What the Bride Didn't Know
Kelly Hunter
Special ops expert Trig Sinclair is a man’s man, and that means he knows the cardinal rule of the bro code… no matter how dynamite Lena West is, as his best friend’s younger sister, she’s strictly off limits!He can look, but not touch - not if he wants to live to tell the tale! But when a secret mission to Istanbul sees Lena and Trig pretending to be married (and sharing a bed!), he finds himself in a whole new world of sweet torture… surely there’s only so much temptation one man can take?!But if Trig thinks playing the honour-bound hero is tough, it’s got nothing on how Lena feels when she discovers what her ‘groom’ is really hiding…
‘I can’t find my honeymoon nightie. Do you have it?’
Trig opened his mouth as if to speak and then shut it again with a snap. He shook his head. No.
She looked beneath the pillows. ‘Did we rip it?’
Still no sound from Trig.
‘Could be the cleaner mistook it for ribbon,’ he said at last.
‘Ribbon?’
‘There wasn’t much of it. But there were bows. Lots of bows. Made out of ribbon.’
‘Oh.’ Lena tried to reconcile ribbon nightwear with the rest of her clothing. ‘I really should be able to remember that.’
She passed her husband on the way to the shower and when she stepped beneath the spray she could have sworn she heard him whimper.
Dear Reader,
I love writing connected stories. I’m particularly fond of exploring the dynamics between siblings and how those dynamics change when siblings start bringing partners into the family unit. It’s fun. Sometimes there’s conflict. Sometimes I break out the popcorn.
What The Bride Didn’t Know is the third book in the West Family series, and I’m thrilled to finally be bringing Lena’s story to readers. Lena and Trig have been friends since childhood and he’s such an integral part of her life that Lena doesn’t dare risk seducing him in case it all goes wrong. Until she loses her memory in a foreign land a long, long way from home and then all bets are off.
The other stories in the West Family series so far are:
Flirting With Intent Cracking The Dating Code
Best wishes and happy reading,
Kelly Hunter
What the Bride
Didn’t Know
Kelly Hunter
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Accidentally educated in the sciences, KELLY HUNTER has always had a weakness for fairy tales, fantasy worlds and losing herself in a good book. Husband…yes. Children… two boys. Cooking and cleaning…sigh. Sports…no, not really—in spite of the best efforts of her family. Gardening…yes. Roses, of course. Kelly was born in Australia and has travelled extensively. Although she enjoys living and working in different parts of the world, she still calls Australia home.
Kelly’s novels Sleeping Partner and Revealed: A Prince and a Pregnancy were both finalists for a Romance Writers of America RITA
Award in the Best Contemporary Series Romance category!
Visit Kelly online at www.kellyhunter.net.
This and other titles by Kelly Hunter are available in eBook format—check out www.millsandboon.co.uk
For my mother, grandmother, aunt, children,
Anne, Trish, Carol, Fi, Meredith, Lissa, Linda,
Barb, Rosie and Jo.
Thanks for all your support.
Contents
Prologue (#u6c3ea738-d16d-55ad-a966-8f6424980b33)
Chapter One (#u8531238a-6de6-5480-96eb-acf2c306f0ec)
Chapter Two (#u09505acf-d3c8-593d-a300-82b650cd9cac)
Chapter Three (#u3e11b45e-f248-5ca8-a6c2-177c18c3332c)
Chapter Four (#uf091ebf6-109f-5570-b198-e57b5f636384)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE
Seventeen-year-old Lena West didn’t understand the question. It had something to do with Euler’s formula and complex z but, beyond that, Lena had no clue. Groaning, she dropped her pen on top of her grid paper and put her palms to her eyes so that she couldn’t see the sweep of ocean beyond the screen door. Summer and school work never mixed well. Not when there was a beach a few metres from the house and a swell that had seen her older brother take to the water the minute they’d arrived home from school.
It wasn’t fair that Jared could do his maths homework in his head. It didn’t help that her two younger siblings were bona-fide geniuses—one evil and one not—and could have answered question six in under ten seconds. Fourteen-year-old Poppy—who was not evil—would have helped her had she been around, but Poppy had been seconded to the University of Queensland’s mathematical think tank and spent most of her time in Brisbane these days. Thirteen-year-old Damon wasn’t around to ask either. He was pulling yet another after-school detention—his theory being that if he was unruly enough and sneaky enough, he might just manage to avoid the land of secret-squirrel think thanks altogether. Lena applauded Damon’s initiative, even if she didn’t like his chances.
When you were that bright, people noticed.
Not that Lena had anything to worry about there.
Sighing, Lena opened her eyes and picked up her pen. Question six. There it was. Mocking her. One simple little question that everybody else in her freaky family could do in their sleep.
‘Moron,’ she grumbled.
‘Who is?’ said a deliciously deep voice from behind her and Lena nearly slipped her skin because she hadn’t heard anyone come in. She knew the voice though, and her scowl deepened as she turned to glare at Adrian Sinclair, their neighbour from two doors down and Jared’s best friend since kindergarten. ‘Don’t you knock?’ she asked grumpily and knew it for a stupid question even as it left her mouth. Adrian didn’t have to knock—he practically lived here.
‘Didn’t want to interrupt your thought flow.’
‘And yet, you did.’
Adrian’s grin kicked sideways. ‘You said “moron”. I thought you were talking to me.’
‘Moron.’
‘See what I mean?’
Hard not to smile right along with Adrian’s laughing brown eyes. ‘Smiling crooked will get you nowhere.’
‘That’s not always true. Jared around?’
‘Out there.’ Lena nodded towards the Pacific. It was still blue. It still beckoned. Jared was heading out of the water, board in hand. ‘Why aren’t you out there with him?’
‘Thinking about it,’ said Adrian. ‘Why aren’t you?’
‘I have a maths test tomorrow.’ Lena eyed him speculatively. Adrian had chosen the same school subjects that Jared had. Same subjects she’d chosen, give or take a language or two. He and Jared were a year ahead of her in school. ‘What do you know about Euler’s formula and complex planes?’
Adrian moved closer, edging in over her shoulder. ‘Which question’s giving you trouble?’
‘Six.’
‘The bonus question? You know you can always leave it?’
‘How about we pretend that’s not an option?’ It wasn’t. Not in this household.
‘All right.’ Adrian reached for her textbook and started flipping through it as if he actually knew what he was looking for. Long wrists. Big hands like paddles. Thick, strong fingers with callouses that came of hours spent kite surfing. Lena had the insane urge to put her palm against his and take measure, note down exactly how warm and big and rough those hands of his were...
And then the textbook thunked down on the table beside her, and Adrian’s chest brushed her shoulder as he pointed to a particular section of text, and...damn but it was getting hot in here.
‘You want a chair?’ she asked, the better to put some breathing distance between them.
‘Been sitting all day. ’M good.’
