by Jana Mercy
“Give me your bag,” he ordered.
“What?” No, she wasn’t giving him her bag. Those jewels would go a long way to helping her cause, to helping needy children.
“Give me the bag where you stowed all the trinkets Gerard gave you.”
“Hell no. You’re not taking my jewels. I’ve given you enough of my trinkets in the past.”
His face remained impassive, his hand remaining outstretched. “Give me your bag.”
She didn’t move, didn’t budge. “No.”
He sighed, shook his head and mumbled something about stubborn women before reaching for her bag. She struggled against him, trying to fight him off, but his brute strength won out and without much effort he clutched her bag, prying open the top and dumping the contents into her lap.
Monty grasped at the jewels, trying to retrieve them prior to Ian taking them all. It had been so long since she’d been able to make a donation to the charity fund. She needed these jewels. She wouldn’t let him take them.
“I only want the necklace, Monty.”
She stopped scrambling for jewels. “The necklace?”
“The sapphire and diamond necklace Gerard gave you.”
“Why?”
His grin was devilish. “Hand it to me, and I’ll show you.”
Reluctantly, Monty handed him the necklace. If the bastard wanted it badly enough it wasn’t as if she could stop him anyway.
Ian reached into a black briefcase that had already been in the limo, pulled out what appeared to be an ordinary ink pen, clicked a button and shined a laser beam at the largest stone.
To Monty’s shock a computer screen image appeared in the air above the largest diamond. Names, numbers, sequences of dates, and codes of some sort ran across the projected image.
“What is this?”
“The Degassi Diamond.”
“My necklace is the Degassi Diamond?”
“Gerard had the stone changed out, had the original put into the ring he gave you.” Ian’s eyes glittered. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice, you being such a premier jewel connoisseur.”
Had she even taken a close look at the necklace since that first night? Had Gerard been laughing at her? Her, a jewel thief and he’d put the Degassi around her neck.
“Why would he give me the Degassi Diamond?”
Ian shrugged. “He has a sick sense of humor, apparently. Although my guess is, he suspected the jewel to be safest with you. Despite the fact you’d rob him without another thought, he knows you well enough he trusted your sense of loyalty to bind you to him long enough for him to achieve what he needed.”
“What did he need to achieve?”
“To line up potential buyers and let the bidding wars begin, I imagine.”
Monty motioned toward the information flashing across the screen. “What is this?”
“Victims.”
“Victims?”
“The Degassi Diamond is a weapon, Monty.”
Which fit what little she’d been told by the man who’d let her leave prison in exchange for this jewel.
Not a jewel. A weapon. She took another look at the gem, taking note that nothing gave clue that it was more than a simple jewel until Ian had activated the data with the pen-like instrument.
“How does it work?”
He clicked the pen off. “Now, that is the billion dollar question, isn’t it?”
Monty’s jaw didn’t drop open. Barely. “Billion?”
Ian just grinned.
She let the facts digest. The facts as she knew them. Yet, how much of what Ian told her could she believe? The man was a liar, had already betrayed her at least once, probably numerous times.
Obviously there was something different about the necklace Gerard had given her. No ordinary jewel generated computer images at the click of a pen.
But if Ian didn’t know how the Degassi worked, how had he known about the pen? Then again, he hadn’t said he didn’t know how the Degassi worked, had he?
“Where did you get that pen?”
Ian snorted wryly, sliding the pen back into his briefcase. “Like I said, too smart for your own good, Monty. Think about it. You’ll figure it out.”
She ran through everything in her mind again. This time her mouth dropped open. Holy shit.
“You’re working for the government, aren’t you?”
His eyes glittered like obsidian. “Now why would you think that?”
“Because it’s fucking true.” She collapsed against the seat, shaking her head back and forth. Did Ian know she was with Gerard under duplicitous circumstances?
Had he been the mastermind behind everything from the very beginning? She’d thought Gerard had set her up from the beginning, but perhaps she’d looked toward the wrong man in her life. Perhaps Ian had been the true mastermind.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “Who are you really?”
“Ian McGowan.”
“That’s your real name.”
“As real as anyone else’s name.”
“Which means it’s not.” She didn’t even know his real name. Which mattered exactly why? She’d done worse. Much worse.
He took a deep breath, then clasped her hand into his, squeezing tightly. Her gaze lifted to his.
“You have to trust me, Monty.”
Trust him? Ha, as if.
“Why should I trust you? All you’ve ever done was lie to me from the day we first met.”
“Because I’m your only hope out of this mess.” He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against her fingers. “And not everything was a lie. Look into your heart and you’ll know it’s true.”
She yanked her hand free from his, rubbed her fingers against the cool leather of the seat trying to ease the burn of his touch. “You’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
His expression remained somber. “I know more than you think I know.”
