“You’re wasting my time and yours.”
“As you know, your graphics did the trick,” Tremayne said. “We were able to direct the leader of the sleeper cell to a rendezvous point. We identified him, and we’re in the midst of an operation that we’re certain will result in not only his arrest, but the capture of his cohorts.”
Rachel yawned. It had been a long day. “Good for you.”
“Good for you, as well. The higher-ups in the Agency believe that your expertise is needed to continue the success of this mission.”
“I taught your tech how to do what I do.”
“Yes, but for whatever reason that completely eludes me, they want you.”
Rachel grabbed the strap on her backpack. “Not interested.”
“We’re willing to increase your level of both compensation and security clearance.”
Rachel glanced at her watch. “You know what I want.”
“Agent Brach is currently on assignment elsewhere. And besides, we can’t negotiate with the love lives of our operatives.”
Rachel laughed. Loudly.
Tremayne placed her iced drink on a coaster, then stood, straightening her slim, tailored slacks. “Perhaps you’ll be more amenable after your vacation.”
Rachel leaned her weight on one hip. “Unless you plan on making Roman Brach materialize on a sun-drenched Puerto Rican beach, I doubt it.”
“Did it ever occur to you that perhaps Roman doesn’t want you?”
Did it ever occur to her? Who was this woman kidding?
She snapped up her backpack and swung it jauntily over her shoulder. “Nope, never crossed my mind.”
She was inches from the door when it swung open, a somber operative attached to the knob. Rachel sashayed past him and made her way back through the maze until she emerged in the terminal again. Her flight, not surprisingly, had already begun to board. She had to sprint to make it to the gate, just in time for the attendant to glare at her. After waving her boarding pass beneath the scanner, the guy forced a smile and waved her through. The doors were pulled shut behind her before she’d even taken ten steps inside.
By the time she made it to the aircraft, nearly everyone was seated. She spotted Mario and Iris canoodling in the bulkhead row. She expected a seat beside them, but glancing down at her boarding pass, she realized she wasn’t seated in Coach, but First Class.
Let the Agency suck up. She wouldn’t change her mind.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” a handsome flight attendant said from behind her. “You need to find your seat.”
She turned, ready to aim a sharpened barb at the guy for stating the obvious, but decided he wasn’t worth her ire. He was just doing his job. Instead, she smiled, apologized for her tardy arrival and headed into the front of the plane. There was an empty window seat beside, of course, the blond guy in the baseball cap. An empty seat that corresponded with the number and letter on her boarding pass.
He stood up, allowing her to pass, though the spacious seats made his gesture unnecessary. As she skimmed by him, his cologne caught her attention. Warmed by his skin, the subtle citrus scent teased her with a hint of mint. Completely unlike the haunting, smoky musk tinged with patchouli and sandalwood that Roman wore, the aroma aroused her curiosity. She fought the urge to glance at his face, explore the depths of his eyes, assess whether or not the man fate had deemed worthy of sitting beside her might not make an interesting way to wash the missing Roman out of her hair.
Not that she really wanted him washed out, but what choice did she have? She’d denied Tremayne’s suggestion that Roman hadn’t returned from his assignment because he was avoiding reconciling with her, but most of that had been bravado and good, old-fashioned pride. Didn’t mean the heart-crushing thought hadn’t occurred to her more than once.
She busied herself with stuffing her backpack under her seat, fastening her seat belt and accepting a hot, wet hand towel from the flight attendant to wipe the grime of the long wait off her hands, arms and neckline, dipping deep into her V-necked blouse to remove the collected sweat.
“You’re killing me, you know that, right?”
The voice was unmistakable. A chill breezed over her freshly moistened skin, and in a daze, she dropped the towel on the flight attendant’s proffered tray and turned slowly to the man beside her.
His hair was blond. His eyes were…green? She leaned in closer, determined to see the telltale rim of colored contacts. The scar dipping into his top lip threw her off for a moment, and the new, thinner shape and lighter color of his eyebrows nearly changed her mind, but the rugged shape of his chin, the texture of his skin, the curve of his smile finally gave him away.
“You son of a bitch,” she whispered.
She moved, but Roman caught her hand and held it fast to the armrest. Smart man. She had the incredible need to slap the smug smile off his face.
“Not exactly the greeting I expected,” he said.
She tugged her hand away, gluing her gaze to the seat in front of her as the plane roared down the runway. “I don’t know why you expected anything more. Or less. You left.”
“I was deployed to complete the mission. I couldn’t have succeeded without you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Clearly. My life would have been a hell of a lot easier over the past few days if you just would have been honest with me and asked for my help rather than playing all these games, including the ones that nearly got me shot.”
His fingers tap-danced on the armrest, and she couldn’t help but give them a cursory glance. If he touched her, she’d kill him. Then she’d kiss him. But killing definitely came first.
“That sounds very fair and self-righteous, but you know as well as I do that things couldn’t work that way. As romantic and grand a gesture it would have been if I’d stayed behind to hold your hand at the Agency, that’s not who I am. And it’s not who you need me to be.”
Had he spoken those words a few weeks ago, Rachel wouldn’t have been so sure of the honest truth in his assessment. Wrapped up in her own life and career, Rachel hadn’t given two thoughts to how much she might need a man until Roman’s continual abandonment drove her to secretly follow him and enlist her friends in carefully planned schemes to trap him and force him to tell her…what? That he loved her? That he couldn’t live without her?
But now she’d gotten her life back, her strength. She’d wanted him back, yes, but she hadn’t been willing to pay any price. She’d helped her country, that was a perk, but most important, she’d returned to her original groove of an independent woman open to the possibility of love, but not bound to it.
She turned in her spacious seat, giving a little yawn she covered daintily with her hand. Her ears popped as the plane ascended to cruising altitude. “So why are you here?”
He looked down into his lap, his expression sheepish. “What can I say? I can’t resist you.”
“You’ll lose your job,” she pointed out. “I don’t think Tremayne likes the idea of you and me together, especially if I keep turning down her job offers.”
“Tremayne likes to think of herself as all-powerful, but now that I’ve completed this mission, my clout within the Agency is assured. With the right spin, which I’ve already set in motion, I may just have her job by the end of our vacation.”
Rachel sat back, trying to hide the thrill that sparked through her body. “Our vacation? You sure you didn’t just stowaway aboard in order to seduce me and leave when your pager goes off?”
He leaned forward and dug into the duffel he’d shoved under the seat. He retrieved a small gift-wrapped box and placed it softly in her hands.
“Open it,” he instructed when she seemed more interested in the shiny bronze box rather than the contents of his offering.
She pulled off the top. Inside was his old pager…or at least, what was left of it.
“Anger issues?” she asked, a smile teasing the corners of her mouth.
He shook his head and extended his palm. She placed the box in the middle of his hand and grinned at the mess inside. “I had to show my credentials just to get it through Security. I like to think of this more like frustration. And determination. How long do you plan to stay in Puerto Rico?”
“Well,” she said, retrieving the box and capping it with the bowed top, “I was going to decide after I found out
