Midnight Action (20 page)

“You think it is, or you want it to be?”

Noelle had voiced what they were all thinking, but Morgan didn’t answer. He just stood up and dismissed them all by walking away, while Noelle marched after him in irritation.

With that, the briefing was over.

Liam lingered in the living room, unhappy about the plan that had been outlined. It contained too many unknowns. Too many variables. They could stake out the area, sure, but it was a large enough perimeter that a sniper could easily slip through.

Shit. He really hoped the boss knew what he was doing.

The other men stood up, Ash heading for the doorway.

“I’m turning in,” the rookie announced. “I’m way too tired right now to think about what a clusterfuck tomorrow is gonna be.”

After Ash had disappeared in the corridor, Liam noticed Bailey trying to make a discreet exit herself, moving in a slow glide toward the front hall.

“Where are you going?” Sean demanded.

Her back stiffened. “I’m going to the bar down the street to grab a drink.”

Sean pointed to the bar. “There’re drinks right over there.”

“Noelle doesn’t keep tequila in the house.”

“Bloody hell, Bailey, it’s one in the morning.”

“And I want a drink.” Her tone went razor sharp. “I didn’t realize I needed to ask your permission.”

Sean took a step forward. “Fine. I’ll go with you.”

“No, thank you. I don’t want your company.”

“Tough shit.”

They stood there glaring at each other for so long that Liam felt compelled to step in. The look in Bailey’s eyes made it clear she didn’t want to spend a single additional second with Reilly, but Liam knew an alpha male when he saw one, and there was no way in hell Sean was letting the woman roam the streets alone at one o’clock in the morning.

“How about if I join you instead?” he suggested, seeking out Bailey’s annoyed gaze. “I could totally go for a shot of tequila before bed.”

Bailey hesitated, then nodded. “Fine, you can come.” She pointed a finger at Sean. “You, on the other hand, cannot.”

And then she marched out the door.

When Reilly tried to follow her, Sully quickly clapped a hand on his arm. “I think you might need to let the lady win this one, mate. Boston will make sure she stays safe. Right, Liam?”

He nodded briskly. “Right.”

Unhappiness colored Sean’s eyes.

“Unless you’d rather
I
go with her?” Sully said, raising one eyebrow.

A grin sprang to Sean’s lips. “No fucking way, Aussie. I don’t want your man-whore hands anywhere near her.”

Sully grinned back. “Good call.” He gave Sean a good-natured punch on the arm. “C’mon, I haven’t seen you in ages. Let’s have a drink and catch up.”

After a beat, Sean capitulated. “Fine, you guys win. I’ll back off. Tonight,” he added meaningfully.

Liam caught up to Bailey just as she was stepping into the elevator. Her eyes continued to glitter with irritation as she pressed the button for the lobby.

“So what’s the deal with you and Reilly?” he asked with a grin.

Bailey sighed. “We slept together once, and now he thinks I belong to him.”

She didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t want to pry, so he ended up changing the subject to tomorrow’s mission. They discussed the logistics of it on the way to the bar, and five minutes later, they were seated side by side at the counter, ordering tequila shots.

Liam was surprised by how empty the place was. Most bars were jam-packed on Friday nights, but here, nearly every stool, chair, and booth was unoccupied.

Bailey followed his gaze and offered an explanation. “This new pub opened around the corner. The drinks are dirt cheap, so all the tourists go there now. You won’t find me complaining, though. I love this place, and back in the day, it used to have a line all the way down the block.”

He liked it too. It was definitely a bar aimed for men, with its wood-paneled walls, large booths, and pictures of European soccer players plastered on the walls. They had the entire counter to themselves, except for the lone male patron sitting at the far end of it nursing a glass of vodka. He wore the weathered look of someone who’d run into hard times, staring vacantly at the neon sign above the shelves of liquor bottles.

After the bartender had slid two shots in front of them, they tapped their glasses in a toast, tipped them back in unison, and ordered another round.

“Reilly’s a decent guy, you know,” Liam had to say out of loyalty to his friend. “He helped us out in Monte Carlo last year.”

