“Won’t they think it odd that an American woman is up before dawn, asking questions like that?”
“I doubt they’ll know she’s American,” Doc replied. “And depending on the disguise she uses for this little outing, they may not even know she’s a woman.”
The mingled affection and respect in David’s voice didn’t trigger any of the jealousy Paige had felt earlier. Thinking about it, she wasn’t surprised. Not after what had just passed between her and David. Not after she’d shared, even in a small way, some of the stomach-twisting tension of their mission.
Still, she wouldn’t mind hearing a little of the same quality in his voice when he talked to her. Gathering the folds of the voluminous sheet, she sat down on the sofa and tucked her knees under her.
“What do we do if she finds the yacht? What’s my next assignment?”
She wasn’t sure, but she thought she caught a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. That wasn’t quite what she’d hoped to generate, but at least it was better than the cold disapproval he’d displayed earlier this afternoon. Deciding she wanted to see his face during this discussion, she reached up to snap on the lamp.
When the light bathed him in its soft golden glow, it took Paige a while to raise her eyes to David’s face. They seemed to snag at the level of his waist and get stuck there. She’d seen David half-dressed before, of course. She’d seen him wholly undressed before. But now, observing the play of the spotlight across his stomach and chest, she realized she’d never quite appreciated the reasons for his sleek, muscled power.
Paige had always assumed he exercised so rigorously every day from an innate sense of discipline. She now knew he did so to hone his physical and mental faculties for this secret life he led. And well honed they certainly were.
The lamplight played on the bare skin of his upper torso, casting it in subtle shades of bronze and tan. A light sprinkling of reddish-brown hair dusted his chest and curled around his flat nipples. She’d always considered David handsome, but seeing him now, with his slacks hanging low on his lean hips and his pectorals bulging slightly as he crossed his arms, Paige made a startling discovery. His body turned her on. Totally. Completely. In a way she hadn’t thought much about before. In a way she didn’t have to think about at all. Her body was responding with no input from her brain whatsoever.
Beneath the swaddling sheet, her nipples peaked, and a gush of damp heat moistened the juncture of her thighs.
“Your next assignment will depend a great deal on what Maggie uncovers,” David said casually, leaning one hip against a marble-topped sofa table.
Paige dragged her eyes from her intense contemplation of his navel.
“If she gets a lead on the boat you were taken to,” he continued, “we’ll arrange a meeting with whoever’s on board. We’ll have to make it seem accidental, but…”
“We?”
“We. As you pointed out this afternoon, you’re part of this team, whether I like it or not. Until the contact is made, anyway.”
He paused, his lips crooking in a rueful smile. “But I can’t take another night of watching you make yourself available to the highest bidder.”
“You can’t?”
“No, I can’t. So I think we should alter your status a bit. From available merchandise to reserved stock. For private enjoyment only.”
At the look in his eyes, the moist heat between Paige’s legs grew hotter, wetter.
“What about the contact?” she asked around the sudden tightness in her throat. “How will he get to me if you’re…privately enjoying the stock?”
“Meredith indicated that the women who acted as couriers were free to indulge their own pursuits before and after delivering the merchandise. We’ll just let word leak out that you’ve entered into an arrangement for the period of your stay in Cannes. Whoever wants that microdot is resourceful enough to work around an apparent lover.”
“Apparent?” she echoed. Her gaze slid down the broad expanse of his chest as she recalled just how far beyond apparent they’d gone tonight. The memories made her clamp her thighs together.
Really, this adventure business was a sort of an aphrodisiac, she decided. The danger, the excitement, the experience of playing a role so different from life’s ordinary routine, all contributed to a sense of heightened awareness, a feeling of being intensely alive. No wonder James Bond had such a devoted following, Paige mused as she slid her legs off the sofa and rose.
Hitching the wadded sheet under her arms, she walked over to stand before him. While one hand held the material more or less in place, the other reached out to touch the warm steel of his skin.
