Sabrina couldn’t fathom how Angie managed it. Her husband couldn’t know about her work. He thought her employer was an international temps and personal assistants agency. An agency that provided support personnel for visiting dignitaries from other nations or provided support personnel for American businessmen traveling to foreign countries whose companies had no ongoing reason to keep one or more linguists on staff. And that was exactly what IT&PA did in addition to covert government operations.
It was the perfect cover. Movement in and out of a country was never seen as suspicious, and many times their targets were the ones doing the hiring. Now that was burrowing in deep. That was the ultimate cover, one the enemy didn’t suspect for a moment. The usual government agencies couldn’t hope to accomplish that depth of infiltration.
Not everyone employed at IT&PA were secret agents. Some were “exempt” employees, meaning they were exactly what they appeared to be—clerical personnel with additional skills such as multilingual abilities as well as in-depth knowledge of foreign countries. Oftentimes a job consisted of nothing more than serving as an official guide on a visit to another country. Anything a businessman or woman, American or otherwise, could need in the way of temporary assistance would be found at IT&PA.
The agency had been the brainchild of Anderson Marx, the director. Only the president himself, and the directors of the CIA, FBI and NSA were aware of IT&PA’s presence in the spy world. IT&PA was neither bound by borders nor inhibited by the usual rules. Sabrina and her colleagues could be assigned anywhere in the world at any time, and only in the situations where the usual means would not work or had failed. The latter was the reason the standard rules didn’t apply. IT&PA was only called in once there were no other alternatives.
Today’s mission could have been so much worse. She’d been lucky. The four men who’d taken the Stavi family hostage could have killed them all before she’d arrived. The fact that they hadn’t suggested two possibilities—the intelligence they’d hoped to obtain had been extremely valuable, or the men simply were inept.
Telling herself it wasn’t her problem now, she ducked her head under the water and banished all thoughts of the day’s mission. The big brown eyes of those children and their mother elbowed their way into her thoughts, interrupting her desperately needed relaxation. She’d saved them. Why the lingering feelings of uncertainty?
Because it could have so easily gone the other way.
She went through this every time children were involved in a mission. After seven years, one would think she would get over the after-the-fact apprehension. But she didn’t.
If she mentioned the feelings to her team, Angie would insist that it was nothing more than her biological clock screaming at her since those feelings were unfailingly related to missions involving children. Sabrina was thirty-two, after all, Angie would say.
Sabrina didn’t know how to tell Angie this, but she didn’t have a biological clock. It had given up hope and gone out of business years ago. She had no desire for those kinds of strings. No permanent attachments allowed her to accept any and all assignments without hesitation.
The trickle of denial that filtered through her ticked her off. She wasn’t about to let the past intrude on her present.
Not ever again.
Sabrina climbed out of the tub. Frothy bubbles slid down her skin and accumulated on the floor as she stepped onto the cool tile. She should eat. The wine and the bath had been very nice and very necessary, but she needed food. She’d learned from experience in the past couple of years that food could be an extremely reliable way to distract herself from things she didn’t want to think about. Her intense workouts allowed for that occasional indulgence.
Grabbing a couple of big fluffy towels, she wrapped her hair in one, turban-style, and swabbed her body with the other. As she did, she considered what frozen entrées she had in the fridge. There might be the makings of a salad if the expiration dates hadn’t passed too many days ago. She spent so many late nights at work she didn’t stock the refrigerator regularly and as soon as she did, she ended up throwing half of the food out a week or two later after returning from an unexpected mission.
The doorbell rang as she shuffled out of her room. A frown tugged at her brow. It was almost nine and she just wanted to vegetate for the rest of the evening. Why the heck would anyone be at her door now?
Then she remembered.
She stalled in the middle of her living room. No way was she going to answer that door.
This was the one downside to being single. Well-meaning friends. If her single friends were involved in ongoing relationships, they wanted everyone else to be as well. Not one, especially the one likely outside the door just now, could understand how Sabrina could be happy without a steady guy in her life. She couldn’t tell them that a steady relationship created unnecessary questions.
A new round of pounding on the door rattled the hinges. “Sabrina! I know you’re in there.”
Damn. This was a new low even for Veronica.
Veronica Call and Sabrina had started out at the UN together as substitute interpreters. They’d stayed friends after Sabrina was recruited by IT&PA.
“I’ll just keep banging until you open up!” Veronica warned. “Or your neighbors call the cops.”
Knowing she wasn’t kidding, Sabrina released both dead bolts, then wrenched the door open. “I was in the tub.” Not exactly a lie.
Veronica, hands pushed beneath a heavy fur coat and stationed on red silk clad hips, surveyed her skeptically. “You knew I was coming,” she accused. “We planned this evening days ago.”
“I forgot, okay?” Sabrina stepped back, allowing her furious friend to enter.
Once inside the door, Veronica pointed to Sabrina’s bedroom. “Go get dressed. You’re going out.”
For about five seconds, Sabrina considered telling her to forget it but then decided against it. Veronica was one pushy broad. If she didn’t get her way, she’d just stand here all night and argue her case. The woman must have been a trial lawyer in another life.
“Where are we going?” Sabrina asked, padding to her bedroom and leaving the door open so they could still talk.
“Blue Note. Wesley’s meeting me there.”
Wesley. Oh, yes. Sabrina remembered him. Tall, handsome, gorgeous golden eyes, sleek ebony skin.
“What I don’t understand,” she said loudly enough for her friend to hear, “is why you want me there. Isn’t Wesley enough for you?” Sabrina grinned as she rummaged for something to wear.
“Wesley has a friend.”
She should have seen that one coming. Dread pooled in Sabrina’s gut, and she glanced at the other woman who now leaned in the doorway, her arms crossed defiantly over her chest.
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Come on, Sabrina. David is nice. Really nice.”
Sabrina removed one of her favorite little black dresses from its padded hanger. “Nice?” She tossed her friend a skeptical look. She hated being set up.
“Nice and handsome and sexy as hell,” Veronica fired back, her temper flaring to match her hot red dress. “I know you’ll like him. You just have to give him a chance.”
Sabrina smoothed the tight sheath over her hips. “And you’ve met this David?”
“Well, no, but Wesley told me all about him.”
“Wesley told you he’s sexy?” Sabrina countered. “Now I’m worried about Wesley.”
“You’re impossible.”
Sabrina stepped