He realized that no matter how much he loved her, if he caused her pain, he needed to stay away from her. It was imperative, because all that mattered in his world was Eva’s happiness; if his absence was what secured that happiness for her then absent he would be, at least after today.
“Eva?” he said as he approached her.
She started, her thoughts interrupted. “Hi,” she smiled shyly. “Are you ready?”
He nodded, watching her closely, trying to decipher what might be going on behind her flawless face. He held out his arm, gesturing for her to go ahead of him and they walked out of the hotel and into the scorching Egyptian sun.
The meeting with Pilar was relatively painless considering the last time they’d all met. Owen was unfailingly polite, but had to work at appearing detached, and Pilar was lively and not at all awkward with him. Afterwards, Owen asked Eva if they could walk through the nearby park on their way back to the hotel. She agreed, although he could tell by her reluctant demeanor that the idea was not one of her favorites.
As they entered the shaded path through the center of the green space, Owen stopped and gestured to a nearby bench. “Can we sit for a few minutes?” he asked politely.
Eva nodded and walked over to sit. Owen followed her, his heart beating a mile a minute in his chest.
As they sat down he decided to get to it. Like ripping off a bandage, it was best dealt with quickly and directly.
“I know we agreed to discuss our personal situation after the job tonight, but sometimes things get a little chaotic after a mission, and they’ve got me booked on a redeye flight to London — don’t want to give me too much time to get into trouble, I’d imagine,” he chuckled.
“All right,” she said hesitantly.
“I uh, I guess I just wanted to get clear about what happens next. I mean it’s obvious that you’ll want to go through with the divorce … ”
“Owen, I … ”
“Shhh, love,” he said placing his first two fingers gently on her lips before pulling them away as if he’d been burned. “It’s all right, I know you don’t want to hurt me, but I can also see that having to be near me hurts you, and the very last thing I want to do on this earth is hurt you anymore.”
Eva looked at him with glistening eyes, her breath coming in short gusts.
Owen put on a brave smile, gritting his teeth as he forced out words that went against everything he wanted. “I’ll be fine, love. I know I ruined it all, and I have to live with the consequences of that. But you? You can go do anything, whether you’re an interior designer or an MI6 agent. You can have a husband and a home and a dozen beautiful children if you want. Either way, I see that I have to let you go, so tell me what you need and we’ll hammer out the details. I’ll call my solicitor and have it finalized.”
He smiled while his chest squeezed tight, making it difficult to breathe. He took a deliberate breath before he continued. “I want to make sure you’re set up for the future I should have given you. Everything I have is yours, from my savings to my car to my future earnings either with the agency or on tour. I’ll also make sure that you’re listed as the survivor in my will so that you get anything that’s left after I’m gone.”
At this point Eva finally broke down. The tears started and she couldn’t stop them. They weren’t quiet and they weren’t delicate. She sobbed, she sniffed, she bawled.
Owen felt the panic that always rooted deep in his gut when women cried, but this was so much worse. This was Eva, and he’d caused it.
A quick glance around the secluded area showed no one else nearby, so he reached under the loose sleeves of her robe to rub her upper arms as he tried to talk her down. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. What do want me to do? Shall I leave now? Can I take you somewhere? Maybe you want me to call Pilar? Bugger it, Eva; tell me what to do, just please stop crying.”
She continued sniffling for a minute more, then her breathing eased and she stuttered, “Ppplease, just stop! Stop talking, stop offering, stop apologizing. I can’t take it. You’re just so wonderful, and I can’t take it. I can’t be angry at you when you’re like this, and I need to be angry with you, can you understand that?”
Owen stared at her in surprise. “You, uh, you need to be angry with me?” he asked. He felt a mixture of utter confusion and the faintest glimmerings of hope bubble up from his heart like the breath released by a scuba diver in thick ocean waters. “Why do you need to be angry with me?”
“Oh, Owen,” she sighed as her sobbing calmed even further. “Don’t you get anything?”
