“Don’t you mean ‘king and country’?”
The side of his mouth tipped up. “You clearly haven’t met my mother. Besides, the sentiment is the same regardless of who’s in it.”
He’d just given her quite a lot of information, and it would be hard to corroborate what he’d said about his family. She may not trust him completely—who would trust the words of a half-naked man crowding her into an office cabinet?—but she could see the truth of those words in his eyes even if she wasn’t sure she believed him yet.
Then again, she was an agent; she was used to never believing anybody about anything but trusting them anyway. A common misconception about agents was that they didn’t trust anyone, while the opposite was true. Agents had to trust the information they received was accurate, had to trust the person selling that information wasn’t a double agent or worse, had to trust a million things to go right with each mission or they could end up dead. Agents just honed their instincts to learn when to trust and when to run. Right now, her instincts said to trust, so she would, but cautiously.
Trust was a sliding scale, after all. As much as people thought of trust in absolutes, it moved and shifted with life. As a young girl, her scale had shattered, and she’d built a rigid and inflexible one in its place. It had gotten a little looser over the years, but this would be the first time it ‘bent’ for her.
“I trust you.”
He inhaled sharply.
“But if you screw me over, I’ll kick your motherfucking ass.”
He let out his breath on a huff of laughter. “Well. I guess that means we’re past the formalities.” He stepped back a little and held out his hand. “Let’s start again, more honestly this time. Hi, I’m Ethan.”
“Anda.” She took his hand and fought the shock of heat she felt at his touch. He didn’t kiss her hand this time, and she had a twinge of disappointment, but he did hold on to it, which she liked more than she should.
“Well, Anda, my secret? I know all about the illegal research going on in the Navy. I’ve shut it down on three ships already, and I’m trying to find out where the rest is taking place. I believe at least two other ships are involved. Based on what you’ve said, or more accurately haven’t said, Marcello knows about the rumors, but he doesn’t understand the extent of the research or know of my involvement. I’ve handled it discreetly, and within the bounds of Naval law. If you do a simple investigation, you’ll find three people recently charged and they’ll be tried before the Naval court as the doctors in charge of running the schemes on their ships. I’m still trying to find the mastermind, if you will, but if it is who I think it is, they’ll be on this ship in the next two weeks.”
Ho. Ly. Shit.
If she could manage to confirm this information, it would be an incredible boon to the mission. The tricky part would be explaining to Marcello how she managed to work with Ethan without him knowing she was an agent, even though he did. Lying to her boss was never a good idea but, if she and Ethan pulled it off, Marcello would certainly be impressed. It might even push up her own timeline to start on the missions she wanted to do, rather than the ones she was repeatedly assigned to do, and it could help prove her as a valuable agent in the eyes of others.
Some of the prince’s motives also clicked into place. “You said that Marcello was limiting your career. Dismantling these illicit labs, trying to catch the leader behind it? You’re doing this to prove something to him.”
“Yes, I am, but those aren’t the only things I’ve done to prove myself.”
She could have pushed for more information about those ‘other things’ but sensed that might break the tenuous trust they’d built, so she moved on. “So, two weeks. Who do you think it is? What kind of experimentation has been going on?”
“I have the information secured in another room. Come on.” He gestured for her to walk out of the office first and, after a few steps, her fake injury caused her to wince.
“Will you remove this godawful bandage from my foot?”
He kept hold of her hand and tugged her against him. “If you’re going to extend your stay another week, you need to play up that ‘injury’. Bandage stays on, but I’ll loosen it a little.”
He was right, damn it.
“Now. Let’s go back to my berth—it’s just off the bay—and I’ll tell you what I know.”
Three hours later, she knew everything he did, had several more leads that she hadn’t considered yet, and she’d come dangerously close to kissing him five times.
On the sixth, she’d said ‘Fuck it’ and had thrown herself at him.
As a supreme bitch agent, she’d used her ‘feminine wiles’ in the past to get information or leads. Yet this…this kiss was just between her as a woman and him as a man.
She wasn’t an agent or an orphan or a famous actress.
He wasn’t a prince or a captain or a doctor.
She was just Anda.
He was just Ethan.
And that was enough for both of them.
* * *
