Forbidden Fantasies Bundle

by Dawn Atkins

  “Then he pressures me to resign and forges my name on the reports that frame Lucifer,” Zoë finished.

  “And he gets the director to authorize my assignment to take out Lucifer,” Bailey said.

  Jed ran his hands through his hair. “We’ve got motive, but we still don’t have enough proof to get a prosecutor interested. It will be Hadley Richards’s word against Zoë’s. And McManus Pharmaceuticals will hire the kind of legal team that will stall and try to whitewash everything. They’ll all scrape through it.”

  Zoë folded her hands together in her lap. “If our goal is to clear Lucifer’s name, maybe we don’t need more than motive. Instead of going to a prosecutor, let’s go to Hadley Richards.”

  Everyone turned to look at her. She cleared her throat. “Everything Hadley has done so far has been motivated by a fear of exposure. He doesn’t want even a hint of this coming out.”

  Bailey nodded in agreement. “She’s right. He’s killed Frank Medici and attempted to kill both Jed and Zoë in order to keep this information quiet. It isn’t just his wife’s company he’s trying to protect. He’s got his eye on the director’s job, which should be up for grabs by the end of the year.”

  “I think we can get Hadley to clear Jed’s name if we promise him that we won’t reveal anything about the money laundering,” Zoë said. “I’ll contact him and arrange a meeting. I’ll offer my silence about the forged reports, if he’ll clear Jed’s name. Of course, I’ll let him know that all the information is in the hands of a third party who will mail everything to the Washington Post if anything happens to Jed or me.”

  For a moment there was another stretch of silence in the room.

  Bailey was the first to speak. “You’re suggesting we let him walk right into the directorship in return for Jed’s name being cleared?”

  Zoë smiled. “Not necessarily. I’m hoping that Hadley will try to find a way around our little deal and trip himself up.” She turned to Ryder. “You probably have some kind of recording device I could wear?”

  “I do.” Ryder grinned at her.

  “No,” Jed said. “I can’t let Zoë do it. It’s too dangerous. I’ll arrange to meet with him.”

  “You can’t do that,” Ryder said. “He’ll have you arrested on the spot.”

  “You wouldn’t even make it to lockup,” Gage added. “He could claim that you tried to escape.”

  “I agree,” Bailey said. “You can’t meet with him.”

  Three beats of silence followed.

  Zoë was careful not to meet Jed’s eyes. It was the other people she had to convince. “I’m the best person to meet with Hadley Richards. I won’t worry him as much. At this point, he doesn’t know I have any connection to Jed Calhoun, and in his opinion, I’m gullible and easily manipulated. So he’ll be less likely to think I’m wired.” She smiled again. “And he’s much more likely to make a mistake that will end his career if he’s with someone he thinks he can easily manage.”

  Once again there was silence, but Zoë noted that the expression on the faces of her colleagues had changed.

  “She’s right,” Bailey said with a smile. “Hadley will feel confident that he can handle her. Pride goeth before a fall.”

  “It gets a green light from me,” Ryder agreed finally. “We’ll just have to make certain that Zoë doesn’t get hurt.”

  JED STILL DIDN’T LIKE the plan. Zoë had been right about Hadley agreeing to meet with her. He hadn’t even put up a fuss about joining up with her at the Lincoln Memorial. Ryder had chosen the site because he could put a lot of agents in the area. From Jed’s current vantage point on the smooth steps of the memorial, he could see that Ryder had made a good choice.

  At ten in the morning, the place was already thronged with tourists, some pushing strollers and others clicking pictures. Some had gathered in the memorial chamber to get a close-up view of the nineteen-foot-high statue of the sitting Lincoln. Others were sitting on the steps, just resting, as he was.

  Except for Zoë, they’d each donned a disguise to blend in with the crowd. He’d changed himself back into Ethan Blair, and then added dark glasses and a Seeing Eye dog that Ryder had provided. Fifteen feet to his right, Gage, wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap, sat in a wheelchair enjoying an ice-cream cone. Behind him was his “nurse,” Bailey, in a black wig and what he supposed was casual wear for a nurse, snapping pictures of the memorial’s facade. The camera boasted a telescopic lens. Ryder was serving drinks at a beverage cart to Jed’s right.

