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“Whoa, we’re going through with that? I thought the retreat was Dad’s thing.”

“It was Dad’s thing and now it’s mine.” Like most of his world. That was what happened when a person was the heir to a multi-billion-dollar oil company. When his twin had decided to evade his fate by joining the military, it had all fallen on JT’s shoulders. All of it. The business. His parents. The properties. The employees.

If his father had died…

There was a pause over the line. “I’ll talk to Big Tag. You don’t have to do this. I don’t care what the Agency is saying. There will be another chance. You don’t have to do their job.”

Of course he did. If he didn’t, the spy would set another drop location and they might not know where it was, might lose decades of innovation, and all because he didn’t like to socialize. “Look, Mike, Dad’s fine and we can’t reschedule this retreat. Even if we did there’s no guarantee the drop won’t happen somewhere else.” There was a throaty laugh and he glanced back at the bar. She was grinning from ear to ear as she laughed at something Sandra had said. Likely something very inappropriate. He’d only met the woman once before, but he’d heard tales from his brother of how she sometimes gave the big boss a run for his money in the sarcasm department.

“Then I should go. I can go in as you,” Mike argued.

It wasn’t anything he hadn’t already thought of. He wasn’t a spy. He hadn’t spent years perfecting a poker face. He was known for speaking his mind. The last thing he wanted to do was play games.

Unless he was playing with her. Yeah, he could think of some games to play with her. They would involve rope and long hours of worshipping every inch of her skin.

He sighed and turned away again because he also wasn’t the kind of man who fantasized about a woman he didn’t even know. He was a realist. At least he was trying to be since being a romantic had gotten him nowhere. He would love to throw this all into Michael’s lap since his brother had spent a decade learning the spy game.

But there was a major problem with this particular twin switcheroo. “It’s a leadership retreat. Do you honestly believe you can fool people I’ve worked with for over a decade? We’re going to be talking about work and new tech. These people know Malone Oil as well as our father, and you haven’t been interested in a very long time. You can’t conduct those meetings.”

“You’re also going to be hunting a spy,” Michael countered.

He bit back a groan. He shouldn’t have picked up the phone. All he and his brother seemed to do lately was bicker. “You didn’t have a problem when it was Dad going in.”

“Dad isn’t reckless. Dad won’t try to take down an international spy on his own.”

He didn’t seem to remember who their father was. “I assure you he’s going to have a few things to say to whoever is selling out our corporate secrets.”

“Yeah, but I trusted that Dad wouldn’t go rogue in the middle of the investigation. He knows when to sit back and let the experts do their jobs.”

Naturally his brother was ready, willing, and able to give him grief. “I assure you I’ll let the lady bring down the bad guys.”

“The fact that you call Nina a lady and not an operative is exactly what I’m worried about. You have to think of her as an operative. She doesn’t need you to protect her, and that’s what you tend to do. You’ll like her. You’ll be attracted to her, andthat means you’ll go into full-on protect-the-woman mode,” his brother explained.

He couldn’t help it that he was protective of the women in his life. It wasn’t that he didn’t think they were competent. They were. They were incredibly smart and he relied on them. But he knew what a man could do to a woman. “I can mind my manners.”

“I wasn’t criticizing. You know your manners are impeccable, and it’s not wrong that you want to protect people, but it could make the job difficult on you.” A sigh came over the line. “We can talk about this tomorrow. I’ll come right to my condo and we’ll discuss everything.”

Oh, that was precisely why he’d decided to stay at the Adolphus. It hadn’t merely been the fact that he’d been told by Big Tag’s somewhat stern assistant this was where they were putting Nina Blunt up, though he’d thought they could talk about the change in the mission.

Or he could pretend he wasn’t JT Malone. He could pretend he was just a guy and she was just a girl and maybe they would talk for a while. What could that hurt?

Or he could go to bed and deal with all of it in the morning. The weight of the world seemed to press on his shoulders.

“How about we talk in the morning?” He was so fucking tired.

“All right. If you need anything, call me.”

“Will do.” He hung up and slid the phone back into his pocket. He didn’t want to look at it again. It was never anything but bad news lately.

He should go over and tell the gorgeous operative that she wouldn’t be going in with his father. She would have to go in with him. Of course she might change her mind about taking the job if she talked to Mike. His brother—who she had almostcertainly worked with and knew his opinion—thought he was a reckless moron.

She would likely think he was Mike at first since they were perfectly identical twins. Oh, if he took his shirt off, she would notice that he had scars Mike didn’t have—deep gouges from working with barbed wire, a burn mark on his calf from not being careful enough on an oil rig. He didn’t have Mike’s gunshot scars. But if one was only studying faces, there was next to nothing that would tell them apart. How well did Nina and Mike know each other? McKay-Taggart was a big company and she worked in London while his brother was here in the States. It was possible they’d never met, but he was almost certain she would turn and see him and come over to talk about the fact that his company was the target of international spies and he better not fuck this up.

Maybe he should have gone straight to Mike’s penthouse condo and raided his brother’s Scotch. The beer wasn’t doing much for him.

He needed something else. He needed to be out of his head for a while, but that wasn’t going to happen.

He glanced up and saw Sandra had gone and Nina was looking right at him.