The slam of a door alerted all three of them. Dimitri, ears pricked and gun still pointed at Becca, nudged Sabrina. “Go check it out.”
As soon as Sabrina had left the room Becca risked it all.
Bending and lunging forward, she landed on the overstuffed red couch near where Dimitri stood, and clasped his legs. He toppled. She tumbled with him to the floor. A thick sheepskin throw that had been draped over the back of the couch flopped across her face.
Momentarily blinded, she took a punch to the gut that cut off her air. Bile eddied in her throat.
Feeling his arm hook about her neck, she knew the other hand still held a gun. Moving instinctively, she dodged a slap from the weapon and kicked out, hitting what felt like a knee with her spike heel.
Dimitri was large and definitely stronger than her. One bicep could crush her windpipe. The only way of winning this struggle would be to make like a snake and wiggle away, not give him anything to grasp on to.
The silk dress did make it difficult for him to keep a sure hold. Gripped from behind by the shoulder, Becca bent forward and swung her leg back. She hooked Dimitri near the hip with a heel. Kidney shot. He went down.
The gun clattered across the tile floor.
A shot sounded, muted by a silencer. Both she and Dimitri paused in their struggle.
“Break it up, blokes.”
Dane.
Tugging the sheepskin from her neck and pushing away from Dimitri, Becca scrambled across the floor to the easy chair.
Dane trained his gun on Dimitri, following the man as he rose and brushed fingers through his oily hair.
“Got everything under control, love?”
“Working on it,” Becca said as she stood.
“Sabrina’s taking a nap,” Dane mentioned with a wink.
A glance to Uther found him struggling against his wrist ties. Becca gave a thankful nod to Dane. “Good to see you.”
“You’ll be changing your mind, right…about…now.”
With that strange comment, Dane swung his gun toward Becca. The look in his aquamarines wasn’t even close to teasing or romantic.
“What the hell?”
“Sorry, love. I’ve my own objectives. We never did promise each other anything, right?”
I got your back. Bastard.
“Right. No promises.”
Hooking her hands at her hips, Becca looked from Dane’s serious face to Dimitri’s smug grin.
“You tricking him, too?” she asked, with a nod toward the Russian.
“Need to know, love.”
“Fuck that. Who the hell are you, Dane? Are you really with MI-6?”
“One year, two months and seven long days. But I’m not here for a chat. We’ve done that.”
A chill moved over Becca’s scalp. Had he been playing her all along?
“The diamond, if you please.” He held out a hand.
The fox fur shimmied under Becca’s reluctant touch. Alan was getting every word of this. So where was the cavalry?
Eyeing her objective, Becca nodded. She was here for one thing. As for the diamond, let the chips fall where they may. “Let Uther go, and you can have the rock.”
“You’ve got a gun pointing at you. I’m afraid you’re not calling the shots. Ho!” Dane swung his aim back toward Dimitri.
The Russian raised his hands in the air in compliance.
Dane redirected his aim to Becca. “I have to take a look at the diamond first, to verify you’ve not erased it.”
He was one step ahead of her.
“Fine.” She moved her hands along the fur.
“Slowly,” Dane directed.
“She could have a weapon,” Dimitri snapped.
“She’s clean. I frisked her earlier.”
When they were dancing. And for that one moment, against all better judgment, Becca had surrendered to the mood and had fallen for Aston Dane.
A sickening rise of bile pierced her throat. Don’t fraternize with foreign agents.
Sometimes she let her twisted fetish for the role get in the way. She felt such power when she was undercover.
Will you let it be your downfall?
No. She had an objective. The agent would fulfill it.
Yanking the diamond from its setting in the fur liner, Becca held it in front of her. Lamplight flashed in the facets of the heavy gem. Brilliant blocks of color danced across the shadowed walls. Flawless.
The complete opposite to her life.
Behind her Uther mumbled loudly, another recipient of lies—the heartbreaking, romantic, you’ve-been-had kind of lies that Becca could relate to in ways she knew painfully well.
A toss, and the diamond landed in Dane’s free hand. He held it up, his weapon temporarily directed toward the ceiling. “Brilliant.”
The secrets double….
