TWENTY-TWO
I was trying—and failing—to get some work done on the train to Virginia when my cell phone vibrated. I’d forgotten to set it to totally silent.
No surprise. My mind wasn’t where it should be.
Grateful for the interruption since I couldn’t concentrate anyway, I pulled it out of my pocket.
Zane’s name appeared on the text.
You in town?
I scowled, remembering the last time he’d said that and summoned me to his office. That was how this whole mess had begun. Had it really only been two weeks ago?
Not bowing to his summons so easily this time, I typed in a question of my own.
Why?
I bet he really wouldn’t like not getting an answer from me. I could picture his frown. Imagining his displeasure made me feel better.
Need to see you.
I couldn’t really say no. I had the guy’s gun and I certainly didn’t want to keep it.
Even locked in the portable gun safe he’d loaned me along with the weapon I didn’t like having it in the apartment or on the train.
I guess I wasn’t like Zane. Or Tristan. Or Alex for that matter—comfortable wielding a weapon.
Resigned Zane was going to get his way if I wanted to rid myself of this gun locked in the box in my briefcase, making it twice as heavy as normal, I typed in a reply.
On the train now. Give me an hour.
The reply came back immediately.
Make it two hours.
What the hell? Now he was going to dictate when I complied with his summons? Although, it would do me no good to go over to the office early if he wouldn’t be there.
I drew in a breath and gave in. This little visit was really going to put a dent in my workday productivity but I couldn’t concentrate anyway.
Scowling, I responded.
Fine.
Even the idea of teasing Zane about his off-limits office manager Chelsea didn’t brighten my mood. Alex had ruined me. Stolen my joy. And it was because of Zane I’d met Alex in the first place.
Happy my blame had come full circle, I gave up on work and settled in to wallow for the final few moments of my trip . . . and try not to remember my final moments with Alex.
I’d told her to be gone by the time I got out of the shower and she had been.
For once the damn woman had done exactly as I asked. Didn’t that figure?
I walked from the Amtrak station to my apartment to drop off my briefcase and laptop, figuring after the visit with Zane I might or might not be in the mood to head to the office. I was betting on not.
By the time I got settled in, made a phone call to the office in New Jersey and another to the office in Virginia, it was time for me to leave for Zane’s.
Grabbing the gun safe, I transferred it into a duffle bag and headed out again to the station, this time to hop on the Metro to Dupont Circle. That wasn’t too nerve wracking, riding the Metro with a damn gun in my bag.
Was transporting it this close to the Capitol even legal? I didn’t know but by the time I stepped from the street and into Zane’s door I was good and agitated.
Lucky for me he was standing in the outer office so I didn’t have to wait to bitch to him.
“Here’s your damn gun back.” I tossed the duffle bag onto the chair in front of me. “And next time—”
I didn’t have a chance to tell him about next time because Alex stepped out of Zane’s office.
“I believe you two know each other.” The bastard had the nerve to act as if he didn’t know exactly how well I knew Alex.
Fine. I could act too. I pretended my heart wasn’t thundering just from the sight of her.
“Alex.” I delivered a cool nod in her direction and then looked at my friend. “Zane, a word?”
“Of course.” He turned toward his office, addressing Alex as he said, “Give us a moment?”
“Sure.”
Just my walking past her in the narrow space seemed a feat. To celebrate my accomplishment, I closed the door nice and hard, between us.
Even with the door shut, I didn’t feel confident she wouldn’t hear everything I said.
On second thought, good. Let her hear. She deserved to know how I felt about her now.
“What’s she doing here?” I asked.
“Interviewing for a position.”
“With you? You’re hiring her?”
“Like it or not, she’s good.”
“She’s a liar.”
“She’s an undercover operator. There’s a difference.”
“I don’t see one.”
“Because you’re mad and behaving like a brat.”
I frowned. “Fuck you.”
For once, Zane didn’t laugh at me when I got frustrated and cursed at him. Instead he actually looked sincere. Almost concerned.
It was confusing. I didn’t know what to do with the reaction.
“Brent, she wants to talk. To explain. I think you should listen to her.”
I shook my head. “So you two are all chummy now, talking about your mutual friend Brent? I thought she was here to interview.”
“She is, and her past job performance is a critical piece of information. And you are part of that.”
“I don’t like it. I don’t trust her. Do you even know who or what she is? Tristan said she spoke Russian like a native. Did you ever wonder why? Huh? I think she’s KGB or NSB or whatever the fuck they’re called now. Probably sent here to set up a sleeper cell.”
“That’s a TV show.”
