The Paris Assignment (15 page)

“We never know people’s true motives, no matter how well we know them.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I’d prefer to believe we can be better than we are, but how often does that happen? If you really look at it, how often do people make choices in reaction to the actions of someone they love?”

Did he mean Sarah and her misguided teenage actions at the dissolution of her parents’ marriage? Or was there something else?

“Not everyone does that.”

“No, sometimes they just avoid any hints of love and commitment so there’s no chance of getting hurt.”

Whatever she’d expected when Campbell had arrived in her office, a conversation about love and loss and the lack of emotional growth wasn’t it. Yet now that she was confronted with the matter, she had to wonder if she’d behaved that way.

If the real reason she was alone was to avoid the pain of some imagined future betrayal by a loved one.

“I’ll let you get back to your prep. I would like to do a briefing at five in the dining room. One last session with the security team before your guests arrive.”

“Of course.”

Abby waited until he reached the door before calling out to him. “Campbell?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m still mad at you.”

“You’ve got a right to be.”

* * *

Campbell gritted his teeth as David’s right-hand man, Simon, ran his lascivious gaze over Abby’s bare shoulders.

Again.

The urge to reach up and slam the man face-first into the dining room table was strong, but Campbell kept quiet. This was Abby’s meeting and he’d already behaved like a raging ass once today. It would do him no good to get caught behaving that way a second time.

She wore a peach gown that made her look like some Greek goddess. Her hair was caught up in a sweep of ringlets which had the incredible effect of leaving her neck exposed. The dress then gathered at the base of her neck, leaving her shoulders bare. Of course, the view that all of them were begging to see just once more was the low-cut back that bared the subtle arch of her spine before her skin disappeared below the cut of the gown.

She was breathtaking.

And obviously still not over their earlier argument based on the fact that she’d barely spared him a glance since the beginning of the meeting.

Oh, she was cordial and professional, as she’d been to the rest of the team, but that was the extent of their contact.

“Again, I must stress how imperative it is that our guests don’t know you all are here. You need to be unobtrusive and avoid contact with the crowd. If the person responsible is here, and we believe he likely is, we can’t risk him fleeing into the wind.”

“We’re going to keep you safe.”

Abby shot Simon a dull smile and Campbell had the momentary satisfaction to see her stare down her nose at the pompous ass. “Let me repeat my point. You’ve been hired by me. And I’m telling you I don’t want my guests to know you’re here. So either stay out of sight or leave now.”

The reprimand had its desired effect and Simon backed down, especially after a particularly firm glance from David.

Campbell had to hand it to Abby. The woman knew what she wanted and she didn’t tolerate those who didn’t agree.

Which only reinforced his poor move over the hidden server device.

He should have given her the benefit of the doubt. Should have allowed her to explain.

“That’ll be all. You may set up in the third-floor parlor or stick to the surveillance vans you’ve got parked down the street. I’ve also made sure there is more than enough food so feel free to head down to the kitchen and help yourselves.”

Campbell remained in his seat despite Simon’s pointed glare and waited until he and Abby were alone.

“That went well.”

“Oh, bite me. It went horribly and you know it.”

“They’re programmed for the hunt and you’ve effectively tied their paws.”

“Simon’s a jerk of the first water.”

“Simon’s a jock with too much testosterone who’s trying to impress you. He’ll get over it.”

She shot him a sideways glance at the testosterone comment before focusing on the underlying issue. “We simply can’t risk whomever’s responsible finding out they’re here. We’ve done everything possible to keep their presence undetectable. I won’t have all that effort wasted.”

“You look beautiful.”

The words were out before he could stop them and after they were out, Campbell found he didn’t want to.

She was beautiful.

And he’d be damned if he’d hold the thought back any longer.

“Thank you.”

Campbell got up and walked around the long table to where she sat on the other side. Anticipation quivered off her skin when he reached out to run a finger over the smooth skin of her exposed shoulder. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”

“I promise.”

“I mean it, Abby.” The urgent words rose up from his chest as a wash of fear coated his throat. “You can’t take any chances.”

She reached up and laid a hand over his. With tender motions, she rubbed the pad of her thumb over his knuckles. Need ratcheted through him with the force of cannon fire as desire flooded his system with an ardent fury.

Bending down he pressed his lips against her ear. “I want you.”

He felt her light shiver underneath his fingers before she tightened her hand over his. “Now’s not the time.”

“Later.”

“Yes.” She nodded, the move nearly imperceptible. “Later.”

