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When we exited on the eighth floor, a man I knew but had to pretend I didn’t, was waiting.
“Good morning, Emme,” he said before turning to me. “This must be Mr. Edgemon. I’m Paxon Warrick.” He held out his hand, and I shook it.
“Emerson,” I murmured, loving that name so much more than the nickname the man known to me as Irish had just used.
“Yes?” she asked with wide eyes and a furrowed brow.
“Do you need a few moments before our meeting?”
“Um…sure,” she answered. “How did you know my…never mind. I’m sure it was in Dr. Benjamin’s notes.”
I nodded, waiting to see if my slip let on I’d recognized her like I guessed she had me.
“I’ll show our guest to the conference room,” Irish offered.
“Wait. Were you aware we were meeting with Mr. Edgemon instead of Dr. Benjamin?”
“I was.”
As I watched her face go from puzzled to pensive, I wondered why Irish wasn’t handling this better.
“I received an email. I assumed you did too,” he said, but it seemed too little, too late.
“Hmm,” she murmured, picking up her bags. “I’ll just be a moment.” She walked away, leaving me alone with the undercover agent the CIA had put in place when MI6 brought Saint in.
“Follow me,” he said when she disappeared down the hallway. “Coffee? No, wait. You’re a tea drinker.”
“Neither, thanks. Water would be nice, though.”
Irish led me into what looked like more of a war room than a place to meet. “I’ll forewarn you that Emme—Dr. Charles—can be…quirky, and that’s an understatement. But she’s a brilliant analyst.”
“As well as strategist.” And so much more than that. She was the woman I’d never been able to forget, and the one I never thought I’d see again.
Irish murmured his agreement, grabbed an envelope from the other side of the table, and slid it in front of me. “Beautiful too.”
Him saying so set me on edge, just like it had remembering that Saint told me they’d been seeing each other. “How close are the two of you?”
“Not as close as I’d like, but after this mission is over, who knows?”
My jaw tightened. Not if I had anything to say about it. And I planned to. Irish was out of his league. Way out. If I wanted Emerson—and I did—I’d have her. He and Saint could both be damned.
“She hasn’t let on that she knows anything about Saint’s disappearance,” he said quietly when he returned with my glass of water. “Or Dr. Benjamin’s,” he added as an afterthought.
“That was evident.”
“How so?”
“We crossed paths at their apartment building.”
“What did she say?”
I explained that I’d encounteredEmmeexiting Saint’s building earlier as I was going in. “There wasn’t anything specific, only that her demeanor when I mentioned knowing Niven was one of curiosity rather than concern.”
“Serendipitous, meeting her,” he commented.
“Or not.” I would’ve preferred to keep my association with Saint a secret longer than I had.
“Have a seat.” Irish motioned to a chair.
