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1
ZEPPELIN
“You and Verity will be going undercover as Jack and Elise Evans, a couple on their honeymoon. I’ve scheduled your flight to St. Moritz this afternoon.”
“Saint Moritz?”Verity, bane of my existence, and I gasped at the same time.
Nemesis, head of the UN Coalition Against Human Trafficking and my commander for the duration of this assignment, folded her arms and leveled her steely gaze in my direction. “As you’re aware, we’ve received intelligence indicating it’s where AMPS has moved their money.”
While she’d saidwe’vereceived intelligence, it was Verity who tracked the millions of dollars the largest human trafficking ring in the world had moved out of Mauritian banks and into Swiss offshore accounts.
“But—”
“Zeppelin, while I would normally leave it to you to craft the missions your task force undertakes, in this case, I’m making the suggestion.”
In the world of intelligence, when a superior uttered the word “suggestion,” it was widely accepted to mean “order.”
“Ma’am, you cannot be serious,” Verity ventured.
“I could not be more so.” Nemesis walked away. Was it my imagination, or was the woman smirking?
Alena “Verity” Curran, the woman I’d soon have to pretend I loved as much as I detested her, had recently been promoted to Unit 23—the UK’s most secretive and deadly team of intelligence agents.
I was happy for her when the unit’s commander made the announcement, but happier for me, given it meant I’d no longer have to see her, talk to her, or even think about her after she transitioned over.
Whatever elation I’d felt was short-lived when the unit’s leader, Typhon, added. “For now, Verity will remain on permanent loan to the coalition, thus able to continue her role.” I was the commander of one of the coalition’s task forces. Verity was asubordinate—a role she’d refused to take. In fact, more often than not, she behaved as if she were of a higher rank.
Every word she uttered made me crazy. It was almost as if she argued with me just for the sake of doing so. The number of times I’d wanted to throttle her was only equal to one other thing—how often I’d wanted to strip her bare and fuck her senseless.
First, though, I had to get her removed from the undercover op. There was no way I’d be able to endure spending hours with her, let alone days or weeks.
—Verity—
I knew what Zeppelin was thinking. For all his arrogance, the man had no idea how easy he was to read.
The look on his face when Nemesis announced we were to go undercover together—as a newly married couple, no less—nearlymade me laugh out loud. I would have done so if I wasn’t equally chagrined.
I detested everything about the man, mainly because, worse than disliking :30 said him me, he showed me zero respect. No doubt, we’d have yet another battle of wills when it came to me playing the role of his wife. I could only imagine how the misogynistic arsehole would treat a spouse in real life. The women he’d been linked with in the past were of the supermodel ilk. And yes, I’d looked into them.
They were all tall, reed-thin, and beautiful, at least when done up in makeup thick as pancake batter. He seemed particularly attracted to those who accentuated their otherwise plank-like figure with exceedingly large breast enhancements. On the other hand, their brains were likely the size of a bird’s. Or smaller.
Given I was their opposite, I wondered if Zeppelin possessed the ability to play the role of a man enamored with his new wife.
God, help me. It wouldn’t be as difficult for me. As long as he kept his bloody mouth shut, I could drool over him for days. There was a certain way he leveled his icy blue eyes at me that all but melted my panties. Not to mention his body. Henry “Zeppelin” Bonham looked like he’d been sculpted from stone. Every bit of him was defined muscle. While six-pack abs were all the rage, I’d counted eight when I happened to see him shedding his tactical gear after one of our ops in Malta. My cheeks still flamed when remembering his smirk when he’d caught me looking.
Right now, his brown hair with natural ash-blond highlights was long enough to sometimes hang in his eyes. More than once, I’d caught myself right before reaching up to brush it from his forehead.
One word from him, though, never failed to jar me out of my haze of lust. A single syllable was like nails on a chalkboard. Every utterance raised my hackles.
“Verity, are you all right?”
My neck snapped when I quickly turned my head to face Nemesis, who I hadn’t noticed return to my side. “Of course. Why do you ask?”
Her eyes darted to Zeppelin, who stood talking with Magnet. “No reason.”
I sighed. “To be honest, I cannot imagine two people less well-suited for what you’ve asked of us. Our mutual abhorrence seeps from our pores.”
“Does it? I hadn’t noticed.”
