The Cinderella Mission Read online

  “Ethan?”

  Kelly’s voice kicked through his thoughts.

  “Huh?”

  “Are you ready?”

  “Of course.” He advanced a step and ignored the perfume of Kelly’s shampoo mingling with perspiration, so close to the scent of sex. “Just waiting for your go-ahead. Let’s try it again.”

  Friendship was more important, he reminded himself.

  Says who? his libido asked.

  “Shut up.”

  Kelly looked up. “What?”

  “Nothing.” Too much of nothing at the moment.

  Friendship did count, especially for a man who didn’t allow many into the inner circle of his life. The fewer people he let in, the less chance he had of losing them.

  And no way in hell did he intend to lose Kelly on this mission. He would train her until she dropped. “Envision someone you want to hurt.”

  She blinked once and nailed him with her gaze. “Done.”

  “No time for sympathy.”

  “Got it.”

  “Focus. Pull your mind in tight. You have to quit thinking about all those pretty kicks you see on TV or in whatever class you took. This is about street fighting, blending techniques that work for your body.” He’d spent the whole night before putting together a Kelly plan, a mix of women’s defense courses and Krav Maga used by elite forces around the world.

  Ethan stepped closer, crowded her space to emphasize the differences in their size. Recognizing limitations was the first step to overcoming them. “No rules. Fight dirty. Fight to win because losing means you’re dead. List target zones.”

  “Vulnerable tissue areas—throat, eyes, inner arm, inner thigh. And of course the cro—”

  “Yeah, I’ll let you slide by without practicing that one.” Technically, it didn’t qualify as a soft tissue area at the moment, anyway. “Run the strikes.”

  “The palm strike, eagle claw, bear strike,” she paused, flexing her hand into the proper form for each, “and my favorite, the double dragon.” She swung her hand forward as if tossing something, two fingers jabbing toward his eye.

  He blocked her wrist. “Well done.”

  His fingers curved around her and held a second beyond necessary before he dropped her hand.

  “I have to admit,” her voice whispered through the air, husky bedroom tones gliding over him as she circled to his back, “the tiger claw seems so violent.”

  Her breath stroked across his skin. Ethan swallowed. “That’s the idea.”

  “How can I know I’ll be bloodthirsty enough to go for the throat like that?”

  The husky catch in her question caressed the skin on the back of his neck. “Instinct to live.”

  “But to pinch through the Adam’s apple…” She crossed to his other side, a full-out attack on his senses. Her hand fell onto his shoulder, curved around. “I think I prefer to just—”

  His world rocked.

  Whoosh. Air abandoned his lungs.

  The ceiling stared back down at him as he lay flat on his back.

  Kelly leaned over him. “—do something like that?”

  Damn. She’d lured him with a pretended weakness and then flipped him. Tripped him, actually, but a minor technicality since either way, he’d met the mat.

  “Yeah, Kel, just like that.” He pushed the words out with minimal oxygen left in his lungs.

  His head thunked back and he stared at the ceiling. When the hell had someone painted stars up there?

  Never mind. The last one faded.

  Kelly smiled, hands on both her knees as she leaned closer, nearly nose-to-nose, her ponytail swishing like a pendulum over his chest. “I took you down. Flat on your back. Oh, yeah.”

  She swung upright, dancing around him in her victory trot, her eyes laughing as much as her full, luscious mouth.

  Ethan just lay on the floor and watched her come alive.

  He hadn’t been dropped since early training, only to be taken down by a woman in bobby socks. He wondered if maybe he needed some self-defense courses of his own before those dainty sneakers danced right over his focus.

  No more hand-to-hand, body-to-body combat today. “Time for target practice.”

  Maybe she’d miss and put him out of his misery.

  She couldn’t shoot worth a damn today.

  Kelly clicked away on her new computer in Ethan’s loft, the man himself absorbed in his own keyboard three feet away. The locale may have changed, but apparently her role was still the same. Desk jockey.

