All or Nothing (5 page)

* * *

Conrad hauled Jayne into the private elevator and willed the doors to close faster. He may have hoped to clear the air of past issues during their drive before jumping right to sex, but now that Jayne had taken that decision out of his hands, he was all in.

He’d made record time driving back to the casino, determined to get to the penthouse before she changed her mind. God help him—both of them—if she backed out now. After tasting her again, touching her again, he was on fire from wanting to be with her. Wanting to bury himself heart deep inside her until they both forgot about everything but how damn good they were together.

Until in some way he made up for how deeply he’d let Jayne down.

He jammed his key card into the slot and the elevator doors slid closed. The mirrored walls reflected multiple images of his wife, tousled and so damn beautiful she took his breath away.

“Come here, now,” she demanded, taking control in that way that turned him inside out. She grabbed his jacket and tugged him to her. “You’ve been tormenting me all night with the way you look at me.”

He pressed her against the cool wall as the elevator lifted. “You’ve been tormenting me since the day I met you.”

“What are we going to do about that?” She arched against him, her hips a perfect fit against his.

“I suggest we keep right on doing this until we can figure out how we’re ever going to quit.” He angled his mouth over hers, teasing her with light brushes and gentle tugs on her bottom lip.

“That makes absolutely no sense,” she whispered between kisses.

Nothing about the way he felt for her made a damn bit of sense. But then he’d wanted her since the first time he saw her. That had never changed, never lightened up. He gathered her hair in his hand and—

“Conrad,” she gasped, “stop the elevator.”

“You want me to
stop?
” Denial spiked through him.

“No, I want you to stop the elevator—” she kissed him “—between floors—” stroked him “—so we don’t have to wait a second longer.”

He slapped the elevator button.

Jayne opened her arms, and he didn’t even have to think. He thrust his hands into her hair, the familiar glide of those silky strands against his skin as arousing as always. Images scrolled through his mind of her slithering the blond mass over his chest as she nibbled her way down, down, down farther still until her mouth closed around him... Desire pounded in his ears in time with the bass beat of the elevator music.

As if she heard his thoughts, understood his need to have her touch him again, her fingers grazed down the front of his pants, rubbing along the length of him until he thought he would come right then and there. He gripped her wrist and eased her hand away. Soon, he promised himself, soon they could have it all.

Her hips rocked against him, and he pressed his thigh between her legs, rewarded by her breathy moan of pleasure. The gauzy length of her gown offered little barrier between him and the hot core of her.

Memories of that night at
La Bohème
seared his brain and fueled his imagination. He bunched up her dress in his fist, easing the fabric up her creamy-white legs until he reached the top of her thighs. Only a thin scrap of satin stayed between him and his goal. Between him and her.

They were completely alone in the privacy of his domain. And even if someone dared step into his realm, he shielded her with his body. Never would he leave her vulnerable to anyone or anything. She was his to protect, to cherish.

To please.

He tucked a finger into the thin string along the side and twisted until...the fabric gave way. She purred into his mouth and angled toward his touch. He wadded the panties in his fist and stuffed the torn scrap into his pocket before returning to her.

Stroking from her knee to her thigh again, he nudged her dress up until his fingers found her sweet, moist cleft. He stroked along her lips, swollen with the passion he’d given her. Without rushing, he stroked and explored, giving her time to grow accustomed to his touch, to let her desire build while he kissed her, murmuring against her mouth how damn much she drove him crazy. His other hand cupped the perfect curve of her bottom and lifted her toward the glide of his caress.

Her gasps grew faster, heavier, the rise and fall of her breasts against his chest making him throb to be inside her. He slipped two fingers into the hot dampness of her, the velvety walls already pulsing around him with the first beginnings of her orgasm. He knew her body, every telltale sign. His fingers still buried deep within her, he pressed his palm against the tight nub of nerves and circled. She writhed against him in response, gasping for him not to stop, she was so close...

He burned to drop to his knees to finish her with his mouth, to fill his senses with the essence of her, but he didn’t dare risk leaving her that exposed unless they were behind locked doors. But soon, before the night was over he would make love to her with more than his hand. He would bring her to shattering completion again and again, watching the bliss play across her face.

Her head fell back against the glassed wall, her hands clamped to his shoulders, her nails digging deep. He grazed his mouth along the throbbing pulse in her neck just as she arched in his arms. Her cries of completion echoed in the confines of the elevator, blending with the music drifting from the speakers. And he watched—God, how he watched—every nuance on her beautiful face, her eyes closed, her mouth parted with panting gasps. The tip of her tongue peeked out to run along her top lip and he throbbed impossibly harder. For her. Always for her.