Becca said, “You need an electron microscope—”
“Got one.” Dane pulled out a penlight—the one Becca had used in Paris. When had he nabbed that? He was so far ahead in this game.
“I will pay you for it,” Dimitri offered.
“Really?” After a quick inspection, Dane pocketed the rock. “How much?”
The Russian shrugged. “Half a million.”
“Sounds good, bloke. But first, some info.”
“Whatever you want. We will work together, yes?”
“Not so fast, Nazarova. Here’s the skinny. Last January two MI-5 agents were held by the SVR, tortured and murdered. You wouldn’t happen to know who was responsible?”
Dimitri grinned. “That’s not worth half a million.”
“You’re right. Two lives are worth a helluva lot more. Priceless, actually.”
“So, no deal?”
“You’ve got it.” Dane pulled the trigger.
Dimitri’s body took a bullet in the heart. Shoulders forced back at impact, his head snapping forward, he went down, landing at Becca’s feet.
Eating back the scream that felt heavy and solid on her tongue, Becca carefully spread her hands at her hips, trying to project compliance. And feeling utter shock. She flicked her gaze to Uther; she felt as panicked as he looked.
Everything had gone pear-shaped.
Dane’s tight jaw pulsed twice as he drew his focus up to Becca. “Claim your prize and leave, love.”
For a moment she stupidly stood there, defying the man with nothing more than a narrowed gaze and two fists. Facing down a gun and a twisted set of morals.
Had this cross-country goose chase been an elaborate ruse for revenge? Whose side was Dane on?
“I don’t know who you are,” she managed to say. “Why not have him arrested?”
“Nazarova was a dangerous, sick man. MI-5 wanted him dead on sight. He knew too much about the agency. I’m just doing my job.”
“But what about at verte?”
“Don’t think about it too much, New York. Just take this chance before I change my mind.”
“A chance? For what?”
Dane gestured to Uther with his gun.
There was still opportunity to save the innocents.
Crossing the room, Becca helped Uther to stand. A tug to the square knot at his ankle released the tie easily. She’d worry about his hands later. “Are you okay?” She pulled down his gag.
“Becca?” His voice warbled. “What are you doing here?”
“No time. He’s going to let us walk out of here. Are you strong enough?”
“Yes, I— Sabrina!”
“Let’s go. I’ll explain later.”
Dane’s weapon followed them as they crossed the room. The sensation of a gun targeting her made the hairs on her arms prickle.
“You won’t get far,” she said, hoping to appeal to any thread of morality Dane might possess. “There are agents combing the building.”
“I’m within my jurisdiction.”
And then she did look. Into Dane’s blue eyes, focused solely on her. Telling lies with a Cheshire cat smile. He’d duped her. And she had let it happen.
“Bye-bye, New York,” he muttered, and cocked the trigger.
Becca could take a hint; she shoved Uther toward the foyer. He let out a shriek when he saw Sabrina’s body lying facedown in the bathroom, and Becca told him, “She’s fine,” as she pushed him out the door.
Literally pulling him down the hallway, Becca caught the elevator still at their floor. As the doors closed behind them, she went immediately to work on the slippery white rope about Uther’s wrists.
“Alan, if you can hear me, I’m safe, and so is Uther. We’ll be in the lobby soon. Dane’s in an ambassador suite on the thirty-second floor. Dimitri is down and whoever the hell Sabrina Morgan is is down as well.”
“What about Sabrina?” Uther shrieked. “We can’t leave her behind.”
Becca bent to retrieve her purse. The gun was still inside. Her earrings were a total loss, crushed upon the carpeted floor. “She’s a spy, Uther.”
“A spy? Why are you— What is going on?”
She placed her hands on Uther’s shoulders and looked him over. Might have had a bloody nose, judging from the crusted red on his chin. He smelled salty and warm, like fear.
“We haven’t got time for a huge explanation. Think about it. How do you think Dimitri found you in Berlin?”
“I don’t know. I told you I thought the Russians were following me!”
“Sabrina told him.”
“No!”
“I’m sorry, Uther. I know you think you loved her.”
