Okay, he deserved to pay, but Lily didn’t. If anything, she was the good guy in this situation. So she’d killed a CIA asset; the son of a bitch had deserved to die, especially in light of what he’d been planning with the flu bug. Not that she’d known about that at the time, her motive had been pure revenge, but to Swain that was splitting hairs. What it came down to was, Lily hadn’t quit. She just kept on throwing herself into the breach, willing to sacrifice herself to do what she thought was right. Not many people had that sort of moral fortitude, or plain stubbornness, whatever you wanted to call it.
The bottom of his stomach dropped out, and his heart started pounding as he realized exactly what had happened, how he’d been blindsided. “Jesus God,” he said aloud. Despite the cool day, he broke out in a sweat.
Lily looked up at him, puzzled. “What?”
“I’m in love with you.” He said it starkly, in shock at the realization of what he was feeling and the disaster looming in front of him. He ground his teeth together, his jaw locked as he fought to keep from blurting out everything. What he’d just said was enough to make him feel as if he’d leaped off a cliff.
Because of the sunglasses, he couldn’t see her eyes very well, but he could tell she was blinking rapidly, and her mouth fell open a little. “What?” she repeated, but this time the word was very faint.
Her cell phone rang.
A fierce scowl twisted her face. “I’m so tired of these damn phone calls!” she muttered as she fished the phone out of her pocket.
Frustrated by the interruption, he grabbed the phone. “I know what you mean,” he growled as he glanced at the little view window. He paused, staring at the number. He knew that number; it was one he’d called just a few days ago. What in hell—? “We have a number this time,” he said to cover his pause; then he flipped the phone open and snapped, “Yeah, what is it?”
“Ah . . . perhaps I have the wrong number.”
“I don’t think so,” Swain said, thinking furiously as the quiet voice confirmed his suspicion. “You were calling about a meeting?”
Perhaps the caller caught his voice, too, because there was a long moment of silence, so long that Swain began to wonder if he’d cut the connection. Finally the caller said, “Oui.”
“I’m the friend you were told about,” Swain said, hoping this guy wasn’t going to blow the whistle on him. He knew Swain was CIA; if he asked Lily about that, the jig was up.
“I do not understand.”
No, he wouldn’t, because his assumption—a correct assumption—was that Swain had been sent to France to take care of a problem, namely Lily. Yet here Swain was apparently working with her.
“You don’t have to understand,” Swain replied, “just tell us if the meeting is still on.”
“Oui. I did not realize this park would be so—I am at the basin in the center. That is an easier meeting place. I will be sitting on the rim of the basin.”
“We’ll be there within five minutes,” Swain said, and closed the phone.
Lily snatched the phone out of his hand. “Why did you do that?” she snapped.
“So he’d know for certain you weren’t alone,” Swain said. That was as good a reason as any, plus it was the only one that came to mind. “He’s waiting for us at the center of the park, at the basin.” He took her arm to lead her into the park.
She pulled her arm free. “Hold it.”
He stopped in his tracks and looked back at her. “What?” He was afraid she was going to insist on talking about his out-of-the-blue statement, because in his experience women loved to talk things to death; but her mind was going in a completely different direction.
“I think we should stick to the original plan. You stay back, where you can watch me. Rodrigo may be slick enough to have known we’d be suspicious if he jumped at the chance for a meeting.”
Let her meet alone with a guy who knew he was CIA? That wasn’t going to happen.
“It wasn’t Rodrigo,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“Because the guy wasn’t familiar with this park; he didn’t know the entrance on a busy Saturday wasn’t a great place to meet. Do you think Rodrigo wouldn’t have checked that out? And look around you; would Rodrigo be likely to try kidnapping a woman with all these people around? This is someone who’s probably on the level.”
“Probably, but not certainly,” she pointed out.
“Okay, look at it this way. If it is Rodrigo, would the presence of one person stop him from what he wanted to do?”
“No, but it would be impossible for him to do what he wanted without attracting notice.”
“Exactly. Trust me, I’m not risking your life, or even my own. Rodrigo would have chosen somewhere secluded for a meet, because it would be stupid not to.”
She mulled that over and finally nodded her head. “You’re right. Rodrigo isn’t a stupid man at all.”
He laced his fingers with hers and started her moving. The feel of her slim hand in his made the bottom drop out of his stomach again, and her trust weighed on him like an anvil. God, what was he going to do?
“Just so you know, I heard what you said.” She peered at him over the upper rim of her sunglasses. It gave him a jolt to see brown eyes looking back at him instead of pale blue ones, as if he’d been sucked into an alternate universe.
He briefly tightened his fingers on hers. “And?”
“And . . . I’m glad.” It was simply said, and arrowed through him. Most women found it easy to say “I love you,” much easier than men, but Lily wasn’t most women. For her, loving and admitting to it must have taken every ounce of courage she possessed—and that was a lot of courage. She humbled him in a way he’d never expected, and had no idea how to handle.
They walked hand in hand into the huge formal park, which had once belonged to Cardinal Richelieu. The large basin with its center fountain sat in the middle. People strolled around, some just enjoying the gardens even though in November they weren’t as lush as they would have been a few months ago, some sitting on the rim of the basin having their photographs taken to go in an album of vacation memories when they returned home. Swain and Lily strolled around the basin, looking for a lone man wearing a red scarf.
He rose to his feet as they approached. Swiftly Swain appraised him. He was a neat, trim man, about five-ten, with dark hair and eyes and the bony facial structure that shouted “French!” From the way his tailored jacket fit him, he either was unarmed or, like Lily, wore an ankle holster. He carried a briefcase, a detail that made him stand out from the rest of the park-goers; this was Saturday, not a time for office workers. He had no spy craft, Swain thought, or he’d know that he should blend in rather than stand out.
Their contact’s dark eyes searched his face first, then went to Lily’s. Surprisingly, his features softened. “Mademoiselle,” he said, and he gave a little half-bow that was completely natural and respectful. Yeah, that was definitely the quiet voice Swain remembered. He didn’t like the way the guy was looking at Lily, though, and he pulled her a little closer to his side in one of those gestures guys use to signal other men that they are edging into personal territory.