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  Copyright © 2005 by Alison Kent

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  ISBN 0-7582-0674-7

  First Kensington Trade Paperback Printing: January 2005

  CLS 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed in the United States of America

  He who gains an indulgence is not, strictly speaking, absolved from the debt of punishment, but is given the means whereby he may pay it.

  —Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) Summa Theologica

  One

  He couldn't believe it.

  He abso-fucking-lutely couldn't believe this was happen­ing. Not here. Not now. No way.

  He'd prepped for this mission for weeks. He knew every way into this building, every way out. Windows, elevators, ducts, doors, all of it.

  He'd wallpapered his workstation with blueprints and surveillance photos, for fuck's sake.

  How the hell could he have missed the goddamn camera hidden in the goddamn wall clock?

  Kelly John Beach averted his head, stared at his black, rubber-soled shoes, at the pine green and navy leaf pattern in the executive suite's carpet beneath, and ordered himself to think, think.

  Think!

  The camera was new. The clock hadn't been here earlier tonight. He'd scanned this office an hour after the cleaning crew had left, doing an electronic sweep while in uniform as building security.

  There had been nothing—nothing—on that wall other than the portrait of the company's founder. That didn't change the fact that now, at 2200, there was. Or the fact that the position he was in was more than compromising. It was neck-in-the-noose illegal.

  Proving that Marian Diamonds was working with the in­ternational crime syndicate Spectra IT to smuggle conflict diamonds out of Sierra Leone would hardly negate a breaking-and-entering or burglary charge.

  Especially since explaining how he'd come to be in pos­session of such intel would put the Smithson Group at risk for exposure—exposure he couldn't let happen. That he wouldn't let happen . . . think, think.

  Think!

  The USB flash drive detailing the diamond shipments and subsequent buyers was now tucked safely into a pocket of the vest strapped to his chest, along with the rest of the tools of his highly suspect trade.

  Getting out of here wasn't going to be a problem. He'd simply reverse the trip he'd made coming in. No, the trou­ble would come later.

  Three minutes from now, he'd be ground level wearing street clothes. Give the cops another thirty, he'd be wearing handcuffs.

  God-fucking-damn.

  Sweat beaded on his forehead, rolled like Niagara down his spine. His eyeballs burned. His temples throbbed. His heart was a fist-sized red rubber ball clogging the base of his throat.

  Plain and simple, he had to get to the SG-5 ops center without hitting the street. The only way to do that was the train at the Broad Street station. Then underground.

  He hated going underground. He hated the dark. Hated the rats. Hated the stench of shit and decay and all the rot­ten crap he'd have to step in.

  Fuck me blind. He growled, grumbled, snorted. Now he was really looking forward to the trip. But a man had to do what a man had to do, or so went the saying.

  And so he did. Sucked it up, swallowed his own bullshit along with the red rubber ball, and walked out of the office like the fucking president of the U. S. of A.

  "Slow it down, son. Slow it down." Hank Smithson ges­tured toward Kelly John with the stub end of a cigar tucked in the crook of his index finger. "You're not going to get this figured out by wearing a hole in the floor."

  The older man could use his calming techniques all he wanted. Kelly John wasn't in any mood to be calmed or gentled or put out to pasture.

  Not when it looked like what he was about to be was put down.

  He paced the SG-5 ops center's huge horseshoe work­station from his own desk to Tripp Shaughnessey's and back. Again and again and again.

  "Easy for you to say." Kelly John stopped, sniffed. Christ, but he smelled like a freakin' sewer. "You aren't the one who screwed up."

  It was more than screwing up the mission and giving the upper hand to Spectra IT—the only ones with any reason to have Marian Diamonds bugged. The ones receiving the feed at the far end of the camera.

  After what Tripp had gone through with the duo re­cently, that much was a given as far as Kelly John was con­cerned.

  No, it was endangering the Smithson Group, jeopardiz­ing everything Tripp, Julian and Christian, Mick and Eli and Harry had been working for, failing himself.

  Failing Hank.

  Hank crossed his arms over his chest and rocked back on his boot heels. "Kelly, you did your best."

  His best hadn't been good enough. Not this time. A hell of a hard pill to swallow considering the reason Hank had picked him to join the Smithson Group in the first place.

  "Spectra had to know I was coming." And he'd shoot himself for that if it would help. "That's the only way the timing of that camera install makes sense."

  "They were protecting their assets," Hank reminded him.

  A reminder that pissed off Kelly John even further when he thought of the source of the organization's millions. "Yeah, well, now they've got video proving how insecure they really are. And how stupid I really am."

  Hank moved, blocking Kelly John's path, com-manding his attention. "We'll figure it out, son. We'll figure it out."

  "What's to figure?"

  At Tripp Shaughnessey's offhanded question, both men turned, Kelly John glaring down at his partner where Tripp sat on the floor in front of his desk. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

  Tightening the wheels on his upended chair, Tripp shrugged. "You're the techno whiz. Make your own video. Prove you were elsewhere at the time. Show them they only think they know what they're seeing."

