The Fidelity World_Decoy Page 4

  The Cromwell building and most importantly, both Nathan and Guinevere’s offices, had been combed, all prior recording devices discovered and discarded. They both presumed their offices were ‘safe’, which meant they might be loosening their lips already. She needed to get inside Nathan’s office, press the sticky bug somewhere out of sight, and not get caught.

  Her heart was punching hard in her chest and she felt like she couldn’t catch her breath, as she watched the receptionist disappear around a corner with her winter coat.

  She took a seat, but had no chance to settle and calm.

  Nathan’s office door breezed open and he escorted three business men through the anteroom and into the marble corridor where the elevator banks were.

  Portia watched him as he engaged in what sounded like hushed, grave conversation. He was giving the men his full attention, his back to the anteroom.

  She cut her eyes to the receptionist who had just taken a phone call, her big eyes now glued to her computer monitor, fingers typing away.

  Now or never.

  Soundlessly, Portia slipped into Nathan’s office and began frantically scanning the large room, her gaze darting from his massive desk to the potted plants to the leather couch and minibar, hunting for a suitable place to tuck the bug.

  “Any calls?” she heard Nathan ask the receptionist.

  He was heading this way.

  She sprang around to the business side of his desk and, with her heart punching up her throat, pressed the bug to the underside of the lap drawer then, pulse racing and head pounding, spilled towards the floor-to-ceiling windows and stilled, staring out at the impressive view.

  Sensing Nathan had returned and also sensing his sudden tension at finding her in his office, uninvited, she said without taking her eyes from the twinkling view as wind beat against the thick pane, “Forgive me, but I had to see what Manhattan looks like from the thirty-seventh floor. I’ve never been up so high.”

  “Forgive you?” he challenged.

  When she finally glanced over her shoulder at him, his eyes darkened.

  “Punishing you would be far more appropriate.”

  It scared her.

  But she was too thrilled to care.

  Chapter Five

  NATHAN

  Her eyes widened from where she stood in front of the large windows. It was slight, but Nathan caught it, those cornflower-blue, midwestern eyes of hers flaring with a sparkle of intrigue at his threat—or promise—to punish her for having let herself into his office.

  He had her winter coat slung over his arm, the receptionist, Abby having informed him that she’d collected it. He closed the door behind him and draped her coat across a leather chair in the lounge end of the room, then neared her.

  She showed no signs or interest in leaving, but rather faced the windows again and stared out at the twinkling nightscape. As he came up behind her, studying the same view over her bloused shoulder, Portia asked, “How do you get any work done with all that beyond your windows?”

  He felt a deep laugh rumble out of him, husky and low, and admitted, “Some days I don’t. Others, I’m blind to it.”

  As he gently grazed his finger across the back of her slender neck, pulling her blonde hair aside and enjoying the lilac scent of her perfume, she sucked in a little gasp of an inhale—surprised and perhaps aroused by his tender touch.

  The office grew quiet as a burst of what to Nathan felt like sexual tension—chemistry—swelled between them, so quiet that he could hear the shaky rhythm of her badly controlled breathing, the thumps of her rapid pulse.

  He brought his nose, his mouth very close to her bare neck, having stroked her hair over her other shoulder, and sensed her trembling.

  “What is it that you do?” she asked in an unsteady tone.

  He breathed a vague answer against her neck, “Invest.”

  Another rocky inhale and she said, “In what?”

  “Businesses in need of capital.”

  She let out a little snort of a soft laugh. “That hardly answers my question.”

  “Why are you asking questions?”

  “Why are you evading them?” she challenged, meeting his gaze over her shoulder.

  When he didn’t respond, she turned to him fully, the twinkling glow of Manhattan illuminating her beautifully from behind.

  “What if I want to hear about what you do?” she asked, testing the waters, he presumed. “What if…” she trailed off, her voice falling to a whisper as she searched his eyes and finally settled her timid gaze on his mouth, “I want to be the keeper of all your secrets?”

