A tall, slender form stood in the middle of the room, looking down at the body on the floor, but his head jerked up at Peter’s precipitous entrance.
“There you are,” Mahmoud said in his lightly-accented English. “You’ve got a dead man in your office.”
It took Peter only a moment to keep from grabbing the boy, shaking him thoroughly, and then hugging him. Genny had done wonders at teaching her husband to drop his Englishman’s inhibitions, but Mahmoud would likely gut him if he tried. He pulled his vaunted imperturbability back around him.
“So I see. Did you kill him?”
Mahmoud shook his head. “He was already dead when I broke in. I would have killed him for you if he’d still been rooting around, but one of your traps got him.”
Peter moved around the side of the desk. The man was lying face down on the carpet. He nudged him with his foot, then rolled him over onto his back.
“Fuck.”
“Know him?” Mahmoud said. “Thought so. Who is he?”
“CIA,” Peter said succinctly.
“What did you do to piss them off?”
“Nothing. It’s not me they’re mad at.” He rose, making a few swift calculations. “You up to helping me get rid of the body?”
“Aren’t there child labor laws?” Mahmoud said with a callous grin.
“Don’t give me that. You find the peaceful life dead boring. Just don’t tell Genny.” He needn’t have bothered to ask. The two of them had an unspoken pact to spare Genevieve from the more violent aspects of his current life and Mahmoud’s former one.
“If they’re not mad at you then who are they after?”
“Killian,” said Peter. “And Isobel.”
Mahmoud gave the dead body a hard kick. “After all these years? Why now?”
“I’d say it’s because MacGowan finally surfaced. I think they’re hoping they can trace the two of them through MacGowan.”
“Can they?”
“Isobel has never been a fool.”
Mahmoud just looked at him. “Is that an answer?”
“God, I hope so.”
MacGowan was better at cheating than she was, Beth realized in no time at all. All her machinations got her exactly nowhere. If the poker stakes were food he’d make sure she won, if they were anything else she was shit out of luck. By the time they were four days out she owed him three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars and her first three children.
They were sitting in the small room that served as dining hall and meeting room, and it was close to midnight. Dylan had dragged himself off to bed hours ago, disgruntled at being ignored, and Beth knew she should go as well. She couldn’t tear herself away from him.
He hadn’t touched her once in the last few days. He might never have kissed her in the dingy hall outside their hotel room, might never have held her as she wept and shivered. He treated her as he treated Dylan, a combination of brotherly teasing and impatience, and as her wariness faded her own complicated feelings worsened.
She couldn’t begin to understand what she wanted from him. They’d been through too much together for anything as innocent as a flirtation, and he was much too big and scary a creature when he wasn’t mocking her. There were times when she was honestly afraid of him. He could kill, had killed for her on a number of occasions, seemingly without a moment’s hesitation or an ounce of regret. He was mercenary, brutal, charming, devious, and yes, any other woman would think he was sexy as hell. Not her.
Not her. Oh hell, yes, her. The way he moved, as if he understood his body better than any man had a right to and knew just how to use it for a woman’s maximum pleasure. The way his gray eyes slid over her, coolly caressing. It meant nothing, it was part of his stock in trade, and yet she felt it slide over her skin like a physical touch.
They were alone now, and he was dealing the greasy deck of cards with the practiced ease of a professional gambler. She’d always prided herself on her skills – she’d been taught by the bodyguards who’d dogged her every step, and she was used to crushing other players with her innocent demeanor and ruthless guile.
But MacGowan was more than a match for her. In fact, they had quickly fallen into a rhythm, matching each other. He knew her strengths and weaknesses, she knew his.
“Another hand?” he suggested.
“I should go to bed.”