Sweet Seduction Secrets (Sweet Seduction, Book 8): A Love At First Sight Romantic Suspense Series

by Claire, Nicola

  So many emotions. So many feelings I’d forgotten existed. I felt them all. I conveyed them all in that kiss. Our bodies pressed together. Our limbs interlocked as if that alone would prevent the parting to come. Our tongues tangled in a language as old as time, as tears streamed down my face and onto his cheeks.

  “I’ll come with you,” he repeated, the words a whisper just for me.

  I pulled back and stared into blue so vivid it made my heart hurt. I stared for as long as time would allow, which would never be long enough.

  I wanted to say the words. I wanted to voice them, I was sure they were true. But conditioning, PSYOP or not, made it impossible.

  The kiss was meant to have conveyed them, anyway. And if it didn’t, then he hadn’t felt it. And it wasn’t meant to be.

  I could hear Caleb talking in the background. To Pierce. To the Police. He was smoothing things over. The thought almost making me snort out loud. Smoothing this over was going to take time and effort and possibly jail sentences. Maybe even a one-way ticket to never-never-land for Ava, him and me. But he was playing the role of international specialist. The email had gone out, but not yet been accepted as truth, it seemed. For now, we held sway. Immunity given us by the man lying dead on the floor mere feet away.

  We had to act quickly. There were more to find. I had to finish this.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. So not the words I’d been thinking. Wait for me. “This is Department business,” I added, just making it worse, but unable to stop myself from speaking.

  He looked so hurt. So lost. So in agony.

  I understood. I sympathised. Because I felt everything.

  Wait for me.

  Ah, fuck it!

  “Tell Nick thanks,” I offered, then checked my weapons - a specialist always makes sure she leaves the scene clean - and turned away.

  Ava met me halfway across the floor. Her eyes had softened. It must have been a trick of the light. Caleb met us at the door to the café. His eyes were set. Hard. Agent Hart at your service. Whiskey Echo in attendance. I couldn’t complain. There was no way we could walk away from this without one of us assuming the mantle of spook.

  And yet I knew we hadn’t walked away from anything. There were still so many triggers to find.

  “Tempus fugit, Charles,” he announced, as we turned to walk out the door.

  I looked back at Sweet Seduction, at a life I’d only glimpsed at, but knew I wanted above all others and could never have. I looked back at where the better part of me remained. With a man who had the most extraordinary blue eyes I’d ever seen, a past just as sorrowful as mine, and skills that constantly challenged me.

  He was my match in every way. And as we turned our backs on the mayhem on High Street, and lost ourselves in ASI’s thriving city - just one of the crowd, nothing to see - I wondered if I’d ever find such perfection ever again.

  I knew the answer.

  For people like me.

  Chapter 36

  The One And Only

  Adam

  I lasted three weeks.

  And then I hunted her arse down.

  Much had come out after the three musketeers disappeared into a shell-shocked Auckland City. Pierce had smoothed things over, slipped us intel that wasn’t strictly public ready. Gave us tips, clues as to where the Department had gone to. Offered us insight into the world of international espionage.

  The Department was Top Secret. I’d-tell-you-but-I’d-have-to-kill-you sort of thing. The New Zealand Government, like many overseas, kept their security service secret. Top Secret. Because secrets could get you killed.

  Or lose you an election.

  The Rainbow Warrior incident in 1985 had placed a dent in New Zealand’s side. More than that. It had placed a big fucking hole in our national psyche. Opération Satanique. French intelligence service agents bombing a Greenpeace vessel in the middle of downtown Auckland was not something you got over lightly.

  And New Zealand hadn’t. The Director, otherwise known as Francis David Bryce, elder brother to Paul Malcolm Bryce, and uncle to Charisse Catherine Bryce, took advantage of the panic. And established the Department. Reporting to the Prime Minister only - and even then the less the PM knew the better - he’d had unlimited resources and reach to establish an agency that could infiltrate possible security threats internationally, neutralise them before they landed on our shore, and thereby protect our nation from future fallout. Fallout like that which had occurred after the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior.

