A Brilliant Deception (28 page)

I
had the front desk send a quick, urgent message to Felix: “Meet me at the pool, in the southernmost cabana. Come alone.” I made my way to the rendezvous spot, an enormous square pool around which were arranged luxurious grass-roofed cabanas, each furnished with cushions and chaise lounges and surrounded by linen curtains shifting gently in the breeze. The far side of the pool was an infinity edge overlooking the Balinese jungle. Ceramic lanterns and three round firepits glowed against the night sky. The pool was closed for the night and the entire area was deserted.

Several minutes later Felix entered the cabana where I waited, looking cautious. “What’s going on, Cat?”

“I’ve got a problem.”

I shifted my glance around the pool area. Did Atworthy have some way of watching me, even now? His deception had been so complete anything seemed possible now.

It was a chance I would have to take. I described the situation to Felix, telling him everything that had just happened with Atworthy. When I finished, I took a deep breath and watched him carefully. “So? Can you stop them?”

Felix had been very quiet while I spoke, and he remained so for several moments. Finally he spoke. “Yes, we can stop them. If you give us all your evidence, right now. That flight ticket, your testimony, everything you can think of to nail Atworthy and Caliga. And when Atworthy gives you the details—all that, too. Then the League can take them down.”

I exhaled with relief. Then hesitated. “But can you save Templeton?”

“We . . . can try. But to be honest, I’m not one hundred percent sure. I can’t make any kind of guarantee.”

I frowned and gazed through the open walls of the cabana, across the smooth water of the pool. I swallowed and said, “That’s not good enough, Felix. I
have
to save Templeton.”

“I’m sorry, Cat. It’s the best I can do.”

I nodded. “I understand. But it means I’m going to have to hold off telling you everything. I can’t have the League getting involved with this and messing up my chance of rescuing Templeton. “

I would have to continue being a double agent. I would have to go along with Atworthy for a little while until I could figure another way out of this.

Felix shifted on his feet, looking even more uncomfortable. “I have to say, Cat, my supervisor isn’t sure he can trust you. If you’re seen to be working with Caliga, it’s going to be hard for me to convince them you’re on the right side. And . . . if it doesn’t work out, you will be a person of target for us.”

I nodded. “That’s a risk I’m going to have to take.”

Just like that, all my hopes—of changing my life, of working for the League, of finding a way out of my life of crime—simply dissolved into the salty Indonesian night air. A lump formed in my throat. I tried to swallow against it.

Felix looked at me with anguish in his eyes. “Listen, I’ll talk to my supervisor. I’ll see what I can do to convince him to save Templeton. But Templeton is not on our list of target recruits. I know my superiors won’t want to sacrifice any personnel for a rescue mission. But I’ll try . . .”

“Okay, the minute you find out, tell me,” I said. In the meantime, I knew I had no choice but to go along with Atworthy. I was going to join Caliga.

 

Felix left me standing beside the pool. I stared at the flickering light reflected on the water’s surface from the lanterns.

I could practically taste the irony. After all these years, the exact job that was supposed to bring me freedom had snared me like a bear trap. On the verge of finding a way to use my skills and live an honorable life at the same time—I had to throw it all away.

And Atworthy’s betrayal—my head was still spinning at the deception. Atworthy was the top man in Caliga. He’d made it sound like he’d been watching me all this time, grooming me, waiting for the perfect opportunity to bring me over to the dark side. It was almost impossible to believe.

Then I remembered Venice. He had helped us. He had
saved
me. Why had he done that?

I heard someone approach behind me. I swiveled and saw Jack walking up the steps to the cabana.

“Jack! There you are. Has anyone told you? Templeton—” I stopped then. What could I tell him? If I explained about Templeton’s imprisonment and Atworthy’s ultimatum . . . well, he might be in a position to help. Or, more likely, he would make things much, much worse, by interfering and ensuring Templeton’s death sentence.

“Cat, I need to talk to you,” Jack said. He was looking at me in a very strange way. I wasn’t even sure he’d heard what I said. “I mean, I know Templeton hasn’t turned up yet, and I’m sure you’re concerned . . . but I really need to get this out. It can’t wait any longer.”

Nerves twisted in the base of my stomach. I really did not need more bad news. “What’s wrong?”