Bailey stared at him. And then she said, “He pretended to be his twin brother the night we slept together.”

Liam’s mouth fell open. “Oh. Shit.”

“I think ‘oh shit’ just about sums it up,” she said flatly.

He had a million more questions, but she didn’t give him the chance to voice a single one.

“What about you?” she asked. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Nope,” he answered.

“Any hobbies?”

“You mean, other than kicking ass and taking names?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, other than that.”

Liam had to think it over. “Honestly, I’ve never had much free time. I joined the DEA right after college and was pretty much married to my job. Then I quit and signed up with Morgan’s crew.” He shrugged. “I don’t do much during my downtime. Hang around at the compound, shoot pool with the boys, play poker. Not very exciting, huh?”

“Do you ever take vacations?”

The question summoned the memory of the last trip he’d taken. He and Sullivan had spent two months traveling the Mediterranean on Sully’s sailboat the previous summer, docking at every port and hooking up with an obscene number of beautiful women. In fact, it had been the first time they’d ever had a threesome.

After that, threesomes became a staple in their friendship—and Liam had enjoyed the hell out of every single one. His Irish Catholic background had never meshed well with the wild, sexual streak running through him. He’d spent years ignoring his dirty fantasies, the wicked thoughts that probably would’ve sent his local priest into cardiac arrest. Then he’d met Sullivan, a man who didn’t give a flying fuck what other people thought. A man who acted on impulse, grabbed life by the balls, and did whatever the hell got him off without worrying about the consequences.

It had all been fun and games until...Christ, until last month, when he and Sully had picked up a cute tour guide from the bar in San José. That night, Liam had been balls-deep in the lovely redhead, drilling her hard while she sucked Sullivan off, and in that moment, his thoughts had turned from wicked to downright filthy. He’d been looking at Sullivan, at that broad chest carved out of stone, the tight six-pack, the thick cock filling the redhead’s eager mouth, and he’d come so violently he’d almost passed out.

And now, every time he climaxed, it was to the thought of the person he shouldn’t be thinking about rather than the one he was fucking.

“What’s that look for?”

Bailey’s inquisitive voice drew him back to the present.

He shifted on his stool. “What look?”

“I don’t know...You got real agitated all of a sudden. What’s on your mind?”

“Trust me—you don’t want to know.”

The bartender delivered their next round of shots, and this time Liam didn’t wait to toast. He just gulped down the tequila and hoped the alcohol burned away all thoughts of Sullivan Port.

“I totally want to know,” Bailey insisted. When he hesitated, her eyes gleamed. “Girl trouble, huh?”

“God, I fucking wish.”

She laughed. “Fine, don’t tell me. But for future purposes, you should know I’m really good at keeping secrets.”

He didn’t doubt it—she worked for Noelle, after all—but he also wasn’t ready to spill his guts to a woman he’d just met.

With another sigh, he stole her shot glass right out of her hand and slugged it back.

Her jaw dropped. “Totally uncool. Just for that, big boy, I’m forcing you to tell me what’s bothering you.”

Liam couldn’t help but grin. He really liked her. She was so easygoing, and she had a great laugh. A great rack too—the way she was leaning forward gave him an eyeful of cleavage, and he sure as hell wasn’t complaining about the view.

“Stop leering at my tits and get talking.”

He let out a breath. “Fine. Okay. So...it’s my teammate...Sullivan.”

“The hot Aussie?”

“Yup.”

“What about him?”

Liam swallowed, hesitation tightening his chest. He didn’t normally confide in strangers, but this stuff with Sully had been eating at him for weeks now. Maybe if he said it out loud, if he
heard
himself say it, then he’d snap out of this insanity and things could finally go back to the way they were.

He drew a deep breath and met Bailey’s curious eyes. “I can’t stop thinking about screwing him.”

She blinked.

Then grinned.

Then held up her hand and signaled the waiter. “Barkeep, we’re gonna need a couple more of these.”

