by Dana Marton
“Daniela.” He sounded strained as if he was struggling to move some great weight. “Please leave my room.”
“I want us to be lovers.” She tried on the thought by saying the words.
“Christ. No.” He twisted away from her and nearly ran through the room, dragging on jeans under the towel, grabbing a T-shirt to take with him, dashing out the front door barefoot.
The door slammed shut behind him.
Daniela leaned against the doorframe of his bedroom and looked out into the empty living room.
That had not gone well.
She didn’t know what to do with Ian’s reaction any more than she knew what to do with her physical attraction to him. But now she at least understood why her attempts at dating had been a disaster. Of course, the boys at college had never been enough. Because all along, she’d been comparing them to Ian Slaney.
Subconsciously, Ian was her measure of a man.
She didn’t want anyone else.
He’d always supported her in everything, understood her. So why not in this?
For a moment, she was hurt. And then she was angry.
She grabbed her gym bag. She needed to work off some of her confusion and frustration. Capoeira would help.
Of course, even the sport was something Ian had given her—one of a million gifts.
When she’d moved to the US, at first she’d wanted to leave her past completely behind. She loved America; she just wanted to be an American. Ian had encouraged her to be proud of her rich heritage.
There’s not one thing wrong with you, or bad about you, he’d repeated to her daily when she’d felt like she was just a dumb, backward girl from a bamboo hut in the middle of nowhere.
He was the one who’d first encouraged her to keep cooking Brazilian dishes. And sometimes they spoke to each other in Portuguese. When Ian insisted that she take up some kind of self-defense training, she’d chosen Brazilian capoeira and had fallen in love with it.
Capoeira combined martial arts with dance, acrobatics, and music. She took to it like a monkey to climbing. She’d even placed in a competition. Ian had told her he was proud of her.
Ian who’d just run from the idea that she was a grown woman who wanted him.
And yet…
As she drummed down the stairs, a slow smile spread on her face, and she had to suck in her bottom lip and wrap her arms around her gym bag so she wouldn’t start laughing like a lunatic.
She had just seen Ian naked!
She texted Crystal to let her know that she got the job, and was going on assignment, so they wouldn’t be able to hang out for the next couple of weeks.
Crystal texted back her congratulations, and a promise to take her out to celebrate when she got back.
Daniela put her phone away as she reached her car. Before getting in, she glanced around to make sure nobody was watching, and she did a little dance.
She was going on a mission with Ian!
Chapter Ten
Ian
Ian said, “No, thank you,” to the flight attendant when she offered him a glass of Caipirinha, the national drink of Brazil, even if at the moment he was more tempted to go back to drinking than he’d been in the past four years.
Daniela slept next to him, her dark lashes fanning her cheeks, a picture of innocence. As if she would be no trouble at all. Sure.
God, he desperately wanted everything to go back to normal.
She wanted the job, and she wanted a relationship with him. He’d had a stern talk with her, but she’d refused to give up both. Technically, she’d refused to give up either. But, magnanimously, she’d given him time to think about the relationship.
She negotiated like a pro. She knew him too damn well, and that was the problem. She’d known his arguments before he’d made them.
Christ. A relationship. Between the two of them. In what universe would that ever be right?
Not that she wasn’t a beautiful woman. Men kept looking at her. When they did, Ian glared them down. Even so, some little fucker had managed to sidle up to her at the airport and buy her coffee.
Ian wanted her to have a boyfriend. He wanted her to have a normal life. Just not with that guy.
Truth was, she was stunning. She’d filled out, grown curves, kept her black hair long, and had a wild beauty, a certain Mother Earth kind of wholesome way about her. She was very clearly a grown woman. Some guy was going to be damned lucky to end up with her.
But she wasn’t for Ian.
Wanting her would be fricking damn wrong, and that was the end of it.
She was as bright as a torch in the night jungle. She was all youthful energy and beauty and innocence. And he was a worn-out, jaded soldier. He had no right to her. She’d already brought him more happiness these past four years than he deserved.
They were going to find the missing baby, while he kept Daniela safe, then they would go back home, and he’d get started on the task of finding her an appropriate boyfriend.
She needed someone. She’d had a few dates in college, but nothing serious, nothing steady.
And Ian needed to start seeing Nicole again.
Without his drunken binges, his one-night stands had disappeared long ago, and he wasn’t going back there. Nicole and he were on the same page, wanted the same thing. No feelings. No complications. He needed Nicole. Because if he didn’t have someone in his life, it’d be as if he was saving himself for Daniela, which would be just plain wrong.
Also—he grabbed on to his next thought with the desperation of a drowning man—if he found Daniela the right kind of boyfriend, then she’d have someone else to watch over her, and Ian could go back to the house in Santana and finally figure out what had happened to Finch.
Ian kept his thoughts firmly on that topic for the rest of the flight.