Lena shifted restlessly and got a nose full of Adrian’s body-scent for her trouble. He smelled spicy clean, tantalisingly fine—and this after an afternoon of school sport. As if he’d taken the time to shower before heading over here, which made no sense at all given his tendency to end up in the ocean regardless.
‘So...’ he prompted, his voice gruffer than usual. ‘Question six.’
Right. Question six. Lena dragged her attention back to the matter at hand. No! Not the hands! Question six. ‘So I tried to find a—’
‘What’s going on?’ said a voice from the patio doorway, and she knew every nuance of that voice too, no need to look up to know that Jared was standing in the doorway or that he’d be wearing a scowl.
She looked up anyway and met her brother’s narrowed gaze with curiosity. He had unruly black hair—a trait they shared, although hers was considerably longer and considerably more unruly. He had bluer eyes than she did because hers often tended towards grey in the right kind of light. They both had athletic builds. Lena had a yearning for curves, but it wasn’t going to happen. She had a scowl just like the one Jared was wearing. The family resemblance was strong.
‘What’s wrong with you? Not enough Jared West groupies on the beach?’ Jared was a wanted man as far as the girls around here were concerned. Most of those girls made friends with Lena in order to get closer to him, which wasn’t a problem except that Jared changed girlfriends with dazzling speed and not many of them stayed friends with Lena afterwards.
‘Their loss,’ Jared had told her when she’d complained about the defection of her friends, and, while his curt words had soothed her ego, the fact remained that Lena was still appallingly low on company because of him. Jared had been more inclined to let her tag around with him after that, probably out of pity.
Lena could have done without the pity, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
‘I said, what are you doing?’ repeated Jared, heavy on the ice.
‘Trig,’ said Lena, figuring a straight answer might appease him.
Jared’s gaze shifted to Adrian. ‘That what she’s calling you these days?’
Adrian held Jared’s bleak gaze with an enigmatic one of his own. ‘If something’s bothering you, J, spit it out.’
Jared’s gaze shifted between her and Adrian once more. Adrian straightened slowly and some message flashed between him and her brother that Lena didn’t have the cipher for.
‘You know the rules,’ said Jared curtly.
‘Do I know the rules?’ she asked. ‘What rules?’
‘He thought I was hitting on you,’ said Adrian, after another long and loaded silence. ‘It’s not encouraged.’
‘Excuse me?’ said Lena. There were two issues buried in that simple little statement, and while her mind shied away from the implication that Adrian might actually like her enough to hit on her, it had no trouble whatsoever grappling with the second. ‘Jared West, are you scaring away my potential boyfriends? Because if you are...and I find out you are...’ Lena narrowed her gaze. ‘Is this why Ty Chester didn’t ask me to the year eleven dance? Because he was going to—I know he was. And then he didn’t.’
‘Nah, that one was all you,’ said Jared. ‘He probably thought you were going to ask him hang-gliding in return. I hear he’s scared of heights.’
‘And kittens,’ added Adrian. ‘Possibly his own shadow.’
‘Maybe I was after a refreshing change,’ she grumbled. ‘Maybe I wanted to see how the quiet, handsome half lived.’ Facts were facts. Ty Chester was uncommonly handsome. Nor would it have killed her to spend some time with people she hadn’t hero-worshipped since birth.
‘You’d have eaten him alive,’ said Jared.
‘Yes, that was the plan. Jared, I swear, if I ever catch you interfering in my love life I will make your love life a living hell. Yours too,’ she told Adrian for good measure.
‘Mine’s already a living hell,’ murmured Adrian and Jared snorted. More silent communication passed between them, effectively cutting her out of the loop. They did it all the time and mostly it didn’t bother her. Today, it did.
‘Lord, you two, get a room.’
‘Yeah, Trig,’ said Jared, darkly gleeful. ‘Let’s get a room.’
‘If we go surfing this afternoon, I’m going to drown you,’ said Trig, formerly known as Adrian.
Jared flipped him a friendly finger.
‘Is this foreplay?’ asked Lena. ‘Because if it is, can it happen elsewhere? I’m trying to concentrate on my homework here.’ A valid point as far as she was concerned. Unfortunately, it focused Jared’s attention back on her books.
‘Since when do you need help with maths homework?’ he asked.
‘Since it got hard. What kind of idiot question is that?’
‘Seriously? You really can’t do basic trigonometry?’
‘This is why I don’t think I’m fully related to any of them,’ Lena told Adrian. ‘I’m the milkman’s baby.’
‘Yeah, baby, but you’ve got a lot of grit,’ offered Adrian. ‘Who cares if it takes you a fraction longer than the rest of them to figure out a trigonometry proof? You’ll still get there.’
‘Yeah, but not fast enough. And then they’ll disown me. That’s what happens to people who can’t keep up.’
‘Since when have you ever not kept up?’ This from Jared who’d never had to work to keep up with anything. He was always out front; always the leader. And Lena had always worked her butt off to make sure that she wasn’t that far behind.
It was costing her, though. More and more, she could feel the gap between what her siblings could do and what she could do widening. It was the curse of being an ordinary person in an extraordinary family.
‘Would you disown me if I did fall behind?’ she asked.
And shocked Jared speechless.
Adrian was looking at her funny—as if he’d known all along that her insecurities were there but he couldn’t quite figure out why she was voicing them now. Lena didn’t know why she was voicing them now either. It was just a maths question.
‘Never mind,’ she said awkwardly.
‘You won’t fall behind.’ Jared had finally found his voice. ‘I won’t let you.’
He just didn’t get it. ‘But what if that’s where I’m meant to be? Water finding its own level, and all that?’
‘No,’ said Jared grimly. ‘The hell with that. That’s just defeatist.’
‘No one’s leaving anyone behind,’ said Adrian soothingly. ‘No one here’s defeated. Jared’s never going to disown you, Lena. He’s insanely protective of you. Did you not just see him go caveman on my arse for daring to look at you sideways?’
‘Sure I did,’ said Lena. ‘But he’s protecting you, not me.’
‘Maybe I’m protecting you both,’ said Jared. ‘Anyone ever think of that?’
‘Overachiever,’ murmured Lena and Adrian nodded his agreement, and it made Lena laugh and broke the tension and she was all for it staying broken.
‘How about I start this conversation again?’ she offered.
‘Can you do it without the emo infusion?’ asked Jared.
‘You want the bare basics?’ She could do that. She pointed the pen at her chest. ‘Imbecile in need of a little help with her maths homework, before she can go surfing. I’m stuck on question six.’
Which was how Lena scored two maths tutors for the rest of the year and how Adrian Sinclair earned the nickname Trig.
Nothing to do with being trigger happy at all.
Even if he was.
ONE
It wasn’t easy being green. Green being the colour of envy. Envy being the emotion Lena owned when she saw others walking around effortlessly and without pain. She tried to keep her resentments in check, but envy had powerful friends like self-pity and unfocused anger and when they came to play, Lena’s bright-side surrendered with barely a murmur. Being gut shot nineteen months ago had brought out the worst in her rather than the best.
