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Wanting him for his own sake. Wanting to feel the way he made her feel. So alive. Burning with life force. Fierce, vital, hungry. Hopeful.
No rule says you have to fuck the guy, a dry voice in her voice said.At least not until you know him better. He offered to help you. Protect you, even. How sweet. You have options.
Shut up,she told the voice. She didn’t want to think about her options right now. Her brain wasn’t functioning anyway.
She might as well use the parts of her that were still operational.
* * *
The elegant youngman dressed in crisp white dress shirt and figure hugging black trousers took away the cheese and fruit plate without making a sound. He presented new glasses, poured a new wine.
Neil King spared him an appraising glance, pegging him in time and vintage. Had the briefest of blank moments before retrieving the boy’s name from his memory banks. Julian. Yes, that was it. Eighteen or so. Coming along nicely, if he was trusted to serve King a late supper.
Julian was one of King’s special series trainees. His gaze lingered on the boy’s height, the line of his jaw, his dimples. Handsome. And admirably self possessed. Often the young, inexperienced ones got nervous and clumsy in King’s presence. He found it annoying.
Today, he was in a benevolent mood, and giving his full attention to Zoe, the young woman across the table. She’d earned it, for her smooth handling of the Howard Parr affair. Or her part of it, anyway. It was not her fault the rest of it had gone so unexpectedly sour.
Zoe was one of his oldest operatives, from his first crop. In fact, at twenty-seven, she was the only one left alive of her pod. It was impossible to pinpoint her age, since she had been scooped out of the slums of Rio di Janeiro as a toddler. Not like his younger trainees, who had begun their training in utero. Zoe had no last name, no birth certificate. Despite the deprivations of her early childhood, she’d shaped up beautifully. And like all his operatives, she was invisible, ready to assume any identity convenient to him. She was his, body and soul.
He’d kept Zoe waiting for this debrief dinner for almost four hours, primped and ready. It had been a busy day, and it was well past midnight, but when he finally walked into his private dining room, she’d leaped up in barely controlled delight.
Ah, yes. Control had always been Zoe’s issue. Even so, he was cautiously pleased with her. Babysitting Howard had not been an easy assignment, requiring specialized training and years of tedious undercover work at Aingle Cliffs. But things had ended well. When Lily Parr institutionalized her father, he’d been very tempted to have Howard put down then and there. But something held him back. He hated to go back on a decision. And Howard was truly cowed. And a hit should always be matter of last resort. King wasn’t a ham-fisted mafia thug, even if he was compelled to do business with them. He conducted his affairs with more delicacy than that. The extra cost was worth it.
Howard had been committed shortly after Zoe had almost bungled one of her assignments. She’d been in disgrace, and in need of a long, teeth-grinding purgatory. What better than babysitting Howard? It was static, boring, possibly endless. Just the thing to teach Zoe a lesson in control, while she put in the hours of hard reprogramming time.
His scheme had paid off. He had salvaged a multi-million dollar investment. Zoe had been patient, vigilant. She had executed her orders flawlessly, with only a few minutes lead time. No one at Aingle Cliffs suspected foul play. He’d analyzed the issue of the word rec bot, and had judged that the technical delay had not been altogether Zoe’s fault. Equipment failure. It was impossible to anticipate everything.
He studied her with pleasure as she chattered blithely on. She was giving him too much detail, but he was not inclined to be harsh. He lifted his eyes from contemplation of her décolleté—bony, but the lush swell of bosom was appealing, surgically enhanced though it probably was, he didn’t remember from her file. And her gold skin tone and lush lips were lovely. He lifted his gaze to her animated face.
“…thing that I was concerned about were my physiological responses, right after the job,” she confided earnestly. “I tried, but I couldn’t control my heart rate or my body temperature, and I started to sweat. It didn’t affect my performance, but still…I’ve been doing the Group XIII Advanced KAM Biofeedback course again, both the A and B sections, but I wondered if you had any other suggestions for—”
“I’ll tailor a new program for you personally,” he said.
She flushed with delight. “Oh,” she breathed. “I…I wasn’t thinking that you should…I just—”
“I would be pleased,” he told her. “I would consider it an investment well worth the time and thought.”
“Oh, thank you!” she gushed. “It’s the one thing I feel uneasy about, and I was hoping to find a permanent solution. In a way, the excess emotion came in handy, when it came time to discover the body. I needed to have a huge emotional reaction, so I channeled it all there.”
She was over-congratulating herself, but he would let it pass. “Of course,” he said. “Well, my dear. There you go. Balance is key, and positive attitude as well. You took what you thought was a weakness, and turned it into a strength. Brava.”
His phone made a discreet burble at that moment, while Zoe was carried charmingly on about how she didn’t want to waste his valuable time. The ring tone was muted, chosen not to be intrusive or irritating, but when he looked at the name on the display, he was irritated. Reggie. From his first special series pod. He was so angry with Reggie. He gave Zoe dismissive hand chop that shut up her babble. “Yes?” he said.
“We’ve located Lily Parr.” Reggie’s voice was flat, but there was an underlying tension that hinted at relief. As if he thought by redressing his mistake, he’d be off the hook. How innocent of him.
“Really,” King said. “Where?”
“Tony Ranieri’s diner, in Portland.”
“Ah.” King made his voice crystal sharp. “So they have already made contact. You were not able to prevent that from happening.”
“No,” Reggie admitted. “They’re together now. Inside.”
King made the adjustment for the time difference. It was early morning in Oregon. “And are you there physically?”
“No,” Reggie said, after an infinitesimal pause. “I’m driving from Seattle. But I’m close. I’ve sent people. Tom, Cal, Martin and Nadia.”
Oh, God. King stifled a groan. Cal, Reggie and Nadia were all special series. He would not have chosen to bunch those three on this particular assignment, but it was too late. There were no other operatives close enough to replace them. “How did you find her?”
