"But, Shana — " He fell back another step. She was making him sound...heinous. As if he'd set out to lie to her. Well, he had, about Anja and the recipe. But as for the rest — well —
"Do you care, Dash?" Shana followed Dash's retreat, hips swaying. "Can you stand here in my house and tell me you honestly care about me, as a person, as a pretty girl, like you said?"
Dash's throat felt like it was glued shut. Did he care? He hadn't even considered the question. All he knew was he'd been having such a good time seducing Shana, being the one to seduce. Had he actually, in some fundamental way, been dishonest with her?
Shana came to a stop. Her face had grown positively serene. It was dumb instinct that then saved Dash, once again. He was moving almost before Shana was, turning his thigh to block the knee she sent up to unman him. In an instant, she was back in his immobilizing hold.
"Let me go," Shana hissed.
"Not until I've had my say." Dash's voice came out hoarse, strained with all kinds of powerful and incomprehensible emotions.
"Say it quick," Shana warned.
"It won't take long," Dash promised, though he wasn't sure what he wanted to say. What could convey just how...happy he'd been lately? "I do care," he heard himself declare, though this was a completely novel idea. "I've enjoyed being with you, more than I've enjoyed being with any woman — with any person — in my life. You are intelligent, and funny, and beautiful. Oh, so beautiful..." His throat was closing up again, with more of those incomprehensible emotions.
Shana remained stiff in his arms. "Is there something else you want or need from me, Dash? Was there more Anja left around here? Not just the recipe?"
"No, dammit." Why wouldn't she believe him? He was telling the truth — now. "I'm just interested in you," Dash told her.
"If you would like me to vomit on your shoes, just keep saying that. Otherwise, I suggest you let me go and be on your way."
Frustration beyond his experience rose up in Dash, hardening all his muscles. "Fine!" he said, and actually shouted. Yes, the Ice Man shouted. He let her go so abruptly she stumbled before managing to regain her balance. "Believe what you want," he said, and was still shouting, amazing himself at the sound. "But I know what I know, and I am — interested — in — you!"
With that he turned and, crunching Waterford crystal, strode out of her house.
~~~
Peter had the schedule of her household down pat. This was clear to Brittany on Thursday night as, no sooner had she put Sean down for bed than the man was knocking on her front door.
She felt a leap of nerves as she descended the stairs to answer it. The game was to play it cool, she reminded herself, lull him into a false sense of security. Then she'd surprise out of him everything she could. Huh. She wondered what excuse he was going to have for not showing up to paint today. She just wondered.
At the bottom of the stairs, she drew in a deep and steadying breath. She could do this. Her Nikes squeaked on the foyer's tile as she crossed to open the front door.
Peter stood on her stoop in brown cords and a tan leather jacket. He looked up from an apparent contemplation of his shoes. A wry smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. "So. I hear our cover's blown."
Brittany threw up her hands. "Jesus." She turned on her heel and stalked into the house.
Following her, Peter appeared calm, if not amused, about his disaster.
Meanwhile, Brittany bewailed her own, more minor disaster. "Shana totally blew it. It was Shana, right?"
"It was Shana." Peter followed Brittany into the living room. "From what I heard she blew quite a lot: her top, a few gaskets..."
"Hell," Brittany muttered. So much for her grand plan. Meanwhile, she felt the usual pulse of awareness of Peter. Her knowledge of his true identity didn't appear to make a difference in that. The atmosphere as she turned and they both stood in the toy-strewn room was the same as ever, an atmosphere of attraction and oddball togetherness.
She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "So I don't have a chance to surprise any information out of you."
Peter raised an eyebrow. "What do you want to know?"
Brittany raised an eyebrow back at him. He was going to tell her? Just like that? But he was giving her a very open look as he seated himself on the edge of an armchair crowded with children's board books. Like he actually intended to answer her questions.
She huffed again and tightened the hold she had on her arms. "For starters," she demanded, "Where is Anja?"
