Seduction in Session (13 page)

“All right. You can stay, but only as a bodyguard and you have to sleep on the couch.” She couldn’t risk physical intimacy with him, not until she’d really prepared herself.

“Lara . . .” His face had fallen and she could see him working up to argue his case.

She shook her head. She’d let him call all the shots up to this point, and that time was over. “No. If you can’t handle the couch, I’ll go to my father’s.”

It was time to take control back. He was too different, too dangerous, but he was also her best option in a bad bunch.

He stood there and she could practically see that sharp mind of his working overtime. He wasn’t slow at all. She no longer bought the “I’m a lowly sailor” routine.

Was he telling her the truth about wanting her? Did it even matter since she knew what a horrible idea sleeping with him would be?

“All right,” he relented. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

She held out a hand. “Then we’re good.”

He took it in his own, but instead of shaking it, he cupped his other hand over hers. She was surrounded by his warmth, his strength. And she definitely felt the electricity between them. “But sweetheart, we’ve already set our cover in motion. In public, you have to act like you’re in love with me.”

“Can’t we break up?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“I thought you’d say that.” He was good at saying no. She pulled her hand from his and began putting her stuff away.

“I’ll go reheat breakfast and we can start over. You need your strength. We have a lot to do today.” He was gone before she could reply.

Lara stood in her bedroom and had to wonder if she hadn’t just made a deal with the devil. A handsome, glorious devil, but the devil all the same.

*   *   *

T
hree days later, Connor wondered if he was going just the tiniest bit insane. He had the dog on a leash as he walked by the statue of Mary McLeod Bethune in Lincoln Park, praying the little thing didn’t shit all over the place. Oh, he was prepared for it because Lara had given him a biodegradable bag to scoop up Lincoln’s waste.

“You started him on the meat,” she’d said earlier that morning with a wrinkle of her nose. “You can handle the consequences.”

How the mighty had fallen.

Lincoln—the constipated dog—barked and strained against his leash.

“Lincoln, heel,” he said in a low growl.

The little thing sat back, its bug eyes wide. If only his mistress was so easily handled.

“Nice day for a walk. Like the pooch. She’s exactly what I would have gotten you,” a familiar voice said. “You know they say pet owners choose pets that are very similar to themselves.”

Roman Calder was right on time, but then he always was. Connor took in the sight of one of his oldest friends, dressed in workout pants and a Yale sweatshirt covering his chest with the hood pulled low in deference to his semi-celebrity status. It looked as if he was well into his daily five-mile run. Most of the time he went with Zack, but they couldn’t have this conversation surrounded by ten Secret Service agents.

“It’s a he and obviously he’s not mine.”

Roman’s lips curved up even as his feet moved, keeping his heart rate up. “I never thought I’d see you domesticated.”

Connor heard the laughter in Roman’s voice. His buddy would be
on the phone with Gabe in a heartbeat. Zack would likely know Connor had become Lara’s errand boy before Roman even got back to the White House. Bastard gossiped more than any old lady. “Could we move on? I have to be back in ten minutes.”

Roman finally stopped his slow jog, looking out over the park. “Where is she? I’ve seen pictures, but I have to admit, I would love to see the woman who bosses your ass around.”

Oddly, he kind of wanted Roman to meet her. She was smart and funny and she kept him on his toes. Though if she met Roman, Connor’s cover would be blown, so that couldn’t happen. At least not until this whole thing got sorted out. “She’s meeting with her father and a friend in another part of the park. She’s got two guards I approved watching her so I figured I could break away to see you.”

“So everything’s been quiet since the initial attempt on her life?”

Connor nodded, his eyes never stopping their scan of their surroundings. “Yes, but we haven’t left the apartment to do more than grocery shop. If you can call it that.”

His fairy princess lived off berries and salad. He was fairly certain that any moment he was with Lara, birds would come to carry her biodegradable bags filled with rabbit food, and all the woodland creatures would keep the palace spick-and-span.

She was the Snow White of the tabloid world. She was idiotically naive at times, and then she would stun him with her honesty and her backbone.

