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His deep, smooth voice was enough to make me want to give him his turn at anything and everything.
“Have you ever been in love, Ashlee Armand?”
Had I? I wasn’t sure I had. Maybe because I’d only ever fit men in around the edges of what I considered my real life. First my education, then my career, and always my friends and family. I hadn’t ever wanted to be in love until—maybe—now. I made my living with words, but I didn’t know how to explain that to him, or to anyone.
“On or off the record?” I asked, buying time.
“Whichever makes the lady happy.”
He made me happy. For what might have been a first for me, I didn’t want to question it, investigate it, or label it. I smiled and snuggled deeper under my covers. “No comment.”
* * *
On Tuesday at 12:45 pm, my hired car pulled up outside my house. I locked my front door, crossed the lawn, and climbed into the back seat. My driver was in his early thirties, had a clean-shaven head and face, and bright blue eyes. He reached over the seat as if to shake my hand and slipped a tiny comms unit into my ear.
“A gift from Jensen,” he said.
I smiled at him. “Thanks, Penn. And thanks for the lift.”
“My pleasure. And also, protocol.”
I slid the comms into my ear, then cleared my throat. “Hello?”
“Hi, Ashlee. It’s Cynthia Kessler. How are you feeling today?”
“Okay,” I said. “Ready for this, I think.”
“Good. You’ll be fine. Just treat this like the other interviews you’ve had with Luka.”
“I will.” I licked my lips, which were suddenly dry. “But we only had two other in-person meetings. They were brief. We didn’t have lunch.”
“You’re going to be fine,” Cynthia assured me. “I’m going to be right here in your ear and watching both of you on a surveillance camera to see the body language so I can talk you through everything, okay?”
I let out a long breath. “Okay. It will be fine. I know that.” I wanted to ask about TJ, about where he would be and whether he would be watching my meeting with Luka, but that would be inappropriate to ask. “Will the whole team be listening?” I asked instead.
“Hi, Ashlee,” TJ said in my ear, as if he’d known I was asking specifically about him. And maybe he did. “We can all hear you, but there are a lot of conversations that happen during these ops, which can throw you off if you’re not used to it, so you’ll only hear Kessler.”
“Okay, thanks. Oh, and hi.”
“Hi,” he said again.
“Okay!” Cynthia broke in brightly. “Our fearless leader is going to get back to his job, and I’m going to keep you entertained for the next ten minutes while Penn drives you to the restaurant.”
She kept her promise, asking me about my kickboxing training, my nieces, whether I’d taken a vacation recently, and where I’d gone. Topics TJ and I had discussed during our nights and mornings alone in his apartment at HEAT. I wondered if TJ was paying attention to our conversation and thinking the same thing.
In what seemed like less than ten minutes, Penn pulled up in front of Taberna de Galicia, a trendy Spanish restaurant on the western fringes of DC.
“Pull out your phone,” Penn said quietly. “And don’t forget to tip me.”
Luka was waiting on the sidewalk. When he spotted me in the back seat, he pulled open the car door and helped me out.
“Draga.” He kissed both my cheeks. “I thought you would be driving yourself.”
“Thanks,” I said to Penn and waved. “Give me a sec, Luka. I don’t want to forget to tip my driver.” I made a production out of choosing a generous tip in the app that was an exact duplicate of the real thing, then dropped my phone into my purse. “This way, I don’t have to park.”
Luka held out his arm and wrapped my hand around his elbow, and we walked through the front door of the restaurant. Luka’s light gray suit and white shirt with the top two buttons undone showed off his dark hair, full beard, and light, perfect tan. More than a few heads turned as we followed the maître d’ to the patio and a table with a beautiful view of the harbor.
I pasted on a smile and swallowed my rising panic as I realized this was the northern end of the same harbor where Aiden and I had been imprisoned.
