by Cat Johnson
“There’s my good Rosebud.”
“Not the time to joke.”
“I disagree. You need to relax. Or at least look as if you are.”
“I’ll pull it off. You of all people know the infallibility of my poker face.”
“I do, when you’re playing cards. What I’m not so sure of is your ability to handle this alone if shit goes sideways.”
I blew out a short breath. “Me either. Hopefully we won’t have to find out.”
“Hopefully. Oh, and Brent, if Alex is going to remain in the dark that we suspect something, you have to act normal around her.”
“You already said that. Poker face. Remember?”
“I’m talking about the sexual relationship between you two. Continue exactly as you have been. She wants to blow you in the car on the drive home, you let her.”
“Jesus, Zane.” I ran my hand over my face.
“I’m serious.”
Sadly, I believed he was, but that wasn’t the only thing that surprised me. What was the big surprise was that the picture Zane had painted—of Alex and me doing that—had me getting hard as a rock.
I still wanted her.
Even with all the doubt, even though my hands were shaking, I wanted her.
If she strode in here right now, hopped up on the counter between the sinks and told me to fuck her, I would.
Gladly.
Because more than wanting her, I still cared. Now as much as ever, in spite of the suspicions Zane had raised.
And what the hell did I do about that?
FIFTEEN
I went back out to the event and bee-lined directly for the bar. If ever I needed a drink, it was now.
Zane might disagree. Hell, if my head was on straight I would too, but it wasn’t.
Nothing was straight. Everything was off kilter as my formerly happy world tilted.
“What can I get for you?” The bartender leaned toward me to be able to hear my reply over the noise of the thickening crowd.
I glanced past him at the selections and nearly cried when I saw they had a full selection of top shelf bourbon.
“Hudson. On the rocks.”
He nodded and grabbed a glass.
It was as if I was distracted and hyper-observant all at once. I heard the sound of the metal scoop hit the ice and the ice fill the glass.
My thoughts were all over the map. My mind pinging wildly like signals off a cell tower.
I was aware of the other patrons. One woman had on far too much perfume and one old guy was speaking much too loudly.
I had to fight the urge to touch the comm in my ear and make sure it wasn’t showing.
Meanwhile, I kept one eye on the escalator to see who was arriving, especially keeping watch for Viktoria, who might possibly be a target.
A target for what and from whom I still didn’t know.
Hell, Zane didn’t even know where the threat would come from, if it came at all.
How had I gotten involved in this shit?
Oh yeah, that’s right. I let Zane do me a favor.
That would never happen again. From now on if that man did anything for me I was paying his going rate and asking for a receipt to confirm there was no debt owed.
“Everything all right?”
I was wound so damn tight, the sound of Alex’s voice close behind me made me jump. I forced myself to turn slowly and smile down at the face of the woman I’d been picturing a future with just a few hours ago.
“Everything is fine. They have my favorite brand of bourbon so I’m more than fine.” I hoped the joke would mask my nerves.
Act normal. The specter of Zane’s warning haunted me.
What would normal me do? The Brent who didn’t suspect his date of being a corporate spy if not an international assassin?
I knew the answer. He’d lean down and kiss those lips that were still too damn tempting.
Zane’s other words of wisdom flew unbidden into my brain.
She wants to blow you, let her.
Jesus. I would too. Because after envisioning that scene it was the only thing I wanted. Her lips wrapped around me.
That couldn’t happen here and now as I waited for my drink, but this could—I thrust my hand beneath her hair, pulled her closer, leaned down and kissed her.
She’d left her hair down tonight. I tangled my fingers in her long tresses and really kissed her. No chaste peck on the lips, but a full out, tongue thrusting, completely inappropriate for a public venue kiss.
I didn’t know if I was madder at her for possibly being a liar or at myself for not being able to control my desire for her. All I knew was I felt better after crushing her mouth with mine and claiming her with that angry kiss.
“Sir.”
The moment ended as quickly as it had begun.
My drink was ready—it didn’t take all that long to pour some bourbon over ice—and there was a line of patrons not so patiently waiting behind me as I blocked their way to the alcohol.
I dropped my hold on Alex. Ignoring the shock on her face, I turned away from her and toward the bar.
I took the drink and thanked the bartender as casually as if I hadn’t just had my tongue down my date’s throat right in front of him and the Van Gough.
This was turning out to be the most surreal night of my life.
“Sure you don’t want anything?” I asked Alex, taking a healthy swallow from my glass before she even had a chance to respond.
“No, thank you.” She continued to watch me closely.
I was done with her scrutiny. My bourbon muscles making me brave, I laid my arm around her shoulders, angled us both forward and said, “Then let’s go mingle.”
“Mingle?” she asked.
“Sure. Isn’t that what these things are for?”
If she were talking to someone else, I’d have a chance to observe her. Maybe glean some answers to my many questions while she made conversation with the other guests.
That gave me an idea.
“Who do you know from this organization, anyway?” I asked.