Her body began to slide as she relaxed in the aftermath, her arms slipping around his neck. He palmed her back, bringing her against him, although his feet weren’t as steady as he would like right now. The music grew louder, sweeping into a crescendo until...

An alarm pierced his ears, jolting through him. No wait, that was the floor lifting again, the elevator rising.

“Conrad?” Her eyes blinked open, passion-fogged.

He understood the feeling well.

His head fell to rest against the mirrored wall. “That’s the backup system in case the elevator breaks.”

“Oh...” She froze against him then wriggled, smoothing her gown back in place. “That would have been really embarrassing if we hadn’t noticed and the doors had just opened.”

“This is only a temporary delay.” He cupped her head and kissed her soundly before stepping into the penthouse.

She kicked her shoes off, her eyes still steamy blue, her pupils wide with desire. He flung her wrap over the wine rack and backed her down the hall. Except he didn’t intend to stop at the chair or in front of the fireplace. He wanted his wife in his bed again. Where they both belonged.

Later, he would figure out why the notion of one weekend suddenly didn’t seem like near enough time with her.

He reached for the light switch only to realize...

Crap. The chandelier was already glowing overhead and he always turned the lights off when he left. Cleaning staff never came at night.

How had he let his instincts become so dulled that he’d missed the warning signs?

Someone was in his penthouse, and he should have noticed right away. His lapse could put Jayne in danger, and all because he’d let himself get carried away making out with her in an elevator. His guilt fired so hot her panties damn near burned a hole in his pocket. He moved fast, tucking her behind him as he scoped the living area and found his intruder.

Wearing his signature gray suit and red tie, Colonel Salvatore lounged in a chair in front of the fireplace, a cell phone in hand.

Conrad’s old headmaster and current Interpol handler set aside his phone and stood, his scowl deeper than usual. “Conrad, we have a problem.”

Five

H
er head still fogged from her explosive reaction to Conrad in the elevator, Jayne stared in confusion at their unexpected guest sitting in the living room like family. She recognized Conrad’s old headmaster and knew they’d kept in touch over the years, but not to the extent that the man could just waltz into their home while they were out.

Conrad’s
home, she reminded herself. Not hers. Not anymore.

Had her almost-ex-husband grown closer to Colonel Salvatore over the past three years? So much time had passed, even though their attraction hadn’t changed one bit, it wasn’t surprising there might be things she didn’t know about his life anymore.

Although that wouldn’t stop her from asking.

Praying she didn’t look as mussed as she felt, she walked deeper into the living room, all too aware of her bare feet and hastily tossed aside heels. Not to mention the fact that she wasn’t wearing panties. “Colonel Salvatore? There’s something wrong?”

Conrad stepped between them, his broad back between her and their “guest.” He stuffed his hands into his tuxedo pockets only to pull them back out hastily. “Jayne, I’m sorry to leave, but Colonel Salvatore and I need to talk privately. Colonel? If you’ll join me downstairs in my office...”

Except Salvatore didn’t move toward the door. “This concerns your wife and her safety.”

Safety? Unease skittered up her spine, icing away the remnants of passion from the elevator. If this problem involved her, she wasn’t going anywhere. “Whoa, hold on. I am completely confused. What does your being here for some kind of problem have to do with me?”

The colonel looked at Conrad pointedly. “You need to tell her. Everything.”

Conrad’s shoulders braced. His jaw went hard with a familiar stubborn set. The tender lover of moments prior was nowhere to be seen now. “Sir, with all due respect, you and I should speak alone first.”

“I wouldn’t advise leaving her here by herself, even for us to talk.” Salvatore’s serious tone couldn’t be missed or ignored. “The time for discretion has passed. She needs to know. Now.”

Jayne looked from man to man like watching a tennis match. Something big was going on here, something she was fast beginning to realize would fundamentally change her life. The chill of apprehension spread as her legs folded. She didn’t know what scared her more—the fact that this man thought she was in serious danger, or that she could be on the verge of finally learning something significant about her ultrasecretive husband. She sat on the edge of Conrad’s massive leather chair, her bare toes curling into the Moroccan carpet.

Muscles twitching and flexing with restraint under his tux jacket, Conrad parked himself by the fireplace. He didn’t sit, but he didn’t protest or leave, either. Whatever John Salvatore wanted of Conrad, apparently he intended to follow through. The way the colonel issued orders spoke of something more official, almost like a boss and employee relationship, which made no sense at all.

“Jayne,” Conrad started, scratching along the same bristled jaw she’d stroked only minutes earlier, “my lifestyle with the casinos gives me accessibility to high-profile people. It provides me with the ability to travel around the world, without raising any questions. Sometimes, authorities use that ability to get information.”

