Compromised (5 page)

“It's all right. I understand tough bosses. I have to work an extra shift tonight too. One of our night porters is sick. I was hoping we would get a little dancing in before I had to go. But it is just as well. Do you want me to walk you to your office?” he asked, holding her hand in front of him, half giving her the impression that he was going to kiss it like Stratigos did.

“No, sweetie. It's still early; I'll be fine.”

“Go with God, darling,” he replied in that sweet, formal Greek way of his.

She looked back once or twice to find him watching as she left. She waved and he waved back. He was so young. She'd just totally kissed a twenty-two-year-old. She grinned. She'd been right about Platon, and she was actually getting positive results. Her boss could kiss her ass. All she needed now was to have them ask her for explosives and she'd have enough to make Lassiter listen to her.

She virtually skipped up her apartment steps, anxious to do something—write a report, scream, or dance. She had to do something…she felt like she'd explode.

T
ennant? I didn't expect to hear from you, son.”

“I'm sorry to disturb you, but it's about Sadie.” She would never speak to him again if she found out he was speaking to her father.

“Is she all right? What's going on?” His voice was strident, a man who was used to being in charge and getting answers.

Shit. He hadn't thought this one through. He couldn't tell the director of the CIA that he'd been deployed to Athens. That would get his ass fired and his boss in front of Congress in record time. What was it about her that made him forget everything else? Dammit.

“I'm sorry, sir. Don't worry. Sorry again to have bothered you.”

“Don't you dare hang up on me, Tennant. You tell me what is going on or I'll have you in the brig faster than you can say ‘ex-fiancé.'”

Simon had no idea what she'd told her father about their breakup, but since he'd paid for a very large wedding that didn't happen, he figured at the very least he was on the director's shit list. “I heard that Sadie was in Greece. She's been seen with someone of interest…I mean, someone we have a file on. I'm worried she might be in danger.” There was no way he was explaining that he'd spent hours looking at candid shots of everyone “of interest” in Greece that nestled in CAG's classified computer files. Simon had found Sadie's boyfriend in a photo with an explosives expert. He knew it could be nothing. But it could also be something.

“Now you listen to me, young man. If I find out you're keeping tabs on my daughter, they will never find your body. Do you understand?”

“Yessir,” he said and disconnected the call. There was nothing else he could say under the circumstances. He really should have played that whole thing out in his head before he picked up the damn phone. He gritted his teeth. Sadie…even when they were apart she could fuck him up.

All he could do was talk to her. Warn her away from this Platon Asker. Not that he had a firm grasp on why. I mean, he was sure he'd been pictured with some unsavory characters too. But this was Sadie. His Sadie, whether she accepted that or not. He wasn't going to sit around and let her get mixed up in anything dangerous. Even if it meant getting fired from his own job.

The finance minister was already back at his hotel room with his wife, and Simon prayed she would keep him there. Right now, he had to go see Sadie. Properly this time. He'd knock and everything.

In ten minutes he was at her door with a bottle of ouzo. He put his ear close to the door as he raised his hand to knock. Force of habit, he guessed. But he'd definitely heard something. Not a television or radio—what was that?

It was a moan. Was she hurt? Even before he'd finished the thought, let alone considered the fact that she might have someone with her, he put his shoulder to the door in exactly the weakest point and shoved. The door blew open and Sadie gasped, sitting up ramrod straight in bed.

“What the—? Simon? What the fuck?” She jumped off the bed and ran at him, as if she could push him out. He didn't move.

“It sounded like you were hurt. Look—I came with a peace offering.” He held up the bottle.

“Get out! Get out! Did you follow me here? To Greece? How dare you! Get out!” She barely caught a breath before she tried to shove him toward the door. When he didn't move, she slapped his chest, and in that second he knew what she'd been doing. He could smell her unique scent on her hand, her fingers. He grabbed her hand to stop her from hitting him again, and inhaled.

“What were you doing?” he ground out, holding her hand in front of his face.

“Oh my God…” she half moaned, half shouted. A flush radiated from her neck up to her face. She tried to snatch her hand away, but he wouldn't let her. Instead, eyes on hers, he pulled her to him and put two of her fingers into his mouth. His eyes closed, lost in memory. Her taste hadn't changed—sweet and salty and musky. He felt his utter arousal start clouding his mind.

“Stop. Simon.” She struggled against him. He released her hand immediately. What was the matter with her? There was a fire in her eyes he'd never seen before, an intensity, a confidence that she simply had never possessed last year. “What are you doing?”

