The Rome Affair

by Addison Fox

  I know you. Know your family. You can trust me.

  But the reference to her liaison with Jack last night was a different sort of maneuver. One that said you haven’t escaped my notice, nor will you.

  “We’re both highly capable of staking out your home and ensuring your safety.”

  “In my private office?”

  “That was ill advised, sir.” She made a show of staring down at her hands before looking back up at him. “You have my apologies.”

  “As I told Holden, a liaison or two is expected at a weekend house party. In fact, it would almost be an embarrassment to go an entire weekend without one.”

  “Sir. It’s not like that.”

  “Oh, no?”

  “No.” She stressed the word, even as she fought the urge to touch her nose to see if it was growing. And fought even harder the strangely seductive heat in her blood at the knowledge Jack was listening to every word.

  “What’s it like, then?”

  “Complicated.”

  Hubert picked up his dice and rolled for his turn. “The best things often are.”

  Chapter 12

  Complicated.

  The thought had kept Kensington company as the afternoon wore on. And although she knew she needed to focus on the task at hand—namely, just how clean or dirty was Ambassador Hubert Pryce?—all she could seem to wrap her mind around was Jack.

  As someone who’d always prided herself on having a poker face, it was a bit mortifying to realize Pryce had seen right through the facade when it came to the subject of Jack Andrews. A mortification only reinforced by the fact that she was so distracted she’d gotten no closer to figuring out what was in that drawer in Pryce’s study.

  The only bright spot in the day, strangely enough, had been the time spent with the ambassador. Although she never had an opportunity to get to the study, several rounds of backgammon had given her some things to think about.

  The man had access to the rarefied world of international relations. He also had a personal fortune worth well over two hundred and fifty million. Despite both ease of access and financial backing to run any scam he could imagine, something kept ringing false.

  Did they believe him guilty because he was handy?

  And if he wasn’t responsible, why did all the evidence gathered to date by Dante’s team indicate Castello di Carte at the center of what was going on?

  Hubert’s probing of her relationship with Jack had given her an opportunity to press him on his own past relationships, which was the line that still seemed worth tugging on.

  Hubert spoke of his late wife and his grown children but deftly avoided any comment on the purported mistresses. He also spoke of his purchase of the vineyard, and in his stories about making wine over the past several years she heard true joy and pleasure in his words.

  “He’s had the vineyard for about five years but the issues only kicked in within the past twelve months.”

  Jack’s intel had played in the back of her mind throughout the afternoon. Was there something significant about the gap between Pryce’s acquisition of the vineyard and the time the Italian government began to suspect a problem?

  Jack strode into the room. She turned from a small sideboard in the dining room, where trays of appetizers and crudités had been set up for the guests to take as they wanted. His hair showed the distinct signs of being run through repeatedly with his fingers and she couldn’t hold back the internal leap of feminine appreciation that tingled under her skin.

  “Let me guess. You got your clock cleaned.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Winners usually look a heck of a lot happier and—” she tapped her ear “—I heard it all.”

  A sly grin lit his face. “If I looked happier, wouldn’t that negate the benefits of having a poker face?”

  She added a bunch of grapes to her plate. “Not if the game’s over and the winnings are in your pocket.”

  “You’ve got me there. I started off strong but lost my mojo about halfway through the game as I kept keying into your conversation. By then it was too late to bow out gracefully.”

  “So you heard our backgammon match?”

  Jack had already begun to make himself a plate. “Heard it but couldn’t see it. How’d it go?”

  “Quite well. He was a perfect gentleman.”

  “I’d have excused myself from the poker game and ruined his afternoon if he weren’t.” The words were quiet but lethal and Kensington felt another trip wire go off under her skin that had nothing to do with arousal and everything to do with awareness.

  This was a man who played at the highest echelons of their business. He knew how to take care of himself and anyone who got in his way. Which forced her to wonder why she kept forgetting that simple fact.

  She fancied herself at the top of her game, too, but the increased time she’d spent over the past year and a half in the office had distanced her from the day to day. Her siblings had taken on their share of firefights and she’d stayed back to man the home fires.

  It didn’t seem fair. Certainly not to them, but she’d begun to wonder just how fair it was to herself. They’d built a successful business because they took risks, yet she’d taken very few of late.

  “You can quit envisioning taking a bite of his heart as your spoils. We actually spoke quite a bit about my family.”

  “Are you all right with it?”

  “I had no idea he knew my father back in the day.”

  Jack’s grip tightened on a small knife before he resettled it back on an oversize cheese platter. “Perhaps the ambassador knows more than we’ve given him credit for.”

  “My thought exactly.”

  The dining room was quiet so they took a seat and she filled him in quickly, highlighting her take on the conversation and promising to give the rest of the details later.

  Jack glanced around the room before he spoke. “You get back into the study?”

