I found a red dress and black knee boots that I figured would work for a restaurant. I’d had to go shopping, before I left. I had to look like an independent, carefree young woman who’d jet off on her own on vacation, not a geeky shut-in. I stripped out of my wet jeans and the thick sweater I’d worn for the ice skating...and then I stopped and looked at myself in the mirror.#p#分页标题#e#
Could Luka really want...me? I looked down over my body. I was just normal. I didn’t have big boobs or long legs and I was no size zero. And he was gorgeous and—from what I’d glimpsed on his prison photos back in Langley—hard and sculpted beneath those expensive clothes.
I closed my eyes for a second and that image of his back was before my eyes. Thick slabs of muscle, strong enough to easily pick me up and carry me...or throw me down on a bed. Tattoos, and not some mass-produced, generic tribal swirls designed to make the owner look “edgy.” Luka’s tattoos were like a tapestry that told his life. A spider, in the center of its web: he was committed to a life of crime. A rose: he was part of the Bratva, the Russian mafia. Stars on his shoulders: he was a man of status, a higher class of criminal.
Criminal. What the hell was I doing, thinking about him in this way? He was the target!
I had to remain detached. This had to be an assignment, not a relationship. If I let it get personal, if I let him get under my skin, I’d be giving myself up to a man who was pure evil.
But if I did manage to keep it professional, if I slept with him and it meant nothing...wasn’t that even worse?
I opened my eyes. And saw that my hand wasn’t exactly between my thighs, but was tracing along the top of my panties. I jerked it guiltily away and hurried to get dressed.
The car arrived for me. A big, midnight-blue sedan, polished so bright that its flanks seemed to be made of dark water. The driver was Luka’s head bodyguard. The scar across his cheek and all those muscles made him look intimidating, but he didn’t seem thuggish, like some nightclub doorman. He seemed solemn, more than anything, as if he took his job very, very seriously.
I couldn’t get that phone call out of my head, the one when Luka had asked him to do a background check on me. He knows Luka wants to fuck me. Is that how he viewed me? Did he think he was just delivering a sacrificial lamb to his boss?
Inside, the car was all flawless cream leather. I was okay until the bodyguard slammed the door. Then I felt the memories start to stir and wake. This wasn’t like a cab. This was a normal car, with me in the back seat. It was daylight and it wasn’t snowing, so that was something. But it still came dangerously close to triggering me.
I had to do something to keep my memory tied up so that it didn’t have time to reach down into its depths and serve up my past. I stared out through the window and started to translate everything I saw into Russian. Lamppost. Dog. Tree.
It was ominously silent on the journey. There was no music and almost no road noise, the doors and windows muffling it completely. I wondered if they were armored.
I translated madly, staring at every passing building, translating drugstore, apartment block, convenience store as fast as I could. And then I broke off because I had a whole new problem. I noticed the bodyguard watching me in his mirror.
My stomach twisted into a knot. If Luka did have suspicions about me, he’d have told his man to look for anything suspicious. What should I do? Ignore him? Talk to him? What constituted suspicious?! God, this was already unbearable! Why did I ever agree to do this?! I was wound up tight inside, every nerve stretched to breaking point. And this was just the first date. How much worse would it get as we moved on? How was I going to keep lying to him if we had sex?!
Local CIA agents would be tracking the signal from my cell phone. There was probably an unmarked car following us, but they’d have to stay back, out of sight. Not a great comfort, if things went wrong.
I tried to relax and stretch out in my seat. There was enough room in the back that I could have put my legs almost straight out in front of me, if I’d wanted to. Was that just for show, to demonstrate Luka’s wealth? Or did he want all that room so that he could ravish one of his Russian blondes on the back seat?#p#分页标题#e#
When we arrived, Luka came down the steps of the restaurant and opened the door like a gentleman. He’d taken a shower after ice hockey, his black hair still damp. In his expensive suit, he could have been a businessman. Almost. There was still an aura about him. Something that made regular people react, even if unconsciously, every time he walked past. Men took a step back. Women, I noticed, took a step forward.