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‘Your reputation precedes you, Mr West.’
Her voice came at him gravel-rough, with just enough honey at the edges to keep things interesting. She bent lower; she had to if she wanted to get a good look at his face.
‘You’re not as pretty as I’d been led to expect.’
‘Give me time. Bruises fade.’
Rowan smiled at him then, careless and casual, and that smile …
That smile was a weapon.
‘Mr West, let me drive you up to the house and have a medic take a look at you. My men are taking bets on how many ribs you’ve broken and whether you’ve lost your hearing. Odds are three to one that you’re simply a very good lip-reader.’
‘They just want to look at my lips.’
Jared let them curve and he knew what effect they had—of that she was certain.
‘I get that a lot.’
‘And I’m sure you use it to your best advantage.’ She let her gaze linger, appreciating him, and after a slow count to three she stopped. ‘The fact remains that I’d like someone to take a look at you.’
‘Is that an order?’
‘Do you take them?’
He smiled again. ‘From you, I might.’
KELLY HUNTER has always had a weakness for fairytales, fantasy worlds, and losing herself in a good book. She is married with two children, avoids cooking and cleaning and, despite the best efforts of her family, is no sports fan! Kelly is, however, a keen gardener and has a fondness for roses. Kelly was born in Australia and has travelled extensively. Although she enjoys living and working in different parts of the world, she still calls Australia home.
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For my wonderful editor, Joanne Grant.
Thanks for your patience.
Table of Contents
Cover
Excerpt
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EPILOGUE
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
ROWAN FARRINGDON DREADED Sunday dinners with her parents. The tradition was a new one, instated exactly one month after her parents had retired and bought themselves a gleaming glory of a house that has all the showiness of a museum and no warmth whatsoever. Even the floral arrangements were formal.
She’d made a mistake two months ago, when she’d turned up with an armful of scented overblown cream- and butter-coloured roses and had had them relegated to the laundry sink—doubtless to be tossed out at her mother’s earliest convenience.
She hadn’t made that mistake again.
For some reason her mother loved this house, and insisted that Rowan—as her only child and heir—love the house as well.
Never going to happen.
Rowan’s hurried ‘I’m well set up already, Mum. Sell the house. Spend every last penny you have before you go, I really won’t mind …’ probably hadn’t been the most politically sensible thought ever voiced, but Rowan had meant every word of it.
To say that Rowan and her mother neither knew nor understood each other was something of an understatement.
Four people graced the enormous round table at this particular evening’s formal dinner. Rowan’s mother, father, grandfather, and herself. Presumably the round table gave the impression that everyone sitting at it was of equal importance, but the actual conversation around the table told a different story.
Rowan shared a glance with her grandfather as her father launched into yet another monologue that revolved around dining with dignitaries and very important people she’d never heard of. Both her parents had been Army in her younger years, and had made the switch to foreign ambassador postings later on. They’d led the expat life for most of their lives, while Rowan had been largely left behind with her grandfather. His job hadn’t exactly been geared towards the raising of children either—he’d been an Army general—but he’d never once left her behind and she loved him all the more for it.
Rowan’s phone buzzed once from its pocket in her handbag, sitting on the side table where she’d put it when she arrived, and Rowan winced. She knew what was coming.
‘I thought I asked you to turn that off?’ her mother told her coolly, her almond-brown eyes hard with displeasure.
People often thought brown eyes were soft, liquid and lovely.
Not all of them.
‘You know I can’t.’ Rowan rose. ‘Excuse me. I have to take that.’
She took her phone and the information on it out into the hall and returned a minute or so later. She crossed to her bag and slung it over her shoulder.
‘You’re leaving?’ Her mother’s voice was flat with accusation rather than disappointment.
Rowan nodded.
‘Trouble?’ asked her grandfather.
‘I’m covering for one of the other directors this week, while he’s out of the country. One of his agents has just emerged from deep cover. We’re bringing him in.’
‘We barely see you any more,’ her mother offered next—never mind that before they’d retired they’d barely seen her at all.
‘You barely saw her during her childhood,’ her grandfather told his daughter bluntly. ‘At least when Rowan leaves at a moment’s notice she gives us an explanation.’
There was enough truth in those words to make her mother’s lips draw tight. Enough of a sting in them to make Rowan’s memories clamour for attention.
‘But it’s my birthday,’ Rowan had once said to her mother as her parents had headed out through the door, their travel bags rolling behind them like obedient pets. ‘Grandfather made cake. He made it for us.’
‘I’m sorry, dear,’ her mother had said. ‘Needs must.’
‘But you’ve only been here one day,’ she’d said to her father once, and had received a stern lecture on tolerance and duty for her efforts.
‘Where are you going?’
She’d stopped asking that one. To this day she didn’t think she’d ever received a truthful answer. The take-home message had always been that they were going somewhere important and that Rowan wasn’t welcome.
