Maybe it would be better if I left Val d’Orcia and traveled to a different part of Italy. It was only that Vi believed my father would be in Tuscany that led me here.
When we pulled through the gates of Valentini, Ben drove straight up to the casina. When he cut the car’s engine, I got out and waited near the back of it.
“Let’s get your things,” he said, motioning to the front door.
“I’m not staying with you.”
“The man you saw, the one that scared the shit out of you, wasn’t after me, sweetheart.”
“What makes you think he was after either of us?”
He raised a brow. “Do you really want to have this conversation now? Here?”
“Why not?”
“You know the answer to that.” Ben walked over, put his hand on the doorknob, and it fell open. He took two steps backwards and drew his gun.
“Get back in the car,” he said in a hushed tone.
“Was someone in there?” I asked as he drove down to the farmhouse.
“I don’t know, but I’m not going to risk it.”
Ben drove down, parked in front of the farmhouse, turned off the car, but didn’t get out. He pulled his cell out of his pocket. I heard a man’s voice with an Italian accent answer.
“Who else do you have at Valentini?” Ben asked. I couldn’t hear the man’s response.
“At least two, as soon as possible.”
“What are we doing?” I asked when he dropped the phone into his lap.
“Waiting.”
“For?”
“Backup.”
19
Halo
While I didn’t get a good look into the casina, I saw enough to know that someone had been in there. My guess was, they were looking more for Richard Emsworth than for his daughter, but I couldn’t be certain of that.
If I found out that Lucia or anyone else from AISE had been in there, I’d have her removed not just from Valentini but from her job.
Later, once I was sure there was adequate detail for Tara, I’d call a meeting and conference in Striker. If necessary, I’d bring Doc in too.
I turned toward Tara. “My name is Benjamin Knox Clarkson. My friends and the people I work with call me Halo.”
“Who do you work for?”
“K19 Security Solutions.”
She nodded in understanding.
“You should be aware that I am in Italy on behalf of the CIA.”
“Because of my father?”
I nodded. “Initially, my only concern was finding you. Once we discovered your father had disappeared too, we specifically asked for the assignment.”
“Who did?”
“Quinn’s father, Doc.”
Tara put her head in her hands. When I saw her shoulders heave, I longed to reach over and comfort her, but there was more we needed to talk about before I could allow myself to do that.
“Catarina,” I murmured, putting my hand on her arm.
She turned to me. “You don’t have to call me that. You know my name.”
“I like it.”
She covered her tear-stained face with her hands a second time.
“What’s making you cry?”
When Tara shook her head, I moved her hand from her face, put her arm around my waist, and pulled her into my arms. Seeing her like this, I couldn’t remember what I thought we needed to talk about first.
My phone vibrated with a text message, but I ignored it. “Can you tell me why you’re crying?”
“Why did they want to find me?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“Why did Doc want to find me?”
“Because he cares about you. Everyone does.”
I could feel her head shake against my shoulder and pulled back enough that I could look into her eyes. “Tara, everyone cares about you.”
“They think I stole from them,” she whispered.
“Who does?”
“Pen, Aine, Ava. Maybe even Quinn.”
“I haven’t heard anything about that. When I talked to each of them, their only concern was finding you. At any cost, by the way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your four best friends offered to pay for K19 to find you. Regardless of the cost.”
She looked at me as though she was trying to gauge whether I was telling her the truth.
“They love you, Tara.”
Evidently, that hadn’t been the right thing to say since it made her cry harder. When my phone vibrated again, I sneaked a glance at it. There was a text from Lucia, saying the farmhouse was cleared for entry and that two people from AISE were assigned to it. Another team had cleared the casina and were collecting evidence.
“Let’s go inside,” I said, moving Tara so I could get out of the car.
I sent a text to Lucia, asking her to have Tara’s belongings moved down here and that I’d explain what was happening to Pia. I also sent a text to Matteo, requesting a meeting tomorrow.
Since we’d left the museum and immediately went from the hotel to where I’d had to leave my car, we hadn’t had time for dinner. My guess was Tara would say she wasn’t hungry, but I had to eat. Fortunately, I had plenty of food left.
“Have a seat,” I said, motioning to the sofa. “I’m going to have a glass of wine. Would you like to join me?”
“Yes, please.”
I was disappointed when Tara didn’t follow me into the kitchen, but I had just told her to take a seat. I came back moments later, handed her a glass, and sat beside her. “You and I have a lot to talk about.”
She set her glass down and folded her hands in front of her. I pulled them apart.
“We’re talking. You’re not in trouble.”
She wiggled out of my grasp. “You’re going to ask about my father.”
Not just her father, but the man I’d seen her with too, although that part could wait.
“How long have you been following me?” she asked.
I took a sip of wine, realizing it hadn’t elicited a moan out of her when it almost did me.
