Her Spy to Hold (Spy Games Book 2) (22 page)

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m listening.”

He leaned against the door frame, refusing to enter her private sanctum without the invitation he wanted. “That’s part of the problem, babe. You listen, but you don’t always hear. I blame your fancy degrees.”

She put a few extra feet of distance between them. “You bring up my education a lot. You have advanced degrees of your own, don’t forget.”

“And I use them to pay attention to what’s going on. For example.” He looked around the room, examining each piece of furniture before once again settling his gaze on her. “Do you know how long I’ve been hinting around for you to invite me in here?”

“The sofa, the hall, and the spare room weren’t enough? What difference could using my bed possibly make?” She looked bewildered, but he wasn’t buying it. She had to have known. She’d been too careful about keeping him out.

“Oh, it makes a big difference,” he assured her. She was rubbing her arms now, a sure sign he’d struck a nerve, so he applied a little more pressure. “You need to pay attention to people, Irina. What am I saying to you?”

Her eyes slid away from his. “I never have any idea what you’re talking about.”

No way was he letting her get away with that tired excuse. “Yes you do.”

“Fine.” She brought her gaze back to his face, biting the inside of her lip. “This is my private space and I don’t want you in it.”

He continued to push. “Why not?”

Her lower lip trembled. “Because I want one room in my house where I won’t be reminded of you. Are you happy now?”

He was the furthest thing from it. She’d heard him ask Dan about those two weeks and realized he wasn’t going to be here as long as he’d planned on. “So once I’m gone you never plan to think about me again?”

“Do you plan to think about me?” she fired back.

“Every damn day. But we both knew going into this that our careers demand a lot of our time.” He took a deep breath before plunging ahead. He’d never offered a woman this level of commitment before. “That doesn’t mean we can’t keep in touch. We have one thing in common and you’ve got admit, it’s pretty spectacular. We can always pick up where we leave off whenever we’re in the same city.”

She didn’t leap into his arms, wrap her legs around him, and scream
yes
. Her bottom lip, however, stopped trembling. Dr. Glasov reappeared.

“I’ll sleep on it,” she said with that calm, professional politeness that always intimidated the hell out of him and at the same time turned him on. “In the meantime you can use your own fancy degrees and intelligence training to figure out what I’m saying to you, since you always pay such close attention.”

She shut the door in his face. He heard the gentle but firm click of the lock.

Well, that sound was easy enough for him to understand.

Chapter Thirteen

“What I do in the privacy of my home is my business.”

Irina had requested this meeting with the director of Human Resources for eleven o’clock. It was now almost noon, meaning she’d been answering questions for the better part of an hour, and mentally she was exhausted. Her stomach quivered like jelly and she knew her face had to be as red as the cranberry carpet. There was no avoiding the humiliation of this.

Fortunately the director of Human Resources was professional. A trim, fifty-something woman wearing black-framed glasses and a pale pink business suit, she radiated a kind but no-nonsense demeanor. If she had an opinion on the whole matter she wasn’t letting it show.

“I know that, Dr. Glasov. But this is a serious complaint. No one is questioning why you chose to track down the origins of that video yourself. Under the circumstances it’s perfectly understandable.” A smile briefly flickered. “While they’ll never admit it you probably saved the IT department a lot of time and a massive headache.” The smile slid away. “You do realize, of course, that we’ll require that video as proof, as well as the information on how you were able to track it to her?” Irina nodded. She’d already filtered the details so the path to Christine was more direct, omitting the RBN and Ottawa connections. The director continued her gentle probing. “I can’t imagine what reason someone you say you barely know would have for harassing you in such a manner. Can you think of any?”

“None.”

Kale had done some digging and passed on a little of what he’d found out. Christine’s former college roommate was a Liberian woman who’d been studying in Canada and now lived in the Netherlands, working as an engineer for a company specializing in port construction. The Liberian’s connections were murkier and would involve CSIS discussions with Interpol to sort out, because they crossed several international boundaries. Kale said his boss believed the Liberian—through Christine—was after information about the drone’s end user too. Why, they didn’t know. Neither did they know why Christine’s cyber trail led to the Canadian Ministry of Defence office. It wasn’t information they’d share with Irina even if they did discover the connection.

She stood, beyond ready for this meeting to be over. “Thank you for your time, but I’ll have to leave the matter in your hands. I have a lunch appointment in the city and I’m going to be late.”

She’d called her friend Beverley right after contacting Human Resources and asked if she were free any time that day. Since Bev had to be at a working group session in the downtown area of the city all week they were having lunch at a trendy pub popular with the local business crowd.

Once she was outside, Irina breathed deeply of the fresh air and sunshine and tried to let go of the tension. The HR offices were across the street from her building, with the parking lot between them, so she wouldn’t have to go back to her office again and risk running into Christine.

She planned to play hooky the rest of the day. She’d refused to allow Kale to drive her to work that morning, so for the first time in weeks she had her car and her freedom. She’d pointed out to him that, if she no longer had a reason to be worried about her safety, then there was no need for him to act as her chauffeur. He’d chosen not to argue. Lucky for him.

Pick up where we leave off…

He hadn’t argued when his boss took those extra two weeks from him either. From
them
. Anger coiled inside her, a snake poised and ready but with nowhere to strike. She couldn’t say who she was angriest with—Kale or herself. She’d gone into a sexual relationship willingly. He wasn’t to blame for how it turned out. He had no idea how she felt about it or him.

But he should.

The insensitive bastard.

There were no empty meters to be found on the street when Irina reached the city so she left her car at a local parkade and walked the few blocks to Durty Nelly’s. A light, humid breeze off Halifax Harbour left the city sweltering in a late summer heat wave. The steep upward climb and her impractical high heels made her late. She arrived breathless and sticky, her hairline damp at the nape of her neck.

