“Yes, you’re set. Ryan will email you what you need to know for technical information.”
Her heart pounded. This was it, the beginning of her endgame. “Then I’ll call you later. I owe you.”
“You’ll run every mile you just flew and back.”
“I’ll buy new running shoes, then.”
She ended the call and wanted to hoot, jump for joy, and just cry, because the pieces were moving. Finally. She wrapped her arms around Aaron’s neck and gave him a soft kiss on the lips. Joyful, yet bittersweet, because life was so short. “He’ll support us.”
Aaron kissed the tip of her nose and leaned his forehead against hers, way more boyfriend than partner. “Maybe he’s not such an asshole, after all.”
“Oh, he’s an asshole. But he knows when his hands are tied.”
He bent to kiss right below her ear and whispered, “I like it when
your
hands are tied.”
She laughed. “I bet you do, punk. Let’s go see if the hotel bed has a place you can tie me to. I’m going to need to feel very vulnerable after all of this dominance and control.”
“If you’re feeling like rewarding me, you could give me my first international blow job in the cab.”
She laughed again. So naughty, her punk. “Don’t press your luck.”
****
After they settled into a hotel, Charlotte had left on errands and Aaron was supposed to be napping. He wasn’t tired, so he broke into Charlotte’s laptop and did some research. It really wasn’t
breaking
in. She’d given him the passwords to research something in D.C. so he didn’t feel the need to pray and repent for it. But when she’d left, he’d asked if he could research, and she had said no.
He didn’t follow orders well.
His first trip in the ’Net was to look up her name—Abigail Rothschild. Lots of proof that her tale was as horrible as it was true, and it broke his heart. He found photos of her as Abbey, so beautiful, prettier than she was as Charlotte, almost breathtaking, like a movie starlet. Blonde, blue-eyed, the set of her shoulders the same, still tall and thin though she was softer then, more curvy. Not hard and able to flee an army of hungry cannibals on foot. They’d labeled it as a gas explosion, and the obituaries spoke highly of her—smart, top of her class, an artist and poet.
He learned through the article that she hadn’t taken John’s last name though it didn’t list her as married. Morals stopped him from researching her husband for a nanosecond, and then
bam,
temptation won and John Cadwell’s name was in the search engine. Nosy, nosy punk, sneaking into her baggage. John was much older than Charlotte, which surprised Aaron. She was twenty-three, John was forty then, which made her twenty-eight now.
But the obituaries worried Aaron. Nowhere did it mention Abigail as his wife, nor did hers mention John as her husband. And John’s stated his as an untimely death, while Abigail’s article said there was only one fatality in the blast.
This had to be something the government had done, to hide something. But what? Had Charlotte even seen these? She didn’t like to talk about the past, so a part of him doubted it.
He heard the door click and the chain catch. “Love, let me in,” she called.
“Give me a sec, baby.” He cleared the search history, powered off the laptop, and shut the lid.
“Don’t be shocked when you open the door,” she warned.
He undid the chain and opened the door. “I’ll try not—” He sucked in a breath. “Holy shit.”
Charlotte was blonde. Almost Abigail blonde with just a touch of red left from her deeper color. Gone were the violet contacts. Her eyes were a light blue, a little like a spring sky over his family’s ranch.
Her smile was almost shy. “Do you like?”
“It’s pretty. Very different, but you’re beautiful no matter what color your hair is.” He opened the door wider and let her in. “That’s…you. What you used to look like.”
“Yes.” She looked surprised and so achingly innocent. Young. “How did you know?”
Shit, think fast.
“I guessed if you’re visiting an old boss, you’d want to look like your old self again.”
“Perceptive punk.” She smiled at him and put down a large shopping bag next to the table.
“Perceptive partner,” he corrected. “What’s in the bag?”
She rifled through the bag. “Money, clothes, a gun. Other stuff I’ll need.”
“Two guns? One for me, one for you?”
She frowned. “One.”
“I want a gun.” He narrowed his eyes. “And you’re going with that other agent, I thought. So you should have three.”
“You’re not going anywhere, and I don’t need a gun for him. He’ll have one.”
Some partner, getting benched. “I want to go, damn it.”