He smiled hesitantly. “This is one of those female things isn’t it? I’m an oaf and I don’t understand something I ought to, right?”
She gave him a watery smile in return and his heart soared. Hope. More hope.
“Yes, I guess it is one of those female things. I need to be angry at you because if I’m not I’ll remember how much I still love you, you huge idiot.”
“You do?” he breathed out so quietly it was more of a feeling than a sound.
“God help me, yes I do. I love you, Owen Martin, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
He reached out and placed his palm along her silky cheek, feeling the drying tears there and the warmth that accompanied her rosy blush. “Do you love me enough to think about giving me a second chance?” he asked, his voice infused with fear and self-doubt.
“Do you love me enough to always be truthful from now on?” she shot back. “To quit trying to decide what’s best for me without consulting me about it? To accept that this has to be a partnership or it won’t be anything at all?”
Owen’s hands shook as he moved to take hers, holding them gently and looking down as he stroked each of her fingers with his thumbs. “I will do anything you need, Eva Martin, anything. I will never, ever, make a decision or even have a thought without consulting you again first. I will never, ever, lie to you, not even when you ask me if some outfit makes you look fat. I will devote my entire existence to your happiness from this moment until I draw my last breath. Will you come back to me, love?”
She giggled softly. “Oh, Owen. If you dare tell me that any of my outfits make me look fat, I will send you to the couch for a week. Do you understand?”
“Perfectly,” he smiled as he leaned forward. “So do we have a deal now?”
She didn’t answer, but she closed the gap between them and let her lips drift over his as he sighed, six months’ worth of anguish, tension, guilt and loss releasing from his body in one glorious breath.
The sound of children laughing on the other side of the shrubs reminded them that were in public, in a Middle Eastern country. They broke apart quickly, Eva blushing while Owen felt his cheeks ache from the smile that had spread across his face. “I love you, Eva Martin,” he whispered as he stroked her face gently.
“I know,” she answered. “I may have doubted you, but I never doubted your love, and I’m so sorry if I made you doubt mine.”
“It’s done, love, and if this is the outcome, it was all well worth it.”
Chapter Sixteen
Still Egypt — Same Day
Owen and Eva arrived at the warehouse where the arms transfer was set to take place, and split up the tasks at hand. It was a large building in a complex of several other similar warehouses, all of which were next to the large concrete docks that lined the port of Alexandria. The smell of ocean and garbage was prevalent and the entire site was stark in the early afternoon sun. While Eva checked the area for any surveillance devices or lurking dock workers, Owen set up the diversionary explosives, small flash bombs that wouldn’t do any real damage but would cause the sound and smoke needed to create chaos while they grabbed Hassam’s men and the arms shipment.
Their immediate tasks done, Owen and Eva went inside the warehouse and stood in the main room. Vic and a handful of Egyptian intelligence agents would be set up at various locations around the outside of the building, ready to enter as soon as th
e explosives detonated. Owen and Eva now needed to find out when the shipment was scheduled to arrive. Owen took out his cell phone and sent a text to Vic asking for the schedule.
“What does he say?” Eva asked when the phone chimed a reply.
“No one will arrive for at least two hours. We’ll have to wait it out,” he answered, turning and stalking towards her.
“Owen?” she asked nervously. “What are you doing?”
“I’m imagining how I’m going to spend the next two hours,” he answered, his voice husky.
“Ohhh … ” Eva squeaked when he reached her and started kissing her neck.
“Want to fool around?” he murmured.
“While we’re on an assignment like this? I mean is it safe?”
“The intelligence we’ve got is solid.” He kissed the corners of her mouth. “It’ll be at least two hours. Did you know I once waited in a cave in the desert in Pakistan for over fourteen hours to get a set of military plans?” He took her hand and led her deeper into the warehouse.
“Dear God,” she groaned. “I might starve to death if we’re here that long. On top of the fact that I didn’t get a chance to pee before we set up. That’s not an issue right now, but it might become one in the not so distant future.”