  It piqued his curiosity.

  “Why would you want that?” he asked, his large hand now caressing and at times firmly wrapping her fragile throat.

  Her unsteady breathing grew even more shaky. “Because…” She took a moment to swallow hard and find her voice, then tried again. “Because you’re in pain.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes,” she said confidently.

  It shook his resolve.

  “I can see it in your eyes,” she told him then whispered, “the truth shall set you free.”

  If he’d been rattled by her sudden conviction, or more appropriately put, rattled by how right she was—Nathan had long since fallen down a deep well of pain that he had no hope of climbing out of—he was laughing now.

  “Tell me you’re not the religious type.”

  “I’m not,” she backed down, but admitted, “my family was. My mother, especially.”

  “Was?”

  She clammed up, her expression growing long, her eyes darkening. She returned her attention to the view outside as a strong gust of wind pressed against the panes.

  “They’re all gone,” she breathed.

  When he softly told her, “I’m sorry,” he knew she couldn’t hear him. She was a million miles away.

  “I’m no stranger to being in pain,” she told the cityscape. “I know what anguish feels like, what it does to you if it festers inside you for too long.” She glanced over her shoulder at him, and said, “I’ll keep your secrets if you keep mine.”

  “You’re awfully confident I have any,” he tested.

  “Like I said,” she pressed, once again facing him, but this time the conviction behind the intensity in her eyes, her broad-backed posture, even the lift of her chin contained the kind of assurance he couldn’t challenge. “I see it in your eyes.”

  Backing away, he studied her. She looked as though she knew something he didn’t, and at the same time, was looking at him as though she’d known him her entire life and knew that by holding his gaze, by not wavering, she could command him to confess his secrets—or sins.

  He didn’t like it.

  Advancing on her without warning, he grabbed her roughly, wrapping her waist and clutching her throat in his large hand. The terrified shriek that punched out of her was music to his ears and as he held the warm, soft shape of her against him, feeling his body stiffen for her and slacks growing tight, watching her try and fail to control her shaky breathing, hold herself back from crying out scared, he told her, “You don’t get to tell me what you think I have inside. You don’t get to make any demands, and you certainly don’t get to roam freely around my office. Is that understood?”

  She clenched her jaw and refused to speak.

  “Tell me you understand,” he insisted.

  Reluctantly and with a cold, hard edge of defiance in her otherwise trembling voice, she conceded, “I understand.”

  He shoved her off with enough push to assert his dominance and emphasize his point, then opened her winter coat for her to slip on. She did without a word, but when he reached the door and opened it for her, she was still lingering in front of his desk.

  “Tell me one secret,” she said like a child who had learned absolutely nothing. “One thing about yourself, or your company, or your world that no one else knows.”

  “What is it with you?” he demanded as he slammed the offi
ce door closed and advanced on her once again. This time, when he reached her, he didn’t grab her, but controlled the sudden burst of enraged frustration as he planted his fists on his hips and stared down at her. “What do you want to hear?” When she didn’t respond, holding her ground as if entitled to pester him into opening up, he spat, “Tell me one of your secrets.”

  She said nothing.

  “If I knew what you really wanted,” he reminded her of her own words, “I’d kill you.” He studied her vulnerable reaction. “What is it that you really want, Portia?”

  She turned to stone.

  “Do you want this?” he asked as he tore her blouse open, popping buttons and exposing her bra-covered breasts. “Or do you want this?”

  In one domineering assault, Nathan had her bent over his knee from where he now sat on the leather couch. He raised his hand and slapped her ass—hard—through the designer slacks he’d provided for her.

  She muffled the squeal as soon as he struck her, but when next he fingered her slacks open and jerked them down her hips along with her panties, leaving her nude and exposed to him, the curves of her pinkened cheeks smooth as silk, the scent of her most private place sweetening the air, she began responding with approving moans and grunts.

  As he traced the shape of her ass, stroking his fingers around one cheek and the next and then grazing teasingly up and down her sensitive crack, listening to her breathing quicken and moans trembling, he groaned, “Is this why you’re here?”

