“Do you mind if I go back to the room? Jet lag is catching up to me.” Along with a deep sense of inadequacy.
He refused to let her cross the street alone and escorted her to the penthouse. He was restless once they got there, though, not removing his jacket or tie. He picked up the card on the tray that held a bottle of scotch and read aloud, “Compliments of the management.”
He tucked the card into his pocket and helped himself to a pour, but only held it without sipping. His tension was obvious.
“You’re realizing that I’m as boring as I claim, aren’t you?” She was trying to make light of it when she actually regretted being so frank. “You don’t have to turn in because I am. If you want to go back and gamble, please do.”
“I missed speaking to Clair’s husband.” He set aside his drink. “We have mutual business interests that I’d like to discuss with him. I won’t be long.”
It sounded perfectly reasonable, but for some reason her stomach clenched with suspicion. She wasn’t sure why. It made her feel like a jealous girlfriend to have this lurching reaction when she had no reason to mistrust him. She had just urged him to go!
But she was stung that he was so quick to leave.
Everything felt very tenuous all of a sudden. The small connection they’d developed in New York was disintegrating, mostly because she was realizing exactly how far out of her reach he really was. Perhaps that sense of affinity had only ever been a conjured fantasy in her head anyway. She wanted to say, Stay. Hold me. But that seemed pathetic.
She made herself cross to set a hand on his shoulder. As she leaned to peck his mouth with a kiss, she murmured, “Good night.”
He caught a firm hand around the back of her neck and held her for a long, possessive kiss that tasted of craving and frustration and conflict, further confusing her and leaving her breathless.
He reluctantly released her, gray eyes stormier than ever—which only reinforced her sense that something was amiss between them.
“I’ll be back within the hour,” he promised. “I’ll try not to wake you.”
She nodded and turned away, throat tight.
CHAPTER FIVE
“HAVE YOU LOST your mind?” was Everett’s casual greeting when Giovanni let himself into the private salon with the card that had been propped against the bottle of scotch in his suite. “Why is she still with you? You’re working.”
Giovanni met the ice-blue eyes of his colleague. His boss, if one wanted to get technical. His friend, since there was no one else on earth who knew about this sideline job of his except the man who’d recruited him.
“The chancellor was there with his wife. His mistress was not, but he kept the napkin when his drink was delivered. The server was a brunette, midtwenties, five-eight or -nine with a mole on the left side of her throat. When she brought a scotch to the admiral, he tipped her very generously.”
Everett sipped his drink, considering that in silence.
Everett had been born to a Swiss father who was a captain of automotive engineering and a French mother who translated at Interpol. He’d been at boarding school with Giovanni’s brother and had come to the hospital often in that first year after the crash, as lost without his friend as Giovanni had been without his brother.
They had taken different paths for several years, but when Giovanni had uncovered a letter from a foreign government official attempting to blackmail his father into making certain concessions, he had realized it was evidence that his family had been murdered, not killed in a random crash as he’d always believed.
He hadn’t known where to turn or who to trust, but given Everett’s mother’s connections, Giovanni had reached out to him.
That’s when Everett had revealed he was more than the spoiled playboy he portrayed himself to be. He was employed by the American government and soon persuaded Giovanni to help him gather information and evidence for various ongoing investigations.
Giovanni had the ability to travel freely and infiltrate the highest industrial and political circles. It was amazing how nonthreatening a man in a wheelchair seemed to most people, or how quickly they opened up if they thought they could earn a favor from a wealthy man.
Giovanni had latched on to the challenge and inherent danger—Freja had read him correctly. There was an indescribable thrill in undercover work, avoiding detection while subversively righting wrongs and cleaning house at the highest level.
That side of his nature had made her uncomfortable, though, which left him questioning how badly he wanted to keep doing it.
“What of the waitress in your life?” Everett asked idly.
“You tell me,” Giovanni challenged, hackles instantly rising. “Have you found anything?”
“No.” Everett’s mouth twisted with dismay. “All her income streams are legit. The monitoring of her tutoring hasn’t turned up anything except one young man who is faking bad grades so he can keep paying her to talk to him. You have competition for her affections.”
Giovanni didn’t find that funny. At all.
“I told you she was harmless.”
“Harmless?” Everett scoffed. “In less than twenty-four hours after approaching one of my most valued and highly placed operatives, she was in your bed. She hasn’t left it. I’m not suggesting that chair means you’re dead from the waist down, but this is completely out of character for you. If she was the corn-fed milkmaid she resembles, I wouldn’t bat an eye, but she spent two years in North Korea and came out without a scratch. How?”
“Have you read her book?” Giovanni had finished it on the plane and Freja couldn’t be more wrong, calling herself boring. She was resourceful and resilient. Kind and warmly funny. Infinitely fascinating.
“Have I read a lengthy fairy tale that provides a comprehensive cover story for a sleeper agent? Yes. It stretches credulity. Her father could still be alive there. The authorities could be using him as leverage to keep her in line. Or holding those people she lived with. You can’t risk having such a dark horse shadowing your every move. Send her back to New York,” Everett ordered.
He debated briefly, then admitted, “I can’t. We’re waiting to see if she’s pregnant.”
Everett choked on his scotch.
“Screw you,” Giovanni bit out. “I can get a woman pregnant.”
Maybe. Hell, he didn’t know, but from the moment he’d realized there was a chance Freja might be carrying his baby, there was no question in him as to how he wanted to proceed. Of course she would stay with him. Of course he would marry her if a baby was on the way.
His reaction was primal and immediate, but he hadn’t given thought to how that would look long-term, not until their odd conversation this evening when she’d pointed out how ill-suited she thought they were.