Campbell stepped back and allowed her to stand, helping her from the ornate dining room chair.

They didn’t touch again, but he felt the heat of her skin long after she’d departed from the room.

* * *

Lucas tied his bow tie into a faultless knot, each side a perfect mirror of the other. The tie conveyed a muted elegance that said he was a member of a rarified circle.

That he belonged.

That he mattered.

He shot one final glance in the mirror, satisfied he looked as he should, then resumed a place in front of his computer in the sitting room of his suite.

He’d monitored Abby’s movements on and off throughout the day, watching when she logged on and what files she opened and changed, the others that she opened and discarded. Although he’d spent months coding and recoding the small device until it was ready for his use, he’d still not figured a way to make it work on cell phones, but he was hell-bent to try to figure it out.

Stef had secured four prototypes for him and he had two left.

Had he been too hasty in getting rid of her?

Although he rarely second-guessed himself, she had been an incredible asset to him. Add on her blind devotion and Lucas had to wonder if perhaps he’d been a bit quick to jump the gun on her execution.

That said...he raked his gaze over the small billfold that held the remaining two devices and knew they’d put him closer than ever to his goal. Stef Nichols was baggage and he ran the very real risk she’d flee once she discovered what he’d actually had planned for her boss.

No.

It was better this way.

Satisfied after reconsidering his decision—a sign of his agile mind and ability to fully assess his actions—he picked up the server devices and locked them in the small safe in his room.

While they surely held very little interest to anyone who might happen upon them, there was no reason to leave them lying about. When the maid came in for turn-down service, all she’d see was the obsessively neat room of a man who traveled for a living.

His personal things sat in perfect order in the bathroom and his clothing hung in neat rows in his closet as his mother had taught him.

Just like your father.

Like a man who knew how to care properly for the things he’d earned.

Like a man who commanded respect from all who dealt with him, from the fiercest business adversary to the man who shined his shoes.

Like a man who owned the world.

Chapter 12

C
ampbell read the brief text on his phone—
NEED TO SEE YOU
—and went into action. He worked his way across the ballroom, his sights on Abby. As he walked the periphery, he mentally catalogued his evaluations.

For the past hour, he’d mingled with her guests and subtly dropped clues he and Abby were an item.

To a person, everyone was friendly. And to a person, everyone’s gaze had turned speculative when he mentioned the fact they were dating.

Campbell filed it all away, cataloguing responses into one of three categories.

Gossipy interest. Disappointment she was off the market. Or opportunistic calculation at what her new relationship—especially one she was comfortable enough with to bring to the event—meant relative to her position at McBane.

One guy had even gone so far as to ask Campbell when the two of them were planning on having kids.

His gaze roamed over Abby, deep in conversation with one of her guests—Martin, Campbell remembered—and the comment about a baby took hold deep in his mind. The image of her long slender form transformed in his mind as he imagined her heavy with pregnancy and the image stopped him in his tracks.

Where had that come from?

“Darling.” She waved him over and he pasted on a smile, relegating the image in his mind to some deeply buried place where he wouldn’t see it again.

She linked his hand with hers before turning in and pressing a hand against his chest. His heart leaped at the contact and he saw the briefest question glow in the chocolate-brown of her eyes before she composed herself, totally focused on the moment at hand.

“I’d like to introduce you to Martin.”

They chatted in that politely inane way that fueled dinner parties the world over and it took Campbell longer than he’d have preferred to get her alone, especially when two new people drifted into their conversation circle even before Martin left.

“I’m terribly sorry to do this.” Campbell finally cut through the polite chitchat, especially after Carina from the New York office made a production about how she was convinced they’d met before. Campbell would have sworn they hadn’t, but he wasn’t all that interested to stick around and swap stories to find out if he had it wrong. “I need to make a quick call for work.”

Abby’s gaze stayed bright on his but he felt the subtle tightening of her hand on his forearm. “I hope everything’s all right, sweetheart. I was looking forward to introducing you to everyone this evening.”

“I’ll only be gone a few minutes.” He kept his tone upbeat and his smile broad. “Let me just make a quick call and I’ll be back in a bit.”

“Don’t be long.”

His body tightened on the subtle breathy notes of her voice and he had the fleeting thought that he wished she wasn’t quite so good at the charade. Even as his mind knew they were putting on an act, his body was more than willing to play an active role.

Campbell met the wry glance of the third man in their circle. He didn’t know the guy’s name, but recognized the quick smile of supportive brotherhood that spoke volumes.

Women.