"That we don't know." Peter's raised brow lowered. "A least, we don't know quite yet." He spoke in an easy, collegial manner. "We're pretty sure she left on her own steam, but we don't know if that's still true, or how much longer it might last."
"On her own steam?" Brittany frowned.
Peter sighed. He clasped his hands loosely between his spread knees. "What Anja was working on was potentially lucrative. Extremely lucrative. It was also extremely dangerous."
The last conversation any of them had had with Anja came back to Brittany. Anja had spoken of gobs of money, but had deliberately downplayed the kind of seriousness Peter was now, very calmly, projecting. "Are you saying...she could get abducted by bad guys?"
"We'd like to prevent that." Peter leaned forward. "And I'd ask you right now if you have any idea where she is, but it sounds like I know more than you do."
From her position above him, Brittany eyed Peter askance. "Even if I did know where she was, I'm not sure she'd like to be 'caught' by you, as opposed to anybody else."
A corner of Peter's mouth twitched upward. "Anja may not believe it, but we're the good guys."
"Really? And just who are you?"
Peter smiled the wry smile again. "I believe our official name is something like Agency for Prevention of Technological Disaster. Frankly, we do just as much work simply protecting the government's monopoly on new technologies as preventing any actual disasters." His smile faded. "Unfortunately, Anja's vector falls into the disaster category."
Brittany's heart began pounding hard in her chest, as much from the strangely tender candor in Peter's gaze as from the incredible information he was imparting. "Ahem. Anja seemed to think she was doing the best she could to prevent a disaster."
"Anja thinks she's God."
When Brittany thought of Anja giving her this dangerous drug in a vial, assuming she'd never open it up, she had to privately concur with this assessment. Aloud she said, "So. You're here to prevent a disaster. Did the perfume you took from me help?"
"It might." Then Peter just looked at her. It was a look that reminded Brittany of the night she'd given Peter the perfume. It made her heart pound harder than ever.
"What have you found out?" she asked him, trying to force the conversation to stay on track.
"That's a very interesting question," Peter replied softly.
"About Anja," Brittany specified, feeling hot.
Peter chuckled. "I've told you everything I've discovered...about Anja." His eyes met Brittany's.
Full-blown panic hit. "You know," she told him, breathless. "I could go for a cup of tea right now. Yes, definitely, I could go for some tea. Want some?" She uncrossed her arms and practically leapt toward the kitchen.
There'd been something in his eyes. She'd had to get away. Putting on the kettle for tea was stupid, and hardly subtle, but it got her out of the room.
Unfortunately, as an evasive tactic, it was highly temporary, for of course he followed right after her. She was at the kitchen sink filling the kettle with water when he stopped in the doorway. She made herself finish filling the kettle and set it on the burner. But Peter's gaze felt like a rifle pointed between her shoulder blades. She watched the flame for the gas take, as if this were the most important thing in the world.
"Brittany," he said.
She closed her eyes. "No."
Laughing quietly, he walked into the room. "I didn't plan this. For Christ's sake, I didn't plan it. All I know is that it's happening."
"No
," Brittany said again. 'It' was not happening. She wouldn't allow 'it' to happen. Even though she knew, deep down, she'd been feeling 'it' coming on since the beginning.
"Brittany." He was closer, yet sounded quieter. From behind, he took a firm but gentle hold of her shoulders. A tender hold. A much too speaking hold. She was unable to prevent what he said next. "Brittany, I love you."
She let out a shuddering breath and managed to croak out one more, "No."
He laughed softly and put his jaw against her cheek. "Hell if I know what to do with the emotion. I wasn't kidding when I said I hadn't been in a relationship that lasted longer than three months. But sweet Jesus." His voice dropped to a whisper and he started planting warm kisses against her neck. "Being with you is so...different. I've never felt this way before. Kinda...well, happy." And he chuckled.
Brittany closed her eyes. She used every ounce of willpower she owned to fight the sticky emotion into which she was getting drawn. "No." She shook off his hold and turned to face him. "Absolutely not."