“It also happens in real life,” I defended.
“I need you to trust me. Do you?” Zane asked.
I didn’t want to admit it but finally I did. “Yes . . . Mostly.”
One brow rose at my last minute qualifier, but he didn’t comment on it. “Then trust that I had her checked out with every resource at my disposal. Plus some.”
“And?” I asked, curious in spite of myself.
“She definitely has a colorful background, and her being raised by Russian-speaking parents is part of that, but we found no red flags.”
“Not even her association with Blackwater?”
“I might not agree with their methods but they’re a legitimate company.” He lifted a shoulder. “Look, just listen to what she has to say. You can decide for yourself what to think after you hear her out. That’s all I’m asking.”
I drew in a breath and let it out in a burst. “Fine.”
“Good.” Zane stood and moved toward the door, pausing by where I still stood. “Try to keep an open mind. Okay?”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I think you really care about this girl.”
I let out a snort. “That’s not a good thing.”
“It is if she cares about you too.” Zane the philosopher cocked a brow as if daring me to consider that and then opened the door.
He left and Alex appeared in the open doorway.
I shook my head at the ridiculousness of this. “Come on in. Might as well shut the door too, although Zane probably has the place bugged.”
“I do not.” The muffled denial came through the door as Alex clicked it closed.
She turned to me looking less like a Russian-speaking, gun and shoe-wielding bad-ass and more like the student volunteer I’d first met.
She raised that enticing emerald gaze to meet mine. “I’m sorry.”
I let out a short laugh. “Me too.”
Sorry I’d let myself fall too hard too fast.
A one-night stand I could have bounced back from. This was proving much harder.
“I want to tell you everything.”
“Look, Alex . . .” I was going to tell her it didn’t even matter anymore when a thought stopped me mid-sentence and I asked, “Is Alex even your real name?”
“Alexandra Svetlana Petrushev. But I really do go by Alex.” Before I could stop her she continued, “I was born in Russia but my parents moved us to the States when I was three. We only spoke Russian at home. That’s why I speak it.”
“So you’re not KGB, or NSB, or whatever?”
“I’m not.”
“Why were you in the Hamptons?” I asked, obviously interested even though I really did not want to be.
“I was told to be there, because Viktoria was there.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I was just a foot soldier. We didn’t know the whys. Just told what to do and we did it.”
“And what were you told to do?”
“I was to observe and report back everything I saw. When I told them I suspected you were there for other reasons than the fundraiser, they told me to find out more.
“So you slept with me.” Those words tasted bitter in my mouth.
“No.”
When I cocked up a brow, challenging her answer, she sighed.
“Yes, I slept with you, but they never told me to or expected me to spend the night with you.”
“Going above and beyond the call of duty to get information out of me, were you?” I spat. “Bet that’s the kind of dedication that gets you a promotion.”
“I wasn’t using sex to get information out of you.”
“Then why did you come back to my place?”
“Because I wanted to. I was attracted to you.”
My doubt must have shown on my face.
She continued, “And yes, I was looking for more information. But I didn’t need to sleep with you to get all that information. I’d already put a tracker on your car at the Hamptons party. That’s how I followed you to the donut shop in Montauk.”
I turned away from her, feeling ill. I’d been holding on to our shared love of those damn jelly croissants as the last genuine memory I had of her. Now that was spoiled as well.
Shaking my head, I spun back to glare at her. “I should have realized the Bake Shop was a lie too. You probably never even heard of the place.”
“No. Not true.”
“Don’t.” I held up a hand to stop her from piling more lies on the already overwhelmingly high pile.
“No, Brent. Listen to me. I grew up in Brighton Beach. My parents used to take my sister and me to Montauk every summer. We’d rent one of those tiny rooms with bunk beds in the hotel over by the docks and watch the fishermen come in every evening. And every morning, we’d go to town for jelly sticks.” She pressed her right hand over her heart. “I swear to you on my grandmother’s memory.”
“Well, at least that was real.”
“It was all real. I cared about you. I wanted to prove to myself you were innocent. But the evidence kept piling up. The comm in your car. Your connection to Zane. How you reacted every time I mentioned Viktoria. And I hated every new thing that made me suspect you were at that party spying on her.”
“Spying on her. Like you were.” I conveniently left out how I was there to spy on Viktoria’s comrade Alexey.
She shrugged. “It was work.”
While we were on the topic of Viktoria and Alex was supposedly being so forthcoming, I asked, “Tell me what was happening in the storeroom at the museum. What was Viktoria up to?”
