“What do we do?” she whispered, her lips moving against his finger.

“This,” he said, and he whirled her around and pressed her back against the brick wall of the stairwell. She gasped just as he lowered his mouth to hers.

Not only did he cover her mouth with his but also he covered her body, too. To hide her. To protect her.

That had been his intent. But her lips were soft beneath his, her breath warm, and he found himself really kissing her. He moved his mouth over hers, taking advantage of her parted lips to deepen the kiss.

And her arms moved between them. Instead of pushing him away, as he expected, they linked around his neck. And she clung to him.

Agent Undercover

Lisa Childs

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LISA CHILDS writes paranormal and contemporary romance for Mills & Boon. She lives on thirty acres in Michigan with her two daughters, a talkative Siamese and a long-haired Chihuahua who thinks she’s a rottweiler. Lisa loves hearing from readers, who can contact her through her website, www.lisachilds.com, or snail-mail address, PO Box 139, Marne, MI 49435, USA.

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With love and appreciation for my dad—Jack Childs.

You will always be my hero!

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

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

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Special Agent Ashton Stryker’s heart pounded fast and hard with anticipation and a rush of adrenaline. He was about to meet the greatest threat to national security in his career with the FBI’s antiterrorism division. Ash’s responsibility was to neutralize that threat.

A bell chimed, announcing his time up with the woman across the table from him. She may have said hi. He wasn’t certain; he hadn’t been paying any attention to her. His target was farther down the long table, smiling at the man whose hand she shook before he moved on to the woman to her left.

Had she passed anything to him in that handshake? Ash wasn’t close enough to see, but there were other eyes on her. Other agents had her under surveillance, too.

Ash stood up and took the next chair down the table. He was getting closer to her. The bell chimed again, announcing the beginning of the next five minutes.

“How can you look like that and be so socially awkward?” the woman across from him asked.

His focus on his target, he only spared the woman a glance. She was probably old enough to be his mother—maybe his grandmother—with iron-gray hair and small reading glasses hanging from a chunky gold chain around the neck of the sweatshirt embroidered with cats. “Excuse me?”

“You haven’t said anything to the women before me,” she said. “Of course when you look like that—the epitome of tall, dark and handsome—you probably don’t have to say anything. You could grunt and women would go home with you.”

He felt like grunting with frustration and impatience, but then she might take that as an invitation. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This is the first time I’ve come to one of these things—”

“It’s called speed dating,” she said. “You only have five minutes, so you have to talk fast.”

“I would rather listen,” he said. It was what he did. Listening was how he had found the threat. He’d picked up chatter on wiretaps and other surveillance and then he’d found the post himself.

“Oh—” the older woman fanned herself with one of the drink menus “—you look like that and you’d rather listen. No wonder you’ve never come to one of these things before. You haven’t had to. Why are you here tonight?”

Obviously he couldn’t answer honestly. Ash was no rookie when it came to going undercover; he’d had some dangerous assignments over the years, going deep undercover in terrorist camps and militia groups as well as a motorcycle gang.

But he had never gone speed dating before. A couple of chairs earlier, someone had run a stiletto heel up his pant leg. Another woman had tried to give him her room key. There was danger here, too. So Ash had to be careful to not blow his cover.

“Why?” the woman asked again, her voice sharp with impatience that he hadn’t answered yet.

She definitely reminded him of his grandmother, at least as much as he could remember of the austere woman from whom his father had run away as a teenager. After he’d gotten married and had Ash, he’d come back to visit, but Grandma hadn’t approved of Ash’s mother any more than she had her own son.

Because the woman was kind of intimidating and because it was easier to sell a cover if you told as much of the truth as possible, Ash replied honestly, “I want to meet someone.”

The woman emitted a wistful sigh. “You will,” she assured him. “You will.”

He glanced down the table again to where the threat chatted easily with the man across from her. He was bald with no neck and an ill-fitting suit. Was he a buyer?

“Ooooh,” the woman across from Ash said as if she’d just learned something momentous.

Had he given himself away?

He turned back to her and found her studying him through the thick lenses of her small glasses.

“You already have your eye on someone,” she said, and she pointed down the table at the threat.

Ash swallowed a groan. He had given himself away. So he offered the woman a sheepish grin. “Am I that obvious?”

She shrugged. “I’m observant. I don’t think she’s noticed you at all, though. And in my opinion, you could do better than that pale little blonde.”

It could have been the crimson shade of her tight dress or the pale yellow of her hair that made her skin look translucent. But he knew it wasn’t—even while he admired the fit of that dress and the bright shade of lipstick on her wide mouth and the shimmer of her light hair.

The woman snorted derisively. “She looks like she hasn’t been out in the daylight for years.”

Ash knew why Claire Molenski looked that way. She hadn’t been out in the daylight for years. And if he had his way, he would be locking her back up again soon.

He just had to catch her before she and her greed put into motion an economic and security catastrophe of epic proportions.

* * *

CLAIRE’S HEAD WAS THROBBING, and the smile felt frozen on her face. Her lips were so dry that they were now stuck to her teeth, so she couldn’t pull them down again. This is what you wanted, she reminded herself.

A new life. A life that wasn’t so lonely and empty.

She doubted she was going to find that new life in the dining room of the Waterview Inn, though. Most of the guys were much older than she was and some, from the deep indents on their ring fingers, were not as eligible as they claimed. In fact, when she sneezed, one pulled out a handkerchief for her and whipped out his ring as well, which rolled across the grape-leaf-and-vine-patterned carpet.

She giggled as he chased after it. But then that strange feeling assailed her—as if everyone was staring at her. She looked around the room but noticed no one overtly studying her. Maybe she was just paranoid because she hadn’t been out in public for a while—for a long while.

That was the whole purpose of coming here. She could have just signed up for online dating. But she’d wanted to go out and actually meet real people—people with personality and character. Only she hadn’t yet met anyone she cared to date. The bell dinged again, so she drew in a deep breath to brace herself for the next man to take the chair across from her.

First she looked at his hands, which he’d braced on the table in front of him. The ring finger held no telltale indentation. So she glanced up, and the breath she’d drawn escaped in a gasp of surprise.

Very pleasant surprise. This man wasn’t too old for her. His hair was thick and black, and his eyes were a piercing blue. So piercing that he seemed to peer right through her. Had it been his stare that she’d felt earlier?

“Hello,” she said. “My name’s Claire.”

So many of the other men had remarked that it was odd that such a young woman had such an old-fashioned name, but he just nodded, almost as if he’d known her name. But she had never met him before; he was the kind of man a woman would never forget meeting.

So she was definitely just paranoid.

“What’s your name?” she asked when he didn’t freely offer it.

“Ash,” he replied almost reluctantly.

She floundered around for something clever to say, but her mind was blank. Maybe it was because he was so damn good-looking; maybe it was just because she had no idea how to date anymore. It had been too long.

She had read some books about how to flirt when dating. But none of what she read came to her mind. It remained blank, which was a novelty since she was usually unable to stop thinking.

“What do you do for a living, Claire?” he asked.

Several other men had asked that same question, but she actually wanted to tell him the truth. “I work with computers,” she said.

“A programmer?”

She was more like a deprogrammer, but she didn’t want to explain that. Legally, she really couldn’t. So she just nodded. “Yes, it’s boring. What about you?” she asked. “What do you do for a living?”

“Government job,” he replied. “It’s boring, too.”

“Politics?” she asked. With that face, she could see him smiling at voters, kissing babies, shaking hands...

He shook his head. “That probably wouldn’t be boring.”

“Probably not,” she agreed. “So you have a desk job, too?”

“Sometimes,” he replied.

