Mission: Marriage: Bulletproof Marriage

If only she could stop loving him.

Grabbing her half-finished coffee, she followed him out the door.

They found a quiet inn a few miles from downtown, in a nontourist part of town.

Sean called Corbett while Natalie was in the bathroom. Quickly, he brought the older man up to speed. “I’ll check the system frequently to see if he takes my bait.”

“Excellent.” Corbett sounded stressed—unusual for him. “How is everything else going with you two?”

Though he knew the other man meant relationship-wise, Sean pretended not to understand. “Never a dull moment, that’s for sure. This is getting ridiculous, since we can’t even seem to get a handle on who the Hungarian is using to take us out. I almost feel like he put up reward money and every Tom, Dick and Harry is taking potshots at us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s see.” Sean ticked the items off on his fingers. “We’ve been shot at, had grenades lobbed at us, buildings blown up, associates murdered and we have no more information than we did when we started.”

“Information about …”

“About anything.” Sean clenched his teeth, holding back though he wanted to explode. “If this was a regular mission, with a team and a well-thought-out plan, that would be one thing. But there’s just the two of us, wandering around with blindfolds on. Sure, me hacking into the SIS system was a good plan, and Natalie is trying to decipher that code, but we need to get our act together before someone gets killed.”

“I understand.”

“No, Corbett. I don’t think you do.” Sean’s temper flared. “Natalie has been through enough.”

“As have you.” The other man’s voice was serious and quiet. “Get a grip. I want the man responsible just as much as you do.”

Corbett sighed. “Someone is trying to undermine the Lazlo Group, Sean. I’ve got all kinds of operations going wrong and operatives going dead. Between the mole in the SIS and the mole at Lazlo everything is being disrupted. Maybe it’s the work of the Hungarian, maybe it’s not. But we won’t know that until we find him, and stop him.”

“Why?” Sean had been wanting to ask this question ever since he’d first come to work for the Lazlo Group. “What did you do to the Hungarian to make him hate you so much?”

“Natalie asked me the same thing.”

“Did you answer her?”

“No.”

“Are you going to answer me?”

“I doubt it. That’s a long story and things are too crazy here to go into it now. Remember, I’ve lost people too.” A hint of anger colored Corbett’s cultured voice.

Sean apologized. “I’m sorry. There’s a lot of tension between Natalie and me. This is hell for both of us. I don’t know why you thought we could work together.”

“She needed help and asked for the best. You’re the best.”

“Once, maybe. Not now.”

Corbett ignored him. “Plus I’ve gotten tired of you pining away for her up there in that godforsaken cottage you call home.”

Sean knew better than to argue. What Corbett said was the indisputable truth. “True, I missed her. But I didn’t realize she’d hate me when she saw me again.”

“Does she, Sean? There’s a fine line between love and hate.”

“Spare me the platitudes. I’ve seen how she is when she loves. Trust me, this is hate.”

“She’s hurting.”

Like they both weren’t? “Defending her?”

With a sigh, Corbett conceded the point. “You know Nat’s like a daughter to me.” Which was why Corbett had asked Sean to help protect her to begin with.

About to respond, Sean winced when the smoke alarm went off. The high-pitched wailing made hearing anything else impossible.

“I’ve got to go.” Sean disconnected the call. He didn’t smell smoke, but that didn’t mean a hell of a lot. With the constant attacks on them—and their enemies’ disconcerting way of tracking them down—he wouldn’t be surprised to learn the building was on fire.

The bathroom door opened. With no makeup on, Natalie looked impossibly young.

“What’s going on?” she yelled. “Where’s the fire?”

He could tell she’d changed hastily since her top was inside out. He grabbed the laptop then her arm and led the way to the door. “I don’t know, but we’d better get out.”

She balked. “What if it’s a trap?”

“What if it’s not?”

Outside, the air was bracingly chilly. The wind coming out of the north felt like ice. They kept close to the building, looking for smoke.

Other people poured from the building and stood around in clusters, some looking confused, others angry or bemused. All of them looked cold.

Fire engines pulled up in front of the inn.

“There’s no smoke,” someone said.

