Taken By the Spy

Mitch said thoughtfully, “I may have an idea of how to get into Cuba fast. Can you scrounge up a catamaran for me? Something berthed close to Cuba.”

“I’ll see what I can do. I show you sailing toward the U.S. Virgin Islands right now. Is that correct?”

He glanced out the porthole. “If that means we’re heading south by southwest in the middle of a whole bunch of water, that would be correct.”

“I’ll get the gang working on a catamaran for you.”

“Not pink.”

Hathaway laughed. “Roger that.”

Mitch disconnected the call and pocketed the phone. He ducked through the hatch and squinted at the blazing wedge of red melting across the black water to their feet. It shrunk quickly to a narrow slash of red pulsing on the horizon.

Kinsey was already squinting at the fiery sunset. She commented over her shoulder, “Conditions are good to see the Green Flash tonight.”

“The Green Flash?”

“When the sun dips below the horizon, there’s an instant when its light refracts through the maximum thickness of the Earth’s atmosphere and throws off the different colors of the spectrum. Sometimes you can see a flash of green. Legend says it’s good luck to spot it.”

Her enthusiasm was contagious. And hell, he’d take any luck he could get right about now. He squinted into the last vestiges of the setting sun. For just a second, its final rays turned a brilliant emerald green. And then they winked out. “Hey! There it was!”

She smiled over at him. “I guess that means you’re gonna have good luck on this trip.” Aww, hell. The princess had dimples. They added a little-girl charm to her bombshell looks that blew him clean away. Damn, damn, damn. He hated blondes. He didn’t trust beautiful women. And he was not attracted to Kinsey Pierpont Hollingsworth!

Thankfully, his brain kicked back in before too many more seconds passed. Time to talk her into helping him. He forcibly relaxed his shoulders and shrugged, packing as much casual friendliness into his expression as he could. “For what it’s worth, I work in law enforcement. I can’t go into a lot of details, though.”

“Do you have a badge?”

He reached for his wallet. “Sort of.” He pulled out his brand, spanking-new Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent ID card in the name of one Mitch Perovski, and handed it to her.

She examined it carefully, looking from the picture to him a couple times. She held the ID card out to him. “Nice picture. You’re a photogenic guy.”

Unaccountably, the back of his neck heated up. Every now and then someone made a comment that pierced his current legend and went all the way to the real man. It never failed to catch him off guard.

Into the suddenly awkward silence, she asked, “What brings you to the sunny Caribbean? You’re a long way from home, sailor.”

“Cigars.”

She blinked. Frowned.

He elaborated. “Cuban cigars.” The papers Zaragosa was supposed to deliver declared him to be a tobacco importer looking for new sources of fine cigars.

“Ahh. I hear they can be lucrative.”

He shrugged. “A good box of Cohibas run six hundred bucks. If your father would like a box, I’ll send him some when I get home.”

“He doesn’t smoke,” she murmured.

The conversation lagged. He didn’t know what to talk about with a socialite like her. Finally, he said, “Thanks again for saving my life.”

“No problem.”

“I’m serious. Thank you.”

“Any time,” she mumbled, turning away to stare down at the navigation instruments.

The line of her neck arrested him. It was graceful. Slender. Sensuous. Wisps of hair curled at her nape underneath her short ponytail. What would happen if he breathed warmth across her skin just there? Would she cross her arms to rub away the goose bumps? Turn and melt into his arms? Kiss him into last week?

She’d kiss him right up to the part where she buried a knife in his back. He had places to go and things to do. A future president to protect. A few assassinations to commit along the way if he had to guess. Nothing out of the ordinary. He did not need a pampered princess like Kinsey Hollingsworth flitting around in his universe, fouling up the works and making him think thoughts he distinctly didn’t want to think. First order of business: use the pretty lady to get into Cuba.

Next order of business: get rid of her.

Chapter 3

Kinsey was almost glad when darkness settled around the two of them. The rhythmic rumble of the two remaining engines soothed her—number three was running hot, and unable to find the source of the problem, she’d shut it down. The familiar salt and seaweed scent of the ocean was strong tonight. Everything about the night was magnified by the man’s brooding presence beside her. Or maybe it was just her reaction to him heightening her senses to a near painful pitch. She registered his slightest movement, even a change in the depth of his breathing, every blink of his eyes, every shift in his wary gaze.