“She flew an artist from Russia here in her jet. Her father’s jet actually.”
“Why?” I asked.
“More and more Russian artists are defying Putin. Crackdowns on freedom of speech are driving them into exile. Some of the more subversive artists have already fled to Berlin.”
I had done my homework recently, studying Viktoria and her family in Russia. I knew what she had done would not go over well if exposed, considering how close her father was with Putin. Maybe that was why Alex had been put on her trail.
“Did you report all this to your boss?”
She shook her head. “No.”
I cocked up a brow. “Really. Why not? This sounds like something they’d be interested in.”
“I’m sure they would have been very interested but I decided to do what I felt was right. And then I resigned.”
Which is why she was here looking for a job with Zane. I should probably get a finder’s fee for this. She’d likely have never heard his name if it hadn’t been for me.
“When Zane called, the timing was perfect.”
I frowned. “Wait. Zane called you?”
She nodded. “He said he liked the way I handled the situation at the museum.”
“You crushed his communicator with your shoe.” That was destruction of property. And I didn’t even know how much the damn thing cost to replace.
She shrugged. “It had a tracker in it. He said he would have done the same thing.”
I doubted I’d ever get the hang of this spy stuff and after this past week, I was fine with that. But that still left this thing with us up in the air.
“I do mean it. I’m sorry for every lie I told you. Every time I doubted you. And every second I hurt you.”
“You didn’t hurt me.” Now I was lying.
“Good, I’m glad. Because I sure hurt the hell out of myself coming to your place. I shouldn’t have. I’ve never felt such pain as when you told me to leave right after . . .” She cleared her throat and didn’t finish the sentence, not that I could have forgotten what we’d done. “Anyway, I understand. I mean I lied. You’re mad. You have every right to be—”
“Stop talking.” I hauled her against me, kissing her before the whirlwind that was my emotions had me saying something I might regret later.
I kissed her hard, and held her harder, like she was a buoy and I was a drowning man.
Hell, I was drowning. In her kiss. In my feelings.
Sinking into her felt good. Probably too good considering all that had happened between us, but I didn’t fight it.
When I pulled back, out of necessity so we could both take a much needed breath, I saw the concern and emotion in her eyes. I was pretty unsteady in that area myself.
“Does this mean you forgive me?” she asked.
I thought about that, considering the question before I answered.
What had she done that I hadn’t done myself?
She’d lied. I’d lied. We’d both had to in the course of our crazy assignments.
She’d been there to keep an eye on Viktoria. She wasn’t sure exactly why. I’d been there to keep an eye on Alexey for Zane’s unnamed client while I wasn’t exactly sure why either.
If she spoke the truth, she’d spent that first night with me because of an attraction she couldn’t fight in spite of not knowing if she could trust me or not. I’d taken her in my apartment two nights ago under the same circumstances.
Remembering her angry sex face that first time, it seemed we both hated ourselves for our weakness, yet it didn’t stop either of us. We’d done it anyway.
The way I saw it now, we were pretty much even in all of the bullshit that had happened between us.
The only difference was that I was ready to end all the intrigue, while she was applying for a job that would ensure it continued.
It had been a week filled with deception for me and already I’d had enough. It was exhausting. I couldn’t even imagine how Alex felt after making a career of it.
Zane too. This is how he’d spent his years in the SEALs after we’d left school—except with the added challenge of traveling to places where the enemy would try to kill him.
How the hell did someone carry on a normal existence after a decade of that? I felt changed after just a week of it.
I had new respect for him. For everyone in this line of work. Publishing might be boring in comparison but I’d take it.
And speaking of my boring life, the time had come to decide what was next for us.
I drew in a breath. “There’s nothing to forgive.”
As she looked visibly relieved, I leaned down to press my forehead against hers.
“What now?” I asked.
I mean, I could think of plenty of things to do in the immediate future, bringing her back to my apartment and making up for that last incredibly strange time we’d been together being top of the list, but what about after that?
What about the future? Did we have one given how different our lives were? Did she even want one with me?
She raised her gaze to meet mine hesitantly. “If Zane hires me, I’ll have a new job. I’d be based out of New York with a lot of trips down here. Maybe we could see each other, since I’ll be nearby.”
I forced the excitement down. I was determined to take things slower with her this time, but I couldn’t help but be uplifted that the two places Alex mentioned happened to be conveniently close to where I spent most of my time.
“He’ll hire you,” I said. He would if I had anything to do about it. After this week I figured Zane now owed me. “And yeah. We can see each other. I’d like that.”
The tiniest of smiles bowed her lips. “Me too.”