“Good call,” Shane said curtly as they passed into the meeting space, already occupied by Rothgar and the rest of the Kings.
Cecily was sitting at a desk in front of a bank of computers with Rothgar, like it was the most normal thing in the world to be hanging out in the war room of an armory full of confidential material talking to the leader of a mercenary team.
“What the hell is she doing here?” both Shane and Dex asked in unison. They gave each other annoyed looks and then both of them stared at her. Dex hovered over his sister; Shane took a seat.
I am not fine. Not at all.
It didn’t escape Shane that it didn’t escape Rothgar that something was messing with Shane’s mind—and that the something was probably Cecily—but he did his best to focus on the plan at hand.
“Missy put together the blueprint for the first part of our mission,” Rothgar said. “We believe we can gather enough evidence to prove that one very beautiful model named Anya Gorchakov is operating in New York City as a Russian sleeper agent. We also believe we can bolster that evidence—and evidence that James is at least one middleman at the hub of the entire cell—by getting audio and video of them together. We’ve got an opportunity to do just that tomorrow night, so we’re going to take it and then move back to the details of Anya over the next two weeks.”
Shane’s gaze moved back to Cecily. She didn’t seem freaked out. She seemed . . . interested.
Missy stood up and flipped a piece of paper over the top of her clipboard. “We believe that James Peterson likes to meet with the agents in his care at a restaurant called Madison 57. He’s a regular at a corner table near the pianist and an extremely healthy ficus plant.”
A snort of laughter sounded from somewhere in the chairs behind Shane.
Missy looked up with a grin. “I’m just sayin’ we’ve got sound and sight obstruction.”
Flynn gave a salute, touching his hand to the permanent damage on his face with a teasing expression. “Appreciate the heads-up. I’ll wire things up with that in mind.”
“Yep. There’s a great balcony table that will give a clear aerial view but has a rail you can hide behind. Which reminds me . . .” She looked back at Rothgar. “What are we doing about Romeo?”
Shane looked around. Sure enough, Romeo was missing. Normally, he’d be the natural choice for hanging out in a fancy restaurant pretending to be on a date or whatever.
“He’s sick,” Nick explained. “It’s been going on and on.”
Rothgar raised his chin in their direction. “Right. So, Nick, we need you here in the room with Dex and access to a computer in case one of them pays with a card of some kind. Follow the money, yeah?”
“Nothing better,” Nick said, rubbing his thumb and index fingers together.
“So, of Shane and I, who’s the floater and who gets to have the fancy meal?” asked Chase.
Rothgar opened his mouth to answer.
“I get to have the fancy meal!” Cecily blurted.
Shane sat up in his chair, saw Dex drop his forehead to his hand, and suddenly everybody was talking, hooting, laughing, or hollering.
“Yo!” Roth barked.
Cecily barreled headfirst into the silence saying, “I deserve the chance to help bring him down. More than anybody.”
“You’re a little light on experience,” Dex said through his teeth.
Cecily flushed. “I know what I’m getting into.” She glanced over at Shane. He winced as her look was caught and catalogued by every person in the room. Missy managed to suppress a smile, but nobody tried to hide his amusement. Well, except for Dex. He wasn’t even close to being amused. “A couple is just another couple. A hot guy eating alone is noticeable,” Cecily added.
“She talking about you or me?” Chase said with a shit-eating grin, nudging Shane’s shoulder. “I’m the hot guy, right?”
Dex was protesting, using every argument in the book: She wasn’t experienced. James might see her, and they’d be outed. She was putting herself in a potentially vulnerable position any time she went near James.
For some odd reason, Shane felt . . . pride. Pride and more. It was a definite turn-on, a definite turn-on, confirming that this slip of a woman who looked so vulnerable was so damn game. He shifted his gaze to Rothgar, wondering how long she’d been trying to convince him and, most of all, which aspect it was that had won the big man over. Because Rothgar was the furthest thing from a pushover. And no way could she convince him to run a mission in anything but the way he 100 percent wanted to run it.
