Page 5

C hase pushed open the faded wood door of the corner bistro and held it for Alyssa, scanning the dim interior automatically. The place was nothing fancy—plastic chairs, mismatched tablecloths, a handful of patrons hunched over steaming plates—but it was real.

The kind of place where people talked without looking over their shoulders. The kind of place you could disappear into if you played the part right.

“Looks like we beat the dinner rush,” he murmured as she passed him, her head scarf fluttering slightly from the breeze outside.

Alyssa smiled, but he didn’t know her well enough to know if it was genuine or just the role she was playing. “Or they’re all home before curfew.”

Chase’s brow lifted. “I always forget about the curfew.”

“They’ve lightened it since I was here last. We won’t run into any problems.” She glanced around the room with a neutral face that didn’t match the sharpness in her eyes. “But it depends on the week. The mood. The politics.”

He chose a table near the window where they could keep eyes on the street and still blend in while keeping his back to the wall. He knew better than to trust anyone, even in a place like this.

“You ever eat here before?” He picked up a stained menu.

“No. I did what I was brought here to do, then I got out.”

He, of all people, understood that. “Not a lot of tourists in this area, and people like us stick out too much not to be memorable.”

She held up a menu, scanning the Arabic writing that he couldn’t read, though he had a decent handle on the language.

They fell into an easy silence, interrupted only by the server bringing them glasses of water and a basket of flatbread. Alyssa ripped off a chunk of bread and dipped it into a small bowl of oil and spices.

In an effort to look casual and not all business, he focused on her. Places like this were hotbeds for undercovers. The last thing they needed was to be noticed for unusual activity, which meant they had to play it cool. Act like friends…if not more.

He tore off some bread and dipped it in the oil too. When he popped it into his mouth, the flavors ignited his hunger, which he’d ignored too long. He devoured one flatbread and reached for another while Alyssa picked apart her first.

“This is good. Not as good as the naan I got in India, but passable,” he said.

“Oh, you were in India?” She brought her glass to her lips, bringing his attention to her slender fingers wrapped around the surface and the plump pout she pressed to the rim.

He dipped his head in confirmation. “I’m sure you’ve been too.”

“Yes. Twice.” She looked down, then up at him. “But I never saw the Taj Mahal.”

“Oh? I saw it.”

She leaned in, eyes wide. “Show-off.”

He grinned. “Best shawarma chicken I had was in Bangladesh.”

She groaned around her bite of the bread they’d almost devoured between them. “Now you’re really showing off. I love a good shawarma chicken, especially in Bangladesh.”

“You ate it in Bangladesh?”

“That little place by the river?” she asked.

His gaze flickered across her pretty features. “You know it?”

“I spent three weeks there negotiating a trade agreement. Locals insisted on feeding me every day. I didn’t argue.”

“Are you a fan of Asian food? Pho?”

She bobbed her head in a nod and swiped the bread through the oil again. “I consider myself a foodie. For a while, I was traveling so much that I got good at rating a city on its food. Now that I spend most of my time in Mexico, I’ve tried almost every hole-in-the-wall and expensive tourist restaurant in the area. I even rated the tamales the street vendors sell.”

His lips stretched upward in a smile. They hadn’t gotten off on the best foot, but the strain between them faded as they chatted about food, which was always a passion for a hungry guy like him, and Alyssa seemed to enjoy the topic, chatting with enthusiasm.

Though they shared what they’d eaten and where they’d eaten it, they each danced around why they were in those countries.

But he already knew a few of her reasons. A handful of times while he was on Echo team, her name had come up on the big screen. The team was often briefed of such matters in the event things went sideways and they were sent in.

Turned out, his and Alyssa’s paths never crossed again. He lost track of her, probably after she was promoted to ambassador.

The conversation sparked with the game of truths and omissions. He couldn’t tell her anything about his ops, and she obviously didn’t wish to share any more about hostage negotiations, so they worked through the basket of flatbread in companionable silence.

When they both reached for the last piece, their gazes locked in silent battle. Then she whipped out a hand and snagged it, swiping it around the empty bowl of oil to gather the final drops with a triumph look that brought a low chuckle to his lips.

The server returned for their order. Alyssa spoke perfect Arabic as she ordered spiced chicken and chickpeas served with rice. As the server looked to him, Chase confidently ordered in Arabic as well, aware of Alyssa watching him closely.

After the server moved away from their table, he settled back in his seat, meeting his companion’s interested gaze with a steady one of his own.

“You’ve been holding out on me, Chase.”

He prickled at her use of his last name. It seemed too formal, too impersonal. Despite that, he didn’t correct her, only cocked a brow in question.

