Free The Cinderella Mission by Catherine Mann Page A

libido urging him to make it real.
    Flicking on an extra overhead light, Ethan dispelled the intimate haze with a fluorescent flash. He returned his attention to the spread of screens in front of him and focused on locking up security as tight as his nonfunctioning heart.

Chapter 5
    K elly’s heart stopped for five dizzying seconds.
    Standing in the Williams Manor weight room four days later, she tugged the voluminous robe closed as she left the massage room. “Geez, Brittany, I must not have heard you knock.”
    The teen slouched against a bench press. “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you. Sorry.”
    Not that she looked it.
    Kelly’s muscles twisted back into knots again. So much for the soothing effects of an early-morning massage Peter had just given her. She stepped deeper into the exercise room. “No harm done.”
    Other than the risk of a coronary. It also offered a reminder that she sure as hell needed to brush up on her awareness of her surroundings if she expected to watch Ethan’s back. Kelly tightened the belt on her white robe and nuzzled deeper into terrycloth, hints of massage oils lingering on her body. “Did you need something?”
    Attitude slumped her shoulders. “Mrs. Williams wantedme to let her masseur know she’s running a couple of minutes late.”
    “Peter’s cleaning up the table in the next room if you want to peek in and tell him.”
    Brittany looked longingly back at the other door leading to the breezeway into the garage—and thus Ethan’s apartment. Finally, she dragged her feet toward the massage room. Kelly wanted to tell the girl Ethan wasn’t around so she could take her drooling self elsewhere, but wouldn’t lend credence to her jealousy by voicing it.
    The master plan for getting over Ethan Williams was turning into a big bust only a few days into operation. The more she knew, the more intriguing he became. She’d been mesmerized by his brash, bad-boy smile back at ARIES. Now, she was entranced by his tenderness to his aging aunt. The contradictions intrigued her—a Jag owner never washing his car, a man with more money than many foreign governments choosing supermarket-brand beer instead of vintage wine.
    Something had to give soon, or she’d be in worse shape than when she’d buckled into his sludge-covered Jag.
    Kelly slid a hand into the collar of her robe and rubbed along a kink returning to her neck. Taking advantage of the mansion’s luxuries seemed frivolous, but Eugenie had insisted. And her back truly was wrecked from so much time at the computer, as well as in the gym.
    Or maybe from so much time at the computer and in the gym this week with Ethan.
    They’d both worked until three in the morning to accommodate time changes in overseas communications about banking transfers linked to terrorist groups. Brainstorming through security measures for the gala. Researching experimental advances made by the Marines in nonlethal weapons for use in a crowd of civilians.
    Given the long night, they wouldn’t be starting until ten this morning. Of course she couldn’t sleep in thanks to a certain too-hunkish-for-his-own-good partner.
    The outside door swung open, admitting a blast of cold air and a hundred-percent-hot Ethan in running clothes. Apparently he couldn’t sleep, either.
    He whipped the sweatshirt hood off his head and dusted snow from impossibly broad shoulders. Before the door slam finished echoing through the gym, Brittany popped back into the room. She breezed over to Kelly—that much closer to Ethan.
    The girl melted at his feet.
    Mitts off. Kelly didn’t bother to stop the possessive thought. Brittany had better keep her little paws to herself.
    For the good of the case, of course, Kelly reminded herself. Her country was counting on her to present a convincing act.
    Kelly flashed an apologetic smile. “Excuse me, Brittany.”
    Three bold steps took Kelly chest-to-chest with Ethan. She flattened her hands on his shoulders.
    Really nice shoulders. “Hi,