Which meant what exactly?
“The last time I trusted you, I ended up locked in a jail cell,” she reminded, herself as much as him. “For four horrible long months.”
His gaze never left hers. “None-the-less, you have to trust me now.”
Her heart skipped a beat at how his eyes searched hers, beseeched hers, as if her trusting him really was important to him. To him personally. She was such a fool. A pansy waiting for him to take advantage of her yet again.
“I can’t trust you,” she whispered, hating the emotion she heard in her voice. She didn’t want to feel anything for this man. Not anything but hatred at how he’d used her and left her to rot in jail. “Not ever again.”
He pulled her too him, brushed his cheek against hers, brushed his lips against her temple in a motion so gentle her ribs squeezed the breath out of her, making her dizzy, making her want to for just once lean on someone else, to lean on him.
“Look inside your heart, Monty,” he whispered, kissing her temple again. “You’ll find everything you need to trust me because you and I are two of a kind. A matched set. You know I’m right. Listen to your heart.”
Her heart was foolish. Was blinded by his pretty words and the heat of his body.
“You’re wrong,” she denied. “There’s nothing of you in my heart. Nothing.”
He pulled back enough to stare directly into her eyes again. “You deny that you still love me?”
She couldn’t deny her feelings for him. Not to herself. But nor would she humiliate herself by admitting to those feelings either. Never again.
“I don’t love you, Ian. Or whoever you really are. You don’t even exist in my world. Not beyond someone who is talented in bed.”
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, trying to figure out her next course of action. Did she go with Ian or did she escape him? And if she escaped where did she go? She had the number she was to call memorized, would have the Degassi back in her hands before making her exit. But was she willing to hand the diamond over to anyone before knowing exactly what it was, before knowing th
e ramifications of her actions?
The answer was no.
Which meant she had to see this through, had to see where Ian was taking her, what he planned to do. And the longer she was with him, the more precarious her situation became.
Because she didn’t doubt that when push came to shove, Ian would betray her at first opportunity, would break her heart into so many pieces it would never beat to any rhythm but his.
Trust him? No, that wasn’t something she could ever do again.
Monty woke slowly, not recognizing her surroundings, but grateful not to be back at the penitentiary as she’d first thought. She’d dreamed she’d been back behind bars, dreamed that Ian had stood with the warden, laughing at her. Her dream had morphed into she and Ian having hot and sweaty sex with the warden watching, laughing, jacking off onto two inmates as his eyes clung to her and Ian’s bodies slapping against one another, her taking him deeper and deeper, lifting her body to his, wanting every inch of him enveloped within her.
Not a dream. A nightmare.
Much as the one she currently lived.
Although not back in prison, she might as well be.
Where was Ian? Her only assurance that he’d return for her was that he’d left the Degassi. Why was that? He knew she could escape if she wanted. Which meant he knew she had no plans to leave.
Trust me, he’d said. Had he left the diamond as a symbol of his trust in her? No, he’d known she wouldn’t leave until she knew the full scoop, until she knew the right course of action to take.
The bastard. She hated that he could read her so well. Hated it.
Hated it almost enough to take the Degassi and high-tail it before he returned.
Where had he gone?
That was the billion dollar question.
Because wherever he was held the answers to the Degassi.
How the hell had he gotten himself into this mess? Hell, Ian knew exactly how he’d gotten himself into this. By getting himself into Monty. That’s exactly how everything had become so fucking complicated.
Because he was going to have to screw her over again.
And not the way he’d screwed her on Gerard’s plane. Hell no. That had been stupid. Just as screwing her at Gerard’s penthouse had been foolish.
Then again, Monty made him a fool.
Which had to be the reason for his current dilemma.
He wasn’t supposed to be questioning what he was doing. Wasn’t supposed to question what he was trained to do. What his whole purpose in meeting Monty had been.
From the beginning she’d been a pawn in a game much bigger than either of them.
A game that would be played out to her detriment whether he went through with his role in the whole sordid mess or not.
Whether…what the hell was he thinking? Of course he would go through with this. It was his job. His duty. His loyalty to his country and fellow mankind.
If Monty got hurt in the process, if she hated him when all was said and done, then so be it.
If she lived at all.
Hell, she had to live.
Yet, hadn’t he himself been ordered to kill her if she stood in his way or was no longer of use to the cause?
“You’ve gotten the Degassi then?”
Ian met the British man sitting across from him’s gaze. He wasn’t ready to divulge that information. “Not yet.”
Which was a lie. When had he started lying to his colleagues?
“Damn,” the man cursed. “Kincaid will have the diamond sold to the highest bidder any day now. Already word has come that he meets with General Chang.”
