He wouldn’t let it happen.
She never had to know the man she was going to sleep with was a spy.
Ben took a deep breath as his cell rang and he saw the code name for the US operative he was working with. Chet. Douchebag, but what would one expect from a dude who thought he was James Bond?
Still, he answered. It was time to get this mission going. If he could catch Manny, he might be able to settle into an easier job.
No matter what, Kara Trent would be hearing from him again.
Chapter Two
Split, Croatia
Six months later
Naturally they sent her.
Ms. Magenta. Maggie. Kara freaking Trent, though he knew none of those were her name. He’d tried to figure out who she was in real life, but the Americans knew how to hide an identity.
“Hello, Ben.” She looked good, but then she always did. It was hard to look bad when you were a nearly six-foot bombshell, with curves for days and a face that could be on any fashion magazine.
She was his fucking wet dream, and didn’t that prove that he could use a whole lot of therapy.
“Maggie.” He’d taken to calling her that after the shit show of an op in Sydney had torn off all their masks.
His sweet, hot, sometimes mean-as-hell pharmaceutical rep turned out to be a CIA plant, and that hadn’t been what put him off her. There had been a piece of him that thrilled at the idea she was in the business. If she was a spy, he didn’t have to be careful with her. She would understand his world. She would know the risks.
The idea of having a woman like that at his side had brought him ahope he hadn’t imagined he could feel.
And then he watched her with her boyfriend.
“How’s your boyfriend?”
Her eyes rolled. “I told you Coop isn’t my boyfriend. I have never in my life so much as held that man’s hand.”
But he remembered how comfortable she’d been with the guy when they were in an actual sex club. Oh, he hadn’t even seen them together in fet wear. He’d been tied to a spanking bench during that part of the op, but there was zero way those two hadn’t gotten down.
And it burned a hole in his gut.
She wasn’t technically wearing fet wear this evening, but it could be. The evening gown had a plunging neckline and clung to her every curve. The sapphire color made her eyes more blue, her hair more electric.
He’d seen her with pretty much every hair color since they’d identified her as the mysterious Ms. Magenta, but she always seemed to come back to her eponymous color. Pink. Magenta. Hence, Maggie.
Since meeting in Australia, he’d tangled with her a couple of times, and he never knew what to expect. Was this the woman who shoved him off a plane over Mongolia or the one who saved his ass in a back alley in Bangkok?
He rather thought she did it on purpose. Always keeping him on a string, never letting him hate her or love her. Constantly keeping him in this weird place where he both hoped he would see her and dreaded the idea of working with her.
She stared at him for a moment, and the soft look in her eyes made him think she was going for seduction rather than violence tonight. “You look good, Ben.”
He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Which he hadn’t. Prepping for this op had been exhausting. He’d spent weeks identifying the man who would receive the dead drop this evening. Then naturally the Americans glommed on. He’d done all the work, but she’d secured the invitation they needed to get into the gala where the drop was taking place. “You’re talking to me again?”
She frowned. “I’m just remembering how you used one of my closest friends to prove a point? Lou could have died, you know.”
He felt his jaw tighten. It hadn’t been one of his finer moments. He’d seen a chance to prove Manny was behind the kidnapping of TJTaggart and he’d taken it. He hadn’t meant to put Louisa Ward in danger, but he’d been there to protect her. “Somehow I think you and Cooper wouldn’t have allowed that to happen.”
She flinched slightly but covered it well. “You could have told us. You were right there in Dallas. We would have… It doesn’t matter now.”
It shouldn’t, but he still found himself moving closer. “It did matter. You didn’t believe me about Huisman. No one does.”