The next morning, Cate joined her grandfather for breakfast in the dining room he insisted on using even when they didn’t have guests. The gleaming walnut table seated eighteen, but most of the time it accommodated only three—Cate, her grandfather, and Nikolaus, who hadn’t come downstairs yet. She’d always thought it was weird that her grandfather’s employee lived with them, but Nik had been around for as long as she could remember.

Truth was, he was probably the closest thing she had to a father. When she was little, she’d asked him all the time if he was her daddy, and he’d always sounded so incredibly regretful each time he told her he wasn’t.

As she’d gotten older, she’d begun to suspect that although Nik wasn’t her dad, he
wished
he was. Which made a lot of sense in conjunction with her other longtime suspicion—that Nik was in love with her mother.

But she’d never had the courage to ask him about
that
, mostly because it made her super-uncomfortable.

“Good morning, sweetheart.” Her grandfather greeted her in German, as he always did.

Although he’d insisted that Cate be fluent in several languages, Maurice had made it clear that he preferred they speak German at home. He claimed to like the way it rolled off his tongue, which Cate found odd, because in her opinion, German was brusque, even aggressive at times. She thought French and English flowed way more smoothly, with Italian coming in as a close third.

Once she’d settled in her chair, their maid, Audrey, immediately appeared to pour her a glass of orange juice. Cate took a quick sip, then swiped a hot, buttery croissant from the plate on the table.

In the chair opposite hers, her grandfather raised his coffee cup to his lips and took a delicate sip. She was always startled by how youthful he looked. He was in his sixties, but he appeared decades younger, and he was healthy as a horse, which was pretty darn impressive.

“Grandpa...” she started awkwardly. “I wanted to ask you something.”

“What is it, Catarina?”

She nibbled on her croissant, then set it down on her plate. “Gabriel and I were talking the other day when he came by to see his mother, and somehow we got into a conversation about the Eiffel Tower. He was so horrified when he found out I’ve never been.”

Maurice chuckled. “I don’t know why anyone would want to visit that tourist trap.”

Cate stifled a groan. Okay. Not the response she’d been hoping for.

“Well...um...” She felt her cheeks heat up. “I wouldn’t mind seeing it. I mean, I have seen it, in pictures, and a few times when we drove by it, but I’d really like to see the view from the top.”

Her grandfather put down his cup, his dark eyes studying her intently.

“Gabriel offered to take me this morning,” she said with a hopeful look. “Would it be all right if I went?”

Now he looked displeased.

“Please?” she pleaded. “I think it would be really fun, and we wouldn’t be going for too long, just an hour or two. I already finished all the homework Monsieur Paschal assigned, so I have nothing else to do.”

Her last remark got his attention. “Perhaps you can visit your mother, then.”

Cate’s composure wavered. “Oh. I...I thought she went to the spa on Saturdays.”

“She does, but I’m sure she’d rather see you if she had the chance.” He must have glimpsed her reluctance, because he softened his tone. “You’re her daughter, Catarina, and she loves you. I know she misses you. I can see it in her eyes whenever we talk about you.”

An unhappy sigh lodged in Cate’s chest. She couldn’t see a way out of this hole she’d dug herself into, but damn it, she wasn’t giving up yet.

“Maybe Gabriel can drop me off at
Maman
’s
after we visit the tower?” she suggested.

Her compromise brought a satisfied smile to Maurice’s lips. “I believe you have yourself a deal, young lady.”

It was ridiculously hard to stop the excited grin from stretching across her face, but she knew she couldn’t appear too eager. Besides, she wasn’t done asking for favors.

“One more thing,” she hedged. “Do you think you could ask Bruno and Christian to stay away today?”

Her grandfather was quick to shoot her down. “Out of the question. You will not leave this house unprotected.”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” she said hastily. “Obviously they’ll come with us, but I was just hoping they could give us some...distance, I guess. Every time I go somewhere, they’re always hovering over me. I just want to be a normal teenage girl today and walk around with my friend without my bodyguards breathing over my shoulder.”

