The Espionage Effect(77)

Alec handed me his mobile phone as he hit the control button, lighting up the screen. A text from Anna appeared with a time stamp of 10:14 a.m. My brow furrowed for a confused moment before I remembered calling her yesterday morning on his phone.

“Call Anna. I’ll drop you back at the resort in a few minutes.”

“What are you going to do?” Sudden panic welled in my chest at the thought of being separated from him. I’d only just found him, this man who’d become my counterbalance.

He reached into his top desk drawer, then held up a larger mobile phone. “Business phone. While you call Anna, I’ll call Escobar to confirm our appointment tonight.”

“Appointment?” My head spun, trying to remember details he may have mentioned before we’d lost ourselves in a night filled with passion.

“To play arms dealer.”

“Oh. The missile launchers.” I glanced toward the garage where a stockpile of weapons waited to be delivered. “And handguns. And probably grenades…” There were so many ways things could go south. Add lots of unpredictable and readily accessible things that go boom?

I frowned.

“Hey.” He stood from the chair and gathered me close. He cupped his hand over my cheek and stared into my eyes. “This has been years in the making. I can handle it.”

“What about me?” Had my voice sounded whiney? I scowled, suddenly irritated at damn female chromosomes.

He gave me a reassuring smile. “You can’t come. Stay with Anna until you hear from me.”

Tapping into the strength I’d somehow always had, I turned, pulled up Anna’s text, then hit the CALL button. I refused to succumb to worry over what might happen if I lost Alec. After all, I’d pleaded with him to be strong for me, seize what happiness we could find now, even if we risked never having it again.

But for the first time in my life, I had something to fight for beyond vengeance. I had something to protect, to keep safe and cherish.

I had something to live for.

And although in some respects, I now fought for Alec and me, I also fought for those college students and their loved ones, I fought for my sister and the family her loss destroyed, and I fought for all the families in the world—whether they knew about the darkness surrounding them or not—that they wouldn’t have to suffer at the hands of greed and cruelty.

Alec’s call connected first, as he immediately spoke in fluid Spanish from behind his desk. To distance myself, I walked to the room’s outer glass wall while the ringer chimed into my ear once, then again.

On the third ring it connected. “?Hola! ?Cómo the hell estás?”

I choked out a laugh. “Muy the f*ck bien. ?Y tú?”

“Must be ‘very the f*ck good,’ Dev. You laughed. You never laugh.”

“Do too,” I countered. Albeit rarely. “And now we’re slaughtering the native language? Sacrilege.”

“No. Damn it all to hell, Dev. You better get your ass over here. This is our vacation.”

“You telling me you didn’t hang a sock on our door last night?”

Silence stretched on the other end.

“Uh-huh. Thought so. Playing doctor again?” Worry pinged into my brain, this time for Anna and her getting so close to the son of a bad man. Something had shifted irrevocably inside me the moment I entered into the light again, started living life. I began to care more.

Nothing to be done about my worries now, though. Later. Hopefully soon.

“You know it,” she continued. “His patient needed a house call. A very detailed, very thorough house call.”

“Very TMI.” I scrunched my nose, not wanting to hear the intimate details. Then my thoughts drifted to last night, calming me as I relived my own. Caught unaware of my own bodily responses, I let out a dreamy sigh. Then I wanted to slap myself back into reality. Finding happiness amid impending catastrophe was doing a Jekyll-and-Hyde number on my emotions.

Anna sighed heavily. “You coming back here, or what? I’ve got beach time scheduled, and it has our name on it.”

I turned to catch Alec pocketing his additional phone, his call apparently finished. The moment his gaze locked on to mine, he smiled, and I began closing the distance between us.

“Have Pedro snag us one up front.” Our previous beach attendant to set up our beach-bed lounge. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

I disconnected, then slid the phone onto his desk, threw my arms around his neck, and lunged upward, crashing my lips against his.

A low growl reverberated from his throat, penetrating my body straight to my heart, as he gathered me in his arms and kissed me with a restrained wildness. In those suspended seconds, we clung to each other.

I may have to let him go, wouldn’t be able to control every little thing in the countless possibilities that lay ahead, but I did have the present moment—the only one guaranteed.

And for as long as I had him, I would make the most of it.





After Alec had dropped me off with no sappy good-bye trivialities, simply a passionate kiss followed by an intense look that matched the blissful high I rode, I enjoyed a lazy day of crucial beach time with my best friend.

And even though she’d always been my only friend, the one person who I’d ever let close to me, I’d never allowed her to get too close. But now that Alec had chipped away at the protective walls I’d built, my perspective on the entire world had shifted, Anna included.