Her Spy to Hold (Spy Games Book 2) (23 page)

She wished Kale were here.

“Dr. Glasov, wait up,” someone called.

She stopped and turned back to the doors leading to the stairwell. She couldn’t catch her breath. It was the man from the beach again.

Her thumb remained firmly in position on the send button of her phone. If all he wanted was to speak with her he could have done so at the pub. While there was a slight chance he’d only just recognized her, he had no reason to follow her up the stairs in such a furtive and frightening manner. The possibility that he’d happened to park in the same garage—and on the same floor—was even less likely. Neither did she recall giving him her name. She doubted very much if Kale would have done so.

And Kale hadn’t liked him. That was the biggest red flag. If he tried to come too close, or did anything she found threatening, she was pressing that button.

She again looked at her watch, masking nervousness with the impatience she reserved for competitors who thought to make names by discrediting her work. “I’m late for a meeting.”

He stopped two parking spaces from her. Irina could place a parked car between them if she had to. He put his hands in the air. “I have a message for you to pass on to your friend for me.” He remained pleasant enough, but there was an edginess to it that Irina found frightening. He took a step closer. “Tell him he might not be stupid easy to find, but his friends are.”

This wasn’t about her, then. It was about getting at Kale. Blind rage overcame any fear. He wanted to threaten a CSIS intelligence officer?

He could do it in person.

Irina’s thumb hit the send button. She held up her phone. A bored voice, loud in the empty, echoing parkade, crackled, “
911, where is your emergency?”

Angry red blotches mottled the man’s throat and cheeks. “What the hell are you doing?”

She gave the police dispatcher the parkade address. Then, before he could recover from his surprise, she snapped his picture.

“Crazy bitch.”

For a heart-pounding second she thought he might grab for her phone. She read the intent in his eyes.

Instead, he took off for the doors to the stairwell, not running, but walking very fast.

For her part Irina made a mad dash for her car, unmindful of her precarious heels, aching toes, and the undignified spectacle she undoubtedly made.

She locked herself inside the vehicle and waited for the police to arrive.

* * *

Kale couldn’t remember the last time he’d come this close to losing his shit. A man of his size, in his line of work, either learned self-control or faced unemployment.

Right now, despite Irina being safe and sound in her kitchen and standing in front of him, trying to keep all that anger in check left his brain on the verge of implosion. As near as he could ascertain the investment banker had spotted her at Durty Nelly’s—of all places—and followed her to a parking garage to deliver a threat. Kale shook his head. People with that level of entitled arrogance were naïve and stupid. He was so sure his friends could protect him that he’d gotten overconfident. A little flattery from the right sources had convinced him he was invincible. He wasn’t. While he’d done nothing to Irina to get him arrested, it was coming—and thanks to his actions today there’d be no cutting deals for him when it did. His terrorist buddies would be the first ones to let him swing too.

But Irina was trying to pretend that what happened to her was nothing to be concerned about and that wasn’t OK. She wasn’t invincible either. While she’d had the presence of mind to call 911, and Kale applauded her for it, taking the guy’s picture stepped over the line. Cold sweat chilled his skin and his soul. If it had been one of the banker’s friends following her instead and she’d pulled that stunt, the outcome of this afternoon might have been far, far different. They had zero fear of the law.

He pulled his shit together long enough to ask the question that bugged him the most. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“What good would that have done?”

She sounded so calm. So practical. And she was right. There wasn’t a thing he could have done to help and that scared him even more. He tracked down terrorists. An element of danger was inherent in his line of work. While he accepted that for himself, and truthfully, maybe enjoyed it a little more than he should, a threat to someone close to him was a nightmare come true.

She rinsed the potatoes she’d peeled, then carefully cut them in chunks before seasoning them and wrapping them in tinfoil. She set the tidy packets on a tray. “Would you start these on the barbecue for me? Steaks are up next.”

He didn’t pick up the tray. Now that his anger wasn’t affecting his reasoning, a few holes in her story jumped out at him. She should have been in her office all day. If he’d known she intended to go elsewhere he’d have insisted on driving. “Why were you in the city and not at work?”

She began shredding a head of lettuce for a salad, dropping leafy handfuls into a spinner sitting in the sink. “I told you. I was having lunch with Beverley.”

He didn’t buy her explanation. It was a break in routine and that was unlike her. “Why today, all of a sudden?”

“What makes you think it was all of a sudden?”

“Because it wasn’t in your day planner.” He confessed to snooping through her agenda without shame. His job was to gather information. What he did to obtain it was offset by its value. In this case it was priceless. Or should have been.

She tackled dicing the green peppers with unwarranted ferocity. A tendril of hair clung to the slender line of her throat, curling gently against a bare shoulder. “Neither was the appointment I had with HR. You can pass on to your boss that Christine is going to be fired tomorrow if you’d like.”

This day continued to dole out surprises. He’d known Irina would file the complaint because it was the right thing to do, but never dreamed she’d do it so soon or without more prodding from him. He would have preferred to finesse the script they’d agreed on. “How did it go?”

“As well as expected. Maybe a little less humiliating in that the director of HR is a woman.”

“Good for you, always looking for the silver lining,” he said.

Thinning lips and an expressive roll of those sea-green eyes indicated her lack of appreciation for his half-assed and ill-timed attempt at a joke. She wasn’t as unaffected by today’s events as she tried to pretend.

Neither was he. A hard fist of guilt pounded his chest. He’d brought this to her door. He wanted so badly to hold her. Instead he grabbed the tray and took it outside on the patio where the barbecue awaited.

