Free Suddenly a Spy by Heather Huffman Page B

this port. The travel books
trash on it, but I think it’s fascinating.”
    She took that as her cue to drop the subject.
They ate lunch at a café overlooking the water. Conversation stayed
light, but the longer they were there, the more restless Veronica
became. She was eager to be alone with Rick, ready to have no more
secrets between them.
    This new creature in front of her was
intriguing, but she missed her best friend. Was it too much to want
him to be both?
    “You ready to go?”
    “Yes,” she agreed a little too eagerly. A
grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. She tried to conceal her
jittery nerves as they rode to the hotel. His hand rested lightly
on the back of her neck, drawing lazy circles that made her want to
forget they were going someplace private to talk and they did, in
fact, need to have the conversation first no matter what her
teenage-esque hormones were telling her.
    That’s what she told herself all the way
through the check-in process. Still, by the time they stood alone
in their room the electric currents running between them were
nearly palpable.
    He took a step towards her, and she scurried
to put some distance and furniture between them. He chuckled,
feinting to the right and then to the left just to watch her move
in the opposite direction.
    “Stop that. I don’t want you coming any
closer until we’ve talked.”
    “Then let’s talk,” he motioned for her to sit
in one of the room’s oversized chairs. She cautiously accepted the
seat, watching him as he stretched out in the other chair.
    “Were you really part of that gang?”
    “It’s more of a major criminal syndicate than
a gang, but no. I was an undercover agent. I worked with a
gentleman named Vance Davis.”
    “Batman,” Veronica interjected without
thinking.
    “He hates that nickname. But yes, that’s
him.”
    “That’s who sent you the footage of me.”
    Rick gave a barely perceptible nod before
continuing. “I was undercover with them for almost a year when the
bust went down. Marko was put in a high-security prison. A lot of
his guys were rounded up; the rest went underground. It looks like
they were merely regrouping. I guess the expectation was for me to
rejoin them once they resurfaced.”
    “Adrianna seemed pretty hell-bent on
believing you weren’t the one that betrayed them. There was a man
there that didn’t seem convinced, though.”
    “That would be Marko’s half-brother, Petrov
Kulenović. He hates me.”
    “Why?”
    “Adrianna has him wrapped around her little
finger,” Rick answered with a bit of discomfort. He seemed less
than inclined to remind Veronica of his own ties to Adrianna.
    “Nobody likes a man-whore.”
    “I wouldn’t say nobody does.”
    “Moving on,” she rolled her eyes.
    “Right. There’s not much else to tell. The
arrest happened in early spring. I planned to go in for debriefing
then take a vacation before reporting to my next assignment.
Instead I met a pretty Hawthorne fan and asked to be reassigned to
a desk.”
    “Which you hate.”
    “I shouldn’t have said that.”
    “Why didn’t you just tell me this from the
beginning?” she felt herself soften under his loving gaze.
    “Aren’t you the least bit mad at me for
putting you in danger? If I had walked on by you that day, you’d
still be living a perfect and quiet life.”
    “Quiet, yes. But far from perfect,” she
thought about how very empty her life had been just two years ago.
“What’s your real name?”
    “Richard Reid Sinclair. Sampson was the
alias.”
    “That makes me feel a little better.”
    “Where do we go from here?” he seemed afraid
to hope that her calm was anything more than a façade.
    “Are you willing to work together to reclaim
our life?”
    He took a deep breath, as if every fiber of
his being wanted to say no. “Yes. If we don’t, I’ll spend all of my
time following behind you and cleaning things up.”
    “That’s rude.”
    He gave her a look that said it was