by Edie Harris
“But Kedrov died. He was in that building...there was nothing left in Kabul,” Yang insisted, shaken, her shock appearing 100-percent genuine. “Nothing.”
Tobias shook his head. “He lived. He knew someone inside his organization had betrayed him, and he hid himself away until the traitor could be determined. It’s why Ivashov never contacted you. Chandler was too terrified of who she was becoming while undercover to risk telling you about Kedrov, because what if you truly never let her come home after that, and Nash...well, he found out your little secret, didn’t he? That the Accountant was the mole, and that you’d lied to MI6 top brass about your Russian whale.”
Yang’s nod was nearly imperceptible, her words reticent and clipped. “You think you know everything, don’t you, Faraday?”
“What was it Nash wanted, Colleen? What was it he and Kedrov really wanted?”
“Faraday, on a platter.” She stared at him, her expression closed and cold. “I don’t know what axe they have to grind with you, and honestly, I don’t much care, but I had the means to get what we all wanted, through Agent Vick’s...attachment to your sister.”
“And you manipulated the situation enough so that, should Nash fail, at least MI6 stood a chance at benefitting from the fallout. Faraday Industries as another feather in your cap.”
Yang said nothing.
Grim satisfaction slowly infiltrated his bloodstream at the confession implicit in her silence. This was what he did best. This was power. Now he simply had to use it, correctly. “Who is the most senior agent within your section, Colleen?”
Yang considered his question, then narrowed her eyes. “Chandler McCallister. She’s been with T-16 five years.”
Pride for his woman filled his chest. “Then it is her name you will put forth before your Management to take over T-16 when you step down in thirty days’ time.” He fought not to smile as he considered what his Chandler would be like as section chief: strong, courageous, capable, daring—and never, ever one to take grave advantage of the people who served under her. A loyal soldier, a loyal citizen.
She was going to be fucking spectacular.
“Are you...are you blackmailing me?”
Ah, the irony. “I don’t need to blackmail you, Colleen, nor do I want to.” That was the old Faraday legacy; this would be the new. “Nash is dead. Kedrov is dead. You have the opportunity to leave with your head held high and your reputation intact.”
“And if I don’t?” But the question held no heat, and Tobias knew he’d already won.
Standing, he moved to the door. “You remember the recording from the night at St. Mary Axe, don’t you? Every word, every inflection of your easily identifiable voice, all captured in a cloud you couldn’t begin to hack.” He paused, knowing an implied threat was often far more powerful than an overt one. “Make the right decision, Colleen.”
Yang swore, defeat lurking in the foul words.
“One last question—where is Chandler?” He hadn’t seen her on his walk into T-16, nor any sign of Freya and Dare.
Yang didn’t bother to look up from where her hands splayed across the desk’s top. “She’s prepping for her assignment this evening.” A tense pause, before she grudgingly informed him, “She’ll be at Fadel House in Mayfair at eight.”
That was all he needed to know.
Short minutes later, the elevator dinged open into the garage, and Tobias weaved his way through the myriad vehicles until he approached the Mercedes, remembering Chandler’s wide-eyed—and really rather horrified, now that he thought on it—reaction to seeing the S-Class for the first time.
God, he missed her.
As he unlocked the sedan, Tobias pulled his cell from the pocket of his jeans and dialed the number he’d demanded Keir share with him. “Pippa? It’s Tobias. I have a favor to ask.”
Pippa’s clear voice filled his ear, more somber than he’d ever heard but not sad enough to worry him. “Ask it.”
“How long would it take you to decorate a one-bedroom flat to your sister’s tastes?”
The interior designer perked up almost immediately. “The depends—what’s my budget?”
“Unlimited,” he informed her with a smile.
“Tobias Faraday, you ought to know better than to tease a girl when she’s vulnerable.”
His smile widened as he rattled off his new address. “I’ll meet you there in an hour.”
“Only if you bring your Black Card.”
“Done.” He started the engine. “And if you make it look like home to her, there’ll be a permanent Black Card with your name on it.”
