CHAPTER EIGHT #2
“I’m not sure any painting in the Louvre would be considered undiscovered, but I’ve always thought hidden gems were more valuable. That’s the basis for our whole resort, the inspiration from Prohibition. It’s the places most people don’t notice that will deliver the gold.”
She beams, flinging her arm behind her. “Exactly. Like that girl back there. A voice rivaling Billie Eilish, and people are strolling past her because she’s sitting on a sidewalk.”
We plod ahead, and my guards trail us the entire way—some in step, some in vehicles. She seems to notice that the crowd parts for us, but she doesn’t comment on it.
The itch to reach for Zara is so palpable that it crawls over every inch of my flesh.
I try my damnedest to ignore the sultry bend from her waist, spilling into the flare of her hip; the cashmere dress hugging the mouthwatering curve of her ass with each plod of her poised gait; and the way her eyes light up when she soaks in the Creole architecture and exuberant spirit of the Big Easy.
Her cherry-scented perfume wafts over to me, drowning out both the sumptuous aroma of eateries and the city stench.
I can’t get lost in her. There is no other way.
As we near the Riverwalk, just past Jackson Square, where they load passengers for a steamboat excursion, she notes a barricade and a police car with flashing lights. “Maybe we aren’t supposed to go down this way.”
“It’s fine. There are people everywhere,” I assure her, losing my battle over the urge to touch her and sliding my hand across the small of her back.
Still, my fingers tingle with the impulse to grip her hip and drag her against me.
But I resist and guide us around the barrier to a railing overlooking the Mississippi River, doing what I have to do.
“This is your one and only opportunity for freedom.”
She laughs, an enrapturing feathery warble of mirth that denotes how in the dark she is, standing with me in this sun-soaked tourist area, the shimmer of the water sparkling in her eyes as she shades them with her hand. “I’m not sure I follow. Are you going to grant a wish or present a genie lamp?”
“I’m letting you go,” I say simply.
“Wow.” She blows out a dramatic breath. “That might be the fastest firing in employment history.”
“You aren’t fired,” I correct. “The job is yours. The suite is yours.”
Her gaze flicks to the steamboat and crowded ticket building and the people milling about beyond some shops not too far off before landing on me with her query. “The membership?”
“Pending.”
Her nose scrunches into the most adorable token of confusion, but her hackles are up, her chest heaving. “And how is that letting me go?”
“The same day you showed up at my resort, a hit was issued on me. There are other oddities with your arrival, but there’s no need to go any deeper than that.
” I drink her in, sick because I know she’s dissecting her surroundings to determine how much danger she’s in, and regardless of why she stormed into my life, I don’t find joy in that.
“I have an uncharacteristic soft spot for you, which I find hard to explain, but it has an expiration date. Today, you have choices. You can walk away, not look back, and move on with your life, leaving me, my family, and my resort alone. You can make a move, right here in the open, but it will come at a deadly cost.” Shoving my hands in my pockets to signal a lack of physical confrontation, I lose myself in her beauty for a beat and offer one more option.
“Or you can tell me you have no sinister agenda against me, that you truly need refuge from your well-meaning father, and look me in the eye with a vow that my family will not see your face in their nightmares.”
She ruminates on that, her attention snagging on a trio of senior-citizen musicians entertaining the line of people and passersby until she finds her words. “Whose face do they see now?”
More probing.
“Probably my father’s.”
She appears wounded by that, likely because of her own mother’s death, but then she lifts her chin with an expression I cannot pin down. “And is that who you see too?”
“No, Zara. I am the star of my own nightmares.” A shuddered exhale escapes me, but I don’t attempt to cover it. “Don’t become me.”
Boldness grows in her. “Just so you know, I could take ten men.”
I chuckle at her tenacity. “I have no doubt. But for your information, there are more than thirty.”
“Well done,” she commends with a healthy dose of snark.
“I don’t appreciate threats. And judgment based on my chosen career is hypocritical from the leader of the underworld.
Surely you know the difference. That is my job, but it’s not who I am.
I’m not a monster. I’m not a heroine either, but I live by a code.
I’ve worked for the CIA, and I’ve worked for those who outsmarted the CIA.
In a twisted way, I make the world a better place.
I have never acted rashly or out of anger, nor have I harmed anyone innocent, anyone I cared about, or anyone who was not the target or part of the target’s primary team. ”
She’s offended, which I didn’t anticipate, but it’s not enough.
“And yet you’re still wrestling with something.
” I search for some sign that she’ll concede to that assessment, but it never comes.
“It’s not judgment. I don’t think less or more of you based on your profession, but I cannot allow you to have a target on my premises, no matter who it is.
The penalty for violence is elimination. And I …”
Shock tinges her radiant face, her fingers splaying over her stomach. “You’re trying to spare me?”
I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. But the hope is that we both emerge unscathed.
Pulling one hand from my pocket, I slide it over my mouth. “There is no point in letting this get ugly.”
“You don’t even know me,” she mutters.
I already feel like you’re meant to be mine.
Where the hell did that thought come from? Nonsense.
A horn blares somewhere in the distance, pulling me from that unwelcome spiral and affording me a breath of composure. “I know enough to wish you well.”
She grips the railing at her back, those emeralds brimming with so many contradictory things that it’s a mystery which she’ll choose. “Do you know enough to … to wish for more than that?”
Sex and seduction are often weaponized for missions.
