I couldn’t wear an earpiece because, if things went well—my heart missed a beat—Luka would be getting close enough that he’d spot it. I could call Adam on the brand-new cell phone they’d given me, but even then the presumption was that the authorities might be intercepting foreigners’ calls. I’d have to pretend Adam was my dad.
I’d never, in my whole life, felt so alone. There was a big part of me that wanted to tell the driver to turn around and take me back to the airport, then get the next plane home and quit the CIA. Get a normal job where I didn’t have to lie to everyone I met.
But then I’d never see him again.
***
My reunion with Luka was meant to be accidental, so it had to be thoroughly planned.
We knew he had a thing for ice hockey—one of his few indulgences beyond women. He’d played, when he was in his teens, and in the winter he still liked to smack a puck around each weekend at Gorky Park.
Gorky Park is the Russian equivalent of Central Park. In the summer, it’s full of joggers and couples pushing baby strollers. But each winter, all of the paths are deliberately iced over to create Europe’s biggest ice rink. You can skate around the entire park on the paths, or there’s a separate area for dancing and another for ice hockey.
Our agents in Moscow had reported that Luka usually showed up early, before his friends, and hung around near the ice hockey rink, watching the skaters. The idea was that I’d be skating and he’d see me and approach. I’d tell him how I was on vacation, starting off in Moscow before maybe taking in Rome, Paris and Venice. The team at Langley had carefully set me up with an itinerary that would give him a sense of urgency—I’m only in Moscow for a few days—while also leaving the door open for something to happen—but my tickets are flexible…
It was brilliant and ridiculous. Would he believe it was just a coincidence? My heart started thumping. Would he want to believe enough that he’d buy it?
And there was another problem: I can’t ice skate. I mean, I might be able to stumble around with some friends, all holding hands, and the falling over would be part of the fun. But who goes to an ice rink on vacation on their own when they can’t skate? I was going to look like the world’s most stubborn woman. I bet Elena and Natalia and Svetlana could skate. During my briefing, I’d seen some long-lens photos of Luka with his last few girlfriends, finally putting faces to the voices I’d listened to for months. All of the women had been just as gorgeous and slender and blonde as I’d feared. Why the hell is he interested in me?!
I knew that, somewhere in the crowd, a local CIA agent would be keeping an eye on me and reporting back to Adam. But they wouldn’t intervene unless things looked like they were going drastically wrong. I was basically on my own.
I went down on my ass for the fiftieth time. My hired skates were too tight, my jeans were soaked through, and my fingers were numb, even in gloves. I had no idea if Luka was watching me, or if he was even there. What if he doesn’t recognize me? I had a woolen hat pulled tight over my ears and was cocooned in a thick coat. It was a long way from a dress and heels.
I stumbled towards a bench and clutched at it for support, panting. What if he doesn’t show up at all?
I decided to give it one more try. I pushed off from the side, dodged a family who were all skating together and nearly collided with a young couple. Veering away from them sent me into a skittering mess, my arms circling desperately as I fought for balance, and then I went down—
Strong hands caught me under my armpits, just before I hit the ice.
I got my feet under me, blew my hair out of my face and tried to compose myself. I could feel him behind me. My chest was suddenly light with relief and a warm glow was spreading through me from where he was touching me. Look surprised. Look surprised. Should I pretend I don’t recognize him? No, that’s too much. Look surprised—
I turned and looked at him.
It wasn’t Luka.
“...hi,” I said. It was all I could think of.
The guy grinned. He was about my age and had sandy-colored hair that fell in tangled curls. “Hi!” he said enthusiastically. “American?” His accent wasn’t nearly as strong as Luka’s.
“Yes.”
“It’s cold here, yes? Want to get coffee?” He nodded to the side. A little way down the path, there were stalls set up selling tea and coffee, and you could skate right up to the counter. He was cute, in a rosy-cheeked, farm boy sort of a way.