Focus on the positives, the overworked physio had told her briskly at the start of her rehabilitation.
You’re alive.
You can walk.
The physio had tapped the side of Lena’s skull next. You’re really strong. Up here.
Lena had taken that last comment as a compliment. Right up until the physio had started telling her to back off on the exercises and let her body heal. Lena had ignored her, at which point the physio had started comparing Lena to someone’s pet ox.
As in overly stubborn and none too bright.
It didn’t help that the other woman might possibly have been right.
Still, stubbornness had got her to the airport this morning, and through the airport, and if she sank down into the row of seats next to the boarding gate with a muffled curse and a certain amount of relief, so what?
She’d made it.
Another half an hour and she’d be on a plane bound for Istanbul and when she got there she was going to find Jared, her wayward brother, and haul him home in time for Christmas. She could do this. Was doing this.
Didn’t matter that she was doing it one step at a time.
Lena closed her eyes and rubbed at her face, putting the heels of her hands to her eye sockets and rolling them in slow circles, and it was hell on mascara but she didn’t wear any anyway—her lashes were black enough and thick enough to go without. Her hair was thick and black too, and straight these days, on account of a good cut and a run-in with a hair straightener this morning. The wave would come back next time she washed it, but for now she looked reasonably put together. Less like an invalid and more like a woman on a mission.
Someone took a seat beside her and Lena lowered her hands, cracked a glance and groaned at the sight of her nemesis, Adrian Sinclair, glaring back at her.
Trig was big. As in six feet five and perfectly proportioned. He’d grown into his hands. Grown into the coat-hanger shoulders he’d had at sixteen. Good for him.
Lena had stopped growing at a respectable five-eight. Nothing wrong with medium height. Nothing wrong with medium anything.
‘Go away,’ she said by way of greeting.
‘No,’ he said by way of hello. ‘I heard you failed your physical.’
Way to rub it in. ‘I’ll take it again. I’ve put in for special consideration.’
‘You won’t get it.’
‘You’re blocking it?’
‘You overestimate my influence,’ rumbled Trig. ‘Lena—’
‘No,’ she said, cutting him off fast. ‘Whatever you’re going to say about my current state of well-being, don’t. I don’t want to hear it.’
‘I know you don’t, but I am done talking around it.’ Trig’s jaw tightened. He had a nice jaw. Strong. Square. It provided a much-needed counterpoint to his meltingly pretty brown eyes. ‘When are you going to get it through your thick head that you are never going to get your old job back?’
Lena said nothing. Not what she wanted to hear.
‘Doesn’t mean you can’t be equally effective elsewhere,’ continued Trig doggedly.
‘Behind a desk?’
‘Operations control. Halls of power. Could be fun.’
‘If it’s that much fun, why don’t you do it?’
‘What do you think I’ve been doing these past nineteen months? Besides dropping everything on a regular basis to come babysit you? Why do you think I took myself off rotation in the first place?’
Lena had the grace to flush. Like her and Jared, Trig had been part of an elite intelligence reconnaissance team once, and, just like her, Trig had loved his job. The extreme physicality of it. The danger and the excitement. The close calls and the adrenaline. Trig had to be missing all that. ‘Why did you take yourself off rotation? They’d have assigned you to another team. No one asked you to sit at a desk. And I don’t need a babysitter.’
‘Yeah, I wish you’d prove it.’ Trig eased his legs out in front of him and tried to make himself comfortable in the too-small airport seat. Big man, with a body honed for combat. The pretty face and the easy smile...those were just for disarmament purposes.
‘Adrian, what are you doing here?’ Adrian was his real name. Lena only ever used it when talk turned serious. ‘How’d you even know I was here?’
‘Damon called me. He had you flagged the minute you passed through Customs.’
‘Man, I hate that.’ Who’d have a computer hacker for a brother? ‘No respect for privacy whatsoever.’
‘Handy, though. Exactly what is it you plan to do in Istanbul, Lena?’
‘Find Jared.’
‘What makes you think he’s still there?’
‘I don’t. But it’s the only lead we’ve got. Nineteen months and not one word on his whereabouts until now. What if he needs our help?’
‘If he needs our help he’ll ask for it.’
‘What if he can’t? Jared’s in over his head. I can feel it. He wouldn’t go this long without finding a way to contact us. He just wouldn’t.’
‘He would if he thought the risk of blowing his cover was too great.’
‘If it’s that dangerous, maybe he shouldn’t be there at all.’
Trig shrugged. ‘Jared wants answers. He needs answers. Get in his way and he’s not going to be happy.’
‘I won’t get in his way. You give me too little credit.’
‘I have never given you too little credit. That’s not a mistake I’m likely to make. Too much leeway, on the other hand...’
‘Misogynist.’
‘Not even close.’
‘So you don’t plan to sling me over your shoulder and forcibly remove me from the boarding area?’
‘Too showy,’ said Trig, pulling out his mobile phone and tapping the screen. A nerve twisted low in Lena’s belly and she shifted restlessly in her seat and looked away. She’d always had a thing for Trig’s hands. A little part of her had long wondered what they might wring from her if Trig ever put his mind to it.
Not that he ever did.
‘We took a vote; me, Damon and Poppy,’ Trig continued. ‘In the event that I can’t persuade you to stay here and be sensible, I get to go with you and be stupid. Damon’s already got me a ticket. You can thank him later.’
‘Thanking him isn’t exactly what I have in mind.’
‘Damon cares for you, Lena. He already has one sibling missing. He doesn’t want another gone and I don’t want to have to explain to Jared why the hell I let you go looking for him alone. It’ll be bad enough trying to explain why I let you look for him at all.’
‘You approve of what he’s doing,’ she said sourly. ‘You don’t want him safe. You want him to find out who sabotaged the East Timor run.’
‘Damn right I do.’
‘What’d you and Jared do? Toss a coin to see who went and who stayed to look after the invalid?’
‘Didn’t have to. He went. I stayed.’ Trig eyed her flatly and Lena was the first to look away. She hadn’t been the best of company these past nineteen months—too jacked up on painkillers and self-pity to take it easy on anyone. Too focused on getting through the day upright to worry about hurting anyone else’s feelings along the way. Trig deserved better from her. Her family deserved better from her.
‘Sorry,’ she said and got a knee nudge from those long lanky legs in reply. ‘I am sorry.’
‘I know.’
But unless she actually did something about changing her mindset and her ways, sorry was just another empty word.
‘You sitting next to me on this flight?’ she asked.
Trig nodded, his eyes scanning the other passengers.
‘Don’t suppose Damon upgraded us to Business while he was deep in the bowels of the airline’s supposedly secure system?’
‘He did. Said we’d need the leg room. You need to check in with the boarding staff.’