“But you’re not a normal teenage girl. You’re the granddaughter of a powerful man, and powerful men have enemies. I can’t ever lose you, Catarina. I love you too much.”

“You won’t lose me, and I love you too.” She sighed. “But just this once, can you settle for being protective, and not
over
protective? I understand why I need bodyguards, but can’t they watch me from afar today? Give us just enough space that I feel normal for a change?”

Her grandfather went quiet. She could practically see his shrewd brain mulling over all the implications. The longer his silence dragged on, the less hopeful she became. Crap. He was going to say no. She could see it in his eyes.

But the moment he opened his mouth, an unexpected savior strode into the room.

“I couldn’t help but overhear, Maurice, and truth be told, I think our Catarina has a point.” With an indulgent smile, Nikolaus sat in the chair next to Cate’s before addressing her grandfather again. “There’s no harm in agreeing to her request. Let her have one day where she doesn’t feel like she’s being fussed over.”

Still smiling, Nik poured himself some coffee, then withdrew a silver flask from the inner pocket of his navy blazer. He uncapped it and added a splash of whiskey to his cup.

Cate tried not to gape at him, but her shock hadn’t come from seeing him add alcohol to his cup—he always drank his coffee that way. No, what surprised her was that he was actually taking her side. The other day he’d all but forbidden her to spend time with Gabriel, and now he was encouraging it?

Probably because we’ll be in public, where we can’t have sex,
she thought wryly.

“What’s the harm?” Nik said again. “Bruno and Christian can drink their cappuccinos and keep an eye on the kids from a distance.”

After another beat of silence, her grandfather capitulated. “All right. I suppose I’m worrying for nothing. And it will only be a couple of hours, right?”

She nodded eagerly. “Maybe even less. Gabriel has chores to do around the house, so he can’t be gone for too long.”

Trying to appear casual, she finished her croissant and polished off the rest of her juice, then scraped back her chair. “I should go upstairs and get ready before Gabriel arrives.”

Maurice narrowed his eyes. “I suppose he’ll be picking you up on that motorcycle of his?”

“It’s a Vespa. And he’s a very good driver.”

“He has a helmet for you?”

Cate had to laugh. “You know he does—you’re the one who bought it and insisted he keep it on him at all times.”

“That’s right. I did.” Her grandfather reached for his coffee. “All right. Have fun today, Catarina. And tell Gabriel he can drop you off here when you’re done. We’ll leave for your mother’s house the moment you get back.”

With a nod, Cate hurried off, still amazed that she’d gotten him not only to agree to let her go, but also to ease up on her security detail.

But Nik backing her up? What the heck was
that
about?

On the other hand, who was she to look a gift horse in the mouth?

As butterflies of excitement fluttered in her belly, she dashed upstairs and made a beeline for her bedroom. The second she was alone, her excitement transformed into a serious case of nerves, and she found that her palms were damp as she closed the door.

She leaned against it and took a deep breath, her mind beginning to race.

What if she was wrong and James Morgan wasn’t her father?

What if he
was
her father and he turned out to be a total dick?

Or worst of all—what if he turned out to be amazing? What if he was everything she’d ever dreamed of?

A part of her almost hoped he wouldn’t be, because even though she’d reached out and made contact, she had the sinking feeling that this would be the only opportunity she’d ever get to see him, at least if her grandfather had anything to say about it.

Which meant she had to make every second count.

•   •   •

Noelle was smoking a cigarette on the balcony when Bailey stepped through the French doors wearing blue jeans and a faded green tank top.

At first glance, Bailey could be considered average looking. At second glance, maybe even pretty. But Noelle knew firsthand that the woman was stunning when she wanted to be. Bailey’s face was like an empty canvas. One stroke here, another one there, and she was able to transform into an exquisite beauty. She was a master of disguise, just like Isabel Roma, except Bailey was even more exceptional at altering her appearance.

“We have to go,” Bailey informed her.

“I know.”

When Noelle didn’t budge, Bailey leaned against the doorframe with a thoughtful tilt to her head. “So...what’s going on with you and Morgan?”

She shrugged. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Then you’re
not
sleeping with him?”

