Page 14 of Between Love and Honor

He was silent for a long moment. Quinn mentally calculated the time it would take for him to ping her location.

“Do I not pay you enough?”

“You pay me handsomely, Alexi. But, like you, this client is a friend and I couldn’t say no.” She prayed he bought her excuse. “But we can always talk about a fee increase when I return on Monday.”

“Yes. We will have a candid conversation when we see each other again,” he said cryptically. “I’ll look forward to it.”

Quinn quickly disconnected and turned off her phone.

Glancing over her shoulder, she watched as Ben’s sailboat disappeared on the horizon. Alexi suspected something. And that meant she needed to act quickly. She needed that micro card. More than that, she needed to protect Ben.

CHAPTER 4

BEN LEANED IN, allowing the scanner to probe his eye.

The beam flickered before the lock on the door clicked open. Securing the door behind him, he took the metal stairs built into the interior of the lighthouse two at a time. He bypassed both floors of living space, instead climbing to what once had been the torch room when the beacon was active over a hundred years ago. The glow of multiple computer monitors made up the room’s light source today.

Sliding into the leather desk chair, he skimmed the monitors without really registering what was on them. He needed to focus on the task at hand, but his damn mind only wanted to focus on the seductive woman he’d left standing on the dock. She was up to something. No doubt about it. Despite her being back in Watertown, he was even further away from solving the puzzle of Quinn. Heaving a sigh, he leaned his head against the chair back and closed his eyes. He needed sleep. But every time he drifted off, she was there to haunt him with her hypnotizing green eyes and traitorous lips. Damn it. He rose from the chair and headed downstairs for a shower.

A lot had changed inside since his high school days when Ben used the old lighthouse as a hideout from his female-dominated family. Thanks to the sale of a few apps he’d developed while in grad school at MIT, he had been able to renovate the entire place, turning it into a geek’s refuge and a safe house for his secret work. The first floor was no longer dark with wood paneling. Whitewashed shiplap boards gave the space an airy, open appearance.

Instead of a beat-up old futon, the room featured two oversized sofas strategically placed to capture all the warmth from the fireplace as well as the panoramic views outside. Off to the side was a little game room housing both a foosball table and an air hockey game. A sleek galley kitchen now stood where he once had an old dorm room refrigerator and nothing else.

He’d dubbed the place the Think Tank and it was where he retreated for those assignments when he needed to bypass the government’s servers and lurk on the dark web. He was proud of the secure space he’d created. Too bad no one else could ever know about it. Thanks to his deep cover, his buddies would never enjoy the game room.

Marin would never cook one of her gourmet feasts in the kitchen. He would never seduce a woman in front of the lighthouse’s stone fireplace.

Except he had seduced a female in front of that fireplace.

Thirteen years ago.

It was ironic that Quinn was the only person he would ever share this space with. That particular memory irked him more than any other involving her. Swearing violently, he headed for the bedroom and a shower.

A long, cold one.

Once he was showered and changed, he returned to the torch room to research the Phoenix. Three hours later, he was no closer to having any definitive proof the elusive spymaster was dead or alive. But he did have a fairly good picture of why the Ronoff family would want him murdered. Time to do some digging on Alexi Ronoff. And he knew just where to start.

Griffin answered the FaceTime call on the second ring.

“I thought you were sailing today?”

“Change in plans.”

“Don’t tell me some chick handcuffed herself to your berth again?”

Marin’s laughing face appeared alongside Griffin’s.

“Oh, my gosh,” she cried. “This sounds like a story I’ve got to hear.”

“One time, asshole,” Ben said. “That happened one time!”

The couple exchanged an amused look, silently communicating to each other judging by the quirk of Marin’s eyebrow. The intimacy of the moment had him feeling like the odd man out.

Again.

“I need to talk shop with you, Griff,” he said. “What can you tell me about your person of interest from last night? Alexi Ronoff?”

Griffin eyed him curiously. “Is this about the redhead?”

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