“I don’t see anything.” Sean squinted into the early-afternoon glare. The bright sunlight seemed at odds with the bitter cold. “No smoke. No fire.”

“False alarm.” One of the bellmen came outside and shouted. “Once the fire department gives the okay, everyone can return to their rooms. It should be just a few minutes.”

“Good.” Wrapping her arms around herself, Natalie shivered. “Damn. I wish I’d grabbed my coat.”

He pulled her into his arms. “Come here.” When she hesitated, he shook his head. “No funny business, Nat. Shared body heat is better. You’ll be warmer this way.”

She relaxed against him, but only slightly. “Have you checked out the parking lot?”

“We’re on the north side of the building. All the cars are parked on the south. Whoever pulled the fire alarm wanted us out of the building, but why?”

“The code!” The bellman indicated they could return to their rooms and she ran for the entrance. “Maybe they think I left it in the room.”

He limped after her, struggling to keep up. “Did you?”

“Of course not,” she scoffed. “It’s with me. I never let it out of my sight. And Corbett’s info is on the laptop.”

“How would they know you have either of them?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.” Shooting him an exasperated look, she yanked open the side door and quickly entered the registration area.

“Nat, wait for me. We’re a team, remember? For now, you’re supposed to work with me, to trust me.” The instant he spoke he knew he’d made a major mistake.

“Been there, done that. No thanks.” She stopped a moment and looked at him, her face unreadable, her mouth set in a grim line that was totally unlike the Natalie he knew and loved.

“Nat, wait …”

Ignoring him, she kept going.

Since he had no choice, he followed, grabbing her arm. “You can’t just walk away from me if we’re going to work together …”

“Work?” She spun to face him and he was startled to see tears in her caramel eyes. “This has nothing to do with work.”

Sean took a deep breath. “Look, Nat, I know you’ll never forgive me for what I did two years ago. I can explain my reasons until I’m blue in the face, and you won’t understand.”

“I swear if you say it’s time to put the past behind us and move forward, I’m going to puke all over you.”

Since that was exactly what he’d been planning to say, he said nothing. Instead, he kept his mouth shut and stared at her.

She stared back, the coldness of her expression at war with the pain in her eyes.

“You’ve gone on with your life, have you?” he finally asked.

“As best I could.”

“You’ve found someone else then?”

For the space of one heartbeat, two, she said nothing. Finally, she made an odd little sound and shook her head. “You don’t know how badly I’d like to lie and tell you yes, I’ve found someone else.”

“Like Dennie Pachla, the doctor?” he suggested, hating himself for asking but wanting, needing to know.

“He’s a friend.” Her voice was tired. “Like Auggie. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but there’s been no one else.”

Some devil urged him on. “Why not?” he pushed. “Two years is plenty of time for a griefstricken widow to move on with her life.”

She looked down, twisting her hands together. When she finally raised her head, the anguished look on her face made him feel as if he’d twisted the knife.

“Do you know what it’s like to love someone so much that every beat of your heart echoes theirs?” Her voice broke, but she didn’t cry.

Before he could answer, she continued.

“Do you have any idea, any idea at all, what it’s like to love someone that much and then have them ripped out of your arms?”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I do.”

“I don’t think so.” She held up her hand when he would have argued. “Because honestly, Sean, if you had, you would have known I nearly followed you to the grave.”

Shocked, stunned, he shook his head. “You mean you …? Corbett never told me.”

“Corbett doesn’t know. Would it have made a difference, Sean? Would you have shown up at my funeral?”

“How can you ask such a thing?” Now, when he’d thought he had nothing left unbroken, the last bit of his heart shattered. “I can’t believe you tried to—”

She shrugged. “It wasn’t intentional, Sean. I was hurting and my doctor had prescribed pills. I suppose I knew I shouldn’t mix antidepressants and alcohol, but I only intended to have one drink.” She took a deep breath. “Next thing I knew, I woke up in a hospital.”

This he couldn’t wrap his mind around. “I had no idea.”

“How could you? You were dead.”

The repercussions of his lie had been worse and had spread wider than he’d ever imagined. “I couldn’t have lived with myself if you’d died,” he said.

