“I ignore him when I’m on the court,” she said. “When I’m off the court, he’s not a part of my world.”
“And your mother?”
“She still lives in Minsk. I see her when I can, which isn’t often, considering the demands of the tour. I’ve become an American citizen, so visiting is more complicated.”
Minsk was in Belarus, which became an independent republic in 1991 on the breakup of the Soviet Union. Belarus had ended up with 70 percent of the nuclear fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl power plant disaster across the border in Ukraine. A lot of farmland was still contaminated with radiation, although unscrupulous entrepreneurs were said to be using it anyway.
Max came up with a mental map of the place. Nestled between Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine, the country was about the size of Kansas. The government was authoritarian. Max knew there had been some problems with the sale of weapons and weapons technology from Belarus to states known to engage in terrorism. He wasn’t surprised that Elena had become an American citizen.
But her father hadn’t. Anton might harbor some animosity toward the U.S., which had supported his daughter’s declaration of her independence over his authority as a parent. Maybe something toxic had been brewing inside him for the past eight years. Max made a mental note to cross paths with Mr. Tarakova over the next couple of weeks.
He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to find Kristin standing behind him. He swiveled the bar stool around to face her. “Having fun?”
Her eyes looked troubled. Her voice was slightly slurred when she spoke. “I’m done in. I’m still not over my jet lag.”
“I’ve got my car. I’ll give you a ride back to your hotel.”
“I can take the Underground,” she said.
Max glanced at his watch and said, “It’s pretty late for that.”
“Oh. Well, if you don’t mind.”
Steffan was still brushing off his shirt as he approached them. “I can give her a ride back to her hotel, Max.”
Max said, “I’ll do it.” He realized how curt he sounded and said, “It’s no problem,” in a friendlier voice.
“I’ll take a ride, Steffan,” Elena said.
Max realized that, once again, he’d been oblivious to Elena from the moment he laid eyes on Kristin. “I can give you a ride, too, Elena.”
“The three of us might be a bit crowded in your Porsche, Max,” Elena said with a laugh.
Max slapped his forehead. “I forgot which car I was driving.”
She rose, retrieved her cashmere sweater from the back of her bar stool and slipped it over her bare shoulders. “You take care of Kristin, Max.”
Steffan shot Max an aggrieved look behind Kristin’s back, but Max refused to feel sorry for his friend. He’d had his chance. For whatever reason, Kristin had deflected Steffan’s overture. He could try again another day. Or not.
Elena put her arm through Steffan’s and led him toward the exit. “Come on, old boy. Time for bed.”
Steffan turned back to wink at Max. Perhaps his friend was going to get lucky tonight, after all, Max thought.
Max turned to Kristin and asked, “Where’s your jacket?”
“I forgot how cool the spring weather is here in London. I didn’t bring one.”
Max took off his navy blue sports coat and draped it around her shoulders. She pulled it close, apparently savoring the warmth that remained from his body, but at the same time shrugging off his arm, which had settled around her shoulder.
Max felt…sad. And…irritated. And damn it all…aroused. He bowed and gestured her toward the door. “Let’s go, Princess.”
13
“Did you find out anything from Steffan that might help us?” Max asked as revved his silver Porsche 911.
“He knows every woman on the tour,” Kristin replied. She angled herself toward him in the bucket seat and said, “He’s bedded most of them. I’d say he’s been too busy having sex to plot an assassination.”
Max noticed there was no slur in her voice, and when he met her gaze, her eyes were clear. Apparently she’d been pretending to be more tipsy than she was. “You got him to tell you that?”
“I couldn’t stop him from telling me,” she said with a rueful smile. “I think he wanted to convince me I’d be in for a delightful evening of carnal pleasure if I took him back to my hotel room.”
“You weren’t interested?” Max asked blandly.
“I thought I was coming here to…” She stopped herself, then continued, “Play a tennis match. You’ve changed that. I may not be an FBI agent for much longer, but so long as I am one, I intend to do a good job.”
“When I talked to your boss, he didn’t give me a lot of details about the flap you’re involved in. He just said you were a good agent. Want to tell me what happened?”
“No.” She huffed out a breath and said, “I suppose you deserve to know. Several months ago, I shot a young man. I thought he had a gun. He was reaching for a cell phone. A few days after I met you in Miami, my partner and I were questioning some bank robbery suspects. The situation got hairy and I hesitated before drawing my gun. I didn’t shoot when I should have. My partner was seriously wounded.”
She grimaced and said, “Lucky for you, I don’t have a gun strapped to my hip, so the problem isn’t going to arise.”
“About that. Check out the glove compartment.”
She opened the tiny glove compartment. Inside was a Glock 27, the gun she normally carried. She left it where it was and turned to stare at him. “I thought we weren’t authorized to carry weapons here in England.”
“I don’t want you defenseless in the event we uncover a plot and the assassin—and whoever he or she might be working with—decides to eliminate the pretty lady asking so many questions.”