He had that whole mysterious thing going on, which had probably worked well for him with some of the other women. But Claire wasn’t looking for complicated. She’d already had enough of that in her life. She was looking for simple and open and honest and fun—which was why none of the other men had worked for her, either.

Finally the smile left her face. She didn’t have the strength to make the effort to fake it anymore. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t be here.”

Maybe she wasn’t ready. Maybe she hadn’t done enough research. Maybe it was that feeling of being watched—even if she was totally wrong—that unnerved her.

“Aren’t you available after all?” he asked.

Again she felt as if he asked a question to which he already knew the answer. She shook her head and tried to shake off her uncharacteristic paranoia. “That’s not it,” she said. “I’m just not ready...”

She pushed back her chair and stood up as he stood up, too. He towered over her in height and breadth with his impossibly wide shoulders and chest. His black sweater and dress pants made him look incredibly handsome and incredibly imposing. She definitely wasn’t ready—especially not for him.

She couldn’t believe someone like him would have even come to a speed dating event. He had to have women throwing themselves at him constantly. He didn’t belong here, either. But she would leave it up to him to figure that out.

“I have to go,” she said, and now panic was joining the paranoia, pressing down on her chest so that she struggled to draw a breath.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I need some air...” She whirled around so quickly that she knocked over her chair before rushing from the room.

His deep voice called after her, “I hope it wasn’t something I said...”

A woman Claire passed on her way out laughed. “That’s not likely...”

Claire heard nothing else but the sound of her own pulse pounding in her ears. What about that man had made her so nervous?

She hadn’t even waited for the bell to ding before leaving him. For some reason she hadn’t dared. Maybe it was the feeling he already knew things about her that she hadn’t told him that had unnerved her. Or had it been the way he had looked at her—as if he could see right through her?

Or maybe it had just been the way he looked—too handsome. Dating him would be like going from a bicycle to racing motorcycles. If she was going to start dating, she needed to start on the bicycle with training wheels.

She had taken a room in the hotel for the night in case she’d had too much to drink and hadn’t wanted to risk her life or anyone else’s by driving. But she had barely taken more than a sip of her glass of wine, so she could drive herself home. She would feel safer in her apartment than this hotel. As she crossed the lobby, she felt as if even the eyes in the portraits were following her. She didn’t need to go up to the room since all her overnight things were still in her oversize purse. So she headed straight for the front doors.

Night had fallen since the speed dating event had started. Even with the streetlights, the parking lot was dark. This hotel was outside the city of Chicago, so it had no parking garage and no valet service. She had to find her own vehicle but at least the lot was just out in front of the hotel.

She was reaching inside her bag, digging for her keys, when someone grabbed her. A strong arm wrapped tightly around her, binding her arms to her sides, as the man lifted her off her feet. She parted her lips to scream, but a big hand clamped down hard over her mouth, muffling her cry for help and nearly smothering her.

Or maybe it wasn’t the hand but the handkerchief it held against her mouth and nose that smothered her—with the sweet, cloying scent of chloroform.

If she didn’t fight fast and hard, she would soon lose her chance.

And maybe her life...

Chapter Two

“I lost eyes on her.” A voice emanated from Ash’s earpiece. It was a two-way radio that transmitted what he said and what the other agents said. “She’s gone...”

Claire Molenski had stepped through the front doors of the hotel and disappeared into the darkness. Ash had followed her from the dining room, but at a discreet distance that had only drawn the attention of the older woman who had earlier noticed him staring at Claire. The woman had winked at him, either teasing him or encouraging him. Ash had waited only a few minutes before exiting those lobby doors and stepping into the lot.

“Where the hell has she gone?” he asked the question more to himself than to the other agents who could hear him through their earpieces. He hadn’t been far behind her.

“We lost the visual on the subject,” another agent remarked.

Ash cursed. How had she slipped the surveillance so easily? The woman was a bigger threat than even he had realized. And from the minute her name had come to his attention, she’d had his full attention. He’d known this woman was going to be dangerous.

He stepped deeper into the shadows of the dimly lit parking lot. And he heard something. Something muffled and soft—like a crying kitten—was just loud enough to draw his attention. There were plenty of strays in the questionable outskirts of Chicago.

But was it a trick? A lure?

He moved carefully between the parked cars, keeping low so that no one noticed him. But he noticed a dark shadow, probably of a man, bent over as he lifted something from the asphalt. Lights flashed on as a car started, dispelling the shadow to the image of a hulky bald-headed man. The light shimmered off the pale blond hair of the woman that the man carried.

Claire.

Her head lolled back, her eyes closed. She was either unconscious or dead. That cry Ash had heard must have been her last weak attempt to scream for help. Had he heard her too late? But if she was dead, why was the man carrying her? To dispose of the body?

Ash reached beneath his sweater and drew his gun from his holster. He could have spoken into the radio and signaled for help. But then he might have also made the man aware of his presence. And if he was going to overpower him, he needed the element of surprise.

So he crept through the rows of parked cars as the driver of the vehicle with the lights honked and rolled down his window. Ash had thought it was an accomplice. But the driver called out, “Is everything okay? Is she okay?”

“Just had too much to drink,” the man murmured, his accent so thick the words were hard to comprehend.

The driver hesitated yet, his car idling in the lot. He must have realized what Ash had—that the situation wasn’t right. At the very least it wasn’t what the man claimed. Ash had only seen Claire take one sip of her wine and no more. Had it been drugged?

Maybe that was why she had rushed off the way she had. But she had been clear-eyed and coherent then. Whatever had happened to her had happened after she’d stepped through the doors of the hotel and out of Ash’s sight. It had happened so damn quickly that he’d nearly lost her—and still might.

“Why don’t we call hotel security?” the driver suggested.

The man slung Claire over one arm and pulled a gun with his other. He pointed the barrel through the open window of the car. “Why don’t you mind your own damn business?”

Chivalry forgotten now, the driver sped off—tires squealing as the car careened out of the lot. The car had drawn the attention of other agents, who ran across the lot toward the man.

Ash stepped from the shadows, the barrel of his gun pointing at the man’s heart. Claire was slung over his other shoulder, and so small that Ash wouldn’t hit her if he fired. Or at least he hoped he wouldn’t...

“She is my business,” Ash said. “So you can put her down now or you can take a bullet.”

The big man scoffed. “You will shoot me?”

Ash shrugged. “Either I will shoot you or one of the other FBI agents will.”

All around them, guns cocked. Ash hoped all of those guns belonged to fellow agents. But some could have belonged to this man’s associates. Would he have attempted this abduction alone? Which country or group might they be from?

“Put her down,” Ash said.

“I could kill her,” the man threatened.

“If that was the plan,” Ash said, “she would already be dead. But then she wouldn’t be worth anything.”

The threat she posed would have been eliminated, though. Ash’s assignment accomplished. But that gave him no sense of relief—only regret. Anger surged through him, heating his blood despite the cool night air. He had no intention of letting this man, or anyone else, kill Claire Molenski.

The man turned his weapon on Ash, pointing the barrel at him. “Then I will kill you—”

Before he could fire, someone else took the shot, and the big man crumpled to the asphalt. Ash lunged forward and caught Claire before she could hit the ground, too. She was incredibly light and small, more like the weight and size of a child than a woman. But there was nothing innocent or vulnerable about her. He had to remind himself of that; he had to remind himself that she was the danger.

But because of what she knew—and how many nefarious groups and governments wanted that knowledge—she was also in danger. Some people or countries weren’t able or willing to pay for the information she had; instead they would torture her for it.

