Page 1 of Trapped With the Secret Agent

Chapter One

Thank God for air conditioningand armed guards.

The Middle Eastern desert view outside Georgia Masters’s office window was beautiful, but that beauty held the potential for a lot of pain. Find yourself alone and outside safe areas, and the heat alone could kill you in a few hours if armed anti-Western protesters didn’t shoot you first.

None of that prevented her from falling in love with watching the sun rise and set over the sand in the year since she’d taken on the role of admin assistant to her uncle, the American ambassador of Koutu. An explosion of colors to excite the senses twice a day.

But the views weren’t enough to compensate for the danger. Living in a compound surrounded by high fences, armed guards, and floodlights was unsettling. Dressing with a hijab covering her head and in clothing that didn’t show her legs, arms, or virtually anything else, meant every time she left her residence, she was cooking hot by the time she got back.

So many rules to follow. Had to have an armed male escort if she went outside the compound. No shopping (alone). No alcohol (illegal). No fun (everyone knew whose niece she was).

She’d been glad to come here a year ago. It had been an adventure. Something new and different, but she was ready to go home, and counted the days until she left for Iowa. Safe, small-town, USA, where she planned to go back to college to become a veterinary assistant. This admin job had cured her of ever wanting to work in an office again.

Replying to email had her attention until an odd series of noises outside tore her focus away from her computer screen.

Ratatatatat.Ratatatatat.Ratatatatat.

Gunfire? For a moment shock held her motionless in its grip.

Another burst of gunfire ripped her free and she looked out the window to the right of her desk. One of the Marines stationed at the Embassy’s front gate slumped against the metal barrier, his body jerking in time to another succession of the popping sounds. He slid to the pavement in a heap.

Oh my God.

Fear sunk icy barbs into her gut, freezing her in place, until a wave of searing hot adrenalin freed her.

Uncle. Whoever they were, they’d want her uncle.

She jumped up, ran to the closed door of the ambassador’s office, and flung it open.

“We’re under attack. Un—” She caught herself at the last moment and changed to the title he’d insisted she use in public. “Ambassador, hurry—”

But he was already moving, rushing toward her. His aide, Jerry, and the gentleman they’d been meeting with privately, followed right behind him.

Peter Welis, with his khaki trousers and matching button-down shirt, had introduced himself to Georgia upon his arrival, but she’d recognized him before that. His photographs were world famous, winning contests, appearing on the covers of magazines, and even in a coffee table book she owned. The photos he took always told a tale; always made you think. Made you dream.

She hadn’t expected his crooked smile to spark a fire in her belly and make her hands tremble. He wasn’t just attractive—he was magnetic. Now, with his jaw set and a furrow etched between cold eyes, he looked more like a professional soldier than a photographer.

“Peter,” her uncle ordered. “Get Georgia and any other staff members you can find to the basement. You know what do to from there.”

He took her by the arm and shoved her at Peter hard enough to make her wobble. She would have fallen had the photographer not grabbed her by the shoulders and held her up.

“Sir?” she asked, confusion and fright taking up too much space in her head.

What was he doing? He couldn’t stay. She opened her mouth to protest, but Welis beat her to it.

“You, too, sir,” he said, his tone no nonsense.

The floor vibrated as the boom of several explosions shook the walls and rattled the windows.

Her uncle, Ambassador Theodore Mitchell, smiled his trademarkdamn the torpedoesgrin. “Jerry and I will be no more than a minute behind you. Everything is going to be fine.”

She’d heard that before, ten years ago, from her parents.“Dad is working outside, and I’ll be gone no more than a minute.”

She’d never seen them alive again.

No, no, no.She fought the memory as it wrapped an icy strap around her chest. It tightened and tightened, cutting off her air, threatening to throw her into a bottomless, black pit.

Peter frowned and set Georgia to one side. “But—”

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