‘You’re giving me coping mechanisms for anxiety?’
‘You asked me how I cope with some of the decisions I’ve had to make over the years. I’m telling you what has helped me.’
‘Sex.’
Jared rubbed his hand across the back of his neck and tried to explain his thought processes before Rowan decided that he was hitting on her again.
‘Trig said I needed sex.’
‘It’s not a bad idea—provided that your partner knows what you’re having sex for.’
‘I’m pretty sure that telling someone I’m touch-starved and over-anxious and therefore need to have sex isn’t going to fly.’
‘Oh, I don’t know … With your face and body?’ She leaned across the counter for her black leather satchel. ‘It might.’
‘Are you flirting again?’
‘I hope not.’ She stood up and slung the satchel over her shoulder. ‘Time for me to go.’
‘Yeah.’ He didn’t want her to go. ‘Do you need any more on Antonov?’
‘No. That wasn’t the main reason I came here and you know it. I wanted to check up on you—see how you were tracking. I’m supposed to be gaining your trust, and that’s hard to do when you’re nowhere in my vicinity. I was also very curious as to whether you want that sub-director’s chair.’
‘Director—’ He knew she’d notice the name-change. He hoped she knew that he was replying to the chair now and not just to her. ‘I don’t want a promotion. I can’t think about that right now. If you want me to do what I do best, cancel my leave and get me to Belarus. Let me clean up my mess.’
She looked at him hard.
He waited.
Finally, she nodded. ‘Belarus it is, then.’
‘When?’
‘Any objection to coming with me now?’
‘None at all.’
‘In that case pack what you need and put on a shirt.’
Jared shot her a brilliant smile as he stood to do her bidding. Or his bidding. Either way, he thoroughly approved of the direction this beautiful friendship was going in.
‘Hey, Ro? The touch thing? I think it’s working.’
‘Nothing at all to do with getting your own way?’
‘Oh, you noticed that?’
She spared him a very level glance. ‘I’m setting you loose in Belarus for two reasons. One: I want that final head to roll and I have my own thoughts as to who it is—I just don’t quite have enough to nail him yet, and with your help maybe we’ll get there. Two: you’re not recuperating here in your brother’s beach house … you’re drowning, and I have rope that might save you. I suggest you grab it.’
BY THE TIME they touched down in the capital Rowan had done a whole lot of touching, brushing against and just plain standing close to Jared West, and the extended contact was beginning to take a toll on her senses. She liked the smell of him and the feel of him.
Everyone liked the sight of him. He’d changed into a business suit and he wore it to perfection. It gave him an air of authority and added a couple more years to his thirty. His wristwatch signalled the kind of wealth that got handed down from generation to generation. His grandfather, according to the records, had made a fortune in shipping, and his father had taken it into the investment banking arena and quadrupled it. Between Jared, his siblings and his elders, they had property on every continent and in most major cities.
For Jared to choose working for secret intelligence over all the other options available to him had been an unusual move. For him not to want to advance through the ranks now was more unusual still. She didn’t know what drove him—beyond family loyalty and wanting to clean up his mess.
‘Jared?’ she said as they stepped from the airport terminal and headed towards a waiting car. ‘Don’t make me regret my belief in you.’
He glanced her way, his gaze strangely searching. ‘What is it about me that you believe in?’
‘I believe that you want to see this through.’ She nodded to Jeffers, her driver, who had opened the door as she approached, sparing only a glance for Jared.
Jared settled in beside her. Jeffers handed her a tablet and she took it and opened up her information stream. Jared didn’t ask anything else. He let her get on with it and looked out of the window, deep in his own thoughts.
It wasn’t until they were back in the corridors of Section that he spoke again. ‘How soon can I leave?’
‘I’ll need to bring you into my section and under my jurisdiction first. At the moment you’re Corbin’s.’
‘Will Corbin be a problem?’
‘We’re about to find out.’
They’d reached her office and Sam looked up, her cool gaze encompassing them both.
‘Director. Agent West.’
‘Mr West needs to book a flight to wherever it is he’s going. I’ll leave him with you.’
But Jared followed her to her door instead of taking his cue. ‘Don’t I get to listen in on your courtesy call?’
‘No. Try not to annoy Sam too much, Mr West. She’s perfectly capable of sending you to Belarus via Antarctica.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ he murmured.
She smiled encouragingly and shut the door on him with no little satisfaction. Back in her domain, back in control, and out of range of that killer smile and perfect body. He was hard on the senses, Jared West. Hard on the mind.
She wasn’t game to examine her confidence.
Rowan’s conversation with George Corbin didn’t begin well.
‘You can’t have him,’ he said curtly when she put her request to him. ‘He’s on medical leave.’
‘He’s back, he’s bored, and I need him for a job.’
‘Consulting?’
‘Fieldwork.’ She knew damn well that her decision to send Jared back into the field wasn’t going to go down a treat. No need to mention that the job was Antonov-related.
‘You’re crazier than I thought.’
‘Will you release him or not? He doesn’t want your sub-director’s chair, by the way.’
‘Maybe I never expected him to take it in the first place.’
She could hear the older director’s exasperation, loud and clear.
‘Maybe all I’m trying to do is get him looking towards a future in which Antonov’s reach isn’t his entire focus. Get him thinking about how to come out of this current situation with his career intact. Maybe I simply don’t like watching one of our best and brightest break.’
‘He won’t break. He’ll do what’s asked of him.’
‘Says who? Him? Or you? He’s not physically fit. He’s not mentally ready. What makes you think that if you send him out now he’ll even return? What makes you think he won’t end up in pieces?’
‘He’ll come back when he’s due back—and it won’t be in a body bag.’ She could picture Corbin’s cold grey eyes and his tightly drawn lips. ‘Do I need to call