“You want me to carry an illegal firearm?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” she said. “There’s a small chance I’m going to get to keep my job. I don’t want to blow it by creating an international incident. Besides, I usually carry at my waist under my jacket. There’s no way to conceal a weapon when I’m wearing tennis clothes. It wouldn’t do me much good in my tennis bag in the locker room—assuming I could get a gun past the soldiers doing personal searches at the gates during the tournament, which I doubt.”
“Your choice,” he said. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
“Does this mean you’re carrying a weapon?” she asked.
“Nope. I have other skills.”
“Kung fu? Karate?”
He grinned at her. “Big fists. Long reach. Great footwork.”
She laughed. “I remember you liked to box for exercise. You kept it up?”
He nodded. “I have to say, it’s come in handy once or twice.”
“I thought you were just a playboy, Max. Knowing you’re working as a spy makes me wonder. What’s your life really been like over the past ten years?”
It was the first personal question she’d asked. He was glad to hear it, because it was something a friend might ask. But it wasn’t an easy question to answer. He deflected it by saying, “You first. What happened to you after that last Wimbledon match? Why didn’t you stick around?”
They were passing under a streetlight and he noticed her face looked stricken. When they were in the dark again, she spoke.
“You made me believe I was invincible,” she said quietly. “That I could beat anybody on the tennis court. Losing to Elena—when I should have won—was devastating.”
“One loss and you quit tennis?” And walked away from all your friends, including me?
“It wasn’t just the loss.”
He waited for her to explain. When she didn’t, he asked, “What happened, K? Why did you run away?”
They passed under another streetlight and he saw her eyes looked frightened now. What the hell had happened to her? The question had gnawed at him for ten years. He wanted an answer.
“Did someone hurt you?”
Had she been physically attacked? Raped? The thought made his gut wrench, but he had to know.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Who was it? Did you report the attack? Did they ever find him?”
“It was you, Max,” she said in a hoarse voice. “You hurt me.”
The tires screeched as he braked the Porsche and swerved to the curb. He turned off the ignition and turned to face her in the enclosed space. His heart was beating hard in his chest, trying to get out, trying to get away. His throat was tight and he had trouble speaking, but he had to ask.
“Are you saying you weren’t willing? That having sex with me left you traumatized so badly you quit tennis. That when we had sex…” He could hardly get the words out, but they had to be said. “That I raped you?”
“No!” She reached out to touch his arm, and when he flinched, pulled her hand back. “No, Max.”
He frowned. “I remember you crying. I thought it was because it hurt when I…when we had sex, because it was your first time. Was it something else? Why were you crying?”
“Because of the pain. And because I was happy.”
He shook his head in confusion. “That makes no sense. You just said I hurt you. But you were crying because you were happy?”
“Yes, I was happy. I liked you so much, Max. I wanted to be as close to you as I could possibly be, and sex seemed like the way to do that. Yes, it hurt. But I was glad we’d done it.”
“Then why the hell did you run away the next day? Why did you refuse to see me? Why wouldn’t you talk to me?”
She took a shuddering breath and let it out. He watched tears brim in her eyes and saw one slip onto her cheek.
“Talk to me, damn it!”
“I saw you kissing Elena the next morning,” she said in a choked voice. “You made love to me and you kissed her—my rival in the match—the next morning right in front of me.” Her voice rose and got angrier. “How do you think that made me feel?” Her face was a picture of agony. “I’ll tell you, Max. It made me feel like a stupid idiot.
“I’d given you the most precious thing I had to give a man, and the next morning I found you kissing someone else. As though what had happened between us was…nothing.”
Her eyes glistened with tears as she continued, “I was so hurt and angry I couldn’t concentrate. I lost a match I should have won. I was furious with myself for letting you make me feel that way. And I was furious with myself for losing. I couldn’t get away from you fast enough.”
“You should have talked to me,” he said quietly.
“I’m sure you would have come up with a good excuse for what you did. I didn’t want to hear it.”
“She asked for a kiss—for good luck. I gave it to her. That was all it was, K. A good-luck kiss.”
She choked back a sob.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. He shoved a frustrated hand through his hair. “Goddamn son of a bitch. All these years I spent wondering what the hell happened.” He realized he was angry. Furious. “You should have said something to me. You should have given me a chance to explain.”
It was too late to go back and undo what had happened. All these years he’d felt guilty, certain he’d done something wrong but never knowing what. And she’d run away because of a stupid misunderstanding.
“Your behavior after I left the tour convinced me I was right to cut you out of my life,” she said defensively. “You didn’t waste any time finding another bed partner.”
He groaned and dropped his chin to his chest. He’d only stayed on the tour another year. But he’d done a lot of wild partying—with Elena, among others. He wasn’t about to tell Kristin that he’d been trying to drown his pain and guilt—and the secret he carried about his mother—in booze and women.
“It’s your turn, Max,” she said. “Prove to me I was wrong. Have you ever had a serious relationship with a woman?”
“I’m a spy, Princess,” he said in a mocking voice. “Spies don’t do relationships. We have sex.”
