Honeymoon To Die For (5 page)

“I need someone who won’t raise any more concern than a file clerk. I’ll take
Special Agent
Brady with me,” Van Dyke said with finality as if this were his show.

Bianca held perfectly still to keep from influencing how Murdock wanted to deal with this crap, but containing her reaction was a challenge. Basic agency training and her own hours at the range didn’t make someone a field agent.

But I’m not a file clerk either, asshat.

Murdock shook his head. “No, she’s not qualified.”

That sounded as if she wasn’t even up to Van Dyke’s pitiful standards. She’d spent two years putting in constant overtime as she turned herself into the go-to agent for Murdock on terrorist attacks that involved weapons they believed were supplied by Van Dyke Enterprises. The position on his anti-terrorism team would give her clearance that was one step away from the highest.

She could make a real difference and find justice for Sara Lynn and all the others. Bianca had all of that in sight for the first time, maybe the only time.

Everyone had stopped talking.

Did this deal really hinge on her?

Mama warned you more than once to be careful what you ask for.

Murdock was not bending. “I’ll screen for an agent who can put on a convincing performance.”

How hard could it be to act convincingly? Bianca busted ass in the gym and proved she was more than competent on a firing range. That ability came from growing up shooting. She was no slouch. Weapons training and being in shape didn’t qualify her as an undercover operative, but she was
not
without skills.

Was she trying to talk herself into volunteering?

Van Dyke’s eyes zeroed in on her, but he addressed Murdock. “Thought Brady
was
an agent.”

“I am,” Bianca answered before Murdock could.

“Thought you knew everything about me and my family.”

“I do.”

“Are you any good with computers?”

“That’s a stupid question.”

He smiled. “Then who would be better at circumventing firewalls and layered security levels in the Van Dyke computer systems from the
inside
than you?”

“No one.”  She felt the shift inside her chest at that admission. Murdock needed someone with her skills inside Van Dyke operations to search for the information they needed. Was she really going to do this?

What would Sara Lynn do in her shoes?

Whatever it took.

For you, Sara Lynn.

Bianca lifted her gaze to Murdock, who was watching her intently.
Decision time
. “He has a point, Sir. I am the best suited and I do have training,” she added, glad when Murdock didn’t roll his eyes at that.

Murdock’s frustration balled up in his eyes. “This is not part of your job requirement, Brady.”

“I know, Sir. I’m volunteering.”  That sounded so much better in her head.

Murdock still wasn’t sold, but Van Dyke pushed him to the tipping point with, “It’s Brady or the deal’s off.”

She hated how he said her name. He made her sound like some robot he’d chosen off a shelf.

Tension thickened during a silent standoff until Murdock said, “You had better be able to do what you claim, Van Dyke.”  

Van Dyke came right back with, “I can if she can.”

Bianca gave Murdock a nod of confirmation and hoped she could carry her part.

“Done.”  Murdock’s gaze didn’t move from her for a stretched moment. He finally started putting files back in his briefcase, so Bianca stood and followed suit with her own files. Murdock told Sabrina Slye, “We’ll discuss strategy over the next couple of days, then—”

“One last thing,” Van Dyke said in Bianca’s direction.

Wasn’t the negotiation over? Bianca let Van Dyke know just how much he was testing her patience when she snapped, “
What?”

His eyebrows barely lifted, as if surprised to find the file clerk had claws. “The reason this requires a female agent who won’t draw their suspicion is because there’s only one way to get an unknown female inside the Van Dyke home and offices with me. We have to get married.”

“
What?
No!” Her jaw dropped, because he had to be joking.

Why wasn’t anyone laughing?

CHAPTER 4

The minister paused in his droning and asked the groom, “You have the ring?”

Bianca offered Van Dyke a stiff smile, and lifted her hand.
Not Van Dyke
. Ryder. Her new husband any minute now.

What had made her think she could do this?

Breathe
.

Murdock and the team were depending on her.

Bianca’s heart pounded loud in her ears.

