Lethal Seduction: A CIA Romantic Suspense (CIA Agents Book 1)
Page 11
“You have an alternative,” Charlie said lightly as he seemed to consider what Scott was saying. “Since you have thought this out, how do I keep you from killing Andy and going to the press?”
“Let us go,” he said simply. “Delete the mission to kill Jovana Borjan, delete the mission to kill me, and just let us go.”
“You think it’s that simple?”
“It will have to be,” he said as he pushed off the kitchen counter, picked up a pistol, and pressed it to Carroll’s temple. “It’ll have to be as simple as pulling a trigger or not pulling a trigger.”
“Just to point out the seriousness here,” Andy said as he met Scott’s gaze. “He’s got a gun to my head.”
“I want to retire,” Scott said lightly. “I wanted to stop doing this anyway. Let me do that. Let me take Jovana, and let us go.” He shrugged a shoulder. “If you’re worried about someone getting ahold of her again, don’t worry. I’ve kept her safe this far, and I’ve managed to catch a man in the process. I think I can keep her out of anyone else’s hands.” He tilted his head until a sound crack came from his neck. “On the other hand, I can kill this guy and every man you send my way. How many agents do you have, Austin? How many can you afford to lose?”
“A man does stupid shit when he’s in deep,” Charlie sighed into the phone. A rustle of papers filtered through the phone, and it was apparent he was searching through his desk. “This is what you’ll do for me in return for what I’m going to do for you. You’ll take Andy to the airport and put him on a plane for Washington. I want a full debrief from you on this, Carroll. From there, as far as the CIA is concerned, both you and Borjan are dead. I’ll accept this piece of shit picture you sent me as proof, and Andy will tell me that he succeeded in killing you. From there, you will need to take everything you have left in your payroll account and put it in an overseas bank. I’ll send you the number to a bank in the Virgin Islands. After all of that, neither you nor Borjan will set foot in the States again. Are we all clear on these orders?”
She saw Andy nod and Scott as well, the two echoing, “Yes sir.”
“I’m setting you up with an email account. I’ll send the address and password to this phone. You will have twenty-four hours to get the information off that account before it is deleted. From there . . .” Charlie sighed. “I don’t want to hear from your ass again.”
“If it makes you feel better, the feeling is mutual,” Scott said with a smirk. “You’re acting like I’ve got a gun to your head.”
“There is, asshole,” the other man snapped. “Now get Andy on a plane.”
The call ended and she felt relief flood her. “It is over?”
Andy shot a look at her. “As soon as you get me on a plane, it’s over.”
“If I untie you, are you going to be stupid?” Scott asked.
“I follow orders,” the other man shot back. “I’m not so stupid that I’ll go against my director’s commands.”
The next hour went by in a blur. Both she and Scott got dressed, and they untied the man who was sent to kill them. For being held at gunpoint, the other man didn’t seem to hold any animosity against them, though Scott didn’t return his guns. “I’d rather be safe than have a bullet in my head,” he said as they directed Andy into the rental car.
“I behaved,” he argued. “But I can see where you’re coming from. I’ll just have to write off the loss.”
It surprised her when she saw them shake hands, standing on the tarmac to the little airport they had arrived in. They spoke privately as she opted to stay in the car. There must be a connection between killers, because that was what they both were. Though Scott said he was retiring. When he came back to the car, he seemed to have a relaxed expression. It was closing in on dawn, and the rays of the sun had begun to chase away the darkness of the night.
“Is it over?” she asked because despite everything, it seemed surreal that it would end so easily.
“It’s over—the hard part is. Now we just have to finish up the little details,” he said lightly, picking up her hand. “We need to decide where we go from here. We could go our separate ways if it was something you wanted.”
“That is not what Charlie Austin ordered.” She looked at him. “What happened to ‘in it together’?”
He gave her a smile, and for the first time, it reached his eyes. She had been attracted to Scott before. He was a handsome man. Looking at him now, she saw him letting go of the stress, letting go of the need to be one step ahead and fighting to keep them both alive. He was beautiful.
“I’m still in it. But I wanted to give you the choice now. Because despite what Austin said, you have a choice. You can go wherever the hell you want to go. You don’t have to stick with me if you don’t want to.” His voice sounded thick, and she knew there was emotion behind it. Fear. He was afraid she would choose to leave him.
She unbuckled her seatbelt, and without a care for who might see them, she crawled across the center console to straddle his lap. “I am in this until the end,” she said lightly as she pressed her brow to his. “That has not changed just because the ending has. I will be with you until you are done with me.”
“That means that you’ll be with me until we’re both old and going out on our own terms,” he said with a smile.
