A Fare To Remember_ Just Whistle_Driven - Vicki Lewis Thompson [76]
“That sounds very fair and self-righteous, but you know as well as I do that things couldn’t work that way. As romantic and grand a gesture it would have been if I’d stayed behind to hold your hand at the Agency, that’s not who I am. And it’s not who you need me to be.”
Had he spoken those words a few weeks ago, Rachel wouldn’t have been so sure of the honest truth in his assessment. Wrapped up in her own life and career, Rachel hadn’t given two thoughts to how much she might need a man until Roman’s continual abandonment drove her to secretly follow him and enlist her friends in carefully planned schemes to trap him and force him to tell her…what? That he loved her? That he couldn’t live without her?
But now she’d gotten her life back, her strength. She’d wanted him back, yes, but she hadn’t been willing to pay any price. She’d helped her country, that was a perk, but most important, she’d returned to her original groove of an independent woman open to the possibility of love, but not bound to it.
She turned in her spacious seat, giving a little yawn she covered daintily with her hand. Her ears popped as the plane ascended to cruising altitude. “So why are you here?”
He looked down into his lap, his expression sheepish. “What can I say? I can’t resist you.”
“You’ll lose your job,” she pointed out. “I don’t think Tremayne likes the idea of you and me together, especially if I keep turning down her job offers.”
“Tremayne likes to think of herself as all-powerful, but now that I’ve completed this mission, my clout within the Agency is assured. With the right spin, which I’ve already set in motion, I may just have her job by the end of our vacation.”
Rachel sat back, trying to hide the thrill that sparked through her body. “Our vacation? You sure you didn’t just stowaway aboard in order to seduce me and leave when your pager goes off?”
He leaned forward and dug into the duffel he’d shoved under the seat. He retrieved a small gift-wrapped box and placed it softly in her hands.
“Open it,” he instructed when she seemed more interested in the shiny bronze box rather than the contents of his offering.
She pulled off the top. Inside was his old pager…or at least, what was left of it.
“Anger issues?” she asked, a smile teasing the corners of her mouth.
He shook his head and extended his palm. She placed the box in the middle of his hand and grinned at the mess inside. “I had to show my credentials just to get it through Security. I like to think of this more like frustration. And determination. How long do you plan to stay in Puerto Rico?”
“Well,” she said, retrieving the box and capping it with the bowed top, “I was going to decide after I found out who I met poolside. What’s your schedule like?”
He leaned in, twisting so they faced each other, then took off his hat and stuffed it in the pocket in front of him so he could close in even more. Rachel couldn’t help but run her fingers through his newly dyed hair, which also seemed longer, thanks to what she suspected were extensions. The picture of Roman sitting still for the procedure in some frou-frou salon made her giggle, but when his newly green gaze glittered with curiosity, she tamped down her mirth and instead concentrated on the sudden, overwhelming awareness sparking between them. He obviously would do whatever it took to be an effective agent. And by boarding this plane, he’d proved that he was also willing to do whatever it took to bring her back into his life.
“I’m completely in vacation mode for the foreseeable future. Things are going to shake up at the Agency, and until then, I’m all yours.”
“And what if they call you back?”
“First they have to find me.”
She licked her lips, trying to sate her incredible need to lick his instead. “They are Homeland Security.”
“Are they?”
She arched a brow. “Are you keeping secrets from me, Roman Brach, if that really is your name?”
He leaned sideways so that his smooth, recently shaven cheek brushed lightly against hers. “It is really my name,” he whispered.