by Cindy Dees
Eve jolted. “Then what will we have accomplished, other than getting me killed?”
Brady replied, “We won’t let you die. I’ll pull you out of the op long before I let her kill you.”
“Promise?” she asked doubtfully.
“I do.”
She didn’t doubt that he would try to save her. But she remembered well the glint of madness in Annika’s eyes. The woman was unpredictable on a good day and psychotic on a bad one. Brady might not be able to save her if Annika snapped. Of course, there was no telling what would happen if she snapped. The woman had practically murdered her brother. Oh, sure. Annika might not have pulled the actual trigger on the gun that killed him, but she’d darned well stood him in front of it.
Eve’s gut twisted in knots of stress. She’d done her darnedest to leave that part of her life behind when she’d moved to London, the violence, the need for vengeance. She’d vowed never to deal with people like Annika or the Basque separatists again. And Brady wanted her to go back into that nightmare world?
“You don’t have to do this, Eve. If it’s too much for you, we’ll come up with some other plan to stop her.”
Every fiber of her being screamed for her to take the out. To run far, far away from this man and his mission. But then snippets of their various conversations came back to her. I need a woman of substance and strength… You don’t have what it takes to do this… Redemption… Clean slate… A little voice in the back of her mind chimed in, whispering of revenge. Of justice for her brother. No! She’d walked away from the vicious cycle of endless violence and retaliation.
Damn him! Brady had woven his web around her strand by strand, laying down the challenge and the reward, stinging her pride, questioning the values by which she defined herself.
She looked up at him grimly. “You’re very good at your job.”
He didn’t look too thrilled about it at the moment. “I’m sorry, Eve.”
“I’m sorry, too. You’ve left me no choice but to go through with this even though I hate the idea more than words can express.”
“You still want to do the mission, then?” he asked soberly.
Hell, no, she didn’t want to do the mission. But that was no longer the question. Of all people, Eve knew exactly what kind of monster her brother’s ex-lover was. If Annika was functional and on the move once more, she had to be stopped.
She gazed bleakly at the man who’d just become her handler. “I’ll do it.”
He reached out to push a strand of hair off her face and tuck it behind her ear with infinite gentleness. He might be sitting right there beside her, but she already felt alone. Isolated. Disconnected from everything she’d been just a few seconds ago.
She watched dispassionately as he punched a button on the phone to end the call. Then he said, “I’ll take care of you. Keep you safe. You have my word of honor on it. I’ll get you out of this alive.”
Did she believe him? She sighed. It wasn’t like she had any choice about that, either.
What had he done? Brady watched Eve in deep alarm as she withdrew before his very eyes. How bad were the scars buried in her past, anyway? She rolled onto her belly and closed her eyes as if she were napping, but tension continued to pour off of her. He’d love to know what she was thinking about, but the least he could do was respect what little privacy he’d left her.
He sat beside her, guarding her in silence, while she faked sleeping for nearly an hour. That was a long time to wallow in dark thoughts and darker memories. When her eyes finally flickered open against the glare of the sinking sun, he murmured, “Did you solve world hunger?”
She smiled reluctantly. “I wish.”
“If you want to talk, I’m here. And that’s a standing offer. Anytime. Anyplace.” He was startled at his offer. He never involved himself in other peoples’ lives—too much messy emotional baggage to deal with. And Eve’s life was messier than most.
“Okay,” she replied noncommittally.
He wasn’t fooled. She appreciated the offer. She just wasn’t ready to take him up on it. They packed up the towels and suntan lotion in the canvas bag and threw it in the back of the golf cart. The ride back to the house was quiet.
As they climbed the front steps, Eve broke the silence. “Is this place bugged?”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Is the house under surveillance?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Would you check it for cameras and microphones before supper?” she asked.
“If you’d like.” He added, perplexed, “Care to tell me why?”
“I’m feeling a little too much like a bug under a microscope at the moment. It makes me a little crazy.”
He suspected the day would come soon enough when she’d be grateful to know H.O.T. Watch had eyes and ears on her. But not yet. If the lady wanted her privacy tonight, she’d earned it.
When he brought out the scanner that would pick up the tiny electrical fields of surveillance equipment, Eve lifted it out of his hands and efficiently went about sweeping the living room for bugs. He supposed, given her past, he shouldn’t be surprised that she knew how to use a surveillance scanner. But it still did something uncomfortable to his gut to see her acting like a trained operative. She was an innocent. A civilian. She hadn’t asked for any of this. He’d forced it into her life.
With cold calculation, he’d trapped her into doing this job, and she knew it. He had no illusions about what she’d been referring to when she’d commented bitterly that he was very good at his job. She knew she’d been manipulated, but she’d realized it too late. Kicking himself for being a cad, he moved into the kitchen to begin cooking supper. He owed her one.
As they sat down to eat, he poured Eve a glass of a fine Bordeaux he’d found in the wine cooler. She startled him by shaking off her dark mood and raising her glass in a toast to him. “Here’s to new beginnings.”
“New beginnings,” he murmured, studying her intently. “Why the sudden change of mood?”
