Forbidden Fantasies Bundle(127)

And she certainly didn’t want to go back to her fantasy lover. Zoë frowned. Although both Jed Calhoun and Ethan Blair shared many qualities with Lucifer.

As the taxi swerved into one of the traffic circles D.C. was famous for, she tried to push all three men firmly out of her mind. Right now, she had to concentrate on letting Ryder Kane know that someone had stolen whatever was in that envelope intended for Jed Calhoun. It was the least she could do.

A glance at the nearest street sign told her that Ryder Kane’s office was only a few blocks away. While she’d dressed and made her escape from the hotel, she’d decided that if anyone knew how to contact Jed, Ryder would. As the taxi pulled to the curb, she glanced up at the building that housed not only Ryder’s D.C. office but also his living space on the top floor. It was in that apartment that she’d first met Jed. Pushing the memory away, she paid the driver and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

She would give Ryder the information and let him pass it on to Jed. That would be the end of it.

Then she would go back to her office and make some decisions about her life.



GAGE SINCLAIR glanced at his watch for the fourth time in as many minutes. He’d been tailing Bailey Montgomery for two hours, ever since she’d left her office at Langley at 10:00 a.m. His hadn’t been the only car following hers. She’d eliminated the other tail in less than ten minutes, and then she’d executed a few maneuvers with her car that told him she suspected she was still being followed.

But she hadn’t shaken him. He knew a few maneuvers himself.

When Bailey had eventually headed toward Georgetown, he’d expected her to stop at either Zoë McNamara’s apartment or her office. That’s when Agent Montgomery surprised him. Instead of checking either place, she’d parked her car on a commercial street that boasted a cluster of trendy boutiques and she’d gone shopping.

Thoroughly intrigued, he’d slipped into a parking space three cars down from hers, turned off his engine, rolled down his windows and waited. What was she up to? The Bailey Montgomery that he knew—and he’d known her for eight years now—wasn’t the kind of woman to take time off to go shopping on a workday.

The first store she’d entered had been an antique gallery. Gage shifted his position and glanced at his watch. She’d been in there for fifteen minutes now. If she’d come here to meet with someone, they were either late or she was early. And just who was she meeting with? He knew from his own men that Zoë McNamara hadn’t returned to either her apartment or her office on the Georgetown campus. He also knew that Bailey was undoubtedly keeping just as close an eye on Zoë.

Gage agreed with Jed that Bailey Montgomery held the key to the reason that he was being framed for Frank Medici’s murder. But Gage didn’t think that Bailey had played a part in the frame. He’d done his research on her before he’d actively recruited her. She was smart, capable and a straight shooter. She would follow orders like a good soldier, but she wouldn’t follow them blindly. That characteristic had played a huge part in his decision to recruit her.

That and the fact that she had a clever and creative mind. He had no doubt she’d planted the bug he’d discovered in his office phone. His lips curved in a smile at the thought. How in the hell had she managed it? He had some pretty effective security arrangements in place. He intended to ask her—eventually. Right now, he had to focus on why she’d bugged his office in the first place. It had to mean that she’d suspected Jed Calhoun would get in touch with him. And that meant that she’d known Jed was alive.

The question that intrigued him most was when she’d learned that little fact. Or had she known it all along? Had she purposely left Jed Calhoun alive in that alley?

As Bailey exited the antique store and moved toward her car, he considered getting out, walking up to her and asking her that very question.

But he knew from the dossier he’d compiled on her eight years ago that she wasn’t a woman who trusted easily. So he decided to wait. There was always the chance that Jed’s plan of breaking into her office and looking for files would work.

In the meantime, he enjoyed watching her stride down the sidewalk. She moved with a quick, athletic grace that wasted neither time nor energy. He admired both that and the way she dressed more like a fashion plate than a CIA agent. The tailored pants and jacket were a pale gray pinstripe that did nothing to suggest masculinity, and the bright blue blouse she wore beneath it hinted at everything feminine. She wore her blond hair at chin length in one of those smooth, sleek haircuts that a man fantasized about messing up.