“That is what I want,” she assured him as she kissed him gently. “I will grow old and grey with you.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
Epilogue
Scott made sure they enjoyed Brazil a little longer, made it a honeymoon though they hadn’t actually married. As far as he was concerned, Brazil saved them. He had done the last bits of what was necessary to end their relationship with the CIA, taking the small fortune he had earned in dealing death and putting it into a neutral bank on the Virgin Islands.
“I want to explore the world with you,” he said to her as he brought her a cup of coffee into the bedroom. “I want to fuck you in every country you’ll let me.”
She laughed and nearly spilled her coffee. “Have we not had enough excitement?”
“That’s not excitement.” He sat on the bed next to her. “That’s me sowing my oats. Planting seeds and claiming what’s mine on foreign soil.” He paused in his thought process as he considered what she had said when she asked him to spare Carroll. “Do you want to start a family with me?”
She set her mug on the bedside table and, as if she sensed that he needed her, she coiled her arms around his middle and rested her chin on his shoulder. “It would be my honor to have your children,” she said lightly in his ear. “To repay you the life you have given me.”
“I don’t want you to repay me.” He looked at her as he tried to decide just how he was going to do this. It had been a couple of days, and now that he didn’t have to choke on the fear of them being found, he had managed to find a jewelry shop in town that had something he wanted. “You don’t owe me anything. I did what I did because I wanted to. Because I want you.”
Her smile made his chest tighten, and the look in those blue eyes was something he could drown in. “I want a family with you,” she finally admitted. “If we no longer have cares in this world, I want us to be together because of love and not necessity.”
He couldn’t help but echo her smile. His throat burned and nerves twisted up his stomach as he pulled a small velvet box from his pocket. “I love you,” he said without a thought. This hadn’t been planned. Nothing seemed to go according to plan when it involved her.
But he didn’t regret it, not the first time he saw her and not the next that brought them to where they were now. “And I want to start my family with you.” He offered the box to her.
She blinked, looking confused as she took it. He watched her open it and the confusion seemed to melt away in awe. He had bought her a simple solitaire, though he made sure the round cut diamond was large enough to shine for her as she shone for him. “Will you marry me?” It felt like a dumb question to ask, but he needed to. Ju
st like he needed to hear her answer.
“Of course,” she choked out. Tears began to slide down her cheeks and she buried her face against his neck. “Of course.” She quaked as he wrapped himself around her.
He didn’t know where they would go from here, but he knew they would be going there together. That was enough.
After a little thought, she had decided that it had all started in Kosovo, so it was only natural that it end there. Only, it wasn’t really an ending. She smiled at him as he walked her down the aisle of the little church that hosted them. This was a new beginning. She had come home to the place of her birth with the man who saved her life. And they would start life again here as they built their family.
About Roxy Sinclaire
Roxy Sinclaire writes steamy, suspenseful romantic stories as the main genre, and this includes a variety of different topics. Some of these include dark romances, action packed romances, mafia romances, and many more. She currently works in customer relations in New York City, but is trying to fulfill her passion in writing and eventually have her dream job become a reality.
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Also by Roxy Sinclaire
Pass To Win Series:
Touchdown: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (Book 1)
Line of Scrimmage: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (Book 2)
Between The Tackles: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (Book 3)
Fourth and Goal: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (Book 4)
Game Winning Catch: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (Book 5)
Mafia Romance Series:
Dirty Indiscretions: A Dark Mafia Romance (Book 1)
Dirty Money: A Dark Mafia Romance
Object Me: A Bad Boy Lawyer Romance
Dirty Fighter: A Bad Boy MMA Romance
Fast and Loaded: A Bad Boy Sports Romance
Tempting Me: A Bad Boy Romance
The Devil’s Dream: A Dark Romance
Trapped In His World: A Dark Romance
Deceived By The Hitman: A Bad Boy Hitman Romance
About Jackson Kane
Jackson is a professional stuntman, a romance author, and above all else, a hopeless romantic. He’s been all around the world and met tons of amazing people. Countless harrowing adventures have shaped him and his unique writing style.
Let him thrill and excite you in a way no other author can. He’ll show you what the world looks like through the eyes of a genuine Bad Boy. Come with him, and read dangerously.
His name’s Jackson Kane, and he writes Romance that’ll make you sweat.
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Also by Jackson Kane
Billionaire Takes All
Bigger and Badder
My Holiday Secret
Object Me: A Bad Boy Lawyer Romance
Copyright © 2016 by Roxy Sinclaire
All rights reserved.
Cover design © 2016 by Kellie Dennis at Book Cover by Design
Edited and Beta Read by Teresa Banschbach
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the authors’ imagination.
Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.
Chapter 1
Yvette
A scholar had once instructed the world to “never judge a book by its cover”. I, for one, agreed with that saying and all that it implies, but I knew the truth. That scholar lied. And they obviously had not been a female. If a person’s cover didn’t matter, then why did plastic surgeons make drastically more than teachers? Over the last week, I’d put a lot of effort into my cover. Wax. Paint. Pump out. Push in. Pout. I had to look good. For my first day at Hanson and Associates Law Firm, I’d made sure that everything about my cover screamed “read me”, “look at me”.
My strawberry blonde hair was smoothed perfectly into a neat bun at the nape of my neck, not a single fly away strand could be found. There was not a blemish to be seen on my round face, no pimples, bumps, or bruises, and the simple shimmery nude makeup colors that I wore only enhanced the perfection. I had strayed away from my frumpy well-worn slacks and slipped into a new burgundy pencil skirt, silky top accentuated with pearl buttons, fitted jacket, and matching kitten heels. I wanted to look sophisticated when I walked through the prestigious halls of the esteemed law firm.
The security guard licked his lips as I confidently walked through the revolving glass door. My heels plinked against the marble in the atrium of the gilded high-rise building, and I couldn’t help but look around me in awe.
“Good morning.” I said in my sweetest voice. “I think that I may need your help.” It’s good to be friendly with security guards. They knew things, and could find out things that others weren’t privy to. It’s even better if they think that you may let them get a whiff of your lady parts. The information that the slightest suggestion of a private pussy session or a good dick sucking could pry from a man could be invaluable.
“Good morning, ma’am.” he responded crisply, but then his eyes darkened a little and his voice grew softer. “How can I be of service to you?”
“I’m Yvette Morrison, and I need to get to the twentieth floor. Today is my first day as an assistant to Mr. Dylan Hanson.”
The flicker of playfulness that lit the guard’s eye was swiftly snuffed out at the mention of Dylan Hanson. The man became professional so quickly, it made me wonder if I had imagined the playful look in his eyes as he pulled out a key card for access.
“Thank you.” I said, pasting on a smile.
“You’re welcome?” he responded, not meeting my eye.
I had won the position by prevailing against several other top students in my graduating class, and I wanted the first day to be as perfect as possible. I had tossed and turned throughout the night imagining my sunlit top floor office with a hive of legal associates awaiting my strategies and support on cases. After all, the lawyers at Hanson and Associates had thought that I was good enough to become a part of their team. It no longer mattered that throughout college, I had been looked over for groups and teams because I wasn’t flashy enough. I was too plain. A new position though warranted a new wardrobe and outlook on life. A bolder one. Being smart had only gotten me so far. Far enough to get a door shut in my face by firms that I truly respected and wanted to work for. So I became a new hire stalker. I had to know who the companies were hiring. There had to be some reason why they weren’t hiring me. When I began checking new hire profiles, a glaring difference became obvious: the new hires were either gorgeous women or extremely photogenic men. By the time an opportunity to interview with Hanson came up, I had gone to the mall and surrendered myself and my credit card over to the clerk.
Mr. Dylan Hanson was nowhere to be found when I arrived on the twentieth floor. Instead, I was ushered on a brisk tour of the floor and bull pen where my cubicle was housed amongst nine other assistants to Mr. Hanson, by James—a tall, lanky guy.
“So what do I do?” I asked.
James violently shushed me and looked around the room.
“Survival tip number one: If you are not busy, look busy.” He told me while his head still swiveled around the area. “Mr. Hanson has us working on important research right now.”
I dug my fingers through my bag and pulled out my notebook and pen. I was ready to work, to dig in and support the team.
“You must get these orders quickly and correctly and have them here before Mr. Hanson arrives, lest you wish to feel his wrath.”
“Orders? What kind of orders? Restraining order, protective order—”I asked eagerly ready to jot down the information and leap into action.
James blinked hard several times while adjusting his thick rimmed glasses as if he were trying to see the words I had just said to understand them better.
“What? No. Coffee orders.” he corrected. “Listen, because we don’t have much time.”
“How much time do we have? When will Mr. Hanson be arriving?”
“When he gets here. No matter what time he gets here, the coffee should be waiting when he steps foot onto the floor.” He responded as though I were an idiot. “Now listen.”
You only get one chance to make a first impression and obviously I wasn’t making a good one to my bosses.
It mattered what my bosses at Hanson and Associates thought of me. That’s why the pained expression on the barista’s face when I spouted off mispronounced drink specifications bothered me. It was my first day and the associates had given me the most menial of tasks. Tasks that I were already about to mess up.