Love & Deception (Agents in Love - Book 1) (23 page)

“Got it.” Nick continued down the hallway to
her office and she went the opposite way to the dining room.

Mrs. Flair leaned against the cash register
counter, talking to an attractive man who looked to be about the
same age. The girls stood on the mini stage Nick built, starting up
a new song. A few other people sat in small groups, talking or
singing along with the music.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Flair. I hate to interrupt,
but...”

The woman turned, a happy smile on her face.
“I bet you’re wondering when we’ll leave.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to rush you, but
it’s getting late.”

“You saved the day for me, Carlie.” Mrs.
Flair looked much better than she had yesterday. It was amazing
what a little hope could do to change a person’s outlook. “Thank
you.”

“I’m just glad everything worked out,”
Carlie said. “Did Julie have a good birthday?”

“The best. I can’t thank you enough.” Mrs.
Flair smiled. “I’ll tell the girls to wrap things up, and we’ll be
out of here soon.”

“Thanks for understanding. I’m so happy
everything worked out.”

Carlie walked back to the hall, feeling a
sense of accomplishment. Not only did she save Julie’s party and
turned a good profit from it, the Flairs were sure to tell everyone
in town. That kind of publicity was good for the shop.

Everything else looked better too. Since
Nick and Shelley threatened Stephen earlier in the week, Carlie
hadn’t had the feeling of being watched like she normally did. She
didn’t want to jinx anything, but maybe the assassins would give
up. They had to be afraid of what Nick could do, and so far he
hadn’t left her side. If she had her way, he’d stay with her for a
very long time. If they could avoid any future misunderstandings,
that was.

Thinking of Nick, she realized he never came
out with the bank bag. Maybe he was having a hard time getting into
the safe. She walked down the hallway and pushed open the door to
her office. “Nick, do you need help?”

Nick’s head jerked up at her words. He sat
on the floor in front of the safe, its contents piled around
him.

“What are you doing?”

“Ummm... I’m looking for...for—”

She dropped down onto the floor beside him.
“Did you drop something?”

Nick nodded. “I think a paper slid back when
I grabbed the money. I didn’t want to lose something you
needed.”

“Hmmm.” She crawled toward the safe and
looked around, but nothing remained inside. “There’s nothing there.
I can’t think of anything important that could have fallen
anyway.”

He looked a bit disappointed or upset, which
confused Carlie, but he nodded. “You’re right. There’s nothing
here.”

***

Nick watched Carlie carefully, looking for
any sort of reaction. She seemed completely unconcerned about him
rummaging around the safe. Even if he hadn’t already decided it for
himself, her reaction confirmed it—there was nothing hidden there.
At least she didn’t seem to suspect him of purposefully searching
her belongings.

He helped her put everything away and she
locked the safe, handing him the bank bag and the key to the
deposit drop.

“Thanks again for doing this.” She leaned
into him and gave him a kiss, heating his blood when her tongue
traced across his lip. “Mrs. Flair is rounding people up, so when
you get back we can take the stage down.”

“You focus on cleaning. I’ll do the heavy
lifting.”

“Oh, you big, strong man, you.” Her tone was
sarcastic. “Don’t want the little woman to break a nail? I should
stick to cleaning, like a good girl?”

“Carlie!” he protested. “That’s not what I
meant.”

“Give me a kiss, and all is forgiven.” A
mischievous smile played across her lips, and he kissed her
lightly, not daring for more passion. He had to keep his mind on
business. She held him close and cuddled against his shoulder, her
breath tickling his neck. “You know, I’ve always had this fantasy
about work and a desktop and...well, we could, you know...act it
out.”

He wondered how much that cost her to say,
since Carlie wasn’t terribly forward about sex or what she wanted.
Nick looked down at her, and the blush spreading across her face
didn’t surprise him.

Stroking his hand down the length of her
back, he smiled when her breath quickened. It was difficult to
think about nothing except his job when she was so damn sexy. “Get
rid of your guests and Shelley, and maybe I can fulfill your
fantasy tonight.”

Carlie bit her lip, running her fingers
across his temple and through his hair. “You already do. All of
them.”

