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Prologue
Lyon, France
Three years ago
She’d broken all the rules. But boy, had it been worth it.
Eden Kane tried to open her eyes, but they only fluttered before closing again. The effort was too much. Maybe she’d just stay like this forever—her heart pounding, the sweat cooling on her skin, and a very attractive man lying next to her. They were both risking their careers, but love made a person do crazy things.
“I don’t think I can move,” Jonah Salt murmured against her neck.
“I’m not complaining. I can’t feel my legs anyway.” Her eyes slowly opened and she noticed some of the candles had guttered out, so the room was cast in shadow instead of a soft yellow glow.
Jonah had been her partner and trainer for the last eight months. He’d been her friend and mentor. He knew her better than anyone else on the planet, and she knew him. And as of tonight, they were husband and wife. The agency was going to lose its collective mind when it found out.
They were covert agents for Oblivion, an off-the-books division of the CIA, and they’d just finished a mission they’d been working for months. It hadn’t exactly gone as planned, and now they were waiting to tie up a few loose ends and see what their debriefing orders were.
The small chateau that had been turned into a boutique hotel was where they’d planned to regroup if the mission was compromised. It was high traffic and touristy, and no one would ever suspect that they were anything other than a normal couple. It was an act they’d perfected dozens of times before.
But this time had been different. A romantic atmosphere surrounded them at dinner. The wine had flowed freely. And the love and affection they felt for each other could no longer be hidden or contained. Jonah knew how strict her upbringing had been and how she clung to her beliefs. But she’d been on the verge of compromising them when he’d told her he wanted her to be his wife. He loved and respected her, which wasn’t a combination that was always easy to find.
It hadn’t taken much for him to use his connections and money to find a priest to marry them quickly. It had been a dream—a surreal moment as she’d promised to love and cherish him forever—knowing the time they had together would be brief before the job called them back.
She could admit the attraction to Jonah had been instant from the moment she laid eyes on him. There was something about the sheer maleness of him that had drawn her in like a moth to flame—a body muscled with years of discipline and determination—calloused hands and the scars of someone who’d lived a lot of life. But it was his eyes that had captivated her—the palest ice blue—intelligent and cunning and wicked at times.
Jonah hadn’t been quite so quick to warm toherthough.
Eden knew her looks made people underestimate her ability, and she accepted her beauty as a tool—a weapon just as deadly as the knife she perpetually wore in her boot. But others, especially men in this business, didn’t trust her beauty, thinking there was nothing beneath the surface. So she had to continually prove herself and her abilities, and be better than they were. Jonah had been wary to take her on. But she soon proved her looks were nothing more than a distraction to hide the killer she was beneath.
She’d been Israeli Mossad—one of the eliteKidonassassins—before she’d been captured and tortured by the Syrians. All Mossad agents were trained to withstand various torture techniques, and though the training wasn’t pleasant, it had kept her from spilling secrets that would have betrayed her country. It was an impressive feat for someone as young as she’d been at the time.
US intelligence agents had rescued her. And she’d been given a choice once she’d been debriefed and made contact with her superiors. She was deemed ineffective by theKidonsince she’d been captured, and she had no wish to be one of the numerous intelligence gatherers who did nothing but stare at a computer screen all day. She belonged in the field. So she’d taken the offer the US had given her. A new identity. A new country. A new team.
She’d had no family left in Israel, and though her loyalty had always been to her homeland, she felt the move to the United States was the best she could have made. Her two home countries were allies, and she would defend her new country with honor, just as she had her last.
Her cell phone buzzed—an insistent hum that droned on and on—from the little table across the room. But she was in no hurry to go back to the real world.
“You need to get that?” Jonah asked, kissing the side of her neck before rolling to the other side of the bed. He sat up and ran his fingers through tousled white-blond hair in need of a trim.
“That’s my private line, so no. Not until tomorrow. I’ve got the satellite phone if the agency needs to get in touch.”
He stood without any self-consciousness at all, and she watched in pure female appreciation as the muscles in his back flexed as he stretched. Jonah was an interesting man. Quiet in a lot of ways. He was fourteen years older than her own twenty-six years, and what they said about older men being excellent lovers was true. He knew exactly what he was doing, where to touch and taste to make her blood sing. She couldn’t have imagined a better first experience. He’d cared for her and loved her—made the moment feel special.
His face was an interesting one rather than handsome. The lines that fanned from his eyes and the corners of his mouth were deep, and his beard was flecked with the occasional strand of white.
“We’ve got an early morning tomorrow,” he said. “The boat will be here to pick us up for debriefing.”
Eden sighed and pulled the covers over her chilled skin. “My favorite part. Do you think they’re going to be more angry that we didn’t get the identity ofProteusor that we got married without getting clearance?
Jonah laughed. “You worry too much about the rules.”
“Old habits are hard to break,” she said. “I still don’t understand how everything went so wrong so quickly. Francois Renard was the only person we’ve been able to find who’s had direct contact withProteus. How did they get the explosives in? Renard was right there under surveillance and no one saw anyone else go in or out. We’re going to take the rap for his death.”
“Maybe a slap on the knuckles,” Jonah said, shrugging. “But it wasn’t our job to keep Renard alive. It was our job to get him out. Those explosives were well placed and well timed. We’re lucky to be alive. In fact, I’m going to be feeling the aches and pains of this mission for a while.” He rubbed his hand over the growth of beard on his face and turned to give her a wry smile. “Fieldwork gets harder as you get older.”
“If it makes you feel better, I wrenched my knee when we jumped into that drainage ditch.”
His eyebrows rose in surprise. “You should have said something. I would have been…gentler.” His mouth quirked and she snorted out a laugh. He could always make her laugh.