“What?” She looked surprised by my question.
“You had two tickets so I assume you have a personal connection to the not-for-profit running this thing.”
Her eyes widened and she sputtered.
If she couldn’t even answer the simple question of where she’d gotten the tickets something was very wrong.
Holy shit. Was Zane right?
With every fiber of my being I didn’t want him to be right. I wanted Alex to be just the struggling college student who liked to volunteer and had dreams of entering the workforce.
But now that I looked at her more closely, there was a level of confidence within her, a strength that was in direct opposition to the other side she liked to trot out for me—that being the shy woman in the red dress who looked uncomfortable accepting a compliment and dodged attention.
I was so stupid. A woman who didn’t like attention, the way she pretended not to, would never have worn that dress.
Alex was a honey pot.
Jesus.
It took me a moment, but once I wrapped my head around that concept I realized that made me Winnie the Pooh, the bumbling fool willing to do anything to get me some of her honey.
Somehow mixing characters from a children’s story with the sexual game of intrigue we were involved in seemed particularly wrong to me.
Fuck. This whole thing felt wrong to me.
“Brent.”
I jumped again as Zane’s voice filled my ear.
Did he expect me to answer? Now? Couldn’t he hear that I was standing right next to Alex and couldn’t reply?
“I’m sending you backup,” he continued without waiting for a response. But all his information did was raise more questions in my mind.
Why was he sending backup? Had he learned something new? Was Viktoria in danger? Was I? And who the fuck was he sending to help me?
“I’ll let you know when he’s in place
. It might be awhile so keep acting normal until I get back to you.”
Easier said than done, but at least I knew a bit more than I had before.
Meanwhile, both the conversation and my steps had lagged during the little one-sided conversation in my ear.
I glanced down to find Alex starring at me.
“Sorry. I just realized I forgot to email my assistant in Virginia to tell her that I might not be in until late Monday.”
“Oh?” she asked.
I forced a smile I hoped looked genuine. “Yeah. You see, there’s a very tempting woman who I was hoping would keep me occupied late tonight, so I’ll have to take the train on Monday morning instead of tomorrow.”
Her gaze met and held mine and in her eyes I imagined I saw emotion that actually looked genuine. This woman was either the best actress on the planet or Zane was very wrong.
Or maybe there was a third option.
Perhaps she was as confused as I was, physically craving this person in front of me more than I’d ever wanted a woman in my life—wanting her to be the kind of person I’d believed her to be—all in spite of the evidence that she might well be working against me.
Fuck it.
I downed the remainder of the drink and ditched the glass on a nearby tray. Then, right there in the middle of the bustling crowd, I grabbed Alex’s face between my palms, stepped in close to her body and took possession of her mouth one more time.
If I was Winnie the Pooh in this scenario, I intended to gorge myself on the honey pot in my hands.
I’d worry about the consequences later.
SIXTEEN
Alex broke away from the kiss first. Her lips were swollen, her breath coming fast. I took great masculine satisfaction in that.
Even if she was faking all the rest, this—this desire I aroused in her with just a kiss—was genuine.
Then again, what the hell did I know? My judgment was definitely in question at this point.
“I think you were right. We probably should wander around and mingle . . . before we cause a spectacle,” she said.
I snorted as I glanced around us. I saw more than a few stares and looks of censure. “I think it’s a bit late for that, but sure. Let’s wander.”
Suspicious, confused and aroused, my mind spun like a roulette wheel, finally landing on what Alex had said when she’d told me about this event last night—back when I still trusted her.
Oh how things had changed in such a short time.
“I thought Viktoria was supposed to be here.” My comment elicited a strong reaction in Alex, just as I feared it would.
She whipped her head around to look at me. “I did. Why do you ask?”
Was this her game? Was Zane right in that this mess could be something to do with the Russians?
I couldn’t wrap my head around it. But then again, this was my first case of international intrigue that didn’t come off the pages of a novel or from a movie screen.
I lifted my shoulder in a shrug with as much nonchalance as I could muster.
“No reason. Just wondering. You were the one who brought her up yesterday. Not me. In fact, you pointed it out specifically. Remember?” There was an edge to my tone I couldn’t hide.
Maybe I’d better stop talking. I might have a poker face, but apparently I couldn’t keep my emotions out of my spoken words for shit.
My anger and hurt was seeping out in spite of Zane’s warning. I had to rein in my emotions.
Trying to undo any damage I turned to face Alex. “Okay, the truth? One of my publishing houses puts out an online magazine. The target market is millennial women. I was hoping Viktoria might consent to an interview.”
She watched me, as if evaluating the truth of my words.
I didn’t blame her for that. What I’d just told her was a complete lie. And I had been acting pretty strange today. At least I had been since my little discussion with Zane.
“Backup is on site.” Zane’s voice in my ear startled me one more time.
Dammit, I needed to stop jumping every time he talked to me.
The minute this bullshit was over and I could speak to him freely I was going to make a few suggestions about the whole comm procedure.