“I came by to warn you about the boy you've been hanging out with,” he said between gritted teeth.

Her eyes narrowed. “He's not a little boy.”

Score. “I didn't say ‘little.'” He couldn't help but smirk at her. He wasn't expecting her fist to come flying at his jaw. Not even a little. He pulled back, just enough to take the power out of the punch, but it still hurt. His feelings mostly. No one had landed a punch on him for a good number of years.

“Really? That's what I get for coming to warn you…” he began.

She poked her finger at his chest. “You don't get to warn me about anyone. You lost that right ages ago. You lost the right to come into my room, to bring”—she looked at the bottle he'd thrown onto the bed—“the cheapest brand of ouzo you could find…”

Well, that stung. He must have been ripped off by the shopkeeper. He was about to tell her how much it cost him, but there was something in her eyes. Something he kind of recognized but that was different.
She
was different. Sadie had never been combative. She'd been passive. A perfect CAG wife, as everyone had said. He'd never been too sure. And right now, she wanted something. From him. He was sure.

“So what are you going to do about it?” he asked.

“Teach you a lesson,” she hissed.

“Oh ye—” he began.

She grabbed his T-shirt on his chest and fisted it, twisting and pulling until he was touching her. She kicked the door shut behind him and pushed him toward the bed.

“Okaaaaay,” he drew out. Was it really that easy? He really didn't want to misread the situation. He had the idea there would be no coming back from this if he took to her bed, when really all she was about to do was call the cops.

“Don't talk to me,” she said. “I don't want to hear your lying, cheating voice.”

What?

Blood was rushing to parts of Sadie that she couldn't stop. Her face was burning, and so were other parts. She knew it was the postmission adrenaline high making her so horny. How convenient that Simon just happened to show up at the door. Fucking him would complicate things, for sure, but she really didn't care: She needed release, was desperate for it.

She joined him on the bed and tore off his T-shirt. He was at least semiwilling, raising his arms to help her. But the quizzical look on his face said to her that he was going to start asking questions. And she had no time or inclination for that.

She knelt astride his lap, feeling his hardness between her legs. She hesitated for a second, reveling in the uncertainty on his face. Good—she wanted him to be surprised. Wanted him to understand he didn't know her at all anymore. She threaded her fingers through his short hair and pulled his head back so she could kiss him. She crushed his mouth under hers, needing the force, the pressure to reach the parts inside her that were begging to be released.

She'd never felt so alive, on edge, or desperate for someone before. She wriggled against him, using his dick and the seam of his jeans for friction.

Simon suddenly stood, holding her in place, and turned and deposited her on the bed. He barely looked at her before kicking off his shoes and jeans to stand before her naked. Her eyes devoured the sight of him after all this time. He was slightly more defined, harder than she remembered. But then he probably hadn't been eating at those fancy restaurants in DC like they'd started doing as their wedding had drawn near.

He paused a moment to look at her, splayed out on the bed, and shook his head as if he was trying to clear something from it.
Come on
, she wanted to say, but she didn't want to give him that satisfaction.

He leaned down and ripped open her dress. Buttons pinged and bounced off the surfaces in her small apartment. She knew he could see her tattoo, the one she'd gotten on the day she passed out of The Farm. It was a large vine, growing up the side of her body. She loved it. She'd felt liberated when she'd been accepted to The Farm, like she'd been reaching to the sun, growing in knowledge and ability. He didn't say anything, just ran his fingers over it, sending chills over her skin.

Enough. She wasn't going to take this lying down. She pushed him back with her feet and got up, shucking her bra with no embarrassment and no ceremony. “On the bed,” she ordered.

He said nothing, just gave her a wry half smile and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her with him. He tried to take control but she forced him back down. She rubbed her clit against his dick for a few seconds before adjusting her position and sliding him straight inside. She was so wet, had been since she left the meeting earlier. So in need of…something.

Simon groaned as she put her hands on the headboard and rode him. She angled herself so she could go deep, really deep, touching that spot inside her that needed satisfying. She watched the changes on his face as he gazed at her. Disbelief, desire, confusion—it all fed her arousal. Her need for revenge and release.

He slipped his hand between their bodies and for a second touched his dick sliding in and out of her, and then slid his fingers to her clit. She sat up to give him better access, leaning back on her hands so he could see where they were joined. Being in charge of this and being emotionally removed from him gave her such power. Power over herself, power over her feelings, and power over him. He just had no idea. And that turned her on like virtually nothing had before. Like a strong aphrodisiac coursing through her veins.