They walked through an interior room and then into a small hallway.
Owen laughed. “I could think of a way to distract you from that.” He released her hand and ran a finger underneath her robes along the smooth skin of her arm.
Eva blushed. “Oh really? What pray tell might that be, Mr. Martin?”
Owen gently pulled her by the wrist down the hallway and through a doorway that led into a small storage room.
“Well,” Owen breathed as he shut the door behind them, locked it and nuzzled her neck, “I’d start here.”
“Mmhmm,” Eva hummed.
“And I might then try over here,” he continued as he moved his lips across her jawline to the corner of her lips.
“I think this might be just the distraction I need,” she said, her voice needy even in its whisper.
The brush of their lips was soft and warm and bittersweet, until it wasn’t anymore. Then it was hot and slick and needing, so intense it hurt. In that moment, Owen knew the last six months had been worth it, every single moment. He knew that this, right here, right now was the moment that should have happened all those months ago when they pledged their love to each other in front of friends and family. This was what it felt like to kiss the woman you loved when nothing stood between you, and it was so much better, so much more real than what they’d had before that he nearly quit breathing from it.
“Does this come off?” he questioned as he tugged on her hijab.
“Like this?” she answered, removing the confining headpiece in one smooth movement.
Her hair tumbled free and Owen felt the air leave his lungs in a rush. He’d forgotten just how luxuriously smooth her hair was. He ran his fingers through it reverentially, marveling at how the strands caught the small amount of light that filtered into the storage room from the small high window above their heads.
“God,” he whispered as he moved his mouth closer to hers. “It’s even more beautiful than I remembered. You’re even more beautiful than I remembered. How is that possible?”
She answered him by pulling his head forward into a kiss that screamed his name from the rooftops, though it was without sound. Their tongues slipped around one another, their breath wove together and their bodies heated, drawn to one another by that inexplicable thing that is love.
He slipped his fingers inside the neckline of her robes, and caressed the smooth skin along her neck and upper chest. She leaned into him, her breathing stilted and loud. She kept one hand behind his head wrapped in his shaggy hair and then her other hand began to rub up his thigh, moving toward his hip. He bit down on her lower lip and growled out, “I love you, I want to make love to you. Please, Eva.”
“Yes,” she moaned. “Yes, please.”
With one sudden movement he ripped the front of her robes open, revealing her jeans and silk t-shirt underneath. He leaned back for a moment and looked at her, her face flushed, her hair tangled, her breasts plump and molded by her tight shirt. He felt his heart seize up with the want.
“How is it possible to want you more now than I ever have before?” he asked as he began to tug at the bottom of her shirt.
“I don’t know but if you don’t get in me fast I’m going to lose my mind completely,” she whined as she frantically reached for the zipper on his pants.
In moments her shirt and bra were off, his shirt was unbuttoned, her pants and silk panties were tossed on the floor, and his trousers were shoved around his ankles. As he laid her down on the hard floor he whispered, “It’s not the most comfortable spot.”
“Who gives a damn!” she huffed as she reached for him and released his erection from the confines of his boxer briefs.
He moaned long and low when she ran her hand smoothly up the length of him. Then, he lowered his head and swirled his tongue around her nipple teasingly. She arched against him and muttered, “Ahhh, God, Owen.”
He licked and sucked one breast while palming the other, but she quickly began to protest. “OK, you can — and should — do more of that later but at the moment I can’t wait, Owen. Please just do it before I die.”
He chuckled into her neck before he pulled his head up and whispered against her lips, “Agent Martin at your service, ma’am. Never let it be said that MI6 doesn’t do everything in its power to satisfy our citizens.”
And with that, he reached down, sliding his finger along her core once, then he drove into her, as she cried out.
He pumped into her, his mind a blinding whirl of sparks, warmth and liquid thoughts: Eva, love, desire, home. As his body tightened, he felt her push against him harder, and he reached down and pressed his fingers between their bodies. Her head shook from one side to the other as she choked out, “God I love you!” before she contracted around him and he was lost and then found all at the same moment.