Ash had seen men three times her size break. Claire Molenski wouldn’t survive. So just watching her wasn’t going to be enough to keep her safe. But protecting her, like she needed protection, would make it harder to gather enough evidence for her arrest.

* * *

HER HEART POUNDING WILDLY, Claire awoke in a panic. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious, if it had been minutes or hours since she’d been chloroformed.

Where had she been taken? She blinked her eyes wide, trying to clear her fuzzy vision and her fuzzy head. But the room was dark.

She reached out and breathed a sigh of relief that her hands weren’t bound. Her fingers skimmed across silky material, and she recognized the soft surface on which she was lying. She had been carried to a bed. She skimmed her hands down her body and breathed another sigh of relief that she still wore her dress. Maybe nobody had hurt her.

Yet.

But then a lamp snapped on, and she blinked against the brightness of the light shining in her eyes. “What—where am I?”

“Your room,” a deep voice replied.

She couldn’t see him—not with the light filling her vision field with spots. Who was he?

And why was he lying to her?

This wasn’t her room. Her bed wasn’t this soft and smooth. Her mattress was old and lumpy, but since she was rarely home, she hadn’t seen the reason to replace it. Or to make the bed, either. Her sheets were never smooth. They were always rumpled, usually kicked to a tangled mess at the foot of the bed, as she rushed to get to the office. She was pretty much always at work—before the sun rose in the morning until after it set again at night.

“Why did you grab me?” she asked, her pulse still racing. While she wasn’t bound, she had been abducted.

He replied matter-of-factly, “So you wouldn’t hit the ground.”

“I wasn’t going to fall...” She blinked again, and her eyes adjusted to the light enough that she could make him out standing over the bed.

He was tall—taller than she had even realized when she’d talked to him across the table earlier. And he was so broad. No wonder he had overpowered her so easily in the parking lot in the dark. If only she’d seen him coming, maybe she could have outrun him.

Then she remembered the heels she’d been wearing; he would have caught her and easily once she had twisted her ankle. She wiggled her toes, grateful that her shoes were gone. Maybe she could run now.

“Why?” she asked, her fears growing even more. “Why would you bring me here?”

“This is your room,” he repeated. “The one you rented at the hotel.”

“Oh...” She had rented a room. But she had changed her mind about using it. Obviously he’d had other plans.

“Why did you drug me?” she asked, although she was afraid that she knew the answer.

Was he the kind of man who didn’t take rejection well? With the way he looked, he probably wasn’t often rejected. Did he intend to take what she hadn’t been willing to offer him?

“I didn’t drug you,” he said.

“Someone grabbed me in the parking lot,” she said, “and put something over my mouth and nose...”

“Chloroform,” he replied again so matter-of-factly.

“So you admit to using it on me?” she asked, and anger joined her fear. And again she was grateful her hands weren’t bound because she would fight him. She would hurt him as badly as he intended to hurt her.

“No,” he said. “I recognized the smell. That’s why I brought you back to your room, so you could regain consciousness.”

“What do you intend to do to me?” she asked, her heart continuing to pound wildly with fear.

He sighed and pushed a hand through his dark hair. “I wish I knew...”

“Then why did you grab me?” If he had no plan...

“I only grabbed you after your abductor had been shot,” he said, as if his crazy explanation made perfect sense.

“Abductor?” So now he was trying to place the blame on someone else.

He nodded. “I don’t know who the man was.”

“Was?”

He nodded again but grimly this time, his strong-looking jaw clenched. “He’s gone.”

“Dead?” Her voice squeaked with the question. “You killed him?” Maybe there had really been another man...before he’d died.

“No,” he said. “Another agent shot him...before he could shoot me.”

“And then you brought me back here,” she said, as if she was following his preposterous story. The man was obviously deranged. No wonder he’d followed her out of the hotel and tried to grab her.

And she had thought getting to know someone in person first would be safer than dating someone she’d only met online. Maybe dating at all was a bad idea. But how else was she ever going to meet someone who could share her life—her hopes, her dreams?

Somehow she suspected that having a relationship wasn’t going to be an issue for her anymore—unless she could somehow overpower this muscular man and escape him. She tried to peer around him to determine how far away the door was.

Or maybe she could yell...

Weren’t hotel room walls notoriously thin?

She opened her mouth to scream, but his palm slid across her lips, silencing her. And he joined her on the bed, his thigh hard and warm against her hip. She tried to struggle, but he easily held her down—pushing her into the mattress. And she noticed that his sweater had ridden up, revealing a holster and a gun. He was armed.

Tears stung her eyes as fear overwhelmed her. What was he going to do to her?

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, almost as if he regretted that he wasn’t. “I’ve been watching you...”

So she hadn’t been paranoid.

“I’m trying to stop you from doing something that’s going to put your life and the country in danger,” he said. “But obviously I’m too late. You’re already in danger.”

She had realized that back in the parking lot. She’d been scared then. She was terrified now.

“Have you put the country in danger, too?” he asked.

She moved her lips against his palm, as if she was trying to answer his question. As if she could actually answer something so absurd...

She only wanted him to move his hand so that she could scream. If he didn’t want her making any noise, he wouldn’t risk shooting her. Would he?

If she screamed, hopefully someone would hear her and come to her aid. It was her only chance to escape this man and his madness.

But he didn’t move his hand. In fact, it covered her entire face, his fingers covering one ear and his thumb the other. She could still hear him, though—still hear his ridiculous questions.

“Did you already endanger national security?” he asked.

“How?” she murmured the word against his palm.

Who did he think she was? He must have mistaken her for someone else. Maybe it was dawning on him because he stared down at her through narrowed eyes as if determining if he should trust her. He moved his palm slightly.

She could have screamed. But he could still shoot her before help arrived. And then he could shoot whoever might have been chivalrous enough to help her. So she spoke quietly instead. “Who do you think I am?”

His mouth curved into a slight smile. “You’re Claire Molenski.”

Her pulse quickened before she reminded herself that she had given him her first name. And he’d had time while she was unconscious to go through her purse and find her license. Oh, God, if he had seen her license, he also knew where she lived. He could have taken her keys, too, for her car and her house.

But why?

“Who are you?” she asked.

During their speed dating round, he had only given her his first name but that might have been as made up as his other wild stories.

“Ash,” he said. “Special Agent Ash Stryker.”

That name definitely sounded made up to her. But then he tugged on the chain that disappeared beneath the neck of his black sweater and pulled out a big shield. She had seen enough of those the past several years that she realized the shield was real.

And so was Special Agent Ash Stryker.

Dread overwhelmed her and she groaned. “No...”

Triumph flashed in his light blue eyes. “You didn’t think we would trace the online auction back to you?”

“Online auction?” He might have been telling the truth about who he was and what had happened, but none of it made any sense to her. All she understood was that somehow her life was turning upside down—again. And she didn’t know how to turn it right side up. “What do you think I’m selling?”

He just stared at her, obviously convinced that she knew, so that he wasn’t even going to bother to answer.

Annoyance flashed through her. She had been too young before to fight for herself. She wasn’t going to go down this time without a fight.

“Do you think I’m selling my body?” she asked.

His lips quirked again, as if he was tempted to grin. “That might explain the speed dating and the hotel room...”

He flicked his gaze down her short, tight dress, as if he were actually considering buying. And heat flashed through her now, making her skin tingle with excitement. But then she reminded herself that he was an FBI agent, and a cold chill chased away the heat.

“But an FBI agent,” she said, “especially an FBI special agent wouldn’t waste his time investigating something that a vice cop would handle.”

He arched a dark brow and asked, “Do you know much about Vice?”

“No.” She sighed. “But I do know about the Federal Bureau of Investigations.”

