Elite Ops Complete Series

by Lora Leigh

  “You were in Atlanta as well,” Bailey stated. “Along with Jerric Abbas and Travis Caine. Once I tied you to all three men it wasn’t hard to connect the dots and find you. You should be more careful.”

  “No doubt,” Tehya murmured quietly.

  No doubt. Bailey could sense the growing curiosity inside the other woman. It wouldn’t be every day that she was tracked so easily. It was simply that Bailey had a driving reason to track the woman. The more she knew about the men she was tracking at the time, the better off she was. And sensing that Micah Sloane was her missing cousin had only given her added incentive.

  She noticed the look Tehya and John exchanged then: Bailey shouldn’t have been able to track her. Tehya was actually hidden very well, and pulling out background on the woman was like pulling teeth.

  “So tell me, how did you track me to England?” Tehya asked bluntly. “You shouldn’t have been able to.”

  “It wasn’t that hard.” Bailey moved to the breakfast table and the bagels and spreads her housekeeper had laid out for breakfast. “Residents of the village you call home recognize you. It’s where you go when you leave there that I’ve had trouble following.”

  “Well, as least some secrets are still safe,” Tehya quipped. “You’re dangerously good, Ms. Serborne.”

  “She’s dangerous, period, to herself,” John grunted as he collected his own cup and moved back to the coffeepot. “What the hell were you doing tracking my handler?”

  “At the time, I really had no idea she was your handler. She was tied to three men I was investigating; the connection points made her easier to trace.” Bailey narrowed her eyes on the other woman again. The more she interacted with her now, the more familiar Tehya seemed. There was something about the way she held her head—her almost instinctive attempt to hide her face behind the veil of her hair, or by staying in profile—that piqued Bailey’s memories. She just couldn’t place it.

  “We’ll have to discuss that later, John,” Tehya warned him.

  John nodded sharply, and Bailey could almost see his concern. Whoever led the team he was a part of wouldn’t be pleased with this information.

  “So why is she here?” Bailey asked again.

  Tehya slid into a chair at the table, crossed her jean-clad legs, and stared back at Bailey with a grin as John sat down in the chair between the two of them.

  “It was business,” Tehya sighed mockingly. “As a broker, John Vincent is in high demand. Fortunately, he’s rather picky about the jobs he takes.”

  “Is he really?” Bailey glanced over at him.

  He was leaning back in his chair watching both of them with a slightly worried expression. Now, why would he be worried? Unless he knew as well as she did that eventually Tehya’s identity would come to her.

  Bailey was drawing some amazing conclusions since Atlanta, since realizing her cousin was a part of the team John worked with.

  If she wasn’t mistaken, if her memory wasn’t faulty, and it normally wasn’t, then she was betting Tehya was just as “dead” as Micah. Perhaps just as “dead” as Trent.

  “He is.” Tehya nodded, obviously biting back a laugh even as she kept her voice low. “In this case, I felt it was in his best interests that I come to Aspen in case I was needed during the transaction.”

  John shook his head. “What Tehya is beating around the bush about here is the fact that Warbucks has made contact again. He seems rather interested in the fact that we’re an item now. He contacted Tehya with a message that he’s rather enjoying the fact that I’ve taken such initiative.”

  “He’s also rather confident of the fact that you’ll choose John over the others as well. He wanted to warn John that there would be no negotiation in terms of his payment, despite your relationship.”

  “I take a straight fifteen percent per sale.” John shrugged. “I’m not willing to go lower. It’s not worth my time otherwise.”

  Tehya shook her head. “Jerric Abbas is willing to go fourteen percent.”

  “Jerric doesn’t have the connections I have, nor does he have the negotiating power.” John grinned as Bailey barely kept from rolling her eyes at the mention of the other man’s name.

  “Jerric hasn’t been in the brokerage game long enough to develop a name for himself outside his security abilities,” Bailey stated. “He’s a terrorist, and that’s what he’s known for, not his brokerage background.”