He rubbed the back of his neck and hesitated, seemingly gathering his thoughts. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong. I am completely in love with you, Cat. I have been fighting it and resisting it—do you have any idea how
bad
you are for me? But I can’t fight it anymore. The truth is, I don’t want to be without you anymore.”

I opened my mouth to say something but no sound came out. It was the last thing I expected to hear right now.

Jack looked away and stared at the water’s edge. “Lord knows I have tried to live without you,” he continued. “But it cannot be done, Cat. I need you.”

This was not a conversation I could handle right now. “But—we’ve been through this before, Jack,” I said gently. “And every time we try . . . well, you know—we’re like sparks in a powder keg.”

“Yes, but I realized: all that’s changing. We’re not on opposite sides anymore. Everything that was black and white is in shades of gray now. And then there’s the future.”

This stopped me short. “What about the future?”

“You know, Cat,” he said in a low voice, looking at me deeply. “We’ve talked about it. You told me what changed for you, what you realized you wanted, after your mom was shot. And the fact is, I want all that, too. I’m ready to settle down. I want a family, Cat. And I want that with you.”

“You—what?”

He smiled. A warm, heart-melting expression that made my knees go weak. “You don’t plan on scaling buildings forever, do you? Why don’t we start that future sooner, rather than later? In fact, why don’t we start that future right now?”

I heard a sudden sound behind me—a faint scraping. A footstep? I turned and squinted into the darkness but there was nobody there. When I turned back to Jack, he was down on one knee. I froze as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box.

“I know the timing is insane, Cat, but I really need to ask you and I don’t want to wait any longer: will you marry me?”

I could not speak for several seconds. Jack opened the box to reveal a ring. A gorgeous gold ring with an enormous white diamond. A fairy-tale ring, a ring fit for a princess.

“Jack, I—I don’t know what to say. I’m completely shocked . . . I need some time . . .”

A brief flash of disappointment flickered across Jack’s features. My heart twisted painfully as he looked down at his hands. “I know, it was a crazy thing to ask,” he said. “I just thought—”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “I really can’t think about anything else right now, with Templeton missing and everything . . .”

“Okay,” he said, standing up. “I understand. Take—as much time as you need, all right?”

He still held the ring awkwardly. I felt breathless, but I had to fill the awful silence with something. “It—it’s a beautiful ring,” I said. “Really . . . um, beautiful.” In spite of my pathetic babblings, it was true. I wondered where he’d got it anyway. Then I remembered. He’d been in the village today.

His jaw flexed. “Why don’t you hold on to it, Cat? You can wear it on your other hand for now, while you’re thinking about it . . .”

I chewed my lip and considered. “Okay. I can do that.” I shrugged. “The hand of a jewel thief is probably the safest place for a diamond to be, anyway . . .”

He tried for a smile and failed. I took the ring and slid it onto my right hand. With no other words, I walked out of the cabana, back toward my room. My head was spinning with conflicting emotions and I hated thinking of him standing there, alone, in the darkness. But I had to get away.

 

J
ack stood alone by the pool. He stared at the shimmering surface of the water, not sure what to think. Cat’s response had been . . . confusing. She had been caught by surprise, of course. But there was something else.

Maybe she was distracted. He’d chosen a bad moment.
Stupid move, Barlow
. There was too much going on, with Templeton possibly missing.

But even still, he had expected a different response. Had he completely misread her on the terrace in Singapore? Jack cracked his knuckles, hesitating by the water’s edge. It had been a mistake to propose. What the hell had he been thinking? He’d let Brooke, of all people, actually plant this toxic seed in his brain. It served him right for listening to her.

He’d go find Cat right now, tell her he’d been too hasty . . .

His phone rang.

“Jack, I need you,” Wesley said through the line. “We found it. We know exactly where the Fabergé egg is. And this time it’s going to be out in the open, on public display.
We can get it this time, Jack
. Can you make it back to the States? Fast?”

Jack’s eyebrows raised. The States? On public display? He hadn’t heard Wesley sound this excited, this certain about the whereabouts of the Fabergé since . . . well, since they’d started searching for it.

What had Evelyn, his housekeeper, said to him? What had Templeton said to him?
You need purpose.