They got into Rio in the late afternoon, an hour past their scheduled arrival since the pilot had to fly around a major storm. At least they didn’t have to wait for luggage claim since they’d each brought a single backpack, which they’d taken as carry-ons. He didn’t know where they’d end up in the course of the investigation, and they couldn’t exactly be running around in the jungle with suitcases.
Once they passed through customs, they went straight to their hotel, some local chain, midpriced, a place that fit in the DOD’s budget.
He’d called the local investigator from the plane, and the guy called him back just as they were checking in at the front desk, so Ian walked away to take the call and left Daniela to handle check-in.
He was still on the phone when she headed for the elevators. He followed her, ending the call.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“We have an appointment first thing in the morning.”
They got off on the sixth floor—beige walls, green tile floor. He followed her to room 605.
As she opened the door, he held out his hand. “My key?”
“We’re sharing a room.” She sailed inside without looking at him.
He stood in the doorway and felt a headache coming on. “I reserved two adjoining rooms.”
She dropped her backpack on the king-size bed...the only bed. “The storms last night damaged the roof. They had to close off the whole top floor.”
He followed her into the room, but not without caution.
The lobby had been hopping. With unhappy guests? But still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was some scheme of hers in her sudden, unreasonable quest to change their relationship.
Then he heard distant clanging somewhere above them. The barely there whine of a drill. Right. Repairs. And he felt guilty for suspecting her of dishonesty. She wasn’t manipulative.
The room was medium size, just the bed, two nightstands, a dresser with TV, and a desk with a chair.
He dropped his backpack in the corner by the window, as close to the air conditioner as he could get. “I’ll take the floor.”
She smiled at him, her jungle-green eyes as innocent as a baby dolp
hin’s. “We’ll take turns.”
She might not have arranged for the shared room, but the turn of events didn’t make her unhappy.
She sat on the middle of the bed cross-legged and opened her laptop. “I’ll sign into the Wi-Fi and keep going with the online research.”
They’d spent the first half of the flight gathering information on the missing baby’s parents and on the organization that had brought them to Brazil. See-Love-Aid was a nonprofit that took regular people on international trips that were part vacation, part charity work. Lasting two weeks at the longest, the programs fit into most people’s vacation schedules. Micro Missions, their home page said.
Not the worst idea Ian had ever heard. See-Love-Aid might be on to something. From what he’d seen on their web site, they’d taken a quarter million people on helping-hand vacations last year alone, and their numbers were growing.
Daniela bent over the laptop in the middle of the bed, all beauty and grace, her long black hair loosened from its usual strict coil and falling over her shoulders to touch the beige coverlet.
Ian rubbed the back of his neck, some weird nervous energy buzzing through him. “I’ll go out and look around.”
Before she could respond, he was out the door, and, in another few minutes, out of the hotel.
And then he could finally draw a full breath.
God, the two of them spending the night in the same room was the worst idea ever. Hopefully, by tomorrow night, the hotel could give them an extra room.
He wiped his forehead. He felt as if he was swimming in heat and humidity instead of walking.
The city was loud and colorful and alive, more so than any other city in the world. Rio had an undefinable, mesmerizing quality. The streets pulsed with life. Even the air smelled different, lush and fruity, salty from the sea breezes.
Four years ago, he’d been here briefly, looking for Finch, then he’d found Finch’s trail and followed it north, to Santana.
Finch had come to Rio to work security for the headquarters of a sugarcane conglomerate, Lavras Sugar and Ethanol.
Ian hadn’t really looked into the business the last time he’d been here. He’d hurried off to catch up with Finch. Back then, he hadn’t known that by the time he’d catch up with Finch, Finch would be dead.
Finch had been killed in Santana in the house by the Rio Negro, but he’d been in Rio when he’d left that message for Ian about having to go on the run. So it stood to reason that Finch’s troubles had begun in Rio de Janeiro.
On impulse, Ian took a cab to the headquarters of Lavras Sugar. He’d spent an insane amount of time researching them on the Internet but hadn’t found anything in the news, in legal reports, or on the employees’ social media pages that could explain what had happened to Finch.
“How would I go about getting a job with security?” he asked the mustachioed guard at the gate.
He was shown to the HR department.
The woman behind the desk, still a beauty in her mid-fifties, smooth skin, deep brown eyes, long dark hair—handed him forms to fill out. After the question, How have you heard about our company? he put: Recommended by former Lavras employee, Ronald Finch.
He didn’t have time to go undercover here right now. The best he could do was throw bread on the water and see if he got a quick nibble.
For a phone number, he gave his cell. For an address, he gave the street and number of an apartment building he’d seen on the way over. Since Daniela was at the hotel, he didn’t want to lead anyone there.
If Finch had been running from somebody at Lavras, and the bad guys wanted to talk to Ian, they wouldn’t find him at the address he provided. They’d have to call him. They’d have to make an appointment, probably pretending a fake job interview. At least he’d know when he’d be meeting them and where, and he’d be prepared.
On the way out of the building, he pretended to get confused and got off on the wrong floor.