“How do you think I felt?” The sheer anguish in her voice struck him raw. And as she turned away, he wanted only to wrap her tight in his arms and tell her he’d never let her go again.

Chapter 8

Moving with the others down the long hallway, Natalie knew when she saw the partially opened door of their room that they had been right.

Whoever had pulled the alarm had been in their room. Had trashed it.

“The only other person I’ve told about the code is Corbett. This must be the work of the Lazlo Group mole.”

“That’s possible.” Standing in the doorway, Sean nodded. “What about your friend Auggie?”

“Auggie’s a good guy. He wouldn’t do this.”

Sean shook his head, as though he didn’t completely agree. “What a frigging mess.”

The room looked like a jacked-up demon on meth had torn through it. Natalie couldn’t even begin to envision explaining this to the inn management. Hopefully, they would just assume it was a break-in and since their room was near the exit, it had been the easiest to target.

“I know.” Pacing from one end of the room to the other, Natalie looked for any sign to indicate who the culprit was. “They must have been pretty pissed off when they didn’t find it.”

“Obviously.”

She fingered the tiny flash drive. “Of course they didn’t realize this baby stays with me everywhere I go.”

The next morning, Natalie tried to avoid looking at Sean, as though he could read in her eyes the dreams that had tormented her in the darkest part of the night. Pleasant dreams, indeed.

She’d known she wanted him, of course. But she wasn’t in the habit of lying to herself, and what she hadn’t realized was exactly how much she wanted him. Like a craving, an addiction, her desire for him never left her.

Worse, she knew why. Making love was exactly that to her—two people, madly in love, celebrating with their bodies. Sean had been her one and only and she’d come to him untouched, a virgin.

She was still untouched, by choice. If she couldn’t love someone else as much as she’d loved Sean, she didn’t think she would ever know another’s body either.

Sex to her was not a recreational pastime, a fleeting pleasure. Sex to her was akin to the deepest baring of the soul.

In the harsh light of the morning, she had to look herself in the mirror and ask herself a question. Did she want to go the rest of her life knowing Sean was alive, out there in the world without her, and imagine him wrapped in another woman’s arms?

She’d been given a second chance, another opportunity to be with the only man she had ever loved.

But could she ever forget and forgive him for what he’d done?

She didn’t think she could.

Waking up and seeing Natalie in the morning was another form of torture for Sean. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from her. With her short, tousled hair and heavy-lidded eyes, she looked as though her dreams had been similar to his.

Sex and more sex.

Shaking his head, he flipped open his cell phone.

“Who are you calling?” her sleep-groggy voice asked.

“Corbett. I want to get some answers. We need to find out where that leak is. Find out if someone knows about your bootlegged code and how they’re keeping tabs on us.”

Four rings, five, then the call went to voice mail. Sean hung up without leaving a message.

Natalie grimaced, got out of bed and took out her own cell phone. “I’m going to make a few calls of my own. I’m just as tired of this as you are.”

But she had no better luck. Sean listened as she left two separate messages. “Who’d you call?”

“Auggie and Dennie. Auggie’s one of the best undercover ops SIS has.”

He’d suspected as much. But the handsome doctor? “What about Dennie?” He tried to keep the jealousy from his voice.

“He does occasional work for us. For the Lazlo Group, too.” She shot him a wry look. “You’d know that if you hadn’t been gone so long.”

Sean bit back a retort. “How close are the two of you?”

Shaking her head, Natalie walked to the window. “You don’t have a right to ask that question.”

“Maybe not, but I’m asking anyway.”

She sighed. “Drop it, okay?”

Her nonanswer told him she had something to hide.

“Have you and the doctor …?” Swallowing, he tried to find the right words without being crude.

“Sean, I said drop it.” Her cutting tone told him she was furious. “My private life is none of your business. You died, remember?”

He swallowed his own anger, not wanting the conversation to degenerate into an out-and-out fight.

His hopes and dreams—all but vanished—came back to him in startling clarity. He’d had a future, once. He’d envisioned bright-haired children, laughing and playing. A white picket fence. The way Natalie’s eyes glowed amber when she was happy. Laughter instead of tears. Joy instead of grief. Love instead of pain.