Call it fate, intervention or the joys of having a computer-hacking genius for a brother, but the overhead speaker system chose that moment to request her presence at the boarding desk.
‘You want me to get that?’ Trig asked.
‘No.’ Lena made it to her feet. ‘I can do it.’
It was to Trig’s credit that he merely watched as she walked carefully to the service desk and exchanged her economy ticket for a business class one.
No credit to him at all when he sauntered over, face tight as he wrapped one arm around her waist and another beneath her knees and carried her silently back to her seat.
She wasn’t grateful for his silence or his strength.
She wasn’t.
* * *
They’d travelled together before. Eaten together, slept beside each other on beaches and in ditches. Lena knew Trig’s scent, the long lines of his back and the breadth of his shoulders. Shoulders built to cry on, though she rarely had. Strength enough to carry others, though he’d never had to carry her.
Until she’d been shot.
A part of her hated that she couldn’t match him any more. Couldn’t pit her speed and agility against his brute force and make a proper competition out of it. The rest of her just wanted to curl up against his strength and take shelter from the pain.
The boarding call for their flight came over the speaker system.
‘Lena—’ began Trig, and she knew what he was going to say before he said it. She stopped him because she didn’t want to hear yet another round of how she was too frail for this and how she should leave well enough alone.
‘Don’t tell me to reconsider,’ she said and knew the threadiness of her voice for desperation. ‘Please. I have to find him. I have to see for myself that he’s okay. As soon as I know that, I’ll leave. I promise. But I have to know that he’s okay. I need him to see that I’m okay.’
Trig said nothing, just reached for Lena’s little travel backpack sitting on the seat beside her. Reached for it at the same time she did.
‘I can—’ she began.
‘Lena, if you don’t let me carry your bag, I’m probably going to shoot you myself,’ he said with exaggerated mildness. ‘I want to help. You might even say I need to help...same way you need to see your brother and fix things with him. So let go of the goddamn bag.’
She let go of the bag. Trig didn’t really have a hair trigger. Not all of the time.
‘I don’t think you’d shoot me,’ she murmured finally. ‘Even if you did have your gun. I think you’re all bluff.’
‘Am not.’ Trig fell into step beside her—no small feat for a man whose stride was a good foot longer than hers. ‘I’m ruthless and menacing and perfectly capable of following through on my threats. I wish you’d remember that.’
Maybe if she didn’t know him so well, she’d think him more menacing. Trouble was she knew how gentle those big hands could be when it came to wounded things. Knew that he’d cut his hands off before hurting her.
Enough with the fixation on his hands.
They boarded the plane and found their seats. Trig stowed their bags and watched her settle tentatively into the wide and comfy seat. Ten seconds later he dangled a little pillow in front of her nose. Lena took it and set it at the small of her back.
Better.
‘You got a plan for when we get to Istanbul?’ Trig gave her another pillow and she contemplated swatting him with it, but tucked it down the side of the seat instead. She could always smother him with it later.
‘I have a plan,’ she said. ‘And a meeting with Amos Carter in two days’ time.’
‘Please tell me you’re not basing this entire journey on Carter being able to tell you where Jared is,’ said Trig. ‘Because I’ve already shaken that tree. He thought he saw him in Bodrum but he didn’t get close enough for a positive ID. That was six weeks ago.’
‘I know that. And if Amos has nothing more to add I’m heading for Bodrum to play tourist and see what I can see. My eyes are better than his. I know Jared’s habits. If he’s there I’ll find him. If he’s been there, I’ll find out where he’s gone.’
She eyed Trig speculatively, trying to figure the best way to fit him into her plan. ‘We could pretend to be holidaying together. We could be on our honeymoon. Good cover.’
Trig looked startled. And then he looked wary. ‘Not necessarily. Bodrum’s a tourist mecca. Boats. Parties. Outdoor nightclubs. Vice. We’re probably going to be exploring that vice. I don’t think pretending to be married would help at all.’
‘You’re absolutely right,’ said Lena, perfectly willing to improve on her current plan. ‘I could be your pimp instead. You could be Igor The Masterful. There could be leather involved.’
‘Yeah, let’s not go there either.’
Lena smiled at the flight hostess standing right behind him. To the hostie’s credit she didn’t bat an eyelash at the wayward conversation, just took her tongs and handed Trig a steaming flannel. She handed one to Lena too. Lena thanked her sweetly and shook it out and wiped hands and arms all the way to the elbows.
Trig sat down and draped his over his face.
‘I’m still here,’ said Lena.
‘Don’t remind me.’
‘At least it’s not the belly of a Hercules,’ she said. ‘And your legs actually fit in the space they’ve been given. It’s all win.’
‘I’m over winning.’ She could still make out the words, muffled as they were beneath the face cloth. ‘These days I’m all about risk analysis and minimising collateral damage.’
Well, hell. ‘When did you grow up?’
‘Twenty-second of April, twenty eleven.’
The day she’d been shot.
TWO
Twenty-six hours later Trig collected their bags and herded Lena out of Ataturk airport space and into a rusty, pale blue taxi. No fuss, no big deal made about Lena’s slow and steady walking pace, and she was grateful for that. Grateful too that Trig had chosen to accompany her.
‘Where to?’ asked the driver in perfectly serviceable English as he opened the boot and swung their luggage into it, smoothly cataloguing them as foreigners and English-speaking ones at that. The street kids here could do much the same. Pick a German out of a crowd. An American. The English. Apparently it had something to do with shoes.
‘The Best Southern Presidential Hotel near the Grand Bazaar,’ Lena told the driver. ‘And can you do something else for us? Can you take us past the Blue Mosque on the way there?’
‘Madam, it would be my uttermost pleasure to do that for you,’ announced the beaming driver. ‘This is your first visit to our magnificent city, no? You and your husband must also journey to Topkapi Sarayi and Ayasofya. And the Bazaar of course. My cousin sells silk carpets there. I shall inform him of your imminent arrival and he shall treat you like family. Here.’ The driver turned towards them, waving a small cardboard square. ‘My cousin’s business card. His shop is situated along Sahaflar Caddesi. It is a street of many sharks. Many sharks, but not my cousin. Tell him Yasar Sahin sent you. This is me. I have written it on the card for you already.’
Trig took the card from the driver in silence, probably in the hope that the driver would turn around and drive. Lena grinned. Trig had a weakness for carpets and rugs and wall hangings and tapestries. She had no idea why.
‘You know you want one,’ she murmured.
‘Don’t you dare mention jewellery,’ he murmured back, but Yasar Sahin heard him.
‘Are you looking for gold?’ Another card appeared in the driver’s nimble fingers. ‘Silver? This man is my brother and his jewellery will make your wife weep.’
‘I don’t want her to weep,’ said Trig but he took that card too. He didn’t mention that Lena wasn’t his wife.