Sultry heat from the late afternoon sun blanketed the tiny back yard. Crickets chirped in the dry grass along the edge of the ragged birch trees. He dragged in a lungful of air laden with the scent of vanilla from pyeweed bordering the fence and grabbed a few seconds to think it all through. Calling the police first was the right decision for her to make and in line with her way of thinking. But he hadn’t been her second call either, and it was hard to ignore the reason why not. He’d thought she might be falling for him, but mounting evidence suggested that even if she were she was far too smart to invest her heart in someone she couldn’t rely on.

He hadn’t been nearly as clever. His heart was invested in her all right. And right now it was twisted in tight, painful knots. The next three days were going to be hell, but the thought of heading to London before sorting out the personal problems between them didn’t sit well.

He opened the propane valve underneath the barbecue and pressed the ignite switch on the front, then arranged the packets of foil-wrapped potatoes on the lower grill. He’d move them to the top when it was time to cook the steak.

Inside the house, through the half-open sliding patio door that led to the kitchen, he could hear Irina moving between the fridge and the island. Today could have ended in disaster, but thankfully it hadn’t. Relief wound its way from his feet to his head, edging out the last bits of anger and fear, leaving him dizzy and counting his blessings. She’d remained her usual calm, controlled, rational self. The investment banker was probably already in the backseat of a police cruiser, demanding to speak to his lawyer. The admin assistant was about to be fired, which hopefully would make her online activities a lot easier to trace. Without her government clearances she’d have no high-security servers to hide behind. A thorough background check had confirmed money problems but no history of radicalism or violence. Interpol had nothing on her.

Well. They’d had nothing on her before. They did now.

Leaving Kale with three days to end things on a better note with Irina. She might not plan to pick up where they left off if they ever ended up in the same city again, but this was the present and they hadn’t left off anything yet.

He was selfish enough to want her to remember him, but for the right reasons and not this current parade of disasters.

Chapter Fourteen

They lingered over wine on the patio after dinner, with citronella candles burning in a circle around them to ward off the mosquitoes, because once the sun settled below the treetops, the bloodthirsty little beggars came out in full force.

Kale fiddled with his cell phone, pretending to check for messages while he struggled to find some neutral topic of conversation. His knees bumped the underside of the round teakwood bistro table. The matching teak deck chair, while sturdy, was a size too small for him and it creaked under his fidgeting weight.

He topped off their glasses from the half-empty wine bottle between them. Irina had been quiet all through their meal and he hated not knowing what was going on in her head. With any other woman he would have been out the door long before things grew this awkward. Instead the flight to London on Friday loomed over his head like a hurricane at sea.

Maybe it was time they discussed it. Then they could get back to making the best of the time they had left together.

“Could you give me a lift to the airport on Friday?” he asked.

“Friday?” Her self-possession slipped a fraction, a good indication that maybe he should have finessed his question a little better. A frown formed, accompanied by a flash of distress in her eyes. “Where are you going?” She held up her hand, palm out, then reached for her wine and took a long sip before returning the glass to the table. “Sorry, that’s CSIS business. Forget I asked.”

He didn’t care if she knew where he was. There was no need for her to worry. No one was going to torture the information out of her. “London. I don’t know how long I’ll be there.”

She’d be in Paris in a few weeks, he would have loved to add, and point out it was a short hop by plane. But let her come to that conclusion herself.

Night was settling around them, holding a faint trace of approaching fall on its edges. Her slight frown reappeared. “Does it ever bother you, not knowing where you’re going to be from one week to the next?”

She had to be kidding. His was the best job in the world. “Not a bit. Sitting in an office all day would make me want to hang myself.”

She rolled her eyes. “I picked up on that. The surfing and mountain longboarding tipped me off. But don’t you ever think about your future?”

“Rarely,” he admitted. “I’m happy with where I am right now.”

And yet that wasn’t one hundred percent true anymore. While he’d been happy with his life a month or so ago she’d thrown off his game, and now for her own personal reasons, she didn’t want to stay in contact with him. He wouldn’t push her on that decision. She had a right to lead her life the way she saw fit too. Give them a few weeks and they’d both be back right where they belonged.

Those thoughts didn’t give him the comfort they should. “What about you?” He turned his chair so that his legs were no longer under the table and rested one ankle on the opposite knee, getting more comfortable and prepared to lighten the mood. Riling Dr. Glasov never grew old. “We both know you’ve got your life mapped out until well into your nineties, Dr. Babe.”

Her lush lips puckered into a pixie pout. “I still hate you calling me that.” She stared into space. “And I don’t have my life completely mapped out. There are too many variables to consider. At some point I hope to work fulltime as an independent consultant. I’d like to teach too, and write a few more books.”

“But you’ll want a family someday.”

Envisioning cute little brown-haired pixie children with pale, pretty green eyes punched him straight in the feels. Picturing someone else as their father was a knee in the nuts. Of course she would want kids. She was a thirty-two year old woman with a biological clock. It stood to reason that she’d want something permanent from their father in terms of a relationship too.

He, on the other hand, wasn’t ready for white picket fences and a rocking chair on a porch with a view of the sunset. The prospect gave him heart palpitations. While he’d never say never he wasn’t handing out false hope.

But he’d enjoyed the past few weeks with Irina and the quiet moments like this. She was a port in a storm. A serene lagoon surrounded by a barrier reef keeping the wild ocean at bay. Except when it came to the bedroom…

He edged his bare foot forward so it touched the tip of her toe while his eyes dipped into the valley of her low-cut cropped top, enjoying the view of her breasts. She might well hang out with the world’s finest minds and be highly respected for hers, but she still had no idea how sexy she was or how much power it gave her over him. Heaven help him if she ever figured it out.