  “No, but we still have tomorrow.”

  “Things are wrapping up around noon, which means we don’t have much time.”

  “Then we’ll figure out how to get in before we leave.”

  “Since you’ve become such good friends with the ambassador, why don’t you keep him occupied and I’ll take the study?”

  She smiled and batted her eyelashes in an exaggerated motion. “Are you sure about that? If you leave me behind, who are you going to make out with if you get caught?”

  “I’m not going to get caught.”

  “You better not.”

  Although she’d intended to lighten the mood, the gravity of what he was doing left a surprising weight. Sort of like with her family. Jack took the risk and she stayed safe mingling with Pryce.

  “Why am I getting the sense you no longer like this idea?”

  “It’s not the study, per se.” She stopped, hesitated.

  “Well, what is it? This isn’t my first job and there will be enough confusion tomorrow to blend in. Worst-case scenario I say I saw someone enter a door down the hallway and wanted to investigate. It’ll be fine.” He set his fork down. “But what’s bothering you?”

  “It was the discussion about my family. Lately I’ve begun to question my role.”

  “You’re the glue that keeps House of Steele running.”

  She’d always thought that, but the events of the past few months had shaken her to the core. Her brother and sister had both faced down serious threats and, although she knew they’d come out the other side—knew worrying about them after the fact was pointless—it had shaken her.

  She exhaled the words on a heavy rush. “There’s no glue if my family’s gone.”

  * * *

  The light had vanished from her eyes and Jack knew he was treading on s
ensitive ground. He’d understood the loss of her parents drove her in a very real way, but he clearly hadn’t understood the connection between that loss and the next generation of her family.

  Her hand was ice-cold when he laid his on top and he quickly twined their fingers together. That lack of warmth and the bleak emptiness in her blue gaze suggested what a fool he’d been to think otherwise.

  “Talk to me about it.” She tried to pull her hand away but he held tight. “No way.”

  She stopped struggling but the bleak gaze persisted. “I’m sorry. We’re in the middle of a job and you don’t need my mental B.S.”

  “We’re partners on this job and there’s no one else I’d rather have my back. You’re smart and intuitive and you’re an incredibly solid partner.” He squeezed her fingers to make his point, then pressed on. “What does concern me is the lingering upset you have over your siblings.”

  “They could have died.”

  He didn’t have all the specifics, but Kensington had mentioned a few times her brother Campbell and her sister, Rowan, had both faced difficult jobs. Campbell’s while protecting his now-fiancée, Abby, and Rowan while investigating a tomb in Egypt with her fiancé, Finn.

  “But they didn’t. And from all you’ve said, they found the next phases of their lives, as well.”

  “But they could have. And I’d have been sitting home, getting the news through a phone call.”

  “Just like you heard about your parents.”

  She went still at his words. “This isn’t like my parents.”

  “No?”

  “They were in an accident. They didn’t choose that. But with what we do, Liam, Campbell, Ro and I, we’re making a choice.”

  “Seems to me you all do it willingly.”

  “I’d say so. I can’t speak for them, but I know I do.”

  “And you’re happy with your decision?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why do you assume they’re not happy with theirs?”

  “It’s different.”

  “We can’t live our lives in fear of what might happen. You and your siblings do good work. Important work. Work that changes lives. And obviously their lives have changed in the process for the better.”

  “And you? Is that why you do it? Why you take the risks?”

  The change in subject was so rapid and unexpected, he faltered. “I’m not... We’re not talking about me.”

  “But why do you take risks? What drives you? Your mother?” She stopped, her eyes narrowing. “Or maybe your father?”

  The memory of sitting with his sisters over soggy cereal slammed into him with the force of a hurricane making landfall. Their mother hadn’t even kissed them goodbye, just said she had to run to the store to pick something up before work.

  He and his sisters had taken her at her word.

  And that afternoon they came home to an empty house.

  To this day Kathy hated to walk into an empty house alone. Susan kissed her kids three times before she left to go anywhere. And him?

  He was the consummate professional, in and out of jobs, fixing problems and solving puzzles so others didn’t have to come home to an empty house. So others had the satisfaction of knowing the answers to their problems.

  Whatever Beatrice Andrews had imagined that day, he believed to the very depths of his soul she never understood what sort of adults she’d create by her leaving.

  She was just sick of her children. Sick of being a single mother. Sick of holding any responsibility for anyone besides herself.

  They’d paid for her sins.

  “I right wrongs. That’s what drives me.”

  * * *

  Holden bundled deeper in his cashmere coat and tried to ignore the rain that fell in cold sheets around him. The abandoned outbuilding had become a convenient meeting place, but with the number of people on the property he was still concerned with discovery.

  Best to keep it quick.