‘You need to toughen up,’ her parents had told her over and over—and toughen up she had.
That her mother now wanted a different type of relationship with her only child concerned Rowan not at all.
‘I’m sorry. I have to go.’
‘Your grandfather’s not getting any younger, Rowan. You could do more for him.’
Her mother’s salvo had been designed to hurt, but Rowan just smiled politely and let it land on barren ground somewhere left of its target. Rowan saw her grandfather at least twice a week, and called him every other day and then some.
Not that her mother knew that.
Nor did Rowan feel the urge to enlighten her.
‘You’d like this agent who’s just arrived,’ she told her grandfather, for she knew he’d be interested. ‘He’s been causing utter mayhem with very limited resources.’
‘Is he ex-Army?’
‘No, he’s one of ours from the ground up. Very creative.’
Ten to one that the next time she called her grandfather he’d know who she was talking about. He might be long retired, but he still had impressive contacts.
‘Yes, yes, Rowan. We know your job’s important,’ her mother said waspishly, and Rowan turned towards the immaculately coiffured woman who’d given birth to her.
For a woman who’d presumably had to fight the same gender battles that Rowan still fought, her mother appeared singularly unimpressed by Rowan’s successes and the position she now held within the Australian Secret Intelligence Service.
‘Enjoy your meal.’ She managed a kiss for both her parents. ‘I brought apple cobbler for dessert.’
‘Did you make it yourself?’
One more barb from a mother who’d barely lifted a hand in the kitchen her entire life—such was the privileged expat existence she’d led.
‘No. A friend of mine made it because I paid her to. It’s her grandmother’s recipe, passed down through the generations. I hope you like it.’
Dismissing her mother, she crossed next to her grandfather and placed a soft kiss on his cheek.
Her phone pinged again and Rowan straightened. ‘Time to go.’
‘I suppose that’s your driver?’ her mother said sarcastically. ‘He’s a little impatient.’
‘No, he’s just letting me know that he’s here.’
‘Maybe you’ll see your way to staying for the entire meal next month. If I even bother to continue with these dinners.’
‘Your call, Mother.’ Rowan glanced towards her father, who’d sat uncharacteristically silent throughout the exchange. ‘Are you displeased with me as well?’
Her father said nothing. Ever the diplomat.
‘You know, Mother … both of you, come to think of it … just once you might want to try being proud of me and the position I hold instead of continually criticising my choices. Just once. Maybe then I’d give you the time of day you so clearly expect.’
And that, thought Rowan grimly, was the end of Sunday dinner with her parents.
Her grandfather stood, always the gentleman, and accompanied her into the hall and to the front door while her parents stayed behind. It wasn’t his house—it was her mother’s immaculate mausoleum—but it would never occur to her to afford her daughter the same kind of courtesy she’d spent a lifetime offering to others.
Her mother had been a well-respected foreign ambassador, for heaven’s sake. Marissa Farringdon-Stuart knew how to honour others.
‘Don’t mind her,’ Rowan’s grandfather said gently.
‘She’s getting worse.’
‘She’s losing her grip on what’s acceptable behaviour and what’s not. Early onset dementia.’
‘Nice try, old man, but I know what dementia is and what it’s not.’
What her mother dispensed had nothing to do with dementia—it was carefully calculated vitriol.
‘She’s jealous, and some of that’s my doing,’ her grandfather said gruffly. ‘I never had time for her. I learned from that mistake and made sure I had time for you. Plus, you’ve done extremely well in your chosen profession. Your mother’s competitive. That irks her too.’
‘And my father? What’s his beef with me?’
‘Who’d know?’ There was no love lost between her grandfather and the man his daughter had chosen to marry. ‘He’s an idiot. Too much noble blood and not enough brain cells.’
‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ she murmured.
‘You look beautiful this evening,’ her grandfather told her gruffly.
‘Flatterer.’
Rowan tried to look her best for Sunday dinner—her mother expected it—but there was no escaping the fact that her eyes were unfashionably slanted, her mouth was too wide and her ears stuck out rather a lot, no matter what she did with her hair. In the end she’d cut her hair pixie-short and to hell with her ears.
She could look ‘interesting’, at a pinch.
Give her half an hour and the right kind of make-up and she could even look arresting.
But she would never be beautiful.
‘Take the apple cobbler home with you when you go. Ask for it. She’ll only toss it the first chance she gets, and I had Maddy make it especially for you. Extra cinnamon.’
‘I’ll save you some.’
‘I’ll hold you to it.’ Rowan embraced her increasingly fragile grandfather. ‘See you Wednesday?’
He nodded. ‘And bring me carnage, politics or intrigue.’
Rowan stepped from the house and headed towards the waiting vehicle. ‘You can be sure of that.’