He didn’t ask why; he would have read her file. The FBI probably had a volume on her by now.

“So, Special Agent Ash Stryker,” she addressed him. “How are you going to ruin my life this time?”

Chapter Three

The woman was trouble. Ash had known that before he’d even met her. But she was even more dangerous in person than he had expected her to be.

Because he hadn’t expected his reaction to her—his very physical, very male reaction to her beauty. Her skin was porcelain—all pale and smooth—and too much of it showed beneath the short skirt of her tight red dress. Damn, she was sexy. She knew it, too, and was using it to her advantage with that flirtatious comment about selling her body.

Hell, if she was really selling, he might have been tempted to make an offer. She was that beautiful. But she was also that treacherous.

“I have never met you before,” he reminded her. “So I have had no part in ruining your life.”

Was that why she had betrayed her country? Out of spite over her arrest years ago?

“You’re such a suit,” she uttered the slang word for FBI agent with total disdain. “Even without the suit, I should have realized you were an FBI agent. I knew something wasn’t right with you.”

Her remark had his pride stinging. He was good at going undercover. Nobody else had ever suspected he wasn’t who he was pretending to be—even when he’d gone deep undercover with motorcycle gangs and militia groups. But maybe he had been more out of his element speed dating than he had ever been anywhere else.

“Actually, everything’s right with me,” he said. “You’re the one in the wrong.”

She shook her head, and her silky blond hair skimmed across her shoulders, which were bare but for thin red spaghetti straps. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“I believe that’s what you said last time—”

“It was true last time, too,” she insisted.

“You hacked into a bank,” he reminded her since she seemed to have forgotten what she’d done. “And cleaned out someone’s account.”

She defensively crossed her arms over her chest. “I had my reasons.”

“Do you have reasons this time, too?” he asked. “Because the only one I can think of is greed.”

“You thought that was my reason last time, too,” she murmured with even more disdain—as if she thought him an idiot. “But I didn’t keep that money. I gave it all away to charity.”

“It wasn’t your money to give,” he pointed out. “And I didn’t have anything to do with your last arrest.” He hadn’t even been an agent then. He had probably still been a marine at that time. The Bureau had recruited him out of the service to become an agent. He had been surprised that either of them—the marines or the Bureau—had wanted him, given his background.

She sucked in a sharp breath, and her eyes widened with fear again. When she’d regained consciousness, she had seemed genuinely afraid. Despite what she’d started with her online activity, she obviously hadn’t expected that she’d put herself in danger.

“Last arrest?” she repeated his words. “Is there going to be another arrest?”

Not unless he could find some more concrete evidence against her. It wasn’t enough that knowledge only she possessed had been offered for sale. She was smart enough now that the online auction couldn’t be traced directly back to her...except for that knowledge. He would have only been able to arrest her if he could have caught her in the act of selling the information. That was why he had come to the speed dating event, to pose as a buyer.

But somehow he must have spooked her before he had even been able to put in his bid. Then having to rescue her in the parking lot had completely blown his cover. Now it would be harder to find evidence against her. Now that she knew the FBI was on to her she was going to be even more careful. But maybe he could convince her to confess—if he could bluff enough that she thought the Bureau already had enough evidence for an arrest.

“You tell me if I should take you into custody,” he suggested. “Have you already sold it?”

“Sold what?” she asked, acting as confused as she had when he had mentioned her online auction earlier.

Claire Molenski was as good an actress as she was a hacker because he was almost starting to buy her act. But only almost. From going undercover himself, he knew how easy it was to assume a role. He usually had to assume one of guilt because he was acting like a criminal. She was assuming one of innocence because she was acting like a victim. As if she had been unjustly persecuted before and now.

But it was just an act. Just an act...

Someone’s phone rang. It wasn’t his; he always kept that on vibrate. So he reached for her purse and pulled out her ringing cell.

“Maybe this is your buyer.”

And maybe here was his evidence. If this caller made an offer for her information and arrangements for an exchange, Ash had her. Instead of triumph, though, he felt a flash of disappointment.

* * *

CLAIRE DIDN’T CARE that he had a gun. She grabbed for her phone anyway. She wasn’t worried about him intercepting a call from a buyer. She still had no idea what he thought she was trying to sell. She was actually worried that he might intercept a call from someone from the dating service she had joined.

She didn’t want a man answering her phone and scaring away a potential match. She had spent too much of her life alone; she wanted to share it with someone now.

But he ignored her attempt to grab for it and clicked on the talk button. “Hello.”

She groaned. She had only given out her number to a couple of promising prospects from the dating service—to guys that the service had matched her with for compatibility. She hadn’t needed five minutes or a dating service personality test to determine that she was totally incompatible with this man.

These potential matches wouldn’t be too promising either after Ash got through with them, especially when he continued speaking, “This is Special Agent Stryker...”

She swallowed another groan. Uttering it would do her no good—just as explaining her hacking nine years ago had done her no good, either. She had still been arrested. She’d been convicted. She’d been sentenced. While she hadn’t spent any time actually behind bars in the juvenile detention center with which she’d been threatened, she had been locked up—in a classroom studying to be an even better hacker. And then in a business that specialized in internet security.

“It’s your boss,” Stryker told her.

She’d worked for Peter Nowak for years, but the former CIA agent still intimidated the hell out of her. Her hand trembled slightly as she reached out for the phone, but Ash Stryker ignored her and continued to listen.

“Give it to me,” she insisted.

But he shook his head, still denying her access. To her phone or to the help she would be able to seek with it? She wasn’t sure how much help Peter would be, though, if he also suspected her of whatever the FBI did.

She could call a lawyer, though, like she should have last time. But she hadn’t wanted her father to go broke trying to pay her legal fees.

Ash replied to whatever her boss had said with “We’ll be right there.” Then he clicked off her cell phone and pocketed it.

“Why are you speaking for me?” she asked. “Am I in your custody?” Had she already been arrested but she had been too drugged to understand her rights? She really needed to call a lawyer this time.

“Your boss said the building was broken into—”

She shook her head, not buying this story of his just as she hadn’t the first stories he’d told her. “We have an excellent security system at the office.” Peter had designed it himself. “We also have armed guards. There’s no way anyone got in—”

“The alarm system was compromised,” he said.

She shook her head, unable to believe it. “But there are guards—”

“One of them was shot.”

She gasped as her heart pounded. She saw those guards every day as she passed them on her way in and out of the office. “No! Who? Is he all right?”

“Nowak is at the hospital with the man.”

“Then we need to go there, too,” she said.

“He told us to go to the company instead.”

“But why would he want me to go there?” She wasn’t in management. She had nothing to do with the details of running the company or the office.

“Your personal office was the only one that had been broken into,” Stryker said. “We’re going there right now to make sure nothing’s been taken.”

“My office?” She shook her head in denial. “That makes no sense.”

“Someone tried grabbing you in the parking lot,” he reminded her. “Since they couldn’t get the information from you directly, they must have tried getting it from your office.”

She wanted to scream in frustration at his stubbornness. But apparently he wasn’t the only one with the wrong idea about her. “So a man was shot over something someone thinks I’m trying to sell?”

The guard was shot because of her?

She leaped up from the bed, but the aftereffects of the chloroform must have included dizziness. Feeling faint, she nearly toppled over, but he caught her.

If what he’d claimed earlier was true, he had already caught her another time that night.

“We need to go,” he said.

“To the hospital—”

“Are you all right?” he asked as he held her up, his hands warm on her shoulders.

Her legs were too rubbery for her to stand without support. But she insisted, “I’m fine.” Or she would be once the room stopped spinning. “I want to go check on the guard.”