She shrugged. “I’ve lived in Annika’s world for most of my life. I learned long ago to find pleasure in the moment and not think much about the big picture. It’s too depressing otherwise. We have tonight, you and me. I’ll worry about Annika tomorrow.”
It was a shockingly healthy attitude. He didn’t envision her as the type to take such a wise approach to dealing with the stress of her impending mission.
“You have to quit looking at me like that, Brady. It’s insulting that you’re so stunned I’d take a sane attitude toward all of this.”
“Sorry,” he mumbled. Since when had she become a wizard at reading people’s thoughts and body language? Apparently, that was yet another part of her past he’d dredged up. What other surprises did she have in store for him?
He didn’t have long to wait as she commenced regaling him with hilarious stories of her childhood. Some of them included Viktor, and a few even included Annika. He was stunned that she could laugh and find bits of joy in the midst of the difficult and terrifying upbringing she’d endured. And to think that when most people looked at her, all they saw was a pretty face. They were missing the most important parts of her by far—her indomitable spirit and resilience.
The wine had been flowing freely, maybe a little too freely because he raised his glass eventually and announced, “A toast to you, Mademoiselle Dupont. Here’s to that which doesn’t meet the eye.”
Her wineglass paused partway to her mouth. Her glowing gaze caught his in gratitude. He would never have guessed before meeting Eve that the way to a beautiful woman’s heart was to compliment her mind and not her looks. Contrary creatures, women.
Eve pushed her plate back. “That was delicious. Thank you, Brady.”
“You’re welcome.” As they stood up, he murmured, “This is your night. What would you like to do?”
“How about a walk? I’d love to see the ocean in the moon light.”
He nodded. “A walk it is.”
> It was a warm evening. The hike down to the beach cleared his head and left him feeling better than he had a right to. Eve seemed similarly affected, breathing deeply and smiling at the calm ocean hissing across the sand before it retreated.
She kicked off her sandals and dipped her toes in the water. “Mmm. Perfect for a swim. What do you say?”
He frowned at her. “I didn’t wear swim trunks.”
She laughed. “I’m not exactly wearing a bathing suit, either. But it is, in fact, anatomically possible to swim without one.”
“That’s not the point,” he replied in growing alarm. “It wouldn’t be—”
She pressed her fingers against his mouth. “If you say it wouldn’t be appropriate, I’m going to have to hurt you.”
He smiled against her fingertips. “Why?”
“Does anything about me or my life strike you as appropriate? I have never lived by other peoples’ rules and I’m not about to start now. That’s one thing Annika and I have in common.”
That checked him sharply. He’d made a point of imposing the strictest possible set of rules upon himself ever since he’d left home. He liked rules. Craved them, in fact. He wanted order in his life. A code of ethics. Honor. Hell, he didn’t want what his mother had been to rub off on him. He’d been running figuratively from that for all of his adult life.
And this woman did the exact opposite. She lived by no one’s rules, seizing the moment, doing what felt good, the consequences be damned. The very notion gave him a serious case of the heebie-jeebies. She embodied everything he hated in a woman.
“Don’t you go all grim and serious on me, Brady,” she warned him, laughingly. “I want to have fun tonight.”
A shudder passed through him. Her brand of fun horrified him.
She reached for the hem of her loose gauze top and pulled it over her head all in one quick movement. She flung the garment to the sand while he tried frantically to figure out where else to look. Anywhere but at her skimpy lace bra, which he couldn’t help but notice out of the corner of his eye was a push-up number she was all but spilling out the top of. The way she was stacked, she didn’t need help pushing anything up.
She shimmied out of her long skirt, the white gauze pooling around her feet.
Don’t look. But damned if his gaze didn’t creep toward her in spite of his best effort to stop it. What man wouldn’t peek when one of the most beautiful women on the planet stripped in front of him? He was only human, after all, and not dead at that.
He glimpsed her ankles as she stepped out of the circle of fabric. She turned away from him, and his gaze made the mistake of creeping upward momentarily. Oh, Lord. She had on a thong. His palms itched to cup her bare bottom, to test its firmness, to hold her still so he could—
So he could nothing. There was no end to that thought. He wasn’t going to have fun of any kind with her. End of discussion.
Except Eve seemed to think the discussion was just getting going. “C’mon, Brady. Take your clothes off and skinny dip with me. I dare you.”
Her hand reached for the valley between her breasts. Sweat popped out on his forehead as she snapped the front latch of her bra and it spilled open, her modesty clinging as precariously as the scraps of lace barely covering her breasts now.
“You’re falling behind,” Eve teased. “Have you forgotten how to work a zipper? Need me to show you how?”
The thought of her hands on his zipper made all kinds of unwelcome things happen to his body, including his breathing doubling in pace and parts of him commencing throbbing painfully, both of which he could do without, thank you very much.
Her fingers hooked under the edges of her thong and eased it over the curve of her hips and down her slender thighs. She straightened, gloriously naked and bathed in cool moonlight. He’d thought she was beautiful before, but this was in another class altogether. Mesmerized, he stared at her, the sight imprinting itself on his memory for all time.