CHAPTER TWO
HE’D MISSED BIRTHDAYS, two Christmases and two New Year’s Eves, but he hadn’t missed his sister’s wedding. That had to count for something.
So he’d been slightly late and utterly filthy? His sister Lena had still slotted him into her wedding party without a moment’s hesitation, before turning back to the celebrant and marrying his best friend, Trig—Adrian Sinclair.
That had been several hours ago now. The wedding dinner plates had long since been cleared away and the dancing was now in full flow beside the lazy snake of an Aussie river, with spotlit red gums soaring into the night sky. Jared had tried to be there in spirit as well as in body. He’d smiled until his jaw ached. He’d danced with the bride and he’d teased the groom. He’d stood until he couldn’t stand any more, and then he’d sat beneath one of the big old gum trees, his back to the bark, and let the party happen around him.
It had to be mid-evening by now—with many of the guests gearing up to kick on well into the night. Jared, on the other hand, could feel the adrenalin seeping out of his body and leaving a bone-deep exhaustion in its wake. He needed to find a bed and lie in it for a few days, weeks, months … He needed to find a place to be, a place to stay.
Damon had offered the beach house, and, yeah, maybe that would work for a few days. But people had a habit of dropping by the beach house, and what Jared really wanted was to be alone.
He watched with faint interest as Trig headed his way with a woman in tow. She’d arrived about an hour ago and hadn’t seemed the slightest bit perturbed that she’d missed the wedding ceremony or the food. Not a guest, he surmised. He didn’t quite know what she was.
Immaculately dressed—he’d give her that. All class, with slender legs and a pair of high-heeled shoes that he figured had cost a small fortune. Both his sisters had gone through an expensive shoe phase. He recognised the look of them, even if he couldn’t recognise the brand.
The shoes stopped in front of him and he looked up, his head resting against the tree trunk, steadying him, holding him.
Up close, he could see that the slender athletic form he’d been admiring had more miles on it than he’d thought. Up close, he could see that whoever had put this woman’s face together had had one hell of a liking for the unusual. She had a wide, lush mouth that tilted up at the edges, and wide-set eyes that tilted up at the edges too. Her nose was small. Her brown hair was short and boyish. Her ears weren’t big, but maybe—just maybe—they stuck out a little.
Together, her features made up a whole that was too odd to be classically beautiful and too arresting to be ignored.
‘Jared, I want you to meet Rowan Farringdon,’ Trig said. ‘The new Head of Counter-Surveillance, Section Five.’
Section Five. Jared tried to get his brain to work. Section Five was Eastern Europe, and when he’d left two years ago it had been headed up by Old Man Evans. Hard to say if she was going to be an ally Jared could use or not.
Probably not.
‘Your reputation precedes you, Mr West.’
Her voice came at him gravel-rough, with just enough honey at the edges to keep things interesting. She bent lower; she had to if she wanted to get a good look at his face.
‘You’re not as pretty as I’d been led to expect.’
‘Give me time. Bruises fade.’
She smiled at him then, careless and casual, and that smile …
That smile was a weapon.
‘Your sister suggested that you might want a lift up to the house. I have a car here.’
He’d noticed it. Black. Sleek. Probably armour-plated.
‘Why all the security for a wedding?’ He’d noticed them—of course he had. Fully a quarter of the guests here tonight were Special Forces and plenty of them were packing. As was the woman standing in front of him.
‘You know the answer to that one, cowboy.’ She smiled again, more gently this time. ‘We’re here for you.’
‘You’re not my section head.’
‘And for that I am truly grateful. You’ve made quite a mess. Bravo. But the fact remains that we’re here to take you to Canberra and make sure nothing untoward happens to you along the way.’
‘Give me the weekend and I’ll go willingly.’
‘Mr West …’ It was a murmur shot through with indulgence. ‘We’re giving you tonight, and for that you should be grateful. You were due back two years ago.’
‘Sorry I’m late.’ Jared shot her a lazy grin, just to see if it would annoy her. ‘You’re young for a director.’
‘I’m forty years old and cunning as an outhouse rat.’
She was ten years older than him.
‘Like I said …’
Her laugh came low and unfettered and slid straight into the number one spot in the list of things he needed to make this woman do again.
‘Don’t underestimate me, Mr West. And I won’t underestimate you.’
‘Call me Jared,’ he murmured, and then he caught Trig’s sudden alertness and switched his attention to his oldest friend—who was now his brand-new brother-in-law.
‘Jared …’
Trig looked faintly amused—or was it resigned? Maybe Trig had ESP, or maybe he’d simply known Jared so long that he could read every twitch, but somehow Trig had sensed his interest in this section head with the funny face and the whisky voice and the smile that was a weapon.
‘No.’
‘Yes.’
‘Really bad idea.’