“Your boss said the man is in stable condition. He will be fine,” he assured her. “We need to go to your office and make sure nothing’s been taken.”

She hadn’t left anything of value to anyone else in her office. But there were things of value to her there, things she couldn’t replace. And she would be of more use at the office than she would be pacing a hospital waiting room. She wasn’t even sure she knew who had been wounded, but it didn’t matter. She still felt somehow responsible. Why had someone broken into the company and then only into her office?

“Okay,” she said and pulled away from him. Her skin tingled from where his hands had grasped her shoulders when he’d been holding her upright. She needed distance from him. “Let’s go!”

“You’re in an awful hurry,” he said. “But then you wouldn’t want someone to steal what you’re trying to sell.”

Beyond irritated with him, she gritted her teeth and replied, “I am not selling anything.”

“You want me to believe you were at this hotel tonight because you really were speed dating?” He sounded horrified at the prospect.

Heat rushed to her face, which had probably turned as red as her dress. “I really was...”

He glanced around the hotel room. “Is that why you rented a room?”

Her face got even hotter. “I rented a room in case I’d had too much to drink.” And she felt as if she had, thanks to the chloroform making her head fuzzy and her legs weak. Or maybe Agent Stryker had made her legs weak. It really wasn’t fair that the FBI agent was so ridiculously good-looking. “I didn’t rent a room because I thought I’d get lucky.”

There had been nothing lucky about meeting Agent Stryker. And while she wanted to meet someone else, she hadn’t expected much from the speed dating experience. She certainly hadn’t expected to fall in love in five minutes.

On the floor next to the bed she noticed her shoes and her purse. She stepped into the uncomfortable heels. Then she grabbed up her purse and reached into the oversize bag to search for her keys. “I’ll drive myself to the office.”

He held up her keys; she recognized them because the rhinestone wristband attached to the chain caught the light. She’d bought the wristband key chain so she could slip it over her wrist and always have her keys accessible. Yet she kept tossing them into her bag out of habit.

“We’ll take my car,” he said as he walked toward the hotel room door. He didn’t wait to see if she followed him. He just opened the door and stepped into the hall.

That same feeling of helplessness washed over Claire like it had nine years ago when nobody had believed her about the hacking. Or maybe they’d only cared that she had and not why she had.

She didn’t want to ride with him. “But my car has the permit for the company parking lot,” she said as she hurried after him.

“My car is FBI,” he said. “That gives me a permit to park wherever I want.”

She pulled the hotel room door shut and mouthed his words behind his back. Sure, she was acting childish, but he was just so arrogant and infuriating and...

He chuckled, so he must have somehow witnessed her juvenile behavior. Did he have eyes in the back of his head? “Are you coming?” he asked.

She wanted to say no, but since he had her keys she had no choice. Unless she hailed a cab...

Maybe she should hail a cab. And call a lawyer.

But first she had to go to the office. Had to make sure nothing had been taken. Had to try to figure out what someone had been looking for.

But he had her keys—not just to her car but to her office, too.

“Yes,” she finally, reluctantly, replied.

“Come on, then,” he said, as if she was a child that needed his direction and protection. “You need to stick close to me.”

He had just uttered the words when a door creaked open and a dark shadow filled the hallway ahead of him. Reminded of the man accosting her in the parking lot, Claire shivered with foreboding. She glanced back at the hotel room, but she’d closed the door. And like her keys, Ash probably had the card to the room; she couldn’t reenter without it.

So she hurried up to close the distance between them. But he held out a hand to her as if shoving her back. He used his other hand to withdraw his gun from his holster. She shook her head in protest.

If he pointed that gun at some unsuspecting hotel guests, he was going to scare them to death—like he had nearly scared her when she’d awakened to find him leaning over her.

“Ash...” Maybe she should have called him Special Agent Stryker, but for some reason his first name was what had slipped out of her lips.

Regardless of what she’d called him, he lifted a finger to his lips, silencing her.

The shadow stepped through the stairwell doorway and into the hall. The shadow belonged to a man—a big man—and like Ash, he carried a gun. He pointed the barrel at Special Agent Stryker.

“FBI,” Ash called out.

The man didn’t care. He cocked the gun and pulled the trigger. But Ash fired, too.

Claire screamed and ducked as bullets struck the walls of the hallway, tearing through the blue-and-green-striped paper to burrow into the drywall. Or pass through into the rooms of those unsuspecting guests.

“Stay down!” Ash ordered her.

Then a bullet must have struck him because he staggered back. But he kept his body between hers and the shooter, using it to protect her as he returned fire.

She screamed again but she wasn’t worried just about herself or those guests; she was worried about him. Had he been hurt badly?

Chapter Four

Ash cursed as the force of the bullet propelled him back. He nearly knocked over Claire, who stood behind him like he had directed her. Maybe he should have told her to run. But the man with the gun stood between them and the stairwell and the elevators.

She had no place to run.

Even if he passed her the key card to the hotel room, she wouldn’t be safe inside the room—at least not for long. A man this big could easily knock down her door. The only way to keep her safe was to eliminate the threat to her safety.

So Ash fired again. But this was a kill shot. The big man crumpled to the carpet like the guy in the parking lot had crumpled to the asphalt.

“It’s okay,” Ash told her as he turned back to Claire. “It’s over.” For now. But how long before someone else tried to abduct her? And why?

Why not just pay what she asked for the information? Unless she was telling the truth...

She moved as if to look around him, but he used his body to block her view. She didn’t need to see what he had done to protect them. But instead of moving around him, she moved toward him—her hands reaching out toward his chest.

“Are you all right?” she asked, her voice cracking with concern.

He nodded. But he wasn’t entirely convinced that he was all right because he was beginning to believe her and doubt himself. She had been so concerned about the security guard and now about him. Maybe she wasn’t the mercenary person he thought she was.

“But you were shot!” she exclaimed, her palms patting his chest as if she were searching for the wound.

He caught her hands and pressed them more tightly against his vest. “I’m fine.”

She shook her head. “You must be hurt.”

“The protective vest took the bullet,” he assured her. He had only felt the impact of the too-close shot. And he would probably have a bruise on his chest from the force with which the bullet had struck the vest. He pulled her hands away from his chest, and she tugged them free of his grasp.

“Thank God you’re wearing a vest.” Her breath shuddered out with sincere-sounding relief. “But of course you would be wearing a vest.”

“Of course.” But there had been times that he hadn’t been able to when he’d been undercover. He couldn’t have risked someone noticing the vest, no matter how thin and indiscernible the Bureau vests were. He also hadn’t been able to wear a wire then, either. He had been totally on his own. But that hadn’t been anything new to Ash.

“Maybe I should be wearing one, too,” she mused, and she must have finally caught sight of the man he’d shot because she shuddered in revulsion.

“He wasn’t shooting at you,” he said.

Her green eyes widened in skepticism. “Really? I was right behind you.”

“He wouldn’t have hit you.” The guy had been aiming only for Ash.

“Why not?” she asked.

“You’re too valuable.”

She laughed like he’d heard her laugh during the speed dating event, like he had told her a not-so-funny joke like those other guys must have. “Yeah, right...”

Was her self-deprecation real or feigned? He believed it was real, because he was beginning to believe her. He had conceived his opinion of her from her file—from the things she’d done in her past. He of all people should have known better than to think a person’s past defined the kind of person he or she would become.

“The information you have is valuable,” he clarified. “They want to know what you know.”

“But you think I’m offering that information for sale,” she said. “So why wouldn’t they just pay me for it?”

“Some people would rather get the information for free,” he said.

She glanced toward the man lying on the floor and shook her head. “That’s not free.”

