Page 30 of Wicked Games
“If it pertains to me personally, then I need to know.”
Lucien stopped typing and looked at me. “Banks found out I’d fallen in love with you in Paris and sent me away before I could complete the recovery mission.”
“How’d he find out?” I asked, fighting the urge to touch him. I saw the truth in Lucien’s eyes. He had loved me every bit as much as I loved him. Love, not loved. The feelings were still there between us just as strong as the first day we met.
“I must’ve tipped him off somehow. Maybe he heard it in my voice when I reported back to him, or he noticed a pattern in delayed responses to his emails.”
“You mean like when we went on our weekend getaways?”
“Precisely.”
“Lucien, if he tracks your computer then he surely tracks your expenses. I assume he provided you with a means of paying for your trips.”
“Every job comes complete with ID and credit cards in the name of my alias.”
“Wow,” I said, then bit my lip because I hadn’t meant for it to slip out.
“I don’t have a spending limit. I buy or do whatever it takes to convince my contact I am who I say I am,” Lucien told me, and that’s where my awe stopped. “What?” he asked after seeing the wonder fade from my face.
“Is sleeping with your ‘contacts’ something you often do?” I asked, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice.
“Damn, love, it didn’t take you long,” Lucien said huskily, and I realized we weren’t on the same page at all. I was fuming mad while he was licking his lips.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I demanded.
“You did the air quotes. I am aware it isn’t the right time to claim my prize, but I won’t forget about it either.”
Ignoring him, I asked again, “Is sleeping with your contacts something you often do?”
“Before I met you, I had sexual relationships with two others. They were brief affairs initiated by them which I didn’t turn down.”
“When in Rome…”
“Indeed. You were different, Ryder.Ipursuedyoubecause I wanted you. Yes, at first, I wanted you to slake my lust, but then I realized there would be no quenching my thirst when it came to you. I only craved more and more of you,” Lucien said. “I want you to know something, and I feel like this is very important.”
“Okay.”
“Banks never paid for any of our trips. I usedmyfunds, not his. There was no way he could track my expenses to know where I was going.”
“How did you pay with cards in a name other than Sebastian Deveraux?” I asked.
“Think back. Did you ever see me make purchases with a credit card or did I pay with cash? Didn’t I always find something for you to look at or do while I checked us into our hotels or bed and breakfasts?”
He had always paid with cash, and I was never with him when he checked us in or out. He’d found logical things to distract me from the fact he was using a credit card with Lucien Clarke on it instead of Sebastian Deveraux.
“I’ve never had an intimate relationship with another contact since you. I won’t pretend I’ve gone without sex during our entire separation, but we both know you can’t say it either. I’ve never come close to finding anyone who’s made me feel a fraction of what you do. I think it’s also true for you.”
It was pathetic just how badly I wanted to believe him. I wished I could say he was wrong about me and my feelings for him, but why waste the energy with a lie he could easily see through? I needed to focus on the glaringly obvious truth Lucien overlooked. “Lucien, I’m sure there are sides to you I don’t know well, but I don’t see a former SAS soldier acting like a lovesick sap during his phone conversations or in his emails. I bet you didn’t leave a notebook sitting around that was covered in hearts with LC + RJ written in the center of them.”
Lucien tipped his head slightly to acknowledge my point. “Which means one thing.”
“Two, actually,” I countered. “Someone on the inside fed Banks information, or he employs spies you’re not aware of to track you.”
“Either is a possibility,” Lucien admitted. “Both of them infuriate me.”
“If it’s an inside guy, who could it be? Percy or that guy Dev?”
“No,” Lucien said firmly.