“There are people who’re going to notice I’m gone.”
He heard the hope and knew he had no choice but to crush it. Hope might cause her to take unacceptable risks, putting both her life and the lives of his team at risk. So why did it feel as if he was destroying a child’s vision of Santa Claus? Sometimes he hated his job.
“The library has been notified there’s an illness in your family. That you’ll be away for some time.”
“You know I work at a library?” She shook her head, obviously not comprehending the means available to someone like him to meet a strategic objective.
“Of course you know.” She slid back against the cushions, her shoulders slumped, her voice less forceful. “What else have you taken care of?”
“We’ve canceled your speaking engagement for the grant-writing seminar, asked your landlady to look after your cat until you return and have arranged to have your bills automatically paid, courtesy of Uncle Sam.”
If he thought he would interject a little levity into the situation he was dead wrong. Her gaze, when she raised it to his, was as bleak as any he’d ever seen. And that was saying a lot.
“I have friends—”
“Not a lot I’m afraid. And they’ve received word that you’re off to visit an elderly sick aunt. Aunt Dorothy.”
“I don’t have an aunt Dorothy.”
“We know it. Fortunately, from our perspective, you do not have many close friends.” He watched her shoulders slump more and felt like a heel. But she had to know where she stood. “In fact, very few know you outside of your work. Your parents are both dead. No siblings. No lovers.”
She blushed, keeping her gaze averted as she mumbled, “So you’ve made me disappear with no one the wiser?”
“Yes.”
“And what if I don’t want to play stand-in for this Elena? What if I refuse?”
“You have no choice.”
“Meaning what exactly?”
Time to play hardball. He sat back in the chair, making sure he enunciated each word clearly. There’d be no doubt here. Neither one of them could afford it. “You can agree to play the part of Ms. Rostov, attending functions, being seen in public, doing what any young woman would do on the eve of her marriage—”
“Or?”
“Or Elena Rostov can be devastated from her recent ordeal and need to be kept under sedation until she’s feeling better.”
“You’d drug me? Again?”
He couldn’t be swayed by the despair he heard in her voice, nor the silent appeal he read in her gaze.
“Yes, if we had to, we’d drug you. It’s up to you.”
“Even if it meant that, being drugged, I’d have no chance at all against someone trying to kill me?”
She caught on quick.
“You’ll have all the protection we’re able to—”
“Enough.” She shot to her feet, pacing to the far side of the plane as if she wanted to put as much distance as possible between them.
“I might not have a lot of experience in this sort of thing, but I’m not a total idiot, either. If you were so sure you could provide total protection you’d have no problem with Elena continuing as she has been.”
No, this woman was definitely not slow on the uptake.
“I could lie to you.”
She speared him a withering glance. Who’d have thought dark eyes could hold such fire?
He changed his tactics, if not his tone. “Do you want me to tell you what we’re asking doesn’t hold risks?”
“It’d be a lie. And you’re not asking.”
“You have a choice here.”
“Not much of one. You’ve made darn good and sure of that.”
“We didn’t create the situation, Ms. Richards.”
“But you brought me into it. Against my will. Without my knowledge.” She paused, gulping air before she added. “And now you have the audacity to tell me I have a choice.”
Yeah, the lady saw too clearly what she was up against.
He rose to his feet and glanced at his watch. “It might be best if you thought of it as a service to your country. A vital service. We’ll be landing within an hour. I have some things to see to in the cockpit.” Which was an out-and-out lie, but right then the only thing he could think to give to her was space and a little time. A very little time. “I’ll need your decision when I return.”
He didn’t wait for her answer. As she had pointed out, there wasn’t much to choose between. But for her sake, and the sake of the mission, he hoped she’d make the right choice. If she didn’t, well he’d deal with that if and when the need came.
Jane watched Gray-eyes, or Major McConneghy, or whatever he wanted to call himself walk silently from the cabin space and disappear through a metal door marked Private. She waited until she heard the click of the door being closed before she gave in to what she’d wanted to do since she’d opened her eyes. With a small oath her co-workers from the library never would have suspected she knew, she sank into the nearest chair, her legs no longer capable of holding her. Her head slipped into her hands, despair finally overcoming her outrage, her fear, her confusion.
How dare some nameless government agency snatch her from her sane, comfortable world and force her to become a target in some obscure country’s game of survival? And force was the operative word. Even the major didn’t pretend there was much of an option. For that at least she was thankful. Not that she was willing to give the man points for anything else.
It didn’t take a high IQ to know he was the brains behind this crazy scheme. That he was the puppet master, pulling strings and disrupting lives with as much compassion as a sponge soaked in vinegar.
She glanced at her watch, surprised to see it was a little after ten in the morning. Which morning she wasn’t sure, but she did know exactly what she’d be doing if some grim-lipped major hadn’t changed everything.
She’d have been at work for a little over an hour. If it was Wednesday, the weekly staff meeting would just be finishing and she’d be rotating from the main circulation desk to the information desk. She’d handle questions, from the obvious to the esoteric, feeling as if, in her small way, she was helping others.
So what if she didn’t have a large social life outside of the library? Or really any, to speak of. The stark facts the major laid out before her were pretty bleak. No family, no friends, no life. How did he phrase it? No lovers. But it still was her life. She should be the one in control of it.
She should not be sitting in a private