  It was a perfect opportunity for someone like Bryce to try out his PSYOPS training. And Operation Evolution was formed.

  It was a perfect opportunity for someone like Bryce to cull out the bad blood in his family tree. And parentless Charlie Delta was formed.

  She wasn’t his only target or asset, though. At last count the Department had nine operatives. All designated Class A. All extremely lethal. Highly trained. Isolated from any support other than the Department’s.

  Fucking orphans. They’re a dime a dozen and no one gives a flying fuck about them.

  But that’s all we knew. Other than the fact that those nine operatives had vanished. Disappeared. Cleaned out their base of operations in Wellington and blown away on the wind.

  Parliament was up in arms.

  The public knew jack shit.

  But I knew. I knew who was helping them. I knew she didn’t realise she had an out. And I knew I’d find her. All I needed was to hunt.

  Hunting is what I do best.

  I smiled to myself as I watched a black SUV, with blacked out windows, crawl into a warehouse garage in Glen Innes. The trail had gone cold in Wellington. I’d wasted a full week chasing my tail, following crumbs I imagined that fucker Hart had laid to confuse people like me. A whole fucking week. Then an extra few days refusing to return to Auckland and admit defeat.

  I’d known they’d be good. I’d known I was up against the best. But I’d also had a healthy amount of confidence in my own ability. And I’d been sure if I just stayed a little longer in Wellington, looked a little harder, searched a little more deeply, I’d find them.

  I hadn’t.

  Ten days after picking up their trail, I admitted to myself that I’d lost it. And returned to Auckland City.

  The guys hadn’t ribbed me too much. Carmel had even baked me a cake. But it chafed. And it hurt. Fuck did it hurt. Charlie was mine, damn it! And I was determined to find her and haul her very fine arse back like the fucking caveman I apparently was.

  Out of desperation I went to her back-up shack in Mangere. Pierce had agreed to leave it as is. The Police had taken their evidence, but Charlie was cleared of wrong-doing in Thibault’s death, and the garage was rented to her. So it had sat as she’d left it. Shot up and abandoned.

  Or at least so we’d thought.

  Instead it had been empty. And suddenly I had a hot trail again.

  They had left Wellington, a move that made sense. The Department had been based in the capital to be close to Parliament and the PM. Staying there would have been asking for trouble. All of ASI had feared they’d gone overseas, escaped persecution in New Zealand, used their international contacts to slip away unseen.

  But I knew Charlie. And I was thinking I knew Ava and that fucker Hart too. They may have been groomed for this life. They may have been conditioned beyond anything a normal person could comprehend. But they did this for a reason. A personal reason.

  They did this for their country.

  Prevent. Protect. Provide.

  They prevented disasters. They protected their fellow countrymen. They provided the Government with intelligence in order to do both of those things.

  That’s what the tagline said. That’s what they believed, even if that belief had been shattered by the actions of the Director.

  They did this for their country. There’s no way they’d leave.

  So where would they go?

  Wellington’s not that big, but big enough to get lost in. No other city
in our small nation, bar one, can come close.

  Auckland. The City of Sails. Our city.

  They’d come here.

  And I’d just found them. In a warehouse in industrial Glen Innes. Hiding in plain sight like Abi does. Working in the shadows like Ben. Staying under the radar, but keeping their ear to the ground. Like ASI.

  Yeah, we’d got our arses kicked because we’d made a bit of a name for ourselves recently. But normally we operated with one foot in the underground and one foot out. Slipping between the two worlds when necessity required. Doing what we had to do to protect our city.

  Keeping a low profile.

  What was left of the former Department was keeping an extremely low profile as well. This had been the first time in two weeks that I’d been able to confirm this was them.

  A black SUV driven by Ava.

  Charlie was in there. And part of me wanted to walk straight up to the door and break it down. Part of me wanted to get this over with, go home, and play with my spoils. Part of me was clearly a fucking douche!