He withdrew his hand and licked his fingers before running them over her clit, fast, then slow, then building her to her climax as she thrust into him, feeling him from inside out. And as the wave built inside her, rushing over her spine, she gripped the bed covers in her fist and moaned as it peaked and crested over her.

She squeezed his dick as he grabbed her hips and thrust into her, hard and deep. He came, gritting his teeth and almost reluctantly groaning.

They were both out of breath for a moment. And then she needed to be away from him.

What had she done?

You used him to scratch an itch.
Like he'd used her for…she wasn't sure what, but she knew that he'd engineered their meeting in Mumbai. And he couldn't know that she knew that.
Shit.

She avoided his eyes and rolled off him, leaving him. She threw a towel at him from the bathroom and closed the door. There were no clothes for her to wear in there. Damn her for tidying up for once. The other towels were out in the hallway closet, and her robe was by the bed. Good going, Sadie. Just awesome.

She steeled herself and opened the door again. Simon was fastening his jeans with his T-shirt in one hand. He looked up, and she was somewhat gratified to see him check out her body again.

“I sensed that you didn't want me to stick around for cuddling and pillow talk.” He shrugged on his T-shirt and picked up the ouzo. “You don't mind? I think I'm going to need this tonight.”

“Be my guest,” she said evenly.

He hesitated for a second and then opened the door and pointed at the busted lock. “You really should get that looked at,” he said as he left.

Had he really gone? She grabbed the towel she'd thrown at him and wrapped it around her as she checked the door. He wasn't in the hallway, so he had actually left. She closed the door with a shaking hand and used the dead bolt to lock it. She would have to get the catch fixed.

She clenched her fists. All the need and frustration and crazy feelings had expired, and now she just felt empty. What had she done?

She pulled on sweatpants and a sweatshirt, despite the heavy heat in the room, and lay on her bed. What was wrong with her? It had been like she'd been possessed. She curled up in a ball, remembering that she'd forgotten to write a report about the meeting but not having the energy to even get her laptop to write it.

Simon. What was he even doing here? Why did he keep appearing at her apartment? Why had he let her use him like that? And why had she?

S
imon's morning was not getting off to a good start. He hadn't gotten up with his alarm at five a.m. for his morning run. He hadn't had a protein shake and eggs for breakfast, and he hadn't checked to make sure the finance minister was still in his room.

He'd slept through his alarm and eventually awoke with a headache, the reason for which was lying on its side on the floor next to the bed. How did the Greeks drink that stuff?

Probably because they didn't drink a bottle of it at a time, you stupid ass.

Fuck. This had never happened to him before. He'd never fucked up a mission because of a woman or because of a bottle of alcohol. He took his job far too seriously for that. On occasion he'd gotten rat-assed drunk, but only as part of a job. When he was entertaining a mark.

But when he'd left Sadie's last night, reeling from the hot sex and cold attitude, he dived face-first into the bottle he'd snatched up before he'd left. If he believed in shit like
Mission Impossible
, he'd absolutely have assumed that someone totally different had taken Sadie's face. He'd taken a first gulp of ouzo as he realized that there was nothing left of the Sadie he knew except for her face. Her hair was different, her eyes were cold and angry, her body was harder and—for the love of God—tattooed.

And on top of that, she'd just taken him. Taken him without any emotion, or romance, or cuddling, or anything. He'd left feeling like he could have been just anyone off the street, brought in to scratch an itch. He guessed he should be thankful that she hadn't ordered takeout, or the delivery guy may have had a surprise.

He had no idea what to make of it, so he'd taken another drink, and then another when he remembered how much hate burned in her eyes. He had no idea why. He'd thought fading out of her life completely was what she'd wanted when they called off the wedding. When did she start hating him?

He stepped into the shower to try to drive out the fog in his brain and the smell of aniseed that he was sure was oozing out of his pores. As he stood under the rainfall showerhead, he grabbed a bottle of hotel shampoo before realizing it wasn't. He squinted at the mouthwash label and shrugged. He glugged it right out of the bottle, slooshed, gargled, and spat it at his feet. He felt about 5 percent more human.

What had happened to her? It had been just shy of a year since he'd last seen her, a few days after what was supposed to be their wedding. Somehow in between then and now, something had changed her. Changed her completely. Resolve flooded through him.

He was going to find out what had happened. He was going to fix her. Suddenly invigorated, he finished up his shower and got dressed. He fired up his laptop and checked the microscopic camera he'd installed on the finance minister's floor, directed at his hotel room door. He opened the digital file and replayed it at high speed. No one had left or gone in all night. Indeed, only one room-service guy had walked past the door the whole evening.