“I know. I don’t want to risk you. We’ll find something for you to do. You can run ops here from the laptop and a cell phone. That’s very important.”
“I’m not staying behind.”
She ignored him, reached into the bag, and pulled out a case. She removed a pistol, inspected it, and then put it back.
“To your liking?”
She shrugged. “I guess. Beggars can’t be choosers. We have stuff stashed all over every major city. I can’t say that this is my favorite gun, but I’ve used it before. It’s accurate.”
Her job scared the shit out of him. “That’s all that counts, I guess.”
She put the case down and stepped forward, wrapping her arms around his neck. Her lips found the quickened pulse at his throat, because, though she looked different, she smelled familiar and so good. “The shower here is nice.”
“I noticed.” Because Chase had approved, she booked them an extra nice room, as a reward. Huge bed, excellent TV, nice bathroom. The only downfall was there were no slats on the bed to cuff her.
“There’s a bench in it, too. And the tile looked very safe. Non-slippery.”
“Are you trying to talk me into shower sex? Because you colored your hair, and I colored mine. Isn’t wet hair bad?” And he was still scared shitless about hurting her.
“Kill joy.”
“Before we leave?” he offered. What the hell, he was an international spy’s boyfriend and partner. He should live a little more dangerously. Shower sex was a good place to start.
“There’s a big tub. I’d like a bath.” She kissed lower, on his neck, then she unbuttoned his shirt, her tongue dancing downward. So weird to watch her blonde head disappear down his body, across his stomach, her fingers working at the button on his jeans, his cock already working on hard. He kicked out of his pants, and then his underwear,
“Will you pretend you’re a mermaid and you want to seduce me, the stranded pirate?” That thought wasn’t helping his control, especially since his cock had found its way into her mouth.
“I don’t sing,” she warned as she stood. She took his hand and tugged him toward the bathroom. “So don’t expect a siren.”
He didn’t expect anything from Charlotte, and that surprised him. But then, she was almost a mythical creature herself, a dragon, mermaid, and ninja all rolled into one, with a suicidal death mission. And just like the fool pirate, he’d fallen hard for the mythical beast. “Deal.”
****
Bath sex turned out to be exciting as hell, and blonde Charlotte made quite the mermaid. After a long soak, a quick nap, and dinner, Charlotte dressed to leave, holstered her gun at the small of her back and covered it with a black jacket. She kissed him goodbye and explained she was meeting the other agent in his room across town. Chase would be pissed if she brought him. She’d call afterward.
Aaron thought she was full of shit.
So as soon as Charlotte left, Aaron grabbed her old phone off the desk and fired it up. He scrolled, found what he hoped was the right number because God forbid anyone put a real name in a phone. Especially his spy girlfriend partner.
It was answered on the second ring. “Charlotte.”
“If you treated your employees better, they wouldn’t feel the need to flee to foreign countries. Starting with a greeting on the phone.”
“Aaron.” Chase’s voice was full of surprise. “Is she okay?”
“I guess. But I have a few questions.”
“Okay.”
She’d left in black clothes. Aaron figured he’d need the same. He cradled the phone between his ear and his shoulder and began pulling on black jeans. “When is that other agent arriving?”
“You don’t need to know. She has her orders.”
“Humor me? Please? You think I wanted to call you?”
Chase sighed. “Later tonight. She has her orders to move tomorrow.”
Aaron prided himself at getting very good at reading his Danger Girl, because he knew she wasn’t telling the truth from square one. A sixth sense told him not to trust her as far as he could throw her, which was the length of the bed. “And how do I get a gun?”
“You don’t need a gun. She told me you were going to stay safe and sound in the hotel. Go watch some porn. Put it on the hotel charge, my treat.”
Safe, my ass.
He buttoned his jeans and grabbed a black shirt. “Yeah, well, she’s moving on this tonight. Alone. So I suggest you tell me where to get a gun and where to go.”
“Fuck.”
“My sentiments exactly.” Aaron buttoned the shirt, his heart racing a mile a minute. “So are you going to fill me in? Because I’m all you got.”
“What’s her plan?”
“She has lots and lots of questions for her old boss. That’s all she would tell me.”
“Fuck.”
“Limited vocabulary for a bright guy, Chase.”