  “But his connections to the differing terrorist states could give him an advantage. Who do you think is going to be bidding the highest for the item?” Tehya asked.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Bailey finished her coffee before rising and rinsing her cup. “Warbucks doesn’t care who is going to be bidding for it. He’s going to be concerned with the highest price and the most security. That’s what John is known for, whereas Jerric hasn’t had the time to prove he’s capable of providing the highest quality of those two resources.”

  She glanced back at John in time to catch the surprise on his face.

  She was revealing the time she had put into investigating him, as well as Warbucks. Jerric Abbas had never been known for his strength in negotiations before sixteen months prior, just after the explosion he’d supposedly escaped from.

  Fortunately, Jerric hadn’t really escaped; Micah had simply taken his identity. A little cosmetic work here and there, and he had slid perfectly into Jerric’s life. So perfectly that there were moments even Bailey was amazed at her cousin’s effectiveness.

  Oh yes, there was no doubt in her mind that Jerric Abbas, Micah Sloane, and the deceased Israeli Mossad agent David Abijah were one and the same. She just wasn’t so certain about John Vincent and Trent Daylen.

  “You’ve put a lot of research into this,” John said carefully.

  “I’ve had a lot of free time in the past year,” she pointed out mockingly. “And an overriding curiosity.”

  “Curiosity can be dangerous in this business,” Tehya stated as she rose to her feet and carried her own cup to the sink. “I’d better be going now.” She turned back to John. “Warbucks is supposed to be making contact in the next few days. I’ll check in to a hotel in Aspen. I’ll text you my location once I’ve settled in.”

  John gave a brief nod as she shrugged into the coat she had hung at the back door, then slipped out of the house. Bailey stared back at John silently for long moments, her eyes narrowed, her thoughts moving in several different directions. Overriding was the idea that John was still trying to keep secrets.

  “Full disclosure,” she finally said firmly. “I believe we may have discussed this already.”

  His lips quirked with irritating amusement. “I would have disclosed to you fully, sweetheart, if you hadn’t shown up.”

  “But you weren’t about to awaken me and allow me to be a part of the full conversation,” she pointed out. “Possibly because more was discussed than simply Warbucks’s message.”

  “Possibly.” His lips twitched. “Some things are on a need-to-know basis, Bailey, you know that.”

  “Not in this game,” she snapped angrily. “I’m either a part of it or not. There is no middle ground in this, John, I’ve warned you of that already. If you’d investigated my work background at all, then you’d know that.”

  His expression darkened. “I investigated enough to know that you drove the Australian agents crazy with your complete nosiness.”

  Ah yes, she was wondering how long it would take him to go down this path.

  “All of them?” She arched her brow quizzically. “Oh, there might have been one who handled it fairly well.”

  She injected just enough sensual reflection in her tone to make her meaning clear.

  “Trent Daylen.” There was nothing in his tone to indicate that Trent was more than a name, a face, associated with her past. “You were lovers.”

  This was a hell of a game if he was truly Trent. God, she wished she knew one way or the other. She wished the suspicion would go away, leave her in peace. She wishe
d the memories of her time with Trent would stop haunting her.

  “We were lovers,” she answered quietly. “Until he was killed.”

  He rose from his chair and paced back to the coffeepot, where he refilled his cup.

  “Did you know Warbucks was behind Daylen’s assassination?”

  He surprised her. Bailey froze as a stabbing pain struck at her soul, one that nearly took her breath and sent her stomach plunging.

  She hadn’t known that. Her investigation had shown that his partner had betrayed his identity as an agent to former enemies, not that Warbucks had played a part in it.

  “You didn’t know that?” He was watching her now, his gaze hooded, his thick dark blond lashes shielding his eyes. “He was investigating an Australian connection and the identities of several agents who had been sold on the black market by one of Warbucks’s brokers when he was killed. He and one of his contacts were killed the same night.”