“Be still my bloody heart.”
Chapter Nineteen
The red dress was too much, in Chandler’s opinion, but Pippa had insisted.
“Your body is amazing,” her twin had said a few hours earlier, reclining on Chandler’s bed as she surveyed her handiwork with flushed cheeks. “Didn’t I always tell you that, someday, having smaller tits than me would come in handy?”
The plunging neckline of the borrowed dress had, indeed, been benefited by Chandler’s less-than-impressive décolletage. The deep V began at the base of her sternum, the two wide panels of satin-lined silk caressing her breasts before looping and crossing behind her neck. Semi-sheer layers of blood—and ruby-red fabric wrapped and gathered around her waist, holding the flimsy bodice in place, then somehow transitioned into a flowing satin column of a skirt, subtly slit to the thigh on one side, the slit overlaid with a shimmering gold...netting-type thing.
Chandler had made a face at her reflection in the mirror, plucking at the weird—yet gorgeous—partial overskirt. “What is this?”
“Technically, it’s lace. Made from clear thread and fourteen-karat gold.” Scooting to the edge of the bed, Pippa had adjusted some of the lace where it spilled from Chandler’s waist to cover her thigh.
“You dressed me in gold? Actual gold?” Chandler’s horrified gaze had met Pippa’s in the mirror. “You’re mad. I’ll rip this. Or someone will rip it off me and try to trade it for drugs on the streets.”
“I trust you not to sell it for parts.” For the first time since the disaster of her aborted wedding, Pippa had smiled, the bruised expression gone from her dark eyes. “You look like a princess, darling. Why not enjoy it for a night, hmm?”
Now Chandler strolled the edge of the magnificent ballroom at Fadel House, sipping at flat champagne, pretending boredom while studying the four hundred mostly drunk guests of Saudi sheikh Nasim Fadel. On the balcony overlooking the massive marble floor stood Freya Quinn and her field partner, Dare Hadad, equally dressed to the nines in an emerald green gown and a fitted tux, respectively.
Chandler peered up at them covertly, hiding her observation in the shadow of a large potted tree. Freya and Dare looked...together. Far different from their previously stiff exchanges, more attuned to each other. Their body language spoke volumes: her hip tucked securely against his, his hand resting possessively on the dip of her waist, her fingers curling into the lapel of his jacket as she beamed up at him.
A shard of pure breath-stealing longing snuck between Chandler’s ribs as she watched the pair. Had she known cutting Tobias from her life would be akin to carving out her still-beating heart with a dull spoon, she might have rethought leaving him on the tarmac.
Or perhaps not. A week apart had merely served to prove how loving him had made her weak. Her judgment impaired, her senses overwhelmed, her body fatigued—all because she had focused so acutely on him. He impaired her, overwhelmed her, fatigued her, simply by existing. He’d affected her from the very first, and that ought to have been the canary in the coal mine, indicating what was to come.
But her thoughts spiraled, as ever these days, back to the bed and breakfast where, she could see now, she officially became lost over the Ice King. She’d witne
ssed him melting, firsthand and just for her, and he had ruined her for future loving. Hell, he’d ruined her for future living.
She drained the remainder of the champagne as though it were a shot of tequila and deposited her empty glass on the tray of a passing waiter. In the end, she had gotten expressly what she’d wanted: a return to grace with MI6. Though, if she were honest, she chafed under the command of Colleen Yang. While T-16’s section chief hadn’t forced Chandler to grovel, working as a subordinate to the woman who so easily betrayed her, not once but twice, made Chandler a little stabby.
If she intended to remain a spy—and of course she intended to remain a spy, because why else would she have suffered through this crazy ordeal—it was a good thing she had excised her weakness. Falling for Tobias had been detrimental to her work performance. Yes. Yes, it had. MI6 deserved the entirety of her focus and acuity, and right now, with her emotions shredded and her mind wandering, Chandler was...compromised. Worse than she ever had been in Russia, more than her relationship with Pip could ever demand. The bastard had compromised her.
