True Deceptions (True Lies) (34 page)

And then she heard the gunshot.

S
imon forced Cassie to the ground and shielded her body, while trying to free his gun from the holster. The minister colla
psed behind them, and Dane dove behind a large stone.

“Stay,” Simon ordered Cassie. “Do not leave this spot.”

Her face had paled, and her lips pursed tight together. He forced himself to leave her side, his chest hurting from the pressure on the wound and the fear of leaving his wife without protection.

He followed the shadow of a man around the back of a small teahouse. When the shooter turned, Simon saw the deadly intent in Tucker’s pretty boy features. He’d come to finish the job, to eradicate all evidence of his poorly implemented plan. They pointed their weapons at each other, neither backing down.

Dane ran around the corner into the middle of the standoff.

Simon yelled, “Duck!”

The window behind Dane shattered as he hit the ground. He was covered in glass, but not bloody. Tucker turned and retreated through a gate and toward the woods.

“You okay?” Simon called out to Dane, who carefully brushed off the glass debris.

“Pissed off,” he yelled.

They continued their pursuit to the end of a garden path. Tucker was pulling himself over a tall stone wall. Dane stopped running, aimed his gun, and fired. He hit Tucker high on his thigh. A shot to slow him down, but not kill him. A strangled yell echoed across the garden. Simon continued toward him. Tucker flipped himself and his injured leg over the wall and tried to escape, leaving blood on the stone. Despite his wound, he was moving faster than Simon.

Simon’s ankle burned as he ran. Sweat poured from his forehead. He’d tried to build up the strength and flexibility of his leg in the past few weeks, but his muscles cramped in response to the agony of inflaming his injuries. He wasn’t ready for full throttle. His lungs weren’t at top capacity either. The weeks spent convalescing screwed with his daily workouts. He had no energy. Footsteps came up behind him, closing in at a full sprint.

“Where did he go?” Dane called out.

“Over the wall.” Simon felt like shit for not being able to catch Tucker, but Dane could reach him, and they needed him alive and speaking.

“I got it, old man.” Dane passed Simon and climbed the wall like a young recruit. Simon could hear shots fired, a few cries of pain, and then silence. He hobbled to the wall and pulled himself to the top. He’d assumed Dane would kick Tucker’s ass. He’d assumed wrong.

“Fantastic agent you are.” Tucker said, as he pointed his gun as Dane’s head.

“You’re still an idiot. You shot me in the arm after three tries.” Dane taunted him. “Your aim sucks. You missed Simon as well and hit the minister in the chapel, you little shit.”

“And you’ve been unable to handle anything larger than an observational role in covert activities unless Simon is tucked up to your side protecting your ass.”

Dane’s face hardened. “I’m more than capable of taking you down on my own.”

Tucker laughed. “Certainly doesn’t look like it.”

Simon held onto the wall with one arm, watching the men argue. His gun targeted Tucker’s head, but he was unsure if he could hit him at such a distance. If he missed, Dane would be finished.

“This is for Valeriya.” Tucker stepped closer to Dane.

“Since when have you been a Russian sympathizer?” Dane asked.

“She was a student, nothing more. The intelligence was wrong.”

“Her best friend Marta, disappeared after meeting with U.S. recruiters. The poor woman’s family received one finger at a time. Ironic that Marta’s ex-boyfriend graduated Langley with me. Last I heard, he was in a prison north of St. Petersburg. All your beautiful fiancée’s handiwork. I did you a favor. She would have had you arrested within weeks if I hadn’t terminated her.”

Tucker straightened his arm and let out a huff of air. “You’re wrong.”

Simon tossed a loose stone into the woods behind Tucker. He took the bait, idiot that he was, and turned his head a fraction. His gun moved away from Dane. Simon fired and missed. Tucker’s body, however, flinched back and collapsed to the ground. Dane jumped up and took his gun. Tucker appeared to be breathing, but blood spilled from a knife in his throat. The one Dane always hid near his ankle.

“Still need work on your aim,” Dane called to Simon. “But thanks for the distraction.”

“It was payback for helping Cassie in North Korea.” The image of Cassie on the ground in the chapel rushed into his mind, and he turned back up the path. “Take care of Tucker.”

It took all of his energy and a lifetime of effort to get back inside. He limped down the path, holding himself up by the back of random chairs. Cassie was crouched over the minister. When she turned around, he noticed blood all over her gown. Everything else blurred.

He fought his pain to get to her side. “What’s wrong? Were you shot?”

Her hair was damp with sweat, and a streak of blood marred her perfect face. “I’m fine. The minister was shot in the shoulder. I’m trying to minimize his blood loss until the ambulance arrives. Where’s Dane?”

“He’s keeping vigil with the shooter.” Simon strode two steps closer to her and collapsed to the floor. One hand reached out to touch the blood on her cheek.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

“I’m fine.” And he would be, as long as Cassie was nearby.

Two hours later, Tucker was dead, and the minister, Simon, and Dane were hospitalized. Simon, stuck in bed again, wrapped an arm around Cassie to keep her next to him, but away from the newly opened wounds in his chest.

“I can’t believe you brought a gun to our wedding.” Her head rested on his shoulder, her blonde hair drifting across his arm.

“Aren’t you glad I did?”

She shrugged. “We’ll never stop looking over our shoulders, will we?”

“I have plans to slow down.”

Simon wanted to retire from his strange placement at MI6, but it would be safer if he stayed in the arms field. Retired, he’d be considered weak and a target. If he remained in the game, he’d be able to keep tabs on all the players. Having a second-in-command as competent and loyal as Dane would keep him even safer. Dane, however, wasn’t ready to give up his cushy sales job in California. But Simon could be persuasive when he wanted to be. He just needed the right bait.