So much had been lost, taken from him because of a youthful error in judgment.

How did one right such a wrong? Could he even go back, make another grab for that elusive brass ring?

Did they even have a chance?

“Fine. My apologies.” He dipped his chin. “We’ll keep it strictly business. Tell me what you think Auggie and Dennie can find out that we or Corbett can’t?”

“You never know.” A tinge of relief colored her voice, which only irritated him further as she continued. “Auggie’s good—he keeps his ear to the ground. And Dennie—he’s everywhere. He’s one of the few doctors still willing to do house calls.”

“Is he part of your intelligence network?”

“No, though he’s a trusted contact. And,” she shot him a meaningful look, “a good friend. I’ve even heard it rumored he’s getting set up to do some doctoring among the Hungarian’s people.”

Despite himself, Sean was impressed. “That would be quite a coup for your intelligence network.”

“Yeah, it would.” Her smile looked tentative, but at least it was a smile. “Auggie and I are both very proud of him.”

Auggie and Nat. Geez, he had it bad. Just thinking about the two of them together rankled. Oblivious, Natalie continued. “Once Auggie calls back, we might have a bit more information to go on. I’m getting tired of running around in circles.”

She had a point. “True,” he conceded as he got out of bed and gathered his clothes. “Let’s see what they are able to find out. But for now, I’m going to grab a shower. Then we should get some breakfast and you can keep working on those codes.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she said and smiled at him a bit sadly, as she lightly touched the antique armoire and ran her fingers along the curved wooden back of a Queen Anne replica chair.

He instantly thought of the home they’d once shared, and how she’d loved to antique-shop, filling their rooms with cherished finds. He’d come to appreciate the eclectic mix as well, loving the variety, seeing it as an extension of her complex personality.

How much he’d loved her. How much they’d loved each other. Did she really believe such a love could ever die?

Before he said or did something he’d later regret, he headed for the attached bathroom and a nice, long shower.

Turning the water up as hot as he could stand, Sean took his time, standing under the pulsing stream. Each swipe of the soapy washcloth reminded him of Natalie’s hands, soft and silky on his rough skin. By the time he’d finished cleaning, his arousal was nearly unbearable in its intensity.

He had two choices—turn the faucet to cold or take matters into his own hands.

Stubborn and hurting, he refused to do either. Instead, he forced his mind onto other matters and finished his shower. By the time he turned off the water, he’d nearly returned to normal.

Until he opened the shower curtain, reached for his towel and saw her.

She’d undressed in the steamy bathroom, and her pale skin glistened with the damp heat. Unclothed, she let him look at her, no false modesty between them, her breasts high and firm over her narrow waist and the curve of her hips, her chin lifted proudly. No guilt or remorse darkened her expression.

She’d come for him. Why now? Yet she had, and whatever her reasons, he would take her any way he could get her. He’d worry about the why later.

“Natalie?” Her name rolled off his tongue like a prayer. She nearly overwhelmed him, there so close, naked, looking better than she had the thousand times he’d dreamed of her. Her scent, musky and full of desire, made him feel as if he was drowning. The look in her eyes, hot and sensual, reflected his own emotions—so much more than simple need or lust or desire—and he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t imagining this.

Natalie wanted him. Finally he could join his body to hers once again.

For two long years he’d thought of little else. Natalie, his Natalie. The woman he’d been willing to die for.

His breath caught in his throat. Somehow, he choked out her name again.

She held out her arms. Without hesitation, he went to her, crushing her to his chest so she could feel the rapid thud of his heartbeat, moving them both out of the bathroom, toward the bed. His body primed, he tried to hold away from her, not wanting to frighten her with the strength of his arousal.

He should have known better. This Natalie, the adventurous Super-spy, wasn’t afraid of anything.

Both hands on his backside, she pulled him to her. Together, they tumbled backward onto the bed.

Their mouths touched. Locked. Greedy, he tried to rein in his passion, but two years of dreaming and longing and missing her had taken their toll.