He had whiplash from being around Lara Armstrong. And he definitely had a hard-on. He’d had it for freaking days.

“The police found the motorcycle the shooter used in his attack abandoned outside the city. It was stolen, naturally.”

“I want a full write-up on whoever owns it.” It would be simple enough to use his own ride and then claim it had been stolen. He wanted to know if there was any connection at all between the owner and Lara.

“I’ve got them working on it. I’ve explained that the White House
wants updates because the victim was the daughter of a senator. They’re buying it for now. I’ll get the reports and send them to you. From what I understand, Everly’s worked up profiles of the people in Lara’s building and her friends. She’s got some interesting pals.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you know Kiki Ross is having an affair with a married congressman?”

Shit. “You’re sure?”

“Oh, I have the photos in both color and black and white. They should come in handy at election time.” Roman wore his shark smile.

“You can’t.”

“Of course I can. We’ve been wanting that district for years and we always fall just short. This coming year, I’ll release those photos shortly before the election. There’s a reason we call it an October surprise.”

He would handle that later. The elections were months off, but somehow he couldn’t see letting those photos get leaked. Lara would be deeply upset. She would do that thing where her eyes got wide and her bottom lip would tremble just the slightest bit before she nodded as though accepting the weight of the world on her shoulders.

How could he know so fucking much about the woman in so little time?

“What about the rest of them?”

“Tom Hannigan’s father was a federal judge. He stepped down three years ago. To the public it was nothing but an early retirement, but according to buried DOJ files, they were about to indict him on twelve counts of accepting bribes for judgments.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh, yes. The only reason they didn’t go through with it was the chaos it would have created. All of his cases would have been thrown out, including judgments against two of America’s biggest corporations. It was decided that putting Hannigan in jail wasn’t worth the risk of letting those FTC-violating bastards walk free.”

“Who knows about this?” Had Lara been picking and choosing her targets? He found that oddly disappointing.

“It’s buried. Unless she’s got an informant in the high ranks of the DOJ, there’s no way she knows about it. I can’t be certain even her ex-fiancé knows.”

Somehow that made Connor feel better. He’d kind of started looking at her as Super Fairy, protector of truth (there was none), justice (even less of that), and the American way (burying their heads in the sand and buying another Happy Meal.) It might be ridiculous, but he would be disappointed to discover her hypocrisy. “What else have you got?”

“It’s all on this thumb drive. I know how freaky you are about sending things over the Internet, and I think you have good reason this time.”

“Why?”

“The NSA is interested in one of Lara’s neighbors. A man named Fredrick Gallagher. They believe he’s hacked some important sites and might be involved in cyberterrorism. They don’t have the goods on him yet.”

“So?” If the NSA didn’t have the balls to question him, Connor’s team could do it. “A little friendly interrogation on foreign soil never hurt anyone.”

Roman sighed. “We’re not renditioning American citizens, Connor. He’s a veteran with a tragic past. I pulled his records. It’s not pretty. If it got out that we’re investigating him at all, it could blow up in our faces, so keep it quiet. But if you get a chance to get into his place and collect intel, I know some people who would owe you a favor. Now, what have you found out?”

This was the shitty part. “She’s clean. Everything she’s said to me is truthful.”

Roman’s eyes narrowed. “You’re kidding me.”

Connor shrugged. A couple of nights on her couch had allowed him to comb through her system, downloading it quickly and then
uploading it to his own computer so he could browse through at his convenience. Just yesterday afternoon they’d sat in her office together. She’d been at her desk working on some story about a company fudging their reports to the EPA. She hadn’t had a clue that the whole while she was investigating her scoop, he’d been investigating her.

“She keeps meticulous records, but her e-mail contained nothing that might lead us to Deep Throat. It’s either informants or friends or spam. I’m reading each and every one in case there’s some code, but it’s going to take me a few days. I’ve blocked off the time period from Mad’s death to today. It’s roughly two thousand e-mails to go through.”

