by Lexi Blake
The better to seduce him with. She could toss these off in seconds and be ready for round number four.
Two the night before. He’d woken her up with sex this morning. Fourth time was the charm.
She had a week before the retreat, though she would have to work most of the time. Then she would be gone for a week, but she would likely have to return to Dallas for the debrief. She hadn’t used any vacation time. She might be able to talk her boss into giving her some. A holiday.
Just to see if what they’d found the night before was something they could build on.
And she would ask for his last name. They were definitely ready to move on to last names.
She should check her phone. She had a few hours, but it wouldn’t hurt to check in with the office. The meeting wasn’t until this afternoon when she would get to meet her partner for the next two weeks. David Malone. Apparently he was the father of one of the Dallas office’s agents. She’d never met Michael Malone, but she knew him by reputation.
It had sounded like such an easy assignment. Learn a bit about the petroleum business and the Malone family. Take the nice Texas oil man to a tropical paradise, pretend to be his new assistant, and catch whoever was selling out the company to foreign interests. Easy peasy, and she could work on her tan while she did it.
Now she wanted to stay here and see her cowboy. The question was could she do her job during the day and see him at night? She was supposed to immerse herself into learning the business and the Malones, but there should be some personal time, right?
She stopped. Was she doing it again? Was she letting herself get so wrapped up in a man that she gave up everything for him?
This was exactly what had happened before. With Roger.
JT wasn’t Roger. She couldn’t put that stamp on every man for the rest of her life. Nina took a deep breath as she walked into the room with the pool table. In the light of day, the suite was even more impressive than it had been the night before.
She was pretty sure her entire flat could fit into this one. Morning light filled the room and washed over the pool table where she’d been worshipped the night before.
JT was the best lover she’d ever had. Was she mistaking good sex for emotion?
Her clothes were strung over the sofa along with the ones he’d been wearing the night before. She picked them up, folding them all.
She took a deep breath and decided to stop panicking, stop overthinking. She would go with the flow. There was nothing wrong with enjoying the morning together, and then when she got back from the job, she would give him a call and maybe they could have another night together and go from there.
She stared out over the city, her mind on the man walking somewhere below. What was he thinking? He’d said he wanted to talk. Somehow she didn’t see JT wanting to talk about how the sex had been good, but they should go their separate ways. No. He was going to suggest they see each other again.
That was how she would play it. She would agree to date him when she had time off work, and they would take it from there. She wouldn’t throw herself wholly into a relationship. Cool. She would play it cool.
Her cell trilled and she turned away from the morning light with a sigh. Maybe having a week away from JT would give her some perspective. She could spend the week reminding herself that one night did not a relationship make. Sandra would be good at helping her through this. Sandra would be ridiculously over-the-top honest with her. If she called her friends back in London, they would look at the whole situation through a romantic lens. That was because all her friends back in London were happily married and cranking out babies like they were trying to populate the world.
Did JT want kids?
What was wrong with her? She growled as she picked up the phone. Yes, work would be good. Work would remind her that the world wasn’t some romance novel. Work would remind her that if she didn’t pay attention, she would get shot again, and she didn’t need any more scars. “Good morning, Sandra.”
“Oh, you did not take my advice.” She could practically see Sandra shaking her head. “You sound even more tense than you did before, and what I have to tell you isn’t going to help.”
“In fact, I did take your advice. I shagged the most delicious man I’ve ever seen in my life, and it was fabulous. So fabulous that if I were a schoolgirl, I would have spent the morning writing my married name in a notebook and planning our wedding. If I knew his last name.”
A chuckle came over the line. “Ah, so that’s what’s crawled up your backside this morning. See, that’s your problem. You went for a thoroughbred when you should have started with something a little less sleek. You gotta build up to really good sex when you’re young. I’ll pick your guy next time.”
She sank down to the sofa. “That’s the problem. I think I want to see him again. We’re supposed to talk when he gets back.”
“You’re still there? Damn, girl. You know you’re supposed to run as fast as possible. We’re going to have to work on your one-night-stand style.”
The last thing she wanted was a one-night-stand style. She needed to find a happy medium between plowing through dicks and getting far too attached to the first dick she saw.
It had been a really lovely dick.
“I promise it won’t make me late. I’m not due in the office until one. Big Tag thinks far too much of jet lag, but this time it works in my favor. I’ve got plenty of time to review the dossier on Mr. Malone. I’ve memorized the ones on our most likely suspects.”
They included two members of the senior leadership team and an admin attached to David Malone’s son. The admin was going in her boss’s place. Apparently Jackson Malone wasn’t big on retreats.
Jackson.
The name seemed very popular here in Texas.
“Well, our op took a left turn,” Sandra said. “David Malone had emergency surgery yesterday and he can’t travel for a few weeks.”
Fuck. “Is Tag scrubbing the op?”
It would be hard to explain her presence without David Malone. She could work it from a staff angle, the way Sandra was, but there was a reason they’d been trying to do both.