Nick sighed and stepped away. How much more
of this could he take? Caring about her but still investigating her
was difficult. At some point, something was going to break, and it
just might be his mind.

He held up the bank bag. “I better get this
over there.”

“Hurry back?”

“With the image you put in my mind?” He
looked at the desk and raised an eyebrow. “Would we just sweep
everything onto the floor in our mad desire for each other?”

“Sometimes it happens that way in my
fantasy,” she agreed. “Sometimes, you just set me on the edge and
have your way with me.”

Nick groaned as need for her flooded through
him. “Everyone better be gone before I get back.”

Her soft titter followed him from the room,
but he really did hope she managed to clear the place. After all,
he searched for the damn bracelet. It wasn’t in the safe. Now, they
both deserved a reward.

***

Carlie relaxed her legs, allowing them to
slip down Nick’s thighs and hang off the edge of the desk. Her
heart pounded and she struggled to slow her breathing. “That
was...wow!”

“As good as you dreamed?” A devilish grin
lit Nick’s face as he once again attacked her neck, nibbling
lightly, causing her to tremor with excitement.

“Better,” she assured him. “I’m glad
everyone left by the time you finished that stage. Watching you get
all hot and sweaty. Mmmmm mmmm. Sexy.”

He laughed. “I thought you had a problem
with me playing macho man.”

“Well, in theory it sounded bad.” She
shrugged and hopped off the edge of the desk, retrieving her shirt
from the floor and slipping it over her head. “In practice, it made
me think we should always stick to more traditional roles.”

Nick pulled on his pants and shook his head.
“I don’t know. You’d look pretty sexy with a tool belt on.” He
winked. “And nothing else.”

“Oh! I see someone has fantasies of his own.
We’ll have to explore that.”

Three high-pitched beeps sounded and Nick
pulled his phone from his pocket. He frowned after staring at the
screen for a few seconds. “Carlie, something’s come up. I have some
business to take care of tonight.”

“Why? Who was that?” She asked the questions
before even thinking. She wondered if Nick would take offense at
her curiosity. “You don’t have to tell me if it’s private.”

“Not at all. Just restaurant troubles,” he
said. “I have to take care of this tonight, though.”

It pleased her that he answered. “We can
just stop by there on our way home,” she said. “That’s no
problem.”

Nick shook his head. “This is going to take
a while. I’ll drive you home, check to make sure the house is safe,
and then go back out.”

“It’s not a big deal, Nick. I’ll wait
however long it takes you.”

“I said I don’t want you to wait.”

He sounded hostile and Carlie swallowed down
her surprise. “Fine. Whatever you need.”

She turned away and buttoned her slacks,
fighting back tears. After arguing with him yesterday, she didn’t
want to start up anything like that again. They couldn’t talk
without fighting lately. Making love in her office had seemed so
perfect—as though Nick had been made for her and she for him.
Whatever problems they had, it didn’t hinder them there, but Carlie
had hoped they were back on the same page with regards to their
relationship.

Obviously, Nick still wasn’t ready to be
one-hundred percent open and honest, even though they agreed they
would be. She let him in on all of her secrets, and yet he still
held back even the simplest things from her. What could he possibly
be doing at a Chinese restaurant that she couldn’t see?

Sighing, she smoothed down her hair and
faced him. “I’m ready to go.”

Nick scowled down at his phone as he typed a
message. “Damn it.”

She wanted to ask what was wrong, but held
her tongue. One more rejection from him might be more than she
could handle.

Somehow, she had to find a way to get
through to him. She didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of her past.
Trusting Ryan even though she knew he kept secrets had been her
first big mistake. Foolishly giving her heart to a man who didn’t
love her back had been the second.

Nick said all the right things when
confronted. His body told her a million ways over that he desired
her. However, his hot and cold attitude had to stop. While he took
care of his business, Carlie needed to make some decisions. The
first one being how long she could go on if he wouldn’t trust
her.

Nick paced the sitting room at his hotel.
Carlie had barely said anything on the way to her house and didn’t
give him a kiss goodbye when he left. What could he say,
though?

Oh, yeah, sweetheart. Well, the boss of the
secret agency I work for summoned me for an immediate phone call.
We’ll probably be talking about you, so you can’t come along.