He clicked the camera to real time and minimized it so that it was a small square in the corner of his screen. Then he started researching.

Their aborted wedding had been fairly well covered by the media. Sadie's father had managed to minimize the terrorist attempt at hacking into the CIA mainframe and sold it to the media as a dispute between guests at their wedding, which was salacious, but not really newsworthy after a few days.

Sadie had been AWOL from social media for a few months after that. Not that she spent much time online anyway—she usually used it only to keep up with friends from college and her brother and sister-in-law. But there was not even a cute puppy video on her timeline for three and a half months. Then she had posted something cryptic about traveling the world, and the location had been Mumbai. He smiled. That's where he'd met her. Maybe she'd been revisiting everywhere they'd been together, to reclaim those places as hers alone. His sister had done that as a student when her professor boyfriend dumped her for another undergrad. She'd dragged Simon, and sometimes Sadie, to bars and restaurants to “reclaim them” so in her mind they weren't just associated with the professor.

Oh, how he hoped he'd one day bump into the professor. He would crush that dude's head in for hurting his sister. But that was another mission for another day. He really should start keeping a log of the skulls he wanted to smash. At the top of the list would be Platon Asker.

Sadie was slumped at her desk when Sebastian came in. Her hand was threaded through the handle of a coffee mug, and she hoped her eyes said something like “Don't come too close,” or “Handle with care.” She suspected he didn't care. Her coworker was an older man with a sun-lined face and an attitude that came from managing to create a good life for his wife and him despite the covert nature of his job.

She envied him. And she hated herself. The night before had been wonderful. And then horrible. She groaned.

“Too much ouzo last night, or too much something else?” Sebastian said with his characteristic cheeriness.

She just groaned again in response. He grabbed the coffee carafe and sloshed some more into her mug. Some splashed over onto her hand. “Ouch,” she said as she jumped and sat upright.

“That's better. I can have a conversation with you now.” He looked around at the director's empty office. “This isn't a dorm room. Don't let him catch you lying on your desk like that.” He lifted a disapproving eyebrow.

He was right, she knew. She didn't have the luxury of worrying about her own affairs. She sat back in her chair and tucked her hair behind her ears.

Sebastian used his own coffeemaker to make himself a shot of espresso. He had assimilated here. Totally. She watched as he moved about the office, getting his day in order. He'd been at the Athens bureau for over ten years, which was an unheard of length of time for an officer. But he spoke the language like a native, looked like a native, had made firm contacts, and was too valuable an asset to move from the region. Besides which, if they tried, he'd quit. His life was too good here to move away. Sadie wished she felt that way about anywhere in the world. She didn't even know where she could call home anymore.

She flexed her shoulders and turned on her laptop. Enough with the pity party; she had notes to write up. She was supposed to detail every moment of any interaction with anyone not in the agency. But her fingers hesitated on Simon. She didn't want to admit her postoperation weakness last night, and she didn't want to necessarily inform anyone that her ex-fiancé was in town. Especially since she still didn't know why he was here. Official or unofficial.

She typed everything up on her contact sheet and then cut and pasted the parts about Simon into a different file.

At The Farm they'd emphasized over and over again that every single contact with a local had to be documented. Whether it was the old woman in the bodega where she bought newspapers and gum or a waiter she'd chatted to while picking up a salad for lunch.

She'd started wondering if it was some kind of ploy to keep their field officers sitting at their desk for the majority of their time, when Sebastian had taken her for lunch and explained that everyone had two sets of reports. One for the boss, to include waiters, shopkeepers, and marks. And one for her other colleagues that had the stuff you didn't necessarily want the director to see. They swapped passwords and made a pact not to open the documents unless someone was in trouble or uncontactable.

It seemed to work. She'd put a trigger warning on her file, so she knew no one in the office had opened it in the months she'd been there. Not that there was much to put in it up to now. A minor flirtation with one of the marines at the US embassy and more recently about kissing Platon. But today, of course, Simon was being sent to the unofficial report file too.

As she wrote about his visit to her apartment, a flush started at her chest until she could feel it heating up her neck and face. She grabbed a thin scarf she had on the back of her chair and wrapped it around her, hoping Sebastian hadn't seen the blush. Luckily he was the only one in the office. Sometimes she didn't see the others for weeks at a time. The other two men were sent farther out into Macedonia and Albania from the Athens office. Sadie suspected that one day she'd also be sent out beyond Athens. Which made her remember to fill out the paperwork she'd been putting off to take the Greek language course the office paid for.