Beverley waited for her at a table in a corner of the outdoor patio, patiently eyeing the men walking by on the sidewalk from under the shade of an umbrella. Irina slid into a chair, the green plastic hot against the backs of her legs. She’d be sticking to it in no time.

“To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” Bev asked. “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it has something to do with the incredibly gorgeous new man in your life.”

“I don’t know where to begin.”

“Tell Doctor Bev all about it. Let’s start with the bedroom. That’s the root of all evil.”

They placed their lunch orders while Irina gathered her nerve. She grabbed the sweating glass of lemon water the waitress left her and took a long swallow. Her throat had gone painfully dry. She set the half-empty glass on her paper napkin to keep it from blowing away.

“I filed a harassment complaint against the administrative assistant in my office this morning,” she blurted out.

“Wow.” Bev sat back in her chair. “I did not see that coming.”

“Neither did I.”

Irina stuck with the story she’d agreed to tell Human Resources. Bev, of all people, would understand how humiliating and potentially career damaging this was for her.

No one else did. Rather no one else cared.

“A sex tape…I don’t know if I should be congratulating you or offering my sympathy,” Bev said when she’d finished. “I’m going to focus on the positive and go with congratulations.”

Irina couldn’t believe it. “You see something positive in this?”

“I see you coming out of your comfort zone. Your safe little shell. You’re a young, attractive woman, Irina. Life is passing you by. Embarrassment isn’t going to kill you. Even if it did at least you’d die with a little fun under your chastity belt.”

“I have a life.”

“You have a career,” Bev corrected her. “You work all the time. And most of the time it isn’t very much fun.”

That wasn’t true. The only fun Irina’d had lately was thanks in large part to her career, although she couldn’t confide that particular tidbit of information to her friend. Kale was the only person she could share secrets with that were both professional and personal. Unfortunately, right now he featured highly in both.

“You don’t think I should be worried?” Irina asked, incredulous. She’d expected commiseration, not censure.

“You should be, yes. But ten years from now it’s not going to make any difference. You’re respected for your mind. That’s all the scientific community really cares about. If that video is as murky in detail as you say it is, then the majority of them are going to choose to believe it’s not you. Only a few people you work with right now will know the difference and they’re hardly about to make a public announcement. A security breach looks bad on them. And if word about the video does get out all you have to do is sit back and neither confirm nor deny.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Irina caught sight of a man walking up the street toward Durty Nelly’s. He was talking on a cell phone. She turned her head to watch him, trying to figure out where she’d seen him before. The pulse throbbed in her throat. That day at the beach. The man Kale hadn’t liked. He was dressed in a suit and tie, not a wetsuit, which was why it took her so long to place him.

His eyes slid right on past. He didn’t recognize her. Why would he? Here, she was simply one of many professional women having lunch, most of them more attractive and noteworthy than she was. She didn’t stand out from the crowd.

Her pulse steadied again. She turned back to Bev and the topic of their conversation.

“Do you really believe it’s that simple?” She hardly dared hope it was true.

“I do.” Their lunches arrived. Bev took a bite of her salad. “While there aren’t any sex tapes in my past that I know of, I’ve had my fair share of professional embarrassments. FYI—having an affair with your married boss gets noticed. And quit looking so shocked. It was a long time ago when I was fresh out of college. I learned from my mistakes. You will too. Next time pull the curtains. And also for future reference, always lock the office door.”

Irina laughed. It felt good.

It didn’t, however, resolve her anger with Kale, which she couldn’t seem to get past. All she had to do was tell him she wasn’t interested in what he proposed and yet she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

After lunch, the two women parted ways on the sidewalk in front of the pub.

Bev had to return to her working group. Irina, however, who had the afternoon off, was in no particular rush to go home and face Kale.

Her high heels weren’t meant for walking, limiting her entertainment options. A hike farther up the steep streets to visit the Public Gardens was out. Traipsing through boutiques held little appeal. Besides, she preferred doing her shopping online. That left the waterfront where she could sit on a bench in the shade and watch the ships come and go in the harbor.

She walked the short distance downhill to the boardwalk and spent an hour on a bench before growing bored. She couldn’t avoid Kale forever. She also had a conference presentation she’d like to finish. Paris was six weeks away.

She’d left her car on the third level of the parkade. The tap of her heels on the steps echoed loudly. Her toes ached. The afternoon heat hadn’t yet seeped past the concrete walls of the outer stairwell, leaving them dank and smelling of urine. It was three o’clock, that period of time when visitors had already headed out of the city to beat the afternoon traffic, but before the workday was finished, leaving the parkade empty of people.

When she reached the first landing and turned to take the next flight of stairs a soft noise caught her attention. She paused to listen, but the sound wasn’t repeated. She started up the next flight.

The noise came again. Disconcerted, she stopped. So did the sound. She reached in her purse for her car key and her cell phone. She punched in 911 but didn’t hit send. She kept the phone in one hand and her key in the other as she continued to climb. She didn’t hurry her steps and she didn’t stop to listen again. If someone was following her there was no purpose in letting them know she was aware of their presence.

The footsteps below her were unmistakable now and gathering speed. The heavier tread and the softer ring of the shoes on the stairs indicated it was a man. She reached the level where she’d parked her car and pushed through the swinging doors. The lot was full of cars but empty of people. Hers was on the far side of the parkade from the stairs. She didn’t want to look foolish, or worse scared, by sprinting for her car. Her high heels weren’t practical for that purpose anyway. She did, however, glance at her watch and quicken her pace as if she were late for an appointment.