He couldn’t say what it was in the guy’s stare that put him on edge, but he let it go in the buzzing of what was no doubt a second text from David asking him where the hell he was.

“I’ll be back shortly.” Campbell pressed a quick kiss to her forehead, then took off for the door. He turned at the last minute before vanishing down the hall and couldn’t shake the inconvenient attraction that threatened to scramble every last one of his brain cells.

He stopped for the briefest of moments, willing her to turn and look at him, but she’d resumed her conversation with her guests.

When had he become so damned fanciful?

Shaking it off, Campbell took the stairs two at a time and knocked at the door before slipping inside. David and his team waited for him, each and every one at rigid attention.

“Quite the party.”

“She does know how to entertain.” Campbell launched into a quick briefing of what he’d assessed so far before David waved a hand to shut him down. “What’s going on?”

“We got some intel on Stef Nichols.”

A raw chill ran the length of his spine and Campbell knew the information wasn’t good.

“She was found about an hour ago, dead in her apartment.”

“Not by accident, I assume?”

“No. Her neck was broken. Time of death was estimated last night around midnight.”

Campbell waited for the full report even as the implications of the woman’s death swirled in his mind.

He needed to tell Abby. But did he dare tell her now? She was a good actress and had been more than convincing in the role of dewy-eyed lover, but she was already upset about Stef’s possible involvement.

Could he really put the entire evening at risk by telling her now? By confirming the incontrovertible proof of the woman’s involvement with the very worst of news?

“Has anything been found on her electronics?”

Simon stepped in and shook his head. “The cops won’t share it. We have a fair amount of pull, but a dead woman sort of trumps our authority and we weren’t given access to them.”

Campbell heard the implied “yet” in Simon’s voice and knew it wouldn’t be that easy. “Let me see what I can do on that front.”

Although the House of Steele didn’t have much more pull with the NYPD than David’s firm did, he’d worked enough projects for them that he had developed a sizeable network of contacts. One of them should at least be able to tell him what the security team hadn’t yet found out.

Especially if there was anything on the electronics and if he could get into them and dig a bit more deeply.

“The cops want to talk to Abby as soon as possible.” David handed him a message he’d scribbled on a notepad. Campbell didn’t recognize the name of the detective, but he did recognize the precinct number and mentally catalogued a few of the people he knew there.

“Can you hold them off?”

“Not for long. I explained she wasn’t available and got the tersely worded explanation that she needs to make herself available.”

“Stall them.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“She needs to get through this evening. We’ve come too far and we’re too close to getting a bead on this guy. Tonight’s essential and if the guy is here, she needs the time to work the room and get a sense if anything seems off. There’s no way the knowledge that Stef is dead isn’t going to mess her up and pull her off her rhythm.”

“I understand.”

* * *

Abby smiled and nodded at the assembled crowd as happy conversation swirled around her. The first guest had arrived promptly at seven and she hadn’t stopped smiling since.

Or evaluating each and every person who’d walked through her front door.

Three people had popped as slightly off, but she’d managed to eliminate one of them when she realized his wife and new baby had been home from the hospital a total of three days. Despite her encouragement he leave and fly home, he ran through the typical song and dance about the importance of work, how they had a nanny and that his mother-in-law had descended for a month-long stay. She’d nodded politely throughout but knew she could remove him from the list of suspects.

What she couldn’t quite remove was the image of a husband and baby that exploded in her mind with surprising force. Or the fact that the person she saw as sharing the journey of parenthood with her was Campbell.

“This is quite the party.”

Abby willed the thought—and the traitorous heat that suffused her body with pleasure—as Lucas Brown drifted back to talk to her.

He was the newest member of her board, his financial firm in London having come on her radar two years prior when they’d managed a capital expansion in Europe. He had a ready understanding of business and she’d always appreciated his thoughts on McBane’s growth opportunities. When a seat on the board had opened up, one of her advisors had suggested Lucas and he’d been a match from the start.

She estimated he was about three or four years older than herself. He had an appealing look to him, with a fit body more than evident underneath his power suit and warm brown eyes that always filled with a ready smile. She’d liked him from the first and thought he brought a youthful perspective to the board that was often missing from some of the other members. Where they had the wisdom of experience on their side, he had the aggressive, entrepreneurial focus of youth and it created a nice balance.

“So Campbell’s a new addition to your life.”

She heard the question and pasted on a demure smile that wasn’t all that hard to conjure up. “Yes.”

“The two of you are quite the subject of conversation. What does he do?”