  Everyone but Zoë was armed. And she was sitting on a bench directly in front of him, scanning the steps.

  So far there’d been no sign of Hadley Richards.

  They’d hammered out the details well into the night, but Jed knew from years of experience that something could always go wrong. And something usually did.

  He couldn’t let anything happen to Zoë. Just looking at her brought on the same mix of panic and restlessness that he’d been feeling since…the first time he’d met her? Could Ryder be right? Was this what love felt like?

  He barely had time to consider the questions or try to analyze the feeling of joy that had blossomed inside of him when Bailey’s voice sounded in his earpiece. “Our quarry has just started down the steps.”

  IGNORING THE NERVES jittering in her stomach, Zoë kept her gaze on the steps leading down from the Lincoln Memorial. Hadley Richards would be here at any moment.

  At ten o’clock, there was a faint breeze blowing, but it did little to alleviate the sticky, moist heat so characteristic of September in D.C. Already perspiration sheened her skin and she took a minute to wipe her palms on her jeans.

  It helped that she wasn’t here alone. As they’d worked into the night to square away all the details, she’d been made to feel very much a part of a team. The camaraderie, the teasing, the approval—those were new experiences for her. Thanks to the sheltered way she’d been raised, she’d never had much chance to develop easy relationships with others.

  If she’d been more outgoing and made more friends during her brief stay at the CIA, would she have been such a ripe target for Hadley Richards? She would never know the answer to that question, but she intended to use Hadley’s opinion of her against him.

  She glanced over to where Jed, or rather Ethan, sat, his hand resting gently on the dog beside him. Just seeing him settled some of her nerves. She was almost getting used to the fact that he was Jed, Ethan and Lucifer. What she wasn’t getting used to was the knowledge that she was in love with all of him.

  And he would walk out of her life soon. Unless she stopped him.

  A week ago she’d been a mouse hiding away in her office buried in a pile of sex research, and her only lover had been a fantasy that she’d created in her notebooks. Now, she was actually having real sex—great sex. And she was playing a central role in a sting operation that was going to bring down her old boss. This was exactly the kind of work she’d dreamed of doing when she went to work for the CIA.

  Zoë glanced around at the people who were depending on her. They believed in her. And so did she. If Jed Calhoun-Ethan Blair-Lucifer tried to get away from her, she’d just track him down.

  Bailey’s voice sounded in her ear. “Our quarry has just started down the steps.”

  Rising, Zoë scanned the stairs. It took her a moment to pick Hadley Richards out of the group of people because he wasn’t in a three-piece suit. Instead, he wore khaki shorts and a tan golf shirt.

  Straightening her shoulders, Zoë strode forward.

  GAGE ROLLED the remainder of his soggy cone up in his napkin and pitched it toward a nearby trash can. “Three points,” he said when it fell in.

  “Don’t you have any nerves at all?” Bailey asked. “There are at least a dozen ways that this could go wrong.”

  “Which is why it’s important to control the nerves,” Gage pointed out. “Besides, I’m enjoying myself. It isn’t every day that I get a sexy nurse to answer to my beck and call.”

 
; Though she kept her gaze on her quarry, Bailey’s eyebrows shot up. “Sexy, I’ll take. But I’m not at your beck and call.”

  Gage sighed. “A man has to have some fantasy life, especially when confined to a wheelchair.”

  Bailey remembered that Gage had been confined to a wheelchair for almost a year after being shot and losing his leg. One of the bullets had lodged close to his spine, and after removing it, the doctors had made no promises. It must have been pure torture for a man who’d lived the kind of life Gage Sinclair had.

  As if he’d read her mind, Gage said, “I thought of you a lot in that year I spent in the hospital.”

  Thought of her? Bailey glanced down to find that he’d tipped up his head and was looking at her. What she saw in his eyes broke her concentration for a minute. Was he actually hitting on her in the middle of an operation? This was definitely not the man she’d looked up to as her mentor. This was—

  With a mental jerk, she tore her gaze away from his and looked back into her camera just in time to see Zoë reach the steps. Zoë stopped and waited for Hadley to descend. Good girl, Bailey thought. That had been the plan. If at all possible, Zoë was to get Hadley Richards to join her at the foot of the steps. Things could get complicated if he took her up into the memorial chamber.

