A Covert Affair (Deadly Ops #5)(11)

Collette’s perfect eyebrows arched. “Amelia, I wondered where you’d gotten off to. Heard you got Naomi Baronet in a pissy mood.” She laughed darkly before Amelia could respond. “That woman is such a lazy bitch,” she murmured, moving to the big mirror next to Amelia. Her perfume was subtle, with notes of lavender.

Amelia felt a little strange around Collette, mainly because Amelia was only three years older than her. It wasn’t just that, though; there was an edge to Collette. She was always direct, sometimes to the point of being brusque. It was so at odds with the tall, beautiful woman’s outer appearance. Her honey brown hair was the same shade as her father’s, but she must have gotten her dewy olive skin from her mother.

“She’s just jealous of you, don’t worry. She’s been after my father for years. Just for his money, though. So thank you for annoying her.” Collette pulled out a tube of gloss as well and smiled at her in the mirror.

Some of Amelia’s tension eased. Half smiling, she put her lip gloss back in her clutch, closing it with a snap. “I’m glad I could help.”

“We should do lunch soon,” Collette said, not looking at her now as she regarded herself in the mirror. “Regardless of whether you and my father work out. I want to talk to you about the restaurant industry.”

“Oh, uh, okay.” Amelia didn’t know if she planned to see Iker again, and it felt a little strange to meet up with his daughter if she ended things with Collette’s father.

“I’ll call you. We’ll set it up.” Then she was gone as quickly as she’d come.

Amelia knew that Collette worked with her father sometimes. Not that she needed to, if gossip was to be believed. But maybe she was looking to buy a restaurant as an investment—because Amelia couldn’t imagine the tall, striking woman who got her hair blown out once a week actually working in a restaurant, getting her hands dirty.

Not that any of that concerned Amelia. Right now all she cared about was making an excuse to leave and getting out of here. She wanted to meet with Maria, but the truth was, her stomach was tied in knots at the prospect of talking to and seeing Nathan again.

“Damn, that was easy,” Cade said to Nathan, turning the volume down on the laptop as Maria exited the bathroom.

Even though she wasn’t an NSA agent, they’d wired her for this op. Just as Nathan had been wired earlier when he was dancing with Amelia. But he’d turned off the recorder, something Cade was still confused over. His friend thought there’d been interference or a malfunction.

Nathan looked over at Cade, who was sitting in the passenger seat of the NSA-owned SUV. Though Cade had turned down the volume, they could hear the muted movements of Maria as she made her way out of the convention center to meet them. Normally they’d have a command center van as their base of operations, but tonight had simply been about information-gathering and making contact with Iker Mercado again. The man was suspected of illegal antiquities dealings, but he’d led a very clean life. At least on paper. He’d never been nailed down by any government agency, but if someone was involved in the smuggling of humans, he could be involved. Or know who was doing it.

Nathan had made contact with him twice over the past two weeks, but he’d known nothing about Amelia being involved with him. He’d read over the files multiple times, but she hadn’t been one of Nathan’s targets during this op and her last name was Rios, so he hadn’t realized it was his Amelia. Now he wished he’d been more diligent. Being blindsided tonight was his own damn fault. And it was a rookie fucking mistake. Not good for his first op back on duty.

Reaching over to the laptop, he muted the connection completely, not wanting Maria to overhear anything. “My cover is potentially blown. I know Amelia,” he blurted before his teammate could ask what he was doing. He needed to be straight with Cade. “And there wasn’t a malfunction with my listening device. I turned it off when I was dancing with her.”

Cade’s eyes widened, but he was silent for a moment as he watched Nathan. “How do you know her?”

He’d lost his virginity to her and had been so fucking in love with her that he wasn’t sure he’d actually ever moved on. He’d dated other women, but being in the military and then working undercover for the NSA hadn’t been conducive to relationships. At least that was what he’d always told himself. Deep down, he’d always carried a torch for Amelia. Life had dealt her a shitty hand, but she’d never let it get her down, had always been so damn stoic about things. But he sure as shit wasn’t telling his friend and teammate that. “My grandmother lived next door to her mom. We knew each other in high school.” A simple explanation for something exponentially more complicated.

Cade’s brow furrowed. “How’d she react to your name?”

“She didn’t, and she won’t tell Mercado.” Of that he was almost sure. Almost. He wasn’t going to risk his life on that assumption, though. He had to bring his boss in on this and he really needed to talk to Amelia directly. Once he got his shit together. Seeing her tonight, on the arm of one of their suspects no less, had made something dark inside him snap. For the last twelve years he’d made it a point not to look her up. She was the one who’d ended things, and it hadn’t been pretty. He’d fucking begged her to talk to him, to explain why she was cutting him out of her life. But she’d been so remote, as if they were strangers. Then her mom had been evicted from her rental not long after Amelia broke up with him, and he had no idea where they’d ended up after he went into the Corps. And when he was in the Marines, it had been easy to forget about everything else other than staying alive and keeping his buddies alive in war zones.