  Bailey stared back at him, fighting back the tears, the knowledge that Warbucks had taken more than she’d ever imagined from her life. She had placed herself in the perfect position, at first, to find the man who’d hired her friend’s death. Bailey had feared that the investigation had resulted in her parents’ deaths. And now to know he had been responsible for Trent’s death as well sliced through her spirit like a hot, dull knife.

  The pain was nearly overriding. It tightened her throat, made breathing hard, and locked a scream in her chest. She was alone, so fucking alone that sometimes she wondered why the hell she made herself get out of the bed in the morning. So alone that she couldn’t forget the one night she spent with a man she had loved, even as another man filled her bed. Or was he the same man?

  She couldn’t make herself believe one way or the other, and she feared it was because she was too frightened of what she could lose either way.

  “I didn’t know.” She finally forced the words past her throat as she turned her back on him, still fighting the tears. “My investigation didn’t reveal that.”

  Where had she managed to miss that?

  “It was something he was working on covertly, even outside the ranks of his agency,” John stated.

  “How did you know?” She turned back to him, the question snapping from her lips. “How could you have known if it was so secret?”

  “His partner wasn’t killed that night.” John shrugged. “He was interrogated by an impartial group that had been investigating the tie themselves. Even the director of Australian Secret Intelligence had no idea what was going on. Trent hadn’t had time to relay the information when the hit had gone out on him.”

  She hadn’t known.

  She was shaking, rage and bitter fury tearing at her insides as she forced herself to breathe through the pain. She felt as though her guts were being shredded. Burning hot and filled with acid, the pain lanced through her senses and left her fighting back the tremors that would have shaken her body.

  “You loved him,” John stated again.

  Bailey shook her head as she turned back to him, wiping away the single tear that escaped her control.

  “He was my life,” she said simply. “Yes, John, I loved him.”

  “Do you still love him?” He paced closer, his expression closed, almost frigid.

  “Do I still love him?” She wanted to laugh at the bitter irony of the question. “I love a memory, don’t I? Trent is gone forever. Dead men don’t rise from the grave, do they, John? They don’t come back to the lovers who weep for them, and they don’t hold the women who dream for them. They’re just gone. Aren’t they?”

  She watched as he came closer, as his hand lifted out, his palm cupping her cheek as he wiped away another tear.

  “They’re just gone,” he agreed quietly. “Except in memories. He’ll always live, Bailey, because he’ll always be a part of you.”

  And what the hell did he mean by that?

  “That doesn’t bother you?” She swallowed back the sobs that fought to be free. “It doesn’t bother you that you’re fucking a woman whose heart belongs to another man?”

  “Don’t call it that!”

  Before she could evade him she was in his arms again, his hold tight, almost punishing.

  “Don’t call it fucking?” she cried hoarsely. “What is it, then? You aren’t jealous that another man holds my heart? Don’t you care that I want to call out his name when I’m coming around your cock?” Fury was enveloping her. She wanted to rage, fight. She wanted to smack the anger off his face, because he had no right to be angry. He had no right to stand and discuss himself as though he had truly died.

  She was dying inside. She could feel it. The suspicion that he was Trent was eating her alive, and there was no way to stop it. It was destroying her. The knowledge that the man she had loved hadn’t loved her enough to come back to her without a mission backing him was ripping her soul to pieces one small bit at a time.

  “I don’t have the right to be angry, do I, Bailey?” But he was. She could see the anger building in his gaze, flushing his dark skin. “I don’t have the right to care.”

  It was stated so simply. It wasn’t even an answer. It was an affirmation that he would leave when this was over, nothing more.

  “No.” She tried to push away from him. “You have no rights, period.”

  “I might not have the right, but I have the fucking woman.” He jerked her back to him, holding her in place as he backed her against the kitchen island counter, keeping her tight against his body despite her struggles. “Deny that, Bailey. Deny the fact that you know exactly who’s holding you in that bed. Don’t you dare lie to me and pretend you’re thinking of another man. You know exactly who’s fucking you.”

  Did she? Did she know? If she knew, then why, God help her, why couldn’t she stop suspecting he was another man?

