CHAPTER SIX

      BY THE TIME they touched down in the capital Rowan had done a whole lot of touching, brushing against and just plain standing close to Jared West, and the extended contact was beginning to take a toll on her senses. She liked the smell of him and the feel of him.

      Everyone liked the sight of him. He’d changed into a business suit and he wore it to perfection. It gave him an air of authority and added a couple more years to his thirty. His wristwatch signalled the kind of wealth that got handed down from generation to generation. His grandfather, according to the records, had made a fortune in shipping, and his father had taken it into the investment banking arena and quadrupled it. Between Jared, his siblings and his elders, they had property on every continent and in most major cities.

      For Jared to choose working for secret intelligence over all the other options available to him had been an unusual move. For him not to want to advance through the ranks now was more unusual still. She didn’t know what drove him—beyond family loyalty and wanting to clean up his mess.

      ‘Jared?’ she said as they stepped from the airport terminal and headed towards a waiting car. ‘Don’t make me regret my belief in you.’

      He glanced her way, his gaze strangely searching. ‘What is it about me that you believe in?’

      ‘I believe that you want to see this through.’ She nodded to Jeffers, her driver, who had opened the door as she approached, sparing only a glance for Jared.

      Jared settled in beside her. Jeffers handed her a tablet and she took it and opened up her information stream. Jared didn’t ask anything else. He let her get on with it and looked out of the window, deep in his own thoughts.

      It wasn’t until they were back in the corridors of Section that he spoke again. ‘How soon can I leave?’

      ‘I’ll need to bring you into my section and under my jurisdiction first. At the moment you’re Corbin’s.’

      ‘Will Corbin be a problem?’

      ‘We’re about to find out.’

      They’d reached her office and Sam looked up, her cool gaze encompassing them both.

      ‘Director. Agent West.’

      ‘Mr West needs to book a flight to wherever it is he’s going. I’ll leave him with you.’

      But Jared followed her to her door instead of taking his cue. ‘Don’t I get to listen in on your courtesy call?’

      ‘No. Try not to annoy Sam too much, Mr West. She’s perfectly capable of sending you to Belarus via Antarctica.’

      ‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ he murmured.

      She smiled encouragingly and shut the door on him with no little satisfaction. Back in her domain, back in control, and out of range of that killer smile and perfect body. He was hard on the senses, Jared West. Hard on the mind.

      She wasn’t game to examine her confidence.

      Rowan’s conversation with George Corbin didn’t begin well.

      ‘You can’t have him,’ he said curtly when she put her request to him. ‘He’s on medical leave.’

      ‘He’s back, he’s bored, and I need him for a job.’

      ‘Consulting?’

      ‘Fieldwork.’ She knew damn well that her decision to send Jared back into the field wasn’t going to go down a treat. No need to mention that the job was Antonov-related.

      ‘You’re crazier than I thought.’

      ‘Will you release him or not? He doesn’t want your sub-director’s chair, by the way.’

      ‘Maybe I never expected him to take it in the first place.’

      She could hear the older director’s exasperation, loud and clear.

      ‘Maybe all I’m trying to do is get him looking towards a future in which Antonov’s reach isn’t his entire focus. Get him thinking about how to come out of this current situation with his career intact. Maybe I simply don’t like watching one of our best and brightest break.’

      ‘He won’t break. He’ll do what’s asked of him.’

      ‘Says who? Him? Or you? He’s not physically fit. He’s not mentally ready. What makes you think that if you send him out now he’ll even return? What makes you think he won’t end up in pieces?’

      ‘He’ll come back when he’s due back—and it won’t be in a body bag.’ She could picture Corbin’s cold grey eyes and his tightly drawn lips. ‘Do I need to call in favours?’

      ‘I don’t owe you any favours.’

      ‘In that case I’ll owe you.’

      She could practically hear the older man calculating what he might demand of her. Nothing good.

      Eventually he spoke again. ‘You can have him—but my objections are going on record.’

      ‘Thanks, George. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.’

      Corbin hung up.

      Rowan put the phone down, closed her eyes, and banged her head against the padded leather headrest of her chair a couple of times.

      That had been so not what she’d wanted to hear.

      If Jared didn’t come through with the name of that final mole she was screwed.

      Several hours later Rowan had managed to wade her way through most of her work for the day. Tomorrow’s schedule was in place, Sam was finishing up, and the only memo sheet left on her desk was the one regarding Jared’s impending travel arrangements.

      He was booked to go via Warsaw with his first flight leaving at four-forty a.m. He was scheduled to return four days after he got there. Six days in total—not nearly long enough for him to pay his respects to two dead men’s families, check on a kid in the Netherlands, and go after the name of Antonov’s final mole. His arrangements were flawed from the beginning.

      Not a good start.

      ‘Agent West wanted to know what time you usually leave the office,’ Sam said as she shut down her computer and secured her desk drawers with the thoroughness with which one might secure a safe.

      ‘What did you tell him?’

      ‘She said I should be able to catch you about now.’

      The office door was open. How Jared had managed to appear framed in it without either her or Sam hearing him was a testament to how quietly he could move.

      She nodded to