Chapter Thirty-Six
Leland
After being transported for what I estimated to be about an hour, the van stopped.
The door was opened and the heat of the sun hit my body. Without a word, I was pulled out and assisted to stand. My hands were cuffed behind my back, the hood hadn’t been removed, and I was roughly prodded on my shoulder to start moving.
The gravel scrunched as we walked, one set of footsteps joining mine as I was taken…somewhere. Apparently, the other three dickwads in the van weren’t joining the next phase of this party.
The warmth of the afternoon was replaced by a blast of air-conditioned air. I was inside a building. The voices around me were talking in English. I could cross off Hector and the Mexican authorities from the possibilities of who nabbed me from my parking garage.
I was rudely shoved down to sit upon a chair. The hood was removed. And my captor was out of the room before my eyes adjusted to the light to get a good look at him.
I made a rapid assessment of my circumstance.
Concrete interrogation room.
Metal table.
Metal chair.
No viewing window.
A camera at almost ceiling height pointed at me.
Bare wall.
Bare wall.
One framed photo hanging.
George W.—oh fuck.
The American authorities were responsible for this stupidity. Which fucking agency had decided to piss in my field operation? It wasn’t the CIA. That much I knew for sure.
DEA or—the door opened—oh fuck.
Richard.
Well, this was unexpected. That thought hadn’t been on my possible options list.
Without making eye contact with me, he strode into the room, removed the cuffs from my wrists, and settled on the chair across the table.
He slapped down a file in front of him and kept his eyes trained downward. Him reading and me waiting, both of us silent, stretched my nerves.
“Well, hello, Dick. Interesting way you have to meet up with an old college friend,” I remarked glibly, pulling a cigarette from my pocket and leaning back in my chair.
“Special Agent Meyers, please. And there’s no smoking in federal facilities.”
That answered one question—where I was—and fuck him; I lit up anyway.
“Agent Dick, it is.” I took a long, slow drag from my Marlboro and let the smoke curl from my lips as I exhaled.
A frown barely appeared on his brow. Good, I was provoking him and hadn’t lost my touch. No reason why only one of us should be feeling on edge.
“Exactly what’s the purpose of your business in Mexico City, Mr. Jensen?”
I leaned forward, elbow on the table because my ex-lover still hadn’t looked me in the eye. “I run a charitable foundation. Doesn’t say a lot for your investigative abilities, Richard, if you can’t find that fascinating fact in that file of yours.”
“According to your passport records you’ve been a semipermanent resident for over a year.” His chin lifted and my senses jumped when those midnight eyes pinned mine. “Is that correct?”
I nodded. “Since you’ve pulled my logs, no need to try to bluff you on that one, Agent. You’ve caught me. I enjoy living south of the border. Are we done yet?”
“And why’s that?” His jaw was clenching and unclenching. Only one thing had ever made that jaw of his work in anger when he was with me—my imaginary continued affair with Jena—and my senses lit up. Ah, he knew I was living with Layla. And fuck, how long had the FBI been investigating and had surveillance on me?
“It’s a beautiful country. Beautiful people,” I answered charmingly. “A wonderful place to do some good. Lifting the living standards for the deserving gets my heart pumping these days.”
That zinger landed as I intended it to.
“And you’ve been married how long?”
Oh, going for the marrow quickly. “Shortly after I arrived here. You should jump on it, Agent Meyers. Marriage, I mean. That is if you haven’t.”
What jumped was the tic in his cheek.
I used an index finger to trace and remove imaginary stuff on my lips, and when his gaze locked on the gesture, I sank my teeth into my lower lip.
“You are the sole owner of Jensen Global Enterprises and all its subsidiaries?”
“Yes.”
“With an estimated net worth of over seven billion dollars, six million accumulated since you inherited the corporation from your father, Leland Edward Jensen the second, six and a half years ago.”
“Correct again. You’ve been busy if you know that.”
He leaned back in his chair, calm, but I could feel that his body was buzzing. The current from him was like a swirling charge around my cock. “So I have to ask again, why Mexico City?”
“Same answer. No matter how you turn it.”
The door opened and I glanced over my shoulder. The fun I’d been having with this died a stillborn death. Miguel Rosselló. So they were partners in more ways than one.
Miguel set down a file beside Richard. My ex-lover began setting pictures in front of me. I ignored them, but my insides were jackhammering. Me and Hector. Me and his underbosses. At his high-security compound where we held our meetings.
Oh fuck. Somehow the FBI got an eye inside the heavily secure residence of our favorite drug lord and I hadn’t even been able to smuggle one in. Damn it, were there bugs as well and video? Or only photos?
