Mission: Marriage. Karen Whiddon

      He flashed her the grin that had always made her knees go weak. “I’ll buy you one when I’ve finished.”

      “I’ll buy my own, thank you.”

      He shot her a look full of amusement. “Then buy me one, too, sweetheart.”

      She bit her tongue to keep from telling him not to call her sweetheart. No doubt he knew and was doing it deliberately to bait her. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of rising to the bait.

      Stalking to the counter, she ordered two large mochas. Sean claimed a table near the front, taking a seat with his back to the wall, protecting his computer screen from curious eyes as well as enabling him to watch the door. Exactly where she would have sat, had she been the one working on the laptop.

      Once the drinks were ready, she carried them to the table and read the newspaper while he worked. She pretended to be intent on the articles, but continually scanned the door and watched out the window for anything out of the ordinary.

      “Bingo,” he said softly. Barely twenty minutes had passed. “I’m in.”

      “No way.”

      With a quick glance at her over the top of the screen, he grinned. “I told you I was good.”

      Pretending to scan her newspaper, pretending her heart hadn’t skipped a beat at the pure masculinity of his grin, she lazily turned a page before peering at him. “Now you set a trap. In code?”

      “In code,” he confirmed. “Once it’s set, all we can do is wait.”

      “Good.” Folding the paper neatly, she placed it on the table and took a long drink of her coffee. “I can’t wait to get started on my work.”

      “Not here.”

      “Of course not.” But his words made her want to snatch the computer away from him and start working immediately.

      Natalie sighed. She had to do something about this crazy urge to do the exact opposite of everything Sean said. Not only was it childish, it wasn’t safe for either of them.

      She drew a deep breath. She also needed to do something about this sexual tension. Constant arousal and unrequited need didn’t do much for a girl’s mood.

      If only she could stop wanting him.

      She almost laughed. Almost. She knew all she had to do was initiate lovemaking and Sean would do the rest. Such a solution might help one problem, but would only exacerbate another.

      Making love would only pretend to strengthen ties that had become nearly nonexistent. And her feelings for her husband were about much more than lust and desire.

      If only she could stop loving him.

      Grabbing her half-finished coffee, she followed him out the door.

      They found a quiet inn a few miles from downtown, in a nontourist part of town.

      Sean called Corbett while Natalie was in the bathroom. Quickly, he brought the older man up to speed. “I’ll check the system frequently to see if he takes my bait.”

      “Excellent.” Corbett sounded stressed—unusual for him. “How is everything else going with you two?”

      Though he knew the other man meant relationship-wise, Sean pretended not to understand. “Never a dull moment, that’s for sure. This is getting ridiculous, since we can’t even seem to get a handle on who the Hungarian is using to take us out. I almost feel like he put up reward money and every Tom, Dick and Harry is taking potshots at us.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Let’s see.” Sean ticked the items off on his fingers. “We’ve been shot at, had grenades lobbed at us, buildings blown up, associates murdered and we have no more information than we did when we started.”

      “Information about …”

      “About anything.” Sean clenched his teeth, holding back though he wanted to explode. “If this was a regular mission, with a team and a well-thought-out plan, that would be one thing. But there’s just the two of us, wandering around with blindfolds on. Sure, me hacking into the SIS system was a good plan, and Natalie is trying to decipher that code, but we need to get our act together before someone gets killed.”

      “I understand.”

      “No, Corbett. I don’t think you do.” Sean’s temper flared. “Natalie has been through enough.”

      “As have you.” The other man’s voice was serious and quiet. “Get a grip. I want the man responsible just as much as you do.”

      Corbett sighed. “Someone is trying to undermine the Lazlo Group, Sean. I’ve got all kinds of operations going wrong and operatives going dead. Between the mole in the SIS and the mole at Lazlo everything is being disrupted. Maybe it’s the work of the Hungarian, maybe it’s not. But we won’t know that until we find him, and stop him.”

      “Why?” Sean had been wanting to ask this question ever since he’d first come to work for the Lazlo Group. “What did you do to the Hungarian to make him hate you so much?”

      “Natalie asked me the same thing.”

      “Did you answer her?”

      “No.”

      “Are you going to answer me?”

      “I doubt it. That’s a long story and things are too crazy here to go into it now. Remember, I’ve lost people too.” A hint of anger colored Corbett’s cultured voice.

      Sean apologized. “I’m sorry. There’s a lot of tension between Natalie and me. This is hell for both of us. I don’t know why you thought we could work together.”

      “She needed help and asked for the best. You’re the best.”

      “Once, maybe. Not now.”

      Corbett ignored him. “Plus I’ve gotten tired of you pining away for her up there in that godforsaken cottage you call home.”

      Sean knew better than to argue. What Corbett said was the indisputable truth. “True, I missed her. But I didn’t realize she’d hate me when she saw me again.”

      “Does she, Sean? There’s a fine line between love and hate.”

      “Spare me the platitudes. I’ve seen how she is when she loves. Trust me, this is hate.”

      “She’s hurting.”

      Like they both weren’t? “Defending her?”

      With a sigh, Corbett conceded the point. “You know Nat’s like a daughter to me.” Which was why Corbett had asked Sean to help protect her to begin with.

      About to respond, Sean winced when the smoke alarm went off. The high-pitched wailing made hearing anything else impossible.

      “I’ve got to go.” Sean disconnected the call. He didn’t smell smoke, but that didn’t mean a hell of a lot. With the constant attacks on them—and their enemies’ disconcerting way of tracking them down—he wouldn’t be surprised to learn the building was on fire.

      The bathroom door opened. With no makeup on, Natalie looked impossibly young.

      “What’s going on?” she yelled. “Where’s the fire?”

      He could tell she’d changed hastily since her top was inside out. He grabbed the laptop then her arm and led the way to the door. “I don’t know, but we’d better get out.”

      She balked. “What if it’s a trap?”

      “What if it’s not?”

      Outside, the air was bracingly chilly. The wind coming out of the north felt like ice. They kept close to the building, looking for smoke.

      Other people poured from the building and stood