An arm clapped around my waist and spun me around. I’d forgotten, for a second, that I was still balanced on a couple of metal blades and I nearly fell, but the arm tightened and held me.
I looked up into Luka’s eyes.
“Hey,” said the other guy. He sounded halfway between angry and friendly, as if he wasn’t sure which would get the best result.
Luka glanced at him over my shoulder. My stomach plummeted about a thousand floors and then exploded into a deep, dark heat. The look said she’s mine.
I heard the other guy skate away.
I remembered that I was meant to be acting surprised, but the whole thing had happened so fast that I didn’t have to act. I just stood there, my back resting against Luka’s muscled arm, and blinked up at him. Up being the operative word—I’d almost forgotten how big he was.
“You don’t need to go for coffee with him,” said Luka. “You are coming to lunch with me.”
He asked my name, even though by now he’d have got it from the background check his bodyguard did. So we were both acting.
It occurred to me that he might suspect. Maybe my fake background hadn’t been convincing enough. What if he’d approached me not because he wanted me, but because he sensed I was a spy and wanted to interrogate me? We were in a public place now but, as soon as he got me alone….
“Arianna,” I said. “Arianna Ross.” It’s disconcerting, saying a different surname after your real first name. Like being suddenly married.
“Luka,” he said. “Malakov.” He was studying me very intently, his ice blue eyes searching mine. Because he liked me, or watching to see if I’d slip up?
I had time to take things in, now. Despite the cold, he wore no coat. He was in ice hockey gear, minus the padding. Several paces behind him, I could see the bodyguard from New York, the one with the scar on his cheek, watching me suspiciously.
Luka asked me what I was doing in Moscow and I spun him the vacation story. I asked what he did and he said he bought and sold things, internationally. Closer to the truth than my story. Then he reached out and touched my cheek. It was only a brush of his fingers but, immediately, I felt that connection again. The heat of him throbbed into my exposed, frozen skin and I wanted to close my eyes so that I could savor it. How could just a touch from this guy feel like the best thing in the frickin’ world?
I had to remind myself to breathe.
“So...you said you wanted to take me to lunch?” I asked.
“No. I said you are coming to lunch with me.”
I opened and closed my mouth a few times. “Are you always this...”—arrogant? — “presumptuous?”
He stared down at me, his gaze burning me up. “I remember my bedroom. Don’t you?”
I felt myself flush.
He leaned close. “Still want to play with monsters?”
I didn’t answer but, as he drew back and watched me, my expression must have been answer enough.
“Which hotel are you in?” he asked. “My driver will pick you up.”
I told him and he said to be ready at one. And, just like that, he dropped his arm from my waist and skated away.
Did he know? Was that why he was so certain I’d agree?
Or did he detect my other secret? That, whenever I was near him, I wanted to get even closer? That I’d press myself so hard to him that we’d merge, if I could. If that was it, that was almost as scary as him knowing I was a spy. Because that dark heat inside was something I didn’t even understand myself.
***
Back at my hotel, I sat on the bed and stared at the screen of my new cell phone. The contact name said Dad.
I knew it was just a cover, but it didn’t stop the deep, cold ache inside me every time I saw that name.
I hit the button and Adam answered. I told him excitedly how I’d met a guy at Gorky Park and we were going for lunch. He did a pretty good job of sounding fatherly, telling me to be careful and asking which sights I’d seen.
I knew it was unusual for my handler to be someone as senior as him. His group must have hundreds of covert ops on the go—why was he taking such a personal interest in this one? Because he believed in me? Because he saw something in me that Roberta couldn’t? I liked that idea.
I found a red dress and black knee boots that I figured would work for a restaurant. I’d had to go shopping, before I left. I had to look like an independent, carefree young woman who’d jet off on her own on vacation, not a geeky shut-in. I stripped out of my wet jeans and the thick sweater I’d worn for the ice skating...and then I stopped and looked at myself in the mirror.