“Accessibility to what? Which authorities? What kind of information?” Her mind swirled, trying to grasp where he was going with this and what it had to do with some kind of threat. “What are you talking about?”

Salvatore clasped his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels. “I work for Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France, recruiting and managing agents around the world.”

“You work for Interpol,” she said slowly, realization detonating inside her as she looked at her husband, all those unexplained absences making sense for the first time. “
You
work for Interpol.”

All those years, he hadn’t been cheating on her. And he hadn’t been following in his criminal father’s footsteps. But she didn’t feel relieved. Even now, he was ready to make love to her with such a huge secret between them.

Anger and betrayal scoured through her as she thought of all the times he’d looked her in the face while hiding such intense secrets. For that matter, he wouldn’t have confided in her even now if his boss hadn’t demanded it. She’d had a right to know at least something about a part of Conrad’s life that affected her profoundly. But he’d rather ditch their marriage than give her the least inkling about his secret agent double life.

To think, she’d been a kiss away from tearing her clothes the rest of the way off and jumping back in bed with him, even though he hadn’t changed one bit. Even now the moist pleasure lingered between her legs, reminding her of how easily she’d opened for him all over again. Part of her hoped he would deny what she’d said, come up with some very, very believable explanation.

Except, damn him, he simply nodded before he turned back to John Salvatore. “Colonel, can we get back to Jayne’s safety?”

“We have reason to believe the subject of your most recent investigation may have stumbled on your identity, perhaps through a mole in our organization. He’s angry, and he wants revenge.”

Salvatore’s veiled explanation floated around her brain as she tried to piece together everything and figure out what it had to do with her husband. “Who exactly is after Conrad?”

They exchanged glances and before they could toss out some “need to know” phrase, she pressed on. “If I’m uninformed that puts us both in more danger. How can I be careful if I don’t even know what to be careful about?”

Salvatore cleared his throat. “Have you heard of a man named Vladik Zhutov?”

Her heart stopped for three very stunned seconds. “Of course I’ve heard about him. He was all over the news. He’s responsible for a major counterfeiting ring. He single-handedly tried to manipulate some small country’s currency to affect the outcome of an election. But he’s in jail now. Isn’t he?”

The colonel dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief. “Even in prison, he has influence and connections, and we have reason to fear he might be trying to use those against Conrad.”

She flattened her hand to the nearest chair to keep her legs from giving way underneath her. Her husband had always been so intent on separating himself from anything to do with his father’s world. Even though his parents were both dead, Conrad wouldn’t even visit their graves.

Was he on a vendetta of his own? Had he placed his life at risk to see that through?

Anger at Conrad took a backseat to fear for his safety. Her stomach knotted in horror, terror and a total denial of the possibility of a world without Conrad’s indomitable presence. “Are you saying this individual has taken out some kind of hit on Conrad?”

She looked back and forth from the two men, both so stoic, giving away little in their stony expressions. How could someone stay this cool when her whole world was crumbling around her? Then she saw the pulse throbbing in Conrad’s temple, a flash of something in his eyes that looked remarkably like...raw rage.

Salvatore sat on the chair beside her, angling toward her in his first sign of any kind of human softening. “Mrs. Hughes—Jayne—I’m afraid it’s more complicated than that. Intelligence indicates Zhutov has been in contact with assassins, ones who are very good at what they do. They understand the best way to get revenge is to go after what means the most to that person. You, my dear, are Conrad’s Achilles’ heel.”

* * *

Conrad was certain his head would explode before the night was through. What more could life catapult at him in one weekend?

The thought that someone—
anyone
—would dare use Jayne to get back at him damn near sent him into a blind rage. Only the need to protect her kept him in check.

Later, he would deal with the inevitable fallout from Salvatore ignoring Conrad’s request to shield Jayne from the messiness of his Interpol work. He could think of a half-dozen different ways this could have been handled, all of which involved
not
telling Jayne secrets that could only put her in more danger.

Since Salvatore had dropped his “Achilles’ heel” bombshell, the colonel had taken charge as he did so well. He’d shown Jayne his Interpol identification and offered to fly her to headquarters in Lyon, France. He would do whatever she needed to feel reassured, but it needed to happen quickly for her personal protection.

One thing was clear. They had to leave Monte Carlo. Tonight.

Salvatore continued to explain to Jayne in even, reasonable tones designed to calm. “When you make arrangements for work and for your dog, you need to give a plausible story that also will lead Zhutov’s people in the wrong direction.”

She twitched, but kept an admirable cool given everything she’d been told. “My phone is tapped?”

“Probably not.” Salvatore shook his head. “And even if it is, the penthouse is equipped with devices that scramble your signal. However, that doesn’t stop listening devices on the other end. We can use that to our advantage, though, by scripting what you say.”

