Lars didn’t look up. “I seek confession.”
Surprise whipped through him. The term spoke of whispered secrets to come. Oz hoped like hell that Lars wasn’t about to tell him that everything Oz fought for on his behalf had been a lie.
Seconds ticked by. Lars remained silent. When he looked up, Oz saw the strain around his mouth. The ligament of his jaw ticked like a pulse. Oz waited.
“Let me preface this by saying that I am not, nor have I ever been, a Russian spy.”
“I know that,” Oz said at once.
Lars gave a hard nod. “While I was in Moscow, I made the acquaintance of a woman. Just a passing name exchange. But somehow, she has tracked me down to give me word of an issue. And I feel I must go and see to it.”
Lars returning to Russia would only end with the members of the Church accusing him of treason for a second time. But clearly the man felt strongly enough about this matter to lay it at Oz’s feet.
“What is the problem?” he asked.
“A royal has gone missing. She has not been seen in her small country, which is under the Soviet Union’s rule, in many weeks.” His stare burned into Oz. “I can find her. I know I can.”
“I have no doubts, Lars. But you know what this will mean when you return.”
He nodded. “More shunning. Accusations. Will you stand by me a second time, Oz?”
Oz gripped his shoulder. “I will always have your back because I know you walk with us. Now go, with love and skill. Find this woman and then return to us for other missions.”
Lars extended a hand, and Oz grasped it. They shared a hearty embrace and then Oz got up and walked away from his friend and brother, knowing that they could face whatever challenges came their direction. The same way he had always loved Rose, he and Lars were brothers for life.
Oz stood at the front of the church and looked out over the beautiful interior. His heart lay here, but it also pulsed in every person around him. He took off toward the room where Rose was working. It’s time I interrupt my lover again.
THE END
READ ON for a sneak peek of Book 2 of The Guard, HIS TO DEFEND
Lars lowered his whiskey glass and gazed across the ballroom. New York City parties were such a bore, but every year the Anderson-Tates invited him to their bash. Every year he figured the cost to be higher than the previous, and by his guess they’d spent over a quarter million on this affair.
The same dull people circulated through the room, decked out in silk and diamonds, clinging to each other’s arms and giving fake promises to see each other soon.
He stifled a yawn. He could think of a hell of a lot better places to be right now.
“Is this seat taken?”
The classic overused question drew his attention, and he prepared to tell the woman that she was barking up a dead tree. He had neither wealth nor a trust fund coming to him. But he stopped dead at the sight of a long, creamy thigh peeking through a high slit.
He followed the line of bare flesh to where it cut off just short of her hipbone, up to a tiny waist and then a pair of luscious ten-thousand-dollar double D breasts.
Getting to his feet, Lars extended a hand to invite her to sit. The dashing redhead offered him a soft smile and swept toward the chair he pointed to. As she slipped into the seat, she gave him a peek down her plunging neckline.
With a quirk of amusement at his lips, he settled across from the beauty. “What are you drinking?” he asked.
Her blue eyes glowed. “Dry martini, darling.”
He flagged down one of the servers bearing silver salvers filled with various champagnes and pricey wines nobody truly enjoyed and asked for a dry martini for the lady. The server executed a slight bow as he offered up the drink in a fragile glass. The woman curled her fingers around the stem, showing off her immaculate vixen-red nails.
Satisfied that he’d done his duty by her, Lars settled back in his chair and lifted his whiskey in a toast. “To a beautiful drinking companion.”
She smiled again and flicked her stare over him with blatant interest only a woman like her could get away with. In this atmosphere, she could feel relatively safe flirting with any man. But she didn’t know Lars or the terrible things he was capable of.
They sipped their drinks, and then she set hers aside. “How do you know the Anderson-Tates?” Her voice came out as a cultured trickle.
“Old friends.”
“Childhood friends?” She quirked a brow.
“Not that far back. Yale.” He didn’t mention that he’d rocketed through the material and graduated three years before Carlton Anderson-Tate and then been snagged up by the government working for an intelligence division of Homeland Security. Following that, he spent time training with the CIA before he broke half the rules and realized he was in the wrong goddamn agency. Soon after, he met his current boss, and Oz showed him where he truly belonged. Too bad he’d nearly been kicked out a couple months back.
The woman made a show of leaning to the side and crossing her legs in plain view. He caught a hint of the shadow between her legs a split second before she draped one slender thigh over the other. She reached a hand across the table. “Julianna.”
“Lars.” He enveloped her hand with his. A tingle of awareness shot through him. It’d been a hell of a long time since he’d had a woman.
She cocked her head, letting her thick red hair tumble across her shoulder in an effect that would lure in many a man in this room—and probably land her a wealthy husband while she was at it. “Interesting name.”
He didn’t respond to the comment but rubbed his thumb across her fingers before releasing her hand. Her lashes dipped, and he let her look her fill. His tux was not a rental and fit him to perfection. His white shirt hung open at the collar, the bowtie he’d arrived wearing now shoved in his jacket pocket. He knew he looked good, and one woman had even whispered in his ear that she was staying here in the Anderson-Tates’ home and which room he could find her in. He’d simply nodded and smiled with no intention of visiting her.
This woman, on the other hand, he could see himself getting tangled and sweaty with.
“I believe we share an acquaintance,” Julianna said, reaching for her martini again.
“I’d say we probably share quite a few.” He glanced around the room at all the people with too many hyphenated last names to count and as much personality as an eggroll.
Eyes glittering, she drank in his appearance. “I haven’t seen this side of you before, Lars.”
Surprise was hard to come by in his line of business, where he must expect the unexpected at every turn. But Julianna’s statement surprised him. Leaning forward, he said, “It seems unlikely we’ve met before. I’d remember you.”
“Oh, but we didn’t meet. I just asked my friend about you. I believe at the time you were on your way to Toronto.”
Now that got his attention. He hated bad weather, and Toronto could never draw him as a visitor. But he’d spent four weeks there guarding a woman from several men who thought they owned her. Having paid good money for her, of course.
Julianna went on, “Did you enjoy your visit?”
“No.” He sipped his whiskey. “I despise the cold.”
The joke of the century—a full-blooded Russian who preferred the tropics.