He didn’t think he’d ever been so aroused. So ready. Fleetingly, he wondered how he’d lived without her. Then she took him in her hands and he lost all capacity for rational thought.

Just as he pushed her away, unable to bear any more without exploding, her cell phone rang.

“Ignore it,” she murmured, shimmying into position over him, poised to take him deep inside her. “They’ll call back.”

“Good advice,” he muttered. One thrust and he’d be in, yet for some reason, he hesitated.

As soon as her cell quit ringing, his began.

Reluctantly, he glanced at it. “It must be important,” he growled. Body throbbing, he cursed once more before snatching the phone and flipping it open. “Hello?”

“Sean, I have some bad news,” Corbett’s voice came over the line. “Phillip’s missing.”

“Missing?”

“Who?” Natalie mouthed, suddenly alert.

“Your father.”

All the blood drained from her face.

Gripping the phone, Sean swallowed. “What do you mean, missing? He’s in a wheelchair and when he goes out he’s driven by one of your men. You should know where he is at all times.”

“His van and my man are missing also.” Corbett sounded weary and furious, all at the same time.

“What?” None of this made sense. “Why?”

“I don’t know. I’ve got people working on finding that out.”

Sean raised his head to find Natalie watching him, an expression of concern on her lovely face. His gut clenched as he remembered his own family and how he’d tried to shield her from the terrible truth.

He could not shield her from this.

“Let me talk to Natalie,” Corbett said.

“Not now.” Sean took a deep breath. “We’ll call you back.” Without giving Corbett a chance to disagree, he disconnected the call.

“What happened to my father?”

He told her all he knew, holding her tightly.

In shock, she let him. When she raised her head, the blank look she gave him clawed at his heart. “Is there something else you haven’t told me?”

“No.”

Her frown made it plain she didn’t believe him. “No ransom note?”

“Corbett’s looking into it. You know how close the two of them are.”

With a sound of pain, she twisted out of his arms, got off the bed and grabbed her clothes.

“I want to talk to Corbett.” Opening her own phone, she punched in the number.

Corbett must have been waiting by the phone for her call. Sean watched while Natalie listened, the anguished expression on her face making him ache.

“Wait a minute, Corbett,” she said, clutching the phone so tightly her knuckles showed white. “Let me put you on speaker so Sean can hear, too.” She pressed a button. “All right. Go ahead.”

“I’ve got two people working full-time on finding him.”

“Who?” Sean asked.

“Martin Routh and Catherine Cordasic.”

Sean started. “One of the Cordasics?” Widely known in the international espionage community, the Cordasics were a highly respected family of spies whose lineage dated back to the eighteenth century.

“Yes. She’s working as an independent contractor, at my request.”

Sean whistled. “You must have pulled a few strings.”

Natalie cleared her throat. “Famous spies mean nothing to me unless they find my father. Tell me the truth, Corbett. You and my father didn’t have a clandestine conversation about the need for him to go into hiding, did you?”

“Of course not.” Corbett’s icy voice turned positively glacial. “I’m afraid your father’s disappearance might be tied up with the Hungarian.”

Sean choked back a curse. Not again. He didn’t know how he’d live through more senseless slaughter.

Natalie strode over to the window, gazing out. “What would the Hungarian want with him? Dad’s been retired for years now. He’s not involved in any of this.”

“No, but you are,” Corbett answered.

Natalie looked at Sean. The look on her face was so bleak, he knew the words Corbett didn’t speak tasted like ashes in her mouth.

She swallowed. “You think they took him to get to me. To use him as bait.”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“My father’s the only family I have left in this world, Corbett. You know that.”

“Of course I do.” The older man’s tone was equally firm. “He’s my good friend as well.”

“Do you think it’s possible Phillip simply decided to begin his own investigation?” Sean asked.

No one discounted the idea. Despite his handicap, Natalie’s father was an extremely determined man.

“Either way, I think they have him. He was mentioned in the e-mail message I intercepted this morning.”

“From who?” Sean asked.

“One of my old adversaries in contact with the Hungarian.”

Sean froze. “What did it say?”

Corbett cleared his throat. “Something about upping the stakes. The last sentence said, ‘One down, three more to go.’”