“This is insane.” She pressed a trembling hand to her forehead.

“I agree.” Salvatore played the conciliatory role well, one he sure as hell hadn’t shown a bunch of screwed-up teenagers seventeen years ago. “I sincerely hope we’re wrong and all of this will be resolved quickly. But we can’t afford to count on that. You need to tell them that you’re ironing out details of the divorce with Conrad and it’s taking longer than you expected.”

Nodding, she stood, hitching her evening bag over her shoulder. “I’ll step into the kitchen, if that’s not a problem.”

“Take your time, catch your breath, but keep in mind we need to leave by sunup.”

Jayne shot a quick glance at her husband, full of confusion, anger—betrayal—and then disappeared into the kitchen.

* * *

Conrad reined in his temper, lining up his thoughts and plans while his wife’s soft voice drifted out.

Salvatore cleared his throat. “Do you have something to say, Hughes?”

Oh, he had plenty to say, but he needed to narrow his attention to the task at hand. “With all due respect, Colonel, it’s best that I keep my opinions to myself and focus on how the hell we’re going to keep Jayne off of that megalomaniac’s radar.”

“I have faith you’ll handle that just fine.”

The colonel’s blasé answer lit the fuse to Conrad’s anger. He closed the gap between them and hissed low between his teeth so Jayne wouldn’t overhear. “If you have such faith in me, why the big show in front of my wife?”

“Big show?” He lifted an eyebrow.

What the hell? Conrad was not sixteen and a high school screwup. This was not the time for games. “Scaring the hell out of her. Springing the whole Interpol connection on her.”

“I still can’t believe you never told her. I thought you were smarter than that, my boy.”

“It doesn’t matter what you think. That was my call to make. I told you when I married her I didn’t want her involved in that side of my life, for her own safety.”

“Seems to me you’ve put her in more danger by not clueing her in. Even she picked up on that.”

There was no way to know for sure now. But the possibility chapped at the worst time possible. “Thanks for the insights. Now, moving on to how we take care of Zhutov? If my cover’s been compromised...”

The ramifications of that rolled over him, the realization that even once he had Jayne tucked away safe, this line of work and the redemption it brought could be closed to him forever. Later, he would sift through that and the possibility that without Interpol in his life, he could have his wife back.

Right now, he could only concentrate on making sure nobody touched so much as one hair on her head.

* * *

Sagging back against the polished pewter countertop, Jayne hugged her cell phone to her chest. The lies she’d just told left a bad taste in her mouth. Not to mention the fact she’d just been put on an unpaid leave of absence from her job.

This was supposed to have been such a simple trip to tie up the loose ends in her marriage...

Hell. Who was she kidding? Nothing with Conrad had ever been simple.

As if conjured from her thoughts, he filled the archway leading into the kitchen. He’d ditched his tuxedo jacket and tie, the top button of his shirt open. A light scratch marked his neck and she realized she must have put it there sometime during their grope fest in the elevator, along with spiking his hair in her desperate hunger to touch him again. Thank God she hadn’t followed through. How much worse this moment would have been had that elevator stayed shut down and she’d made love with him standing up in that cubicle of mirrors.

She set her phone down. “Can I have my panties back?”

He quirked an arrogant eyebrow before dipping into his pocket and passing over the torn scrap of satin. It was ridiculous really, asking for the useless piece of underwear back, but it felt like a statement of independence to her, reclaiming ground and putting space between them.

She snatched the dangling white scrap from his hand. “Thank you.”

She jammed the underwear into the trash, a minor victory, before turning back to confront him. “You work for Interpol.”

Hands in his pockets, he lounged one shoulder against the door frame. “Apparently I do.”

Apparently?

His dodgy answer echoed too many in their past. The time he’d missed their first anniversary weekend retreat that they’d planned for weeks. Or when he’d bailed on going with her to her half brother’s incredibly awkward wedding. And no explanations. Ever.

She couldn’t keep quiet. Not now with her emotions still so raw from their explosive discussion in the car and their passionate encounter in the elevator. Even now, a need throbbed between her legs to finish what they’d started, to take him deeply inside her.

“You still won’t admit it? Even when your boss confirmed it to me? What kind of twisted bastard are you? Do you get some sick pleasure out of yanking me around this way?”

His eyebrows shot up. “I kept you in the dark for your protection.”

“I’m not buying it. I know you too well.” Anger, hurt—and yes, more than a little sexual frustration—seethed inside her. “You didn’t tell me because then you would have to commit, one hundred percent, to our marriage. You never wanted it to last, or you would have found a way to put my mind at ease all these years.”