“You know I’m referring to your linguistic skills. How many languages do you know?”

He shifted his shoulders in an awkward shrug and drank some water to avoid answering her. “You’ve had a lot of experiences,” he steered the conversation into safer territory. “You started with conflict resolution?”

“ATF. Three years.”

If she was ATF, the organization that monitored alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives, she knew how to handle a weapon. He tried to picture her toting a firearm and found that the picture in his head appealed—a lot.

Dangerous and deadly.

Damned hot.

“You look surprised.” Her voice had softened, as did her body language. She no longer sat with a steel rod in her spine but rested her elbows on the table and leaned toward him, a smile toying at the corners of her lips.

“You’re not what I expected,” he admitted.

She blinked. “What did you expect?”

“Soft skills, the gift of gab. Suits and security details.”

“Hey, I’ve been known to wear body armor under a ballgown.”

Interest kindled inside him. His gaze washed over her hair—thick and silky, floating in waves that hung a little below her shoulders. A few threads of silver glinted against the dark strands, which only appealed to him more, as he had a few years on him too.

But her eyes were what really captured his attention. They were fringed with long black lashes that dipped to conceal her expressive black eyes.

And her mouth—

He snapped his gaze back to hers. He shouldn’t be thinking about her mouth even though the vision of its plumpness pursed on the rim of her glass had been playing on repeat through his head all during their discussion.

Their food arrived—a simple spread of grilled meat, chickpeas, rice and roasted vegetables. They dug in, eating in companionable silence, but he was still on high alert. Looking to the window, always watching. Always aware.

“The food is good. Will we be coming back here?” Alyssa’s question took his focus from the street he had a clear view of behind her.

He nodded. “We have to spend some time in the city.”

“It might help if we play the happy couple. Eat, wander the markets, blend in.”

He pitched his voice to a murmur. “And find out what the hell happened to that chopper and at the Red Cross.”

“Now that sounds like happy couple territory. Are you always this charming?”

Her teasing question caught him off guard and he rumbled a laugh.

“Sorry, I can’t tell you. That’s classified.”

They shared a smile, gazing into each other’s eyes for a beat too long.

He couldn’t help but feel like they were both testing, measuring, assessing.

His questioning disguised as curiosity had gotten him further than he expected when it came to digging up details about Alyssa Vargas, but it didn’t tell him definitively if she’d been compromised.

Her eyes twinkled up into his, and he felt a strange slice across his chest.

He twisted his stare away first. Suddenly, the restaurant seemed too busy, the air between him and Alyssa too charged.

He pushed back from the table. “Let’s walk.”

* * * * *

The scent of spices clung to their clothes as they stepped out from the bistro into the warm evening. The crowd on streets had thinned since dusk enveloped the city, but life still lingered in the corners—voices from a second-story balcony, a boy dragging a wooden crate down a narrow alley, the faint clatter of shutters being drawn.

Julian fell into step beside Alyssa. She gave a start as she realized that some switch had flipped over the course of their meal and now she thought of the special operative differently.

She was thinking of him less like a wall of muscle guarding her while doing his best to annoy her, and more like a man.

He fell into step with her, hands loose at his sides. One hovered near his waistband where she guessed he carried his weapon. In the shadows, his expression was unreadable.

Alyssa slipped her hands into her pockets, fingers patting the edge of the phone Chase gave her just before they boarded the plane. The device had been returned to her only after Blackout’s tech guru searched through everything on it.

A ripple of annoyance ran through her. She’d still like to know what they thought she was involved in. That attack could have stemmed from anywhere. People often uncovered things like flight schedules despite the security surrounding it. Someone back at the airstrip might have even spotted her getting into the Blackout vehicle and tailed it without them knowing.

Though that seemed unusual, considering the alertness both Julian and Denver exhibited.

Julian. When did she start thinking of her partner by his first name? She pondered that for long seconds but found no answer, so she put it from her mind.

Her focus flipped back to her and Kennedy being under suspicion. Poor Kennedy must be frightened right now, being held in that base. Alyssa thought about calling her. Did she even have her phone back?

She decided against making the call. Later, when she knew what to say, what to ask, she would.

Right now, she felt too out of her element, something that she rarely felt in her career. She was paid to have the answers—and she always did.

Except…something about the interaction with the commander was eating at her. Maybe she just didn’t make a good enough assessment of the man.

Or maybe…maybe there was something really off about him.

She trusted her instincts about people. It got her this far in life. She needed to think on it a bit more before bringing up the topic to Julian.

