The Complete Red-Hot Collection. Kelly Hunter
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straight back to a little coffee house in Istanbul.
Ruby obligingly waved the container beneath his nose. ‘We can put this in a pot and make it Turkish-style, if that’s your preference?’
‘I’m beginning to understand why Damon married you.’
‘You mean, it didn’t instantly dawn on you?’
‘Um …’ Why was his world suddenly so full of beautiful smart-mouthed women? ‘Turkish coffee would be great. I can make it.’
Ruby favoured him with a pretty smile. Jared risked a glance in Damon’s direction before taking a careful step back. He liked women with pretty smiles. He did. He’d never before been scared of one, but there was a first time for everything.
‘I … uh … I’m sorry I couldn’t make it back for your wedding.’
‘Play your cards right and you can be Damon’s plus-one at the birth.’
Oh, dear God. She was probably joking. Hopefully she was joking. But he figured a change of subject wouldn’t hurt. ‘Anyone seen the newly happily married couple this morning?’
‘They’re still in bed.’
Jared winced. There was another image he really didn’t want in his head.
‘You don’t approve?’ asked Poppy.
‘I do approve. I just don’t want to think about it.’
‘Very healthy,’ his new sister-in-law murmured.
‘If I whimper will you back off?’
‘I didn’t think terrorist-hunters whimpered.’
‘This one does.’
He shuffled around to the kitchen side of the bench, opened a couple of cupboards before finding a saucepan and dumping some water in it. Surprisingly, Ruby carefully shook a damn near perfect amount of ground coffee into it before putting the coffee tin back on the counter.
‘How are you feeling?’ asked Poppy.
‘Good.’ As if a rhinoceros had rolled on him. ‘Peachy.’
And then Poppy was beside him, worming her way beneath his arm and hugging him carefully, and he closed his eyes and rested his cheek on her head as he gathered her in—because it was good to be home, and they had no idea how much he’d missed this, missed them, and for what?
He’d brought down the Antonov operation. So what? Another arms dealer would take Antonov’s place. He’d exposed a few moles in high places, but he’d be a fool to think he’d exposed them all. He knew he hadn’t exposed them all.
He opened his eyes to find Rowan Farringdon staring at him with puzzled eyes. He knew he was showing his weakness for family but he just didn’t care any more. He closed his eyes and hugged Poppy tighter.
‘Do I get one of those?’
The voice came from the doorway. Jared opened his eyes and looked straight at Lena. She looked well, if a little tousled, and her pretty floral sundress suited her. She looked happy.
‘If you want,’ he offered gruffly.
‘I do want.’
Lena started towards him, a slight hitch in her step—no way was he going to call it a limp—and then he had his arms full of Lena and Poppy both.
‘Got to do something to take that look off your face,’ said Lena.
‘What look?’
‘The faraway one. You need to come back to us, Jare.’
‘I am back.’
Lena stared at him intently for what felt like a very long time before silently shaking her head and stepping away and turning towards the director.
‘When does he have to leave?’
‘Five minutes ago.’
Poppy’s big blue eyes were grave. ‘How much trouble are you in?’
‘Don’t care.’
‘Will you stay working for them?’
‘Don’t know.’
Poppy didn’t care that they were having this conversation in front of Rowan Farringdon. Neither did Jared.
‘Do you want to?’
He didn’t answer. He didn’t know.
Damon shoved a dripping bacon and egg sandwich in his hand. Jared extricated himself from Poppy and bit into it with relief. He didn’t need a plate—he was an old hand at eating on the go.
‘Ready when you are, Director.’
‘I haven’t finished my coffee yet.’ You haven’t even had yours, her look said. I’m cutting you a break, here. Take it and shut the hell up.
He shut the hell up.
He bit into his sandwich more slowly this time. Coffee appeared and he reached for it gratefully. One minute passed. Two minutes. They left him alone. They asked no more questions.
And then two suited men darkened the doorway and Rowan Farringdon shut her little silver computer and stood up.
‘Agent West,’ one of them said, and there was a measure of respect in the man’s voice that Jared had never heard before. ‘It’s time to go.’
ROWAN’S OFFICE WAS the same as the offices that housed the other five section directors. Large, as befitting her position, it also had a small apartment tucked in behind it, for when she worked around the clock and needed to freshen up with a shower and a change of clothes—or, indeed, catch a couple of hours’ sleep after coming off a thirty-six-hour shift.
Jared wasn’t strictly her responsibility any more. In all good conscience Rowan could have left him to Corbin to break or to fix. But she, like everyone else in the building, was uncommonly interested in whatever further information he might have to divulge.
Not that Jared West seemed inclined to divulge anything at all—at least not to Corbin.
Rowan gave yesterday’s recording of Jared’s debrief one last scathing glance before leaning back in her desk chair and tilting her head from one side to the other in an effort to ease the tension in her neck. It was only Tuesday morning, but she felt as if she’d been here for ever.
She reached for her headset and put it on. ‘Sam, have Agent West see me as soon as he’s out of debrief.’
Some people in this building wanted to hear a real debrief, not the fairytale version that Jared was out there spinning—and as of this morning Rowan had been given the task of earning his trust and breaking him open.
If she could.
Jared didn’t get out of debrief until midday Wednesday, and if he never again saw the inside of that little white room with its one-way mirror it would still be too soon.
Rowan Farringdon’s request caught up with him two minutes later. Five minutes after that he was standing in her outer office, staring at a lionfish in a wall-sized fish tank while her plump and pretty assistant buzzed him in.
He liked it that she didn’t keep him waiting. He liked it that she stayed seated behind her desk, because it reinforced their respective positions within the service. They weren’t equals here. He didn’t expect them to be.
He stood before her desk, feet slightly apart, hands behind his back, and waited while she looked him over in silence. The bruises on his face combined purple with a sickly shade of yellow. He wondered if she thought him any prettier.
She