  Just then, a youngish man in a lightweight jacket with an iPod in his ear joined Zoë at the foot of the stairs. He seemed to be urging her up the steps toward Hadley.

  “Uh-oh,” Bailey murmured into her mike. “I’ll bet he’s got a gun concealed in that jacket.”

  “Yeah,” Jed said. “It’s in his left hand.”

  Shifting the camera slightly, Bailey saw Jed rise and start up the stairs.

  “Let her handle it,” Bailey said. But even as she spoke, she made an instant decision. “Get someone else to be at your beck and call, Sinclair. I’m going to get closer.”

  “MOVE.” The word was barely audible, but Zoë felt the press of hard steel against her side. Fear shot through her as the young, hard-eyed man to her left led her toward Hadley. Jed was ten steps ahead of her, so she saw him rise and start to climb, the dog leading the way. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Bailey taking pictures on a step parallel to hers. She wasn’t alone, she reminded herself.

  “Zoë.” Hadley smiled as she reached him. “It’s so good to see you again.”

  She met his eyes steadily. There was a coldness there that she hadn’t seen six months ago. She gave him the shy smile he was used to. “I…I don’t understand the gun. I just want to talk about those reports.”

  Hadley scanned the crowd. “Yes, I want that, too. But not here. It’s too crowded, and the humidity is oppressive today.”

  He returned his gaze to hers and smiled, but his eyes remained cold. “If you’re thinking of screaming or making a run for it, my friend Digs here has a silencer on his gun. He’ll pull the trigger, and I will call for help and then fade into the crowd.”

  He would, she realized. Considering the clothes he was wearing, Hadley would figure that the description offered by any potential eyewitnesses would fit any number of tourists who were visiting the memorial. And, of course, he didn’t know he had four witnesses who could identify him. As far as he knew, he had nothing to lose by having Zoë shot.

  “My limo is close by. It will be much cooler inside. Come. We’ll take a little ride and chat.”

  Already they were moving quickly down the steps. A cold sliver of fear moved up Zoë’s spine. Jed and Bailey were behind them now. Gage was in his wheelchair and Ryder at the vending cart. None of them could help her without letting Hadley know that he was being watched. If Ryder and Gage moved now, their whole plan would have been in vain.

  It was up to her.

  They reached the bottom of the steps. Another arrow of fear skittered through her. Then they were past Ryder.

  What would the old Zoë do? she wondered. But there was no help there. She’d just let herself be hustled into a limo.

  And Hadley Richards was depending on that.

  No. The sudden flare of anger spiking through her pushed the fear and the paralysis away. Zoë dug in her heels and jerked Digs to a stop. “I’m not going to get in your limo.”

  Hadley turned to face her and spoke in a low tone. “You’ll do what I tell you unless you want Digs to use that gun on someone else.”

  She tore her arm free of Digs’s hold and spoke in a tone loud enough for passersby to hear. “I don’t think so, Mr. Richards.”

  Several people glanced their way.

  Zoë lowered her voice. “Want to bet that someone won’t remember your name if your pal starts firing into the crowd. Or I could just scream right now.”

  The look he gave her held frustration and pure hatred. Zoë had an idea that she was seeing the real Hadley Richards for the first time.

  “We can’t talk here,” he finally bit out.

  Trying to hide the fact that her heart was about to beat its way out of her chest, Zoë glanced around. “How about that park bench over there?” Without waiting, she headed toward it. At any moment, she thought, a bullet was going to enter a vital organ.

  “WELL,” BAILEY SAID. “She avoided the ride to oblivion in the limo. I’m beginning to like her style.”

  “Yeah,” Jed commented. He liked it, too, but it had been a close call. That goon had had a gun pointed at her, and there was a good chance that none of them could have gotten to her in time if Hadley had decided he wouldn’t tolerate any lack of cooperation.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Jed,” Ryder said. “But relax and let her handle it. She’s smart. Calling out his name put a damper on his plan to whisk her away. It’ll take him a bit to come up with a new one.”