Offices, offices, and more offices, drab gray industrial carpet, neon lights, cubicles. Damned if he saw anything worth killing for, or even anything interesting. So he went back to the elevator, as someone who’d just gotten lost would, and left the building.
Sugar.
He wasn’t aware of any big conspiracies involving the sugar trade. Ethanol had more potential. Ethanol, or ethyl alcohol, was a drinking alcohol. However, it was also beginning to be used as alternative fuel. The fuel industry was cutthroat. That had possibilities.
Instead of taking a taxi, Ian decided to walk awhile, give himself time to think.
Did Finch get involved in something like industrial spying?
Finch had headed straight north from Rio. Probably trying to get out of the country but not daring to go to the airport for fear that whoever was after him would be watching for him there. That they had pursued him likely meant that he’d taken something, confirmed by his own words “sweet little package” in his phone message, and also by the fact that his house on the Rio Negro had been searched.
Ian turned those thoughts over and over in his head. He ended up walking longer than he’d intended, all the way back to the hotel. The room was dark, Daniela sleeping in bed. He breathed a sigh of relief.
He cleaned up in the bathroom, then went to lie down in front of the window where she’d made up a bed for him from the bedspread, a pillow, and a sheet.
The cover was plenty; he didn’t really need anything. Even with the air-conditioning, the room was warm. If he’d been alone, he would have slept naked. As it was, he kept on his boxers and pulled the sheet up to his waist.
He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.
She shifted on the bed.
“Linda was twenty-one when you married her,” she said.
Christ. His shower must have woken her. “We’re not talking about Linda.”
“There’s a lot we’re not doing,” she grumbled.
He closed his eyes. He was going to turn gray by the time this mission ended.
A romantic relationship between the two of them would be a mistake. He was determined to save her from that blunder.
When they’d first met, they both had been a mess, just in different ways. And he’d thought, what the hell, one of them should be put back together. He’d helped her fit into her new environment in DC, helped her lay down the foundations of a good, safe life, a life she would enjoy living, where she could reach her full potential.
And what a woman she was now. If he’d helped her, it’d been the best thing he’d done in his miserable life. But he wasn’t going to cling to her. She was the rocket, destined for the stars. He was the fuel tank on the rocket booster that propelled the rocket for a while, but then fell away, fell back to earth.
He willed himself to sleep, reaching up for a moment to rub the ache in his chest. Apparently, falling back to earth hurt.
* * *
Daniela
Daniela waited for Ian to give up on the hard floor and come to bed. She pulled the sheet to her chin. She was excited about this next step, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t nervous.
Sleeping in the same room with Ian somehow made even the air different, thinner, and full of tingly tension. Daniela lay on her side and watched his shadowy shape as he lay in front of the window with his back to her, his wide shoulder outlined by the barely there moonlight.
When she’d first met him, she’d been scared of him.
Then he’d become her safe place.
And now…
She felt different around him. Happy. Confused. She felt full of possibilities. Another door had opened. She wasn’t sure if she deserved another door—another new thing, another good thing.
In college, when she’d gone out with a guy and he touched her, she’d been an observer. She’d felt as if she was having an out-of-body experience. She’d been evaluating what it felt like—good or repulsive. She’d been trying to figure out if she could handle it. She’d been trying to tune out the emotions those touches brought back, so she didn�
�t run screaming and make everyone think she was a lunatic.
With Ian…
She wanted him to be next to her. Just feeling his skin against hers, having her head on his shoulder would have made her happy. She wanted to lay her palm over his ribs and fall asleep feeling his heartbeat.
Lately, the tension she felt inside her chest when they were around each other was nearly unbearable. She was aware of every move and sound he made. She wanted him to look at her, then when he looked at her, she didn’t know what to do with herself, what to do with her hands, what to say.
“Ian?” she whispered.
He didn’t stir.
She’d tried to talk him into getting off the floor. He wouldn’t. She’d tried to switch places with him, but he wouldn’t do that either. He was like a great boulder, unmovable.
Maybe she was crazy to try. Except a tiny spark deep inside her heart told her she wasn’t.
This trip was it. She’d graduated from college. She had a job. The same job as he had. They were partners. If he didn’t finally see them as equals, he never would.
So the next morning, as they sat in the office of the head of the human trafficking division at the Departamento de Polícia Federal, Daniela was determined to be extra professional and useful.
“The Heyerdahls arrived in the country on July second,” the federal commissioner, delegado, said from behind his metal desk, reading his notes.
He was an attractive man, swarthy good looks, close to forty, tall, well proportioned, well-spoken, with nearly accent-free English, someone who would come across well at press conferences.
“Carmen and Phil Heyerdahl,” the delegado went on, “along with baby Lila spent one day in Rio for their See-Love-Aid orientation, then they flew to Eduardo Gomes International Airport, in Manaus.”
All that checked off against Daniela’s notes.
“I understand they were with a group,” Ian said.
The delegado consulted his papers again. “Twenty-one people.”
“Is it common for volunteers to bring their children along? As young as six months?” Daniela asked.