The black sky and blacker sea merged into a single great expanse, a beast that had swallowed them whole. Normally, she loved this magnificent solitude. But tonight her soul was turbulent, disturbed by the leashed energy of the stranger beside her.

Reluctantly, she turned on the instrument back lighting. Its red glow intruded into the sensual mystery of the dark, breaking the spell.

“Head for the nearest inhabited island at our best forward speed.”

He was back to orders and demands, this hard man. Nothing compromising or yielding about him.

She scanned the horizon and made out a faint black hump in the distance, a few lights twinkling along its spine. “There’s the north coast of St. Thomas now,” she replied.

“Find us somewhere to put ashore where we can hide this garish boat. Whatever possessed your father to paint it peppermint-pink, anyway?”

Kinsey rolled her eyes. “The trophy wife.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“My father traded in my mother when she hit fifty for a new model. Giselle is twenty-eight now.”

“Isn’t that about how old you are?”

“Yeah. How creepy is that? But hey, she’s gotten three Vogue covers and looks great on television.”

Mitch sounded almost bitter when he commented, “I learned a long time ago not to put any stock in a woman’s looks.”

Wow. Definite raw nerve there. She changed the subject quickly. “If you want to hide this monster, we’ll need to get her under a roof. There’s a big marina near Frenchtown with some covered slips, but it’s right by where the cruise ships come in. People crawl all over that area. Maybe something private…” She ran through the list of who she knew on the island. “I’ve got it. A sorority sister of mine and her husband have a place in Magen’s Bay. And I think they have a boathouse.”

A cynical look passed across his features. “Of course they do.”

What was his problem? She shrugged and pointed the Baby Doll toward Magen’s Bay. Only about half the estates lining its very exclusive, very private shores were lit tonight. Summer wasn’t prime season for Caribbean vacation homes. She had a little trouble finding the right mansion, but eventually spotted it high above the water. Its windows were dark.

“Looks like nobody’s home,” she commented.

“Think they’ll mind if we help ourselves to the boathouse?” Mitch murmured.

“No. We go way back. They’ll understand.”

“How do you know these people’s boathouse will have an empty slip?”

She shrugged. “They always move their yacht up to Hyannis for the summer.”

“Right. Hyannis.”

She glanced over at him. “Look, I can’t help it if I know some rich people. Mitzi and her husband are actually very nice.”

“It’s not the rich part I object to. It’s the spoiled part.”

She cut the engine and let the Baby Doll drift toward the boathouse. “Are you calling me spoiled?”

“If the shoe fits.”

“The shoe does not fit. I can’t help being born into a wealthy family.” He was doing the same thing everyone else did. They took one look at her, labeled her a spoiled little rich girl and completely wrote her off as a waste of oxygen on the planet. What was it going to take for someone to take her seriously?

Gritting her teeth in frustration, she guided the Baby Doll to the dock and Mitch jumped ashore. He made his way to the locked boathouse doors and did something to them that didn’t take more than a few seconds. And then they swung open. She eased the Baby Doll into the empty slip and tossed him a line. While he tied off the prow, she shut down the engines and tied off the aft line.

In the abrupt silence inside the barnlike structure, a thick blanket of darkness wrapped around them, as warm and sultry as the night without.

“What jobs have you ever held?” he challenged.

Still grinding that axe, was he? “I graduated with honors in English from Vassar and was an intern in my father’s law firm. And I was a darned good one, too.”

He shook his head, a sharp movement in the dark. “Not a paying job, and you were working for daddy. Nobody was going to bust your chops or fire you from that place. Name me one real job you’ve ever had.”

She huffed in irritation.

“I rest my case,” he stated archly.

Annoyed, she replied, “How many charity balls for thousands of guests have you organized from scratch? How many millions of dollars have you raised for worthy causes and given away? How many scholarships have you interviewed a hundred people for and then granted? How many press conferences have you endured? How many political campaigns have you spent a year working on around the clock, road tripping and stumping and getting by on two and three hours of sleep a night for months on end?”