She’s likely determining if the heat between us is an angle that can keep her foot in the door.
If that’s not the case and that was a sincere consideration, then that’s a problem that is equally troublesome.
Her attraction to me was evident, but it sounds like she’s asking for something I can’t give.
“If that is a genuine proposition, it is your greatest reason to flee.” I step beside her, my hand inches from hers on the railing while I face the free-flowing river and she remains squared to the city. “I would douse that pretty flame inside you.”
“That’s … arrogant. Don’t go getting ahead of yourself,” she volleys as a flock of birds soars above us—a testament to the appeal of deliverance. “I never stay for more than a quick spark.”
Ignoring the misplaced, all-consuming rage that courses through my veins at the thought of Zara and a string of one-night stands, I push off the railing, so fucking frustrated. “I’m offering you the chance to walk away. No retribution. No report of your name.”
“Report of my name to whom?”
“It doesn’t matter. There are so many ways I could bury you, but I don’t have to.
Walk away, and it will be as though we never met.
Are you in danger if you don’t complete the job?
” I slice my arm through the air at the sight of her blank face.
“I have people who can erase you. Is that what you need?”
Her jaw sets with a declaration of her fight.
“You might have your guards, but we are one-on-one right now. There are people everywhere. You can’t shoot me here, any more than I could you.
And if you let me go, what’s stopping me from taking you out on your way back to the resort, when everyone thinks I’m long gone? ”
I whistle—sharp and loud—and the hordes of people littering the loading area, sidewalk, ticket line, and overlook freeze. Hands on their weapons.
Her mouth falls open, and the first glimpse of fear mars her features as she puts it all together.
Taking her straight from work so she couldn’t gather more than the few measly weapons she had on her.
Walking her through a city she didn’t know so she was too disoriented to devise an adequate escape plan.
The barricade and policemen we passed. The people tarrying without leaving.
She’s out of her depth.
“I don’t just own La Lune Noire, Zara. I own this city.
I could have you killed right here and simply go back to my day while someone else cleaned it up.
I also have resorts all over the world that afford me power that reaches farther than you can fathom.
I’m offering you a hell of a deal. You’d be wise to take it. ”
With that, I turn my back on her, my stomach in my throat as I stride toward my idling limo, my men enclosing me. The plain-clothes security guards are still not moving, so the smack of her heels on the concrete reaches me seconds before she scurries around my entourage.
“I’m not taking it,” she announces.
I’ve never simultaneously loathed and loved a single sentence more than that one.
I halt two feet from the open limo, grab her by the throat, and flatten her back against it. “If you choose to go against our rules, I will not intervene on your behalf after this.”
Her pulse batters beneath my fingertips, drumming her defiance. “I have never required your intervention before.” She gulps down a shaky breath. “I’d rather stay.”
“Why?” Unable to deny the glimmer of hope flickering inside me that she’s as undone by this connection as I am, no matter how inappropriate or cataclysmic it is, I slide my cheek against hers, my lips tickling the shell of her ear. “Are you simply a glutton for punishment, Miss West?”
She chortles, the levity cascading down my neck, igniting cravings I have no right to desire. She’ll be the death of me one way or another.
“Regardless of what else you’re facing, I am not the safe choice.” Everything pouring out of my mouth is a double entendre, even my bona fide warning. What the hell is wrong with me?
“Surely you know I’m not the kind of vanilla girl who gravitates toward safety—in men or otherwise. There’s something I want at La Lune Noire,” she admits, her wanton eyes locking on mine when I pull back. “And I won’t leave until I get it.”
Our hearts hammer in tandem. Our breaths mingle.
Our bodies press into one another with a dare and a united yearning to move.
We aren’t alone. We’re in the middle of the city, my security detail huddling around us, the plain-clothes guards and dirty cops still unflinching.
But it’s as if none of that exists. It all fades away to Zara and her demise. Or mine.
This wasn’t the plan. She’s so smart. I thought she’d take the deal. I don’t know how to be around her every day and resist this magnetic pull toward her, to care more about her past, age, and mission than about how she’d feel, writhing beneath me.
For more than a minute, we’re suspended in this gridlock of lust and longing until I finally find the strength to move us forward.
“If you return to La Lune Noire, you answer to me. Anything less will get you killed.”
She arches one bratty eyebrow until the sharpness of it kisses the delicate softness of mahogany wisps. “And you would do the honors yourself?”
“Yes,” I tell her honestly, despite how ugly that truth is.
A stark awareness that it would decimate me to fulfill that vow sears me, and yet I know she might force my hand—or my affiliation with KORT will.
Sweeping my thumb over her thrashing pulse point, I release her throat, step back, and nod my acquiescence.
“Whatever you came for, I hope it’s worth it. ”
Her eyes widen with the recognition of what she’s done. I take my seat in the limo, waiting to see if she’ll come to her senses and flee. I should slam the door and make the decision for her. It’s best for all of us. But I can’t. No fucking idea why.
This girl has me in some sort of chokehold.
As I stare out the front windshield, my lungs are empty, scorching with an unfamiliar ache of loneliness.
This whole encounter has an eerie resemblance to the day that shaped me most as a man.
No matter what route I take, there’s no winning.
Her absence and her presence will wreck me.
A minute later, she slides in beside me, her shoulders stiff and her hands clenched in her lap as she echoes my doubt, “I hope it’s worth it too.”