She winced. “I’m sorry for you, Max.”
“What about you?” he shot back. “Where’s your husband, Princess? Who’s your boyfriend? What’s your love life like?”
They were extremely personal questions. Things he would never have asked if he hadn’t been so irritated by her attack on his life. Especially when it was his failure with her when he’d been a callow—and vulnerable—youth, and the terrible secret he’d never been allowed to share, that had made him so reluctant to commit himself to a woman.
“I was engaged once,” she said. “It didn’t work out.”
“That’s it? One engagement?” He realized he sounded snide. He wondered why he was still so angry. She’d explained. There was no big mystery. Just crossed wires. He should be relieved. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t let it go.
“I’m sorry, Max,” she said, sounding genuinely contrite. “I should have let you explain.”
For the past few minutes, he’d felt like a balloon filled so full of air it was ready to burst. Her apology was like a gentle pinprick that, instead of bursting the balloon, created a slow leak. He could feel the anger oozing out of him. Was that what he’d needed to hear? An apology for mistrusting him?
Without the anger to mask it, he realized what he really felt was grief. Something precious had been budding between them when they were kids. It had been snipped off before it could grow, and the plant itself had withered and died.
He reached for the key and started the car. “I’m sorry, too, K. At least now we both know what happened.”
They were silent as he drove the last mile or so to her hotel, but he could feel the tension arcing between them.
As he pulled up in front of the Park Plaza Victoria, she said, “Would you like to come inside for a drink?”
“I’m done drinking for the night.”
“Would you like to talk some more?”
“I’m done talking, too.” He could see she was upset. So was he. He needed some time to process what he’d learned. “We have an early court time tomorrow. Get some rest.”
She glanced at him once more, then reached for the door handle and let herself out of the car. She slid his jacket off her shoulders, then leaned in and laid it on the passenger seat.
“Thanks, Max,” she said. And then, “I am so sorry.”
He gritted his teeth to keep from saying something he would regret later. When she shut the car door, he gunned the engine and shot into oncoming traffic. A horn blared and he swerved, barely missing the shiny black fender of a London taxi. He kept his foot on the accelerator, forcing himself to focus on the road, while his heart beat heavy in his chest.
The problem was, the damned plant wasn’t dead at all. The seeds of love had lain dormant in him, waiting for some nourishment to bring them back to life. Seeing her made him yearn for that innocent—yet powerful—love he’d felt all those years ago.
He had to kill the damned thing before it got a chance to take root again. He didn’t trust her any more than he’d trusted any other woman in his life. He might once have been a fool for love. Not anymore. He wasn’t going to let Kristin Lassiter anywhere near his heart again.
14
Kristin was fighting tears by the time she got to her hotel room. She kicked off her shoes, threw herself onto the bed and hugged a pillow to her chest.
I gave her a kiss for luck.
Why hadn’t she asked Max to explain that kiss? How different things might have been! More to the point, why hadn’t she contacted Max when she found out she was pregnant? If he’d known they were going to have a child, would he have asked her to marry him? Would he have stepped up and done his share of the parenting?
They’d been teenagers. Kids. Too young to marry. But still. They’d been good friends. He’d said he cared for her. She’d loved him. Maybe they could have made it. She would never know now. She’d never given him the chance.
Max had been so angry with her tonight. She didn’t want to think wh
at he might do if he found out she’d kept the existence of a daughter from him all these years. He wasn’t a boy anymore. If he ever found out about Flick, she didn’t think he would let her get away with running again.
Was that what she was going to do? Run again?
She’d worn the label invincible as a teen on the tennis court, but the truth was, she was a stronger person now than she’d been when those decisions were made. Of course, the self-confidence she’d gained raising a child on her own and pursuing a career that she loved had taken a battering over recent months. But she wasn’t anywhere near down and out. She still had plenty of fight left in her.
Kristin swiped at her tears and headed into the bathroom to cleanse the makeup from her face with an inexpensive cold cream. After removing it with a tissue she rinsed with cold water. She looked at her face in the mirror, dripping with water, and didn’t like what she saw in her eyes.
Defeat.
The duchess had been wrong. She and Max had discussed what had gone awry between them in the past, but it hadn’t resolved anything. Except to make her feel like even more of a fool than she’d felt like ten years ago. Oh, how she wanted to pack her bags, collect her daughter and leave London!
She patted her face dry instead.
If she walked away, she would be leaving without the Blackthorne Rubies. She wanted—she needed—the financial security she would have if she stayed and played that stupid exhibition match.
She resisted the urge to grab her suitcase. She brushed her teeth instead. Which left her staring at herself in the mirror again. And gave her far too much time to think.
It had occurred to her, when she saw Max this morning and realized the powerful physical attraction between them was still there, and tonight, when she’d realized that she wasn’t the only one to be hurt by her childish behavior all those years ago, that she’d made a terrible mistake.
She felt wretched, wishing she didn’t have to face Max again tomorrow. Especially knowing herself to be in the wrong.
Invincible Page 13