He threw up his hands in mock surrender. “All right, all right. So you don’t sit around on daddy’s fancy boat every day working on your perfect tan.” But he still didn’t sound convinced.

She wasn’t quite sure why, but it was tremendously important to her that this supremely competent man perceive her as being able to do something worthwhile. Maybe she was sick of being compared to tabloid princesses. Or maybe it was because she’d felt so helpless in the face of being shot at. He, on the other hand, had taken action. He shot back. He took out his enemies. And she…she splashed some water at them with her cute pink boat.

Chad slept with her best friend and then posted those damned pictures of her on the Internet when she dared to be mad about him sleeping with her maid of honor two weeks before their wedding. And all she’d managed to do was tuck her tail and run away. She wished she had a gun like Mitch’s. She’d have blown off both their heads with it. Okay. Maybe not shot them. But she’d have scared them both to death. But no. She’d been as weak and spineless, as useless, as Mitch thought she was. Her face burned with the humiliation of it all.

She was useful, dammit! Just because her entire family and everyone she knew thought she was supposed to spend her life doing nothing more than being attractive fluff to decorate the arm of some powerful successful man, didn’t mean it was true.

She finished buttoning up the Baby Doll for the night, her movements a little too jerky. Mitch prowled a circuit around both the outside and inside of the boathouse and finally came to a halt beside the boat. His gaze was black. Inscrutable in the near-total darkness.

“Now what?” she grumbled, still miffed.

“Now I make a phone call. And we sit tight until the cavalry comes for us.”

She watched as he pulled out his cell phone.

“It’s me,” he muttered into it. “St. Thomas. In a boathouse at some private estate on Magen’s Bay. Heh, swanky doesn’t quite cover it. Any luck on a catamaran?”

A short pause while he listened to whomever he was talking with. She could swear his eyes glowed in the dark, gold and dangerous. It must be a trick of the faint moonlight creeping in through the boathouse windows, but the effect was eerie.

Without warning, his gaze speared into her, pinning her in place. “I’m telling you, she can do it. She’s perfect for it.” A short pause. “Yes, I know the risks. And yes, I’m sure.”

He sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as the person on the other end of the line about whatever they were talking about.

“Okay. Call me back.” He disconnected.

Not long on words, her pantherlike companion. When he didn’t say anything to her after he pocketed the phone, she said, “And?”

“And we stay here while my people set up transportation for us.”

“To where?”

He didn’t answer right away. In fact, he almost looked hesitant to tell her. How bad could it be? He’d need to take her someplace secluded, far away from Cuba where the killer wouldn’t think to look for her. Maybe Europe. It was nice there at this time of year.

“How do you feel about big game hunting?” he asked.

“Africa?” she blurted, surprised, “It’s awfully hot there at this time of year. But I suppose I’m up for a safari. As long as we don’t shoot anything. But I could go for some big game photography.” Now that she thought about it, she could see where he’d feel at home on the Dark Continent.

“Not Africa,” he bit out.

“Then where?”

Finally, he said reluctantly, “Cuba.”

“What?” she squawked. “But that’s where your assassin is from.”

“That’s correct. It’ll just be for a few days. Long enough for me to find our guy and neutralize him. His name’s Camarillo, by the way.”

“We need to stay away from him. He’ll try to kill us again!”

“That’s why we’re going to hunt him down and eliminate him before he gets us. Ops thinks it would be safer to go on the offensive and not sit back and wait for him to come to us.”

Shock rendered her speechless. They were going hunting for their would-be killer? She burst out, “That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard of.”

He snorted without humor. “Wait till you get a load of the next part, where you act as my cover to smuggle me into Cuba.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Can you handle a sailboat as well as you handle a motorboat?”

“Well, yes.” She frowned. “How did you know that?”

He made a noise that might pass in some circles for a laugh. “Tortola? Hyannis? Magen’s Bay? You grew up on water. And where there are rich people and water, there are sailboats.”