Here it was. There was nothing for him here in Bali. He wasn’t worried about Templeton—there were plenty of people looking for him, and that man would surely land on his feet; he was like a cat. And Felix—he was safe now. Hadn’t that been Jack’s purpose in coming overseas in the first place? Well, mission accomplished.

Besides, the last thing he wanted to do was hang around here in this romantic resort after having proposed to Cat and receiving that lukewarm response. He’d buggered things up, but there was little he could do about it now. Making a clean exit would be much better.

“I can be in the air later tonight,” Jack said. “Do I get any more details?”

Jack’s private jet was still parked at the airport in Bali. He could pack a bag and make a quick exit. He wouldn’t have to talk to anyone; he could simply disappear into the night. That would be best for everyone. His conversation with Cat would have to wait a little longer.

“I’ll explain everything to you en route,” Wesley said. “It’s important that you get wheels up as soon as possible. Call me from the plane and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

“My pilot is going to need a destination, at least.”

“All right, tell him to fly to New York.”

I
t was just past midnight in Bali, and Ethan tossed and turned in his bed. After what he had witnessed by the pool earlier that evening—Jack on one knee, proposing to Cat—sleep had been impossible. He’d been staring at the clock restlessly for the past hour.

He’d felt like an asshole, stumbling across them like that. He hadn’t done it intentionally, hadn’t been stalking Cat or spying on Jack, but he hated that it had felt like that. As soon as he’d realized what he was witnessing, he’d instantly made himself scarce. He couldn’t be sure, but he didn’t think either of them had seen him. With a little luck neither of them would ever know.

But he knew.

His chest ached at the memory. The feeling was too close to the way he’d felt years ago when he’d discovered his ex-wife sleeping with his best friend. He wanted to scrub all those images from his brain. A reprise of that—the shocked expressions at being caught, the requests for forgiveness—was the last thing he wanted.

But another image flashed in Ethan’s mind: he and Cat on the beach, earlier that day. What about that? How could he possibly have interpreted that wrong? Unless . . . it had meant a whole lot more to him than it had to Cat.

There had to be a reason Jack proposed, Ethan thought bitterly. Guys didn’t propose unless they had a damn good inkling they weren’t going to get rejected. He must have received some kind of encouragement.

Ethan wanted to forget the whole mess. Turn his back on the lot of them, take some perverse satisfaction that he’d been right all along, and get the hell out of there first thing tomorrow.

But there was one thing he didn’t know and it was gnawing at his brain like a worm:
what had Cat’s answer to Jack’s proposal been?

After another hour of twisting in the bedsheets, he couldn’t stand it any longer. He threw on a pair of jeans and crept outside. He moved through the shadowy garden courtyard to Cat’s suite and raised his hand to knock on her door. Then it occurred to him, in a horrible rush of reality, that she and Jack were probably in there together.
Shit
. Why the hell hadn’t he considered that before? He abruptly backed away, but then noticed something.

Her door was ajar.

Alarm bells clanged in his ears. Was she okay? Had someone attacked her? Without thinking, Ethan burst into her room, heart pounding, ready to do whatever was required.

The suite was empty. Nothing was out of place. And Cat’s bed had not been slept in.

Oh.
Ethan felt a wave of nausea. Nobody was here, because they must have been together in Jack’s room, instead.

On his way back to his own suite, Ethan shoved his hands into his jean pockets. A piece of paper crinkled in there. He pulled it out, about to throw it in the trash, but then caught a glimpse of handwriting. He unfolded the paper; it was a note from Cat.

He frowned. Leave? He rubbed the back of his neck, totally unsure what to make of this. Instead of going to his room, he changed direction, heading for the bar he knew was still open at this time of night. It was time for a drink.

Under the grassy roof of the resort bar, he ordered a whiskey from the bartender. His mood lightened a notch as he thought things through. If Cat had gone off alone—called away on some kind of assignment—well, that had nothing to do with Jack, right? Perhaps there was still hope. Although, why the secrecy?

As the first sip of whiskey slid down Ethan’s throat—smooth, smoky burning—Felix walked up to the bar. “Hey, Ethan, do you have any idea where Jack went?” He hopped onto a bar stool beside Ethan. “I went to his room and it seems like he’s gone. Front desk says he checked out a couple of hours ago.”

Ethan’s hand froze. Jack had slipped out secretly, too? The burning mouthful of whiskey turned sour in his stomach.