Lia swallowed hard, her pulse beating erratically at the hollow of her throat. He could feel the tension emanating from her body, matching his own. “This is neither the time nor the place to have this discussion,” she said shakily.
Armand gave a harsh, mirthless laugh as he drew away from her. “Something tells me you’d say that even if we were completely alone at the cabin.”
She looked at him, her eyes dark and stormy. “You don’t under—”
“Excuse me, sir.”
Armand and Lia glanced up sharply in unison. A member of the dining staff stood at their table balancing a drink on a silver serving tray.
He offered a sheepish smile to Armand. “I don’t mean to interrupt, sir, but I was asked to give this to you.”
“What is it?” Armand asked.
“A mimosa, sir. And a note. From the young lady at table nine.” He lifted the tall champagne flute from the tray and set it down on the table with an elaborate flourish.
Armand chuckled softly as the steward passed him the note. “For your eyes only, she wanted me to tell you.”
“Thanks,” Armand said as the man bowed gracefully before departing.
Deliberately ignoring Lia, who’d remained coolly silent throughout the brief conversation, Armand unfolded the piece of paper and read the note: A group of us are going horseback riding after lunch. I hope you can join us. My name is Tiffany, by the way.
Lifting his head, Armand looked across the room and found the pretty woman in the navy blue pantsuit staring at him with a soft, inviting smile. He winked at her, his lips curving in a lazy half smile.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lia frown as she watched the two-way exchange. “You shouldn’t drink that,” she said tightly.
“Why not?”
“You don’t know where it came from.”
Armand chuckled dryly. “It came from the kitchen.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
Breaking eye contact with Tiffany, Armand arched a brow at Lia. “Are you suggesting that someone is trying to poison me?” he drawled.
She met his dubious gaze unflinchingly. “It’s highly possible.”
“Hmm. Well, then, I guess I’ll take my chances.”
Before he could reach for the champagne flute, Lia snatched it away from him.
He watched in amused disbelief as she sniffed delicately at the glass, then dipped her pinky inside and sampled the cocktail.
After a long moment, she passed him the glass without a word.
“I’m touched,” Armand said, half-seriously.
“By what?” she grumbled.
“By your continued willingness to risk your life for me. This mimosa could have been poisoned, as you said. You were willing to be the first to find out. I’m touched. Deeply.”
Lia scowled, rolling her eyes at him. “You don’t have to be a smart-ass, Magliore. I’m just doing my job.”
“Right,” he murmured. “Your job. How could I forget?”
She reached for her cup of coffee and took a long sip. As she did, Armand saw her trying very hard not to peek at the note in his hand.
His mouth twitched. “You’re dying to know what it says, aren’t you?” he teased.
She shook her head, quickly averting her eyes. “Not at all. It’s none of my business.”
“You’re right about that.” Armand set the glass down on the table without taking a sip. And waited.
After a prolonged moment, Lia said very casually, “Unless, of course, you’re planning to do something I wouldn’t approve of. Like sneaking off to be alone with your new secret admirer.” When Armand said nothing, her eyes narrowed suspiciously on his expressionless face. “You do know that I can’t allow that.”
“Allow what?”
“Allow you to be alone with that woman.”
“Her name is Tiffany,” Armand supplied.
“Whatever. You can’t go off to be alone with her. You have to remain in my sight at all times.”
Instead of responding, Armand idly stroked his chin between his thumb and forefinger, feeling the rasp of bristly whiskers. Now that he’d returned to civilization, he needed to get back in the habit of shaving on a regular basis.
“Do you understand?” Lia prompted, staring at him. “At all times.”
“If that’s the way it has to be.”
“It is.”
“In that case,” he drawled, “we’ve been invited to go horseback riding this afternoon.”
Lia frowned. “I really don’t think it’s a good idea for you to become friendly with any of these people. What if Tiffany recognizes you from old news clips, or starts asking too many personal questions?”
“I think I can handle myself.”
“Of course,” Lia said sardonically. “Men have perfected the art of lying and evasion.”
Armand smiled. “Exactly.”
“Be that as it may—”
“Aren’t you the one who told me yesterday I could go anywhere and do anything I want while we’re here?”
Lia hesitated, then nodded curtly.
“Well, what I want,” Armand said, meeting Tiffany’s gaze across the room once again, “is to enjoy the company of a beautiful woman with no strings attached. No guilt, no recriminations. No muss, no fuss.”
“In other words,” Lia said bitingly, “you want to have a fling.”
He turned his head to look at her. “What can I say?” he murmured, deliberately baiting her. “It’s been a long time.”
Her mouth tightened, but she said nothing more.
Hiding a smile, Armand reached for the champagne glass and raised it in a toast to Tiffany, who beamed with pleasure before shooting a triumphant look at Lia.
Lia scowled.
And Armand downed his drink, realizing he’d just been handed his ace in the hole.
Chapter 9
For the first time in six years, Lia hated her job.
No amount of training could have prepared her for what she would endure over the next several hours.
