The Complete Red-Hot Collection. Kelly Hunter
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Jared … Jared had always been attracted to power.
She gave him approximately three seconds to settle before looking up from her paperwork and getting to the point. ‘Mr West, your debrief is a joke. Everyone knows it; not everyone’s happy about it. Who do you intend to confide in?’
No one.
‘I want to talk to my handler,’ he said instead. ‘I told Corbin that. I’ve told you this before as well. How many times do I have to say it?’
‘I’m sorry.’ She looked momentarily torn. ‘Serrin’s dead. He’s been dead for two months.’
Jared kept his shoulders square and his face stony. This blow wouldn’t break him. He was just … tired. Tired of all the games. Tired of dealing on his own and making mistakes that cost other people too much.
‘Was it me? Did I leave him exposed?’
‘Yours wasn’t the only dark operation on Serrin’s books. He came unstuck elsewhere.’
One less stain for Jared’s soul. Assuming she was telling the truth.
She tilted her head to one side, her eyes searching and her smile oddly compassionate. ‘Jared, things would go a lot easier if you could bring yourself to trust me.’
‘I really don’t do trust.’
‘I know. I’ve read your file. Very few people are even allowed into your life, never mind privy to your thoughts. Your mother died giving birth to your brother. You’re fiercely protective of your sisters, not so much your father or your brother, who you blame—just a little—for your mother’s death. The only other emotional attachment you’ve ever made in your thirty years of living is to Trig Sinclair. You accepted him into your family unit when you were five.’
She still wasn’t wearing any rings on those expertly manicured fingers.
‘Here’s the problem,’ she continued. ‘A lot of people around here think that you haven’t quite finished exposing Antonov’s reach. A lot of people want to help you finish what you started. So here are my questions, given that you’re disinclined to share details. What are you waiting for? What do you need?’
A break, he wanted to say. Absolution. But he doubted she could give him either. ‘I need to go to Belarus,’ he said instead. Would she do it? Belarus was within her jurisdiction—her part of the world to monitor. ‘Just for a few days. Corbin won’t send me and I don’t know why.’
She laughed, and it was still one of the nicest sounds he’d ever heard. ‘Jared, have you seen your latest psych report?’
He hadn’t seen it. Chances were he wasn’t going to see it. ‘What does it say?’
‘That you have attachment issues, delusions of autonomy and a well-developed death wish. Corbin’s not going to send you to Belarus. He’s going to have a hard time sending you to the bathroom alone. All those sharp edges.’
‘I am not suicidal.’
‘Tell me what you want done in Belarus and I’ll put someone on it. Discreetly. You can run them from here.’
‘I don’t work that way.’
‘No? Maybe you should.’
She stood and headed for the door, but he wasn’t ready for this interview to be over, and he hadn’t yet let go of the rough edges he’d acquired after two years playing thug for Antonov.
He shot out his hand to keep the door closed and got up in her face.
Up close, he saw her eyes had little flecks of chocolate-brown in amongst the amber. He could smell the fresh lemon scent of her hair, feel the puff of her breath against his lips, and he knew that he was too close, that his lips were far too close to hers. Another inch and he’d be tasting her—and he wanted to. God. He wanted to fall into this woman and take his own sweet time climbing back out, and it didn’t matter that she was a section head or that his behaviour was way out of line. Maybe he’d forgotten what normal behaviour was. Meet a woman, like a woman, ask her on a date. Maybe he should start there.
‘Have dinner with me.’
‘That’s your next play?’
Nice to know he could surprise her. ‘Why not?’ He could feel the warmth in her, sense the steel in her, and he wanted both. ‘You can toy with me. Mentor me. Discipline me. I’m young. Impulsive. Smitten.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Could be why I like you.’ He eased back, just a fraction, and watched for signs of arousal in her—the faint flush of her skin or the hitch of her breath—but he didn’t find any. Just a soul-deep caution that matched his own.
‘You need to back off, Agent West.’
‘How about I take you to lunch? I promise to behave.’
‘No.’ She pushed her knuckles into his injured ribs—not hard, but a warning nonetheless. ‘You’re out of line.’
‘Would you hurt me?’ He leaned into her hand. ‘I don’t think you would.’
‘I’d rather not have to. Doesn’t mean I won’t, Mr West—
‘Call me Jared. Call me by my name.’ He hadn’t answered to his real name for such a long time—two years or thereabouts. He’d been Jimmy. Jimmy Bead. ‘Just—use my name. The way you did before. I want to hear people say it.’
‘Is your last name not enough?’
‘First name’s better.’
‘Why?’
‘There’s more me in it.’
‘Jared—’
‘Yeah. That’s the one.’
He stepped back all the way this time, and gave her the room she deserved. Her hand fell away and he felt the loss of warmth as if someone had dipped him in the Atlantic. He had a feeling that his psych report hadn’t covered half of what was wrong with him at the moment.
Or maybe it had.
‘If I say that my next question is for your benefit as well as mine, will you believe me?’ she asked quietly.
He ran a hand through his hair. He’d been doing that of late too, and it wasn’t something he’d ever done before—either as Jared or as JB … Jimmy Bead. ‘What’s the question?’
‘Do you know who you’re hunting? Antonov’s last insider. Do you know who it is?’
‘I— No. I think it’s a director, but I don’t know who it is. If I could have nailed a bullseye to his forehead I’d have done it.’
‘That much I do believe.’
‘Get me to Belarus,’ he begged.
‘No. Not yet. You need to rest. Take some leave. No one’s going to send you back out into the field in the condition you’re in. Get some sleep and let your body heal and then we’ll talk again. And, Jared …?’
‘That’s me,’ he muttered, and there was a joke in there somewhere, though it was probably on him.
‘Welcome back.’
THE WEST FAMILY beach house sat on the edge of a long stretch of unpatrolled beach in northern New South Wales. Jared’s brother had bought the sprawling house several years ago, with the intention of making it his home, but that hadn’t happened yet and all four West siblings tended to treat it as their own personal place of sanctuary and of rest. Although preferably not all