“Nope. You’re going to go in with David’s son. We’re bringing JT Malone in this afternoon so we can lay the groundwork for your new cover. He’s already got an admin. She’ll be going along, but we can’t tell her the truth because she’s under suspicion.”
She stood up at the sound of those initials coming from Sandra’s mouth. “Excuse me.”
Surely she’d heard wrong.
“She’s been his admin for a long time,” Sandra explained. “I don’t know JT the way I do his brother, Michael…”
“Did you say JT?” She paced the floor, the signs she should have seen the night before becoming plain now.
David Malone lived on the other side of Fort Worth on a ranch called the Circle M. Just far enough to make staying in Dallas necessary at times. Staying in a fabulous suite that was available to him and his son. He’d said something about engineering. She’d thought he did something mechanical, but he could be a petroleum engineer.
No.
No.
Fucking no.
This could not be happening to her. She did not sleep with the client.
She picked up her clothes because she might need some armor to deal with this situation.
“Yeah, that’s David’s son. JT Malone. He’s hot, too,” Sandra said. “I only know that because Mike is his twin. See, now there’s a thoroughbred. I know I joked about hooking up with him, but he’s probably a tidal wave of sex. You need the kiddie pool. JT’s not married either, so I’ll get a chastity belt for you. Maybe you should go in as a lesbian. We could do the couples thing. I’ve heard it used to work for Jake and Adam.”
JT had absolutely been a tidal wave, and she’d ridden him all night long.
A little panic threatened. She didn’t sleep with people she had to work with. Ever. Well, not since that first time when she’d been used to
feed an arm’s dealer Interpol intelligence.
She was going to get fired. Her job was all she had.
Unless JT met with an accident. She knew several assassins, and quite frankly a couple of them owed her favors. Tucker was a doctor. Maybe he still had some of that forget-everything medicine. She wasn’t sure if she would use it on JT or herself.
Fuck.
“Nina?” Sandra asked.
A chiming went through the suite, the doorbell.
JT was back and now they really needed to talk since she was going to have him murdered. She liked him and she would also probably lose her job if she killed the client. They had to make this work.
There wasn’t time to prep someone else. They would need a good cover. She could be his cousin or something. David Malone’s wife was English. That could work. Absolutely. She could handle this. JT would be reasonable because this was his business at stake.
“Sandra, I have to go.” She wouldn’t tell anyone. Not even Sandra. She and JT would make a pact to be utterly silent about the events of the previous evening.
About the sex. About the incredible sex that had felt like something more.
She took a deep breath and hung up the phone. She was panicking over absolutely nothing, and honestly, panic was beneath her.
Had she panicked when the red notice criminal she’d been arresting had tossed a bomb her way? No. She’d lobbed that bloody bomb right back at the bastard and saved her partner in the process. She could handle sleeping with the wrong man.
Except he’d been the right man, and her whole body had known it.
Still, there was nothing to do now except find a professional level with a man she knew could rock her whole world. She wouldn’t think about how his hands felt on her body or the fact that no one in the world had ever eaten her pussy quite as thoroughly as JT Malone. No. He was a client now and she would let him back in, explain the situation, and then go get dressed because she couldn’t be professional when she was wearing his T-shirt and luxuriating in his scent.
She opened the door. “JT, we need…”
Two men in business suits and a well-dressed woman stood in the doorway. The woman appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties, and her eyes narrowed as she took Nina in.
“What the hell are you doing…” She huffed, a long-suffering sound, and she brushed by Nina, handing her the shoe that had fallen off in the hall the night before. “Looks like you forgot something. Drunk much?” She turned back to the men she’d come with. “Come in. She’s some chick JT dragged out of a bar last night. JT!”
Maybe she would murder someone today. She knew exactly who that angry little woman was. Deanna Kilgore, assistant to the vice president in charge of pretty much everything. She’d studied the woman’s dossier but glanced over her boss since her boss was considered above reproach and therefore uninteresting to her.
If only she’d paid attention to Deanna’s boss, maybe she wouldn’t have slept with him.
Unfortunately, the other two intruders completed her list of horrors. Jordan “Jordy” Burton, board member and all-around adventurer, and Patrick Franks, who served as the VP of operations of Malone Oil. They were her entire list of suspects. She recognized every one of them, and now they would recognize her, too.
The whole operation was on the line. The reason they’d brought her in was the fact that no one from Malone Oil could possibly know who she was. The whole job would have to be scrubbed, and there was every likelihood JT’s company would suffer for it.
“He’s not here.” She said the words even as her mind raced, looking for a solution. She had to be at that retreat. If they missed this opportunity, the Agency would force Malone Oil to admit what was happening to the press and cause a major scandal that would hurt their bottom line for decades. It was precisely why most companies didn’t prosecute corporate spies. “He went out for coffee.”
She stayed at the door, hoping they would go back out the way they came.