  Aim low. Aim low. Aim low. She chanted the too damned rudimentary advice Ethan had given her every time her arm bucked and her shots went wild.

  Her victory in the exercise room had been short-lived once they’d shifted to his private shooting range. Okay, so her poor aiming could have had something to do with the fact that she’d spent the hour prior tangling her body up with his on exercise mats.

  Talk about exercise—more like an exercise in self-torture. He’d stood so darned close to her, smelling so damned awesome. Which made her shots go wild.

  Which made him stand even closer.

  Bottom line, she needed what he could teach her about self-defense. Sure she’d been given entry-level defense courses upon joining the agency, and she’d learned some basic moves after her grab-happy ancient languages professor had started stalking her. Her regular Pilates Method exercise and relaxation training kept her toned.

  Not that she planned to let on about those and give away her miniscule edge. Besides, she’d learned more in the hour with Ethan than in her six-week course at the campus community center.

  At least here at the computer with Alex Morrow’s final transmissions in front of her, she could be certain of her footing.

  She snuck a glance at Ethan at his computer. A miniature ivory elephant perched on top. A gift from his Aunt Eugenie, no doubt. How sweet that he’d kept it.

  Kelly shoved the sympathetic thought away. The rat bastard had set her up and hurt her feelings. Twice in one week. One simple flip onto an exercise mat didn’t come close to canceling that debt.

  Although it made a decent start.

  What was he doing? His computer screen split into multiple images of the mansion grounds. He clicked keys. Angles widened.

  Kelly spun her chair for a better look. She hadn’t considered there might be a threat behind Ethan’s fortress walls. She understood the risks involved in setting a trap the night of the embassy gala. But why would there be safety concerns prior to that?

  She hoped his grounds perusal was only routine.

  He tapped two more keys, then leaned back. His chair squeaked a slow call almost as lengthy as his legs. “Whatcha got there, Taylor?”

  The warm glow of lamps over the desk cast an umbrella of privacy in the darkened apartment, almost as if they were suspended in air together. Every detail of his face called to her for study, for touching—the thick arch of his dark brows, the strong jaw with an enticing cleft in the chin, and a thin scar on the side of his neck. Only about two inches long, it had faded so much she might not have noticed except it contrasted with his tan.

  Kelly tore her gaze away and back to the safety of her translations. “I’m working through Morrow’s references to overhearing about a stein.”

  “A brewsky?” He quirked a brow.

  Kelly smiled under the shield of her hair. “I doubt it. Although it’s still unclear. Many words in the German, Gastonian and Rebelian languages overlap, but the shades of meaning can differ. That can make interpretations difficult. Stein basically means stone. But what kind of stone? Rock, gem, jewel? It serves as a root word for so many variations. Look here.” She keyed in a list of words. “Gestein means rocks. But edelstein is jewel or gem. And this, see, feuerstein.”

  His eyes fell to her mouth as she formed the words. “Feuer?”

  “Fire stone.” She resisted the urge to bite her lips. “It’s like they’re trying to confuse the issue.”

  “Or bury the meaning.” He cleared
his throat and pointed to the screen. “What about this?”

  “Ein herz aus stein.”

  Ethan shut his eyes as if concentrating on the phrase for interpretation. The process must have pained him since his brow furrowed.

  “Herz means heart.” A heart she wanted to protect.

  “Stone heart?”

  “No.” Although she wished for one when dealing with this man. “Heart of the stone.”

  He stared at her with eyes so blue she’d only seen them on a precious newborn. No man should have eyes that beautiful.

  His gaze held hers, wouldn’t let go any more than he’d been willing to cut her slack on the exercise mats earlier. Although now, she had no edge. No defenses. She battled a deep yearning to press her lips to that scar on his neck and taste his skin.

  A drone startled her. A buzz? Kelly jerked back into her chair.

  Ethan scrubbed a hand over his chin. “The door.”

