Dinner was as extravagant as Marie expected. A three-course meal and then dessert with fare from the old country. Talk ranged from sports to traditions to business. She tried to keep her mind in the game. But everything about being at this house scattered her common sense, her practical side.
Emotions welled inside her, made her question her ability to do what she’d come to do.
Reacquire the armband.
Marie hadn’t been able to stop the pounding in her heart, the buzzing in her ears. Being in the Dimitru home made her nervous. The worst thing was that Malcolm seemed to know everything she was thinking. How could she possibly keep secrets from him when he was so tuned in to her?
He was keeping her balanced and seemed to have a direct line of communication to the emotions racing through her. Without him there, she probably would have lost her mind within seconds of coming face to face with the thieving bastard.
Acquired, he’d said.
Stolen, she’d corrected silently, from her family.
Her heart had stopped when she’d put on the armband. She’d worn the thing as a kid, playing in Uncle Bert’s old box in the attic. She never believed the stories about it holding power. They’d been fairy tales, like dragons and pots of gold.
She rubbed at her arm, and as she did so, Malcolm rested a hand on her shoulder.
With a smile at him, she made her way down the hall to the front entry.
“Our plan is to get a car tomorrow,” Malcolm told Dimitru, surprising her. “We’ll come out in the morning, check the systems the other company put in. We can recommend any changes at that time. And we should be out of your hair before noon. Really, you have a good, solid system in place. We should be able to continue the association with maintenance checks through the computers and phone calls.”
“Let’s talk more tomorrow,” Dimitru said, almost a non-answer, as if he didn’t quite agree, as if he didn’t trust the job would work out that way. Perhaps he’d been burned by the previous security company.
Malcolm merely smiled and held out a hand.
Marie followed suit, letting the little shiver run through her when Dimitru took her hand and kissed it. “See you tomorrow,” she said.
“Looking forward to it,” he replied as a car drove around and stopped to pick them up.
She couldn’t get in the limo fast enough. With a tension that wouldn’t quit, her mind raced with plans for how to get her armband back for Uncle Bert, and with the confusion of needing Malcolm so strongly versus being completely creeped out by Dimitru’s lascivious glances all evening.
This was supposed to have been easy.
Except she’d grown a conscience.
And she’d grown feelings.
Not to mention a fair measure of doubt. Her best bet was to snatch the damn thing when they were inside tomorrow.
Stick to the plan? Or let the whole thing go? Was it worth it, after all, to go after the armband?
Marie clutched her clammy hands in her skirt as she settled back in the seat and watched the scenery pass. But Malcolm’s silence drove her to talk.
“So?” she asked, breaking the silence, needing something to distract her from the ache of betrayal—her own. A betrayal enough to cut her off from everything she’d learned to love. She didn’t want to do it.
“So,” he began, and then stopped. He pulled her close, very close, thigh to thigh, arm over her shoulder, and turned his head. His words brushed her hair as he whispered against her ear and sent her heart pounding. “That wasn’t fun at all, and I swear if our friend Dimitru licks you with his eyes one more time, I’m going to fucking pluck his eyeballs out.”
“You noticed.”
“Fucking hard not to.”
Her stomach twisted a little as she rested a hand on his thigh. She wasn’t sure what made her want to comfort him, the instinct not basic at all for her.
“I’m sorry,” he responded, running a hand through his hair and pulling the hair-tie from the bun at the base of his neck. Even though he leaned back, he kept his voice low. “Dimitru is a shithead. And we’re wasting our time out here.”
“I’m sorry.”
Sitting back, Malcolm eyed her. “What for?” Skepticism rang clear through those two words.
“For how crappy this trip has been. For the cruddy client.” She pursed her lips and caught his direct gaze. “For being so beautiful no one can resist me.” She raised a brow, knowing he would laugh, knowing it was hardly true. Oh, she was beautiful. That was the Feur bloodline met with her mother’s Bălan ancestry. She truly had gotten the best of her parents. But she was not irresistible; she knew.
Looks only got a person so far.
She had no college degrees. Sleeping around wasn’t her thing, and she’d quickly found out that made her an oddity. She argued too much. And, deep inside, she had a thief’s blood.
Maybe guys could sense it.
“I think we need to call Hawk.”
“We should wait.” God, she didn’t need another set of eyes on her right now.
“Why?”
“Technically, there’s nothing to report,” she answered, really meaning it. “The attack could have been random. What’s to report, Malcolm? We don’t like the man? Hawk already knows.”
Malcolm looked at her. “You’re hiding something from me.”
“I’m—” Protecting you. Protecting Hawk Elite. She shrugged. “Let’s just get this job over with, okay? So I can go visit my uncle.”
Uncle Bert kept her existence under the radar. They didn’t share a last name. The armband came through her mother’s family. Bălan. It was the pride and her Romanian blood that would get her in trouble. She really needed to be more careful. And maybe getting this job over with was the best way.
She rested her back against the seat. Maybe she didn’t need to steal it back at all, but the thought made her brain scream no. “I’m not hiding anything.”
Disappointment flashed in Malcolm’s eyes.
How could she tell him the truth? He was never going to let her steal the armband they were there to secure. What she really needed to do was go in without him. Cut ties.
And leave.
The limousine slowed to a stop in front of the hotel.