His expression was an oddly comprehensible mixture of amusement and frustration. "Is that 'no' because you're not interested, or 'no' because you're not ready?"
"Both. Even more." Brittany made a shooing motion. "I can't handle a real relationship any more than you can. Even less. I have kids. I can't afford this. Go. You're busy. Go find Anja."
"Come on, Brittany." He laughed, but it didn't have much lightness in it. "You're just as caught in this thing as I am."
"Now, that's where you're wrong." She straightened and reminded herself of all the hurt a man could inflict on a woman. It wasn't difficult. "Sure, I like sleeping with you. And I'll admit it was nice to have someone around, a — a buddy, if you will. However — " She shook her head. "Any kind of emotional attachment to a man is utterly beyond me. I won't do it, even if I want to. Do you understand? I'm not putting my happiness in anyone else's hands. Never again."
Peter's honey brown eyes regarded her and, to Brittany's relief, she saw comprehension dawn there, comprehension and, better yet, acceptance. He believed she meant what she was saying.
Clearing his throat, he took a step back. It was harder than Brittany had expected to stick to her guns when she saw the pain he allowed, momentarily, to twist his features. He covered it over quickly and gave a short nod.
"Okay," he said. "Okay."
Brittany clenched her jaw. She'd been honest, she assured herself, as honest as possible. She really couldn't handle a relationship, or at least not one where words like 'love' were going to get tossed around.
"I guess I deserve this," Peter remarked, with a choked chuckle. "After I've said pretty much the same thing to so many women, I guess this little scene was long overdue in my life."
"I don't dislike you, Peter."
"I know." He held up his hands, now smiling. "And you haven't thrown anything at me after finding out I'm not really a house painter, either, for which I'm damn grateful."
"Shoot," Brittany muttered. "The house." Anything to lighten the moment.
"I'll see that it gets painted," Peter assured her. There was a flash of his old smile, the devilish one. "By someone more professional than me, so don't worry."
"I wasn't worried." And she wasn't, Brittany assured herself. She was doing the right thing here, the only possible thing. It would be a disaster to depend on him. Even if he had been, temporarily, really nice to have around. Really nice.
They stood there a moment longer, with Brittany feeling more pained and awkward than she could remember feeling in her life. Then Peter moved toward her. She didn't have time to react or retreat before his hands were cupping her face and his lips were on hers. It was a hard kiss, swift and sad and soon over.
"Goodbye, Brittany," Peter whispered, and stepped away from her. He turned. "Tell the kids goodbye for me, too, would ya?"
And then he was gone. Brittany was left with the whistle starting to whine on the kettle and the leftover sensation of his lips, warm and strong, on hers.
"Damn," she muttered, and heaved a wavery sigh. "I was supposed to have three months."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
In the end, Gideon decided to download the contents of Anja's flash drive onto the secure computer in his office, delete half of it, and take the remaining half back to Olivia, together with one of the de-classified laptops so she could see the contents for herself.
She wouldn't know what the hell she was looking at. Gideon wouldn't have violated any security protocols — the information on the altered flash drive would be useless — and best of all, he'd be satisfying Olivia's curiosity and her demand he be open and aboveboard.
With the laptop tucked under one arm, Gideon knocked on her front door with the other, meanwhile decrying his lack of a key. He should have a key to her house. Then from his inside jacket pocket came the distinctive buzz of his cell phone, the one that said he'd missed a call. He had just dug the thing out and checked the number of his last caller, Dash, when Olivia opened the door.
Not the moment to return a call from an agent. Especially considering the look on Olivia's face. It was the look, Gideon unhappily recalled, she'd been wearing right before she'd walked out on him six months before.
"Uh, hi," Gideon said. "Did I catch you at a bad time?"
Olivia raised one eyebrow. "On the contrary, I think this conversation is long overdue." Saying which, she promptly turned and walked away from him.
Shit, Gideon thought.
Olivia led the way to the living room. She proceeded beyond the coffee table to the fireplace, where she finally turned, long skirt swishing. She was, Gideon irrelevantly thought, a magnificent sight, the color high on her cheekbones and her eyes snapping brown.