After kissing Magliore the day before, she’d told herself that things couldn’t possibly get worse.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
In hindsight, Lia realized she should have expected the worst when Magliore told her that he’d been invited to go horseback riding. He might as well have asked her to go skinny-dipping in the lake.
Although Lia had always loved animals, they’d never particularly cared for her, sensing, perhaps, that something was different about her. Whenever she approached horses they became restless, whinnying nervously, stamping the ground and trying to back away from her. Their spooked reaction to her had always made her cry as a child, but as she grew older she learned to accept that animals, like people, sometimes rejected that which they couldn’t understand.
When she had first joined the protection detail, she had been required to take advanced riding lessons from the U.S. Park Police. The horse she had worked with every day for two months was an adaptable, highly trained animal that managed to put aside his own misgivings about Lia in order to help her become an adequate rider. Fortunately for her, she’d never been assigned a protectee who wanted to go horseback riding.
Until now.
The old gelding she was paired with that afternoon was especially difficult to control. Lia spent the entire three-hour jaunt through the scenic mountains gripping the reins tightly and praying that she wouldn’t get thrown off the horse. The tour guide, bringing up the rear beside her on the narrow trail, kept shaking his head in bewilderment and muttering apologetically, “I don’t know what’s gotten into him, miss. He’s old, but he ain’t never been this cantankerous before.”
Her predicament didn’t escape the notice of Magliore or Tiffany, who were riding alongside each other several paces ahead. Every time the sides of their legs brushed or a private smile passed between them, Lia’s stomach knotted. She told herself she didn’t care that Magliore and the other woman seemed to b
e hitting it off so well, but she knew better. She did care, and it bothered her to know that he could kiss her senseless one night, then cozy up to someone else the very next day.
Not that she could really blame him, Lia grudgingly admitted. He was a gorgeous, incredibly virile man who had been living in self-imposed exile for the last year. If he’d gone that long without having sex, as he’d implied over breakfast, who could blame him for seizing any opportunity to end his sexual drought? It was clear that Tiffany, with her provocative smiles and swinging hips, was only too willing to satisfy his every need.
Which was more than Lia could offer him.
At one point during the ride, Magliore glanced over his shoulder at her. Seeing her strained expression, and assuming her ornery horse was to blame, he asked, “Are you all right?”
Lia gave him a smile etched in steel. “Just peachy,” she said tightly.
Tiffany looked back at her with a sympathetic little smile that was about as genuine as a three-dollar bill. “You poor thing. Not having much fun, are you?” Turning back to Magliore, she whispered laughingly, “Let’s just hope she never has to whisk you away from danger while on horseback!”
As Lia glared at the other woman, she briefly fantasized about pulling out her pistol and firing a shot into the air, sending Tiffany and her horse plunging over the side of the mountain. But then she realized that the only bolting horse would probably be hers.
As if the afternoon excursion hadn’t been trying enough, she now found herself holding up a wall at an informal gathering at the Laurel Lodge, where many social functions and formal dinners were held on the property.
That evening, at least thirty men and women milled around the room, their attire ranging from casual to elegant—jeans and khaki shorts blending with dark sport coats and beaded tops. Soft, muted music flowed through the area, barely audible above the din of laughter and conversation. Members of the dining staff bustled about with professional efficiency refilling drinks and offering scrumptious hors d’oeuvres from silver trays. A fire roared in the enormous brick fireplace and the chandeliers were dimmed, creating a cozy, relaxed atmosphere.
Nursing a club soda, Lia took in the entire scene from her inconspicuous position in a corner of the room. She’d spent most of the evening watching as Magliore, seated at a blackjack table with five others, quietly and methodically outmaneuvered the dealer. Tiffany stood just behind him with one manicured hand resting possessively on his shoulder. Her hair was swept into an elegant twist and she’d changed into a black summer sheath that clung to every voluptuous curve and displayed her long, shapely legs to advantage. Every time Magliore won a hand she leaned down, deliberately treating him to an eyeful of cleavage as she whispered something in his ear. Whatever she said to him usually elicited one of his slow, lazy smiles—a smile of such potent sensuality that any woman watching would envy Tiffany. It didn’t help that Magliore looked devastatingly handsome in a black knit shirt that defined his broad, powerful chest and charcoal trousers that rode his long legs as if they it had been tailor-made for him. Even if it hadn’t been Lia’s job to watch him, she couldn’t have taken her eyes off him.
And now, the sight of his dark head bent close to Tiffany’s made her grip her glass so hard it was a wonder it didn’t break. She wished she had something stronger than club soda, but she knew better than to drink in public when she was supposed to be on duty.
Not that anyone would notice. After four years of working on protection details, Lia had perfected the art of invisibility. She’d learned how and when to blend into the background without ever losing sight of the protectee, or any potential threats to him.
So when two well-dressed women wandered over to the refreshment table, two feet from where Lia stood, she shamelessly eavesdropped on their conversation without fear of detection.
“I just called home to wish my son good night,” the bleached blonde was saying, “and I got into the biggest argument with my husband, Lucas.”
“About what?”