“I do love her, Becca. A spy? But— Are you sure? I can’t believe…” His lips curved in a smile, but the poor man couldn’t muster a laugh. “They’ve got the diamonds. The Russians!”
He lunged for the emergency glass beside the elevator keypad.
Becca stopped him with a kick to his reaching fingers. The rhinestones on her red silk shoes glinted. “You’re safe, Uther. Trust me.”
“I don’t trust anyone!” Gulping a huge breath, he demanded, “What will happen to Sabrina? Dimitri, he maybe forced her.”
“I can’t help her, Uther.”
A ting announced their arrival at the lobby. The elevator doors slid open.
A CIA agent dressed as a waiter stood right outside. Standing next to him, Sherri Grant nodded to Becca, then spoke into her headset. “I’ve got them, Alan. Becca is safe.”
The male agent slid a hand inside his white linen suit jacket, subtly revealing the gun strapped at his side. “I’ll take Mr. Magnusson in hand.”
“You’ll be safe,” Becca said as she escorted Uther from the elevator. Obviously in shock, the man nodded and allowed the agent to hook an arm in his.
Becca strode across the marble-floored lobby. She wouldn’t look back. The man was freaked as hell. His entire world had fallen out from beneath him.
But she’d had a job to do.
“Mission completed, Alan,” she said. “The target is ours. Alert the Governess her man is in hand. The mole is Sabrina Morgan.”
Lucy found Becca in the lobby ten minutes later and reminded her it was half an hour until the performance. Pleading a need for a few minutes of fresh air, Becca watched as Lucy skipped back to the gala.
The lobby was relatively quiet, save for a few lingering couples. And one set of late arrivals.
Alan crossed the lobby, with a handsome man in a white suit on his left arm. He bussed both of Becca’s cheeks and introduced her to Kyle, a sun-browned model for Versace who was in town for the weekend, then asked his date to get him a drink.
“I just talked to you,” Becca said, after Kyle had walked away. “I thought.”
“Zeek’s been monitoring you since communications were compromised and we figured out Sabrina was the mole. I couldn’t sit back without coming to make sure you were safe. The CIA has taken Dimitri and Louise in hand.”
“Louise?” Becca asked.
“Pink’s sister.”
“I guessed that.”
“We just made the connection when you got in the elevator.”
“I had my suspicions a little earlier. What about Dane? Any word from him?”
“He hasn’t reported to MI-6. He remains off the grid. But we’ve got Uther, so…”
So who cared about a rogue MI-6 agent, was the unspoken end to that sentence.
Still, Becca wasn’t satisfied.
“I can’t believe he would leave the country without reporting to MI-6, and ultimately, the CIA.”
Common sense said, Let it go. He hadn’t shown her his objective; she hadn’t shown him hers.
But intuition, and a spark of unavoidable curiosity, said, Don’t let it rest. You must have answers. You do need to know.
A double-crossing foreign agent would want to vacate the building immediately. Which should put him…
Becca spied the blond head ducking into a cab outside the Waldorf doors at the Park Avenue entrance. “I’ll be right back, Alan.”
She dashed outside into the bitter cold, loosening the buttons that attached the fur to the silk as she did so.
The door to the yellow cab closed. She reached the vehicle and beat her fists on the window. The door opened.
As the cab began to pull away, Becca flung her purse inside and managed to slide into the back seat. She wasn’t scared of him now that Uther was safe. “Headed to JFK?”
Dane turned on the seat and stretched an arm across the back. He didn’t wink at her.
“Talk to me, Dane.” Reaching behind her neck, she unclasped the fur collar. A toss delivered it outside, onto the slushy sidewalk. “I’m not wired. No one is listening.”
He huffed out a breath that misted in the chilly vehicle. No response.
Becca waited. It was up to him to offer the first excuse. And that was all he would offer, she guessed. An excuse.
“What do you want me to say? You once said it yourself—it’s called playing a countermelody. It’s the game we play, innit, love? Spies dancing about one another, engaging in delicate subterfuge. We do what we have to. We love who we must—”
“I never loved you, Dane.”