"You," Olivia pronounced with awful calm, "have been lying to me."
Gideon's eyes widened. Unthinking, indignant outrage leapt to the fore. "About what?"
"A more appropriate question would be about what have you ever told me the truth?"
"Well, I — What the hell are you talking about?"
Olivia pointed toward his jacket pocket, the same jacket pocket in which he'd spirited away Anja's flash drive, and the one where the phony now safely resided. "I'm talking about that, for starters. Anja's flash drive. Tell me, is that the only reason you showed up on my doorstep?"
Gideon's mouth went suddenly and completely dry. "I — Excuse me?"
Olivia's lips briefly twisted. "Anja. The three of you are after her, or at least you're after what she was working on, this super secret drug. But she gave that flash drive to me. Just like she gave the other things to Shana and Brittany." Olivia lifted her chin. "So now I want to know what was on it."
She knew. About the three of them. About Anja's research. But how could she know? Gideon's normally speedy brain was spinning. He felt dizzy and slightly sick. If she knew... One catastrophe after another presented themselves to his mind.
"The flash drive didn't have everything," he heard himself admitting. Meanwhile he sank into an armchair, the laptop suddenly feeling like it weighed a ton. He set it on the floor beside the chair. "They're still trying to work it out in the lab, trying to put the three things together, see if they can come up with a working whole."
"A working whole what? And where is Anja?"
Gideon shook his head. He shouldn't be telling her this. But she already knew. She knew. About Anja's work, about his own relationship to it. His whole house of cards was tumbling. "We don't know where Anja is — or where she's hid the research she was working on."
"Wait a minute. The lab, you said." Olivia's eyes focused on him like a hawk focusing on prey. "So you are Anja's employer."
"No."
"Then why are you after her? Who are you?"
Gideon dropped his head into his hands. She knew. Way too much. All the effort he'd put into trying to protect her — let alone save his marriage — had all been for naught. She wasn't safe. Nearly as bad, she knew how very much he'd been keeping from her.
But maybe
he could still keep something back...keep her in the gray, if not the dark.
"Gideon." Her tone was firm, and cold as ice.
He lifted his head. There wasn't an ounce of softness or caring in her face. Everything he'd worked for the past two weeks was gone. He was not going to be able to play this. The game was over. No gray possible.
"You have lied to me," she said, in the same firm, frigid tone. "You have lied to me about what you do and who you are, from — from the very first time I met you. Haven't you?"
It was more a statement than a question, and since Gideon couldn't answer otherwise, he didn't bother answering at all. He'd had damn good reasons for lying to her, though she'd never agree.
She took a step toward him, her face a picture of imperious indignation. "I want an answer and I want it now. Who. Are. You?"
Gideon swallowed. She wasn't patiently waiting for his confidence any more. She was demanding it. "I work for the federal government," he heard himself admit. It was her eyes — and his fear she might now look for whatever he didn't tell her. "Nine months ago I was promoted from section supervisor to head of an agency that protects cutting edge technology. The kind of thing that could create disaster if it fell into the wrong hands."
Olivia's nostrils flared. Gideon knew she was considering how much she could believe. It made him want to roar. His integrity was impeccable. This aspect of his character had earned him the position he now held. It was why the chief of staff at the Pentagon called him up, personally, on the telephone. And it was why he had never divulged classified information to anyone without proper clearance.
Until now.
But she didn't believe him.
"Anja was working on a vector," Gideon went on. He met Olivia's hard, disbelieving gaze. "That's a man-made virus. It's built as a sort of...transport device. You put DNA code inside and it takes whatever instructions are in the code to the cells of the body. Anja's vector was unique in that it actually worked. It infected human cells without interference from the immune system. It could hold a lot of code. Basically, it could tell human cells to do anything. It could make gene therapy a reality, rather than a pipe dream."
Indiscreet Ladies of Green Ivy Way Page 19
