WOULD-BE CHRISTMAS WEDDING Read online

  “Does that loner routine work well for you?”

  He spared her an annoyed look as he settled into a chair with his laptop. “Loner would imply that it does.”

  “I think you’re trying to convince yourself you like being alone,” she said, falling into the chair next to his. “But the solitude obviously scares you.”

  “Obviously? What is this, pop-psychology 101?”

  Inside, she cringed at the purposely hurtful remark. “Maybe. If you need to talk, I’ll listen.”

  “Talking isn’t my preferred form of therapy.”

  The blatant lust in those enigmatic eyes made her redefine the meaning of attraction. A smart woman would have the sense to run away. She just wanted to get closer. How those cool eyes of his could give off such intense heat was a mystery she wanted to solve. “That was crass.”

  “But honest.”

  He had her there. It might have been the most straightforward answer he’d offered. Except it was another answer designed to give him distance. She ought to just honor the signals and retreat, but something, some intangible factor, kept her butt in the chair.

  “Emmett—”

  He cut her off with a sharp glance. “Enough. I mean it, Cecelia.”

  She met his steely gaze with one of her own. “Those text messages you had me skim gave a certain impression.”

  “That we’re up against a serious enemy?”

  She nearly did a victory dance at the we he probably hadn’t meant to use.

  “That you’ve basically been a double agent for some time now.”

  “Which makes me as untrustworthy as your brother believes.”

  “Not exactly. I got the impression that you’re very good at your work.”

  He stared at her, but his eyes weren’t giving her any clues this time.

  “You’re good enough to make people believe whatever you want them to believe.”

  He didn’t reply.

  “What you need them to believe. You just ignore your own needs in the process.”

  “I still have some research to do.” He dropped his head back and spoke to the ceiling. “What will it take to get you to drop this?”

  “One answer. Do you really enjoy photography?”

  He rolled his head toward her, his lips parted on an unspoken oath and a “how is that relevant” look in his eyes.

  She arched an eyebrow, waiting.

  “Yes,” he replied quietly. “Now go on and get some rest. You’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

  She left him alone to do his research. After going through her nightly rituals, Cecelia slipped between the sheets of the big hotel bed and stared at the ceiling. Her racing thoughts kept circling back to one place: her brother and daughter might be right after all. If her shaking hands were any indication, she wasn’t cut out for ops.

  She laced her fingers and tried a slow, meditative breath. It didn’t help. She was too frustrated with the way she’d barely managed to carry on with a date and keep her senses about her. Granted, the date had been complicated by other issues, but so would her life be if—when—she made the career change.

  Logically, she knew training would prepare her, give her the tools to carry out fieldwork more effectively. Still, her hands rattled against the cool, smooth sheets.

  Her first date since losing her husband and she had nearly got the man killed in an alley brawl because she wouldn’t give up her purse. Thomas had been right to doubt her when she’d volunteered to be an asset. She’d only been fooling herself to believe she could do this.

  She closed her eyes and saw that broken bottle slice through the air toward Emmett. One false move and he would have been the one needing a paramedic.

  She was exaggerating. It was a lesson in perspective. The moment only looked worse to her because she’d been scared. But Emmett had held his own. More than that. He’d been so calm, so professional.

  Rolling to her side, she punched and fluffed the pillow. She’d had more training than the average woman, knew better than most people how to protect herself in a physical altercation. William had insisted on teaching her what he thought she needed to know in case she’d ever been targeted by his enemies.

  Yet, tonight, when it had mattered, she’d pulled out the Taser at the first opportunity. So much for her bold eagerness to jump into fieldwork.

  She closed her eyes and tried to see her husband’s face, tried to imagine what he would have said or done if he’d been in that alley with her. The image was more difficult to conjure than it should have been.

  Instead, Emmett dodging the broken bottle, landing uppercuts and that jaw-cracking hook, those were the images that filled her mind. The more she tried and failed, the worse she felt about the whole evening.

  What kind of loving wife gave a man two and a half decades, nursed him through a terminal illness and then blanked him from her mind when the first bit of eye candy showed an interest?

  A false interest, she added, factoring in the rest of the details.

  She told herself this exercise would be easier if she’d been at home. In the back of her bureau drawer, she kept one of William’s favorite T-shirts. All of his other clothes had been donated to charity, but that shirt was her last indulgence, a sachet of memories when she buried her nose deep in search of his scent.

  A scent that had faded months ago.

  Live your life.

  At the time, she’d smiled and promised to do just that, knowing he was already more than halfway gone. She’d been by his side through every terrible stage of his disease, but shutting down her emotions had been the only way to survive the agony of watching his body wage war against the unrelenting cancer.

  His doctors and nurses had told her to put him in hospice, but she couldn’t justify it. She’d been strong enough to care for him, and her employer had held her job while she’d done what needed to be done.

  Though he was too ill to know in his last weeks, she’d honored his last wish. He’d died peacefully in his own home, surrounded by the familiar things they’d collected in the process of building their life as husband and wife.