He’d barely had a few seconds to take a breath, his climax still throbbing through him when he heard voices in the warehouse beyond the door.
“Was that what I think it is?” Eva whispered.
“Yes, love, I believe it is,” he choked out.
“Oh, shit,” she answered.
“Definitely,” Owen agreed.
• • •
After righting their clothes, Owen and Eva listened carefully at the door until Owen said, “Will you be angry if I ask you to stay behind me while we get out of here?”
She smiled. “I’d actually prefer it, if you don’t mind.”
“Thank you,” he replied, smiling as he drew his weapon and slowly cracked open the door.
The area beyond the storeroom was empty, but he could hear voices faintly from further away in the warehouse.
He beckoned to Eva to follow and they quietly made their way through the room to the next set of doors where they flattened themselves against the wall to listen.
“So, I’d say it was a success.” Owen recognized Vic’s voice.
A woman giggled, then said shyly, “I still think it was bad form for you to put a listening device in his watch.”
“How else were we going to know when they made up?”
Red-faced, Owen turned to look at Eva. Her eyes were narrowed and she was scowling intently, confirming that she recognized at least some of these voices too.
“Shall we?” he muttered.
“By all means,” she ground out.
All eyes turned to them when they entered the room. Grins quickly followed as Owen and Eva took in the faces watching them expectantly.
Owen picked out one individual immediately and started forward with a growl.
“Steady there, mate,” Derrick said as he stepped forward and put a hand on Owen’s arm.
“What the hell is he doing here?” Owen snarled, glaring at Hassam
who stood, arms crossed, smirking at him.
“All right, everyone,” Vic said. “Let’s relax. All of this can be explained.”
“I can’t imagine how you could ever explain the fact that the man I was sent here to stop, the same man who ruined my life, is standing here free as a bird, bloody laughing at me!”
Hassam laughed. “Even if you had been sent here to stop me, you never could have, you son of a dog.”
“All right, all right,” Herb said sternly. “Let’s just quit pissing on each other, shall we? There’s a good explanation for all of this. Vic, why don’t you tell them?”
Vic rolled his eyes at Herb. “Thanks for the set-up, mate. Look, after the uh, events, in Paris, all of us,” he glanced at Hassam briefly, “Well, most of us, felt that things shouldn’t be left like that. But Eva was bloody furious … ”
“With damn good cause!” Eva interjected.
“Granted,” Vic answered. “And Owen was a wreck … ”
“Piss off, arsehole,” Owen said without too much venom.
“Yes, thank you. May I please continue?” Vic asked irritably. “Herb and I didn’t know what else to do besides keep an eye on Eva and hope that one of the two of you would come to your senses sooner rather than later … ”
“But I,” Pilar interjected. “Knew that it would take more than time to repair the damage.” She gave a triumphant little nod towards Owen and Eva. “I managed to get Hassam to tell me how I could contact MI6 in order to get in touch with Vic.” She smiled shyly at Vic. “He was most helpful, and we came up with this plan together.”
“What exactly is the plan here?” Eva asked sharply.
Herb sighed. “By the time Pilar came to us we were already halfway to training Eva as an agent so we decided to use that to our advantage.”
“That part was all me,” Derrick grinned.
“Bloody git,” Owen muttered, and Eva giggled once before standing up straighter and putting her scowl back in place.
“We decided that if we set up a phony mission,” Herb continued. “We could get both of you to the same place at the same time where you’d be forced to talk. Alicia said you needed closure or some such nonsense, so we thought it was worth a try. We weren’t sure how to force the issue of uh, making up … ” Derrick and Vic both snorted as they tried to smother their laughter. “But,” Herb went on trying to ignore them, “We knew that you’d either make up or break up for good and even that had to be better than the limbo you’d been in for the last half a year.”
Love, Lies, and British Spies Page 13