“I didn’t say that.”

The other woman seemed to be fighting back laughter. “Interesting. So you’re screwing the guy, but there’s nothing between you.”

“Yep.”

“Okay, then. Ready to go?”

Noelle hid a smile as she put out her cigarette in the glass ashtray on the railing. One of her favorite things about Bailey? The woman didn’t pry. Unlike Isabel, who poked at people until they caved, or Juliet, who taunted the details out of them. But Bailey and Abby, well, they knew when to leave certain matters alone, probably because they lived with so many secrets of their own.

As she walked inside, she had to wonder why she was even still here. She should be long gone by now. Sunbathing on her private island in the Maldives, meeting some old friends in Tokyo, lying around in her Sicilian villa. She could be doing any damn thing she wanted, and yet she was here. At Jim’s side.

Helping him meet his daughter.

Ever since she’d found out about the girl, Noelle had been trying valiantly not to think of her, or how under drastically different circumstances, Catarina Durand could have been hers.

Hers and Jim’s.

There was a time when she would have happily given birth to the man’s child. Not just happily, but
eagerly
. She’d wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with him and be a mother to his children, but then he’d betrayed her, officially squashing any notions of happily-ever-after. Not to mention motherhood.

She supposed it wasn’t too late, though. She was only in her midthirties—women were popping out rugrats well into their fifties these days.

But who was she kidding? She would never have a child. She was a killer, and killers weren’t allowed to have kids. Any social service worker worth their salt would snatch her kid away if they discovered what she did for a living.

“Boss?”

Her head jerked up at the sound of Bailey’s voice. “Did you say something?”

“I said I’m going to take the Ducati and meet you guys there. I’m popping out here.”

“Sounds good,” she said as the other woman headed for the front door.

After Bailey was gone, Noelle continued toward the elevator, where she found Jim waiting for her. His men had left a short while ago, but for some reason, he’d decided to ride with her.

To keep an eye on her, maybe? It wouldn’t surprise her. She’d made no attempt to hide her displeasure about today’s plans, and she got the feeling Jim didn’t trust her to back him up.

“Ready?” he said roughly.

“Always.”

She didn’t meet his eyes—she was too busy looking at the cell phone in his hand. The same phone that contained the photographs Catarina had e-mailed him yesterday.

Noelle suspected he’d stayed up all night staring at those photos, because he hadn’t joined her in bed, and when she’d walked into the living room this morning, he’d been sprawled on the couch, clutching that damn phone against his chest.

She hadn’t asked to see the pictures. She couldn’t stomach the thought of seeing a mini Ariana looking back at her.

The elevator doors opened. Jim stepped through them first, and Noelle eyed his getup as she followed him into the car.

He was lightly armed, which was all he could get away with in his cargo pants, T-shirt, and thin blue long-sleeve. In the summer heat, he’d stand out like a sore thumb if he wore a jacket or bulkier shirt; even his button-down seemed excessive, considering the day’s sweltering temperatures. But the shirt was there to shield the handgun in his waistband, and it was doing its job—the bulge of the weapon was only visible if you peered closely, as she did now in order to check out his ass.

Lord, she couldn’t deny that he had a great ass. Deliciously taut, with just enough meat on it for a woman to grab onto.

She still wanted him. As disheartening as it was, there was no denying that either.

She was nowhere close to getting her fill of the man, though she imagined that after today, there’d be no more sex. No, his attention would be elsewhere from this point on.

His attention would be on his daughter.

His and Ariana’s daughter.

Bitterness rose in Noelle’s throat as she once again allowed the thought to sink in. It didn’t matter what Jim might or might not have felt for Ariana Dietrich—the woman had still given birth to his child, which meant that depending on how today’s meeting went, Ariana was about to be part of Jim’s life again.

Forever, this time.

Well, Noelle didn’t plan on sticking around for the family reunion. She might not have fucked Jim out of her system yet, but she was willing to sacrifice her libido and leave the city unfulfilled as long as it meant not having to see him get his happily-ever-after.