  I slid through the shadows, my prey in sight, and settled against the south wall of the building. Sleeping quarters were on the second floor; I’d figured that much out. Along with the kitchen, bathrooms, and office. Pressure sensors and laser trip wires covered the roof. Awesome!

  Ground floor housed the gym, armoury at a guess, and parking for their cars. It also housed their meeting room. In the middle of the grand space, well away from any walls or windows. Well away from any keen ears.

  I leaned my shoulder against the building’s wall and steadied my heartbeat. Adrenaline; hope, excitement, anticipation. It was all happening, and my hands twitched with a bucket full of let’s-get-this-on.

  I pulled my remote control out and started up the screen. An upside down image of the garage came into focus, the clip-clop of Ava’s fuck-me boots sounded out through my earpiece. I released the device, watched as the screen showed the world turning right-side-up as the bug fell from the side of the car and settled on its feet. Or ball-bearings as the case may be.

  In a flash it was chasing the sniper, making it through the key-code locked door before it swung shut behind her. I held my breath, waiting for a six inch heel to come down on top of the right-this-second-too-fucking-obvious-mini-bug. But all I saw was the swing of Ava’s hips as she sauntered into the meeting room.

  Bug followed, scurrying into a dark corner of the room with the flick of my hand on the joystick.

  I was in.

  “Did you get it?” someone asked. A voice I couldn’t identify. I adjusted the viewing angle of the bug’s cameras, switching to wide angle. It distorted things should I need to move, but for stationary surveillance it rocked. I’d have to give Amber a big smooch when I saw her next.

  I smiled at the reaction we’d get from Eric.

  “Oh, yeah, I got it,” Ava purred in that come-here-big-boy voice she used, as she slid into a seat, back to me, blocking some of my view. I needed to move, but movement now was too risky.

  “Then let’s get started,” another male, different from the first said. “Mal isn’t talking.”

  “We knew he wouldn’t.” Hart. I’d recognise that fucker’s tone anywhere.

  “We had to try.” First male again.

  “And risk exposure.” Second male. Disgruntled. I picked him out at the end of the long table. He wore a hat. Inside. Dickhead.

  “Irrelevant. We can dismiss him now,” Ava said. “The question is,” she went on, “where to next? Do we stay here and assume the other handlers are in New Zealand? Or do we start calling in favours overseas?”

  “Travel carries greater risks,” first male replied.

  “Risks‘R Us,” Hart drawled.

  “But we can, at the very least, minimise it,” a female added. Not Ava. And not Charlie. Where the fuck was she?

  “Agreed,” first male said. I was picking he was the one in charge now, which surprised me, because I thought Hart would be. Why? I’m not sure. I just found it hard to believe the guy could take orders.

  Clearly his don’t-fuck-with-me attitude had all been an act put on for me. My lips spread in a wide grin. Sucker!

  “One at a time, then,” leader dude said. “We slip out, assess exposure, and then monitor until it’s safe for another of us to leave.”

  “Are they overseas, though?” Ava asked.

  “That’s the point,” hatted dick said. “We can’t find them here, but we won’t know that they’ve actually fled the country until we look.”

  “Have you managed to get anything on the Net, Joel?” Leader again.

  “Only what we already know.” He was the hat dick. Figures he’d be their IT geek, too. Eric could be a pain in the arse as well when he tried. “The Beehive is in lockdown. The Wanganui Computer has been pulled. They’re taking us seriously. We’re the threat. Not the handlers.”

  “Are you sure?” leader dude asked. “It takes a lot to make the New Zealand Police deactivate their law enforcement computer.”

  “Right now the whole country is in lockdown,” the Joel guy replied. “Right now they expect us to go boom!”

  “Maybe we should.” And there she was. Out of the bug’s line of sight. But there. I damn near dropped the fucking remote control my hands shook so fucking much.

  Charlie. My Charlie. Messing around with a bunch of loser spies when she didn’t need to. Yeah, they were the only family she knew. But she had another. She didn’t need to be here. Risking her freedom so overtly.