  “Yes,” she breathed, her face against the slacks of his calf, her hands braced against the floor.

  He explored deeper, helping her legs to spread. She arched her back in response as if begging him to touch another region.

  But then she had to go and ruin things.

  “Tell me what I shouldn’t know,” she moaned, “then make me keep my mouth shut.”

  He paused. Alarmed. Confused. Concerned, and most dangerously—aroused.

  Flinging her up and onto his lap, she landed with her legs straddling him, her slacks and panties bunching up awkwardly around her fleshy hips. The sight of it made him stiffen hard. He yanked her bra down and cupped her breasts in his large hands, as her blonde locks spilled onto the firm wall of his chest. He glared up at her, taking her by the throat again, and said, “Alright.”

  He watched her blue eyes brighten.

  “You want to know something about me, so I’ll tell you, then I’m going to fill that pretty, little mouth of yours up until you choke.”

  “Yes,” she agreed in a thrilled whisper.

  “My deep dark secret, Portia,” he spoke up, loud enough for his voice to reach whatever bug he suspected she’d planted, and address whoever was listening on the other end, “is that I believe the punishment should fit the crime, and while I’m capable of being very punishing, I’ve never gotten caught for any of my crimes, and I never will.”

  They stared at one another for a long moment. Nathan watched a bright edge of terror flare behind her blue eyes, the subtext of his warning absolutely crystal clear between them.

  She was the enemy, and they both knew it.

  But she was also his.

  Had Infidelity been breached? How had she made her undercover way into that company? She had targeted him and was now daring to gather intel about the Cromwell Corp, Maxum, and its covert—and highly illegal—operation, but for who? The FBI, CIA, Homeland Security?

  And why, of all the immediate reactions he could be having, was Nathan dangerously turned on by the clear and present threat he now knew she posed to him, his company, and family?

  “Open your mouth,” he demanded as he penetrated his thumb between her lips, testing her willingness or sudden lack thereof—Portia looked terrified. “It’s time for you to take your punishment.”

  Chapter Six

  PORTIA

  “He knows.”

  Portia didn’t like the sound of her own quivering voice, but worse, she didn’t like that she was here at FBI Headquarters in TriBeCa. It was a cab ride away from the Cromwell building, but with round-the-clock, Manhattan traffic, it might as well have been in a different state. The distance made her nervous but not as nervous as what she was about to do. Update the Feds. The ‘punishment’ Nathan had inflicted—first in his office then continued some floors above in his penthouse suite—had hardly been penalizing, much less abusive, though admittedly, she’d feared it could have been both. She’d enjoyed it. She enjoyed him. This was getting messy.

  Sitting across from her at the sleek conference table was Agent Jennifer McBride, a polished brunette, who kept her hair slicked back in a neat ponytail and her expression neutral. Portia had never seen dirt under the woman’s fingernails or a crease in her pantsuit. She was serious and determined, attributes which might make for a great Fed, but caused Portia to question her intentions. The woman had always given her the feeling that if Portia, at some point, became ‘collateral damage’, Agent McBride wouldn’t so much as bat an eye. She was aiming to take down the Cromwell Corp. and its owners. Anyone else who perished during the investigation was expendable in the first place. Of course, McBride had never conveyed this out loud.

  A common enemy.

  Mutual interests.

  These had been what brought them together.

  But while Agent Jennifer McBride could hide behind her shield and thick office walls, Portia had volunteered to be on the frontlines of this silent war.

  A confidential informant.

  Anything to bring down the people responsible for her family’s ruin.

  “You don’t know that,” Jennifer said with a profound lack of both concern and compassion.

  “I’m telling you, he knows,” she repeated, leaning forward.

  “And I’m telling you,” she countered, her tone and expression as chilly as ever, “until we get an admission on tape, we’ll keep providing you with bugs to plant. It was a major loss that they found and removed our first set, but we have you now.”