  He pointed to the surveillance images on his screen and Kelly grasped the distraction with both hands. The screen displayed a young woman waiting at the base of the stairs, holding a tray with a cloth draped over it. Kelly sifted through the countless introductions from earlier and placed the girl as the cook’s granddaughter, around nineteen or twenty, a college student working part time at Williams Manor.

  Ethan rolled his chair away from the desk and stood. “Supper. I’ll be back in a second.”

  “She must know what the inside of your refrigerator looks like.”

  His low chuckle floated up for a sneak attack on her senses. She’d barely recovered when he popped into view on the security camera. Kelly couldn’t resist leaning closer to listen.

  Ethan took the tray from the blond teenybopper in a snow parka with white fur. “Thank you, Brittany.”

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Williams,” she crooned, bouncing on her toes like an overeager kid.

  Kelly jabbed a finger at the screen. “He’s old enough to be your father, Brittany.”

  Well, almost.

  And who was she to talk, only twenty-four herself? Eleven years younger than Ethan.

  He slid from the camera’s angle, but Brittany stayed. Watching. Her face so open and lovesick that compassion swept aside Kelly’s jealousy.

  She chewed a nail and studied the screen until it blurred. Did she look at him like that, too, so young and hungry and full of longing for something she knew full well could never happen?

  God, she hoped not.

  The door snicked, then swung open.

  “Prepare to feast.” Ethan kicked the door shut again and set the tray on the kitchenette table.

  Kelly hooked her arm on the back of her chair and looked down onto the too-intimate dining setup. It was just dinner, she told herself and started to stand.

  An image of Brittany’s face doused those thoughts.

  Kelly sunk back into her chair. “How about bringing it up here so we can keep working?”

  “Hatch doesn’t pay overtime, you know.” Ethan reached into the refrigerator and pulled out two long-neck bottles.

  Alcohol and Ethan at the same time? Unwise.

  She needed to keep her inhibitions firmly in place around him. Time to shut down the hormones and get to work before she turned into a Brittany. “Water for me, please.”

  Ethan reached into the refrigerator and let the cool blast wash over him. Like it actually made a dent in his overheated body temp.

  He’d already had enough. Frustration churned through him and he still had two more weeks left shut up in a suddenly too-damned-small apartment conjugating German verbs with Kelly.

  He wanted to pick a fight, feel something other than this damned destructive need to lead Kelly into his bedroom and discover how the stars shining through his skylight would play on her pale skin.

  Ethan waggled a bottle at her and pressed. “It’s imported.”

  “I’m working. And it’s from the supermarket. I can see the sticker on the six-pack carrier from here.”

  “Busted.” He swapped one beer for bottled water, keeping the other long-neck in hand. He carried the food up the stairs, past his room and up to the open loft. Kelly didn’t even acknowledge his presence, instead presenting him with a view of her back. Her hair shimmered half way down only to be captured by the back of the chair.

  Lucky chair.

  He ached to gather up a fistful of that hair, see it spread over his pillow in stark contrast to silver-gray sheets. Tension wound tighter within him.

  He slammed the tray on the stretch of desk between their workstations and grabbed his beer. Kicking back in his chair, he tipped the bottle for a long drag.

  Kelly’s fingers never hesitated on the keyboard, but her mouth pulled tight. Even pinched, her lips tempted him to tease them to fullness again. Ethan nursed another swig off his bottle while watching her through amber glass.

  She shot a disdainful sniff his way.

  He rolled the bottle between his palms. “You might still be on the clock, but I’m finished. I’m tired and I’m sore since someone beat me up today.”

  “Poor baby.”

  Ethan’s face twitched with a grin. He liked that most about her, the way she never seemed impressed with him, always called his bluff. More than once she’d booted his butt off her desk, chewing him out for wrinkling a report. He didn’t excel at being there for other people and the thought of letting Kelly down soured the beer in his mouth.

