On the Loose Read Online Free Page B

strung on a silver chain around her neck. The small ivory-colored piece of reticulated quartz was the one thing she’d been given to guarantee his complete, total, and instant cooperation.
    Fortunately, it was the only thing she needed—a small comfort as he got closer and closer and the urge to run got stronger and stronger. It took effort, dammit, to hold her ground, which was ridiculous for reasons she wasn’t about to explore. Honoria York-Lytton did not run away, ever. She was the one with all the cards here. Not him.
    At the edge of the pool, he stopped and looked down at her through his sunglasses, his expression unreadable, and yet somehow, his message clear: disapproval with a strong dose of “You’ve got no business being here.”
    She wished he was right, but he wasn’t, far from it, no matter how much he glared, and that’s exactly what he was doing behind his glasses. She could feel it.
    Slowly, without taking her eyes off him, she brought the tiny cocktail straw in her piña colada to her lips...and sipped. The seconds ticked by in utter silence, one after the other, with the sun shining, the palm trees swaying, the water lapping at her butt, and him not moving a muscle, just standing there, broad-shouldered and broad through the chest, looming over her in a beautiful suit and a pair of perfectly polished loafers.
    She knew his name now, his full name. She’d read it in the report she’d been given, a cursory résumé that had dead-ended two years ago at a place referred to only as SDF. God only knew what he’d been up to since then, besides being in San Luis one night—God and the man who had given her the piece of quartz.
    That man knew what he’d been up to. That man knew everything, even about her...
everything
, which had not made her happy. Oh, no, not at all.
    Among a few other tantalizing tidbits, like him growing up in Little Rock, Arkansas, and going to the University of Wyoming in Laramie, the report on Mr. C. Smith Rydell had contained his physical stats, but she’d already known how tall he was—tall enough that in two-inch platforms, she barely came to his collarbone. She’d already known how much he weighed—enough to cord his body with layer upon layer of hard muscle, enough to rope his shoulders with a dozen of those layers, enough to six-pack his abs and burn the memory of him into every single cell she had. His hair was darker than it had been in San Luis, still blond in a few streaks here and there, but mostly a tawny shade of brown, just as long, but better cut. She remembered his eyes were a dark hazel with thick, dark lashes, and his mouth—
    Oh, yes, she remembered his mouth.
    She remembered too much about a man who had put her on a plane and never given her another thought.
    Letting out a resigned sigh, he knelt down and brought himself almost eye level with her.
    â€œThis better be good, Honey.”
    She took another sip, long and slow, then licked the end of the tiny straw.
    Oh, it was good, all right, good enough for the United States government to make a case against her and against him, good enough to send her into exile and him into jail, good enough to get them both killed, if they failed.
    She wasn’t going to tell him that, though, not until he knew he didn’t have a choice. Not until he knew that come hell, high water, or a Salvadoran death squad, he was going to be right by her side—because she didn’t have a choice, either, and not just because of the damn CIA and their damn threats.
    Finished with the straw, she stuck it back in the drink and set the glass down next to his feet.
    â€œA man in Washington told me to give this to you, that you would know what it meant—
exactly
what it meant,” she said, reaching up and slipping the necklace off over the top of her head. She held it out, and the pendant dangled between them, with the bright, tropical sunlight shining