“Yeah?” He kept his eyes straight ahead; his sharp-jawed profile belonged in a Times Square sign advertising Burberry Brit cologne. The muscle in his jaw pulsed with tension. “S’all right. It didn’t have to be mutual.”
“Mutual? You’ve known me for what? Forty-eight hours?”
“About that. It already hurts.”
“Don’t bullshit me now. It’s over. You got what you wanted by using me to get to the source. You needed Dimitri dead, didn’t you?”
“MI-6 has been after Nazarova since the murders last year. That may have been reason for my seeking a transfer out of Scotland Yard.”
“He killed your father?”
“I’m not saying anything that can be used against me.”
Fair enough. She would never say she understood his rage. He had every right. And if a government agency wanted a man down, it could be done. No questions asked.
Dane reached into his suit pocket and drew out his passport. He pulled something from inside and handed it to her. “Here.”
Accepting the small photograph, Becca leaned toward the window. The streetlights shined across a black-and-white photo of a distinguished male face with a slightly crooked smile.
“My father,” Dane whispered.
Becca turned the photo over. On the reverse was another picture—of Dimitri Nazarova. She handed the photos back to Dane. There was nothing she could say.
He had gotten his revenge. But he didn’t seem happy.
“It’s too bad Sabrina Morgan was a plant,” he said softly. “Uther is a good man. He didn’t need that heartbreak.”
“What do you care?”
“Despite your scathing judgment, I am not heartless. I am a warm-blooded, feeling man, Becca. A man who does what he must to keep his head above it all.”
Becca turned to stare out the window. The glass was blurred with flashing red taillights and the glare of headlights from behind.
How did a woman say goodbye to a man who had used her? And yet why did she want to pull him close and hold him? Wrap him like a frayed blanket about her needy soul?
“Are you really with MI-6?”
“Love.” He turned to face her. The Cheshire cat had abandoned the cocky veneer for a softer expression. He stroked her cheek. “Your superiors have already checked me out, I’m sure.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“I am. Still am. Will be for however long I’m able. Which is a hell of a lot more truth than you ever gave to me.”
“I can’t—”
He pressed a finger to her lips. “I know. You ladies keep your cover. I don’t even want to understand.”
The vehicle stopped. The cabbie called back, “Traffic jam. Settle in, folks.”
They were not far from the Waldorf, a little over ten blocks. Dane still had a long ride to the airport. Yes, he didn’t belong here. New York was her turf.
“So that’s it.” She sighed. “Mission complete. All sides satisfied, I presume? Our guys got Uther, you got the diamond with the code?”
“I’m detecting a lack of satisfaction on your part, love.”
“I don’t require satisfaction. I just like to know I’m doing the job—”
“Perfectly?”
“I’m going to leave,” she said. “I…”
Words suddenly felt less than appropriate. And what more could she say, anyway?
Becca leaned over and kissed Dane. He was warm and open and pulled her to him. They both needed this closure. A touch, a taste, a bit of the other that would cling until a shower washed away all but the memory. She thought to straddle him, but resisted.
Don’t make it more difficult. Just take one little piece.
“I’m not going to forget this,” Dane murmured. The slide of his silver ring tickled her cheek. “The feel of your body, love. Or the taste of your kiss. You’re the best thing I got out of this bloody mission.”
“Don’t kid yourself, you got several million dollars’ worth of diamonds out of it.”
“Nice bit of dosh, innit? Not mine, though. It’ll all go to, well…”
“I know. Need to know.” Becca slid from his strong arms and grabbed the door handle.
Yes, she had to do this. Walk away.
“If I ever see you again, Dane, I’ll kick your arse.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
Turning to hide her smile, Becca held back a goodbye—too final—and stepped out onto the street. Cold slush seeped under the arch of her foot. It would be a long walk in heels to her apartment, but the Waldorf was still in sight…
Her purse dangled on the end of Dane’s finger. She snatched it. She’d flag down a cab, but she wasn’t about to until Dane’s cab was out of sight.
Fat, heavy flakes began to shake down from the sky. The night suddenly became a wonderland of reflected streetlights upon glittering new snow. Valentine’s Day. How ironic. Her heart felt as if it was breaking in half, and she hadn’t even been aware of sharing it.