Mercy Killing (Affairs of State Book 1) (9 page)

“Peter?”

“Yes.”

“Where are
your
clothes?”

“In my suite.”

“Your suite?” she repeated.

“Yes, that’s all part of the surprise, sweetheart. Combining a studio with your bedroom is an ideal solution. You love painting in the early morning light.”

She was already shaking her head. “But I never said I wanted separate—”

He held up a finger—the teacher silencing an impulsive student. “And,” he said with emphasis, “because I often work late, I need a place where I can burn the midnight oil without worrying about disturbing your sleep.”
              “You had an office in the Georgetown house. Why not have one here? There seem to be plenty of rooms.”

“That’s what I have. An office.” Peter was beginning to look irritated again. He squinted at her, his mouth pinching at the corners. “All I’ve done is add a bed to crash on when I have to pull an all-nighter. I’ll keep my clothes there for convenience.” He frowned at her. “I hope you’re not going to start making rules about when, where and how long I can work.”

At first too shocked to respond she just stared at him.
Separate bedrooms?
“No, of course not,” she said at last. “You have to be free to do your job.”

I’m not the jealous type. Don’t start now,
she told herself. But she knew Peter. Suddenly, all of this—the house, the twin suites, even the way he’d presented it to her as a
fait accompli
—felt contrived. What sort of male fantasy was he acting out now?

“It’s just that this arrangement feels so unnecessary, Peter. So. . . impersonal.” She looked around the room. Tears tickled the backs of her lids.

It was perfect. Really. In this beautiful space he’d given her everything she’d ever said she wanted. Everything except a child. And, apparently, her husband.

Mercy looked away from him, trying to breathe. She couldn’t speak her mouth had gone so dry.

“I’m sure I’ll sleep here most nights,” he assured her. “The bed in the other room is just for those rare times when the work won’t wait. Understand?”

“Yes,” she said. And she did, all too well. They were moving farther apart, in more ways than one.

9

The all-hands briefing called by the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico dragged on into a second hour. Still in jet-lag hell, Peter wished to God he could sleep through the old man’s tedious wash of words. The worst of it was, from the start of the meeting it had been clear that the ambassador expected Peter’s department to work miracles.

“We'll bond our two cultures tighter than Siamese twins.” Those were the man’s very words.
Idiot
. The intent was to further the U.S. president’s policy of absolute control over the Mexican-U.S. border.

It hadn’t worked in two centuries, but the fool thought his three-year plan was a winner.
That’s what political appointments get you,
Peter thought. Some rich guy who didn’t have a clue but believed he could make the world run like a goddamn clock.

After the meeting wrapped up, Peter retreated to his office to consider how best to appease his boss. He’d have to at least make it look as though he was taking the program seriously.

An hour later, still at his desk, unable to come up with any sort of feasible plan, he looked up at the soft tap on his office door. Foreseeing yet another impossible task about to be dropped in his lap, he sighed. “Come in.”

The door opened. Carlotta walked through.

“Oh,” he said in relief.

“Oh? That’s all I get?” She smirked at him.

He nodded toward the door, indicating she should shut it behind her. “Cool it, Carlotta.”

She frowned coquettishly. “Don’t talk to me like that. Not after lying to me the way you did.”

“Listen, I thought my wife might stay in DC, just fly down sometimes on weekends. That would be different.”

“You
lied
to me.” Her voice was soft, but there was steam behind her beautiful, dark eyes.

“No, I didn’t lie to you. I tried to convince Mercy that Mexico City was dangerous. How was I to know she’d be so hot on living here?” Even this was a lie though. He’d never intended to leave Mercy behind. She was too valuable an asset to his career.

Peter leaned over the desk and gestured toward a visitor’s chair—half afraid that if he didn’t get his sexy aide seated somewhere quickly she’d come around the desk and plop down on his lap.

Carlotta maneuvered her slim hips between the carved wooden arms of one of the visitor’s chairs. “So what do we do now?”

He shrugged. “What can we do?”

She sulked, lifted a mass of ebony hair over one shoulder so that it fell over her pretty breasts. She stroked the feathery tips of hair. “That sounds like you want to break up with me.”

He glared at her. “We’re not in high school or going steady. We’re adults and we had an affair.”

“We are lovers.” The woman was irritating the hell out of him, but he adored the way she stretched out the word lo-o-overs. Rolling the R over her tongue, as if savoring a mouthful of honey.

“Were,” he corrected her. “There’s more at stake than you can understand.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, and he wondered if they could possibly get any darker. “More than your marriage that you told me was a farce? The marriage your parents arranged and you agreed to because you needed a paper wife?”

Did I say that?
He supposed he might have, in the heat of the moment. Whatever. It had gotten him into her bed.

“Mercy is smart, and she knows how to talk to people. She’s also an artist, which is a perfect match for a cultural attaché.”

Carlotta nodded, but he sensed this was neither a gesture of agreement nor a sign of understanding. “In romance novels they call that a 'marriage of convenience'. No?”

“I guess.”

“And for her, this also is a convenient marriage?”

“She grew up in politics. When the Senator, her father, died Mercy was a teenager, still a kid really. And her mom, she just dumped her in a boarding school so she’d be free to take off on her photo safaris. Mercy wants stability, a family.”

Carlotta bristled, eyes flashing. “You did not tell me there were children!”

“Good grief, don’t be ridiculous.” He laughed. “There aren't any kids.” He really didn’t want to discuss this with her. “Listen, I have work to do. I’m sure you do, too.” Pulling a sheaf of papers onto the embossed leather blotter, he pretended to be engrossed in their content.

