Entrapment

She reached up, smoothed a tendril of hair back from her face. “There wasn’t time. My mother was very much in love with my father, and he wanted to take her back to his home country.”

“So much in love with her that he didn’t bother to marry her, but hey, I guess that would have left a paper trail, too, so you were wise to avoid that convention.”

Her gaze narrowed. “Are you insulting my parents now?”

“You mean the way you did mine earlier? No. Just remarking on the convenience of the past you’ve spun for yourself. By the way, having your mother be an American living abroad was sheer brilliance. Allows you to establish dual citizenship, and that must come in handy.”

“Well, I’m glad my life’s story has provided you with such entertainment.” Her words were glacial. “Perhaps you could get to the part where I need to steal for a living.”

Sam folded his arms across his chest. Not even to himself would he admit it was to keep from reaching for her again. “You mean because you’re an heiress, living off a modest trust you inherited upon your parents’ early deaths? Again, a nice touch. And it does thwart those pesky questions of how you live without visible means of support.”

“It hasn’t seemed to thwart yours.”

He shook his head. “I’m trained to look beneath the surface. To see what others have missed. Even a trail with as many twists and turns as yours can be followed, given the right incentive.”

She stooped to pick up his jacket which had dropped earlier, and draped it again around her shoulders. He had no doubt she’d checked the pockets, surreptitiously, before she’d turned her attentions to him. “And your incentive would be…”

“I want to acquire your services.”

This time she couldn’t hide her reaction to his words. He took in her frozen expression with satisfaction. “We’ll have to work out a different sort of arrangement than you’re undoubtedly used to, but I think you’ll find it to your benefit.”

It didn’t take her long to recover. “As…intriguing as that offer sounds, I’ll have to refuse. I don’t provide any services that are for sale.”

The music started up again in the ballroom, and couples on the balcony began drifting back inside. “I’m not offering to hire you, actually. More like work out a trade.”

“And here I thought you couldn’t get more offensive,” Juliette said coolly. “How unfortunate to be proven wrong.” She slipped out of the jacket and laid it over his shoulder.

He watched her turn that slender bare back on him and start away. She got exactly three steps before he said, “Threats aren’t really my style, but if you decline, the file I’ve accumulated on you could be turned over to the local authorities. I think you’d find it less inconvenient to cooperate than to be subjected to their questions.”

“Do your worst, Mr. Tremaine.” She looked back over her shoulder, her face serenely confident. “I’ve got absolutely nothing to hide.”

He still hadn’t adjusted to the time change. At least that was the reason Sam gave himself for being in the large well-equipped exercise room instead of upstairs asleep. He sank a blow into the body bag and danced away before it swayed his way again. Then, his actions a blur, he landed one blow after another, swift deadly jabs that would have rendered an opponent incapacitated.

“I hope the pounding that bag’s taking isn’t an indication of your frustration over this evening’s events.”

Sam didn’t bother to turn around at the voice. He already knew who’d be standing there, and Miles Caladesh topped the list of the people he least felt like talking to right now. “I told you I’d report in the morning.” With a studied movement he slammed his fist into the middle of the bag, sending it swaying.

“It is morning. I heard you as I came in and thought I’d get an update now.”

He wasn’t going away. Sam turned, resting a glove on top of the bag, and studied the other man. He didn’t ask how Miles had spent the evening. He didn’t need to. Too much alcohol had left his face flushed, and the fact that he’d returned to their borrowed quarters at all meant that his evening hadn’t turned out as he’d hoped. A fact which renewed Sam’s belief in the intelligence of the opposite sex.

“I made contact, as planned.”

“And?”

“And…” Sam tapped his other gloved hand against his leg. “Nothing. Yet. She isn’t going to just fold. She hasn’t gotten this far by lacking guts.” Honor, perhaps, but not guts. And to him, there could be nothing more damning.

“So we put the screws to her. If you’d listened to me you would have started out that way. When you’re dealing with the dregs of society, you don’t get anywhere by asking nicely. A show of force works quicker and is more effective in the long run.”

“Really? I didn’t realize you had any experience in the field, Miles. Is that what worked on your assignments?”

His words, delivered in a polite enough tone, had the man flushing even further. “I’ve pored over enough operation reports to know how things work.”

“Paperwork?” Sam didn’t bother to keep the derision from his voice. “There’s a big difference between what gets put in the reports and the actual fieldwork. Maybe before your next promotion you’ll realize that.”

“I was just offering another possibility. Hotter than hell in here,” the other man muttered. He reached up to loosen his tie.