Could Luka really want...me? I looked down over my body. I was just normal. I didn’t have big boobs or long legs and I was no size zero. And he was gorgeous and—from what I’d glimpsed on his prison photos back in Langley—hard and sculpted beneath those expensive clothes.
I closed my eyes for a second and that image of his back was before my eyes. Thick slabs of muscle, strong enough to easily pick me up and carry me...or throw me down on a bed. Tattoos, and not some mass-produced, generic tribal swirls designed to make the owner look “edgy.” Luka’s tattoos were like a tapestry that told his life. A spider, in the center of its web: he was committed to a life of crime. A rose: he was part of the Bratva, the Russian mafia. Stars on his shoulders: he was a man of status, a higher class of criminal.
Criminal. What the hell was I doing, thinking about him in this way? He was the target!
I had to remain detached. This had to be an assignment, not a relationship. If I let it get personal, if I let him get under my skin, I’d be giving myself up to a man who was pure evil.
But if I did manage to keep it professional, if I slept with him and it meant nothing...wasn’t that even worse?
I opened my eyes. And saw that my hand wasn’t exactly between my thighs, but was tracing along the top of my panties. I jerked it guiltily away and hurried to get dressed.
***
The car arrived for me. A big, midnight-blue sedan, polished so bright that its flanks seemed to be made of dark water. The driver was Luka’s head bodyguard. The scar across his cheek and all those muscles made him look intimidating, but he didn’t seem thuggish, like some nightclub doorman. He seemed solemn, more than anything, as if he took his job very, very seriously.
I couldn’t get that phone call out of my head, the one when Luka had asked him to do a background check on me. He knows Luka wants to fuck me. Is that how he viewed me? Did he think he was just delivering a sacrificial lamb to his boss?
Inside, the car was all flawless cream leather. I was okay until the bodyguard slammed the door. Then I felt the memories start to stir and wake. This wasn’t like a cab. This was a normal car, with me in the back seat. It was daylight and it wasn’t snowing, so that was something. But it still came dangerously close to triggering me.
I had to do something to keep my memory tied up so that it didn’t have time to reach down into its depths and serve up my past. I stared out through the window and started to translate everything I saw into Russian. Lamppost. Dog. Tree.
It was ominously silent on the journey. There was no music and almost no road noise, the doors and windows muffling it completely. I wondered if they were armored.
I translated madly, staring at every passing building, translating drugstore, apartment block, convenience store as fast as I could. And then I broke off because I had a whole new problem. I noticed the bodyguard watching me in his mirror.
My stomach twisted into a knot. If Luka did have suspicions about me, he’d have told his man to look for anything suspicious. What should I do? Ignore him? Talk to him? What constituted suspicious?! God, this was already unbearable! Why did I ever agree to do this?! I was wound up tight inside, every nerve stretched to breaking point. And this was just the first date. How much worse would it get as we moved on? How was I going to keep lying to him if we had sex?!
Local CIA agents would be tracking the signal from my cell phone. There was probably an unmarked car following us, but they’d have to stay back, out of sight. Not a great comfort, if things went wrong.
I tried to relax and stretch out in my seat. There was enough room in the back that I could have put my legs almost straight out in front of me, if I’d wanted to. Was that just for show, to demonstrate Luka’s wealth? Or did he want all that room so that he could ravish one of his Russian blondes on the back seat?
When we arrived, Luka came down the steps of the restaurant and opened the door like a gentleman. He’d taken a shower after ice hockey, his black hair still damp. In his expensive suit, he could have been a businessman. Almost. There was still an aura about him. Something that made regular people react, even if unconsciously, every time he walked past. Men took a step back. Women, I noticed, took a step forward.
He didn’t give a fuck. It was the way he walked, the way he held himself. He didn’t care who was watching or what they thought of him. He was taking me to lunch because he’d decided that would give him pleasure, and everyone else had better stay out of his way.