‘I’ve had worse.’ Jared turned his attention back to the director and smiled.
Rowan Farringdon wasn’t slow on the uptake. ‘Listen to your friend, Mr West. I’d chew you up and spit you out before breakfast.’
‘I wouldn’t complain.’
‘Oh, but you would.’
Did the woman’s lips never stop tilting towards a smile?
‘If I get in that car with you am I going to end up at the farmhouse or in debrief?’
‘At the farmhouse for tonight. I give you my word. You don’t have to be in debrief until ten past nine tomorrow morning.’
‘Any idea what they plan to do with me after that?’
Her expression grew guarded and in that moment he got a glimpse of the razor-sharp politicking that could make a woman section head at forty.
‘I dare say that’ll depend on the way you play your cards from here on in. You can play? Right?’
He was handsomer than she’d expected, thought Rowan—and she’d expected a lot. His body was big, and brutally honed for fighting, and the close-cropped black hair on his head only added to his formidable air. In contrast, his face could have graced billboards or movie screens, and his mouth had a ripeness to it that would leave lovers dreaming for just one more taste. Great jawline and cheekbones—and eyes that had seemed soft and liquid-bright whenever he looked at his sister, but were sharp and assessing now.
This was the man who’d singlehandedly destroyed a hundred-billion-dollar illegal arms empire. Singlehandedly exposed a line of rot within the anti-terrorism unit he’d worked for that had stretched all the way to a sub-director’s chair. The fallout had been spectacular, and there was fierce debate as to whether there was still more to come—whether he’d withheld information … saved the best until last.
She would have.
‘Mr West, let me drive you up to the house and have a doctor take a look at you. My men are taking bets on how many ribs you’ve broken and whether or not you’ve lost your hearing. Odds are three to one at the moment that you’re simply a very good lip-reader.’
‘They just want to look at my lips.’ Jared West let his lips curve into that lazy smile again. ‘I get that a lot.’
‘I’m sure you do. And I’m sure you use it to your best advantage.’ She let her gaze linger on the lips in question, because they really were that good, but after a slow count to three she stopped and snapped her gaze back to his eyes. Control. She had it and she fully intended to keep it. ‘The fact remains that we’d like someone to take a look at you.’
‘Is that an order?’
‘Do you take them?’
He smiled again. ‘From you—I might.’
‘You could use a Taser on him?’ Trig suggested. ‘That might work.’
‘I could, but he looks rough enough already. If I killed him there’d be paperwork.’
‘Director, would you mind if I had a word with the groom in private?’ asked West.
He tried to make the words sound like a request—he did give her that. But he expected her to grant his request. That much was very clear.
Rowan wasn’t going anywhere until she’d figured out his health status.
‘Try over by the river,’ she suggested. ‘It’s private there.’
‘It’s private here.’
‘Mr West.’ Gloves off, then, and to hell with protecting his ego. ‘How about you stand up and prove to my people that you can still walk?’
His chin came out. His gaze was all fierce challenge—no weakness in it at all.
‘I can walk.’
‘I’d like to see that.’
But he didn’t get up.
Pride was a bitch.
‘See that he gets to the house. We’ve a doctor waiting for him.’
Rowan didn’t wait for Trig’s reply before heading towards her car. She knew what it was going to cost West to get moving again. She’d been monitoring his movements ever since Antonov’s super-yacht had blown up. The trail of destruction he’d left in his wake and his relentless drive to get home in time for his sister’s wedding had been truly spectacular. No sleep for the past fifty hours and he was beyond exhausted—his body was struggling to hold him upright.
The only thing keeping him upright was willpower.
This was a man who’d been streamed for command from the moment he’d taken his first special intelligence service entry exam. He’d excelled at every position they’d ever given him. And if you counted his time with Antonov as solo dark ops work, he’d excelled at that too. She’d been expecting a pretty face atop a fierce intellect—a will of iron and a predisposition towards making trouble.
She wasn’t disappointed.
‘Great walk,’ Jared murmured as he watched her walk away, all confidence and sway. And he still liked her ears.
‘Can you walk?’ Trig wasn’t going to be distracted.
‘I think so. I just can’t get up.’
Trig held out his arm and Jared grasped it—high near the elbow, a climber’s grip. Next minute he was standing, and gasping, trying not to pass out or throw up or both. Two harsh breaths after that Lena materialised beside him, swathed in wedding dress white, with her hand wrapped around his other upper arm to keep him balanced.
‘You’re heading up to the house?’ she wanted to know.
‘In a bit.’ There was the small matter of having to get there on his own two feet to consider first.
He could walk.
Couldn’t he?
‘Use the bed in the master bedroom.’
‘You mean your bed?’ Their wedding bed? Unlikely. ‘Yeah—no. Pretty dress. Maybe you should step back a bit.’