CHAPTER 2
She didn’t go home. Scheme couldn’t bear the thought of the electronic listening devices scattered in her home, or the knowledge that her father had finally begun to suspect that his daughter was his greatest enemy.
That was the only answer. He had her home swept for listening devices weekly, and had been claiming none were present. But the small handheld device Jonas had given her proved differently.
She checked into her favorite hotel instead. As she followed the bellboy to the executive suite, a wave of weariness washed over her. She shouldn’t have attended the party. Staying as far from Tanner Reynolds as possible would have been her safest bet. Unfortunately that particular Breed was her weakness. Not that she had ever been as close to him as she had been tonight. She had watched him from afar, studying his press releases and watching every interview and news program he was a part of. But until tonight, she had never pitted her own wit against him.
Bad Scheme. A smile tugged at her lips. At least she knew her libido still worked; after the years it had remained silent, uninterested, she had wondered.
“Here you go, Miss Tallant. ” The bellboy inserted the key card and pushed the door open as he carried her small suitcase and laptop in.
He moved through the room, turning on the lights and setting her laptop on the desk before heading to the bedroom with her suitcase.
Seconds later he reappeared, a smile creasing his lips.
“We’re very pleased to have you with us tonight. Is there anything room service can get you before I leave?”
“Not at the moment, thank you. ” She accepted the key card from him with a brief smile of thanks and a hefty tip. “I’ll be fine for now. ”
Left alone in the well-lit suite, Scheme looked around the sitting room with a sense of unreality. Why the hell was she here? And where the hell was Jonas?
Pushing her fingers through her hair, she moved to the door, engaged the security locks and then moved to the bedroom.
Scheme opened her small luggage bag and pulled a pair of velvet lounging pajamas from inside. She tossed them to the bed, then reached back, pulled the zipper of the dress free and stepped from it.
She needed a shower; then she had to contact Jonas. If she didn’t contact him soon, then everything she had worked for in the past years was going to go to hell.
If it hadn’t already.
She couldn’t discount Tanner’s sudden appearance on the scene. After years of playing a subtle cat-and-mouse game, he had finally met her face-to-face, revealing a very tempting reason for suddenly confronting her.
Desire.
She grimaced at the thought as she adjusted the shower and stepped beneath the stinging spray.
Desire on her part, perhaps. He had always held a certain fascination for her. One she had never truly managed to deny herself. And he would know that. As manipulative, calculating and deceitful as he was, he would never have approached her for desire alone. He was up to something more. He knew something.
That made Tanner doubly dangerous. It meant he had inside information, information that possibly only the Breed spy for the Tallant organization could have gotten.
She closed her eyes as the water pelted over her face. It was too coincidental, and she didn’t believe in coincidence. The very night she had attempted to meet with Jonas and he wasn’t where he had agreed to be? He wouldn’t have missed that meeting if it were safe. Which meant he could have suspected the spy working within Sanctuary would be there.
Could it be Tanner?
That sucked too. It sucked because it would have been much simpler and much more enjoyable for her if he were just who he was supposed to be. Sanctuary’s playboy. The loyal public relations genius that had nations clamoring to help the Breeds.
She would contact Jonas tonight and arrange another meeting. There was no staying within her father’s organization, not once he managed to discover who had disabled the message relay machine the night before. Her life was hanging by a thread and she knew it.
“Stupid. Stupid,” she muttered as she hurriedly finished showering.
She had taken one look at the message that had come in, and she had panicked.
Plans in place. First child will be taken within fourteen days. Prepare exit.
Scheme had immediately contacted Jonas for pickup, then tried to erase her presence on the machine, but she knew she hadn’t done so effectively. She hadn’t had time. After her father had picked up the message from his spy, unaware she had seen it first, Scheme had known she had to run and do so quickly. Once Jonas had this information, Callan’s son David would have a shield around him that no one could penetrate. And then her father would know what she had done. Because the cameras in the office would have placed her as the only other person in the office that day.
If her father managed to take the first known naturally born Breed, then the Breeds wou
ld retaliate with savage force. Which she knew her father would be gleefully looking forward to. It was his chance to rebuild his reputation with the Genetics Council. In one move he could acquire a first-generation naturally conceived Breed and, at the same time, cause the Breeds to attack in a way that would definitely turn world opinion against them. She had bought herself some time by sabotaging the message relay system. There would be no way of telling when the data processor had been corrupted—at least not for a while—or who had corrupted it. The cameras in the office would show nothing but her working diligently at the computer for several hours. Until they managed to get into the relay systems log-in files, she was safe.