“I’m putting Shane in with Cecily on this one,” Rothgar actually said. For some crazy reason, Shane’s pulse sped up. “They have a familiar working relationship . . .”
You could say that.
The guys in the room were whispering to one another. Rothgar put up a hand and the room quieted. “I know what you’re thinking—especially you, Dex. But Cecily, here, made some pretty reasonable arguments.” Rothgar paused and looked down at his feet, a sign that he was trying to be delicate, something that didn’t happen very often. Then he added, “Cecily had a point about being a wronged party in all of this. Not just her time with this man. The fact is, if she didn’t have ties to the Hudson Kings, she wouldn’t have been targeted. She’s asked to be part of righting this wrong.” Rothgar looked over at Dex. “I’ll accept a veto from Dex, though.”
“Dex, I—” Cecily began.
Rothgar silenced her with a look. “There’s one more thing Dex needs to factor in. I’ve asked Cecily not to shut the door on James.”
“What the fuck!” Dex said.
Shane said exactly the same thing in his head.
“She’s been getting phone and e-mail messages since she left him. None of it suggests he thinks she knows who he really is. All that James knows is that he hit your sister, and she left him to join her brother in New York. He doesn’t know that he’s been made as a Russian spy and a fake piece of shit who sold Cecily a bill o’ goods.”
Shane watched Cecily struggle with shame. He hated feeling powerless. He wanted to cross the room, go to her, make it okay. But she wasn’t his. She was Dex’s.
“He doesn’t know the Hudson Kings are all over his ass,” Rothgar continued. “For all he knows, she’s just a girl who left a bad relationship and went home to a brother he’s probably seen in pictures but never met. If Cecily leaves the door open a crack, makes James think he might be able to fix things, we have a far easier road keeping tabs on him, what he knows, and what he’s going to try.”
“What exactly are you asking her to do?” Dex asked.
Rothgar shrugged. “Change her language from ‘never’ to ‘need space and time.’ Have her answer an e-mail or two. Have her sound unsure of herself. Keep the possibility in his mind that he can reconcile and complete his plan of getting intel on us through her.”
“I asked Rothgar to put me in the restaurant, Dex,” Cecily said. “Please don’t veto this. I have a right to help take him down.” She lifted her chin and said defiantly, “And I keep a cool head in the field.”
Fuck, Shane thought.
“Well, Dex, what’s it going to be?” Rothgar said.
Dex stared at Rothgar. He stared at his sister and immediately looked away with a guilty look. “This is messed up . . . but no veto.” And then he shot a dirty look at Shane.
Rothgar’s eyes narrowed as he followed the dirty look home.
Shane stayed blank.
“No veto from Dex. Cecily’s with Shane at the restaurant. Done. Let’s move on. That means Chase will be working home base throughout the rest of the mission, so the continuity works for me there too. Anyone got a problem with the bones of this plan?” Rothgar asked, his voice a little sharp.
Shane looked over at Dex, who practically had smoke coming out of his ears.
Rothgar crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the desk. “Okay, ladies, let’s fucking kiss and make up. Whatever your beef, we do not have the time.”
&
nbsp; Aw, shit. He should’ve made his apology back when he had the chance. Shane lifted his hand in the air like he was turning himself in to the cops in some bad Western. “I said something to Dex about Cecily I shouldn’t have said.”
Cecily’s eyes widened, and what sounded like the entire team said, “Whoaaaaa.”
Shane looked at Dex. “And now I’m apologizing.” He took it like a man, gaze straight on Dex. “You gonna make me say what it was, with her here, in front of everybody?”
After a moment Dex said, “We’re fine. It’s fine. We’re fine. Sorry to bring it into the war room, Roth. Everything’s fine.”
“No bullshit. If it’s not fine. Air it. Otherwise, it’s done. Understood?”
“Understood,” Dex said.
Rothgar’s gaze shifted back to Shane.
Jaysus, but it was not pleasant to get momma-henned by Rothgar. Worse than a sucker punch. He could see the other guys holding back their laughter. “Understood,” Shane echoed. “It’s fine.”