“I happen to prefer motorboats,” she replied a little stiffly. She hated fitting his stereotype of her, but she had, in fact, grown up around boats of all kinds.

Mitch’s voice rasped across her skin like a cat’s rough tongue, drawing her attention once more. “I need you to sail a wounded catamaran into port on the south side of Cuba and request repairs. They’ll let you come ashore in an emergency. I’m going to hide in one of the pontoons. Once you’ve docked, I’ll sneak out and we’ll head inland from there.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Not especially. If the Cubans catch us, they’ll only throw us into prison. In six months, a year tops, the U.S. government will negotiate our release. I figure with your father being who he is, the Cubans will spring us after a few weeks. At least, they’ll spring you that fast.”

“I do not want to be incarcerated in a Cuban jail, thank you very much.”

“Me, neither. That’s why you’re going to pay attention and do what I tell you to.”

“I don’t like it,” she announced.

“Neither do I. But I’ve got no time to fool around with setting up another entry into Cuba. You’re it, Miss Hollingsworth. We need to stick together anyway until I kill Camarillo. I may as well put you to some good use.”

“Gee, thanks. I always love sounding like some sort of disposable power tool.”

“You don’t throw out power tools,” he corrected gently.

She merely narrowed her eyes and glared at him. Fine. So she’d never seen a power tool in person in her life. He knew darn good and well what she had meant. She sulked for several minutes, trying to figure out some better way to get into Cuba. But she was completely out of her league on this one. She turned her attention to something that had bothered her from the very beginning. “How did Camarillo find you? Wasn’t your meeting with whoever you were supposed to meet with a secret?”

He looked roundly irritated that she dared to question his work and didn’t bother to answer.

She wasn’t about to let him go all strong and silent on her, like she didn’t matter enough to talk to. No, sirree. She got enough of that from her father. She poked again—something simple to get him talking. “How did you get those boathouse doors open?”

His teeth flashed white in the darkness. “Have you ever heard of a don’t ask, don’t tell policy? If you won’t ask, I won’t tell.”

She absorbed that one in silence. Eventually, she asked, “How long are we supposed to sit here, waiting for your phone call?”

He shrugged. “Could be all night.”

Great. All night in a dark, secluded place with this macho male. Darned if that didn’t make her heart beat a little faster. More in an attempt to distract herself than actually make conversation, she commented lightly, “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”

“Gee, I’ll just call the local French gourmet delivery joint and have them bring us a seven-course meal,” he retorted.

She glared and replied loftily, “There’s food in the Baby Doll’s galley.”

He looked startled, like he’d forgotten for a moment that the Baby Doll had a compact, but completely stocked, cabin.

She ducked below and turned on the halogen track lighting. It twinkled subtly overhead, lending the space a romantic glow. She opened the small cupboard above the microwave oven. “There’s canned spaghetti or tuna fish,” she called up.

“I’ll take spaghetti.” He joined her in the tiny cabin, filling its entire space with his dark presence. He sprawled on the leather couch, a feline predator at rest. She passed him a piping hot container of spaghetti and zapped one for herself. When it was ready, she moved to the far end of the couch and perched cautiously on it. She promptly burned her tongue, but did her best not to show it. Darn, that man flustered her! She shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

“We could always break into the main house and raid the pantry,” he suggested.

“Let’s not,” Kinsey said dryly. “We’re already imposing. And these are my friends.”

His only reply was a casual shrug.

They finished their meal, such as it was, in silence. Mitch arose and held out his hand for her cup and spoon. She handed them over and he tossed them in the galley’s sink. He’d just turned to head for the steps when his cell phone shattered the deep silence. Kinsey jumped nearly as hard as he did. He fished it out of his pocket.

“Go,” he bit out.

His eyebrows drew together in a frown as he listened, and his gaze flicked over to her. Whoever was on the other end of the conversation was talking about her, she was sure of it.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Mitch rumbled. He disconnected. Turned to face her. “Seems we’ve got a little problem. Your father doesn’t want you to help us with this operation. He thinks it’ll place you in too much danger. You’re, and I quote, totally unprepared to deal with the pressures of the situation.”