  "An alibi," Hank said.

  Intrigued, Kelly John started pacing again. "That might work."

  "And we all know who makes the best alibi for a man, right?" Tripp asked.

  Kelly John knew he wasn't going to like the answer. "Who?"

  "A woman."

  "Right. A woman." He scrubbed both hands over the sewer grit on his face. "Where the hell am I going to find a woman to back me up and not go mouthing off to all her girlfriends about what's going on?"

  Hank shoved his cigar back into the corner of his mouth and grinned. "This one I've got covered."

  Emma Webster had just packed up her Billy Bag satchel when the private line on her desk phone rang. It was six-thirty P.M., and she'd thought the office empty.

  She'd gone down to the health club at five, had a quick salad at Brighton's after working out, then come back up­stairs to grab the novel she'd been reading at lunch before finally heading home.

  Instead, she picked up the receiver on the third ring. It was Hank, and if he was still here and looking for her, her cell would be ringing next. "Emma Webster."

  "Emma. Hank here."

  "Hank. I thought you left
hours ago."

  "I was called out for a bit"—he cleared his throat— "and I'm afraid I've had an emergency of sorts dropped into my lap. I'm going to have to ask you for some over­time."

  "I'll be right in." She took a deep breath and conjured up the image she'd checked in her cheval mirror before leaving her apartment this morning.

  Not the image reflected back at her from the glass door to Brighton's ten minutes ago. The image of a woman who had spent the last hour sweating like a politician caught with a cigar and an intern.

  Oh, well. An emergency was an emergency, even if she was wearing white cross trainers and slouch socks, hot pink Spandex shorts and sports bra, and a white pullover worthy of a wet T-shirt contest.

  Not exactly an outfit conducive to professionalism. At least at this late hour, her boss should be alone.

  He wasn't, of course, which was bad enough. Even worse was the six-foot-two, two-hundred-ten-pound, blue-eyed, black Irish reality of who was leaning on the edge of his desk.

  One very sexy Kelly John Beach.

  She placed her satchel on the thick carpeting just inside the door and crossed the expansive office, refusing to adjust her clothing or touch her hair, or give into any of the copi­ous nervous reactions to being seen at her absolute physical worst by the very man she most wanted to attract.

  He was one of Hank's special Smithson Engineering pro­ject consultants. A group of men rarely seen around the of­fice, but causing all tongues belonging to female employees to wag when walking through.

  All tongues save for Emma's. In her position as Hank's assistant, wagging was unacceptable. She didn't speak out of turn. Ever. A well-known and well-documented fact that had helped land her this job.

  She wondered for less time than it took her to reach Hank's desk if Kelly John was involved in the request for her overtime. The grave look the two men exchanged an­swered her question. She cringed, but only to herself, wish­ing like hell that she could step into this meeting on a more even footing.

  But such was not to be when one wore hot pink Spandex. Even had she been wearing the pieces of her work wardrobe she'd had on earlier in the day, the balance would have leaned heavily in the male favor. As was too often the case.

  "Sit, Emma, please," Hank requested once she'd reached his desk. She hesitated briefly, but it was enough to broad­cast her discomfort at the disadvantage. He picked it up and added, "Let's all sit."

  Emma took the seat closest to where she stood, Kelly John the one nearest the window. Hank dropped into his executive chair and braced his elbows on his desk, steepling his fingers as if the pious gesture would lessen the inappropriateness of the request.

  Because the way both men seemed reluctant to speak to her or each other, or to meet her inquisitive gaze, she was certain inappropriate would barely cover what they wanted her to do.

  She cleared her throat. "You mentioned overtime?"

  "Overtime, yes. But this time it's more than my dad-blamed habit of procrastinating on paperwork." Hank paused, and color bloomed in the apples of his cheeks. "As a matter of fact, it's overtime giving you legal grounds to charge my sorry hide with sexual harassment."

  "Oh, really," she said, blinking away the strangest sensa­tion of being caught up in a fog-like dream. Even the words he'd spoken were weirdly surreal.

  Hank Smithson had never, in the five years she'd worked for him, come close to crossing such a line.

  At her side, Kelly John shifted to lean forward, bracing his forearms on his knees and lacing his fingers into one big fist. He hung his head, but she wasn't fooled for a minute.

  He exuded the same tension she saw in the set of Hank's shoulders, the deeply creased furrows lining his brow.

  The room, in fact, fairly crackled with the buzz of expec­tant anticipation. As if what hung in the air was a suggestive truth neither man wanted to address for fear of offending her beyond repair.

  And suddenly she knew. She knew. The inappropriate re­quest involved this man at her side.

  The very man who all too frequently played a part in her dark-of-the-night fantasies. She wanted to shiver with the possibilities, but instead she tamped down a response that she feared would strip away her current advantage.