No. Like the man in the parking lot, this guy had undoubtedly been hired to abduct Claire, but whatever they’d been paid hadn’t been enough. The mission had cost them both their lives.

Ash rubbed his chest where the bullet had struck the vest right over his heart. If not for the vest...

During his years with the Bureau, Ash had had some dangerous assignments, but now he wondered if this mission would be the one that cost him his life.

* * *

HE HAD KILLED a man, but the police hadn’t questioned him. Of course Special Agent Ash Stryker hadn’t stuck around to talk to them, either. He’d whisked Claire out of the hotel as if nothing had happened.

But the gunshots still rang in her ears, and she trembled in the aftermath of the close call. Maybe he was right. Maybe the man hadn’t been shooting at her. But she’d thought Ash had been hit, which had been entirely too close for her.

She had actually touched him, just to check his chest to see if a bullet had struck his heart. But he’d been wearing a vest. She’d felt the hardness beneath the softness of his sweater. Maybe she should have checked beneath the vest, too. At the thought of pulling up his sweater and peeling off that vest, her pulse quickened. Would his chest have dark hair that would be soft to her touch? Or would his muscles be all sleek and smooth beneath her palms? Her breath caught at both images.

“Is something missing?” Agent Stryker asked.

Her face heated with embarrassment that he had caught her daydreaming about him when she was supposed to be checking her ransacked office to see what could have been missing. Why would someone break into her office?

The power was on her computer but her files were untouched. Nobody would have been able to bypass her security passwords, though. And once they’d sounded the alarm and shot the guard, they wouldn’t have had time to even try to figure it out.

What were they so desperate to steal from her?

She reached for the snow globe paperweight that sat next to her monitor. She shook it and watched the flakes float onto the pond, a tiny figurine of a father skated around with the tiny figurine of his daughter perched high upon his shoulders. Her breath shuddered out in relief. “It’s okay.”

“You were worried about a paperweight?” he asked, his blue eyes narrowed with skepticism.

“Have you ever seen anything like it?” she asked as she held it out toward him.

He shrugged. “It’s a snow globe.”

“It’s special,” she said with a soft sigh as sweet, old memories rushed over her. “My father gave it to me.”

“Is he dead?”

She gasped at the horror of such a loss. “No!”

He reached for the paperweight, engulfing the delicate glass globe in his big hands. “I don’t see what’s so special about it,” he said as he studied it more closely, “unless you hid a flash drive inside it.”

Afraid that he might smash it onto the floor to look for something hidden inside, she grabbed for it, her fingers sliding over his as he gripped the globe. “Don’t break it! My father had that specially made for me.” To commemorate a perfect day. Of course it had been just the two of them...

Maybe she shouldn’t have gotten so upset when her mother left them since she had never really spent that much time with them anyway. And Claire probably wouldn’t have if her father hadn’t gotten so upset. He had been in so much pain that she’d had to lash out. She sighed again, but this time with regret.

“He’s not dead,” Ash reminded her.

“Does he have to be?” she asked. “Why can’t something he gave me be important to me while he’s alive?”

Ash just shrugged again.

Her heart sank as she had a grim realization. “Your father’s dead.”

He jerked his head in a quick nod, as if he was embarrassed to admit it.

“I’m sorry.”

Now he shrugged off her sympathy. “It happened a long time ago.”

She doubted that would have lessened his pain very much. If something happened to her father, she would miss him forever. “That must have been tough on you and your mom.”

“My mom died with him,” he said.

Her hands still covered his, over the snow globe, so she squeezed, offering sympathy and comfort. “That must have been horrible for you. To lose them both...”

For a while she had felt like she had, too.

Ash focused on her now, as if he’d picked up on the tone of her voice. “You lost your mom.”

“Yes,” she said but then hastened to add, “but not like you did, though. She’s alive. She’s just gone. When I was sixteen, she left my dad and went to live in England with a man she’d met online.”

His eyes widened, and then he nodded with sudden realization. “That was when you hacked into that bank.”

“It was the bank that he used and the only money I took was from his account,” she said. For some reason she wanted him to know that greed hadn’t motivated her. But was it any better that spite had?

He chuckled. “And if I remember right from what I read in your file, you donated that money to a charity called Family First.”

She couldn’t chuckle. Even after all these years, she was still kind of bitter. Probably too bitter. “I wanted to hurt him.”

“Instead you’re the one you hurt,” he said. “Because he pressed charges.”

And yet her mother had stayed with the man. Clearly Bonita Molenski had made her choice when she’d left them, but still it had hurt Claire that her mother had cared so little about her that she would have let her go to juvenile detention. But then the FBI had offered Claire another option.

“You’ve definitely read my file,” she mused. Either he’d read it a few times, or he had a photographic memory. She glanced around her ransacked office. “It hasn’t been all bad, though. I actually enjoy what I do.”

“You do?” he asked doubtfully, as if he couldn’t understand why.

She laughed at his skepticism. “Yes, I do. I’ve not only been given permission to hack, I’ve been encouraged to do it. It’s fun.”

Or it had been until she had realized that her job was pretty much all she had. Of course she’d spent time with her dad when she hadn’t been working. But he was finally over her mother and had moved on, so it was time she did the same. That was why she’d joined the dating service—one she’d trusted to make sure that none of the participants were already married like her mother had been. That hadn’t been the case at the speed dating event, though. But maybe, like Ash, some of the others hadn’t been there to date, either.

He sighed and released the snow globe to her hands. “You’re not selling a flash drive with inside information on how to get around security firewalls.”

So that was what he’d thought she was selling. “I would never sell that kind of information,” she assured him.

After her arrest all those years ago, she had learned to control her impulsiveness and consider the consequences of her actions before she acted. Ironically, learning that had actually made her a better hacker.

Knuckles rapped against the glass wall of her office. “Hey, Boss, what happened here tonight?”

She turned her attention to her young assistant, who leaned now in her open doorway. His bleached white-blond hair was all mussed up as if he’d been sleeping and his eyes were red-rimmed as if he’d been out partying before he’d fallen asleep. Maybe Martin Crouch wasn’t as young as she thought—he just dressed and acted young. Peter Nowak must have called him in to help her look through her ransacked office.

“The building was broken into and Harold was injured,” she said. As soon as they had arrived at the company, she’d learned the name of the injured guard. Ash had checked in with the hospital again and had assured her that Harold was out of surgery and in stable condition. Fortunately, he would fully recover.

“Is—is he going to be okay?” Martin asked.

He must have been as shocked and horrified as she was. Despite checking security for banks and the government, the company had always been safe and secure—probably because most people didn’t realize exactly what kind of computer consulting they did.

“Yes, he is,” Ash answered for her.

Martin turned his attention to Ash and asked, “Are you a police officer?”

Claire opened her mouth, but before she could reply, Ash answered for her again. “I’m Claire’s boyfriend.”

She sucked in a breath of shock at his outrageous claim. Nobody would actually believe that they were dating—not a former lawbreaker and an FBI agent. But maybe Ash didn’t intend to tell anyone that he was an agent. Her boss knew but national security relied on his ability to keep secrets.

Martin’s bleached blond brows arched in surprise. As her assistant, he knew how many hours they worked and how little time she had for a relationship. “Really?”

“We met through a dating service,” Ash replied with a pointed stare at her—probably so that she would back his story.

“Really?” Martin asked again, and he turned toward Claire now.

Technically Ash hadn’t lied, but she wondered why he hadn’t told more of the truth. Like what he really did for a living. Could he suspect Martin of being involved in offering that information for sale? He suspected her, though, and had revealed that he was an FBI agent. But maybe he’d only done that because she’d nearly been abducted.

