Overnight Male (23 page)

T
HE HIGHER-UPS AT
OPUS went for the deal. Lila told herself she shouldn’t be surprised, considering some of the morally questionable things those guys had done in the past, but she was. She had still held out some small hope that they would do the right thing and make Adrian’s payment for his crimes their priority. Instead, they’d done what she supposed they considered the greater good—taking out of circulation a weapon that might have been used against the country otherwise, a weapon the country might now be able to use on their own enemies instead.

All hail the greater good.

In spite of her disappointment, she would have been lying if she hadn’t admitted that there was a part of her that was strangely satisfied by the outcome. She knew she had excellent instincts—she couldn’t have been OPUS’s best agent without them—and her instincts told her that Adrian had indeed turned over a new leaf, and that it was due in large part to Iris Daugherty’s entry into his life. He
had
been different the last time she saw him. And he had turned over to OPUS a perfectly well functioning, totally devastating virus that he might have used himself. His reasons for wanting to disappear had as much to do with Iris’s welfare as his own—perhaps even more.

He just wasn’t the same man Lila had started pursuing years ago. He wasn’t Sorcerer anymore. He wasn’t even Adrian Padgett. He and Iris both would assume new names now. New identities. A new residence. A new lifestyle. A new life.

A new life, Lila thought again as she looked over at Joel, who was seated across from her in the same government jet that had carried them to Cincinnati from Washington just over a week ago. His dark hair was tucked behind one ear, making his face clearly visible, but his gaze was fixed on the laptop in front of him. He had his glasses on and was dressed in a beige oxford shirt, the cuffs rolled back to his elbows, the shirt tucked into brown trousers. He looked as if he was already slipping back into archivist mode, even though Washington was still hundreds of miles away. In a few moments they’d be taking off, though, going in the opposite direction from the one they had flown before. This time they were headed back.

At least literally. Figuratively, Lila knew she would never be able to go back. Just as Adrian was a different man from the one she’d started chasing years ago, the woman chasing him was different, too. When she and Joel arrived in Washington, nothing would be the same as when they’d left it. Especially not Lila. So much had happened in the week since she’d met Joel Faraday. The criminal she’d been tracking for years didn’t seem so criminal anymore, and he was no longer hers to pursue. The organization she’d thought she would devote her life to serving had, for a second time, jerked the rug out from under her. Before that she’d met a sister she hadn’t known she had. Had learned that her biological father wasn’t some faceless jerk who had bedded and abandoned her mother. She’d met a man who—

Joel turned his head to look at her then, smiling when he saw that she was studying him so intently.

“What?” he asked, his smile warming his mouth, his eyes, his entire face. “What are you thinking about?”

So much, Lila thought. There was just so much. Too much. Too much for her not to feel overwhelmed by it. So she dropped her gaze to smooth out a nonexistent wrinkle in her baggy charcoal pants, and straightened the dark red shirt that needed no straightening. Then she replied softly, “I’m leaving OPUS.”

When Joel said nothing in response, she glanced up again. But she could tell nothing of what he was thinking by his expression. And all he said when he finally did speak was, “Why?”

Oh, where to begin? she thought. Oversimplifying it egregiously, she told him, “It’s not the organization I thought it was.”

To his credit, he chuckled—once—at the comment. “It’s not the organization anyone thinks it is, Lila. Hell, half the time I don’t think OPUS even knows what kind of an organization it is.”

“Oh, they know,” she replied immediately, not quite able to keep the edge out of her voice. Then she relented. “And I suppose, deep down, I did, too. I just didn’t care before.”

“Before what?”

She dropped her gaze back into her lap. “Before I realized I’m not the machine they want me to be. At least, I’m not anymore. That machine wouldn’t have cared that it was being controlled through lies and manipulation. That machine wouldn’t have cared that a criminal it had spent years trying to bring down got away without so much as a slap on the wrist. That machine wouldn’t have cared that OPUS didn’t tell it about its sister and father, and it wouldn’t have lain awake at night wondering what it missed out on by not having that information. And that machine wouldn’t have cared about—” She halted before she could put voice to her feelings about Joel. Because, honestly, she still wasn’t sure about her feelings for Joel.