“When I walked into the tasting room and saw you, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. Since then.”
She took another drink of wine and looked off into the distance.
“What else do you want to ask me?” I asked.
“Nothing I want the answer to.”
“Come here.” I pulled her into my arms. “I changed my mind. We don’t need to talk tonight.” I felt her body relax and then stiffen again when there was a knock at the door.
“That’s someone bringing your things from the casina.” When she moved away and went to stand, I put my hand on her arm. “I’ll get it.”
I opened the door and saw Lucia standing on the other side. She looked beyond me at Tara. “Can I come in?”
I didn’t like it, but I let her.
“Tara, this is Agent Lucia Cesare. She is with AISE, Italy’s intelligence agency.”
“Agent Cesare, I believe you know Tara Emsworth.”
Tara visibly bristled.
“I’m sorry if I came off rude to you. That wasn’t my intention,” said Lucia.
“Thank you,” Tara responded.
I stepped forward and took Tara’s bag from Lucia. “I’ll just take this upstairs…later,” I added when Tara’s eyes opened wide.
“I’ll be going, then. Arrivederci.”
Relieved the agent wasn’t trying to push Tara to talk, I closed the door behind Lucia and sat on the sofa where I’d been before we heard the knock. “Where were we?” I asked, pulling her back into my arms, happy when she came willingly. “By the way, she’s here at Valentini for another reason. Something that has nothing to do with you.” It occurred to me that I shouldn’t have said that. “Something Pia knows nothing about, but it is to her benefit.”
“In other words, you don’t want me to say anything to her.”
I angled my face so I could see hers. She didn’t appear angry.
“The last thing I want to talk about,” she muttered.
“Ouch.” I tightened my grip. “Maybe, instead, I’ll tell you a story.” I saw a slight smile on her face. “The same day you ‘disappeared,’ I almost died in a plane crash.”
“You did?”
“Yep. I was on a mission, heading to Columbia, and the plane I was on took a dive. As you can see, I lived through it.”
“Did everyone?”
I shook my head but had no intention of telling her why not. “My best friend was on the same plane, and he lived too. We call him Tackle. Anyway, there’s a point I’m trying to make. I called him the other day, the morning after you, Pia, and I first spent the afternoon and evening together. I told him about you.”
She angled her head and buried it in my shoulder. “Are you going to tell me what you said?”
“I am.”
“Do you have to?”
“You’re assuming it was something bad.”
She shrugged like she had earlier.
“I told him that you and I connected. Straight off. I asked him what he thought I should do.”
“Did he tell you to run as fast and as far as you could?”
There’d be time for me to figure out why Tara had such a low opinion of herself, but now, I needed to reassure her.
“He said I should reach out and grab every bit of happiness I could. When I asked if that would be the case even if it affected my job, he told me to fuck my job.”
“That doesn’t sound like very good advice.”
“Maybe not to someone who hasn’t been in a plane crash.”
“Ben…um…is that what I should call you?”
I thought about the first night she was at the farmhouse and how when I came inside her the first time, I wanted to be able to call out her name. Her real name. I also wanted to hear my real name on her lips.
“Call me Knox.”
“Knox…”
“Yes?”
“I forgot what I was going to ask you. I like that name better than Ben, by the way. No offense.”
“Ben is my dad. And no offense taken.”
“What does your story mean?”
“That this is real.” I tilted her head with my fingers, so my lips could reach hers and kissed her. Relief spread throughout my body when she wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me back. “You know, kissing you reminds me of the dinner we started the other night and never finished, which also reminds me that I’m starving.”
“I’m hungry too.”
I almost asked if it was for food, but there was more Tara and I had to talk about before I started dropping sexual innuendos.
Being in the kitchen with her, preparing much the same food as I’d started the last time, proved to be an exercise in restraint I was certain I’d fail. Noticing the flush on her cheeks, I could guess Tara was remembering the same things I was.
“Excuse me,” she murmured and left the kitchen. I could hear her footfalls first on the stairs and then in the bedroom above where I stood, the same one she’d slept in before, and where I’d put her belongings.
A few minutes later, she was back, sketchbook in hand. I looked out the windows at the night sky, wondering what she planned to draw. A few seconds later, she plopped down in a chair, facing me.
“Please tell me you’re sketching the refrigerator.”
She laughed but didn’t put down her pencil.
I tried to catch a peek every so often while I cooked, but her arm was in the way. “Are you going to show me?”
“Maybe.”
By the time I finished preparing our dinner, Tara had filled several pages with sketches. I walked over to the table and held the plates while she put the book away.
“Wait,” I said, setting my dinner down. “Show me what you drew tonight.”
She looked up at me and raised a brow. “Are you seriously going to hold my food hostage until I show you?”
“Yep.”
“I’ll warn you that I’m going to go back and add horns to every sketch of you.”