Carlotta didn’t leave.

He muttered, “If things work my way, there never will be children. Why distract her from her most important job?”

“That being—taking care of you, my little man?” Her strong accent made little sound like
leetle
.

He didn’t particularly like her choice of endearments. He suspected they’d been an intentional strike at his machismo, but he shot her a smile to let her know there were no hard feelings. “She’s always saying I’m just an overgrown kid.”

Carlotta’s expression softened. Sliding her hips forward on the chair seat she reached across the desk and dragged the tip of one blood-red varnished fingernail down his cheek. “And what about in bed,
muchacho
? Are you still her little boy there? Or are you 
macho
?” The last word, delivered in a tigress’s snarl.

He brushed her hand away angrily. The trail left by the pressure of her fingernail stung. He wondered if she’d cut him. “Stop baiting me.”

Carlotta stood up and circled behind his chair. “I just need to know my competition.” Her hands gripped his shoulders; she kneaded tense muscles that felt like taut ropes running up the side of his neck. Her breath felt hot on his skin. “I will do what is necessary, to keep you.”

Peter wondered if, this time, with this woman, he’d taken on more than he could handle. Still standing close behind him, she licked the rim of his ear, bent lower to nibble the lobe. Liquid fire shot through his body, pooling in his groin.

Make her stop. Tell her to go!
the voice in his head ordered him. But, damn. . . she was good.

“Cut it out,” he grumbled half-heartedly. “Someone might hear us.”

“They’ve all left for the day.”

“Mercy might show up.”

“I’ll lock the door.”

“I told you, I can’t carry on with her in the city. It’s too risky.”

She laughed low down in her throat. “Isn’t that just too precious? You’re afraid of her. She’s right, you are a little boy.” Her fingers wriggled up beneath his suit jacket, yanked the shirttails up out of his pants, and slipped inside to caress his chest. Razor-edged fingernails scraped his nipples, arousing him. Driving him wild.

“She-devil,” he groaned.

Spinning his chair around, he unzipped his pants and pulled her head down into his crotch.

10

Sebastian had sent his two most trusted men to follow the Davis woman around the city. The reports Carlos and Fredo brought back over a period of three days were of great interest.

It seemed she enjoyed entertaining. So much so that, within the first week of her arrival in Mexico, she contacted
The Palm
, one of the premier caterers in the city. She reserved four dates on which she planned dinner parties at her home, in the wealthy
Polanco
district.

Fredo bought copies of the guest lists from one of the Davis housemaids. Sebastian puzzled over several of the names. Although diplomats entertained all the time—and his countrymen welcomed any excuse for festivities—he hadn’t expected to see guests whose reputations were nearly as notorious as his.

In fact, he felt rather left out at
not
finding his own name among them.

To remedy this situation, he decided it was time to arrange another “chance” meeting with Señora Davis. If she turned out to have allied herself with any law enforcement agency for either country, he had to discover who she was working for and make sure she didn’t interfere with his plans.

He caught up with his surveillance team near the
Plaza de la Constitucion,
locally known as the
Zocalo.
The vast, open square throbbed with life. Vendors, mariachi bands, shoppers, pickpockets, artists, tourists and drug dealers collided in vivid, noisy mayhem. Fredo pointed across the plaza toward the leggy, American blonde. She stood in front of the
Catedral Metropolitana
, chatting with two other women.

Mercy Davis wore a dazzling white peasant-style blouse that slipped halfway off her shoulders, and a ruffled skirt in brilliant gem-stone hues—blues, greens, and purples. She moved with her friends through the mob, toward vendors who had spread their wares on blankets laid on the ground near the ruins of the ancient Aztec temple.

“Any messages passed from or to her?” Sebastian asked.

Carlos shook his head and swiped a shirtsleeve across his molasses-brown brow. Because of the altitude, the centrally located city was usually much cooler than areas along the gulf. Today, however, the temperature had breached one hundred degrees by noon.

“No, Don Sebastian,” Fredo said. “No messages. She just spend a lot of money on foolishness.” The wiry former
vaquero
, retired after a goring by a Hidalgo bull, chewed his wad of tobacco and looked disgusted. “Women, they throw our hard-earned pesos to the wind.”

Sebastian didn't point out that the Señora had plenty of her own pesos to spend. His research showed that she’d worked as a museum curator before marriage, and some of her own paintings had sold for five figures. Likely, she’d also inherited money from her father.

He watched her move about the plaza with a confident, independent air. Striking up conversations with strangers. Smiling, laughing, bargaining good-naturedly when she found something she liked.

“Perhaps,” he suggested, “she left a note or parcel in a shop to be picked up later?” Dead drops had long been a staple of the undercover game, just as in international espionage.

“No. She just buy things. How many dresses does a woman need?” Fredo muttered.

Sebastian hid a smile. If Fredo had a daughter like his Maria, he wouldn’t have been at all shocked. Maria adored nothing more than a day in the city, visiting every one of her favorite shops along the
Paseo de la Reforma
.

But he couldn’t allow Maria to roam without an armed bodyguard these days. His enemies would think nothing of snatching her to hurt him. Losing his only child, he might as well end his own life.

“You’re sure you haven’t let the woman out of your sight since she left her home this morning?”

“No, Don Sebastian,” Carlos assured him, “not for the blink of an eye. After picking up two other women, her driver left all three outside
Versace
. I overheard her tell him to return there for them at five this afternoon.”