“It wouldn’t have cared about what?” he asked.

But all Lila said was, “I’m not a machine. I’m a human being. With a brain and a heart, and everything that comes with both of them. All the fear, all the confusion, all the…” She sighed again. “I just can’t be what OPUS wants me to be. And I don’t want to work for an organization I don’t respect.”

“Then what will you do?” he asked.

“Take some time off,” she said, having made that decision, if no others. “I don’t want to rush into anything just yet. I just…I have a lot of things I need to figure out.”

He said nothing in response to that, so Lila looked up at him again. The moment her gaze connected with his, he asked, “Am I one of those things?”

She had to be honest with him, she knew. More to the point, she had to be honest with herself. So she replied, “Yeah. You are.”

His expression didn’t change in any way at her revelation. He only studied her in silence, as if he were waiting for her to say more. She supposed the least she could do was give him an explanation. The problem was, she wasn’t sure she had one.

Honest, she reminded herself. Be honest.

“I’ve never met anyone like you before,” she began. “And I care about you in a way that I’ve never come close to caring for another human being. But it all happened so fast, Joel. And even though my life does kind of run at light speed most of the time, this thing between you and me, it’s…it’s…” She hesitated, trying to find the right way to say it. “It’s too important for me to just sit back and let it happen, the way I usually do.”

“Why not?”

She blinked at the question as if he’d just flashed a too-bright light in her eyes. Probably because that was how the question made her feel. Surprised. Disoriented. Off balance. “What do you mean, ‘Why not?’” she asked.

He shrugged as if the question were a simple one, and never once looked away. “Why can’t you react instinctively to what’s happened between us?” he said. “It seems to me that’s the one thing you
should
react instinctively to.”

The answer to that should be obvious to him, she thought. It was, after all, so obvious to her. She couldn’t react instinctively because…Because…Because…

“Because it’s too important,” she said again.

His expression softened a little at that. “Lila—”

“No, Joel, don’t,” she interrupted him, holding up a hand. “There’s just too much going on right now for me to make sense of any of it. The man I’ve focused my entire existence on finding for the past two years is suddenly no longer my concern. I have a sister I met for the first time a couple of weeks ago, for just a few hours, that I need to get to know. My partner, my best friend in the world, is getting married soon and he’s going to have priorities that don’t include me, which is totally as it should be.” She felt tears welling up and cursed herself for not being able to better control them. “And then there’s you,” she said softly.

His dark eyebrows arrowed downward. “What about me?”

She shook her head. “That’s just it, Joel. I don’t know about you. You’re the most confusing thing of all.”

He said nothing for a moment, and his expression never changed. Finally, very softly, he told her, “Then I guess I need to help you figure me out.”

She forced herself not to look away when she told him, “No. I can only do that by myself.”

His brow furrowed. “Just like you do everything else, huh?”

His remark confused her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you think you have to do everything by yourself,” he said. “It’s not just the job—it’s your whole life. You can’t accept the fact that there are some things you do need someone else to help you with. And one of those things, Lila, is life.”

She started to object—even though she knew part of what he said was true—but he hurried on before she had a chance. His expression cleared a little as he spoke, however, and he smiled, albeit a little sadly. Still, his voice was lighter when he told her, “But that’s okay. For now. Go ahead and try to figure me out by yourself. In the meantime, let me help you out with something else you need.”

The sudden change in tone, in him, confused her even more. “What are you talking about?” she asked. “What else do I need?”

“Your partner’s getting married this weekend,” he reminded her. “You’ll be getting to the church on time, after all.”

“What does that have to do with something I need?”

He lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “You need a date, right? I mean, no single person wants to go to a wedding without a date. Everyone’s in matchmaker mode at weddings, trying to foist you off on their nephew. Or their neighbor. Or their plumber. Or their barber. Or their nephew’s neighbor’s plumber’s barber. Who needs that?”

