The Spy Who Tamed Me

‘Don’t know.’

Poppy didn’t care that they were having this conversation in front of Rowan Farringdon. Neither did Jared.

‘Do you want to?’

He didn’t answer. He didn’t know.

Damon shoved a dripping bacon and egg sandwich in his hand. Jared extricated himself from Poppy and bit into it with relief. He didn’t need a plate—he was an old hand at eating on the go.

‘Ready when you are, Director.’

‘I haven’t finished my coffee yet.’ You haven’t even had yours, her look said. I’m cutting you a break, here. Take it and shut the hell up.

He shut the hell up.

He bit into his sandwich more slowly this time. Coffee appeared and he reached for it gratefully. One minute passed. Two minutes. They left him alone. They asked no more questions.

And then two suited men darkened the doorway and Rowan Farringdon shut her little silver computer and stood up.

‘Agent West,’ one of them said, and there was a measure of respect in the man’s voice that Jared had never heard before. ‘It’s time to go.’

CHAPTER FOUR

ROWAN’S OFFICE WAS the same as the offices that housed the other five section directors. Large, as befitting her position, it also had a small apartment tucked in behind it, for when she worked around the clock and needed to freshen up with a shower and a change of clothes—or, indeed, catch a couple of hours’ sleep after coming off a thirty-six-hour shift.

Jared wasn’t strictly her responsibility any more. In all good conscience Rowan could have left him to Corbin to break or to fix. But she, like everyone else in the building, was uncommonly interested in whatever further information he might have to divulge.

Not that Jared West seemed inclined to divulge anything at all—at least not to Corbin.

Rowan gave yesterday’s recording of Jared’s debrief one last scathing glance before leaning back in her desk chair and tilting her head from one side to the other in an effort to ease the tension in her neck. It was only Tuesday morning, but she felt as if she’d been here for ever.

She reached for her headset and put it on. ‘Sam, have Agent West see me as soon as he’s out of debrief.’

Some people in this building wanted to hear a real debrief, not the fairytale version that Jared was out there spinning—and as of this morning Rowan had been given the task of earning his trust and breaking him open.

If she could.

Jared didn’t get out of debrief until midday Wednesday, and if he never again saw the inside of that little white room with its one-way mirror it would still be too soon.

Rowan Farringdon’s request caught up with him two minutes later. Five minutes after that he was standing in her outer office, staring at a lionfish in a wall-sized fish tank while her plump and pretty assistant buzzed him in.

He liked it that she didn’t keep him waiting. He liked it that she stayed seated behind her desk, because it reinforced their respective positions within the service. They weren’t equals here. He didn’t expect them to be.

He stood before her desk, feet slightly apart, hands behind his back, and waited while she looked him over in silence. The bruises on his face combined purple with a sickly shade of yellow. He wondered if she thought him any prettier.

She got more arresting every time he saw her. Today she wore dark grey tailored trousers and a fitted shirt that had two layers—the inside layer a soft-looking dove-grey cotton, the outside layer a fine white silk. She looked comfortable in her clothes, her skin and her surroundings. Power suited her.

And Jared … Jared had always been attracted to power.

She gave him approximately three seconds to settle before looking up from her paperwork and getting to the point. ‘Mr West, your debrief is a joke. Everyone knows it; not everyone’s happy about it. Who do you intend to confide in?’

No one.

‘I want to talk to my handler,’ he said instead. ‘I told Corbin that. I’ve told you this before as well. How many times do I have to say it?’

‘I’m sorry.’ She looked momentarily torn. ‘Serrin’s dead. He’s been dead for two months.’

Jared kept his shoulders square and his face stony. This blow wouldn’t break him. He was just … tired. Tired of all the games. Tired of dealing on his own and making mistakes that cost other people too much.

‘Was it me? Did I leave him exposed?’

‘Yours wasn’t the only dark operation on Serrin’s books. He came unstuck elsewhere.’

One less stain for Jared’s soul. Assuming she was telling the truth.

She tilted her head to one side, her eyes searching and her smile oddly compassionate. ‘Jared, things would go a lot easier if you could bring yourself to trust me.’

‘I really don’t do trust.’

‘I know. I’ve read your file. Very few people are even allowed into your life, never mind privy to your thoughts. Your mother died giving birth to your brother. You’re fiercely protective of your sisters, not so much your father or your brother, who you blame—just a little—for your mother’s death. The only other emotional attachment you’ve ever made in your thirty years of living is to Trig Sinclair. You accepted him into your family unit when you were five.’

She still wasn’t wearing any rings on those expertly manicured fingers.

‘Here’s the problem,’ she continued. ‘A lot of people around here think that you haven’t quite finished exposing Antonov’s reach. A lot of people want to help you finish what you started. So here are my questions, given that you’re disinclined to share details. What are you waiting for? What do you need?’

A break, he wanted to say. Absolution. But he doubted she could give him either. ‘I need to go to Belarus,’ he said instead. Would she do it? Belarus was within her jurisdiction—her part of the world to monitor. ‘Just for a few days. Corbin won’t send me and I don’t know why.’

She laughed, and it was still one of the nicest sounds he’d ever heard. ‘Jared, have you seen your latest psych report?’

He hadn’t seen it. Chances were he wasn’t going to see it. ‘What does it say?’

‘That you have attachment issues, delusions of autonomy and a well-developed death wish. Corbin’s not going to send you to Belarus. He’s going to have a hard time sending you to the bathroom alone. All those sharp edges.’

‘I am not suicidal.’

‘Tell me what you want done in Belarus and I’ll put someone on it. Discreetly. You can run them from here.’

‘I don’t work that way.’