  By the time his body had surrendered, her relief was palpable. She barely had tears left to shed at the memorial as so much of her grieving had been done in those quiet, endless hours alone with him.

  Friends and family called her brave. She didn’t have the courage to correct them. Didn’t have the decency to admit she’d parked her heart back with that last good conversation and simply gone through the motions until his struggle had finally ended.

  Tonight had proved she hadn’t gained any courage in the year since. She’d let Emmett handle everything while she’d mostly cowered.

  William would agree with Casey and Thomas and tell her she had no business in ops. As much as she wanted to reinvent her life, herself, maybe she should stick with the more passive pursuits of charity fundraising and...needlepoint.

  She groaned into the pillow. She’d always hated needlepoint.

  “Cecelia?”

  He was silhouetted in the bedroom doorway, the light from the other room glowing behind him. “I’m fine,” she said in a rush. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

  She was half tempted to send her brother a text and let him know she’d basically wound up in protective custody after all. Of course, Thomas probably still considered Emmett the enemy.

  She couldn’t believe she was sharing a room with a man again. In the broadest sense of the word, anyway. Who knew a year could make so much difference? It had been even longer than that since she’d had a healthy partner to share any part of her life with, and she’d learned to rely on herself. The challenges had taught her she enjoyed quiet, setting her own schedule and having no one to answer to.

  But that left no one to answer her.

  The silho
uette shifted. “Need to talk about it?”

  “No, thank you,” she replied.

  “Now who’s ignoring their needs?”

  “I’m fine,” she said firmly.

  “You did well tonight.”

  She didn’t have a polite reply for that. It seemed rude to argue with the man who’d saved her from being kidnapped. Twice. The man who refused to leave her alone in the hotel suite she’d booked for the weekend just to simplify logistics for tomorrow’s event.

  Admin and logistics, those were her strengths, a little voice reminded her. Not ops.

  “Do I make you uncomfortable?”

  Yes! “No,” she said. Both answers were true, but she couldn’t possibly explain that to him. She rolled onto her back and sat up, uncaring if her hair was tousled. “Are you uncomfortable here with me?”

  There was a long pause before he said, “I’m worried about you.”

  He didn’t strike her as the worrying type. “Why?”

  “Anyone would be in shock after what we handled tonight.”

  “You can rest easy. I’m not in shock.”

  Racked with guilt about forgetting my husband so easily, yes. Shock, not so much. Between her family and her job—even as an admin for the CIA—she’d heard enough to know what had happened could have been much worse.

  The silhouette at the door moved again. Come closer, she pleaded silently. Touch me, talk to me. Help me forget what a horrible person I am. But using him that way would only compound her mistakes. As much as she wanted a repeat performance of that kiss on the dance floor, she’d had enough guilt for one day.

  She’d used those unending hours during the long, lonely months to think about what being a widow meant to her, what her life would look like without a husband to provide and care for. In her mind she’d seen herself growing stronger with her forced independence. Now she wondered what kind of fantasy she’d been spinning.

  “All right. I’m a light sleeper if you change your mind.”

  She was a light sleeper, too. First as a result of motherhood, and more recently from all those nights listening for her husband’s final breath. Emotions tangled inside her, threatened to burst from her. “Emmett, wait.”

  “Yes?”

  “Tomorrow.” She fisted her fingers in the sheet. “Will you please show me how you got the information off the phones?”

  “You want a technology lesson?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “Sure. Nothing I did tonight is a big secret.”

  “Can I help you research the Irina name?”

  “That’s what I’ve been doing. It’s a yacht registered in the Bahamas.”

  “Oh.”

  “The text could just as easily reference a new associate. We can dig deeper tomorrow.”

  She sensed he was holding something back. “Okay. When it’s time, will you really let me help?”

  “Time?”

  “When you’re ready to wrap this up, I mean.”

  “Are you asking to help me plan and execute the takedown?”

  She swallowed. “I’m already scheduled to be the bait, aren’t I?”

  He moved through the darkness of the room toward her. The dim light from the door backlit him, but she couldn’t see his face or his eyes. His scent filled her senses and she felt the mattress sag as he sat on the corner of the bed.

  “No matter what your brother said, I won’t let anyone hurt you. That was never the plan.”

  “I believe you.” She scooted closer to him, to his heat. Maybe she had lost her mind but she just couldn’t help herself. “Let me help you. At least show me how not to be a stumbling block and what you’re planning.”

  “You have the gala and your guests to think about.”

  “Gracious hostess is a role I’ve mastered. Could do it blindfolded. What you could teach me will help me when I move to ops.”

  “We don’t exactly do things according to CIA protocol, Cecelia.”

  She wanted to reach for the light so she could gauge his expression but knew it would blow the intimacy of the moment and snap the fragile thread of hope that he might agree. “It would still be an informative exercise.”

  He huffed a derisive breath. “Too informative is more like it. What I’ve been doing has been dark since I learned Isely was gunning for Thomas and everything he’s built at Mission Recovery.”

