The Cinderella Mission (Family Secrets #1)(55)
Author: Catherine Mann

A line item snagged her attention. “Ethan,” she called, her eyes still scanning the pages, soaking up the words with dawning horror, “where was your au pair—Iona—from? The woman who supposedly passed along your locale to the attackers?”

He returned to the loft, placing a bottle beside her. “From what little I could find out the past couple of weeks, Iona’s passport listed her as a Swiss National.”

Kelly tapped the paper. “That’s not where she was born.”

He tugged the yellowed paper sealed in a plastic sleeve. “Bastia. But that doesn’t—”

“—exist anymore.” Cold certainty hardened within her. “It was absorbed into the shifting borders of—”

“Rebelia. Damn it. Here.” He pitched the computer disk Samantha had passed along onto the computer console. “See what you can make of that. Samantha lucked into this message intercepted by Delmonico’s intelligence. She says even if you break the encryption, it came from Rebelia, which means I’m screwed as far as interpreting it anyway.”

She jammed the disk into her computer, activating the software to decode the encrypted message while Ethan waited beside her, edgy restlessness pulsing from him.

Words shifting before her, she typed out the translation and found…

“Oh my God,” she gasped, leaning back from the computer. “Read.”

Ethan canted forward, his eyes scanning, widening with dark realization. “If this is right, someone in Rebelia is targeting jewels all around the world. Specific jewels. This isn’t some random heist. They’re out for the Gastonian ambassador’s blue sapphire.”

Kelly leaned back in the chair. “Aside from the value of it, the diplomatic repercussions alone could start an all-out war between the countries.”

All roads led back to Rebelia. Eugenie’s diggings into CIA workings back then and operative Alex Morrow’s disappearance now.

Could a small country like Rebelia actually have had an intricate spy network in place for over thirty years?

Of course it could. The magnitude of what they were facing rolled over her. And apparently rolled over Ethan, as well. He grabbed for the phone. “Screw this. I’m calling Hatch and telling him to cancel the whole damned summit ball.”

She clutched his wrist. “What about Alex Morrow? And whatever else is planned with the rest of the next heist and the one after that.”

He jerked his arm away and shot out of the chair. “Fine. Then your unreasonable boyfriend is asking you to sit this one out at headquarters so I can think.”

She stood, toe-to-toe, determined to have her answers this time. “And what about the next op?”

His silence and stony face answered her too well. He really expected her to give it up for him.

“You want me to quit?”

Still he didn’t disagree. Instead, he moved closer, hips molded to hers as he stroked his hands down her back, lower. “You want to travel, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.” His hands journeyed sensuous paths over her body with a lover’s knowledge of where to touch. “I have enough money for ten lifetimes and we’ll spend it all in one. You’ll be so busy, you won’t have time to miss ARIES, or anything else.”

“Don’t,” she pulled herself away, anger and passion making painful companions in her belly. “Don’t try to manipulate me.”

His throat worked, none of the Ethan lightheartedness in sight. “I love you, damn it. I never wanted to love anyone this way again. Hell, I never have loved anyone this way. That has to count for something.”

Everything within Kelly went silent and still. Ethan loved her?

And she couldn’t do a thing about it.

Blue eyes she’d dreamed of for so long stared back down at her. Part of her yearned to take anything he offered. Another, stronger part of her knew better.

“There was a time I would have given anything to hear those words from you. But Ethan, you’ve taught me I’m worthy of more.” She let herself touch him, her palm to his chest, a bittersweet pleasure. “I’ve spent years trying to be something I’m not to make people love me, which is silly because then they don’t love the real me, anyway.”

Kelly held her eyes wide and unblinking. She wouldn’t cry. If he saw her weakening, he would push and she didn’t trust herself to hold strong.

She stroked her hand over the steady beat of his heart. “I can’t promise you I won’t die. But if you take away my right to stand up for myself, then I’m not truly living.”

His face hardened at her rejection. He stepped back, putting distance between them with his cold eyes as much as his retreating body. “That’s a great speech, Kelly. Of course you always did have a way with words. Well, I’m not so good with twisting around languages, but I can tell you this straight up. I’m not some damned fairy-tale prince, but I would have given you everything I had.”

As she watched him walk back up the stairs, she wondered if maybe her summa cum laude brain had misled her this time.

Wearing his tuxedo and counting down the minutes until Kelly descended the spiral staircase, Ethan stood in the cathedral-ceilinged entry hall of his aunt’s house.

His house.

His parents’ home.

He slid his finger along the neck of his tux shirt. Damn tie pinched.

Eugenie stood beside him, swathed in a purple ball gown and eager to unveil her creation. So many times she had stood at the foot of those same stairs while he slid down the steps on a sled. Or had that been his mother? He hated being inside with ghostly memories attempting to push through, but Kelly deserved to have her escort waiting for her.

He took comfort from the solid weight of the 9mm secured in his shoulder harness. Some comfort. Not enough.

Hell, none of it felt like enough—the army of a hundred security personnel outside the historic hotel where the summit ball would be held. The thirty armed guards inside posing as guests and waiters. Not to mention the room full of heavily armored forces waiting as a contingency backup.

He and Kelly had spent the entire day increasing security. They’d met with Hatch about the potential threat from Rebelian nationals and tried to pinpoint their link to Alex Morrow’s disappearance. But the ambassador to Gastonia wouldn’t cancel his appearance. There was nothing left to do but forge ahead with additional security in place. CIA, FBI, Marines, even local law enforcement were all woven together in a joint operation, yet none of them had seen his or Kelly’s faces to link them as the masterminds.