“Señor Jensen, perhaps you could explain your association with known Ramos cartel members.”
“I have a wide assortment of social contacts. I run a charity. Developing relationships is how donation levels are maintained.”
“Donations from Hector Ramos?” Richard inquired, his expression indicating he was amused by me.
I shrugged. “I don’t ask where the money comes from. I merely accept and do good work.”
“Turning bad money into good?” Miguel sneered.
Jab or did know something? That I was a money launderer for Hector? I wasn’t sure so I doubled down. “Something like that.”
“Admirable,” he said and managed to make that sound like the opposite.
I twirled my index finger in the air. “If you don’t mind, can we wrap this up? My wife expects me home for dinner at seven.”
“Your wife. Layla Hagen,” Richard said bobbing his chin. “Are you aware she’s a sex slave purchased by Hector Ramos in Paris?”
“Really?” I pretended surprise. “And I just thought he introduced us enjoying that tradition down here of matchmaking. With how excellent the job he did fitting me with Layla, I can’t believe that’s true.”
“Are you fucking with us, Señor Jensen?” Miguel growled, glaring down at me.
I was, but not with him. I was needling Richard, getting under his skin, and I knew it. Which told me two things: They didn’t have enough to arrest me or he’d have done it by now, and I was going to be released.
“Why would I do that? I have the utmost respect for law enforcement both north and south of the border. A squeaky-clean record. Not even a parking ticket. Ask my college buddy here. I’ve always held G-men in high regard. May I have some coffee, please? I’m parched from the long drive.”
Richard shook his head at me. “You’re not helping yourself, Lee.”
“Only trying to answer your questions honestly, Dick.”
They left the room together and I sat at the desk as though I hadn’t a care in the world, but inside I was fuming. How could Jena have not known the FBI had an open investigation on me and shut it down?
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
That was her goddamn job. To keep the intelligence agents out of my operations.
Thirty minutes later the door opened again. Thankfully, it was Richard alone. Seeing him with Miguel, though I’d tried to block it, frayed my nerves and made the slide show of him fucking Miguel in the alcove front and center in my head again.
He settled against the desk, sexy and unattainable, close to me. “We’re going to release you, Lee. For now. But I strongly suggest you get out of Mexico City.”
As I glanced up, I allowed myself to really see him for the first time that day. Christ, he looked wonderful. So much better than he had in Montecito, and I felt a sharp jab of something in my chest.
“I’ll take that under advisement, Richard.”
“See that you do more than that, Lee. Trying to be a friend here. When it happens, you want to be arrested on US soil not Mexican.”
Fuck him for the good friend line; he’d never been that, not really.
“I’m surmising this means I’m free to leave.”
I watched his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed. “The agent at the door will drive you back to the city.”
He didn’t so much as shake my hand before he marched from the room.
As I followed him with my gaze, I saw the second man waiting in the doorway. Damn Richard and damn my heart doubly so. All this for a fifteen-minute interrogation, and it was beyond stupid to have expected something more from this I’ve seen Richard Meyers again moment.
“Come with me, Mr. Jensen,” the agent ordered since I’d failed to move.
I followed him out of the building to an unmarked vehicle masquerading as a civilian SUV. Heavily armored, bulletproof windows darkly tinted, and I spared a neuron in my brain over the amusement that I could roam Mexico City on foot and Richard had to travel in a tank.
The agent opened the back door and I climbed in. Like that, out of Richard’s life again. Being driven away by a federal agent as though I’d never been anything to him.
It didn’t feel right.
Like the chapter of us hadn’t been finished, that there was a string uncut for him as well since he’d left that night in Montecito.
It felt like there should have been more than it was. Not after sitting in the room, two feet from Richard, and hearing his voice in my head again. Feeling his body’s reaction to my presence and my own to him.
It had all come crashing back. Our history. How I felt for him. It didn’t seem possible with the static between us that it hadn’t for Richard as well.
Fuck my heart. It was a useless thing. Even more so than Richard’s had always been. Perhaps we had never been anything more than lust for him. Perhaps I was the only one who had ever felt anything.
I puckered my lips, hating I had to fight my highly expert composure from cracking and he’d sat there staring at me like it was nothing to him.
I didn’t know how long I was alone in the vehicle, lost in my Richard fog and discontent, before the driver’s side door opened. I kept my stare carefully trained out the side window, worried that there was too much showing in my eyes that I didn’t want seen.
“Change of driver, Lee,” said a familiar voice before the engine turned over.
My gaze shot forward and my pulse slammed.
Richard.