  It was like the woman wasn’t hearing her.

  Portia considered detailing for her all that she hadn’t listened in on, everything that had transpired up in Nathan’s penthouse—surely, it would’ve sounded brutal had another recording device been in that private playroom—but Jennifer wasn’t the type to take her at her word. If it wasn’t evidence, it belonged in immediate question. Doubt everything until proven otherwise was Agent Jennifer McBride’s mode of operation.

  Feeling the agent’s cool gaze on her, Portia asked, “Can you send me back with a number of them? More bugs? I don’t like having to slip away and find packages under tables.”

  “That system is for your own protection,” Jennifer reminded her. “We want to minimize the amount of time you have such devices on your person.”

  “Well, I’d like to minimize the amount of time I’m wandering off throughout Manhattan,” she shot back.

  Jennifer cocked her elegant brow at that and obliged. “That can be arranged.”

  “Thank you,” she barked.

  “Let’s talk about tactic,” said the agent, lacing her fingers together, hands clasped, on the table. “You were pushing way too hard.”

  “So it’s my fault he knows?” she blurted, taken aback.

  “I’m not saying that.”

  “Look, you got me in there doing the one thing that requires absolutely no talking—”

  “Look, Ms. Rothschild,” said Jennifer without giving her an inch of slack to make her point. “You came to us. You had your suspicions and you came to us, because you wanted to make yourself useful—”

  “Suspicions?” she challenged, offended. “I had evidence.”

  “No, you had a letter from one of your brother’s comrades.”

  “A letter which informed my parents that Trystan shouldn’t have died in that mission. A letter that states Maxum basically sacrificed him, because he was catching on to what they were really doing. And not only that, they used his body—desecrated his corpse—just like all t
he rest.”

  “Which you couldn’t verify because not only had your parents not opened the letter—”

  “They thought it was another condolence card like the hundred others they’d gotten. Reading those things only drove them deeper into their grief.”

  “—But they also had Trystan cremated,” she plowed through Portia’s interjection. “All this is to say that no, a letter written from a man who had served with your brother and then worked beside him as a private contractor with Maxum amounts to nothing more than ‘hearsay’. It’s not evidence, but it did raise your suspicions, which brought you here.”

  “My brother was murdered,” she stated. Voice trembling or not, she spat out each word. “He was gutted like a fish. They stuffed drugs in his body, sewed him up, and shipped him home. All funded by the Cromwell Corp.”

  “And that’s what we need on tape. That’s our evidence. That’s what we can act on and use to take down everyone who was responsible for not only your brother’s death, but the deaths of all the other American soldiers who had the grave misfortune of getting hired by Maxum after their years of service.”

  Portia wanted the same thing. But she felt like she was a million miles from getting there. If the Cromwell’s had discovered the FBI’s bugs—and they had—and if Nathan distrusted her enough to comment in the way he had last night, smugly asserting that he’ll never get caught, then Portia had little hope that even in her absence, he and Guinevere would speak candidly about Maxum and the drug smuggling operation they had been behind all these years.

  “Hey,” Jennifer said softly, pulling Portia’s attention back into the conference room. “You are someone who sat across from Karen Flores at The Infidelity Corporation and said what had to be said in order to get assigned to our target. You convinced that woman to match you to Cromwell without ever using Nathan’s name. That took ingenuity. Courage. It took determination and the dramatic acting skills of Meryl Streep.”

  Portia had to laugh. “Hardly.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short. You have great instincts, Portia. I’ll tell you right now, we were spinning our wheels in our Maxum-Cromwell investigation. It was only percolating until you came along. Now it’s cooking. We have other targets. The CEO of Maxum being one of them. The Corporeal overseas who strategizes these operations being another. But we don’t have anyone like you on them. We don’t expect much there. Everything is riding on you. We’ve put all our manpower behind you—it might not look like it or feel like it from where you’re standing, but we have. What happened to your brother will be exposed, and everyone responsible is going to go down for it.”