  “Is it enough for you?” she asked, her voice ragged. “Of course it is. You’re not here for love, are you, John? The woman doesn’t matter, just the mission.”

  He didn’t have an answer for that. He didn’t argue with her, he didn’t deny it. Instead, his fingers gripped her hair, pulled her head back, and his lips covered hers with a desperate, painful passion.

  She knew that passion, that desperation. She knew the pain that drove the senses to possess, to mark what belonged to her. It was the same intensity he used to mark her as his.

  His tongue drove between her lips to tangle with hers. His free hand moved beneath her sweater, her top, pressing heatedly against the bare flesh of her back as his hips pressed into hers.

  It was a kiss that seared the senses. A kiss that drove all thoughts of anything else, anyone else, from her mind. When she was in his arms, she didn’t torture herself with questions, she didn’t silently beg for answers. In his arms nothing mattered but this. The kiss, the feel of him, the driving need that shattered her control and overwhelmed her senses.

  Nothing else mattered but this moment in time.

  Her hands moved from his arms where her nails had bitten into his flesh. Hesitantly, almost warily they stroked up his arms, to the strong column of his neck.

  Her lips opened beneath his as she began to mark him as well. Her tongue fought against his, licked and dueled until they were both moaning with the driving need tearing through them.

  She wanted him again, here and now. She wanted to tear the clothes from his body and feel him hard and hot against her. She wanted the thick shaft of his cock pressing inside her, stretching her, burning her with the need that neither of them could deny.

  She wanted so much and so much of what she wanted wasn’t hers. It couldn’t be hers. Because if he was Trent, the risk would be too great. And if he wasn’t Trent, then the love, the instinctive need that Bailey knew she couldn’t do without, wouldn’t be there.

  She loved Trent. Totally. Completely. Surely a woman couldn’t love like this twice in one lifetime. It wasn’t possible, was it?

  “That’s what fucking matters.” He jerked back from her, his breath
ing as rough, as heavy as her own. “Figure it out from there, damn you. And be very careful, because saying another man’s name in my fucking bed could get you a hell of a lot more than you want to deal with.”

  With that, he stalked from the room, leaving her panting, aching, and almost certain. John Vincent was Trent Daylen.

  CHAPTER 8

  HE SHOULD HAVE KEPT HIS damned mouth shut. John wiped his hands over his face the next day as he stared out Bailey’s bedroom window. She was roaming the extensive back gardens while snow fell around her.

  They’d spent the night further looking into the backgrounds of the suspects they’d both come up with. Ford Grace, Samuel Waterstone, Ronald Claymore, and Stephen Menton-Squire. Added to that list were Raymond Greer and Jerric Abbas.

  She knew that was bullshit, she already had it out in the open. Micah’s portrayal of Jerric was excellent, though, she’d give him that. Few agents would have known the difference. But she had.

  She had, and something inside him that warned him that Bailey was slowly figuring him out as well, even as he watched her.

  The temperature was still fairly moderate, just cold enough for a thick, heavy wet snow. The flakes caught in her dark hair and glistened among the strands as she trailed her fingers over a winter-dead climbing rosebush as it hung tenaciously to its trellis.

  She was thinking, and he’d learned in Australia that this was never a good thing, unless it involved a mission.

  In his case, John knew it was a very, very bad thing. She was already suspicious. He’d slipped into her laptop enough times to know she was already aware that Micah Sloane was her cousin, David. She was too fucking intuitive. She’d pieced that one together with such accuracy that it was frightening. And she was piecing together the truth about him with the same accuracy.

  He hated hiding it. Every time she stared up at him with those inquisitive green eyes, every time he saw the questions in them, the pain and the loss she felt.

  She was getting closer to piecing it together. Not through investigation or proof, but through her own intuitive strength. It was one of the reasons she had made such an excellent agent. Bailey could see beyond most disguises. She studied body movements, expressions, and characteristics. Things that were much harder to change. She looked beyond the skin and that made her incredibly dangerous to the Elite Ops.