Page 1 of To Catch a Sub

ONE

A massive sapphire landed in the center of Interpol Agent Landon Malik’s desk. It sat there like a chunk of summer-blue sky that had been cut free and faceted.

Normally, Landon would have reacted instantly and decisively, but it had been a long day. He’d been slogging through paperwork at his desk for three hours. Before that were four hours of travel—it was a long train ride from London to Manchester—which in turn were preceded by ten hours in Heathrow’s security offices, interviewing suspected smugglers.

He’d planned to visit Club Alibi to check in before leaving London, though it wasn’t his assigned week as Dom in residence. The club was new, and when he was in London he tried to stop in. But yesterday it hadn’t been possible, even though his boss had okayed him delaying starting the paperwork on the smuggling case so he could spend some time at the club before returning to the office.

The suspected smugglers were women and children, victims of human trafficking who’d been forced to carry goods into the UK, and the sooner he got the right kind of reports written and paperwork filed, the better for them.

He’d skipped a visit to Club Alibi this time, assuring his boss that he’d stop in the next time he was in London, if he was back in the capital before his assigned week at the club.

It used to be that Landon’s work and personal life were completely separate. Now his boss knew he preferred sexually submissive partners and had bondage and pain kinks.

Landon stared at the sapphire, resting in the center of his report, for another half a second before his tired brain processed what he was looking at.

And the implications.

Awareness hummed through him as he looked from the gem to the hand of fate. More specifically, the hand that had just dropped a jewel onto his paperwork.

Pale, elegant, fingers wiggled in a cheeky greeting. His gaze followed the line of her arm up to her face.

“Bonjour, Landon.”

The moment should have had a dramatic orchestral music, rather than a backing score of generic office sounds—low-voices and the clack of keyboards.

A beautiful dark-haired woman with pale skin and a heart-shaped face leaned one hip against his desk. She wore a tan trench coat over a white dress with a silk scarf in patterns of blue, green, and pops of yellow looped casually around her neck. She looked effortlessly chic and totally at ease. A smile played around her mouth and her eyes sparkled, as if she was amused by the world, and hoped you felt the same.

Landon’s stomach knotted in shock, followed by relief.

She was alive.

“You’re alive.” He hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

She leaned forward, and he could smell her perfume. Her eyes were bright with intelligence and humor. “Were you worried about me, Landon?”

He should be sounding an alarm or hand cuffing her—and not fun recreational cuffing. No, she should be in restraints because she was a criminal, and a damned good one.

“You disappeared.” Landon leaned back in his chair, palms flat on his desk and arm muscles tight with tension in an effort not to grab her and pull her down onto his lap. “It was either dead or in custody.”

Colette tipped her head towards her computer. “Surely you checked, to see if someone had managed to catch me?”

Fuck. He had checked. At least once a month for years, he’d put her name into Interpol’s extensive information system to see if she was in prison somewhere. He’d occasionally find mention of her in some society gossip page, but there were rarely photos, so he’d never been sure if it was her.

She leaned in. “No one did. The closest anyone ever came to catching me…was you.”

Landon wanted to kiss her, then arrest her. Not necessarily in that order. And the fact that he wanted to kiss her was proof he was a fucking idiot.

She was alive…and she was here. At his desk. In Interpol.

There were a few times in Landon’s life where he’d had a fatalistic feeling. Known in advance that something momentous was about to happen. It was always accompanied by an odd, tingling sensation.

Right now he had all the tingles. All of them.

Colette Beaumont had that effect on him.

He looked from her to the room beyond. Yes, he was still at his desk in the high-security government facility that housed the UK’s Interpol NCB.

And somehow one of Europe’s most infamous cat burglars had walked right through building security, up to his desk, and dumped a giant sapphire on top of a classified report.