Fine enough to get on with shit, but not fine enough to feel the same brand of comfortable they used to have. But since Shane now realized Cecily hadn’t quit his system, he suspected things between him and Dex weren’t going to get comfortable again for some time.
Thank god Roth called an end to this tweaked version of group therapy; he was sending everybody out. As they left, Missy handed out her “blueprints” for each man’s part in the job. Shane got the one with Romeo’s name crossed out: a list two pages long.
Missy had also drawn a smiley face on top alongside the scrawl “Don’t get made.”
He was halfway down the hall before it occurred to him she might have been talking about something other than the mission.
CHAPTER 17
Cecily was sitting cross-legged on the bed in Missy’s room, surrounded by brochures decorated with color palettes, when Shane walked in.
She tried not to look too happy to see him, but, damn, there was a lot to be happy about. He was wearing a T-shirt he probably kept in the closet here, because she didn’t recognize it, and she definitely would have recognized it. It was a little more fitted than his usual fare and made the most of showing off the cut of his chest, his tattoo, and the muscular slopes of his arms.
She greeted him with a smile.
“This your graphic design stuff?” he asked.
“It sure is. I thought I’d start with a few classes and then focus on getting an internship somewhere, but my long-term plan is to get a certificate and then a full-time job.” Cecily took a deep breath. “But you’re not here to hear about this stuff. Are you here to tell me you don’t want me at the restaurant with you or to tell me what you said about me to Dex?”
Shane stared at her for a moment, moistened his lips, and without changing expression replied, “I basically called you easy.”
Cecily sucked in a horrified breath.
“Not as such, but it read that way. I said it because I was angry, and I threw you under the bus to score against him. It was bullshit, but it’s kind of still out there for the moment. I apologized, but I’m going to have to give Dex some space for a while.”
Easy. “Oh.” She could feel those two bright red spots burning on her cheeks. “Okay. That’s not what I expected. Yeah. So, this is embarrassing.” Note to self: Stop throwing yourself at him. Just STOP.
“Understandably, Dex wasn’t happy. That’s it. I fucked up. And Cecily, from the bottom of my heart, I apologize for what I said. I let it get to me.”
“Let what get to you?”
Shane looked out the window. “It’s more than the job or the danger. He doesn’t like me for you.”
Cecily understood it then. Shane might be good at telling himself there was no “we,” but he couldn’t make himself feel something he didn’t feel. She gazed up at him. “You’re so together with everything except me. Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Cecily folded her arms across her chest. “When you finally get around to it, you have an uncanny need to tell me all kinds of truths I’m not sure I want to hear. Do you ever have a confession that isn’t some kind of bombshell? I can’t decide if you’re trying to push me away, and dressing it up as this kind of crazy point-blank honesty. I don’t think I’ve ever dated anyone as honest as you.” She flushed. “I mean, not that we’re dating. Or anything. I mean, we’ve never gone on a date, so . . . anyway, with your dedication to the truth, you’d probably tell me that I do look fat in my dress.”
“I’ve never seen you wear a dress,” Shane said, giving her a very sexy once-over. “You got a dress here?”
A bolt of laughter burst from Cecily’s lips. “You basically just told my brother I was a slut, and now you’re flirting?”
Shane’s face went dark. “Just to be clear, I told your brother you were . . . game . . . because I’m an idiot, and I felt backed into a wall, and I made a shit decision that I’m copping to and trying to fix. I said something I didn’t mean. It wasn’t true. It won’t happen again.”
Her laughter disappeared as quickly as it came. She studied him, realizing she’d been close enough to him to read him better than he could imagine. And what she was reading was a whole lot of contradiction. And a whole lot of a man trying not to let himself have something he really wanted. And she thought about how much she hated all that and how she wasn’t going to let herself get away with it and how she wasn’t sure she wanted to let Shane get away with it.
“For the life of me,” she finally said, “I can’t figure out why we do and say the most ridiculous things to each other, and all I want you to do right now is kiss me.”