  Especially as there was a little bird telling her she needed to hold onto all that she could.

  "Well, now that you've warned me, I'll have to admit a rather prurient curiosity. This is hardly what I expected."

  "And you shouldn't expect it. No woman ever should." Hank leaned back in his chair, laced his hands over the slightly rounded rise of his stomach. "And I suppose we could call off this whole kit and caboodle right now. Save us all what might turn out to be an uncomfortable circum­stance."

  At her side, Emma heard Kelly John blow out an audible breath. The sound of a scoff. A surrender. A pox on the sit­uation that had brought them here.

  She half expected him to push from the chair and walk out of the room, but he sat where he was and said nothing. Nothing to counter Hank's suggestion. No offer of another.

  Her back straight to the point of being stiff, she crossed one leg over the other, laced her hands over her knees and said, "Actually, I'd like to hear everything."

  "You sure?" Hank asked, giving her one last out.

  She nodded. "You would hardly go so far out of charac­ter to suggest anything improper if you didn't feel it your best option."

  That said, she waited, watching the glances that passed between the two men. The silent conversation—Are you sure? I don't know. Is there any other way? None so sim­ple.—left her sitting literally on the edge of her seat, swing­ing her foot, nervously waiting for the balloon to pop.

  It was Kelly John who pricked the fragile skin.

  "I've gotten into trouble with one of my assignments. And the most convincing way for me to get out is to have you pose as my lover."

  Two

  He saw it in her eyes. What trouble could an engineering project consultant possibly be in that sex used as a cover would abrogate?

  He should've seconded Hank's earlier motion that they call this off here and now.

  The problem was that they had no time to implement a more intricate alibi. He might be the operative with the most technical expertise, but Tripp was the video genius.

  The other man had spent all night and most of the day working his contacts and his equipment to pull this thing together.

  It had to be a go tonight.

  And Emma Webster was the final piece of the puzzle waiting to be snapped into place.

  Her sea green eyes went wide like saucers. She blinked as if doing so would clear up what it was he had said. "You want me to pretend to be your lover?"

  Her tone of voice was businesslike, a query made to an associate, rather than the incredulous hysteria he'd expected. The hysteria Hank had sworn wasn't a part of Emma's reper­toire of reactions.

  He nodded. "Yes, though it's more . . . complicated than that."

  "Complicated?"

  "More involved," Hank added. "Which is why I would never ask this of anyone else. And why asking it of you now makes me feel slimier than a snake's gut."

  Kelly John sensed Emma's mind clicking like a hard drive stuck on a bad sector. She couldn't get beyond the scope of what she imagined they were asking her to do.

  He wasn't having a much easier time stooping so god­damned low. It was time to spell it out. Make it clear for all parties involved.

  He heaved out a sigh. "I got caught on tape last night in a place I had no business being."

  "That's not entirely true, Kelly," Hank put in. "You were there because I sent you there."

  "The trouble you're in happened on the job, then?" Emma asked.

  "On a job I specifically asked him to do." Hank shifted forward in his chair. "None of this would be an issue if I hadn't handed him the assignment."

  "None of this would be an issue if I hadn't been so careless." Kelly John refused to let the older man take the blame for a situation he never sh
ould have walked into.

  Emma got to her feet then, held one arm tight to her middle, rubbed the fingers of the other hand to her forehead as she paced. Kelly John cast a look at Hank, who simply shook his head to say there was nothing to do here but wait.

  The waiting was the problem. The wondering what Spectra was planning. The sweating it out to discover what he was in for. The speculating about whether Emma would help or knock him ass first to the floor.

  She had every right. He wouldn't blame her a bit. He just wished she would say something, would make up her mind. If she wasn't going to do this, he needed time to devise an­other—

  "Would one of you verify something for me?" she in­terrupted his thoughts to ask. "This assignment you keep referring to. Does it having anything to do with Smithson Engineering? Or is this some off-the-record ac­tivity shared on a need-to-know basis? One I don't need to know?"

  Hank broke the silence that followed with a deep chuckle. "Ah, Emma. You cut to the heart of the matter just like my Madelyn used to do."

  One of Emma's arched brows went up. "I hope you gave her the answers she needed."

  "She wouldn't have it any other way."

  "Good. Then you'll understand that neither will I."

  Kelly John's gaze shifted from one to the other until they reached what appeared to be a standoff. A situation that would not be remedied without more of a revelation than it would be safe for the older man to make.

  His own existence was in jeopardy, sure, but he was only one gear in the much larger SG-5 machine. He was expend­able. Hank was not.

  And Emma learning the truth about Hank . . .

  "I need to know how far I can trust you, Emma."

  "Hank, wait." Kelly John surged to his feet at the same time Emma moved closer to say, "Trust shouldn't be an issue after all this time of working for you."

  Her gaze came up to meet Kelly John's as she went on speaking to her boss. "Especially considering you have me handling the expense reports for your project consultants instead of sending them to accounting."