“Step one is to initiate contact. That’s been accomplished.” Nothing would be gained by allowing his distaste for Caladesh to show, Sam thought. They were paired for the course of this operation, regardless of his wishes. And being the nephew of the United States president’s wife gave Caladesh a certain standing, however undeserved.

Bringing one of his gloves to his mouth, Sam used his teeth to untie it. Shaking it off, he turned his attention to unlacing the other. “Whatever your opinion of Morrow, rushing things isn’t the answer.”

“So you think she’s going to come to her senses and cooperate?”

Sam’s lips curved a little as he thought of the defiant look Juliette had tossed him, the dismissive disdain in her voice. “Not willingly.” She’d called his bluff, and he couldn’t blame her. He’d have done the same thing in her position. And since there was no chance in hell of him giving his file to the French authorities, or anyone else, it was a safe enough move.

“Not…” Miles stared at him, then jammed his hand through his meticulously groomed brown hair. “Need I remind you what we have riding on this operation?”

Sam walked over to the weight bench and adjusted it for leg lifts, then sat down. He certainly didn’t need any reminders. The memory of Sterling, his previous case officer, still burned. It had only recently been discovered that the CO had been a mole working for the very man Sam had spent the better part of two years investigating. One agent had already been killed, and sheer luck was the only thing that had saved Sam from the same fate once Sterling had revealed Sam’s last assignment. With the former CO on the run, it was impossible to know just how badly the agency had been compromised. Which explained the change of rules on this mission.

He positioned one foot beneath the bar, gritted his teeth and lifted. The muscles in his injured thigh screamed a protest. Ignoring the pain, he gulped in a breath and concentrated on counting the lifts. This investigation was too critical to national security to not move forward, but they were utilizing an unusual degree of inner agency secrecy. Sam reported to Miles, and Miles reported directly to Headquarters. The taint of corruption negated the usual chain of command, and their tactics had shifted accordingly.

Belatedly, Sam realized Caladesh was waiting for a response. “She didn’t respond to the threat I made tonight…she’s too smart for that. So we’ll move on to step two.”

The other man watched him for a moment, silent. Then he said, “How long before you get her cooperation?”

“Not long.” Despite the fact that his file on Juliette Morrow elicited more questions than answers, he’d come to know her on some level, long before they’d actually met. He’d begun to understand a little about how her mind worked. And become fascinated in the process. “She just needs more convincing, that’s all.”

“I guess I’ll have to assume you know what the hell you’re doing here,” Miles said, his voice doubtful. “At least Headquarters seems to believe you do. I’m going to allow you a little latitude on this assignment, Tremaine, but only a little. If Morrow slips through our fingers, this assignment is badly compromised.”

The weights descended to their resting place with a clatter. The muscles in Sam’s leg were shuddering with strain. Tersely he retorted, “I don’t need your reminders of what’s at stake here. It was my agent who was tortured and killed, remember?”

When the man turned and strode stiffly from the room, Sam cursed, long and inventively. He was capable of diplomacy, so there was really no reason for him to antagonize the man, despite his opinion of him. Miles’s presence here was an irritant, but it wasn’t contributing to Sam’s insomnia.

No, the cause of that could be traced to Juliette Morrow. He readjusted the bench for some overhead presses, a deep frown creasing his forehead. She fit into his investigation in a way he never would have predicted, and right now offered them their best opportunity to strike at their target. He’d discovered what she ate, what she wore, where she went, who she spoke to. Those details had been compiled with a painstaking precision that was no more or less meticulous than every other assignment he’d worked.

And that’s all this was. An assignment. Morrow represented a means to an end, and he’d use her in the mission with the same clinical detachment he employed with any other contacts he recruited.

Lowering the bar and weights slowly to his chest, Sam pumped it upward again. The repetitive motion should have soothed, but only proved to be a strenuous metronome to his thoughts. His greatest strength as an agent lay in the fact that he didn’t grow confused by the shadowy areas his job strayed into. Honor was more than a code to him; it was a way of life. It allowed him to see black and whites where other agents saw murky shades of gray. Involving Juliette Morrow in this assignment wasn’t going to change that.

It wouldn’t be allowed to.

Chapter 2

Juliette entered her home with all the stealth of the thief Sam Tremaine had accused her of being. It wasn’t until she’d closed her bedroom door behind her that she let her temper flare. She snatched the hairbrush from her dressing table and hurled it toward her bed.

Damnez-l’à l’enfer! Damn damn damn him to hell!

Her comb went the way of the brush, followed by a carved teak pin box and an antique pill bottle. Breathing heavily, she fisted her hands at her sides. If Tremaine had been standing in front of her, she’d have taken great satisfaction in landing a sucker punch right on his sexily dented chin.