No, she had compromised herself. Loving was a choice, wasn’t it? And Chandler had chosen to love Tobias Faraday, regardless of the fact that during her fall, loving him had seemed uncontrollable. Inevitable, actually.
She had chosen to love him with the whole of her heart, and...and she’d never told him. Even though he had—in that abruptly halting way of his—shared his own feelings for her by asking her to come with him. Run with me this time.
Fuck. Fuck, she missed him. Would that damn hole in her chest never heal?
Leaning against the wall next to the potted tree, shaded by its out-of-place tropical fronds, Chandler pressed a palm to her pounding heart and gulped in lungfuls of stale air, eyes stinging as sorrow swept over her. The one man who knew all her secrets, who refused to judge her by them—she had pushed that man away. Even if she knew it was for his own good. Even if he told her she mattered—and she wanted to believe him so much, so much, but how could she?
Fairy tales weren’t real, and at the end of the day, she was still a pauper enthralled with a prince. She’d sent her prince away. Never had she regretted any decision so bitterly.
A faint beep sounded, not unpleasantly, and then Freya’s voice lilted through the in-ear comm. “McCallister? You all right?”
What, could Quinn see through trees now? “Fine,” Chandler managed gruffly, head spinning as she struggled to regain composure. Crumbling now was not an option; as soon as she returned to her flat, and Pippa’s comforting presence, she could finally dissolve into the mess she’d been avoiding for the long days since returning from Russia, but not here. Not on her first assignment after her MI6 reinstatement. “I’m fine,” she said again, and this time she nearly sounded it.
There was a beat of quiet before Freya responded, “You don’t have to be fine, Chandler,” and Chandler recognized it was not her colleague speaking, but the cousin of the man she loved. The distinction burned as the younger woman continued, “You’ve been to hell and back. Dare and I can handle this, tonight, if you need to step away.”
Thank God no one else was on their comm channel, and only Freya and Dare could hear how Chandler fought to steady her breathing. Her heart was breaking—it was the only explanation. Literally breaking, with no relief in sight. “A minute. I just...I just need a minute.”
Dare’s calm voice answered her. “Take all the minutes you need. No reason to alert Management.” His words aggravated the hurt within her, a sick twist of the knife she herself had embedded in her chest when she ran from Tobias and her feelings for him.
She shivered as she was hit with a draft of the air-conditioning Fadel House spent a fortune pumping into the overcrowded ballroom. That fortune was nothing compared with the bank balances of most party guests tonight, though. London’s elite, with money both old and new, met and mingled on the ballroom floor—and somewhere within the mass was a pair of Syrian brothers suspected of orchestrating a previous assassination attempt on Nasim Fadel and his older brothers, Malik and Samir. Internet chatter indicated the suspects aimed to try again with Nasim tonight, but hell if Chandler could focus on that very real threat. Sure, Freya and Dare could easily run point on this, especially as they’d already coordinated with the sheikh’s heavy security detail, but guilt dragged at her conscience.
She shouldn’t be here. She wasn’t ready to be back in the field, not really, but her hubris had gotten the better of her, making her don a dress she couldn’t afford and surround herself with pompous richie-riches who considered her annual salary to be little more than pocket change. What a mess she was. What a silly, pathetic mess.
“Chandler.”
Chill bumps broke out over every inch of exposed skin as Tobias’s clear baritone stroked across the syllables of her name. She squeezed her eyes shut, head falling forward as emotion cascaded through her body. Keeping her back to him, hands flattened defensively over her fluttering midsection, she breathed through the tumult. “Hullo, keeper. Come to check up on me, have you?”
“Yes.”
Her heart seized. Of course he’d wanted to check on her; the man had protective instincts that spanned oceans. “Well, I’m fine, as you can see.”
“I can’t see. You won’t look at me.” He paused, and she listened to the deep breath he drew in but never released. “Why won’t you look at me, Chandler?”
Because it hurts. Because I love you too much. She cursed her cowardice and faced him, squaring her shoulders as she lifted her chin defiantly. And tried not to wobble when her knees threatened to dissolve at the perfect, perfect sight of him.
