walked by the main house every chance he got. On his fifth pass, he spotted Melanie on the balcony once again. He would have been lying if he said he didn’t feel a little thrill when her eyes settled on him.
“You,” she said in a bossy tone. “Come right up. I need you to help me move something.”
Exactly the break he needed. He stifled a grin and put on an expression of mindless obedience. “Sí, señora. Right away.”
Having heard the exchange, the man at the door let him through at last. Half a dozen men stood around the table in the large room he walked into, a combination foyer-slash-living-room area that had been converted into a war room.
The men glanced up at his entrance, but nobody questioned him. They trusted the guard at the door not to let in anyone who didn’t have any business being in there. They were all busy drawing up battle plans and arguing with each other.
Jase headed straight for the stairs.
That did draw attention.
“Hey,” Roberto called after him. “Where do you think you’re going?”
He hunched his shoulders, put his head down, making himself into the very picture of subservience. “The señora wants me to move some furniture.”
Roberto rolled his eyes, probably thinking how it was just like a woman to be interior decorating with an impending battle looming over their heads. Which was exactly what Jase was thinking, so he shot an I-know-what-you-mean look back at the man and shook his head slightly.
Roberto waved him on with a disgusted gesture and returned to his battle planning.
No need to hurry now. Jase noted every door, every hallway, every man. He planned on getting a good look around upstairs as well, but as he reached the top of the stairs, he found the woman waiting for him in her open doorway.
She wore white this time, a linen dress designed for the climate and to accommodate her motherly curves.
“In here.” She gestured with impatience. “I need this couch moved out of the sun. I want it in the far corner.” She drew into the middle of the room.
He followed her. Did she know that a battle was coming? Did she trust Don Pedro so blindly that she didn’t realize how much danger she was in? Cristobal would be no pushover. He’d all but obliterated the Don’s previous headquarters. The man was playing to win.
“I just want to be more comfortable,” she was saying.
Silk pillows, fans, a sprawling bed with mosquito netting, books and stacks of magazines filled the large space. The Don had clearly settled her in for a long stay. She could have run a small convenience store out of her room.
He tried not to think of the stark contrast between the barracks and her room, between what she had at her disposal and what Mochi had, sleeping on the floor next to the stove in the kitchen. She was the boss’s pampered girlfriend. She lived in a different world from the rest of them. That bothered him, but he didn’t let it show.
He grabbed the end of the couch and dragged the damned thing to where she pointed. Took him about three seconds. But she didn’t look pleased. She looked disappointed.
“Wrong spot?”
She shook her head, looking at him with something akin to panic. Which made him wonder just what was going on in that beautiful head of hers. Then the next second, her whole demeanor changed, as if she’d just thought of something.
“Thank you.” Her full lips stretched into a smile. “Would you like a glass of cold tea?”
Definitely. Especially if she kept smiling at him like that. But that quick change in her demeanor made him uneasy. “I better get going.”
“It’s just—” She looked away. “It’d be great to talk to another American. I get lonely up here.”
The bossy attitude she’d displayed on the balcony was gone. Maybe she only used that tone around the men to assure their respect and to make sure they wouldn’t perceive her as weak. But she seemed to be letting her guard down around him. Whatever the reason, her vulnerability grabbed him as nothing else could have, and somewhat mollified him. She did look lonely, and desperate, suddenly, in some way.
“I can’t imagine Don Pedro would neglect a woman as beautiful as you are,” he told her in a light tone, still feeling that more was going on here than what was being said.
But instead of lightening the mood, his words made her frown.
“I’m not his…” She actually blushed.
He couldn’t remember the last time he saw a woman do that. Certainly didn’t expect it from a drug lord’s live-in girlfriend. Interesting.
“I was married to his brother,” she told him.
Huh. And the plot thickens.
He’d damn near memorized the Don’s file while preparing for this op. The man had a brother, Julio, in Brazil, who’d been killed a few months back in a car accident. Jase didn’t remember any mention of a wife.
Did her existence and presence here change anything? Was this something he could use to his advantage? More specifically: was she a threat to his mission or an opportunity?
“Do you like it here?” he asked noncommittally. Better tread softly until he figured her out.
The abject misery that crossed her face couldn’t be faked. Her slim shoulders sagged. “I wish I could go home.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Don Pedro prefers to keep me safe, close to him.”
Now that was a carefully worded sentence if he’d ever heard one. Could or could not mean that the Don was holding her against her will.
He didn’t have to think long to find a reason why that might happen. Since the Don’s family had been ravaged in years of drug wars, her child would be the man’s closest living family. In a patriarchal society, that meant everything. The Don would take the relation more than seriously.
“You’ve known him long?” Jase asked her, still not fully understanding why she would ever come to a jungle camp like this in the first place, especially in her condition.
She sank onto the couch, graceful despite the extra weight she carried. “I met Julio, my husband, in Rio. He saved me one night when my car broke down in a bad neighborhood. We were married before I knew it. Then three weeks later he was killed in a car accident.”
“What were you doing in Rio?”
“Finishing my master’s on sustainable high-density housing in developing nations.”
The slum recovery projects. He’d heard of those. Building them gave people jobs, then when the buildings were done, it got them off the streets. “Don Pedro was there?” That he couldn’t picture for anything, not unless he’d been recruiting runners for his drug trade, but at his level in the organization, he wouldn’t do that personally.
She