Ryder grasped her fingers lightly with his much larger and warmer ones. She looked up to find a charming smile on his face. It was no more sincere than the one she’d been beaming this morning, but it was better than his restrained expression that hadn’t changed in the past two days of manic planning for this mission. Ryder no longer looked like the scraggly prisoner she’d met in orange prison garb.

Shave him, give his hair a roguish haircut, slap a suit on that body and
bam
. Instant hottie.

Now, instant husband.

Her partner for a week. She had no backup out here. Not since walking out of the hotel suite this morning where the entire team had been inside with them all night going through last minute preparations.

With his eyes on her, Ryder slid an egg-shaped diamond in an antique-looking setting onto her ring finger.

She gave it a closer look. Timeless, elegant and tasteful. Points to the team for coming up with something that certainly looked valuable.

He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze, drawing her attention back to his face. He had another smile in place, but it didn’t reach the gray eyes that seemed to hover in shadows.

The only time she’d noticed a different expression in those eyes had been when he’d seen her in a dress for the first time right before they left the hotel. The look he’d given her then had stirred with an awareness that had her practically tripping over her feet.

Until she’d realized that, hello, she was nothing special. Any man who’d been locked away in prison for five months would have looked at her like a dessert begging to be devoured.

Probably just one of the reasons doubt had set up camp in the minister’s gaze the minute he’d laid eyes on her. If this man of God was already finding her unworthy, just wait until Ryder’s family figured out that her blood ran Appalachian Mountain red instead of old-money blue, the way a wealthy wife’s should.

Bianca knew first hand how the old-money set worked. She’d been on the receiving end of judgmental snobbery and had the emotional scars to show for it. She slid the gold band into place on Ryder’s finger.

The minister said, “I now declare you husband and wife. You may
kiss
the bride.”

Bianca could swear that sounded like a dare.

Ryder lowered his head.

She could do this. She’d obsessed over this very moment for the entire two days they’d spent preparing. Two whole days to cram for the performance of her life—and prepare mentally to kiss the son of Hubrecht Van Dyke.

Bianca drew in a deep breath for courage and shouldn’t have. She inhaled a mixture of his natural scent and sultry cologne that should come with a warning that brain cells incinerated with one sniff.

She would
not
be the weak link in this operation. If Ryder could do this, so could she. Bianca lifted up to meet him halfway, her hands on his arms.

She’d expected to be ravaged by a man who’d just walked out of prison.

 But his lips moved softly on hers, so gentle it took her by surprise, and even if her mind knew he was a criminal, her body decided right there that it liked Ryder Van Dyke’s mouth, and
crud
, she hadn’t seen that one coming.     

Dropping her guard was a mistake, because Ryder apparently noticed the change.

He pulled her into his arms and proceeded to kiss the livin’ daylights out of her, as they said back home. His mouth molded to hers, the bold kiss of a raider claiming his conquest without remorse.

Sensations flooded her body and sent her pulse racing fast as a hound after a rabbit. She could feel the thump of his heart so he wasn’t entirely unaffected either. Ryder kept kissing her, driving the embrace to an intimate level Bianca had never experienced with ... any man. Period.

Not like she’d been given a wide variety of kissers to judge against. Only two. But this kiss took the blue ribbon. Her brain fought for oxygen, blaring a warning that she couldn’t hear.

Every fiber of her body tensed under an onslaught of excitement and emotions she had to get under control. Her nipples ached. She wanted to rub them against his chest.

  
Bianca gripped the lapels of Ryder’s suit to give him a nudge to stop, but to her discredit she held on for just a few more seconds.

Someone cleared his throat. The minister?

Ryder finally ended the kiss, but the pandemonium spinning low inside her was still picking up momentum.

Holy smokin’ chemistry!
She had to gain control here.  He was her prisoner, not her husband. Bianca used the hand she’d moved to his chest to give a discreet little push.

Ryder loosened the embrace.