“For the life of me, I can’t figure out why I’m fighting that so hard,” Shane muttered.
“We should stop fighting,” Cecily said.
Shane stared down at her, not saying anything, so much tension in his body she could almost hear a dull roar building in his brain. “The Armory is always a stopover for me,” he finally said. “I’m not a long-term play.”
And yet, you’re still standing here in front of me like you can’t bring yourself to leave. “When you actually bother to communicate, everything makes a helluva lot more sense, you know. Doesn’t mean I like it, but it makes sense. And I get you, Shane. I get that you’re not a long-term play. Is that what you think I’m looking for? Because I’m just looking for happy. I haven’t had that in a while, and I don’t care what size box it comes in. The thing is, you’re here now, aren’t you? You’re here for a little while working on Rothgar’s job.”
Shane stayed quiet for a moment. “You got a dress here?”
Cecily cocked an eyebrow. “Maybe. Not sure I should waste it. Depends on how easy you are.”
“Turns out I’m pretty fucking easy when it comes to you,” Shane said.
“Then I got a dress here,” Cecily said.
“Be in the garage at six forty-five. The mission starts at seven.”
A Friday night date with Shane? Cecily didn’t care if it was fake and designed solely to bring James down. Knowing that would probably make the food taste better. “It’s a date,” she said totally deadpan and turned back to her brochures.
The door closed behind Shane’s back.
Cecily threw her brochures into the air and watched the rainbows all fall around her.
CHAPTER 18
Of course, she didn’t have a dress. She’d left all her good stuff with James—he’d paid for it. Since buying a dress on short notice was a no go, enter Missy. Again.
Cecily looked in the mirror and felt good about what she saw for the first time in a really long time. Apparently, nobody in this line of work had regular storage. You couldn’t just have a trunk or a box or a closet. Your trunk had to have a secret weapons cache, your box had to have a false bottom, and your closet had to lead into a special tunnel containing a very wide selection of clothing for a variety of identities, occupations, and economic statuses.
Unlike Shane, however, Missy had no qualms about sharing her
stash, probably because it was to her credit how freaking organized the woman was. Anything you needed to be, anything you wanted to do, anything you could dream up was probably there on a rack with an identification tag and its own little packet of cedar chips hung around the hanger hook.
By the time all was said and done, she’d snapped the tag off a gorgeous Von Furstenberg wrap dress, unboxed two sets of strappy sandals for Cecily to choose from, and tossed over a fancy little wristlet that pulled the whole thing together.
A dressing area the size of a Neiman Marcus VIP boutique made trying everything on a simple matter; Missy might look like something out of a Dickens musical half the time, but she had vision.
Cecily exhaled an unsteady breath, remembering how looking like this was an everyday occurrence with James. And how uncomfortable it felt trying to keep up. This felt different. She felt special now, like she was presenting Shane with something special.
“Want jewelry?” Missy asked, eyeing Cecily in her outfit like she was trying to decide where to put the next dab of paint.
Cecily wasn’t big on jewelry. She had tiny diamond-chip studs she wore every day, and that was pretty much that. Missy preempted with a sigh, obviously reading the situation. “You’re only, like, the second female who’s been in this place, and I tell you there are two guys tops who even entertain an appreciation for this shit, but I don’t wanna make you late. Your makeup looks nice, by the way; Shane’ll flip. You think he looks at you now, just wait.”
Cecily had decided on soft pinks and neutrals, a light gloss on her mouth, the focus on her eyes and hair, and, well, a bit of cleavage, courtesy of the dress. “How does he look at me?”
“Are you kidding? I could still feel the way he looks at you if I was standing behind a door.”
“I hadn’t really thought . . . I mean, I know how I look at him, so I guess I just figured that that feeling was coming from me.”
Missy was moving Cecily around by the shoulders, giving her a hell of a critical once-over. “You know, on paper, I can’t say you two make any kind of sense. But off paper?” She let Cecily go and smiled. “You’re going to have a great night. You got any questions?”
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