First and foremost would be some sort of warning beep or click or something so the person wearing the comm didn’t get a blast of words in their ear as they were trying to act normally while under the close scrutiny of a possible international spy.
Could that really be what Alex was? Some sort of undercover operator? It would explain the fact that she was in better shape than I was—and I should know since I’d had all of her limbs wrapped around me very recently.
God, how I wanted that again.
For maybe the first time ever I got why James Bond would screw the brains out of a woman and not consider—or maybe just not care—that in the next scene she was going to try to kill him.
Truth was stranger than fiction sometimes. My feelings for Alex were my truth in spite of the fact it seemed our relationship was her fiction.
Christ, I was getting sappy and poetic in my heartbreak. Or maybe it was just the bourbon.
Meanwhile, I didn’t know who this backup from Zane was or where he would be, and Alex was still watching me like I was insane, probably because our conversation had ground to a halt.
I obviously wasn’t a good multi-tasker. I couldn’t juggle Zane in my ear, my own thoughts in my head and still make stimulating small talk with my date at the same time.
Though if I remembered correctly, the conversational ball was in Alex’s court since I’d lobbed the last shot, serving up my excuse for looking for Viktoria.
“You’re right. She was supposed to be here.” Alex glanced around us, then back to me. “Will you excuse me while I go to the ladies room?”
“Of course.” I welcomed it, in fact.
Her leaving me meant I could head to the Monet for another conversation with the Water Lilies and Zane.
The moment Alex and her tempting ass—Christ, I really did have issues when it came to her—disappeared into the bathroom, I turned toward the wall.
“Zane! What backup? Who? Where? And why do I need it?”
“Whoa. Slow down, Rosebud. Just a precaution.”
If he was mocking me again the situation couldn’t be that dire. Maybe I could believe him when he said he was just being cautious.
“No GAPS guys were in Manhattan. But luckily a friend of mine happened to be there. He’s in the building with you.”
“How will I recognize him?”
“You don’t need to. He’ll find you. He’s just there as overwatch.”
Overwatch.
I felt like I needed a dictionary of military terms while speaking with Zane but I got the gist. This guy would be watching over me in case I needed help. But I still didn’t know why.
“What are you worried about?” I asked.
“Besides your lying date?” He snorted. “The fact Viktoria Mikhelson has gone missing is a bit concerning.”
“What?” So her absence was something to worry about. “You know that for a fact or are you assuming that because I haven’t spotted her yet?”
“I know she arrived at the museum half an hour ago, entered the front door and isn’t up there with you at the party.”
“Maybe the director of the museum took her on a private tour. Or to a meeting somewhere.”
“Maybe.” He sounded doubtful.
“Why would anyone want to grab her?”
“Maybe it’s not her. It could be her date.”
This was new. Yet another thread in my rapidly unraveling world. “What date? Who is it?”
“Not sure. We’re trying to identify him from the image we grabbed off the street camera outside the museum. He arrived with Viktoria at seventeen-thirty-five.”
I hesitated as I checked my watch to see what time it was now.
“That’s five thirty-five, Rosebud.”
“I know. I was checking the time, di
ckhead.” I glanced up and saw the shocked glance I got from a fellow art lover who was standing nearby and had obviously overheard me.
I cringed. In my frustration I’d thrown caution, and whispering, to the wind and had spoken too loudly.
“Sorry. Bluetooth earpiece.” I pointed to my ear and then cut my losses by turning and walking away. In the corner of the room, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and held it in my hand to further sell the lie that I was speaking on a normal cellphone ear bud and not some piece of military grade, Spec Op-approved equipment.
I didn’t know if there were rules about cell phone usage in the museum, but at the moment I didn’t care.
“So what do I do?” I asked Zane.
“For now, just keep your eyes and ears open. I’ll let you know if anything changes.”
Once again I was nothing but a human security camera inside an event to feed the action to Zane off-site. I was getting pretty tired of being involved while at the same time not really being involved at all.
“Who are you talking to?”
I whipped around to find that, once again, Alex had snuck up on me. You’d think those heels of hers would make some sort of noise. Maybe they had and I’d been too distracted to notice.
Her gaze dropped to the cell clutched in my hands and then up to my face as she waited for my answer.
“My friend Zane.” I made a show of holding up the phone and then said, “Gotta go, buddy. Call you later.” I hit the screen that had no call on it and pocketed the cell again.
“You using your prototype ear bud?” she asked, staring at my ear.
“Yup.”
Her focus remained intensely upon me. “I thought the battery was dead and you had to return it.”
“I charged it. I can’t mail it back until I go to the post office on Monday so I figured I’d use it.” That had slipped out pretty effortlessly.
Was I getting better at lying?
Practice makes perfect, or so they say, and it certainly seemed I was telling more lies than truths since meeting Alex.
That was no way to start a relationship, even if it did turn out that she was possibly a fake and a liar herself.
When she nodded, I breathed in relief she’d bought my story.