“We shouldn’t have too much difficulty playing the role you just described,” she murmured, tracing a whorl of hair lightly with one finger.
A flicker of regret crossed David’s face. His hand closed over hers, stilling the small movement.
“It might be more difficult than you imagine. It has to be only a role.”
Sure that she hadn’t heard him correctly, Paige tugged at her hand. David held it captive against his chest.
“Listen to me, sweetheart. I lost control tonight, which is dangerous for someone on a covert mission, not to mention stupid as hell for us personally.”
“Wh-what?”
“I didn’t use anything,” he reminded her softly. “I forgot all about the need to protect you.”
“Wait a minute. There were two of us in that bed tonight, as best I recall. I think I deserve a little of the credit or the blame, whichever it is you’re apportioning here.”
“There were two,” he agreed, with a wry twist of his lips. “But from now on, sweetheart, there will only be one.”
Paige knew very well that her sudden surge of irritation had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that David still assumed responsibility for her “protection.” Although the status of their engagement was somewhat fuzzy at this particular point, in her heart of hearts she wanted desperately to have his children.
What rankled was his unilateral decision to put their sexual activities on hold. Especially now, when just the sight of him had her feeling so damn…aroused.
“Fine,” she told him, hanging on to her dignity, and the sheet, with both hands. “I’ve got the bed. You can take the sofa.”
So much for James Bond, she thought in disgust, trying hard not to slam the bedroom door behind her.
Chapter 9
Maggie hid a smile as she glanced around the small, crowded bistro, the third one she’d visited since slipping out of the hotel less than an hour ago. So much for the glamorous, deliciously decadent undercover role she’d thought she was going to play while in Cannes.
Instead of breakfasting at one of the linen-draped tables in the Carlton’s palatial dining room, she was wedged into a tiny café filled with a few oilcloth-covered tables and an astonishing number of people. She shared a narrow bench with a red-faced fisherman who exuded the pungent aroma of his trade and a voluble gray-haired woman who stabbed her croissant into a small cup of café au lait, then waved the soggy pastry in the air to emphasize every point. Maggie didn’t mind the enforced intimacy in the least, however, since the woman beside her possessed just the information she’d been seeking.
“But no!” the sweater-clad woman exclaimed. “No, I tell you. The boat you seek is gone.”
Maggie ducked as drops of coffee flew in all directions. Despite her evasive action, several more splotches appeared on the once pristine front of her beige-and-white-striped dress.
The various occupants of the bistro had recognized the Carlton’s distinctive uniform immediately, of course. With gruff good cheer, they’d squeezed closer together to make room for another working woman. Just as cheerfully, they’d answered her careful, casual questions.
“This boat,” the woman beside Maggie declared with another dramatic wave of the croissant, “the one the American tourist falls from yesterday, was docked at the marina where my Georges works. He operates the fuel station, you
understand. Georges filled the tank not long after the woman falls, and the boat slipped its mooring.”
“How unfortunate,” Maggie murmured in soft, idiomatic Provençal. French—and its related but quite distinct sister dialect of the south of France—were among her favorite languages, and she hadn’t needed any refresher training to prepare for this mission.
“The woman is staying at the Carlton,” Maggie continued with a small shrug. “She lost her purse when she fell into the sea. She hopes perhaps someone aboard the boat might have fished it from the water.”
“Not with the tide that swirls around those docks,” the man beside her pronounced, reaching for a crock of creamy butter. “Her purse is halfway to Africa by now, you may take my word for that.”
He slathered the butter onto a brioche, then popped the whole confection into his mouth. The lift of his arm sent an overpowering waft of fishy air in Maggie’s direction. Her eyes watering, she leaned back against the stone wall and breathed in rapidly through her open mouth. When she had herself under control again, she addressed the woman on her other side.
“Do you think your Georges could give me the name or registration of this boat? So mademoiselle may contact its owner to ask about her purse, on the off chance it was found? I will share whatever reward she gives me for this information.”