“So what happened last night to make you so despondent this morning and so hot when you wrote your report?” Sebastian said as he got up for another cup of coffee.

Damn, of course he'd seen. She should've known he'd pick up on every detail; it was part of what made him so good at his job. Sadie liked Sebastian, and his Greek wife, Netta. If there was anyone in the whole of Athens she could tell, it would be him. But she hesitated. She was excellent at keeping secrets, with a father who was the director of the CIA and a brother whose professional exploits she'd managed to keep from her family for years. Excellent at lying.

“Do you really want to know?” she asked with a deliberate playfulness in her eyes. “I mean, can your heart take it, old man?” She laughed at the expression of mock outrage on his face. “Give me one of your exquisite coffees and I'll tell you.”

He laughed and made her some of his thick espresso, even going so far as to grab a lemon from the old fridge and peel a tiny curl of zest from it, placing it carefully on the rim of the tiny cup.

She smiled in delight. “Okay. Last night I met my mark and we went dancing. We drank a little, he talked—
a lot
—and we danced until the early hours. And then I may have gotten entirely inappropriate with him.”

Sebastian's eyebrows shot up into his unruly, curly salt-and-pepper hair.

“We kissed and danced, and oh my God, he was so sweet and
so
young.” She cast her eyes to the ceiling as if she were remembering the encounter and smiled.

“Good for you, darling. How old is he again?”

“Twenty-two,” she whispered, grinning.

“Ahhh, I remember that age. So hopeful, so eager. I hope it wasn't all over in twenty seconds. I remember that part too,” he said, shaking his head.

She was amazed that he seemed to be completely okay with her sleeping with a mark. At The Farm, they'd always been told to avoid emotional entanglements, but they'd never specifically mentioned physical ones, and at the time she'd wondered if they didn't want to actively encourage or discourage anyone from taking that last step to get the job done.

Somehow it was fine for James Bond to sleep with any woman to get his mission completed, but for women she'd wondered if the same held true. Certainly Sebastian didn't seem fazed by the thought that she might have slept with Platon. Maybe she shouldn't be fazed by it either.

“Just be careful he doesn't get attached to you,” Sebastian said, cocking his head.

“What do you mean? I thought the idea was for them to get attached.” She put down her cup and frowned over her laptop at him. She realized now that it was way too hot for the scarf and took it off again. Despite the fans in the office, it was still blisteringly hot. Good thing she liked the heat.

“Attached, but not too attached. The problem with some of the people we need to…
befriend
in our line of business is that they are not always completely normal. Maybe they already know they are in danger; maybe they are living a double life and are trying to juggle too many things. It makes them both vulnerable and slightly unpredictable. Don't trust anyone.” He shrugged and went back to his own PC.

She knew very well that what he was saying was true. She sometimes got the impression that Platon felt slightly out of his depth. Occasionally he was distracted or a little sharp with his words. She tried her best to soothe him when he was on edge and hoped that she would never have to reveal who she was and how deeply he'd gotten himself in trouble. Because even though he didn't understand it right now, he would be in a whole shit storm of trouble if Stratigos ever found out he'd brought a CIA officer into their meeting. Anarchists did not mess around when it came to revenge or betrayal. Car bombs were business as usual for them. As sweet as Platon was, he hung out with terrorists and was probably involved in something bad. It did her no favors to like him and feel sympathy for him. She needed to remind herself of that.

And Sebastian was right about not trusting anyone. All the people she knew here, including the director and Sebastian, were expert liars. Even she was. She hadn't told anyone that she'd taken the thumb drive back from the director's desk and wouldn't. When she was in the DOD, there was a firm reporting structure. Someone had always known what she was doing and where she was. Hell, the things she did were written into her performance appraisal. Being a field officer was totally different. Even though they had a station chief—for what Lassiter was worth—they'd been taught to keep everything they did quiet until it yielded results. Deniability at all costs, maybe. But autonomy was the name of the game in fieldwork.

Regardless of the appearance of glamour, working in the CIA was lonely. Really lonely.

Her day was spent, as most usually were, going through candid photos of people who fellow officers around Europe had identified as being “of interest” for one reason or another. She had been taught to absorb the photos and tuck them away so she would recognize them if she came across them.

As she grabbed her bag and shut down her computer for the day, a phone in the office rang. Sebastian met her eyes. She shook her head; she had no idea who was calling. Four companies had “offices” in their suite and each had a separate phone number.

Sebastian picked up the line. “Devries Construction, please hold.” He pressed the
HOLD
button. “Did you give someone your number?” he asked.