Malcolm got out, taking in their full three-sixty before holding his hand out to her through the open door. She took it, feeling the warmth and special zing reach her heart.
It was time to let him go before things got complicated.
Hawk Elite had gotten her so close to her goal she had it in her hands today.
But she couldn’t drag them any further through her clear-as-mud family tradition.
Not unless she wanted to truly hate herself.
***
“I still think we should call Hawk,” Malcolm argued. After their lovely dinner with Mr. Lecherous, even being back at the hotel wasn’t going to put his mind at ease.
When they reached their room, and he closed to the door behind them, she was already toeing off her boots and undoing the sexy-as-hell leather belt with the big looping chain he could hear like bells as she moved away from him.
“Come on, Malcolm,” Marie said in a tone that skirted the line between begging and exasperated. She turned as if she had no reservations and was unbuttoning her shirt, which was probably fine, since she did have some kind of little tank under the blouse. “Then you can go home.” The shirt dropped. “And I can—”
“Fuck.” He moved over to her, gripped her waist, and planted his mouth over hers, swallowing her words. A mistake. An impulse. A need…so deep, so dark.
She went from lax to tense before she opened her mouth to his, and—Lord, have mercy—captured his tongue with hers. Her arms came up around his neck. She circled him, pressing her sweet body against his.
Stop, he told himself.
Like hell, the demon on his shoulder whispered back. And his hands caged her in, braced her torso and slid down to her hips, the soft curve of her rear end. He groaned as arousal slammed into him.
Stop, he told himself again.
And it was Dimitru’s leering face that made him curse and slowly—oh so slowly—break things off. “Don’t talk,” he whispered, out of breath, heart pounding. His hands lingered at her slim waist, the tips of his fingers, touching the bare flesh above her skirt. “I need to check for listening devices.”
Her hair tickled his face as he spoke into her ear. God, she smelled good. So good. A brief kiss below her earlobe, and he let go of her. He crossed to his canvas duffel and dug for the detection wand.
He started in the bathroom and found one under the toilet seat. Into the main part of the room, he found one attached under the sink and two more—one on a lamp and another blended in with the black of the mini-fridge. He took all of them to the bathroom and put them on the top of the toilet, then turned on the shower and closed the curtain.
On his way out, he shut the door.
“Time to go,” he declared, confident the water and fan would cover up their departure. Abruptly, yes, but he was about done being a patsy. Done feeling out of control of the situation. He picked up his stuff and started packing. She stood there, staring at him. “Move it, Feur. We’re not staying here. We’re going to find a quiet little place where you and I can have a little heart-to-heart.”
She opened her mouth to speak, a flush still on her cheeks, a dazed look still in her eyes.
“Not that kind,” he said. “We’ll use words this time.”
The pout on her pretty mouth almost made him smile.
After going back to the bathroom to turn off the water, he stood by the door, waiting for her as she re-donned her clothes. He appreciated she didn’t ask questions. It wasn’t obedience from her, though. He wasn’t a fool.
He had to suspect she definitely knew more than she let on.
She wasn’t any happier about being in Dimitru’s crosshairs than he.
In the lobby, when Marie went toward the desk as if to check out, Malcolm grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the exit. Before exiting, he slowed and watched the street. One minute. Two. Three. And then he saw two things. The man across the road, who’d been smoking on the corner, moved and stepped down onto the street as a limo pulled up. He opened the front passenger door and climbed in.
The limo drove away down the street. But was he gone or would he be back?
Two minutes later, Malcolm finally glanced over at Marie.
She was as still as he, quiet and watching. Her instincts were some of the best on the team. For a woman with no military or agency training before Hawk, he was impressed.
Women he’d dated before never would have stood for so long without breaking the silence.
Instead of leaving, and tipping Dimitru off, Malcolm put an arm over Marie’s shoulder and walked toward the front desk. “Play along, okay?”
Much better to know the bad guys were where they could see them.
She must have been getting used to his excuses to touch her, because she smiled and grabbed the hand that hung off her shoulder.
Malcolm leaned in against the chest-high marble counter to talk to the new desk lady. “I need a room for two,” he said, handing over his credit card. “Fourth floor, if you’ve got it.”
The woman typed away at her computer. “You’re in luck. I have one room left on the fourth floor.”
He smiled down into Marie’s face and winked. “It’s our lucky night, snookie.”
She rose on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Thanks, babycakes.”
The lady at the desk watched them, so Malcolm shrugged. “We stayed here for our honeymoon. We’re trying to rekindle the spark.”
The woman’s inane smile conveyed the universal I-don’t-give-a-shit message as she handed over the new key cards.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
For the second time today, he led Marie to the elevators and up to the fourth floor.
This time, Marie seemed a good bit more nervous.
When he opened the door, not far from their old room, he silently cursed. One bed.
“At least it’s a king-size.” She walked in and dropped her bag on the floor.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think to ask for a room with two beds.”
“It would have blown our cover. Besides, it’s one night. We slept closer than this in Qatar when we were on the run.”
Exactly. Qatar was when his thoughts had crossed that line to admiration and desire. With admiration and desire came way more than he wanted to deal with, especially with a woman like Marie.
He had no doubt in his mind that when she got what she really wanted, she’d be gone.