Chapter Two
Cash
“ALL RIGHT, DARLING, DO YOU have a visual of your honey trap?” Ivy’s British accent filled my ear. While she was the best handler in the agency, she was also the most aggravating.
I hated the term honey trap. I hated it even more when I had to use seduction and a romantic relationship to get the job done. “Don’t refer to her that way,” I seethed into the phone while covertly glancing at Sabrina Belle sitting at the gate across from where I’d stationed myself. It had been just over three years since I’d seen her in person. She was more beautiful now than when, for two perfect months, I’d experienced a lifetime with her.
“Don’t go getting soft on me. Remember, Sabrina Belle is just a chess piece on the board.”
She was more than that to me, but my personal feelings didn’t matter. They never did. I never should have allowed myself to develop feelings for her in the first place. I’d gotten careless three years ago. It was a mistake I couldn’t afford to make again. Lives were on the line.
“You don’t need to remind me,” I growled.
“Well, love, I am. The director was already wary about giving you this assignment because of her. Don’t disappoint him.”
Hugh Vaughn was my mentor and boss. He’d recruited me to Sector of Private Intelligence, a private spy agency, for lack of a better term, when I was just out of high school. He’d trained me to be not only an agent but a ruthless bastard. I excelled at both. “Have I ever disappointed him?” I threw back at Ivy. Not that I didn’t have my own reservations about taking this assignment, but once I found out that Sabrina was unsuspectingly in harm’s way, I demanded to be the primary agent on the case.
The case involved a large shipment of blood diamonds from C?te d’Ivoire that had gone missing. The intended recipient was initially a terrorist cell in South Asia, but the shipment had been intercepted. Now we feared our prime suspect, Izan Alfaro, who was now going by Soren Eriksen had sold some of the diamonds to an organized crime ring here in the States. We’d been trying to track Izan down for the past two years, to no avail, until a wedding announcement appeared in a small Tennessee newspaper. At first, we weren’t sure it was Izan. Although he’d appeared to have undergone plastic surgery to alter his appearance, we hadn’t expected him to be so careless. But the doctor-turned-diamond-smuggler apparently wasn’t as smart as we’d assumed. Or perhaps he was more dangerous than we gave him credit for. We knew him to be ruthless because he had abandoned his first wife and left her to die in C?te d’Ivoire when their scheme to smuggle the diamonds out of the country almost went awry. A band of mercenaries had tried to take the diamonds for themselves. The doctor had been able to thwart their attempt. But for all Izan’s trouble, he’d failed to remove one incriminating feature—a pear-shaped birthmark on his neck.
Unfortunately, his treacherous game continued, and now he was putting innocent lives at risk. If we didn’t recover the remaining diamonds and apprehend him, who knew what the outcome would be?
I had the assignment to ingratiate myself with the family so I could monitor the situation closely, discover where he’d hidden the diamonds, and determine his contact in the organized crime ring before authorities apprehended him and brought him to trial in an international court. Unfortunately, arresting him before we retrieved the diamonds could lead to them falling into worse hands, and we needed the diamonds as evidence to convict him. And arresting him now would give him no incentive to tell us where the diamonds were. Little did Sabrina know what awaited her and her family. With any luck, there would be no wedding—her younger sister, Lexi, had no idea the kind of man she’d agreed to marry.
“Well, there is a first time for everything,” Ivy happily goaded me.
“He won’t be disappointed,” I assured her.
“Very good, darling.” Ivy loved using her grating terms of endearment. “Just keep with your cover story for why you left her.”
“I still don’t think it’s going to fly.” No way in hell would she up and forgive me if I told her I’d disappeared because things were moving too fast between us and a work emergency came up. While technically all true, it wasn’t a good excuse for not saying goodbye and hurting her. And I knew I had hurt her. The agency had monitored her phone and other communications for a period after I left to ensure I hadn’t been compromised. Her frantic search for me and her tears, wondering not only what she had done, but more importantly if I’d been in a tragic accident, were proof of the pain I’d caused her. Admittedly, her concern touched me. No one had ever really cared about me. The agency could claim that their priority was to keep their agents safe, but if I died tomorrow, their only concern would be whether my mission had succeeded.