Cassie had clearance to return to her old job. He’d already spoken to his contacts at HQ, and they’d agreed to allow her to work remotely from the farmhouse near Oxford he’d purchased for her wedding present. Living close to Henry and Alex would also be a benefit.

“So I stay home, and you run around the world making arms deals?” Cassie asked after hearing the details of their future life together.

“We can switch positions, but your knowledge about the arms trade is weak, and I’m not quite as advanced as you are in computers. Besides, I’ll do all the cooking when I’m home.”

“Vegan meals?” With a twist of her neck, she faced him nose to nose.

He kissed her. Long, hard, deep, and intense. She should know better than to come so close. If only he could lock the door. She pulled back first, breathing deep and looking a bit flustered. Man, he loved her.

“We can be vegan on Mondays, Wednesdays, and an occasional Friday.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “I bet you’ll be in London on those days.”

“That’s what I love about you, angel. Analytical skills galore.”

L
ife moved exactly as Simon had envisioned. He scaled down his business, Cassie happily worked from a home office, and Junior continued to grow inside her mother. S
he’d be arriving into the world in a matter of weeks.

At that exact moment, however, Simon dedicated himself to Cassie’s physical needs. She looked amazing under him, as though she had been placed there for his dinner, dessert, and tomorrow’s breakfast as well. By the time they had finished the first three courses, Cassie’s eyes were beginning to close, but Simon was still hungry. He began to explore her expanding curves. He started with her breasts and moved to her rounded stomach.

Her pregnant body fascinated him. He caressed down her side until his fingers detoured over her thigh. “Don’t move. I want to see if you can remain perfectly silent as I torture you.”

She laughed, and her body shook, but she said nothing.

“You’re failing. Stop moving.”

The phone on the bedside table rang.

“Ignore it,” he called out before descending further.

His cell phone rang.

“Don’t move,” he ordered.

Cassie, always one to follow orders, lifted his cell phone. “It’s Dane.”

“He can talk to my voicemail.”

Dane’s refusal to become his partner pissed him off. They’d be perfect together, and Simon wouldn’t have to worry about the CIA breathing down his throat. Dane, however, didn’t want the hassle.

“You better answer it.”

“You’ll be asleep if talk I on the phone.”

“Exactly. I need a break. You’re insatiable.”

“You need more sex to improve your stamina.”

She handed him the phone, kissed him on the cheek, and rolled over. “Good night, Simon.”

He hit the speaker function. He didn’t have secrets anymore where Cassie was concerned. “Dunn.”

“We have a problem. How quickly can you get to Columbia?”

We?
He glanced at his almost sleeping wife. “I can’t. I no longer have a death wish, and my wife will kill me if I leave her before Junior arrives.”

“A rebel group took my sister. I need backup from outside the agency.” The strain in Dane’s voice changed Simon’s mind.

Cassie turned to face him. “Go. We owe him our lives. You might as well pay him back before the baby’s born.” She sat against the headboard, completely alert. She still showed fear on her face without any attempt to conceal it, but the strength bubbling up through her inner core created a steel wall that would protect her in the future.

Simon gave Cassie a slight nod and spoke into the phone. “I’ll be at Heathrow in two hours. Text me the specifics.”

Dane let a relieved laugh. “I love that woman of yours. Give Cassie a huge kiss for me, but nothing more. We don’t have the time.”

The phone call ended, and the prospect of Dane joining his organization just improved one hundred percent.

He grabbed his suitcase and threw in a few necessities for the trip. After he finished, he walked over to Cassie. She should have put her clothes back on, because her naked breasts were seducing him back into bed. He kissed her with a blaze that would never extinguish, no matter how much he tried to satiate himself in her.

“I’ll be home soon.”

“I know you will.”

“You do?”

A smile lifted the corners of her mouth, more like a skilled operative than a seductive wife. “If you aren’t back within two weeks, I’m coming to get you.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

She raised her eyebrows, fierce and proud as a lioness.
Damn, she would.

Did you love this Entangled Select Suspense? Check out more of our titles
here
!

And for exclusive sneak peeks at our upcoming books, excerpts, contests, chats with our authors and editors, and more…

Sign up for our
Newsletter

Be sure to like us on
Facebook

Follow us on
Twitter

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Jim, Sophia, and Vivienne. Being the family of a writer is not easy. I tend to ignore the dishes, the laundry, and meal preparation while I’m struggling with a story, and my thoughts are often in another dimension thinking about fictional people and events. I love you guys more than words can say.

Thanks to Candace Havens, my editor, for your amazing assistance in polishing this manuscript from a good story into a great one.

Kate Forest, Betty Bolté, and Susan Scott Shelley are the best critique partners ever. Thanks for the support.

A shout out to my agent Michelle Grajkowski for guiding me through this crazy business.

And a special thanks to all the fans who loved Simon in “Untrue Colors” and asked for his story to be told.

About the Author

Veronica Forand is an attorney and an award-winning writer of romantic suspense.

She’s lived in Boston, London, Paris, Geneva, and Washington, DC and currently resides near Philadelphia. An avid traveler, she loves to roam across continents with her husband and kids in pursuit of skiing, scuba diving, and finding the perfect piece of chocolate.

Sign up for the Select Suspense
newsletter
and be the first to hear about new releases from Veronica Forand and other fantastic Entangled authors!

Reviews help other readers find books. We appreciate all reviews, whether positive or negative. Thank you for reading!

Also by Veronica Forand…

U
NTRUE
C
OLORS