Pretty Perfect Toy -- A Temptation Court Novel (Temptation Court, Book 2) (31 page)

Double-take. Literally. “Excuse me?”

He sips again on his green claw drink. “You know what it means.”

“Of course I know what it means.” It is only that the Arcadian version of
bullshit
is the last thing I expected from his insolent lips. “How do
you
—and
why,
with
me
—”

“Because you don’t have a cruel bone in your body.” He means it as fact; his gaze conveys as much—but I feel a blush suffusing my face exactly like the late afternoon sun washing over the digital billboards outside. “My boy wonder of a little bro certainly found himself a female of quality.”

“Well…
merderim
,” I finally mutter.

“You’re welcome,” he answers.

Curious glance. “Just learning Arcadian in your spare time, hmmm?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.” His face sobers as he gazes over the boards. “If getting to Cas through you didn’t work, I had to be prepared to go to the island to stop this disaster he’s walking into.” He lifts his head a little, presenting a profile that halts me—not for the first time—with its similarities to his brother. There is no mistaking the proud Court forehead, the stubborn jawline, and the long, noble line of that nose. “But with the intel you’ve been able to sneak out of the office at Temptation, and some of the things you’ve overheard and reported back, we’re gathering such a mountain of evidence, there’ll be nobody willing to let these ‘contractors’ act on their behalf overseas.”

“Even Cassian.”

“
Especially
Cassian.” He inhales through his nose. “We just have to make sure we bury the real evidence—
deep
. Make it look like these guys simply have shoddy workmanship and late completion dates, instead of ties to an international terrorist like Rune Kavill.”

I yank in a breath too—shakier than his. “Rune Kavill.” My rasp is just as rickety. It is a name I never expected to utter again, after the filthy
bonsun
messed with my land by backing Arcadian anti-government radicals, then kidnapping my friend
and
boss, Brooke Cimarron. The vermin was stopped by a small special ops team led by Prince Samsyn but Kavill escaped during the scuffle—only to turn up again now, as the international terrorist disguised behind a contracting firm Cassian has signed for new projects on Arcadia.

“The asshole’s good.” Damon concedes it from tight lips, pacing to the next bulletin board. “We’ve had to follow back the trail from here to Istanbul and back again. Covering it quietly won’t be easy but we’re almost there.”

Another shiver conquers me. From the dark daggers in his eyes and the fresh clench of his jaw, I can already interpret the extent of his meaning.
Covering it quietly
means the use of silencers, pillows, and shadow accounts of their own, not simply pushing mute buttons and freezing bank accounts. It will be messy.…but lives will be saved.

Especially Cassian’s.

I just have to keep telling myself that.

A lot.

And moments like this, in which I feel like I will never breathe normally again, will eventually pass. I battle to find extra room in my chest while turning to pace in front of the huge picture windows again. Far below, tourists in flip-flops and baseball caps stream along the sidewalks, gaping at the building-size ads for cologne, watches, diamonds, and plays about witches, wizards, sorcerers, and lions. Fantasy images for them…the realities of my world now. Yes, even the noble lions. A wildcat I am desperately trying to save now…even if it means having to lie to him.

Only for a little while longer…

The juxtaposition strikes me hard. The fantasy outside…the reality in here. The contradiction gives rise to a question.

“Damon?”

“Hmmm?”

“How do you do it?”

He continues peering at the boards, though he is far from distracted. The crackle of his attention fills the ten steps between us. “Do what?”

“Make sneaking around sound heroic.”

More crackles, though they are indulged within a long silence. Just as quietly, he murmurs, “How do you think I’ve kept sane for the last fourteen years?”

“A dozen of which were
after
you answered your debt to the government,” I point out. “So why did you stay on? Make the CIA your life?”

He tilts his head. For a moment, almost appears like I have asked if he has a pulse. “Because it
is
my life.” The jut of his lower lip is synched to his simple shrug. “Yeah, it was shitty to have to ‘die’—but in a lot of ways, it was a gift. I received a chance most people only dream of.”

The answer in that blank space is clear. “A completely clean slate.”

“Damn straight,” he confirms. “But more than that. A clean slate—with the custom-built opportunity to make it count for good. To turn Damon Court into Bourne Jackson—the person I always wanted to be.”

“A hero.”

His lips spread. His stare glitters brightly. With just two words, I have given his spirit bars of solid gold. “Yeah. A hero.”

Praying he does not throttle me for ruining the moment, my mouth twitches. “All right, but…”

“But what?”

“Bourne…Jackson?” I challenge.

Fortunately, he chuckles. “Hey, it’s a kick-ass name!”

Snort. “For super spies who can accomplish miracles with the help of a great computer animation department.” Says the woman who has taken the art of “super girlfriend” into a new cosmos this week, including viewing
way
too many super spy movies.

“And your point would be?”

“That we do not have the luxury of special effects.”

It is a little harsher than I first intended—perhaps because I realize the words are for me as much as him. I act on them too, turning from the windows, leaving behind the world of fantasy for the reality of the task still before us—

And,
dear Creator please
, the finish line he has promised is in sight.

Damon, seeming to see the symbolism of my move, nods as I rejoin him—though his next drag on the energy drink appears more like a fortifying gulp from a cocktail. The impression is heightened when he sets the thing down on a nearby table with a decisive
thwong
.

“Mishella.” He approaches. Plants his stance in front of me with equal verdict. “You need to know…when we’re done with this and taken care of Kavill for good, I promise to disappear as fast as I came. It’s not my intent to fuck with Cas’s life, or the good thing he’s found with you. I’ll be gone—for good.”

For many seconds, I just shift from foot to foot. Fall back on the safety of some Vylet-style snark, in hopes of masking my discomfort. “Are you looking for a medal, James Bond? Because I do not have one.”