‘Are you hungry?’ asked the driver. ‘On this road is my favourite kebab stand. Best in the city.’
‘Another brother?’ asked Lena.
‘Twin,’ said the driver and Lena laughed.
They didn’t get the kebabs, they saw the Blue Mosque at dusk and they arrived at the hotel without mishap.
Trig tipped well because Lena was still smiling. He got Yasar’s personal business card for his trouble. ‘Because I am also a tour guide and fixer,’ said Yasar.
‘Fixer?’
‘Problem solver.’
Of course he was.
The hotel Lena had chosen to stay in was mid-range and well located. She’d told the check-in clerk that Trig was her husband, who’d joined her on the trip unexpectedly, and the clerk had added Trig’s details to the booking without so much as a murmur.
‘You sure about this?’ he murmured as the clerk went to fetch their door cards.
‘Why? You want another room?’
He didn’t know.
‘It’s a twin room. Two beds.’
Still one room though.
And boy were quarters snug.
Trig eyed the short distance between the two beds with misgivings. They’d weathered plenty, he and Lena. Sharing a hotel room was not on the list.
He put her bag on the rack at the end of the bed farthest away from the door. Lena inspected the bathroom and proclaimed it satisfactory, because she’d wanted one with a spa bath and got it. Next thing he knew, the bath taps were on and Lena was rummaging through her belongings for fresh clothes.
‘You want to shower while the bath is running?’ she asked him. ‘Because—fair warning—when I get in the bath I am not going to want to get out.’
‘You’re sore?’
‘I just want to work the kinks out.’
‘Right.’ Trig cleared his throat and opened his bag, staring down at the mess of clothes he hadn’t bothered to fold, and tried not to think about Lena, naked in a bath not ten feet away from him. ‘So...okay, yeah. I can shower now.’ He grabbed at a faded pair of jeans and an equally well-worn T-shirt and then paused. ‘Where do you want to go for dinner?’ This could, conceivably, affect his choice of T-shirt.
‘I’m all in favour of room service, provided the menu looks good. And it’s not because I don’t want to walk anywhere,’ she added defensively. ‘Room service for dinner this evening has always been part of the plan.’
Far be it from him to mess with the plan. He eyeballed the distance between the beds again. ‘Is it just me or is this room kind of small?’
‘Maybe if you’d stop growing...’
‘I have.’ Okay, so he was extra tall and his shoulders were broad. For the most part, he was good with it. ‘You just think I should have stopped sooner.’ He eyed his little double bed with misgivings. ‘That’s not a double bed. It’s a miniature double bed.’
‘Princess.’
‘Are we bickering?’ he asked. ‘Because Poppy tells me she’s heartily sick of our bickering. I thought I might give it up for Lent.’
‘It’s not Lent,’ Lena informed him. ‘Besides, I like bickering with you. Makes me feel all comfortable and peachy-normal.’
Trig snorted. At sixteen, bickering with Lena had been his first line of defence against anyone discovering just how infatuated he was with her. He was still gone on her, no question. But these days the bickering got old fast.
He found his toiletries bag and stalked into the bathroom, only to find that that room was the size of a bath mat and that the spa was filling ever so slowly—a sneaky deterrent to filling it at all. Instead of four walls, the bathroom had two walls, a side door and one of those shuttered, half-walls dividing it from the main room. Trig reached for the shutters.
She-who-bickered would of a certainty want them shut.
He eyed the bathroom door and the floor mat in its way. He could shut that at the last minute. Never let it be said that Adrian Sinclair had more than a regular dislike for small spaces. Just don’t ever put him in a submarine.
‘Hey, Trig.’ Lena’s voice floated through the door. ‘Five things you never wanted to be. And don’t say, “Your babysitter”.’
Never wanted to be in love with my best friend’s sister, he thought darkly. Especially since she’d never once given him the slightest encouragement.
‘I never wanted to be a motor mechanic,’ he said instead.
‘Be serious.’
‘I am serious.’ He turned on the shower taps, hoping for a little pressure. Nope. Maybe if he turned the bath taps off. He shucked his clothes and dropped them on the floor. And Lena appeared in the doorway.
‘Dammit, Lena! Close quarters!’ But he didn’t reach for a towel or turn to hide his body. Most of it she’d seen before, and as for the rest...well...nothing to be ashamed of there.
Lena dropped her gaze, but not to the floor. She swallowed hard. ‘I, ah—’
‘Yes?’ he enquired silkily, half of him annoyed and half most emphatically not.
His brain thought she was objectifying him and he objected to that.
His body didn’t give a damn whether she objectified him or not.
‘I, ah—’ Finally she dragged her gaze up and over the rest of him and then, with what seemed like a whole lot of effort, looked away. ‘Sorry. Pretty sure I’ll remember what I wanted to tell you sooner or later.’
‘Size queen,’ he challenged softly.
‘Yeah, well. Who knew?’ She did the quickest about-turn he’d seen from her in a long time and headed back into the other part of the room, the part he couldn’t see. ‘I mean, I’d heard rumours... Your old girlfriends aren’t exactly discreet.’
‘No?’ He’d had girlfriends over the years—not plenty, but enough. He’d tried hard to fall for each and every one. ‘What are they?’
‘Grateful,’ she said dryly. ‘Now I know why.’
‘You really don’t,’ he felt obliged to point out, and left the bathroom door open and turned back towards the shower. ‘Who’s to say it wasn’t my winning personality?’
‘You do like to win,’ she said as he stepped beneath the spray and closed the shower door. Surely one closed door between them would be enough.
‘You keep saying that.’
‘Only because it’s true.’
All throughout their teens and beyond, he, Lena and Jared had pushed each other to be faster, cannier, more fearless. It had got them into plenty of trouble. Got them into the Secret Intelligence Service too. Jared rising through the ranks because he was a leader born, Trig and Lena rising with him because they had skills too and the suits knew the makings of a crack infiltration team when they saw one.
No space between him and Lena at all when it came to what they knew about each other. No strength or flaw left unexamined. No shortage of loyalty or love. Lena loved him like a brother and like a comrade-in-arms, and that was worth something. It was.
But sometimes she saw the reckless boy he’d once been rather than the man he was now.
Sometimes she coaxed him into competitive games he no longer had the heart to play.
He raised his voice so that she’d hear him over the spray. ‘Is there a burger on that menu?’
‘Hang on...’ She came back to the bathroom doorway, casual as you please now that a plate of frosted glass stood between her and his nakedness. ‘Yes, there’s a burger on the menu. Lamb burger on Turkish. Surprise. There’s also meatballs and potatoes, salads, green beans, and lots of pastries.’
‘Baklava?’
‘Oodles of baklava. Walnut, pistachio, cashew, pine nuts... You want yours drizzled in rose water?’
‘Rather have it in my mouth.’ He squirted shampoo in his palm and raised his hands to his head.
‘Are you posing on purpose?’