Heat flooded her face. This was exactly what she was talking about! People took one look at her and assumed she wasn’t good for anything. “In other words, he thinks I can’t hack it,” she forced out.

“More or less.”

“Give me your phone,” she snapped. She held out her open palm expectantly. One eyebrow raised, he laid the device in her hand.

She stabbed out her father’s private number and waited impatiently for the call to go through. Richard Hollingsworth’s voice came on the line. “Hello?”

“Hi Dad, it’s your useless, spoiled daughter calling.”

“Honey, are you all right? They told me some guy shot at you today.”

“Oh, I’m fine. And that guy’s shark bait,” she replied breezily. “The man who saved my life today needs a favor from me, though, and I’m going to do it. I hear you’re worried, so I’m calling to tell you I’ll be fine. He says I need to stay with him and I believe him. I trust this man implicitly to keep me safe.”

Mitch’s gaze riveted on her at those words. Her embarrassed gaze skittered away from his.

“Kinsey, do you have any idea who this Perovski fellow is? I had my staff run a profile on him, and you can’t believe some of the things he’s done. Plainly put, he’s a killer. He’s a covert operator and runs around blowing things up and assassinating people for a living. You have no business being around someone like him.”

The condescension in her father’s voice set her teeth on edge. “Be that as it may, I’m going to help him with the next phase of his current mission.”

“No.”

“I wasn’t calling to ask permission, Dad. I’m telling you how it’s going to be.”

Her father’s voice rose to a bull roar. “Don’t you take that tone with me, young lady. I control your trust fund. And I forbid you to do this.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way. But I am going to do it.”

“I’ll cut you off. No money, no credit cards, no bank account. Nothing.”

Twenty minutes ago, that threat might have given her pause. But after Mitch’s scathing opinion of her utter uselessness as a human being, she’d be damned if her father would bully her out of this.

“Do what you have to, Dad, but my decision’s made. Good night.” She closed the phone and handed it back to Mitch in silence.

“What did he threaten to do to you?” Mitch asked quietly.

“He’s cutting me off financially.”

“Totally?” Mitch sounded surprised.

“Yup.”

“Man, that sucks. I can look into having the boys put you on the payroll for the duration of this op if you’d like.”

She grinned ruefully. “Thanks, but I’ll muddle through until he gets over his snit. My mother is loaded, compliments of her divorce lawyer, and she’ll slip me some cash if I empty my bank account before he gets over his snit. Besides, I can always threaten to go public with what my father’s doing to me and he’ll back off. Negative publicity is very bad for a man in his position. He’s up for reelection this November.”

Mitch winced and grinned simultaneously. “Ouch. Blackmailing your old man? That’s cold. I like it.”

She grinned back, reassured she’d made the right decision. She wanted some of the competence that was Mitch Perovski for herself. If she spent a few days with him, maybe some of that cool confidence of his would rub off on her. Goodness knew, she needed it. If he could show her how to get people to take her even a little more seriously, it would be worth all the money in her trust fund and more. She was sick and tired of being walked all over.

In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea. If she could shed her socialite image and become a strong, independent woman…oh, yes. The idea made her tingle from head to toe. Wild horses weren’t going to keep her away from Mitch Perovski, no matter what risk that entailed.

Chapter 4

Mitch glanced around the tight confines of the Baby Doll’s cabin. The sofa no doubt folded out into a bed. One bed. Two people. He winced mentally. He could be a gentleman and offer to sleep up top, propped up in one of the chairs or stretched out on the hard deck. But this was likely to be the last decent night’s sleep he got for the next several months, and dammit, they were both adults. They could sleep in the same bed without anything untoward happening between them.

Kinsey stifled a yawn.

He said lightly, “Let’s get some shut-eye. No telling when the boys will be here to pick us up. Operations rule number one: sleep when you can.”

She nodded without protest, unlocked the sofa, and pulled it out into a bed. With her working at one end and him at the other, they made the bed with satin sheets—what else for the Baby Doll?—cashmere blankets, and fluffy eiderdown pillows.