Kate Hoffmann - A Fare To Remember

“Look, Roman, or whatever your name is, the sex was great and the affair was fun, all full of spontaneity and mystery and all the things that are biting us in the ass right now. Fact is, you’re probably on your way out of town-you and that gun of yours-so why are we wasting our breaths talking about nothing?”

Silence reigned. God, she wanted him to reply with “It’s not nothing. We connected, Rachel. We were something to each other. You matter to me.” But his mouth remained closed. She supposed she should have celebrated when he turned and started to exit the room, but instead, a sob caught in her throat.

Luckily, Mario and Iris swept in before Roman could change direction.

“What the hell is he doing here?” Mario asked.

Iris muttered in Spanish, something Rachel was pretty damned sure was a curse. Not the cussword type, either. The “may your penis turn purple and fall off” type.

“He was just leaving,” she replied.

Roman cast a glance over his shoulder. The regret and self-recrimination in his steel-blue eyes nearly caused her insides to buckle, but she pressed her hand against her belly and silently ordered herself to remain still.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she narrowed her eyes and speared him with a glare that told him any excuse, beyond the honest-to-God truth, would be too little, too late.

With a polite “excuse me,” he moved out of the apartment and consequently, out of her life.

Forever. For good.

Iris rushed past Mario and caught Rachel by the arms before she could sink onto the bed and dissolve. Into tears. Into a puddle. Into a pathetic mess.

“Mija, you’re better off.”

Rachel forced strength into her legs, willed herself to remain standing. “I know that, Iris. I swear, I know that with every fiber of my being. But why, then, why do I feel like I’m about to fall apart?”

“JUST HOLD ON THERE, SON.”

Roman turned, not entirely surprised to see Mario Capelli stalking after him in the hallway outside Rachel’s apartment. The wizened cabdriver shut the door behind him firmly, then marched down the hall. Roman waited. He supposed he shouldn’t deny the man his opportunity to ream him out.

“Mario,” he said by way of greeting.

The old man arched an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

“I can’t explain to you any more than I could explain to Rachel.”

“She has a lot of questions.”

“None that I can answer.”

He’d wanted to answer them. He’d fully intended to come here and offer complete disclosure. But on the way over, using all his skills as a covert agent to make sure that the enemies who had fired on him this morning didn’t get a second chance to fill him full of holes, he’d realized that the truth would be too selfish and dangerous. What she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her. Right?

Mario shifted his hands into the pockets of his baggy khakis. “Maybe she doesn’t know the right questions to ask, her heart being broken and all.”

“We were never serious that way,” Roman insisted, knowing the statement was only true from her perspective, not his.

“Maybe not in words, but when you jump into a woman’s bed, you jump into her heart, too, whether she likes it or not.”

Roman blew out a frustrated breath. “That’s a fairly old-fashioned viewpoint.”

Mario shrugged. “I’m a fairly old-fashioned guy. But unlike Rachel, I do know what questions to ask. You a crook?”

Roman chuckled. He was a lot of dastardly and despicable things, but a thief wasn’t one of them. “No, sir.”

“Drug dealer?”

He shook his head.

“Assassin? Gunrunner? Bank robber?”

“None of the above.”

“So you’re legit?”

“Not exactly.”

“That can mean only one thing-you’re government issue.”

Roman arched a brow. He supposed he’d led the man to his conclusion by replying with honesty to his questions, but the cabbie had had the forethought to ask. “You in the biz?”

“Just a cop. Detective. Thirty-five years for the NYPD.”

“And now you drive a cab.”

“Beats withering away. I know the city. And I know people. And you’re one who can turn a conversation on a dime so he doesn’t have to talk about himself.”

Roman grinned, not wanting to take the compliment, but what choice did he have? His talent for lying and twisting conversations had brought him to this very place-on the brink of losing a woman he’d risked everything for, simply because he couldn’t tell the truth.

“Rachel is better off without me,” he said, accepting that if he said the mantra often enough, he might, eventually, start to believe it.

Mario clucked his tongue. “That’s obvious. But I’ve got to know that what happened this morning isn’t going to come back to haunt her. You haven’t marked her for a hit, have you?”

