“No, you don’t and that’s the problem.”
“I wasn’t talking about your little secret.” He moved her under the water, gently tilting her head back. She seemed determined to be dramatic so he had to be the sensible one. He was all right with the role. “I was talking about the fact that I happen to know there’s nothing you can say that will make me turn away from you.”
“You’re wrong.” Her head was back, the water sliding down her body. When she opened her eyes, her hands came up, cupping his face. “Promise me you won’t hate me. I can’t live with you hating me.”
“Never.” He found it hard to hate anyone. He couldn’t imagine hating the woman he loved.
“I’ll hold you to those words, Murdoch.” She went on her toes and kissed him before hugging her body to his. Her head went to his chest and he could have sworn she was listening to his heartbeat. He let his hands find her head and held her there, warmth surrounding him.
They stayed that way for the longest time.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
He was going to make her crazy. Phoebe watched Jesse as he moved through the ballroom. He was dressed in a tux and looked so predatory she almost didn’t recognize him. She’d only seen him in the building when they were working before. This was Jesse in the field, and he was a gorgeous beast.
“Ms. Graham, is it?” A man in an expensive tux approached her, his silver hair slicked back. He was at least six foot two and lean, obviously a man who cared about his appearance.
She glanced at his nametag. Dale Albertson, assistant to US Senator McDonald. Now she was intrigued. She put on her game face. In this place, she wasn’t a woman trying to figure out how to let go of the best man she’d ever met. God, she included Jamie in that list. Jesse Murdoch was the best person she’d met. But here she wasn’t Jesse’s or Jamie’s. She belonged to the Agency, to the United States of America, and she was deeply interested in why a senator was here without the backing of the Agency.
She smiled at Mr. Dale Albertson and gave him her best British accent. She’d traveled on a British passport, and according to all of her security paperwork was a marketing consultant from London specializing in the energy industry. “Yes. Phoebe Graham. It’s so nice to meet you.”
Her British accent was perfect, of course.
Dale held out a hand and she took it, fighting to hide her distaste when he moved past professional. He covered her hand with both of his, holding it just a moment too long to be anything but a come-on. “You’re with the crazy king, aren’t you? I have to say, we’re all curious about Kamdar.”
Which meant her cover was holding and her brother had been the paranoid son of a bitch she loved him for being. She was proud to be his sister, but for now she was another woman entirely. “The king is a brilliant man. He’s put his whole country to work with his initiatives. If he’s correct about his potential output, he could fundamentally change the way people use energy in his part of the world.”
“If he’s correct. I seem to remember he claimed he was close once and then there was that terrible explosion. I guess that kind of thing is really better left to the First World.”
She studied him for a moment. His lips had curled up slightly as though he knew something he thought she didn’t. “I’m not concerned about a repeat of that particular incident. The king learned a lot from it. It hasn’t taken him long at all to get his lab working again.”
The explosion in Loa Mali hadn’t been about worker error. It had been an act of corporate sabotage perpetrated by an ex-CIA operative. Eli Nelson had been turned years before by the shadowy group known as The Collective. They were the elite of the elite, the wealthiest men in the world, and they hadn’t taken kindly to the king of Loa Mali potentially killing their oil revenues.
Eli Nelson was dead thanks to the Taggarts, but someone would quickly take his place.
The thing they’d been missing was the government tie. Phoebe had been able to tie The Collective to various criminal organizations and foreign countries, but she knew they would also have a group of US politicians under their sway. She had to wonder if she wasn’t looking at one. Well, at his assistant anyway.
“We’ll see about that. Why is a man who is determined to change the world over to solar and wind power here at an oil conference?” He leaned in, just a little flirty. “Can I get you a drink?”