“I’m not leaving until I talk to him,” Jordy insisted. He was a well-built man. The expensive suit he was wearing didn’t hide his muscles, though she knew he’d gotten them in a gym. He was a trust-fund baby, though apparently he’d blown through much of it. “That email yesterday was complete bullshit.”
Patrick was on his heels. He was ten years older than Jordy, and his background was far less privileged. It was his ties to Russian companies that made the Agency interested in him. “I agree. I’m a member of senior leadership. I expect more than David Malone will not be attending our retreat. I have every right to know what happened, Deanna. You said JT would be here. You didn’t tell me he was shacked up with a hooker.”
“I’m his girlfriend, and you might think twice about insulting me.” The words were out of her mouth before she could really consider the ramifications of them. Although since they’d caught her in his room wearing nothing but his shirt, she wasn’t sure they would buy the cousin angle she’d so recently come up with.
The retreat was open to families and loved ones. JT could bring his girlfriend.
Oh, he was going to be the one to murder her. She was going to have to explain to the poor man how his one-night stand had turned into a relationship.
“You are not his girlfriend,” the admin said, hands on her hips.
“Don’t be so coy, baby,” a masculine voice said. “Nina here is far more than my girlfriend. She’s my fiancée. I know we didn’t want to tell anyone until we could have a party, but after what happened with Dad last night, I don’t think we can wait.”
She turned and JT walked in like the fact that a good portion of his office was standing in his suite didn’t bother him at all.
What had he said? Fiancée? Oh, god, she’d just become a fake fiancée to a billionaire.
And now everyone would know. Including her boss.
The night before had been good sex, but this was what it meant to be truly fucked.
* * * *
JT figured out things had gone heinously wrong the minute he set foot off the elevator and turned down the hall that led to his half of the floor. The door was open and he could hear voices up ahead.
“I’m not leaving until I talk to him. That email yesterday was complete bullshit.”
JT winced. Jordy was here, and that likely meant Deanna had tracked him down. Jordy wouldn’t have been able to do it by himself. JT had ignored her texts the prior day. He’d been at the hospital and he hadn’t needed his overly ambitious admin’s bullshit. For the most part Deanna was perfect. She did everything he didn’t want to do and was an excellent gatekeeper. One day she would move into an executive position and she would be damn good at it.
But she had boundary issues. Like she didn’t think there should be boundaries closed to her when it came to him. He’d sent her a terse email telling her he had a family emergency and would call her last night.
Then he’d met Nina and he’d let everything go. Obviously that decision was going to come back to haunt him today.
“I agree.” Patrick’s cultured voice grated on JT’s nerves at times. “I’m a member of senior leadership. I expect more than David Malone will not be attending our retreat. I have every right to know what happened, Deanna. You said JT would be here. You didn’t tell me he was shacked up with a hooker.”
Oh, he was about to haul Patrick out and toss him to the street. How fucking dare he…
Nina was going to be upset, and she had every right to be. He hadn’t figured out how he was going to tell her they were working together. He meant to. He’d considered telling her about his meeting at McKay-Taggart and oops, what, she was going there, too?
He hadn’t meant for her to find out because his admin and a couple of members of his board showed up and started calling her a hooker.
And honestly, he didn’t like the term hooker. He’d worked in some crazy parts of the world, places where there were almost no women due to the nature of the work, and sex professionals made life way easier. They
were nice women who did a good job.
Yeah, he probably shouldn’t have that argument in front of Nina. She would already be angry. Was this going to screw up the job? He could hear his brother now. He was going to fuck up the op and his relationship with Nina.
“I’m his girlfriend and you might think twice about insulting me.”
He took a deep breath because that had been said with pure confidence.
“You are not his girlfriend.” Deanna had some confidence of her own, but he could work with this. He’d been out of the office for months, allowing her to deal with all the paperwork and inner-office stuff while he was going from rig to rig testing out the new equipment.
She had no idea what he’d been doing with his personal life. No one did.
Nina was smart. She’d played the only card she could since he knew damn well how important it was that the agent he went in with had a good cover. They might have been able to go with bodyguard.
But girlfriend worked fine for him. In fact, he could take it one step further since those assholes would likely treat her like crap if they thought he wasn’t serious about her. He rounded the corner and caught sight of her standing in the doorway, holding it open like she still might be able to force them to leave.
He knew better.
“Don’t be so coy, baby.” He strode in, coffee and breakfast in hand. He winked her way before turning to their unwanted guests. It didn’t escape his notice that she had her clothes from the night before over her arm when they’d agreed she would be naked and waiting for him this morning. “Nina here is far more than my girlfriend. She’s my fiancée. I know we didn’t want to tell anyone until we could have a party, but after what happened with Dad last night, I don’t think we can wait.”
“You’re not engaged.” Deanna had a shocked look on her face that told him she was genuinely emotional.
Damn. His mother had called that one. His mom had told him to watch Deanna because she was far too invested in their personal relationship. He’d assured her they didn’t have one, but it looked like his admin didn’t agree.
