Her Secret Agent Man by Cindy Dees Page B

scrumptious crème brûlée to top off the spectacular meal, he murmured, “It’s later.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “You said we’d talk about serious things later.”
    She stared down at the crisp, golden layer of caramelized sugar coating her custard. Composure. Breathe. Living with her father for so long had taught her how to lie convincingly. She could do this.
    “What do you want to know?” she managed to ask.
    “What are you hiding from me?”
    Well, obviously, she thought, I’m not going to tell you every detail of my life. Just as you’re not going to tell me every detail of yours. “I’m not keeping anything from you that will affect our deal. I swear. You keep me alive, and I’ll give you my father’s financial records.”
    “Why haven’t you handed over the records to me already?”
    “Because I have to get them first,” she lied.
    “Where are they now?”
    “I uploaded them onto a secure Internet site. I have to retrieve them.”
    “So all you need is access to an Internet-capable computer and we’re finished?”
    She gulped. “It’s not quite that simple. They’re hidden behind several layers of encryption. I can break through it, but it’ll take a little while.”
    “Define a little while. Are we talking a couple of days, or are we talking weeks?”
    She looked him square in the eye. That was one she could answer with total honesty. “I don’t know. I wish I did.”
    He leaned back, studying her with laser intensity. She had the distinct feeling he wasn’t buying her line for a second. But she had to play out this farce. And in his own way, so did he.
    “Where have you lived all this time?” he fired at her.
    “Gavarone. I travel some in the course of managing Eduardo’s money, but mostly he keeps me close by.”
    “Wants to keep an eye on you, does he?”
    She snorted. “More like an iron fist over my head.”
    Dutch said nothing in response to that one.
    The silence deepened as she waited for him to cook up some other horribly awkward question. Her father always said the best defense was a good offense. Maybe it was time to borrow a page out of Eduardo’s book. She leaned forward and fired off a question of her own. “So. What have you been up to for the last ten years?”
    Dutch’s frown deepened. He shrugged enigmatically. “The same old thing. Doing my damnedest to keep the world safe for democracy.”
    She remarked, “That’s become quite a tall order in the last decade.”
    “If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” he replied. “My kind aren’t ever going to be out of work.”
    The conversation lapsed. She ought to keep him talking. Keep him distracted. But she was so relieved to escape the charge of the conversation, she didn’t push.
    The tension between them must have been thicker than she realized, because she noticed a guy several tables over looking at them. As soon as she made eye contact with him, he jerked his gaze to his plate. Creepy kind of fellow. So boringly plain and brown he practically faded into the background and became invisible. Eating alone.
    She murmured to Dutch in quiet concern, “A guy over there was just looking at me.”
    Dutch’s lips curved in a wry smile. “I expect most of the men in this restaurant have been looking at you. You’re a beautiful woman.”
    Flustered by the comment, she made a production of folding her napkin beside her plate.
    Dutch said under his breath, “Let’s get out of here. I’ll have a look at the guy on the way out.”
    He paid for the meal with a credit card, and she eyed itspeculatively. A person could access a bank account via plastic, too. She ought to check his wallet for debit cards. She might be able to trace the Charlie Squad account number from one of them.
    Dutch ushered her outside. Night had fallen while they ate. How in the world were they supposed to ski back to the resort up that narrow, dark trail? But Dutch set off confidently, leaving her to follow dubiously. He didn’t