Roman opened his mouth to protest, but stopped and thought he’d better think long and hard about his answer first. Clearly, his mission had been compromised, which was probably why the Agency had sent Domino to intercept him this morning. Not to kill him-if that had been her mission, he’d be dead by now. To warn him. He’d yet to be debriefed, but instead he’d spent his day backtracking and thinking about Rachel, ensuring that he could pay her one last visit without endangering her life. But while he had strong suspicions about who the shooters were and that their attack had simply been a way to send the Agency a message, he couldn’t be sure that they wouldn’t try to use Rachel against him if given the chance.

“Can you stay with her tonight?” he asked.

Mario nodded. “But I can’t stay every night.”

For an instant, Roman thought Mario might be implying that he should be the one to make sure Rachel was safe, but both men knew that his hanging around one minute longer wasn’t good for either Rachel or him. He’d screwed up large.

He never should have dallied with her in the first place, but the attraction had been so powerful, so tempting. Once he’d cleared her of suspicion of providing information through her graphic designs to the terrorist group he’d been tracking, he’d justified their affair by promising himself it would be brief. One night, maybe two. Enough to sate both of them. But the more he tasted, the more he craved. Everything about her entranced him. She was so fresh, so bright-eyed and in love with the city, with her job, with her friends, with the world. Rachel Marlowe was completely and totally unlike the women he dealt with at the Agency, who were all slightly jaded by what they’d been trained to recognize and prevent. Or like Domino, jaded to her core so deeply, she could kill without regret.

He’d been weak. He knew that now. And his inability to fight his desires had resulted in Rachel getting hurt. Under different circumstances, he might have fallen in love with her. He had to make things right-in the only way he knew how.

“I’m checking in with my superiors next. They don’t want any collateral damage, so I’m sure they’ll take care of Rachel until the heat is off. I’ll contact you, let you know when Rachel is safe. She’s probably not in any danger, but-”

“Better safe than sorry.”

Roman turned to the stairwell, but Mario stopped him with a halting hand. “Hold on, cowboy.”

The older man ambled back to Rachel’s apartment, knocked on the door, then whispered through the chain to Iris that he’d be back in less than an hour. He gave her strict instructions not to open the door for anyone but him.

Mario then gestured gallantly toward the exit.

Roman frowned. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Mario smiled, smug and confident that whatever he had planned, Roman would comply. Which he would, since the man had promised to take care of Rachel-a task Roman should have been able to do for himself, but couldn’t.

“I’m going to give you a lift.”

“That’s not necessary.”

Mario caught him by the elbow. “Sorry, but it is.”

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU LET HIM drive you here.”

Domino Black, or so she was called by their superiors, emerged from the shadows of the stairwell in the Agency safe house, her keen almond-shaped eyes gleaming with disgust. Fortunately, Roman had seen her eyes gleam with other basic, elemental emotions before-lust, mostly-so the effect, while disconcerting, didn’t penetrate his already guilt-ridden body.

“We’ll be out of here in an hour,” he said, sliding his hand along the doorjamb to find the hidden-key compartment. “Once we’re gone, there will be no trace of either one of us. What’s he going to do? Call the cops? Clearly, the Agency has them under control.”

“I don’t buy it,” she snapped, perennially suspicious.

“The guy just wanted to read me the riot act about hurting Rachel. She’s like a daughter to him. You can’t blame him.”

“I could kill him.”

Roman clucked his disbelief. “Even you aren’t that cold.”

He checked the doorjamb on the opposite side, then cursed. He was just about to ask Domino if she knew where the key was when the metal piece materialized in her black-leather-gloved hands. When he moved to take the key, she snatched it away with a childlike grin.

Well, with what she wanted him to think was a childlike grin. So far as he knew, Domino Black had never been a child.

The second time she brandished the key, he took it quickly into his possession. “I’ve had enough games today.”

He opened the door and let them inside. The room in the boardinghouse was sparse, but relatively clean. The furniture, consisting of a couch, a twin bed, a coffee table, a small refrigerator and safe, would provide all he’d need for the next hour or so until he made contact with the Agency again. First, he’d need some time to gather his thoughts.

Roman locked the door securely behind him and pressed a button on the wall, activating a mechanism that rendered all listening devises useless. Anyone trying to eavesdrop on their conversation electronically would hear nothing but a buzz.