  Jed tried to hold on to that as he watched Hadley take a seat next to Zoë on a bench half a football field away. He steered the dog around and started moving along the path in their direction.

  THE MOMENT THAT HADLEY sat down next to her, Zoë shifted so that she could look directly at him. Digs had moved behind the bench, and she didn’t want to think about the gun that was even now pointed at her. She’d dodged a bullet so far, but she didn’t kid herself. Digs could shoot her, and both he and Hadley could easily slip away into the crowd.

  Hadley wasn’t looking at her. He was scanning the crowd. Bailey had said that he was a good planner. He was probably coming up with a new course of action right now, so she had to distract him.

  “I know that you had Frank Medici killed,” she said.

  “What?” He turned to her then, and she saw that she had his full attention.

  “You had Frank Medici killed and you framed Lucifer for it. You had me write that report on him, and then you changed my findings. I also know that McManus Pharmaceuticals has a subsidiary holding—Manning Imports—that is laundering money for the Vidal drug cartel. You had me give that report to you verbally. Remember?”

  “WHAT IN THE HELL is she doing?” Jed asked. “He’s going to shoot her dead right here in front of the Lincoln Memorial.”

  “She’s shocking the pants off of him,” Bailey said, amusement and admiration clear in her voice. “It’s a brilliant tactic. It’s going to keep him off balance.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” Jed said. He was already urging the dog closer to the bench. Cursing silently, he reminded himself that a blind man could hardly break into a run.

  “Bailey’s right,” Ryder said. “She’s got him going. Give her a chance.”

  Jed didn’t see that he had any choice.

  ZOË HAD HADLEY RICHARDS’S full attention now.

  And any minute, the bullet would come. She was certain of that. It gave her the courage to be reckless. “I have copies of my original reports, including the one on Manning Imports, and the ones on Lucifer that you doctored and forged my name to.”

  “You stupid bitch.”

  When the volume of his voice had a couple of heads turning, Hadley spoke more quietly. “It would be my word against yo
urs. Do you think anyone would believe you? They’ll just think you’re a woman scorned who’s trying to get revenge.”

  “Yes, but I’m thinking that you don’t want the scandal. And just in case Digs has an itchy trigger finger, I’ve given copies of the reports to my attorney, and he will send them to your director if anything happens to me.”

  Hadley grabbed her then and gave her a shake. “You bitch. You’re just like her. You women are all alike.”

  SHE’D PUSHED HIM TOO FAR. The certainty of that had fear sprinting through Jed as he urged the dog forward. Why hadn’t she stuck to the plan and pretended to be the gullible woman that Hadley had first used?

  As he moved slowly, too slowly, toward the bench, he heard the voices in his ear.

  “I’m back,” Bailey said.

  “Knew you would be,” Gage said. “I’m irresistible. What’s the plan?”

  “We’re going to get as close to Zoë as we can. I like her strategy, but if Hadley realizes that he’s going to lose everything…”

  “Got it,” Gage said.

  Jed got it, too. He’d realized the danger of her strategy from the moment she’d marched off toward the park bench. As soon as he had her safe, he was going to strangle her.

  He was going as quickly as he reasonably could. But the fear tearing through his gut told him that he wasn’t going to get there in time.

  “YOU WILL NOT RUIN ME,” Hadley said. “Do you understand that? I’ve worked too hard. I’ve come too far to allow that. Tell me what you want.”

  There was such hatred in his eyes that Zoë wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep on talking. Fear had become a live entity, filling her, possessing her. But she hadn’t gotten enough for Ryder’s tape yet. “I want five hundred thousand dollars,” she improvised, thinking now was not the time to bring up Jed Calhoun’s name as had been the original plan.

  Hadley shook her hard this time and something dark and ugly came into his eyes. “You’re all the same, aren’t you? Greedy, lying bitches. She wanted the money, too. In her first year as CEO, she made mistakes that cost the company millions.” He shook her again. “That’s why she made the deal with the Vidal organization. She thought she knew what she was doing. She always thinks she knows.”