new page in one of her notebooks. Some of the variations he offered up, though, she dismissed instantly. They wouldn’t work. She had taken her time to explain why, because she knew he would understand. He had finally understood despite her weak Span
ish and sat back with a satisfied air.
“I see,” he said. He looked at Duardo. “It is an excellent system, Colonel,” he pronounced.
Calli grinned at Nick, who nodded and got to his feet. “I need to be elsewhere,” he said. “Thank you for your time and expertise, Minnie. This has been very instructive.” He left, with a pat on her shoulder.
Calli was reaching for something next to her desk. She straightened up and lifted it over. Duardo lowered it onto the desk next to Minnie. It was a laptop computer, still in the manufacturer’s box.
“That’ll make your work a lot easier,” Calli said.
“I don’t know a lot about working on computers,” Minnie pointed out.
“I do,” Captain Rey said. “I will teach you and you will teach me.”
“My work?” Minnie repeated, looking at Calli.
“You’re my new right-hand man,” Calli told her. “Civilian quartermaster. We can come up with a prettier title for you if you want. You and Captain Rey are going to be best buddies, because you’re going to have to work together to supply the army, too.”
Minnie sat looking at Calli, letting it sink in. “Bugger me,” she said, in English.
Rubén laughed, proving his English was adequate, too.
* * * * *
Nick looked up as Duardo was shown into his office and stood up. Duardo stood at ramrod attention, but did not salute, as was correct.
“At ease, Colonel,” Nick told him, moving around the big desk.
Duardo relaxed into parade readiness. “Sir, it is my very great pleasure to ask your permission to marry Ms. Minerva Benning, an American citizen, at sunset tomorrow afternoon.”
“Do you consider your intended in any way to be a threat to Vistaria?”
“No, sir.”
“Then permission is granted.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Nick held out his hand and Duardo accepted it stiffly.
He looked Duardo in the eye. “You’re a lucky bastard, Duardo. Welcome to my family.” He hugged him.
Hostage Crisis Page 5