Not until the bastard hooked back up with Monty and the Degassi. It had been Ian’s job to get the diamond safely into the country. Gerard had ordered him to deliver Monty and all her jewels. The bastard didn’t know he or Monty had any inkling of the diamond’s real purpose.
“You think I am not aware of this, Robert?” he sighed, thinking that he’d destroy the diamond himself prior to letting it fall into the hands of a cold-blooded killer like General Chang. Not that his or Robert’s governments would appreciate that course of action. No, they wanted the data the diamond contained. Wanted to track who’d put the satellite in orbit that would access the information and activate the weapon.
“What I think is that you are blinded by a piece of ass.”
Ian arched his brow at his long time friend. “When have I ever let a woman come between me and my job?”
“Never,” Robert admitted in his clipped accent, leaning back in his chair and taking a puff off a pipe that Ian often thought the man used merely to try to add a sense of mystery and age to himself. “But there is always the first.”
“Not on this. Never on this.” Even as he spoke the words Ian knew ultimately they were true. Monty would be sacrificed. Ultimately, there was no way around deviating from the plan. And he was the bastard who would be her slayer even though he’d told her to trust him.
Either way this played out, he’d lose Monty forever.
Chapter Eight
Having been going stir crazy alone at the apartment, Monte blinked at the man standing in the doorway.
Not the man she’d been expecting. Not the man she’d been wanting from the moment she’d awakened to discover he’d left. Hours had passed and he’d yet to return. Ungrateful bastard.
“Gerard?”
“Surprised to see me, love?” Gerard swaggered into the room with all the confidence of a man who owned the world and knew it. A man who didn’t seem surprised to see her in London in the slightest. Maybe he really had ordered Ian to bring her here. Her head ached from trying to figure out what was the truth and what was lies.
“Few people surprise me, Gerard. One has to have expectations to be surprised.” Expectations that she obviously was nowhere near as well equipped not to have as she’d like to be. As she should be. When had she lost her edge? She’d trained with the best during her military stint, had developed a tough outer shell any man would be proud to claim, yet for the past six months she’d become…weak.
“And you have no expectations?”
“None.” She was lying, but she gave good face and knew it. She hadn’t lost the ability to hide her emotions. Not when she wanted to hide them and she didn’t want Gerard seeing a damned thing she didn’t want him to see.
He laughed. “Learned that lesson the hard way, did you?”
Which meant he knew all about her and Ian.
“I’m not impervious to making mistakes.”
His brow lifted. “Perhaps you’d like to tell me about some of the mistakes you’ve made.”
A basic rule of survival was knowing your strengths and weaknesses, knowing your opponent’s just as thoroughly. She was Gerard’s weakness.
She let her gaze lower slightly, pouted her full lips, and moved closer to him, so close that their bodies almost touched. “You could probably tell me more about my mistakes than I know.”
Taking her into his arms, he sucked her lower lip into his mouth, gently bit into the plump fullness. “You might just be right about that. I could.”
She wanted to know what Gerard knew. All of what he knew, yet she figured she’d have to play her cards right or she’d end up with knowing little more than she’d already figured out on her own.
Or dead.
She pressed herself more fully against Gerard, smashing her breasts between her and the expensive material of his shirt, and wound her arms around his neck, letting her fingers play in the soft hairs at his nape. “Ian works for you, does he?”
An amused look lit Gerard’s eyes. “He does.”
She touched the tip of her tongue to his throat, traced a slow pattern toward his clavicle. “How long has he worked for you?”
Gerard took her by the wrists, held her far enough away from him so he could look into her eyes. “You want to know if I hired him to set you up to take that fall?”
Letting her gaze rest on his mouth, as if she wanted nothing more than to feel his
mouth against hers, she shook her head. “No. I already know the answer. You did,” she ventured. “You saw an opportunity to get what you wanted and you took it. I respect that.”
His grip loosened slightly, his body shifting back against hers. “So what are you wanting to know, my curious pet?”
“How long did he work for you prior to his setting me up? Was I his first job?”
Gerard regarded her a minute, his beautiful lips twisting with mirth. “Are you suggesting he was working for someone other than me? That he infiltrated my inner circle only to get to you and that I’ve been double-played?”
“Is that what he did?” She had no idea how long Ian had worked for Gerard. She just wanted to plant doubt in Gerard’s mind. Even if he knew that’s exactly what she was doing. “How long?”
Trust me. Ian’s words echoed through her mind. Never.
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter how long McGowen has worked for me. He wouldn’t double-cross me. He wouldn’t dare. No intelligent man would.”
Monty arched her brow.
Almost she’d say Gerard paled beneath his flawless tan. Almost. Then he just smiled the same arrogant smile she’d seen numerous times over the past few weeks.