“Send a third to Everly and another to Dax. If this didn’t involve Zack, I would hire an investigative team. We’re wasting your talents having you read e-mails.”

He didn’t want anyone else to do it. Some of those e-mails were private. He’d been reading her e-mails to her mother where she talked about Niall and how much she liked him, how she thought she might find a soul mate in him. She’d written to a cousin congratulating her on her upcoming wedding and asking if she could bring a date. She’d told her all about Niall.

She would have to attend the wedding alone. Would she explain what had happened or just tell her happily married cousin that it hadn’t worked out? The wedding was in three weeks. Maybe she simply wouldn’t attend.

Or, Connor thought, he could take her.

“I need to get a feel for her. I’ll get through them. I don’t have much else to do. She spends a lot of time at her computer.”

Roman was staring at him. Connor had seen that look in the courtroom right before Roman tore apart opposing counsel’s argument. “You haven’t managed to do anything but download her system?”

“I can’t let her catch me.”

“Drug her.”

“I think she would notice that.”

“Fine. Fuck her and keep her in bed, and let my guys come in and
go through everything with a fine-tooth comb. We can do the whole place in thirty minutes and she won’t have a clue we’ve been there.”

It was actually what he needed. He’d hesitated to do too thorough a search since after that first night she’d struggled to sleep. She’d gotten up at least once each night to sneak into the kitchen and grab a bottle of water. He would watch her through hooded eyes as she tried not to wake him. In the moonlight, her skin glowed like alabaster.

“I’m not sleeping with her.”

Roman sighed like it should be obvious. “Then start sleeping with her. Look, if you’re not into her, if you can’t get it up around her, let Dax do it. He gets a hard-on from the woman who serves him coffee every day and she’s got to be eighty-two.”

“I fucking do not.” A surly voice reminded him that he and Roman weren’t alone. Dax was watching Lara, connected to Connor by a comm system worn in each of their ears. “And she’s not eighty-two. She’s a very youthful fifty. You know fifty is the new thirty, according to one of her magazines.”

“He’s yelling at you, isn’t he?” Roman was grinning again, his friendly smile taking the place of his everyday shark expression.

“Yeah, but he also told me enough to know that he fucked her. Really, Dax? You slept with the coffee lady?”

“And her daughter. I have to say it was one of my wilder nights, and now I get half off all coffee products,” Dax admitted. “And you should make something up because if Roman finds out how deep you’re in with this girl, he’ll move heaven and earth to replace you.”

“He’s not my boss.”

Roman’s expression sharpened as though he could almost hear what was going on. “Who’s not your boss?”

“Dumbass,” Dax said in his ear.

He was a legend in the Agency for not fucking up. He was smooth and cool and always got the job done. He did not give up an operation because the woman he was investigating might be offended.

“I was talking about Gabe. He’s been bugging Dax to persuade me
to call. He just wants an update, but he’s not my boss so he can wait with the rest of you.” Connor reached into his pocket. He’d made a mold of her apartment key the same day she’d given him her spare. God only knew how many other people had one. He handed it to Roman. “This is Lara’s apartment key. I’ll tell you when to come so I can leave the dead bolt undone. You’ll have to deal with the surveillance cameras.”

“Not a problem. I actually know someone in her building. I’ll set up a meeting with her and no one will question the president’s chief of staff bringing a few security guards along.” Roman looked down at his watch and his feet started moving again, jogging in place. “We’ll take her down, brother. You’ll see. It’ll be easy. And talk to Gabe. I don’t know what’s up with the two of you, but I can’t stand being the go-between. What are you going to do? Throw him a bachelor party and not talk to him the whole time?”

He hadn’t even considered it. Gabe was getting married, and they’d barely spoken since that night at the Crawford building where Connor had taken down their enemies in a blood bath. Gabe thought Connor had put his job before their friendship. He had no idea what Connor had sacrificed. Thankfully, Zack had smoothed things over with Langley, but he was still on administrative leave pending the investigation. He could still lose his job for his decisions that night. And Connor simply couldn’t forget the way one of his oldest friends had looked at him.

Like he was an animal.