He opened the door and held out his hand for mine. Another gentlemanly act. He was polite, yet arrogant. He treated me like a lady even as he admitted to his bodyguard that he wanted to fuck me. He took women out to posh restaurants, then returned to his world of violence and death.
For a split-second, I hesitated. Decision time. Was I really going to get involved with this guy?
I reached out and took his hand.
Inside, it was all snow-white tablecloths and hushed voices. Luka already had a table and guided me over to it, his hand on the small of my back. The red dress was made of fairly thick fabric but, suddenly, it seemed to barely be there at all.
When we sat, Luka said to the waiter in Russian, “She will need a menu in English.”
That was when I realized he had no idea I spoke or read Russian. That could be useful. Maybe he’d say something important about the arms deal, right in front of me, thinking I wouldn’t understand. So I tilted my head curiously and raised my eyebrows.
“I said you’ll need a menu in English,” he repeated in English, and I nodded and smiled.
We ordered: duck, for me, exquisitely cooked and drenched in rich sauce. For him, a rack of lamb. He cut into it, the juices running pink. “Why come on vacation alone?” he asked, his accent caressing each syllable.
I’d been drilled by Adam before I left Virginia. Keep as close to the truth as possible, he’d said. Good advice...but what do you do when your past is something you don’t share with anyone? “I thought I’d meet more people,” I lied. “I thought, if I came with friends, I’d just wind up talking to them the whole time.”
He nodded and chewed and then said, “Liar.”
The duck turned to tasteless mush in my mouth.
He looked me right in the eye. “I can tell when you’re lying to me, Arianna.”
Did he know?! I was in a public place, but this was Moscow, where money and power can buy anything. He could have me down the steps and bundled into his car in seconds, even kicking and screaming.
“Tell me why you’re really alone,” he said.
My mind was whirling. Why didn’t I listen to Roberta? He knows! He’s toying with me! I didn’t know whether to break and run and try to make it to the door or brazen it out or—
I snapped and told the truth. “I find it hard to connect with people,” I blurted.
The faintest hint of a smile crossed his lips. “That’s why you’re alone? Not just now but...always?”
I swa
llowed. “Yes.”
He smiled a slow smile. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”
I relaxed a tiny amount. He did want to find out the truth about me...but not what I did for a living. About me. The parts of Arianna Ross that were the same as Arianna Scott. In theory, that was a relief. But the thought of that stuff coming out, of having to relive the reasons why I was messed up—that wasn’t much less frightening.
“Are you always this...invasive with people?” I asked.
He didn’t even flinch. “I don’t like people lying to me.”
And then I realized the edge of his foot was against mine, under the table, the hard leather of his shoe pressed against the soft calfskin of my boot. It started to slide up, a firm caress, up the inside of my shin and then up the side of my calf. I stiffened in my seat as it left the boot and rasped against the nylon of my stocking. He rested there for a moment, his toe circling the side of my knee, and I caught my breath. “Do you always do this, as well, with women you’ve just met?”
“I’ve met you twice, now, Arianna. And we’ve already been much closer than this.”
The sound of my name on his lips did something strange to me. He’s pure ice, Roberta had warned me. But, behind those cold blue eyes, I thought I could detect something else. Something hotter than the core of a volcano, ready to burn us both. I recognized it, because I could feel the same thing building inside me.
“Why were you so rude to that guy at the park?” I asked. “He hadn’t done anything.”
Luka’s eyes blazed a little hotter. ‘He wanted to.”
“But why so rude? You just glared at him.”
“I’m not a very nice person, Arianna.”
“You’re nice to me.”
“You have something I want.”
My breath caught in my chest. “What?”
His toe slid higher up my leg. He was firm, not just brushing but pressing, kneading the soft flesh. It was a prelude to sex, showing me how he wanted to touch me with his hands. Every inch brought a new wave of pleasure, and they were merging and building, already dangerously strong. I gripped the table with one hand.
Lying and Kissing Page 5