Tobias wore a divinely cut tuxedo that emphasized the sturdy breadth of his chest and the leanness of his waist and hips. He was clean-shaven and coiffed, revealing no hint of the disheveled wild man she’d fallen for during their time together in the bed and breakfast. “Chandler,” he said again, simply, so simply.
Oh, Toby. “You’re repeating yourself, Cheekbones.” Christ, she couldn’t breathe, not with the storm raging in his beautiful gray eyes.
A smile—an honest-to-goodness smile—lifted the corners of his stern mouth, creasing his cheeks and revealing straight white teeth. She lifted a hand to her chest, needing to shield herself from the magnetism of that smile. Her voice, when she spoke, was a harsh rasp. “What are you really doing here, Faraday? I fulfilled my end of the bargain, if you remember.”
The smile disappeared. “I remember.” His gaze raked her, not cold as she had once believed, but burning hot. A bead of sweat trickled down her back, though moments ago she’d been shivering. “You were brilliant in Moscow. I didn’t tell you, but I should have. You deserve to know that you were brilliant.”
It...wasn’t what she had expected him to say. Given the heat in his perusal of her gown and the body beneath, she’d thought he would compliment the dress, her looks. Not her professional competency. But it was so Tobias-y of him, so precisely in keeping with his character, that a warm tendril of pride flared to life in her belly, and she dropped the hand at her chest to her abdomen, suddenly desperate to keep this sensation alive as long as possible. “Thank you, Toby.”
Face solemn, his gaze never left hers. “And I should have told you that I like it when you call me Toby. I like having a nickname. I like hearing you use it.”
He was killing her. “You’ll always be Toby to me.” She swallowed past the hard lump of emotion lodged in her throat. “Tell me why you’re here.” Because it wasn’t to praise her brilliance, or thank her for giving him a nickname. He wouldn’t be fiddling with that cuff link if it were; she recognized all the man’s tells, whether he knew it or not.
He seemed to consider her for a moment, and his jaw clenched. “Beth isn’t mad at you.” Before she could respond, he pushed ahead. “She says you two are alike. That you were trapped within your work and unable to claw you
r way free, and that shooting her and protecting Nash initially when we were searching for her...it was you, trapped but surviving, and she understands.” Pausing, he dropped his strong arms loosely to his sides. “I’m not angry, either. I had my revenge—you were there, you saw it. I know you said you weren’t sure you wouldn’t hate me, us, if our positions were reversed, but I wanted you to know that my family doesn’t blame you for what happened to Beth.”
Tears coursed silently down her cheeks, but Chandler couldn’t move to wipe them away. “Thank you,” she whispered, broken. Her darling Toby had broken her with his blunt kindness and brusque forgiveness, and he didn’t know. He couldn’t. If he knew what he was doing to her with every measured word, he wouldn’t continue speaking...would he?
Oh, but he would. “I came to tell you everything I neglected to tell you when I had the opportunity. Including this.” He stepped closer, and the toes of his gleaming dress shoes brushed the hem of her gown, though he didn’t move to touch her. Though she longed for him to do so. “You were...unexpected.”
She peered up at him, confused. “Unexpected?”
“You were never supposed to be mine. But you are. Chandler, you’re mine.” His hand lifted, hovered next to her cheek until the heat from his palm scorched her skin but never made contact. “You’re no one’s property, but my heart...it recognizes you. It knows you. It claims you. It needs you so goddamn much that it has decided it can’t go on beating without you there to shock it back to life every second of every day.” Finally he cupped her jaw, and they both visibly shuddered. “Please keep me alive, Chandler.”
As his thumb brushed aside her tears, first on one cheek, then the other, Chandler’s eyes drifted closed. He loved her. And, because he deserved to know—”I love you. I love you, Toby.” Her lashes fluttered open to reveal his awestruck expression: pupils dilated, lips slightly parted, a flush coloring his high cheekbones. “You were unexpected, too.”