Chase ignored him and tapped away at a keyboard, the distinct click, click, tap of the keys annoying as hell. “Did she bring her laptop?”
“Yeah. I have her password to it, too.”
“Give me your email, and I’ll email you what you need—directions, codes. You can handle a gun, right?”
Thank God for spy camp. “Jake can vouch for me.”
“Don’t let her kill him, whatever you do. And you need to sit down.”
Aaron froze, the laptop half-open on the table in the hotel room. Chase sounded worried, and he knew the man well enough to know he didn’t do worried. “Sit? Why?”
“Because I never told her the truth. You need to know what she’s going to learn, because when the shit hits the fan, Charlotte is going to come out good and pissed.”
Aaron sat on the edge of the bed and fought the churning in his stomach. “She doesn’t need enemies with you for a friend, does she?”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
****
Charlotte skirted Albert Reese’s mansion, grateful for the overcast night sky hiding the full moon. How strange for everything to be…the same. After five years. He drove the same car—newer model. Same house, same furniture. Same security guard—Franco. Same security system that she helped install. Probably the same codes if she knew him.
She looked at her watch. If everything remained the same, she had exactly one hour to get in and get what she needed before the flavor of Friday showed up at the country home. Albert Reese liked expensive call girls. She knew because she’d scheduled them.
She crept around to the side door and picked the lock, then used the code to disable the security system. She looked at her watch. Fifty-one minutes before the whore arrived. Plenty of time.
Down the hall to the study, second door on the right. She prayed the door wouldn’t squeak. It didn’t. The fire was lit in the fireplace, the room dim. Reese sat in the armchair by the fire, scotch in hand. He looked older, his hair white, gray eyes cloudy from too much drink, his stomach larger.
Charlotte raised the gun. The hell with interrogation. She was just going to pop him and go. She didn’t need to know why or how. But she did want him to look her in the eye when she killed him. He owed her that. Her family that.
She was changing the endgame.
“Good evening, Albert.”
Reese looked at her then. She expected shock, confusion, or dismay. What she got was a smile and a tip of his glass in salute. “Welcome home, Abigail. I’ve been waiting for you.”
Chapter Nineteen
Charlotte blinked and stared at the older gentleman in the leather armchair, his face more wrinkled in the firelight. He still had the ability to make her knees weak with fear, even after all of this time. “What do you mean, waiting for me?”
“I knew you were in England. It was just a matter of time.”
Charlotte swallowed the bile, because somehow, she’d fucked up. She had no clue how, though, especially with Chase’s support.
He laughed softly. “You’re probably wondering how, what. Why, even.”
“You could say that.”
His greasy gaze slid up and down her body, giving her the shivers. “You look well, despite the surgeries. You were a prettier girl before.”
Her fingers clenched on the grip of the gun. “You destroyed that girl.”
“Oh, we tried. It’s obvious we failed.” He gestured to the desk behind him and the tray holding a decanter and glasses. “Scotch?”
“I’m here to kill you, not drink.”
He chuckled. “I think you’ll wait on the killing. I’m going to let you ask me some questions, Abbey. Have a drink, a seat. You’re going to need both.”
She shifted but didn’t sit in the chair across from him that he waved toward. “Just spill.”
“Always impatient.” He sipped his drink and crossed his legs at the ankle, looking way too comfortable, considering she was aiming a gun at his head. “So what if I give you three questions, just for the fun of it. You ask, I’ll tell, and we’ll see how close you get to the truth from those three questions.”
“I don’t think you’re in any position to play games.” But the crawling sensation up her skin told her otherwise. She held the gun, but he had control. It scared her witless, her palms damp under her gloves.
“No? You’re dying for answers, or you would have just killed me by now. But you haven’t, so you’ll play.”
He was right, damn him. She wanted to know. If he pissed her off, she could just end the game with a bullet to his brain. Get her answers somewhere else. “Why did you try to kill me?”
“I didn’t give the orders, and you know why the hit was put on you.” She opened her mouth to protest, and he shook his head in warning. “You wasted that one. Think carefully, Abbey. What do you
really
want to know?”
He was right—she’d chucked that question away. But now she knew an important piece. If he didn’t give the orders, then who? Why? Albert Reese was the man with the connections. The man in charge. Wasn’t he?