Aware of the danger, she followed his lead and replied, “Yes, really. Ash and I met at a speed dating event.” Like Ash, she left out the part that it had been just that evening.

“How come you didn’t mention anything to me about meeting someone?” Martin asked, sounding hurt, which surprised her.

He was her assistant but not her confidant. She didn’t share everything with him. She lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug. “I wanted to see how it worked out before I said anything.”

She was damn sure a relationship would never work out between her and the FBI agent. He thought she was a criminal, and she thought he was too uptight and judgmental.

“So you’re okay?” Martin asked. At first she wasn’t sure what he was talking about—her and Ash—or the break-in. But then he added, “Nothing was taken?”

She tightly clasped the snow globe and shook her head. “Nothing.”

“That’s good,” he said. “Do you want me to help you clean up?”

“No, but thanks for asking, Martin.” She was surprised that he had, though, because she rarely let him touch anything in her space even though he was her assistant.

She hated that someone else had been in her office, touching her things, moving and throwing them around the small area. She didn’t need everything to be neat; she just needed it to be where she’d left it so she would know where to find it again. At least they hadn’t broken the globe or, as far as she could tell, anything else.

“It’s so late,” she told Martin, “that you should just go home.” Like she just wanted to go home...

Martin glanced to Ash again. Either he was concerned about leaving her alone with this strange man or he was seeking permission from Ash to leave.

He was her assistant, though. He was supposed to defer to her. Usually he did—when he wasn’t preoccupied with whatever games he was playing when he should be working instead.

Ash assured him, “I’ll take care of her.”

Was he offering that assurance as an FBI agent? Or as the boyfriend he was pretending to be?

Easily accepting Ash’s claim, Martin nodded and headed for the door. He was probably eager to go back to bed. Or maybe to the party...

Ash waited until her assistant was out of earshot before he asked her, “There really is nothing missing? Not even a flash drive?”

She glanced at the contents of her open desk drawer before closing it again. It had been a long night. She should have been tired, too. “Maybe a flash drive...”

He tensed, his spine straightening so that he stood even taller, making him even more imposing since the muscles in his arms stretched the sleeves of his sweater. His jaw was rigid with tension. He was an FBI agent on full alert.

She laughed at his overreaction and couldn’t resist teasing him. “It’s okay. I have those photos on my hard drive at home. I don’t think the thieves are going to find them nearly as special as I do, though.”

He didn’t laugh; he didn’t even smile. His handsome face still tense, he asked, “Personal photos?”

A pang of panic struck her heart as a terrifying thought occurred to her. “You don’t think they’ll use those photos to go after my family?”

After all, those men had been so determined to abduct her that they had given up their own lives. In order to get to her, they might use someone close to her to influence her. Could what she did for a living actually put her father and his bride at risk?

Chapter Five

Ash didn’t offer Claire false reassurance because it was possible that someone might use her family as leverage to get her to reveal her secrets. And if he continued being honest with her, she might begin to trust him enough to tell him everything she knew. Because even though he now believed she hadn’t offered that security information for sale, she probably knew who might have.

Could her assistant have had something to do with it? He hadn’t looked bright or mature enough to come up with such a plan, though. But then Claire had only been sixteen when she’d hacked into that bank system.

“Tell me about your assistant,” he said even though he already had checked out everyone who worked for Nowak Computer Consulting. That was how Claire Molenski had become his main suspect.

She glanced up from straightening her desk and laughed. “You can’t seriously suspect Martin of anything?”

“He’s your assistant,” he said. “So he must work closely with you, checking security on the same high target sites that you do.”

She gestured around her small office. There was only one desk and only one chair. “I work alone.”

Nowak Computer Consulting was the only company who’d had access to all the sites that had been offered up for sale at the online auction. So Ash had thoroughly studied it. As well as talking to Peter Nowak, he had scrutinized the building floor plans and scoured security footage. He knew the layout probably better than Claire did. Just a few steps from her office was the bull pen of cubicles where the assistants worked.

“But he’s your assistant, so doesn’t he assist you with the projects you’re working on?” he asked. Company protocol claimed otherwise, but Ash knew people whose assistants did more of the work than they did.

“No,” she corrected him. “As my assistant, Martin brings me coffee and lunch and dinner, if I’m working late.” She sighed. “Which I usually am.”

Maybe Ash had made too many assumptions about Claire Molenski—although he hadn’t been wrong about how much time she spent at the consulting company. He’d thought it was because she legally had to, but maybe it was also because she wanted to. “He doesn’t help you with any of your projects?”

“He helps with whatever tasks I give him to handle,” she said. “But he doesn’t have the clearance to work most of the projects I work.”

Because she had the highest clearance at the company. Peter Nowak had reluctantly admitted that to Ash when he’d interviewed the man. The former CIA agent trusted his star hacker, but Ash trusted no one. That was why Claire Molenski was his number-one suspect.

* * *

SHE WAS HIS number one-suspect—of whatever he suspected her. The suspicion was back in his piercing blue eyes as he stared at her. She hadn’t helped herself by defending Martin. But there was no way her assistant could be guilty of anything that had people getting shot at and killed.

“Who does have the clearance level you have or an even higher level?” he asked.

“My boss.” Peter Nowak had been a CIA agent before he’d started his computer consultation business, though. That was why some of the biggest banks and financial institutions in the world as well as the US and several other governments had entrusted him to ensure their internet security. He was good at what he did, and he was beyond suspicion.

So she wasn’t surprised when Agent Ash Stryker didn’t even blink those surprisingly long, black lashes of his. He had no suspicions about Peter Nowak. His suspicions were all about her.

“None of the other hackers have your level of clearance?” he asked.

Maybe he was willing to consider another suspect. But she didn’t have anyone to offer him.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I suspect that you know.”

“You,” he said, confirming her fears. “You have the highest clearance besides Peter Nowak.”

She sighed as weariness overwhelmed her. It had been a long day before someone had tried abducting her from the parking lot of the speed dating hotel. “I thought so.” That was why she worked so many hours—nobody else could work on the projects she worked. “Since Leslie retired...”

“Leslie?”

“Leslie Morrison retired last year. I was his assistant when I first started working here,” she explained. “Leslie taught me everything I know, a lot more than I learned in college.” Her professors had been behind the new technology, while Mr. Nowak’s company had been beyond it—far beyond it.

“So Leslie is a better hacker than you are?”

She shivered at his coldly suspicious tone. She hadn’t offered up Leslie to defray guilt from herself. She wasn’t guilty, and neither was Leslie. She slammed her desk drawer shut. “Leslie isn’t a hacker anymore.”

“I’m sure he still knows how to hack, though,” Agent Stryker persisted.

She shook her head. “Hacking isn’t like riding a bike. Technology changes so quickly that you have to constantly be hacking to be any good. If you’re away from it too long, you’re going to be so far behind the security systems and software that you won’t be able to hack into anything anymore.”

And she’d done it again—deflected guilt off someone else and back onto herself. He was looking at her that way again, as if he was imagining himself slapping cuffs on her, while just a short while ago she’d been imagining herself undressing him.

It really was unfair that he was so good-looking. The FBI agents who had arrested her the first time had been old, or at least they had seemed old to her sixteen-year-old self. Their hair had been gray and receding while their waistlines had been expanding.

Why couldn’t Ash Stryker look like that?

Why did his black hair have to be so thick and soft looking? So soft looking that she was tempted to run her fingers through it...

She had been right to join the dating service. It had been entirely too long since she’d been with a man. That had to be the reason why she was so physically attracted to Ash. It had to be the only reason.

“Are you done here?” he asked.