The gray-haired woman patted her hand. “But of course. I’ll phone my husband. He’s at the docks already.”
Chair legs scraped the bare tiles to make room as she weaved her way through the close-packed tables. Maggie edged sideways on the bench in an attempt to put as much distance as she could between herself and the fisherman. Reaching for one of the feather-light croissants in a napkin-draped basket, she watched the woman duck under a row of cheeses dangling from the low ceiling and drop a coin into a pay phone. A few moments later she returned.
“It was the Kristina II,” Georges’s wife announced. “She’s owned by an agency that rents pleasure craft to the tourists. Or to those who don’t wish to maintain their own boats. Georges didn’t know who rented it yesterday.”
Maggie concealed her sharp disappointment. Whoever had arranged to use the yacht as a place to meet with Meredith Ames would be too smart to leave a trail through a rental agency.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “I will tell mademoiselle she must speak to this agency. Is it perhaps the one owned by Gabriel Ardenne?”
Maggie’s question was a pure shot in the dark. Although the well-known tycoon and international jet-setter had a finger in a great many pies, not all of them legitimate, Maggie had no idea if he operated a yacht rental business.
Evidently he didn’t. Maggie’s companion shook her head.
“Gabriel Ardenne, the banker? No, I don’t think he owns this agency. Georges has never mentioned him to me.”
Hiding her disappointment, Maggie took a bite of her pastry. Across the table, a little man in a gray sweater and a black beret gave a snort of disgust.
“Ardenne? Ha! That one wouldn’t own boats, even through a rental agency. I’ve never seen anyone so afflicted by mal de mere. He lost his dinner twice when I ferried him to Saint-Agnès last month, and the bay was as smooth as glass.”
The woman beside Maggie stabbed a croissant into her cup once more, than sprayed the assembled crowd with both coffee and her opinions.
“These Parisians! They live such lives of dissipation, then come here seeking relief from their sins. To think our blessed saint’s own island has become a sanctuary for men such as Gabriel Ardenne!”
At that point a lively argument broke out concerning the relative levels of degradation of Parisian bankers and the international film stars who flocked to Cannes each spring. When Maggie squeezed her way out of the bistro sometime later, excitement sang along her nerves. She now knew that the last time Gabriel Ardenne visited Cannes, he’d been ferried to a small island near the western arm of the bay. This island, named for the virginal, saintly recluse who’d retreated there in defiance of the Romans’ ban on Christian practices two millennia ago, was now the site of a very secluded and very expensive spa.
As she walked through the narrow, still-dark streets of the old town, Maggie formulated a quick plan of action. The island was only ten minutes away. She could hire a boat, do a quick reconnoiter, maybe gain access to the current list of guests, and be back before the sun rose.
If she ascertained that Gabriel Ardenne was among the guests, Maggie would then get together with David and Paige to plan their next step. If he wasn’t, she decided with a grin, she would’ve had a pleasurable early-morning boat trip to a scenic little island.
First, however, she needed to change uniforms.
She turned off the narrow lane into a back alley that threaded through the residential area. Peering over crumbling stone walls into tiny gardens and yards, she soon found exactly what she needed. A few moments later, she pinned several high-denomination franc notes to a clothesline with a plastic clothes-pin and tucked a bundle of dark garments under her arm.
Maggie’s first indication that she might have underestimated the difficulty of her task came when she cut the engine of her small boat and drifted toward the island’s only wharf. To her intense interest, she saw the jetty was flooded with light and guarded by two health spa attendants with suspicious-looking bulges under their right armpits. Thoughtfully Maggie tugged the billed cap she’d appropriated earlier down over her forehead and continued around the island, as though heading past it for the far arm of the bay.
Out of sight of the guards, she cut the engine and drifted slowly on the rolling swells. The sharp scent of pine and fragrant eucalyptus floated toward her from the tree-studded island as she studied its steep, rocky shoreline.
