“That sounds ominous.”
“It’s not meant to be,” he began, then amended, “Well...maybe it is. It’s about last night.”
“You mean the attempted break-in?”
“I don’t think it was a break-in, Savannah,” he said, his voice very deep. Very serious. And obviously very concerned. “I think you were targeted. And I don’t think they planned to rob you.”
“Why would you think that?”
“I talked with hotel security last night and this morning—that’s where I was before breakfast. This hotel has extensive security cameras at all the entrances, and they reviewed the tapes. No one wearing the clothing I saw entered or left the hotel last night, with or without masks. Which means they didn’t leave the hotel. Which means they either work here...or they’re guests.” He paused, then added softly, “And if they’re guests, my money says they’re on the tour.”
Savannah stared up at Niall, an arrested expression on her face. “Okay,” she said slowly. “Maybe they work here. Or maybe they’re a sophisticated gang of thieves who’re masquerading as guests, maybe even on the tour. But how do you get from that to thinking they weren’t just planning to rob me?”
Niall chose his words carefully. “What did they say when they knocked at your door?”
She shook her head, her brow furrowed, as if she wasn’t seeing his point. “All they said was—” Then she got it. “Housekeeping,” she whispered. “But no Chinese accent.”
He nodded. “I don’t see them speaking English like an American if they were there to rob you. It’s possible, of course, but not very likely. Which means you were probably targeted for some other reason. And the only reason that comes to mind is...the job you used to have.”
“How do you know what my job used to be?” Her face had lost some of its color. “I never told you.”
“I can put two and two together, same as you. You told me you’re an engineer. You told me who your employer was, and you told me they tried to convince you not to quit.” He smiled faintly. “Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out you were a rocket scientist. And, therefore, vitally important to the defense industry in some way. Which makes me think...”
“I’m not that important. Not enough for someone to, to—”
“Kidnap you?”
She swallowed hard. “It’s like something out of a spy novel. Things like this don’t happen in real life.”
“Maybe not. But give me another reason why someone would target you.” She couldn’t and he knew it, and his heart went out to her. “I work in security,” he reminded her, although he wasn’t about to tell her what kind of security. “It’s my job to be suspicious. To question everything.” He waited for that to sink in, then asked, “I don’t suppose you’ll agree to cancel the rest of this tour and go home.”
She blinked at him as if she couldn’t believe what he was suggesting. “Go home?” she asked, clearly stunned. “I’ve wanted to take this trip practically my whole life. I finally—finally—get up the courage to do it after my parents—” She stopped abruptly, and the stricken expression on her face told him she couldn’t finish that sentence without breaking down. But she didn’t have to say it for him to know what was in her mind. “And you want me to go home?”
Her voice had risen in intensity, but then she glanced around to make sure she hadn’t drawn attention with her outburst. She lowered her voice when she continued. “No way,” she said fiercely, but with a tearful edge that made his throat ache. “I saw the Great Wall yesterday, but that’s not nearly enough. I’m going to see the Forbidden City, Niall. And the Xi’an terracotta warriors, too. I am. I’m going to cruise the Yangtze River, visit the Three Gorges Dam and the Goddess Stream. I’m not giving that up. I’m not. I’m not!”
He cradled her face in his hands. “Okay,” he soothed. “Okay.” He slid his arms around her and pulled her close. “I understand, Savannah. I do. You’re not just doing this for you, but for your parents, too. I understand.”
He felt the shudder that traveled through her entire body when he mentioned her parents. Well, he’d known what her answer would be, hadn’t he? Which meant his options had just dwindled down to one. Protect Savannah for the next two weeks. Keep her safe so she could visit all the sights she’d planned to see, for herself and for her parents.
And to do that—to be with her 24/7—he just might have to accept the invitation she’d extended last night and become her lover. A sacrifice in one way, because any more time in her company would push him right over the edge. He knew that. And when they returned to the States, when he had to let her go—how could she ever forgive him once she discovered why he was there in the first place?—it would be like taking a bullet to his heart again.
But in another way, it wouldn’t be a sacrifice. Because part of him acknowledged he had to have her, just once. He had to know what it was like to make love to her. To feel her body arch beneath his and make her cry his name. To see the smile of a woman who’d been well and truly loved on her face when she looked at him.
He didn’t know how he’d managed to go from contemplating killing her to needing her like he needed his next breath in less than twenty-four hours, but he had. And he knew his life would never be the same again.
* * *
Damn, damn, damn! the man told himself as he closed the email and logged off his computer. The fourteen-hour time difference between Alamogordo, New Mexico, and Beijing meant he’d only learned of last night’s failure to kidnap Savannah Whitman early this morning, and his encrypted, coded reply with further instructions for his agents hadn’t been read until they’d woken this morning in Beijing. Phone calls back and forth wouldn’t be any better time-wise, and he would run the risk that the National Security Agency might be listening. His emails could be intercepted, too, but the encryption should make it nearly impossible for the NSA to crack them, and besides he was using coded instructions.
No, encrypted emails were far more secure, and his frustration had nothing to do with the method of communication. Just with the execution...or lack of it.
He’d tried for years to lure the quietly brilliant Dr. Savannah Whitman to work for his company to no avail. But now he had no choice. He’d lost too many competitive proposals to the company that had employed Dr. Whitman, because the damned DoD trusted her and her work. Which meant his company had been teetering on the brink already. And the breakthrough missile design she’d just come up with this summer? The one that had made the missile his company had been supplying to the DoD for years obsolete?
He’d cursed her, but he’d also known he had to gain possession of her to stave off bankruptcy. And he could no longer afford to wait the two years demanded by the non-compete agreement she’d signed, either. Not that that would prohibit her from working for his company those two years; it would just forbid her from working on something directly related to a previous project...which was exactly what he wanted her to do. And he knew she was just too ethical to try to skirt the strict interpretation of that non-comp.
So he’d had an epiphany when he’d learned she was taking a year off after the deaths of her parents and traveling the world, beginning with China. This was his perfect opportunity to kidnap her...and throw suspicion on the Chinese government.
His secret glee had known no bounds when he’d cast aspersions on her character with the US government—payback for the many times she’d turned down his job offers—and he’d pretended to be greatly reluctant about revealing the “true” reason behind her resignation from her former employer. It had been so easy to manipulate suspicion,