  His local contacts hadn’t done a great job of providing hired muscle and the thug standing hunched before him was a glowing example. The man’s distracted manner was more than evident by his infernal pacing and chain-smoking until he came to an abrupt halt for his payment.

  Holden handed over a stack of bills. The man’s thick fingers, scarred with working the vines, thumbed through the roll of euros.

  “You said two thousand.”

  “I said fifteen hundred, Nicky.”

  The guy dragged hard on his cigarette. “You said two if I fired off a shot last night like you asked. I fired off the shot, so I get my payment.”

  “You fired off a shot that went nowhere and only served to make everyone suspicious.” Suspicions he’d spent all day keeping away from his father’s attention. Not that anyone had any idea Pryce’s assistant was actually his son.

  “You wanted me to shoot him?”

  Holden fought the urge to shake his head and kept his responses short and simple. “Yes.”

  “I’m not killing anyone.”

  “My instructions were to incapacitate. Not kill.”

  “I’m not doing that, either.” The guy dragged hard once again. “The maids are talking about him. Several of the girls took a shine to his fancy American suit. They’ll notice if he goes missing.”

  The staff?

  The urge to ask who sprang to his lips but Holden held back. These people—these glorified farmers—knew each other. Grew up with each other. Despite loyalty to a quick score and an easy job or two, there was a strange sense of community among all of them.

  He’d wait and watch on his own. Just like always.

  “All I’m asking is that you put him in the hospital for a few days until we get the latest shipment moved out of here. I’ve got the cases prepped and my contact assured me my supply should be in by then.”

  The thug’s eyes lit up for the first time since they’d walked into the old outbuilding and Holden knew he’d touched on the man’s true interest. The interest that drove him before all others.

  Drugs.

  Let Nicky think that was what this was all about. Although the drugs were lucrative, they were simply the cream. What no one knew was the extra packets he added before the lid closed and the cases went out. Small packets of diamonds that bought any number of favors across the region.

  And his father knew none of it.

  Holden reluctantly handed over the additional five hundred before dangling his next carrot. “I can get you a little something extra out of the cut if you’ll make an attempt on Andrews again.”

  Nicky’s eyes shifted and Holden knew he had the fish on the line. “I told you I’m no killer.”

  “And I told you I don’t need him dead. I just need him out of the way. Come on. You can do that, can’t you?”

  Another drag on the cigarette, down to the filter. “What about the woman?”

  “I’ve got plans for her. You don’t need to touch her.”

  “And I have to do it here? The guy—the American—already saw me yesterday at the party and followed me out back.”

  “Followed?”

  Nicky’s movements stilled like nervous prey. “I shook him off. It was nothing and he didn’t see me last night. I know these vines.”

  “So you do. And no, I’d rather you didn’t do it here. Andrews and the woman are staying at Signora Barone’s B and B. Do it there.”

  “How much extra are you going to give me?”

  “A generous cut before it’s placed in the shipment.”

  “How much?”

  Holden did a quick calculation in his head before casually tossing out a number. “Twenty grams.”

  The widened eyes suggested the number was more than satisfactory. “Just take him down?”

  “Th
at’s all.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Holden bundled up and walked back out into the rain, satisfied he’d made a very sound investment.

  * * *

  Kensington reveled in the connection with Jack, their hands intertwined. “Do you ever get sick of righting the wrongs?”

  “I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I did.”

  “But in a bigger sense. Like why people screw up their lives so badly.” She exhaled on a heavy breath. God, her thoughts were all over the board. First her siblings. Then her work. And now some misguided urge to play policewoman to the world.

  Time to get it together, Steele.

  “I guess what I’m saying is that I’m fascinated by the choices people make. And because I do so much of our electronic forensics I’m constantly exposed to those choices. Bank accounts and bribes. Mistresses and mad spending sprees. Debts and dumb choices.”

  “Very little escapes your notice.”

  “No, not much does, but that’s especially true when I’m hunting for financial information.”

  “How can you do such specialized work and question your role at House of Steele?”

  The question was a fair one and as she considered it, Kensington had to admit the problem went deeper. “It’s not that I don’t value what I’m doing. It’s the bigger concern that I’ve been hiding behind the business instead of running it. I’ve sent my siblings out into danger and gotten too comfortable sitting behind a desk at home.”

  “So why was this job different? You didn’t have to take this. You could have given it to someone else. Heck, you could have told me to go screw myself and I’d have had to find another partner if I wanted one that badly. Yet you didn’t.”

  “I wanted the job.”

  “Anything else?”

  I wanted you.

  The small voice leaped up with its sly whisper and teased her. While her first instinct was to deny—even to herself—that she’d taken the job to be near him, she couldn’t.

  No matter how badly it grated on her, she was intrigued by Jack. Fascinated by him. And the opportunity to work with him and see him in action had been too good to pass up.