‘Are you looking on purpose?’ It seemed like a reasonable reply. ‘Because I’ve no objection. You want a closer look, all you gotta do is say.’ He reached for the shower door and smirked as Lena squeaked a protest and fled. ‘Thought you were fearless.’
‘That was before I got scarred for life. Now I’m wary. Don’t want to get scarred for life twice.’
‘Amen to that,’ he muttered, all playfulness gone as he shoved his head beneath the spray again, the better to chase away the image of Lena on her back in the mud, her guts hot and slippery against his hands while the world around them exploded. Scrub that memory from his mind.
Good if he could.
‘What kind of baklava did you want?’ asked Lena.
‘Is there a mixed plate?’
‘I can ask.’
He heard Lena ordering the food.
He tried to think about the real reason they were in Turkey. Get Lena’s eyes on Jared and Jared’s on her. Let them realise that everyone was okay and then get Lena the hell out of harm’s way before Jared could tear him a new one.
Simple plan.
Didn’t take a genius to know that the execution was going to be a bitch.
* * *
Trig emerged from the bathroom squeaky clean and somewhat calmer about sharing a hotel room with Lena. Lena had the television on and was standing to one side of it, flicking through the channels. She glanced at him, eyes wary. He thought she had relaxed a bit. Possibly because he had his clothes on.
‘Food’ll be here in an hour,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d take longer. I thought I might soak in the spa.’
Soak. Right. Lena was about to get naked and soapy not five steps from where he was standing, and he was going to ignore her and not even think about palming the bulge in his pants, not even just to rearrange it.
‘I need a walk,’ he muttered. And tried not to slam the door on his way out.
* * *
Lena sagged against the nearest wall the minute the door closed behind him. She didn’t know what to make of Trig’s moods these days—one minute teasing, short-tempered the next. That was her bailiwick, not Trig’s. Trig was the even-tempered one, rock-steady in any crisis.
Calm, even when she’d been flat on her back in the sticky grey clay of East Timor and he’d been holding her guts in place with his hands. Calm when Jared had skidded in beside him and told him to get out of the way and Trig had said no, just no, but Jared had backed off, and gone and stolen transport and got them to safety while Trig kept Lena alive.
Trig, steady as you please, as the world around her had turned cold and grey.
‘Don’t you,’ he’d said, his voice hard and implacable in her ear. ‘Fight, damn you. You always do.’
She’d fought.
She was still fighting.
Her injuries. Her reliance on others.
Her feelings for Trig and the memory of his cheek against hers and the gutted murmur of his voice when he’d thought her unconscious.
‘Stay with me, Lena. Don’t you dare go where I can’t follow.’
Closest he’d ever come to saying he had feelings for her that weren’t exactly brotherly.
Once upon a time, maybe, yeah, she’d have been all over that. All over him if he’d given her enough encouragement.
But now?
No way.
Because what could she offer him now? She who could barely hold herself together from one day to the next. She whose default setting ran more towards lashing out at people than to loving them.
And then there was the matter of her not so minor physical injuries. A body as beautiful as Trig’s deserved a beautiful body beneath it, not one like hers, all scarred and barely working. No babies from this body, and Trig knew it. He’d been there when the doctor had broken that news, only it was hardly news to Lena because given the mess her body had been in at the time she’d already figured as much.
It had been news to Trig though, and she’d plucked at a thread in the loose-woven hospital blanket and watched beneath lowered lashes as he’d dropped his head to the web of his hands and kept it there for the duration of the doctor’s explanation. No comment from him at all when he’d finally lifted his head, just a stark, shattered glance in her direction before he’d swiftly looked away.
Not pity. He didn’t do pity.
It had looked a lot like grief.
A bottle of red wine stood on the counter above the little hotel-room fridge. Lena cracked it and poured herself a generous glass full. She picked through her suitcase for a change of clothes and took those and the wine with her to the bathroom.
Water would help. Water always helped her relax and think clearly.
Find Jared. That was her goal.
Keep Lena out of trouble. She was pretty sure that was Trig’s goal.
And then, once the world was set right, she and Trig could find a new way of communicating. One that didn’t involve him being overprotective and her being defensive. One that involved more honesty and less bickering. Lena sipped at her wine and stared pensively at the slowly filling tub.
One that involved a little more wholly platonic appreciation for the person he was.
THREE
Trig returned just as their dinner arrived. He gave her a nod, tipped the man for his service and started moving dishes from the room-service cart to the little table for two over by the window.
Lena poured him a wine and another one for herself. She didn’t ask him about his walk straight away. Given the tension that had followed him into the room, she figured she might hold that totally innocuous question in reserve.
‘You taken any painkillers?’ he asked, not an unreasonable question given how much of the wine she’d drunk. What could she say? It had been a long bath.
‘Not yet. Tonight I’m rocking the red wine instead.’
‘Any particular reason why?’
‘Long day.’ You. ‘New city.’ You. Never want to be on the wrong side of you.
She used to be able to read him just by looking at him. These days she’d have better luck reading Farsi.
Trig took a seat, lifted his burger and bit into it, chewing steadily.
Lena sat opposite, picked at her spicy chicken salad and drank some more wine.
‘When are you meeting with Carter?’
‘Tomorrow at two p.m. at the Nuruosmaniye Gate of the Grand Bazaar. You want to come?’
‘I’ll watch.’
‘From afar?’
‘Not that far.’
‘Play your cards right and I might even buy you a silk scarf.’
Trig smiled. ‘Not my thing.’
‘How’s the burger?’
Trig nodded and took another hefty bite.
The burger was fine.
He looked at her salad and kept on chewing, right up until he swallowed. ‘Get your own,’ he said darkly.
Mind reader. ‘I’ll have you know that this salad’s delicious. Crisp little salad leaves and cucumber. Tasty tomato. All very healthy.’ How was she to know that she’d take one look at Trig’s burger and want something drippy too.
Trig’s sigh was well practised as he broke what was left of his burger in two and held out one half to her.
She took it with a grin. ‘My brothers aren’t nearly such soft touches.’
‘I’m not one of your brothers,’ he said, and something about the way he said it shut her up completely.
Good thing she had the burger to concentrate on. And the wine. And those two little double beds that hovered in her view no matter where she looked.
‘Adrian, is there a problem? Between you and me?’ She hurried on, never mind his frown. ‘Because we’ve been friends a long time and I know I’ve relied on you far more than I should these past couple of years. You’ve been more than patient with me, and I’m grateful, because I know damn well that I don’t deserve anyone’s patience a lot of the time. It’s just...lately I get the feeling that you’ve had enough of me. And that would be perfectly understandable. Is perfectly understandable. And if that’s the case, you need to stand back and let me take care of myself. I can, you know.’
‘You sure about that?’
‘Sure as I can be without actually having done it. I have this family who seem to think I’m fragile, you see. They baby me. They send you to handle me when they can’t. I don’t think that’s fair on you. You don’t have to do that. You have your own life to live.’