  This wasn’t the sort of job for Kelly if she turned prim at controversy and boundary pushing. He raised his bottle to the light. “You know, this is nothing. One time I was undercover to bust an arms-selling ring down in Central America. Late one night, the guy was so close to talking, but he kept pouring rotgut tequila shots. If I didn’t toss ’em back, he would have walked. Christ, I could hardly see straight, and I’d dumped half of mine on the floor. But the recorder worked, and I knew I could shoot straight even in my sleep—no offense.”

  “None taken,” she answered without pausing or looking up.

  He nudged the tray toward her. “Eat before you drop.”

  She shrugged and snagged a grape from the fruit bowl.

  He couldn’t condemn her for not understanding. What sort of life had she led to prepare her for this anyway? “Hey, Kel, is there a reason anyone would be following you?”

  Her eyes snapped up to him.

  She pulled a napkin off the tray and shook it out with exaggerated care. “No. You’ve probably guessed that I lead a pretty tame life. Why?”

  “Someone tailed us through town on our way here.”

  Her napkin crumpled in her fist. “You’re sure?”

  He didn’t even bother to answer.

  “Of course you’re sure. Sorry.” She folded her napkin in half, smoothing the wrinkles before placing it precisely on her lap. “Why didn’t you tell me then?”

  “No need to worry you. Nothing you could have done about it anyway and I figured I could track it down later.”

  “Worry me?” Her spine straightened until she grew at least two inches in height and burgeoning anger. “You didn’t want to worry me? I’m your partner, not some little woman to cosset.”

  Whatever she wanted to think. “Uh-huh.”

  “I mean it, Ethan. We’re supposed to be working together, sharing responsibility and risk.”

  “Okay, partner.” Lying didn’t bother him in the least if it kept her safe. “Now eat so you can hold up your end of this operation.”

  Kelly’s eyes stayed on him for five measured seconds before she grabbed a roll stuffed with thinly sliced beef and nipped off a corner.

  Wonder spread over her face with each bite until finally she paused to say, “Ohmigosh, this is incredible. Now I’m not so surprised you don’t keep anything in your fridge with Brittany bringing up this kind of food every night.”

  How did she know the girl’s name? He glanced at the screen. Kelly had watched him and listened, Brittany’s juvenile crush bothering her.

  Here was
his easy out. He’d pick on her about being jealous of Brittany. Or he’d let her assume the worst about him and a co-ed who didn’t even remotely entice him.

  Damn, he felt old today.

  And Kelly looked so young and vulnerable at the moment that he couldn’t do it. He would likely hurt her enough before this case ended. He couldn’t bring himself to heap on more when he had a choice otherwise. “Her grandmother cooks. The kid just helps sometimes for extra money.”

  “Okay.” Kelly looked away too fast, dipping the roll into a bowl of broth and staring down into the juice so long her bread turned to mush. She shouldn’t care about his personal life. And he shouldn’t care that she cared.

  The last thing he wanted was to care about anyone again.

  Damn. Ethan rubbed the kink in his neck that had nothing to do with being slammed onto a mat and everything to do with the woman who’d put him there.

  Kelly’s eyes zeroed in on his hand working out the kink. “So during that drunk-fest bust—is that when you got the scar on your neck?”

  She tore off another bite of her soggy sandwich.

  He scratched the thin line where his beard didn’t grow anymore. “Bad shaving accident.”

  With a drunken gunrunner determined to shave fifty years off his life.

  Ethan had bolted awake to find a knife at his throat, the wild-eyed gunrunner certain his wealthy houseguest had betrayed him. It had only been six months after Celia’s death, and Ethan hadn’t cared much about the risk in daring the man to finish it. Ethan had lived. The gunrunner had ended up dead since Ethan truly could shoot straight half drunk and nearly asleep.

  He’d considered it a fifty-fifty victory. Back then, living had hurt a hell of a lot more than the nick to his neck he’d taken fighting off his attacker.

  Kelly’s gaze glided down the long healed scar with such perception Ethan feared she might detect deeper scars still raw.

  No question, he wanted Kelly. And if hormones had been the only factor, they’d both be in his bedroom right now. But he respected her. Even more important, he liked her, which presented a potential tangle he wanted no part of.