“I believe we won’t find anyone as qualified as you, but Miss Cash, you should understand that this is going to be a very, how should I put it, a very intimate operation. This cruise that the target is on is a cruise for people in what many would call a sexually deviant lifestyle. I really didn’t think Knight should even ask you, but he insisted.”
She had to work to make sure her jaw didn’t drop open. “What sort of sexually deviant lifestyle? Is it one large orgy? A swinging thing?”
“No. Not at all. I’ve rather heard many of these men are deeply possessive of their partners. That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t see public sex, but Knight certainly wouldn’t ask you to sleep with anyone, well, anyone except him, very likely.” Crowe, who had overseen more bloody missions than Penny could even count, seemed deeply awkward talking about sex. She thought he’d rather be discussing the terrorist plot. “It wasn’t well done of him to ask you. I tried to explain that to him.”
It wasn’t well done of him to ask her on the mission or to ask her on an operation that might include having sex with him to keep up their cover? She wasn’t sure she liked the sound of either. It was perverse. Crowe was supporting her position, but now she felt a well of stubborn will rise up. “Well, I am a member of this organization. I do have security clearance. And I knew that I could be asked to go into the field if I was needed.”
“Yes, of course, but this isn’t the type of operation you should be on. You’re a nice young lady. You certainly shouldn’t be exposed to that sort of thing.”
That sort of thing? Sex? He thought she shouldn’t be exposed to sex? Well, it wasn’t like she hadn’t thought the same thing, but it hurt. “Is the lifestyle situation detailed in the report?”
He picked up the file. “There is information on it, yes.”
“And Mr. Knight knows about this lifestyle?” She had to admit she was curious. Curious about everything.
And she owed it to Mr. Knight to at least read the file. She couldn’t do it herself, but perhaps they weren’t thinking of everyone. Maybe she could help them find someone who would be suitable. “I’ll take a look at it.”
“If you’re sure.” He let her take the folder. “But obviously no one expects you to accept.” He emphasized the “you.”
And she felt that deep sense of completely unrealistic outrage again. “We’ll see.”
Before she turned, she thought she caught just a hint of a smile and wondered if Nigel Crowe wasn’t playing her for everything she was worth.
And she suddenly wondered if it just might work.
Chapter Two
He’d fucked up royally.
Damon stood in the middle of Paddington station, the Saturday crowd milling around him, the smells of coffee and baked goods filling the space, and considered the problem he’d created for himself.
He’d completely lost his cool. He’d damn near rubbed his cock all over Penelope Cash and then wondered why on earth she didn’t want to work with him. The entire afternoon before had been a classic fuckup. He’d been a tosser and she’d been a prude. Well, at least on the outside she’d been a prude.
Why didn’t she want to work with him? He hadn’t been insane. He really had felt her pulse, seen her eyes dilate, gotten a hint of the sweetest arousal coming from between her legs.
If he’d slid his hands up that plug-ugly skirt she’d been wearing, if he’d caressed her thighs and made his way to her pussy, he was damn sure he would have found her wet and squirming. And all right in Nigel’s office. How would she respond to him when he got her in a dungeon?
There was a whooshing sound that signaled the arrival of the train he’d been waiting on.
Paddington station was a massive hub, a testament to the power of London transport. To his right, he could get to the Tube and go just about anywhere in London proper. But the train platforms in front of him led to the rest of England, and more importantly to Heathrow.
The Heathrow Express pulled into the station, stopping quietly, its shiny silver doors opening with almost a preternatural quiet.
What came out of the train wasn’t quiet. What came out of the train was likely to be a pain in his arse.
“I’m just saying you didn’t separate Li from his newborn.” A big man with military-cut dark hair and broad shoulders was complaining as he muscled out with a duffel bag over one arm and a massive suitcase handle in the other.
Ian Taggart had his own baggage. “Li doesn’t have a partner. If you wanted to get paternity leave—god, I just vomited a little—then you should have manned up and gotten your own girl. Adam won the battle fair and square. He gets to stay with the wife and rug rat.”
“It wasn’t a fucking battle. It was rock, paper, scissors, damn it. I think Adam cheated.” Jacob Dean frowned as he looked up and finally caught sight of Damon. “Hey. You suck. Don’t you have like a whole fucking country of Brits to do your job for you? You have to hire us?”
So not everyone was happy with the assignment. Lovely. “Sorry about that.”
“I have a kid who’s going to grow up while I’m gone, thanks to you. I need some coffee. Your immigration officers suck.” Jake walked off, his every move a testament to his annoyance.
Ian just grinned as though he loved the chaos.
The rest of the crew had stepped off the train and were rearranging their baggage. Charlotte Taggart smiled as she looked around the station, her blue eyes taking in everything. Simon Weston had seen it all. He had come home and didn’t exactly look happy about it. Jesse Murdoch rubbed his eyes as though he’d just woken from a nap.
And then there was Chelsea Dennis. She pulled her suitcase out of the train, the last one to leave. She was a petite woman, twenty-seven years old. She favored her left leg. He recalled she’d had both legs broken quite badly, but the left had never healed properly and she walked with a limp. Pretty enough, though there was a darkness about her, like a cloud followed her around.
God, so unlike Penelope. She was a little light even though she obviously didn’t know it. Her light wasn’t brilliantly bright like Charlotte Taggart’s. She didn’t light up the room when she walked into it, but a man could look at Penelope Cash and know that she would try her damnedest to take care of him.
No one took care of him. No one ever had really. Not since his parents had died.