He thought on that, right through what was left of his burger, and then he drained his wine and turned his attention to the baklava.
‘Tell me why I’m here,’ he said finally.
That was easy. ‘You’re the family-appointed babysitter, sent to keep me out of trouble.’
‘That’s one reason. But it’s not the main one.’
‘Loyalty to Jared.’
‘Has nothing to do with it.’
‘You have a hankering for baklava?’
‘Not enough to travel halfway round the world for it.’ Trig eyed her steadily and no matter how much Lena ached to look away, she couldn’t. She couldn’t find her breath either.
‘You’re well enough to go chasing after Jared,’ he said finally. ‘I figure you’re well enough to hear me out. Not going to jump you, Lena. Nothing you don’t want. But you need to know that I’m here because I want to be here. With you. Because there’s pretty much nowhere else I’d rather be than with you. You need to know that I have feelings for you that are in no way brotherly. You need to know that I both love and hate it when you treat me like family.’
He took a deep breath. ‘You also need to know what you do to me when you book us into a hotel as husband and wife. Because it gives me ideas.’
She didn’t understand. He’d peppered her with too much information and not enough time to process any of it. ‘I— Pardon?’
‘I want you.’
‘You—do?’
He looked at her as if she were a little bit dim. ‘Yes.’
‘But...you can’t.’
‘Pretty sure I can.’
‘I’m broken.’
‘Nah, just banged up.’
‘I’m me.’
‘Yes.’ He was looking at her as if she were minus a few brain cells again. He was just so...calm.
And she wasn’t. Somehow she had to bring this farce of a conversation under control. ‘How’s the baklava?’
‘Tastes like dust.’
‘More wine?’ She poured him some anyway, whether he wanted it or not, and maybe that wasn’t such a good idea because he drained it in one long swallow. ‘You need to give me some time with this.’
‘Little hint for you, Lena: this doesn’t require much thinking. We’ve known each other a long time. I’ve been trying to impress you since primary school. You’re either impressed or you’re not. You either want me or you don’t.’
‘It’s not that simple.’
‘Yeah, it is.’
‘I saw your body earlier.’ She didn’t know how to say what she wanted to say. ‘It’s perfect.’
‘It’s skin.’
‘It’s still perfect.’
‘Still just skin. You think I can’t see beneath yours?’ He eyed her steadily. ‘You have flaws. So do I. No one’s going into this blind.’
‘Look at me, Adrian. Think of all the things you can do that I can’t do any more. I’d hold you back and you’d come to hate me for it. I’d come to hate me for it. You’d have to be blind to want this.’
‘I’m not blind,’ he said grimly. ‘This can work—you and me. You just have to want it to.’ He sat back in his chair and pushed a hand through his dark shaggy curls. ‘This isn’t going well, is it? You don’t think of me in that way at all.’
‘I didn’t say that! Don’t put words in my mouth. God.’ Trust her to push him away when she didn’t mean to. She just didn’t know how to not push him away now that he wanted to get closer. ‘You’re important to me, Adrian. You occupy a huge part of my life and always have done. Aren’t you scared that if this doesn’t work out, we’ll lose everything else we do have?’
‘Scared is watching you slide into unconsciousness for the sixth time in as many hours. Scared is thinking you’re going to die in my arms. This doesn’t even rate a mention on the fear scale.’
‘Speak for yourself. I’m terrified here.’ Lena reached over and circled his wrist with her fingers as best she could, one fingertip to his pulse point and her heart beating a rapid tattoo. His pulse skittered all over the place too. ‘You’re not that calm.’
‘Could be I’m a little nervous. Doesn’t mean I haven’t thought it through,’ he said stubbornly. He withdrew his hand from beneath her fingers and headed for the bedside phone. He picked it up, pressed a button and waited.
‘What are you doing?’
‘You said you needed some time with this. I’m giving you some.’ He turned his head into the phone a little. ‘This is Adrian Sinclair. I’m going to need a second room. King bed this time.’ He listened a moment. ‘No, it doesn’t have to be connected to this one.’ He waited another moment. ‘Thanks.’
He put the phone down. ‘A porter will be here for my bag in a few minutes.’
‘You didn’t have to do that.’
He didn’t have to repack his bag. His stuff was good to go. She didn’t want him to go. ‘Adrian, I—’
‘See you for breakfast, yeah?’
Hell. ‘Yeah.’ She tried again. ‘It wasn’t a no. I haven’t said no to anything you’ve put forward. I have thought of you like that. From time to time. I’m female. You’re you. Who wouldn’t?’
She thought she saw a glimmer of a smile.
‘But think about it, Adrian. Are you sure this is what you want? Because I really don’t think you have thought this through.’
He frowned down at her, and then he leaned down and gently brushed his lips against the corner of her mouth. His lips were soft and warm. Lena felt her eyes flutter closed.
He drew back slowly and she wondered when his eyes had got so dark and hungry.
‘I’ve thought it through. You need to do the same.’
He picked up his bag; he walked to the door.
And it clicked shut behind him.
* * *
As far as declarations of intent were concerned, that one could have gone better, decided Trig as he headed for the lifts. Lena had never handled romance well. In her teens she’d been too forward with boys, too fearless, too competitive, and she’d sent them running. Later on she’d got the hang of not scaring away potential suitors—she’d even taken a few of them to her bed, but for some reason known only to her none of them had ever measured up. Not in her eyes.
Not in Trig’s or Jared’s eyes either.
So she’d had standards that had suited them all.
Standards based around her father, the highly successful international banker. Around Damon, adrenaline junkie and hacker extraordinaire. Around Jared, who feared nothing and regularly achieved the impossible.
Standards that made her picky, and then, when she did break things off with the latest but not quite greatest, she’d start second-guessing herself and getting all despondent because the jerk she’d just let go had told her she wasn’t feminine enough or that she needed to soften up a bit before any man would take her seriously. Sour grapes, a parting shot, but Lena had never seen it that way.
She’d mope for a few days and then Jared would tell her he was going skydiving on Friday and that he’d saved her a chute.
She’d try and be softer with other people for a bit and then Trig would turn up with his lightest kite-boarding rig, and there’d be a thirty-knot cross-shore wind blowing and he’d eyeball the conditions and they’d barely be manageable and he’d ask if she wanted to go break something.
The answer to that being, ‘Hell, yes.’ Always yes.
Until she’d got shot and everything had changed for all of them.
These days no one challenged Lena to push harder or go faster, even though she still pushed herself.
These days he looked at her with concern in his eyes; he knew he did. And she looked at him and told him to go away.
Rough couple of years.
But things were getting better now. Lena was getting better now and together they could find a new way of doing things and of being with each other if only she’d try.
The lift doors opened. A uniformed boy gave him an appraising stare. ‘Mr Sinclair?’
Trig nodded.