She smiled in spite of her confusion, in spite of her tumultuous emotions, wishing all it took to make things right between them was attending someone else’s wedding. And then she heard herself say, “Yeah, I guess I do need a date for that.”

Joel nodded once, satisfied with her answer. “Then it’s settled,” he said. “I’ll be your date for the wedding.”

“But—”

“No, no, don’t worry. It’s no trouble at all.”

“But—”

“I have absolutely no plans for the weekend.”

“But—”

“This may come as a surprise to you, but I even own a suit.”

“But—”

“And even more surprising, I know how to dance.”

“But—”

“And I always bring a gift.”

“But—”

“Still, Lila, there is something you should know about me,” he concluded, sobering.

The expression on his face now made her mouth go a little dry, so very serious was it. Very quietly she asked, “What?”

“I love you.”

Lila actually reared her head back involuntarily at the words, so overwhelming was their power. She closed her eyes, thinking it might take away some of their impact, but that only made them sink deeper. It wasn’t that she was surprised Joel loved her. It wasn’t even that she was surprised he would tell her. What surprised her was the absolute conviction with which he said it.

“I love you,” he said again. And again the words, the feeling, went right to the bone. “And I will love you forever. But, Lila.”

She opened her eyes again, looking at him.

Very softly he told her, “I can’t wait for you forever. That’s not the way I’m built.”

She wasn’t sure what else to say after that, so she told him, “I’ll pick you up at your house Saturday morning. Eight o’clock. Pack for two nights in the Hamptons.”

He nodded. “I’ll be ready.”

She nodded back, with less enthusiasm. She only wished she could say the same for herself.

J
OEL SLEPT BARELY A
wink Friday night. Which wasn’t surprising, because he hadn’t slept well all week. At least, not since returning to D.C. His house had become too quiet, too inhospitable, too empty. Which was strange, since it was cluttered with the remnants of four generations of Faradays, and never before had he found the place lacking in any way. On the contrary, Joel had always loved this house. Without Lila, it just wasn’t comfortable. By Saturday morning, as he stood gazing out the living-room window onto the street below, he was beginning to wonder if his house would ever feel comfortable again.

And he wondered if Lila would ever be able to love him.

He hadn’t seen or spoken to her since their return. They’d been separated the moment they debarked the plane to be debriefed individually, something that had taken up the rest of that day. As he’d risen to leave his debriefing, hoping to find Lila still around, he’d been handed a slim vellum envelope he recognized as official OPUS stationery. Inside had been a brief, handwritten letter from Lila telling him she would be in Cleveland visiting her sister for the rest of the week, but that she’d see him at eight o’clock Saturday morning, just as the two of them had agreed. The wording of the note hadn’t exactly been formal, but neither had it been all that familiar. Just an announcement of her plans, and a reminder of the time, and a
Take care, Joel
before signing her name.

Take care, Joel.
Yeah, he’d get right on that.

He told himself now, as he had told himself for days, that her trip had nothing to do with him. She would, understandably, want to see the sister she’d met only briefly before having to take off to find Sorcerer. But she’d left so quickly and abruptly. And she’d left without telling him goodbye. She’d left without telling him a lot of things he really would have liked to hear.

His thoughts halted right there, because a car pulled into a spot at the curb half a block up from his house, and he knew without question it was Lila. Sure enough, the driver’s door opened and a blond head emerged, connected to a body that was petite and potent. Sunglasses covered her eyes, but nothing could hide her strength and determination, though the pale yellow sweater she wore over well-faded jeans went a long way toward softening both. As she made her way up the street toward his front door, she looked carefree and flirty and feminine. Unless he was just imagining that.

Then the knot in his belly cinched tighter.

He arrived at his front door just as she knocked, and he pulled it open immediately. She’d pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head, so the surprise etched on her face at his quickness was unmistakable. Likewise unmistakable was the way she smiled at him when she saw him—warmly, a little nervously, happily. He wasn’t imagining that.