The day felt strange—warped. She might know a little bit more about Julian, but they were still strangers. Their dinner offered a brief distraction from the mission, got them out of being shut up together in the safehouse.

It had also been…strangely grounding.

She threw him a look from the corner of her eye as they paced together down the sidewalk.

He kept a vigilant watch as they moved through the quiet streets. “We’re not far now. Two blocks.”

“Julian.”

He jerked his head around, fixing her in his stare, his dark eyes roaming over her face as if trying to figure her out.

“Can I ask you something?”

He nodded.

She stopped at the end of the alley. Their safehouse was nearby but a bit beyond sight.

“I think the commander might be hiding something.”

He stopped walking too, the sharpness seeping back into his gaze, making those flint-like specks into cold steel once more. “I thought the same.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. He was nervous. Defensive. Trying to shut the whole thing down before we started.”

She nodded. “I got the feeling he was holding back, watching for our cues, waiting to see what we knew before he spoke.”

“He doesn’t want to give anything away.”

“He clearly doesn’t want us digging up something that might be buried.”

He looked at her then, really looked at her, and the intensity in his expression made her breath catch. Not just because they were on the same page but because he saw her—not as a liability or a suit, but as someone who could hold her own.

She studied the shadows playing over his rugged features. When he touched his fingers to her forearm, she gave a start.

“Let’s keep walking.”

They moved on, their steps slow and unhurried. That look Julian just gave her made her nerves rattle, and she found herself filling the dead air space.

“You asked about my experiences earlier. My family spoke mostly Spanish at home. I was always bilingual.”

The fall of his boots on the cracked pavement was quiet for such a large man, and he said nothing.

She continued. “I took German in high school. And my love of languages just continued from there. I attended the Monterey Institute for psychology and sociology. Having the ability to get into someone’s head and ask the right questions, paired with an aptitude for linguistics, made me useful to the government.”

“You ever wonder what you’d be doing if you hadn’t been promoted after negotiating that hostage standoff?”

She let out a soft noise and smiled faintly. “I bet you would have shot them both.”

“Hey! I can appreciate a peaceful resolution. As someone who’s been shot, zero out of ten stars, do not recommend.”

She chuckled. “Fair.”

They headed to their safehouse tucked at the end of an alley. The gold-pink of the setting sun blended into violet beyond the rooftops.

“Do you ever regret your career path?” she asked him.

Julian’s head swung side to side as he sought out danger. Finally, he spoke. “There are moments of regret. But then someone like you shows up, and you do what the rest of us can’t—you get people out alive without pulling a trigger.”

She wasn’t sure what to say to that. The praise was there, quiet, sincere—and coming from him, it meant more than she could afford to admit out loud.

They reached the door. He paused with a hand inches away from the lock. But he didn’t open it.

Alyssa’s insides tightened as she braced herself for…something.

She swallowed hard and asked one of the most difficult questions she ever had to ask in her life. “You haven’t mentioned that I’m under investigation too. You’re trying to figure out if I’ve been compromised.”

He didn’t deny it. “I am.”

“So why”—her voice dropped—“are you looking at me like…”

He didn’t deny it, nor did he fill in the blank of her claim. His hand came up to touch her arm just above the elbow. The contact sent a shiver up her spine, but she didn’t pull away.

Then he leaned in.

Lips that looked impossibly hard were actually incredibly soft. He smelled manly, like spice and musk. At the brush of his mouth over hers, she sucked in a gasp.

The kiss wasn’t hurried. It wasn’t hungry or forced. Special Operative Julian Chase didn’t do anything on a whim. His kiss was a decision.

It was soft. Warm. Unexpectedly tender, like he wanted her to feel every single second of it.

She did, right down to the tips of her toes.

Her insides coiled as she returned the caress, applying pressure to his lips in return and drinking in the scent of spice from their meal mingled with the masculine scent of the man.

When he pulled back, her heart was thudding in her chest.

“Why did you do that?” she husked out, darting a look around as if someone might be watching.

His stare fixed on her mouth. “Not for the parts we’re playing, if that’s what you think. I kissed you because I wanted to.”

For a long beat, neither of them moved. The quiet of the alley wrapped around them, cradling them in the moment. The world still turned outside, the mission still waited, but here— in this breath—they weren’t an ambassador and a special operative on a mission.

They were something else.

Something one beat away from real.

She took a step to enter the safehouse first. “Come on, soldier,” she murmured. “We have work to do. We need to find out what the commander is hiding.”

He gave her a small, lopsided grin. “Lead the way, ambassador.”

And together, they stepped into the unknown.