I shrugged. “Let me see.”
“If that didn’t smell so good and I wasn’t starving, you’d never get away with this.”
When Tara opened the book and showed me a couple of the pages, I was stunned, particularly since I’d watched how quickly she drew each image. I set her plate in front of her. “You can have my dinner too. That’s how good those are.”
“You’re just saying that because I made you look so handsome.”
I studied the image and looked up at her. “Nah, I am that handsome. Look how much more attractive you made the refrigerator look, though.”
She smiled, something I wouldn’t have predicted she’d do earlier. I couldn’t stop myself. I stood from the seat I’d just taken, and kissed her. I wanted her, every bit of her, but I couldn’t have her. Not yet. Not until we talked about the guy I’d seen in the casina.
“What?” she asked when I sat back down.
“What, what?”
“You were joking around, and now you’re…it’s like you’re angry.”
“I’m not angry.”
She set her fork down and folded her arms.
“We’ll talk about it later.”
“The thing you’re not angry about?”
“Tara…just eat.”
Did she? Of course she didn’t. She got up and began cleaning up the kitchen. I shoved a couple more forkfuls of food into my mouth, just because I was that hungry, and then stood.
“Come here.” I pulled her out the door that went from the kitchen to the terrazza. Once we were outside, I tugged her onto my lap. This wasn’t going to be an easy conversation for either of us. I needed her close to me just as much as I guessed she’d need the same thing.
“The night you left, before we could have dinner, I followed you.”
She tried to get up, but I tightened my grip.
“I saw you with a man.” I rested my head against hers. “When I saw the two of you embrace, I hated it.”
Tara turned her head and angled it away from me. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Like what?”
“I was happy to see him—”
“You were ecstatic to see him.”
She tried to get off my lap a second time.
“No, Tara. Keep talking.”
“It wasn’t romantic, Ben.”
“Knox.”
“Whatever.”
“No. Not whatever. Say my name.”
“It wasn’t romantic, Knox.”
“Does he know that?”
“Definitely.”
I kissed the side of her neck. “I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.”
“Aren’t you going to ask—”
“No. Not tonight. Tonight is about you and me. No one else.”
“Ben?”
“Knox.”
“Oh my God. Knox. Last night. Was it because you thought…”
“The truth?” I took a deep breath. “Yes.”
“It wasn’t because you didn’t…want me?”
“I heard you when you were in the bath, Tara. I couldn’t understand how it was possible for you to call out my name, pleasure yourself that way, with my name on your lips, if there was someone else.”
Her cheeks turned bright red when she realized what I was talking about. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“No, it wasn’t because I didn’t want you. I can’t keep my hands off of you. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed.”
“I noticed.”
I gripped her face with my hand and looked into her eyes. “I want you, Tara.”
“I want you too, Knox.”
She smirked and I kissed her. When she opened her mouth to me, I angled my head, going deeper. Tara shifted so she was straddling me and wrapped her arms around my neck.
“Should we go back ins
ide?” she asked.
“Sure.” Before she could get off my lap, I stood and carried her over to the door. She reached out and opened it. I walked through and kicked it closed behind me. I set her in her chair before going into the kitchen to get her plate.
“I guess you want to eat.”
“We need to eat, Tara.”
“We do?”
My mouth was full, so I nodded and pointed at her plate. “You’re going to need your strength,” I said after I swallowed.
“I am?”
“Oh, yeah.”
20
Tara
I stabbed a mushroom with my fork and put it in my mouth. How could I not think about the last time we were in this kitchen, eating food Knox prepared for me.
Looking over at him, it was obvious he was thinking about the same thing I was. How easy it would be to get lost in sex and avoid thinking about everything that had happened today. Could I do that? Bury my head and pretend my life was as simple as it looked on the surface?
Knox was aware it wasn’t. He knew I was in Italy because my father had disappeared. What he knew beyond that, we hadn’t talked about.
Did he suspect why I’d come to Italy specifically? Did he know about the millions of dollars sitting in an account in a Zürich bank under my assumed identity?
One question I didn’t have to ask was what he knew about Brand. When he told me he’d seen us, it was obvious he didn’t even know his name.
It was imperative I find time to get in touch with him to let him know that not only had I been discovered, I had no intention of leaving Italy.
Or maybe I should just come clean now and let Knox help me. He would, wouldn’t he?
He reached over and grasped my hand. “You have a lot on your mind.”
“I do.”
“I told you we didn’t have to talk about it tonight. However, if you want to, we certainly can.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Was I really considering trusting this man I barely knew? It wasn’t just my life that would be impacted if I did. My father’s would be too.
“We’ve had a long day. Why don’t you sleep on it and decide tomorrow how comfortable you feel confiding in me?”
Halo (K19 Security Solutions Book 8) Page 10