She glanced around the small office. She had organized it again—as much as it was ever organized. It didn’t look neat, but at least things were back where she had left them. She shuddered at the thought of someone touching all her stuff. Had they touched her globe, too? If not the intruders, the crime lab who’d investigated and collected evidence might have. They’d left fingerprint dust all over, too, which she’d had to clean up. She hated cleaning.

She reached for the globe again, tempted to take it home with her. But she wasn’t sure she was going home. And with security increased at the company, nobody would ever be able to break in again. The globe would be safe. But was she?

“What if I tell you that I am done?” she asked. “Will you take me back to the hotel to get my car?”

“No,” he said, and his deep voice held that no-nonsense, matter-of-fact tone that so infuriated her.

His reply confirmed her suspicion that he was actually going to bring her in for questioning. He might even arrest her. She didn’t understand exactly what crime he suspected her of, but she had offered him no other suspects.

She drew in a deep breath and stood, ready for him to slap the cuffs on her, ready to relive all her nightmares from nine years ago...

* * *

IT WAS LATE.

Too late to question her any further. So Ash wasn’t taking her back to the Bureau. For one, he was beginning to believe she really didn’t know any more than she’d already told him. And secondly, she was exhausted.

Her slight body slumped down in the passenger’s seat of his Bureau-issued black SUV. She was nearly asleep, but she fought back a yawn and told him, “You didn’t have to drive me home.”

He heard the surprise in her voice; she hadn’t expected him to bring her home. She had suspected him to arrest her. Earlier that evening, he would have thought that was because she had a guilty conscience. But now that he was beginning to get to know her better...

He wasn’t sure what to think of Claire Molenski anymore. She was smart, but he’d already known that. She was sexy; that he hadn’t known. He hadn’t known how his body would react to hers. While she shivered slightly despite the heat blowing out of the vents, his skin was hot, his body tense.

That could have been just because of the adrenaline. He had nearly lost her a couple of times. He had to be vigilant because it wasn’t a question of if there would be another attempt to grab her. It was a question of when.

And that made him wonder about her guilt.

Maybe her only crime was being too smart. But then who had offered her knowledge for sale? He had been so certain she was the threat that he hadn’t really considered other suspects. Only Nowak Computer Consulting, or “No Hack” as it was known in inner circles, had the means to infiltrate those sites.

“You could have just brought me back to my car at the hotel,” she said.

He could have. Or he could have handed her off to another agent to drive home. He didn’t do security detail. His specialty had always been putting himself at risk, going undercover rather than protecting other people.

“No, I couldn’t,” he said. While he worked with good agents, damn good agents, he hadn’t wanted to trust anyone else with her safety. “There have already been two attempts to abduct you.” He suspected there would be more—many more—since so many radical groups and subversive governments wanted the information she possessed.

“Me,” she murmured.

“Yes, you.” They hadn’t been after him...except to kill him and get him out of their way.

“They were after me,” she said, as if she were strangely trying to reassure herself of that fact. Then he understood her reasoning when she added, “So Dad and Pam will be safe...”

“Pam?”

“She’s my dad’s new wife,” Claire explained. “And a very sweet lady. Like my dad, she was a single parent for years, so she never had enough money to travel. Because of that they’re taking a long honeymoon to visit all the places they’ve always wanted to see. They won’t be home for months.”

She jerked her head in a sharp nod. “So that’s good. They’ll be safe...”

Even as his focus stayed on the road, checking for a tail, he could feel her gaze on him. But again he wouldn’t offer her any false reassurance. He would leave that to her. It sounded as if she was doing a good job of convincing herself that her loved ones weren’t in danger because of her.

But then she sighed and admitted, “But someone could still track their credit cards.” Now she played her own devil’s advocate. “They could pull up their travel itinerary and find them—”

“I’ll put a protective detail on them,” he offered as he steered the SUV into the lot of her apartment complex. “We’ll make sure they’re safe.”

She reached across the console, grasped his arm and squeezed. “Thank you. But they’re not even in the country right now.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “No matter where they are, we can still protect them.” At the moment he was more concerned about her safety, though. Ever since he had suspected that she was the threat to national security, he’d had a detail on her apartment, so it should be safe.

But several agents had been watching her earlier that evening, and she had been drugged and nearly abducted...

He worried that she may not be safe anywhere. While the only security he specialized in was national security, he would do his best to keep her and her family safe.

She breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “Thank you for protecting them. They deserve to be happy.”

“What about you?” he asked, as he turned off the engine.

When he had been thinking like an FBI agent, he had only been concerned about her professional life. Now he was thinking like a man around her, and he wondered about her personal life. He hadn’t missed her assistant’s shock that she might have a boyfriend.

Didn’t she date very often?

When had he had his last date? He couldn’t remember one where he’d been himself and not undercover and just dating for information.

“What about me?” she asked. The lights had shut off inside the SUV, but in the dim glow of the parking lamps, he could see her pale brow furrow in confusion.

He turned fully toward her. Despite the console between the bucket seats, they were close. And with her fingers clenching his forearm, they were touching. He stared into her face, into her eyes that sparkled in the shadows. And he asked, “Do you deserve to be happy?”

She snatched back her hand from his arm and turned away from him. As she pushed open the passenger’s door, she replied, “I served my sentence.”

He wondered now if that had been too harsh. “I’m not talking about that,” he said as he hurried around the SUV to her side.

To protect her...

He glanced around the dimly lit parking lot as he led her toward the door to the building that housed her unit. There were several buildings in the complex. And in that building there were several floors, several apartments. Someone could have slipped past that security detail he had on her place. He shouldn’t have brought her back here.

“What are you talking about?” she asked as she dug inside that mammoth bag of hers for the keys that he pulled from his pocket. She took the ring from his hand and quickly found the key that opened the door to the lobby. It was nothing fancy—worn terrazzo floors and chipped plaster walls. But it was close to her office. He wondered if that was why she’d chosen to live here.

He waited until they stepped inside the elevator before he replied to her question. “I was just wondering if you are...”

She arched a blond brow. “Are what?”

“Happy.”

She leaned wearily against the mirrored wall of the elevator. The image of her in that tight, sexy red dress reflected around him as if she were surrounding him. Ash struggled to draw a deep breath when he felt like panting as his pulse quickened.

“I thought I was,” she said. “Until I saw how happy my dad and Pam are.”

Now he knew why she had been at that speed dating event and it hadn’t been to sell security secrets as he had suspected. She had posted online that she would be there, which he’d thought was her way of opening the bidding for information. But she had actually been there to find her happiness. She had really wanted to meet someone and she didn’t need to tell him for him to know that she hadn’t been looking for him. It was clear that after that arrest in her teens she didn’t have any trust or affection for FBI agents.

Not that he could have dated her had she been interested in him. He had no time for a personal life and no inclination to make time, either.

The elevator was old, but it was fast and came quickly to a stop on the fifth floor. He breathed a slight sigh of relief that it had saved him from having to comment on her statement.

She stepped out of the elevator and headed down the dimly lit hall. Uneasy, Ash pulled his gun from his holster as he walked beside her. And when she stopped and extended the key toward the lock on her door, he covered her hand with his to turn the knob.

She glanced up at him, her green eyes wide with sudden curiosity. And she asked, “Are you?”

“Am I what?” he said, distracted by her closeness and by that uneasy feeling that he hadn’t had enough agents watching her apartment.

Her mouth turned up slightly at the corners as she replied, “Happy...”

Instead of answering her question, he pushed open the door. Then he pushed her behind him for protection as he saw the total devastation. It was worse than her office had been.

And he worried that whoever had searched her place was still inside—waiting for her.

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