But when he pulled back, his eyes burned with a feral hunger that quickly morphed into a smug arrogance. The fake besotted smile returned along with a glint of amusement in the silver-eyed devil.

She’d given an inch, unintentionally, but an inch all the same. To a man like Ryder, she might as well have handed over the code to her hormones.

That was not happening again.

~*~

What. The. Hell?

Ryder wanted to finish what he’d started with that kiss. Talk about stupid. He was
attracted
to the woman who led the charge to see him put away for life?

Not happening.

She referenced her team constantly, but
she’d
been the one to testify at his preliminary hearing. Convincingly.

Agent Brady had angel lips that were full and inviting, and a smoking pair of legs now that she’d traded her stiff suit for a dress. Ryder couldn’t decide whether it was pink or purple. But she was the wrong woman to get hot over.

Good luck explaining that to his sex-deprived body.

Those big hazel eyes and the innocent look that sometimes crossed that oval face had pushed their way into the few hours Ryder had slept hard enough to dream during the past two days of non-stop prep work.

It was during those unguarded times, when his subconscious was free to screw with him that Bianca Brady came to him as a woman. Not an FBI agent.

But reality was that she was here to play a role.

Just like the women he’d known in the past, Special Agent Brady’s only interest in him was as a means to an end.

That worked fine for him, because it would keep his body from convincing him to do something that would get his ass locked in the Hole for a year.

A warning flashed in his
bride’s
eyes.

There came Special Agent Brady.

Thankfully, Murdock had agreed to include Sabrina in the crash planning for this op because Ryder had been given zero time to reorient after walking through the front gate of the pen. Murdock thought he could rush this and make it work, but he was wrong and they’d just made their first misstep. There was no way they’d convinced the Van Dyke family minister that they were a real couple. If Bianca thought she could blow off what he’d said about the difficulty of earning Hubrecht’s trust, she’d screw this whole thing before it even got started.

Ryder took the wedding certificate from the minister, who would be on the phone to his father the minute Ryder left. With the legal documentation for this farce tucked inside his jacket pocket and his Oakley sunglasses in place, Ryder offered his arm to his new wife. “Ready, Bianca?”

She thanked the minister, then shoved her own sunglasses on and curled her fingers around his forearm, sparing Ryder an indulgent smile. “Absolutely, Darlin’.”  

He led them outside where the sun had almost clocked out for the day.
Never lose sight of the goal.
 

Hubrecht had drilled that into Ryder’s head over and over while he was growing up.

Now was the time to take that advice to heart—no matter who had given it—and use it to bring down the mighty Hubrecht Van Dyke himself,
if
he was behind the whole plan to screw Ryder.

And yet ...

Hubrecht had plenty of faults and had been hard on Ryder his whole life, but the Van Dyke patriarch was the most patriotic man Ryder had ever known.

Time would tell.

But Ryder had only a week.

With his eyes shielded, he gazed at the woman walking next to him with stiff steps.

She had to ease up. If his family didn’t accept her as his wife, this entire operation was doomed.

All the training in the world wouldn’t matter if she couldn’t hold herself together under pressure the first time on a real mission. Out here, she was a rookie.

No media appeared near the black limo waiting in the parking lot behind the church. One headache avoided.

Their strategic team had leaked to the media how Bianca had spearheaded the drive to prove Ryder’s innocence in J. K. Kearn’s killing after she’d uncovered conflicting evidence. How he’d fallen in love with the woman who had fought for him. The team had created “documented” visits to the prison she’d made over the past three months.

In the end, she’d succeeded in both freeing Ryder and becoming his fiancé along the way.

He’d fallen in love? What a joke. He
had
once told a teammate that when he found a woman who enjoyed the outdoors he wouldn’t let her get away.

That was BP. Before Prison.

All he wanted now was freedom and to be left alone.

The only reason the media was not here hounding him was because the strategic team had leaked Ryder’s wedding to the media ... but at a different location.

The driver stepped out from behind the wheel of the Van Dyke limo and hurried to open the rear door.