  “Teach me or I won’t go quietly when it’s time to take me to Isely.”

  “Blackmail doesn’t suit you.” The bed shifted as Emmett stood up. “You have no idea what you’re asking.” His silhouette filled the doorway again. “Get some sleep and we’ll discuss it in the morning.”

  It wasn’t the yes she’d hoped for, but it wasn’t an outright no. Cecelia pulled the covers close, a smile on her face as she settled her head on the pillow. After a moment, she realized her hands weren’t shaking anymore.

  Maybe there was hope for her, after all.

  Chapter Ten

  Plaza Hotel, Alexandria

  Friday, December 19, 8:05 a.m.

  Holt’s phone rang at five minutes past eight o’clock. Nice of the detective to give him time to settle at the desk job indicated by his profile at the online dating site. Why couldn’t she have just stuck with the protective custody idea? Her detective pal would have bought that line considering who her husband had been.

  The questions were easy enough that he might have handled them in his sleep, which was a good thing considering his mind was otherwise occupied with thoughts of the woman in the bedroom.

  She didn’t seem to have any idea at the wealth of talent lurking inside her. She’d played the detective brilliantly last night. If he hadn’t already known it from watching the interview, the tone of the detective’s questions today would have confirmed it.

  “I suggest you move on to the next woman on your list,” Detective Gadsden said.

  Holt was amused by the detective’s lack of subtlety. “Do you have a vested interest in Mrs. Manning?” He hoped not. He had enough—more than enough—adversaries to dodge on this op already.

  “I’ve known her a long time. She deserves better than a man who’d leave her stranded.”

  “Check your notes, detective. She ran out on me.” He disconnected the call and pushed the phone onto the clip on his hip.

  He returned to his computer and considered checking in with Nadine, or even the director, but changed his mind. Neither of them could tell him what he wanted to know: Why was Isely rushing the plan?

  He thought back to the intel on that flash drive. He’d precisely crafted the files he’d given to Isely, embellishing where necessary to blur the truth. It was his fault Isely knew about Cecelia, and whether the director ever believed him or not, he’d guarded her carefully since he’d been forced to reveal the connection.

  He’d assumed kidnapping Cecelia was simply one part of Isely’s plan for the director’s downfall. But the shift, the new desperation, didn’t fit and it brought up a host of potential disasters.

  There had only been two changes in Cecelia’s life since Isely proposed this kidnapping. Her online relationship and her internal career change within the CIA.

  Holt didn’t like the way it was adding up. According to her, she didn’t do anything all that interesting in her little corner of administration. He scrubbed at his face. As much as he dreaded it, he was going to have to interrogate Cecelia about her work.

  “Everything okay?” Cecelia asked from the doorway.

  “Fine. Just dealt with your detective.” He turned to face her and wished he hadn’t. She’d emerged from the bedroom with a well-rested glow. Bright green lace peeked out from the white of the fluffy hotel robe she wore. “Coffee’s ready.”

  “Thanks.” She crossed the room, wisely
giving him a wide berth, and poured herself a cup. “So what’s first?”

  “Breakfast.”

  By the time they’d pushed the room-service cart back into the hallway and she’d left to take a shower, the implied intimacy was getting under his skin.

  He hadn’t lived in such close proximity to a woman since the dorms in college. The scents and sounds and rituals had been intriguing, amusing and thoroughly educational on a less-than-academic level.

  After two failed attempts at real relationships, he had given up on the idea of a true and lasting one in favor of hot, brief affairs where both parties knew what they were getting into.

  You lied to me. Her words echoed in his mind this morning every time he looked at her. Lying was part of his life, and his secrets had been the breaking point of those early relationships. As a Specialist, the need for deception hadn’t changed. Not with this case, and not with her.

  He was more than a little surprised Director Casey hadn’t kicked down the door yet to protect both his sister and the team he was sure Holt was deceiving. By now the man had to know they were together. Or had been together. Well, not together-together, though that still held serious appeal.

  He pushed a hand through his hair and forced himself to stop overthinking the situation with Cecelia.

  She was a means to an end. He had measures in place so she’d never really be in jeopardy. Unfortunately, he couldn’t explain that to anyone yet. Not even her. Only sincere worry and a convincing effort by Thomas to rescue her would convince Isely of his loyalty.

  He heard the hair dryer start up and knew he only had a few minutes more to think up something else to teach her. She’d mastered the phone dumps over the scrambled eggs. He understood what she was really asking and he gave her points for turning what might have been an awkward situation to her favor.

  She’d warned him their day would be consistently interrupted with her friends calling and even coming and going from the suite. To prevent questions, they’d moved all of his belongings into the bedroom.

  If anyone caught them together before the gala, she promised to refer to him as her security detail. He figured it was too little too late, especially after that kiss on the dance floor last night. No doubt someone at the party had captured the moment with a camera or cell phone. He’d been more than a little surprised the detective hadn’t come across it yet.