If she wanted to move about Saint-Agnès unescorted, she’d have to anchor the boat in one of the small coves that dented the island and swim ashore. Now that she’d seen those guards, Maggie’s sixth sense—the tingling inner instinct that made her one of OMEGA’s most effective and least orthodox operatives—told her she definitely wanted to move about Saint-Agnès unescorted.
Punching in a code on the digital watch that she’d substituted for the gold compact Paige now carried, Maggie waited for Doc to answer. Much as she hated to disturb him yet again, she needed to let him know she was going in.
Maggie’s brief communiqué disturbed Doc, but not in the way she’d envisioned. Instead of rousing him from Paige’s side in the gilded bed that dominated the luxurious bedroom, her call brought him instantly awake and off the hard sofa in the sitting room.
Massaging the crick in his neck with one hand, Doc listened intently to her brief report. His hand stilled as she outlined her plan to swim ashore and scout out the spa.
“I don’t like it,” he told her quietly. “Why don’t you wait until control can get us some information on this operation?”
“There’s still an hour or so until dawn. I might as well have a look around. I have a feeling that our boy’s here.”
Doc frowned, but refrained from any further protest and signed off. Maggie was a skilled operative, with as much experience in the field as he himself possessed. Like all OMEGA agents, she was trained to operate independently, and didn’t take unnecessary risks.
What was more, Doc had a healthy respect for her instincts. Her intuitive approach to a mission represented the opposite end of the spectrum from his own deliberate, problem-solving approach, yet both had proven equally effective in the past.
Still, he didn’t like the idea of Maggie going in to Saint-Agnès blind. Nor, he acknowledged with a flicker of irritation, did he like the idea of his partner going into action while he sat idle. If Paige hadn’t insisted on involving herself in this mission, he wouldn’t be tied to this hotel suite right now. Maggie could have handled Meredith’s role without requiring this kind of close cover, but Paige didn’t have the skills or the training to protect herself if things turned nasty.
A dozen ugly scenarios immediately sprang into his mind. T
he thought of Paige in any one of the situations he envisioned added considerably to Doc’s gathering tension. Driven by an uncharacteristic edginess, he began to pace the sitting room.
Dammit, he shouldn’t have let himself be swayed by Paige’s arguments. He shouldn’t have overruled his own common sense and allowed her to stay. There was a reason he’d kept the various parts of his life separate and distinct from each other, he told himself in disgust, and this was it!
Several hours later, Doc’s mood had not noticeably improved. He’d dressed in a pair of tan slacks and a red knit shirt retrieved from the suite across the hall and had worked with Claire to compile a working dossier on the Saint-Agnès Health and Wellness Center. His pen tapping impatiently against the secretaire, Doc reviewed the information they’d painstakingly gathered.
There wasn’t much. A list of the world-renowned physicians and health experts who consulted at the spa for astronomical fees. A brief description of the physical facilities, which included everything from cedar saunas to marble ice pools. And the names of its more notable clients, including one Gabriel Ardenne, but no accompanying information on the state of his health or wellness as documented by the doctors at Saint-Agnès.
Frowning, Doc stared down at Ardenne’s name. The banker had made several secret trips to the spa in the past year. It appeared likely that he was currently on the island. At this point, Doc wasn’t sure which worried him more. The fact that Maggie’s instincts had proven correct, or the fact that she hadn’t checked in yet.
She hadn’t signaled for help. Hadn’t requested his assistance. She was good, he reminded himself. Damn good. Still, he’d give her another hour, max, and then he’d take a trip to Saint-Agnès himself. Which meant he’d have to secure Paige in the suite before he—
“Good morning.”
He slewed around at the somewhat stilted greeting and felt his jaw tighten in annoyance. Christ, wasn’t there anything in Meredith Ames’s wardrobe that covered more skin than it showed?
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