“Every time I have to travel he finds a reason to pick a fight with me. This time it was the fact that I missed Connor’s back-to-school night, for the first time in six years, mind you. I miss it once and suddenly my perfect track record is nullified.” She huffed out a sigh of disgust.
Her companion, a tall black woman, shook her head sympathetically. “Men and their double standards. Look around this room. Do you think the wives of these army generals are sitting at home thinking of ways to punish their husbands for missing back-to-school nights, birthday parties and Little League games?”
“Of course not. They know the deal.” Another deep sigh. “I know what Lucas’s problem is. He’s paranoid. He thinks that the only reason we’re brought on these trips is to serve as sex toys for our lecherous bosses.”
“Well…”
“Rhonda!” came the scandalized admonishment.
Rhonda chuckled unabashedly. “Oh, come on, Meredith. You have to admit that a lot of hooking up does go on during these trips. We both know of at least three women here who are sleeping with their bosses.”
“We suspect,” Meredith corrected. “We don’t know for sure.”
“Humph. Well, I suspect that we will know for sure before the night is over. All you have to do is look around the room to see who’s pairing up with whom, and it’s pretty obvious who’s going to be sneaking out of whose cabin early tomorrow morning.”
“Speaking of that, did you see the way Tiffany’s been hanging all over that man at the blackjack table?”
Rhonda laughed. “It’s kind of hard not to notice. She’s so obvious about it. But can you really blame her? Look at him—he’s hot!”
Meredith chuckled. “You definitely won’t get any argument out of me. Who is he?”
“A visiting dignitary, Tiffany told me. From some teensy-weensy country in Africa.”
“Which one?”
“Oh, shoot, I can’t remember.” Rhonda snorted. “If I could, you’d better believe I’d be packing up and moving there tomorrow!”
Meredith cackled. “I think Tiffany might beat you to it. She’s been a permanent fixture at his side all day.”
“I know. She’s hoping they can get rid of his Secret Service bodyguard so they can go back to Tiffany’s room and get down to business, if you know what I mean.”
“I think I’ve got a pretty good idea,” Meredith said with a lascivious grin that made Lia feel decidedly violent.
As the two women moved away, she didn’t know whether to be relieved that Magliore’s cover story seemed to be holding up, or annoyed that he and Tiffany were planning to give her the slip sometime that evening. Realistically, Lia knew she couldn’t prevent him from taking a lover. As she’d told him yesterday, he was her protectee, not her prisoner. Hell, he could have an orgy with ten different women if he wanted, as long as Lia secured the premises beforehand.
God, she hated her job today.
A loud chorus of groans from the blackjack table reclaimed her attention. A small crowd had gathered to watch in amused disbelief as Magliore won another hand. As he raked in his chips, the distinguished-looking gentleman seated to his right clapped him affably on the shoulder and leaned over to whisper something that made Magliore roar with laughter.
Lia frowned, shaking her head. This wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind when she had told Magliore not to draw too much attention to himself. But she supposed she couldn’t really complain. Truth be told, she’d rather have him engaged in a friendly game of blackjack with a bunch of other men than hudled in a dark, cozy corner with his little girlfriend.
No sooner had she completed the thought than she saw him rise from the table and take Tiffany’s hand. Lia tensed, watching as the other players sent the smiling couple on their way with hearty calls of encouragement and wolf whistles.
Lia straightened from the wall, her narrowed gaze tracking Magliore and Tiffany as they started across the room. Toward the doorway.
Before s
he could take two steps to follow them, her path was blocked by a tall, barrel-chested man with clear blue eyes and steel-gray hair cropped military short in a crew cut. He wore an expensive dark blazer and neatly pressed trousers. Lia recognized him as one of the army generals who had arrived yesterday to attend the intelligence summit.
He smiled flirtatiously at Lia. “What’s a beautiful young lady like yourself doing hiding in the corner?”
Lia could tell by his slightly slurred speech and flushed face that the general had had one too many drinks that evening.
She gave him a polite smile. “Good evening, sir. Having a good time?”
“Absolutely. After being holed up in meetings and strategy sessions all day, this little mixer is a welcome change of pace, know what I mean?”
“Of course,” Lia said smoothly. Over the general’s shoulder, she had a clear view of Magliore and Tiffany, who had paused near the doorway to converse with another couple.
“I must say,” the general continued, running an appreciative gaze over Lia, “I’ve met plenty of Secret Service agents over the years, but I don’t think I’ve ever come across one as fetching as you are. How long have you worked for the service, young lady?”
“Six years and counting,” Lia murmured.
“Is that right?” He shifted closer, so close that his whiskey-scented breath now fanned her face. “It’s good to know that the agency is not only open to hiring women as agents, but beautiful women to boot.”
Lia gave him a wintry smile. “I’d like to believe that my qualifications had something to do with their hiring decision.”
The general laughed loudly. “Of course, of course! I wouldn’t dare suggest otherwise. I’m simply saying how refreshing it is to find a combination of beauty and brains in a Secret Service agent. Like I told you, the ones I’ve met had absolutely nothing going for them in the looks department.”
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