Abby walked through the agreed-to script on how they met and Campbell’s role as a software developer for the financial industry before she thought to censor herself. Saying Campbell was an expert in financial markets wasn’t going to go over Lucas’s head as it would with most and his attention perked up immediately.

“Who does he work for?”

“He works rather independently most of the time.” She made a mental note to share that tidbit with Campbell before she added a bright smile with what she hoped was a vague, dreamy gaze. “I can’t say I’ve spent all that much time asking him about his work.”

“The joys of new love.”

“Yes.”

“Even when you get left at the party all by yourself.”

Abby kept up the good-natured attitude but couldn’t shake the subtle awareness that Lucas had paid rather close attention to her and Campbell’s exchange before he’d left the room. “He’s a busy man. Since I’ve left more than one party on more than one occasion I can hardly complain.”

Abby saw Lucas’s gaze shift to a point behind her and turned to see Campbell striding across the ballroom. “Speak of the devil.”

Campbell extended a hand, his smile bright and convivial even as she saw the tension that bracketed his eyes in tight lines. She made the brief introductions before Lucas started in with a jolt. “I understand from Abby you work in software for the financial industry.”

She took heart at Campbell’s light squeeze to her hand even if she couldn’t shake the underlying feeling something was wrong.

And then she could only admire his acting skills as Campbell launched into a mind-numbing description of his “work.” The man might not work in the financial industry, but you’d never know that from his ready description of complex technologies and evolving solutions in the field.

The heavy bell announcing dinner had their conversation ending and Abby excused them both to Lucas with the claim that she needed to speak to the event staff. Since her hand stayed firmly wrapped around his, Campbell added a good-natured wink to their departure and promised further discussion with Lucas over dinner.

Abby dragged him with her into the kitchen, unwilling to say anything until she knew for certain they were out of earshot of her guests.

“Did you just tell him anything that wasn’t true?” Abby kept her voice low so as not to be overheard but she couldn’t completely eradicate the panicky urgency that gripped her throat as they huddled in a small butler’s area that held several rows of wine racks.

“Of course not.”

“But you don’t work in financial software.”

“Sure I do.”

“You what?”

“I work across many fields. You don’t think I’d make up a job I didn’t know how to do, do you?”

Abby clamped her mouth shut, convinced the gaping hole made her look like a gasping fish. “Well, I’m—”

“I know what I’m doing and I know how to talk tech.”

“I guess you do.”

The same tension lines she’d noticed in the ballroom were once more in evidence and she couldn’t stop herself from reaching a hand up to settle against his jaw. “Is everything okay?”

“Sure.”

“What did David want?”

Campbell glanced around them and pointed toward a small group of caterers that stood along the far wall. “Nothing that can’t wait a bit.”

“Later, then?”

“Later.”

Before she could even think to say anything further, Campbell took full advantage of their private moment to lean in and press his lips against hers. The light taste of the wine served during the cocktail hour still lingered on his tongue and she marveled at the sensuous blend of taste and the warm, masculine scent that filled her nose as she opened for him, tangling her tongue with his.

Campbell.

A light sigh rose up in her throat as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer for their kiss. Whether it was the fact she had more than twenty people awaiting her arrival or the delicious smells wafting from the kitchen or the simple joy of once again being in his arms, Abby didn’t really care.

She simply hung on and rode the moment.

Dark, sensuous needs exploded on her tongue as he made love to her with his mouth. His powerful body caged hers as he plundered, each moment sweeter than the one before. He pressed his lips against hers, their mingled breaths a testament to the deep need that pulsed between them.

“Abby.”

She pulled herself from the brink of madness—and the increasingly insistent demands of her body that ruthlessly whispered she needed to drag him to her room—and let the quiet moment settle in her bones. “Hmm?”

“We need to get back to dinner.”

“Right. Dinner.”

“You okay?”

“Hmm.”

He released his hold on her and stepped back. She felt the light touch of his fingers as he skimmed one down the side of her face. “You’re so beautiful.”

The delightful hum that filled her veins grew heavier at the lovely compliment. “Thank you.”

“You ready to go back to the party?”

“Do we have to?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Then yes, I’m ready.”

“And are you now convinced I can hold my own in a conversation with your guests?”

She smiled at the sweet notes of his voice. “I was convinced before. And while I’m quite sure kissing is not a way to convince me further I’m also not going to argue with your methods. Not one bit.”

He leaned in and nipped a quick kiss along her jaw. “That was just for fun and to see if I could ruffle your very beautiful feathers.”