“Probably not. But I’m helping you out on this end. She just received an upgrade to first class, right next to you. I’ve also canceled her car rental in Nashville and made sure no other rentals are available,” Ivy informed me. The amount of power she wielded was often frightening.
I grimaced to myself, knowing how much Sabrina was going to hate all of it. But it had to be done. While it was important to the mission that I work my way back into her life, of more import to me was knowing she was safe until this assignment was over. Before I walked out of her life for good this time. I already hated myself for it, but I knew the price when I signed up for this life—no life at all.
“Thank you. Her cousin just got up to use the ladies’ room. I’m moving in.”
“Good luck. We should be able to communicate securely on the plane if you need anything.”
I hung up without saying another word and shoved my encrypted smartphone in my backpack, doing my best to appear as just another guy heading off on vacation. With Sabrina in my sights, I strode across the walkway, watching her work on a crossword puzzle. I smiled to myself, thinking of lazy days in the park, lying on a blanket and doing my best to distract her from finishing her daily crossword puzzle, as she called it. She would pretend to protest my advances, but it never took long before we were all tangled up and our lips found each other. Afterward, she would curl into me and fall asleep with her head on my chest. I would stroke her silky auburn hair and listen to her steady breaths while soaking in the sun—and every minute—with her, wishing I had chosen a different path in life—one where we could be together. But I’d made my bed, and I had to lie in it alone.
I approached her nonchalantly, not afraid of her reaction. She was too rational to make a scene. But I feared one look from her would have me blowing my cover and telling her the truth, begging her not to get on the flight and to stay here where it was safe. I braced myself and turned off my emotions. It was something I’d learned to do as a child in the foster care system. Hugh called this unnatural ability my greatest asset in the field. Reminding myself that Sabrina was just another assignment, I slid into the chair next to her, just recently vacated by her cousin. I felt like I knew Mia already, given how often Sabrina had spoken of her during our time together.
Sabrina was so focused on her crossword, she didn’t even realize it wasn’t Mia who had returned.
“Maybe I do want a smoothie before we board,” she turned toward me and dropped her pen and crossword puzzle book.
“Hello, Sabrina,” I said casually, as if I hadn’t memorized the intoxicating taste of her lips or the feel of her smooth skin under my caress. It took most of my willpower not to let my eyes linger on the bare shoulders, peeking out of her sweater, that I had so often kissed.
She blinked several times, incredulity swirling in her unusual light-green eyes that were an open window to her soul, the soul she had once been willing to share with me. With a deep cleansing breath, she steadied herself, just like I knew she would. It was one of the many things I appreciated about her. Her even temperament had offered me more refuge during our time together than she would ever know.
“Did you just wake up from a coma?” Sabrina asked unexpectedly.
My brows furrowed. “No.”
“Are you recovering from amnesia?”
“No,” I replied, wondering where this line of questioning would lead. I was sure it wasn’t a good place.
“Then we have nothing to say to each other.” She turned from me, her flawless skin splotching red on her face and neck while she picked up her crossword book and pen.
That went about as well as I expected.
Sabrina’s hands shook as she flipped through her book, trying to find her place.
A gentleman would have gotten up and moved away from her, but I was no gentleman. I had to do things almost every day I wasn’t proud of to get the job done, even if that meant eliminating people and making the beautiful woman next to me uncomfortable.
Mia soon returned. Unlike her cousin, Mia appeared to be less evenly keeled. She tapped her toes while her piercing glare bored right into me, just begging to unleash her wrath.
Sabrina shook her head, as if pleading with her to not make a scene.
Mia clenched her fists but kept herself in check. “You’re in my seat.”
“Pardon me.” I stood and moved to the vacant seat next to me, one of the few left at the gate.
Mia lowered herself into her chair and whispered in a deadly tone, “You need to leave.”
“That’s not possible, seeing as I’m on this flight.”
Sabrina whipped her head my way. “You can’t be.”
“Strange coincidence, huh?” I responded, knowing it was anything but.
Sabrina looked straight ahead in an almost-catatonic state. “This can’t be happening,” she repeated quietly to herself.
I knew to wait to tell her that not only was I on her flight, but I would be “vacationing” at her parents’ resort. And ... I would do my damnedest to make sure I saw us all safely there. Sabrina was in for a long day.