He backs away. Huffs awkwardly. “Of course not. And I know that asking you to carry my secret is suckage to the
nth
.”

“It is…all right, Damon.” I wave a dismissive hand, flashing flecks from my bracelet across the room, and raining similar sparks across my heart. Yes, the thing is flashy—and yes, completely inappropriate for any time of the day before cocktail hour—but I refuse to remove it outside the shower or bedroom. Especially now, when I need the reminder of Cassian’s love too damn much. The reminder of everything he means to me…of why I am deliberately deceiving him, and will continue to do so, until his life is safe. “What other choice do we have?” I need to say it aloud too. “To tell Cassian about all this? Then…what…we would have to kill him, right?”

My deepest hope is that Damon laughs that off. My darkest dread is that he confirms it.

Nowhere in those visceral fears have I accounted for his actual reaction.

“
We
won’t kill him, Mishella.” He grates it out from a jaw turned to stone—shadowed by a gaze turned dark and ruthless as a dragon’s. “The bad guys will. Without mercy. And without hesitation.”

*

Cassian

“I’m not the
goddamn bad guy here.”

Doyle lifts a brow at me. Keeps it hiked while glancing back down at my phone—and the text screen it’s open to. “Did I say that?”

I rock back in my big home office chair, drumming both thumbs against the screen—battling to be casual about it. “You’re very good about not
saying
anything.”

D angles back in his own chair. Hikes his legs up, crossing them at the ankles atop the small conference table. “You’re also very good about not needing lip gloss to get through your day, honey.”

“What the hell is that supposed to—”

He smirks as my phone dings. Stabs a finger down at the thing. “Lip gloss.”

“Shut up.” I bite it with extra vehemence after reading Ella’s newest reply to me.

:: Thanks for checking in! Intermission right now. Show is very good. Be home soon. I love you. Toodles. ::

“Toodles?” I glare at the screen, feeling like goddamn Mr. Magoo, too blind and stupid to see the Mack truck about to flatten me. Blind because I can’t see straight from loving her. Stupid because it’s turned me into a paranoid sonofabitch merely existing between texts from the woman who is doing exactly what I exhorted her to do since the second she got to New York: getting out and enjoying the city. And how have I reacted about it? Tethered her to me with these nonstop, needy texts—even though every night, she has been a lover like none I’ve ever known, open and generous, nearly desperate in her desire…

And there it is.

The one cog that won’t fit in the machine.

The fissure in the castle walls.

The smear of the goddamn lip gloss.

Her desperate, constant, need to keep pleasing me.

Lip gloss—across the demeanor of a woman who has never wanted or needed that kind of pretense before. Suddenly, everything about Ella is slicked in this weird version of the stuff—from the princess-perky way she greets each day, to the toe-curling passion with which she ends my nights, to all the strange, Stepford wife moments in between. Constant back and foot rubs. Agreeing to a week’s worth of spy movies without a concession from me to a musical. My favorite sandwiches at lunch, joined by plates of nonstop lemon bars…

Followed by all the afternoons
away
from the house.

In damn near the same part of town.

Always,
always,
somewhere near or in the theater district.

Most times, she just wants to see a matinee, or get some shopping done. Two days ago, it was a nail appointment. Four days ago, a hair trim.

Only who goes to the theater district for shit like that?

Doyle snorts—hard enough to ensure he has read those thoughts just by looking at me. “You know you’re beyond pussy-whipped, don’t you?”

I push up from the chair. “You know I told you to shut up, don’t you?” I jam a hand through my hair. I’m in home office attire, tailored but casual pants and a V-neck tee, but everything still feels too tight and hot. “And get your feet off the fucking furniture.”

He answers by re-crossing his ankles. “Scott’s already texted too, hasn’t he? Assured you she texted him too, and he’s already waiting outside the theater? Ahhhh,”—he finger-guns me with both forefingers—“I’m
right
!”

“Big fucking deal.” I descend back into my chair. “So am I.”

“Says what fucking judge and jury?”

“Says this one.”

The declaration is menacing as a grizzly—fitting, since Hodge resembles a new breed of the animal from where he hulks in the doorway, hair semi-wild and eyes black with vengeance.

And making every hair on my neck seize as if I were sitting here with a packed picnic basket.

While every instinct in my body screams from the truth stamped across his face.

The contents on the data stick in his hand won’t divulge a goddamn picnic.

I push back to my feet. Suddenly, my legs are blocks of ice, fed by the glacier already dominating my chest, sluicing ice water through my veins. Not even my hard swallow redistributes the heat from the only thing on fire inside: the pain burning in my eye sockets, already dreading the images that stick will ignite to life on my desk monitor.

Hodge lumbers across to the desk, but balks once he’s standing in front of me. The edges of his gaze tighten, making my gut do the same thing. He’s only ten years older than me, but at times like this, the paternal vibes are undeniable—

And never more appreciated.

Despite what I spit the next second.

“Shit.”

“What?” Doyle charges. “What the
hell
is—”

“How bad, Hodge?” I grate.

His mouth twists. “She hasn’t been going to the theater, Cas. Or to the salon.”

“
What
?” It snarls from Doyle as I stab the stick into the port on my laptop. I add nothing to it—verbally. The cloud of my fury on the air is likely enough to blow the building, even without a match.

“Fuuuuck.” Again, Doyle supplies the soundtrack for our shock. He repeats the word in several forms as image after image blares to life on the screen.

Ella, getting out of the Jag in front of the Majestic theater. The iconic phantom mask posters beneath the wooden balconies.

Ella,
leaving
the theater’s back entrance.

Ella, crossing 45
^th
Street—