‘No? Maybe you should.’

She stood and headed for the door, but he wasn’t ready for this interview to be over, and he hadn’t yet let go of the rough edges he’d acquired after two years playing thug for Antonov.

He shot out his hand to keep the door closed and got up in her face.

Up close, he saw her eyes had little flecks of chocolate-brown in amongst the amber. He could smell the fresh lemon scent of her hair, feel the puff of her breath against his lips, and he knew that he was too close, that his lips were far too close to hers. Another inch and he’d be tasting her—and he wanted to. God. He wanted to fall into this woman and take his own sweet time climbing back out, and it didn’t matter that she was a section head or that his behaviour was way out of line. Maybe he’d forgotten what normal behaviour was. Meet a woman, like a woman, ask her on a date. Maybe he should start there.

‘Have dinner with me.’

‘That’s your next play?’

Nice to know he could surprise her. ‘Why not?’ He could feel the warmth in her, sense the steel in her, and he wanted both. ‘You can toy with me. Mentor me. Discipline me. I’m young. Impulsive. Smitten.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Could be why I like you.’ He eased back, just a fraction, and watched for signs of arousal in her—the faint flush of her skin or the hitch of her breath—but he didn’t find any. Just a soul-deep caution that matched his own.

‘You need to back off, Agent West.’

‘How about I take you to lunch? I promise to behave.’

‘No.’ She pushed her knuckles into his injured ribs—not hard, but a warning nonetheless. ‘You’re out of line.’

‘Would you hurt me?’ He leaned into her hand. ‘I don’t think you would.’

‘I’d rather not have to. Doesn’t mean I won’t, Mr West—

‘Call me Jared. Call me by my name.’ He hadn’t answered to his real name for such a long time—two years or thereabouts. He’d been Jimmy. Jimmy Bead. ‘Just—use my name. The way you did before. I want to hear people say it.’

‘Is your last name not enough?’

‘First name’s better.’

‘Why?’

‘There’s more me in it.’

‘Jared—’

‘Yeah. That’s the one.’

He stepped back all the way this time, and gave her the room she deserved. Her hand fell away and he felt the loss of warmth as if someone had dipped him in the Atlantic. He had a feeling that his psych report hadn’t covered half of what was wrong with him at the moment.

Or maybe it had.

‘If I say that my next question is for your benefit as well as mine, will you believe me?’ she asked quietly.

He ran a hand through his hair. He’d been doing that of late too, and it wasn’t something he’d ever done before—either as Jared or as JB … Jimmy Bead. ‘What’s the question?’

‘Do you know who you’re hunting? Antonov’s last insider. Do you know who it is?’

‘I— No. I think it’s a director, but I don’t know who it is. If I could have nailed a bullseye to his forehead I’d have done it.’

‘That much I do believe.’

‘Get me to Belarus,’ he begged.

‘No. Not yet. You need to rest. Take some leave. No one’s going to send you back out into the field in the condition you’re in. Get some sleep and let your body heal and then we’ll talk again. And, Jared …?’

‘That’s me,’ he muttered, and there was a joke in there somewhere, though it was probably on him.

‘Welcome back.’

CHAPTER FIVE

THE WEST FAMILY beach house sat on the edge of a long stretch of unpatrolled beach in northern New South Wales. Jared’s brother had bought the sprawling house several years ago, with the intention of making it his home, but that hadn’t happened yet and all four West siblings tended to treat it as their own personal place of sanctuary and of rest. Although preferably not all at once.

Lena and Trig’s big old farmhouse was a twenty-minute drive away, although given how much time they’d spent at the beach house with Jared this week he could be forgiven for thinking them homeless. They were supposed to be on their honeymoon, for heaven’s sake. A honeymoon that Lena had said they’d cut short because there was no place like home.

Jared hoped, for the umpteenth time, that they hadn’t cut it short because they’d wanted to keep an eye on him. They kept making excuses to drop by. Lena in particular wouldn’t stop hovering—which was rich, given how much she hated it whenever someone did that to her.

She had already been by this morning. She’d skipped out to the shops, because apparently Jared needed more food in the fridge, but she’d left Trig behind with Jared. Trig was currently out on the deck, examining his parachute, because apparently they were doing a jump just as soon as Jared’s ribs had healed.

Without physical challenge in his life, Jared got cranky, Trig had informed him blithely. And they needed to fix that.

Apparently a lot of things about Jared needed fixing.

Jared glared afresh at the psych report in his hand. His psych report, fresh off the back of his debrief. A normal person probably wouldn’t have asked his brother to swipe a psych report from the secure ASIS databanks, but to Jared’s way of thinking that was what genius younger brothers were for.

It had been three days since Rowan Farringdon had called him in to her office and asked him what he needed in order to finish the job. Three days and now he was on leave for two weeks—thinking about his future, trying to settle into the ‘now’ and going quietly out of his mind.

‘Who writes these delusional masterpieces anyway?’ he asked Trig.

‘Psychiatrists.’ Trig looked up from the parachute spread out before him, eyes narrowed as he took in Jared’s scowl. ‘Stop obsessing.’

‘I’m not obsessing. I’m disagreeing with the evaluation.’

‘You shouldn’t have the evaluation. No disagreeing with that.’

‘Apparently I have an Oedipal complex.’

‘Your mother’s dead, dude. How can you be in love with her?’

‘Could be I’m in love with a ghost. A perfect memory.’

‘Was she perfect?’

Jared thought back to what little he could remember. His mother’s wild curly black hair and the deep blue eyes that both he and his sister Lena had inherited. Her patience with her wayward children and her fierce defence of them when anyone else tried to discipline them.

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