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“I hope you are,” I said, finally finding my voice, but blushing when instead of answering with a simple “no,” my mouth decided to announce to the world what my brain was thinking.
He smiled, pulled the chair out slightly, and sat. “I’m Lynx,” he said, holding out his hand. He looked me up and down without making any attempt to hide he was doing so.
I wiped my sweaty palm on my skirt and took his extended hand. “Emerson,” I said, gazing into eyes that looked like they might be green, but it was too dark to know for sure.
“Lynx,” said the bartender. “Welcome back, mate. You out on the pull tonight?”
I watched the man sitting next to me as his eyes scrunched and he laughed and shook his head.
“Sorry. Just kidding, you know?”
“What did he say?” I asked when the Aussie left to take another party’s order.
“It was crass,” my hot bar neighbor said before taking a long sip of the pint the bartender had given him without him needing to order.
I shrugged. “Tell me anyway.”
“Essentially, he asked if I was going to get laid tonight.”
“Are you?”
“I usually am.”
5
LYNX
On our return trip to Boston, Emerson attempted to contact her parents while I pretended to be distracted by something out the window.
I heard the desperation in her voice as she left a message at the end of her calls, and stole a quick glance, afraid she might be close to tears, but instead, she remained steadfastly annoyed by my presence. I rested my hand next to hers, almost close enough to touch.
“If they don’t return your call before we reach your building, I’ll stay with you until they do.”
“I’ll be fine,” she whispered, studying our hands.
I found myself questioning whether my decision not to divulge that I remembered our night together had been a good one.
I had no choice, though, at least not yet. My reason for being in Boston had less to do with Emerson—the woman I longed to take into my arms and tell how happy I was to see again—than it did with her role at MIT.
Just the idea that Emerson and Dr. Charles were one and the same, had blindsided me. My decision to act as though we hadn’t met prior to this morning was off-the-cuff. The longer I continued the charade, the less I saw an outcome in which I could be honest with her. All I knew for certain was I’d vowed that if I ever saw her again, I would do everything I could to get Emerson back in my bed. Now, that was out of the question. I needed her help to find my missing agent as well as a former British diplomat, who had also disappeared.
Dr. Emme Charles appeared on my radar shortly after she’d gone to work for MIT, where her research on Chinese policy and strategy landed her on the watch-list of nearly every international intelligence agency. Why she used Emme professionally rather than Emerson, remained a mystery.
When Saint moved into the apartment down the hall from hers, it wasn’t by accident. He’d been tasked, by me, to convert the brilliant Dr. Charles into an MI6 asset. When the CIA got wind of it, they brought Irish in to do the same thing, only instead of him moving into her building, Irish became her research assistant.
Rather than fight over her, I, along with my counterpart at the CIA, agreed there was no reason she couldn’t become a shared asset. However, neither Saint nor Irish had been particularly keen on the idea.
While Saint had been the one to facilitate it behind the scenes, I had been the one to arrange the introduction between Dr. Charles and Adam Benjamin, the man she was supposed to meet with this morning. Dr. Benjamin was not only a former British diplomat, but also a world-renowned expert on China and long-time MI6 asset. When he’d learned of the work Emerson was doing, Dr. Benjamin was anxious to reach out, believing that in her, he’d found a comrade in arms.
With him as a policy influencer for the U.K. and her a policy writer for the U.S., they made a formidable team. They were equally impassioned about the threat China posed not just to our two countries, but to the world.
What loomed great in both their minds was the idea that China had become a “systemic rival” to the world’s superpowers, one whose economic power and political influence had grown with unprecedented scale and speed. However, Emerson and Dr. Benjamin had their own agendas—even beyond that of their respective countries. Benjamin’s, I feared, had resulted in his disappearance and Saint’s, since in addition to being responsible for Emerson’s recruitment, he was also on Dr. Benjamin’s detail.
“Where are you staying?”Emerson asked when the driver pulled up to her building.
“With Niven.”
“Is he in town?”