Sure, that’d go over well. He checked his
phone again, frustrated that Paul hadn’t phoned yet. One of the
first rules the agency lived by was that Paul never contacted
agents unexpectedly and demanded immediate reports. He was supposed
to wait for them to make contact at safe times. Nervousness
tightened his stomach into a hard knot. Something big must have
happened to make Paul break protocol.

Then again, S.A.T.O. killed agents they no
longer needed. Maybe protocol wasn’t such a big deal anymore.

His phone finally beeped and Nick swiped the
screen. “Yes?”

“All hell broke loose yesterday,” Paul said.
“There was a hit against the Vice President last night. He’s in the
hospital, but stable. We’ve told the public he’s suffering from
pneumonia.”

Nick heard on the news this morning that the
VP was ill, but he’d been so busy with Carlie, he hadn’t given it
much thought. An attempt on his life? That was a problem.
“Shit.”

“More than shit, Nick. S.A.T.O. is on high
alert. The board members don’t want to wait around for you to
schmooze with the target. They want her bracelet accounted for and
that entire organization taken down. Immediately.”

Nothing less than he expected. Still, Nick
had to try to insert a bit of reason into the conversation. “Sir,
I’ve searched everywhere and she doesn’t have a bracelet. We even
got in a fight about Muhammad, and she told me he runs the soup
kitchen because he’s trying to create good will for his family
after the embarrassment his uncle caused.”

“Of course she’d say that. She’s lying to
you. You don’t realize that?”

Nick breathed deeply, trying to calm his
racing pulse. He was out of time. Whatever Carlie’s secret was, he
had to figure it out fast. “What if she isn’t a terrorist? The
evidence pointing to her is circumstantial. I know she’s lying
about who she is, but what if it’s for some other reason?”

“Such as?” Paul’s voice was completely
level.

Nick wasn’t sure if the man would actually
listen to his theories, but he had to try. “Maybe she had something
to do with Prince Rayhan and Princess Stephanie’s deaths. Carlie is
obviously running from some mistakes in her past, but I don’t think
she’s trying to hurt the American people.”

Paul cleared his throat, but was otherwise
silent for several long minutes while Nick resumed pacing the
room.

“Do I need to pull you from the case?” Paul
finally asked.

“What? No!” Nick wiped sweat from his brow,
desperately searching his mind for something that might convince
Paul to give him more time. “Sir, I had a very good conversation
with the target last night. When I implied I was in sympathy with
terrorists and thought they had a point, she wanted to throw me out
of her house, even though I know she’s falling for me. She was
disgusted. Whatever her secrets are, I don’t believe it’s
that.”

“Have you even searched for the bracelet, or
are you letting your penis make the decisions?”

“I’m searching.” Damn. This wasn’t going
well. “She didn’t flinch when she caught me in her safe today with
everything pulled out of it. Even though the bracelet wasn’t there,
if she were hiding one, don’t you think she’d freak out at me
searching her stuff?”

“Nick, did I ever tell you why the S.A.T.O.
board sent the orders to kill Agent Jason Steele after the
assassination attempt against President Sharp last year?”

It was something he’d often wondered about.
Swallowing hard, Nick tried to keep his voice level. “No, sir.”

“The reason Aamir Abdul and his group almost
succeeded was because Jason thought he was in love with one of the
women helping them, and he made a mistake. A mistake that nearly
killed our goddamn President and showed Jason to be the traitor he
was!”

Nick’s first reaction was surprise that
Aamir let women work with him. Then again, his hatred for Americans
was so great, he’d probably do whatever he had to. When Nick last
spoke with Jason before sending him on a flight out of the country,
he never mentioned a woman. However, she’d obviously tricked him,
so why would he bring it up?

“Sir, with all due respect,” Nick said
slowly, “this isn’t the same situation. I’ve been searching for the
bracelet, even though everything I’ve seen tells me it doesn’t
exist. I can’t find anything to implicate Carlie or Muhammad in
terrorist activities. I’ve observed them together all week like you
asked, been with them every second they spend together. Not once
has anything slipped or have they seemed impatient to get rid of
me.”