  She could risk it covertly with us.

  Time was up. They had their backs against a wall. I’d suspected as much; Pierce had told us that everything electronic in the country that they could use had been shutdown. There was nowhere for them to go. They could leave; I was sure they’d manage to fool customs if they wanted to. And maybe, from what they’d said, they needed to. Stealthily, as their new leader dude suggested.

  But not with Charlie.

  No, if they had any hope of finding those handlers they needed a man on the inside.

  ASI wasn’t exactly on the inside. But we had one foot in and one foot out, and that made us perfect.

  At least, I fucking hoped so.

  I switched the bug off and slipped its remote screen into my vest pocket. Standing up from my crouch beside the wall, I started to climb the storm pipe.

  I could have knocked.

  I could have jimmied the door lock and crept in.

  But I was a nostalgic fuck, and I was going with the sensor pads on the roof. I knew Charlie would appreciate it.

  I rolled onto the surface of the roof, landing on my back, and stared up into the early evening sky. No alarm sounded out. No whirring red light flashing a warning. Just a seagull swooping over the buildings and flying out of sight.

  It took them two minutes. One minute longer than I thought it would. But I was guessing, Hart had been cursing up a storm when he’d seen who lay on his roof. I smiled.

  And the sound of four guns being cocked rang out in the still air.

  “What the fuck?” someone said. I think it was the Joel guy.

  “This him?” someone else asked casually.

  “The one and only,” Hart, the fucker, replied.

  “Well, you better bring him inside, then” leader dude announced.

  I bounced to my feet, eyes searching for Charlie and coming up blank. The letdown was a hit to the guts, but I covered. I smirked at Hart, nodded to the others, and followed their leader inside.

  All the while counting down the seconds until I found her.

  Caught her.

  Claimed her.

  And made her mine.

  Chapter 37

  And I Felt It All

  Charlie

  He’d come. He hadn’t waited. I wasn’t sure what to think of that.

  Things had turned to shit with a rapidity that astounded, but did not surprise. The New Zealand Government could hustle its arse when it felt threatened.

  And threaten
ed it felt.

  And so it should. Nine highly trained operatives were currently AWOL and eight of them had their fuses lit. Stopping ignition was imperative. And required certain skills. Skills which no other agency in New Zealand possessed.

  But we’d been his. We’d been the Director’s enhanced, Operation-Evo-evolved, weapons. We couldn’t be trusted.

  So here we were. Hiding. Scheming… Bonding.

  Joel was funnier than I’d realised. Dry, sarcastic, a little jaded. Sofia had always seemed such a princess, but her reaction to what the Director had tried to do to me had turned her into a momma-bear. Hamish was the mirror image of his brother, Caleb. Twins in looks, but opposites in attitude. Casual and relaxed, where Caleb was serious and lethal.

  You might see Caleb coming. You completely overlooked his brother.

  Reid was suave; everything you expected a spy to be. But the first thing he’d done when we teamed up after it all went down was to rush forward and squeeze the living daylights out of me. Reid and bear hugs hadn’t computed. But the debonair specialist was all about touch.

  I hadn’t seen it. I hadn’t known it. Until they’d all came rushing back home… for me.

  Brayton, well Brayton was Brayton. Clever, quick. Quietly watching the world behind a hood and sunglasses. But it had been Brayton who’d told me about Adam. Who’d bothered to pull his army records and walked me through Afghanistan.

  Brayton understood Adam. And I knew, now, that he understood me; understood what staying away from my stalker had done to me.

  So close and yet I might as well have been back in Paris.

  And then there was William. I’d never really got Will. He was professional. Perhaps the most professional of the lot of us. Also the most uptight, most stick-up-the-arse, most militant of all of us, too.

  But he’d been the one to destroy the Department before the Government had a chance to storm in and see our secrets.

  He’d been the one to yell at the PM, to turn down the offer of surrender, in favour of clearing our names first.