Frantically, he pictured his mother. The way she aged before her time as a parade of men came and went. Hell, the woman should’ve installed a turnstile at their front door. The image made his jaw tight, but did nothing to ease his other aches.
“Here. Let me help you with your shirt.” Eve stepped forward and reached for the soft fabric, pulling it up toward his head. He shoved the fabric down and stumbled back a step.
“We can’t do this,” he rasped.
“Why? Is there a law against swimming at night? We’re the only people here. So what’s the problem?” She was naked! That was the problem. He didn’t give in to temptation, ever. He didn’t do casual flings, and he certainly didn’t indulge in them with women who reminded him so much of his mother it made him faintly ill.
Not that Eve looked at all like Mona Hathaway—assuming that had actually been her name. He’d always suspected that Mona and his father had never legally been married. But the man had ponied up and put his name on Brady’s birth certificate and sporadically sent Mona child support checks over the years. It was more than some men would’ve done.
In all fairness to Eve, her dossier didn’t say anything about her jumping in and out of bed with multiple or frequent partners. Apparently, her romantic interest was reserved for military men who’d just coerced her into going on a suicide mission. Hell, she was as messed up as he was.
Her hands moved on his zipper, jolting him back to the present. He grabbed her wrists forcefully and yanked them away from him. “I don’t do women,” he gritted out.
“You’re gay?” she asked, aghast. “No way.”
“That’s not what I said. I just don’t do…this.”
“Why not? You’re a man. I’m a woman. I know you’re as attracted to me as I am to you. We’re alone on a beautiful beach in the moonlight…” she trailed off suggestively.
“I just don’t.”
“I say again, why not?”
He shook his head. “I promised myself a long time ago that I would not have casual, meaningless sex with women. And I don’t plan to start breaking that promise now.”
She pulled back sharply. She looked offended. “Meaningless?” she repeated ominously.
“What would you call it? We’ve known each other, what? Less than two days?”
Her gaze narrowed to a feline glare. “Are you calling me a slut?”
“Not at all. I’m just saying I don’t share your casual attitude toward sex.”
She swore at him then, long and freely in French. Thankfully, he only caught a few words of it here and there. Defiantly, she marched into the ocean naked and took her swim anyway.
He had to admire her spirit. She didn’t gave a damn what anyone else thought of her, and she wasn’t about to live her life chasing other people’s approval. He turned his back on the water when he realized he was hoping to glimpse her pale body in the black water.
He didn’t care what other people thought of him, either, including Eve Dupont. No matter how tempting the woman was, he was not going to fall into the sack with her and become his mother’s son.
Chapter 5
Okay, so it had been a dirty trick to strip in front of Brady. She admitted it. But she’d wanted him, and she wasn’t accustomed to feeling like that around a man. Neither was she accustomed to a man turning her down.
She tossed and turned in her lonely bed for much of the night trying to figure out what his hang-up with women was about. She kept returning to that kiss they’d shared on the front porch on the night she’d arrived on the island.
He definitely wasn’t gay. He’d all but eaten her alive. She’d caught him on more than one occasion eyeing her like she was some sort of edible confection. He definitely was attracted to her. And based on the innuendos he’d laced all through his training sessions with her, sex with her was on his mind. Why then had he rejected her on the beach?
What was wrong with her?
Had she not had men pursuing her as relentlessly as cats after a tender, tasty mouse pretty much from the time she�
��d been a prepubescent schoolgirl, the man might really give her a complex. But she had years’ worth of empirical evidence to support the theory that nothing was wrong with her in the sexy and attractive department.
What, then, was wrong with him? She’d heard that some Americans could be really uptight about sex. Was that all it was? Her instinct said there was more to it than that. If he was that uptight, he wouldn’t have kissed her the way he had. And she was right back to the beginning of her circular argument with herself.
Frustrated as the sun rose to end her sleepless night, and shocked at how irritable the sensation made her, she climbed out of bed. She got dressed grumpily, omitting a bra under a clingy little sweater that left her midriff bare, and donning short shorts that barely covered her behind. It was probably immature to blatantly flaunt her body after he’d refused her last night, but her ego was bruised.
She strolled out into the living room, keeping an eagle eye out for his reaction to her Barbie doll outfit. He glanced up. His gaze traveled all the way down her body and back up, and then lifted to hers. Dammit, he was back to looking at her like she was some kind of insect. An unpleasant one he’d rather squash.
She plopped down beside him on the couch and asked without preamble, “Okay. What’s wrong with you?”
His right eyebrow arched sardonically. “Nothing. But thank you for asking.”
She scowled. “Why don’t you want to make love with me?”
“It’s nothing personal. I just prefer not to indulge in that sort of thing.”
“It looks to me like you don’t indulge in things at all,” she retorted. She supposed it was possible he merely had a very conservative attitude toward sex, but he watched her too closely and his gaze burned too hot at what he saw for her to believe that.
“You are correct that I don’t do relationships for the most part,” he replied.
That stopped her cold. “Seriously?” she blurted.
He looked up from the sheaf of papers he was reading. “Have you got a problem with that?”