‘Let me take your luggage.’ If the boy wondered why Mr Sinclair needed to change rooms, he was too discreet to ask. ‘Room 406 for you, Mr Sinclair. I have your entry cards here.’
Trig stepped into the lift.
He just had to convince her to try.
FOUR
Trig woke to the sound of morning prayer at a nearby mosque. His bed had been big enough but his dreams had been chaotic. Loss, always loss. Lena walking away from him because he’d asked too much of her. Lena disappearing into the gluggy grey mud of East Timor. Slipping away from him, one way or another, with Trig powerless to prevent any of it.
The prayer song was hypnotic.
Trig closed his eyes and ran his hands through his hair and sent up a prayer of his own that this day would be a good day and that Lena wouldn’t be freaking out about last night’s declaration of undying devotion—or whatever it was that he’d declared.
She wouldn’t run; she was smarter than that.
But she might feel uneasy with him and he wouldn’t put it past her to have argued herself around to thinking that she wasn’t good enough for him or that he’d be better off without her. For someone so magnificent, she had the lowest sense of self-worth he’d ever encountered.
She’d told him once that it came of being an ordinary person in an extraordinary family. She’d never seen herself as extraordinary too.
He reached for the hotel phone, tapped in the other room number and waited.
She wouldn’t have done a runner. If nothing else, she knew he’d track her through Amos Carter if he had to. She might reschedule but she wouldn’t blow that meeting off. Her need to find Jared was too strong.
‘What?’ she finally mumbled, once she’d picked up.
‘You want to have breakfast at this little café I saw on my walk last night?’
‘When?’
‘Now.’
‘What time is it?’
‘Five-seventeen.’
Lena groaned, a sleepy, sexy sound that had him shifting restlessly. ‘You want to have breakfast now?’
‘I’m starving.’
‘You’re always starving.’
‘Their breakfast special is lentil soup, a loaf of sourdough and a big chunk of cheese.’
‘Go get ’em, Tiger. Bring me back a cup of tea,’ she muttered and hung up.
Trig grinned and shoved the sheet aside, suddenly hungry to seize the day. She hadn’t said no and she hadn’t been wary. She hadn’t said, ‘Darling, come make me yours,’ yet either, but that was pure fantasy anyway.
He got breakfast.
He went walking and found the gate where Lena would meet up with Carter and set about exploring exit options and observation points. By the time the seven a.m. prayer session sounded, he was back at the hotel and knocking on Lena’s door, takeaway tea in one hand and a tub of yoghurt and honey in the other.
‘Breakfast,’ he said when she opened the door, and she let him through and closed the door behind him and yawned.
She looked like a waif. A little too slender, a halo of tangled black hair and those startling bluish-grey eyes, smudged with black lashes. A modelling agency had offered to contract her once after seeing her on the beach. Surfing sponsors had come after her too. She’d turned down both offers with startled surprise. Couldn’t see what they’d seen in her. Didn’t want what they’d offered anyway.
‘Is this the courting you?’ she wanted to know as he set the tea and yoghurt on the table.
‘This is the impatient me,’ he said. ‘You’ve seen this me before. I’m waiting to see if you want me to court you before I start that.’
‘My mistake.’ Lena smirked and carefully removed the lid on her tea. ‘What’s got you all pepped up?’
‘You mean besides wanting to know if you’ll go out with me?’
‘Yeah, besides that. Because I’m not awake enough yet to make a definitive decision on that. I couldn’t think clearly enough to make a decision on it last night either.’
‘Red wine does that.’
‘True.’ She sipped at her tea and let out an appreciative sigh. ‘So you’re happy this morning because...’
‘You have got to see this bazaar.’
‘You’re excited about shopping?’
‘It’s not shopping, it’s haggling. It’s a blood sport.’
‘Is anything even open yet?’
‘Couple of stalls are.’
‘What did you buy?’
‘Carpet. But I haven’t bought it yet. I’ve just had it set aside so I can think about it.’
‘Uh-huh. How much?’
‘That’s what we’re negotiating.’
‘Ballpark.’
‘It’s a really nice carpet. Silk.’
‘Uh-huh.’
Seven thousand dollars was a lot to pay for a two metre by one point six metre bit of mat that people walked on. ‘It’s an investment piece.’
‘Is it magic?’
‘I didn’t ask. Maybe you should come with me when I go back.’
‘When are you going back?’
‘After I’ve shopped around.’
‘Who are you and what have you done with Trig?’
‘Could be I’m nesting,’ he said. Way to harp on a tricky subject. ‘You all the way awake yet?’
‘No.’
‘Because if you are, now would be a good time to tell me if you’re going to go out with me.’
‘Still weighing the pros and cons.’
There was just no rushing her these days. ‘I brought you breakfast. That would be a pro.’
‘You also woke me up at five a.m.’
‘You’re welcome.’
He could make her snort. That had to count for something.
‘How’s the body this morning?’
‘Functional,’ she said around a mouthful of yoghurt. ‘Stop fussing. Boyfriends don’t fuss.’
‘Now you’re just making shit up.’
‘No, I’m pretty sure it’s true.’
He shook his head, slid her a sideways glance. ‘Pursuit aside, how are we tracking with regards to our regular relationship? The one that doesn’t have me in knots. We good?’
‘Yeah.’ She sounded a little uncertain. ‘We’re good.’
* * *
They made it through the morning, mostly because Trig headed back out again to look at carpets, and then it was time to meet Carter, with Lena taking point and Trig bleeding into the bustle at the gate. Another tourist, one of many, and maybe he was meeting someone or perhaps he was just taking a breather before diving into the next shop full of goodies. Either way, nothing untoward here.
He spotted Carter moments before the older man made him, but they didn’t acknowledge each other. He and Carter had worked together before, albeit briefly, back in the days when Carter had worked for ASIS. Carter would know Trig was running surveillance on the meet. Carter probably had someone else doing the same.
Carter approached Lena and held out his hands and she took them and smiled as he kissed her on each cheek. Old acquaintances and all for show. Trig ground his teeth and watched some more as Carter and Lena strolled through the gate and into the bazaar, their pace leisurely and their conversation animated.
Trig made a process out of checking his phone as he waited to see who else might be headed that way before he too took a stroll. It was a busy gate. A lot of people followed Carter and Lena into the bazaar.
He kept them in sight while he browsed and they browsed and then five minutes later Carter bought Lena a scoop full of candied citrus, presented it to her with a smile, kissed her once again on each cheek and, between one blink and the next, disappeared into the ether.
Lena didn’t look back at Trig; she knew this game too well for that. She bought three silk scarves and a handful of sugared almonds. She paused outside a shop filled with carpets and the vendor—and probably his brother—instantly tried to woo her in. She offered them almonds, which they refused. They offered her apple tea, and carpet viewing, which she refused. With a great deal of hand waving all round, everyone called it quits and Lena moved on.
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