Page 23 of Scarlet Angel

He catches my examination, and I drop my gaze and sip the latte. It’s slightly sweeter than I like, but it’s good. The warmth coats my throat.

“You have beautiful eyes.” I blink. “Lovely shade of green.”

“The color can change. In some light, I’ve been told they’re blue.”

“I’ve only seen them green.” He turns and messes with the machine again. “Would you like another?”

“You’ve already finished yours?”

“I’ve got meetings to get to.” He glances over his shoulder. “Would you like another?”

“Can I get it in a to-go cup?”

He lifts a porcelain mug off the shelf. I suppose not, then.

“I’ve been thinking about this,” I say, feeling more courageous with his back to me. “Is there a way to do this where they don’t know I’m the source?”

“Depends. What information do you have access to?”

“Shall we close a door?”

“You’re a quick study. But I’m not in here enough for anyone to bother bugging the place.”

“Right. Well, off the top of my head, I have ledgers showing discrepancies between reported income and actual cash flow, ship manifests, client lists, bank statements, property ownership documents, employee records, shipping routes and schedules, tax returns, and a record of digital currency transactions.”

“Gorgeous and brilliant,” he says.

A shiver of silly pride lights my skin. This is not a man I should worry about impressing.

“But it’s not trapped in that brilliant brain. Where do you have it all? Italy?”

“I’ve been uploading copies to a private cloud location for years.”

I always knew I’d do something like this. Over the years, I’ve had more than one intelligence officer approach me. It made me wary. If they see me as a potential leak, then so might Massimo or others within the famiglia. Other than the first MI6 contact, I haven’t trusted anyone. I’ve turned them away, afraid it was a trap, a test of my loyalty to the family.

The beauty of Nikolai Ivanov is his background precedes him, ergo he’s not fabricated. He’s not attempting to trap me. Whether I can trust him remains to be seen.

“Your uncle gave you access—” He’s skeptical, understandably.

“Alessio Gagliano carries a low opinion of women. My dear uncle believes I’m skilled with numbers and trusts me more than others he doesn’t know well. Most of what he has me doing is data entry.”

“Fascinating.”

His slow spin on that word…does he not believe me?

“My uncle has known me since I was a child. He—and the entire family—view women as assets to be leveraged. I’m no use to him as a bargaining chip now that I’ve been married, so he uses me for work he finds boring or cumbersome. Reports and such.”

“You”—his lips turn up on the ends and his eyes brighten—“are what we call a jackpot.” He leans forward, and I lean back into the counter, knocking into something. The clattering sound echoes through the vast space.

“I was going to kiss your cheek,” he says.

Uncomfortable heat climbs my neck. I right the stainless-steel carafe I knocked over.

“You’re jumpy,” he observes. “I hope you know I would never hurt you.”

“I’m an asset. Of course, you won’t hurt me.” Will he after I hand over the information? That’s a question I need answered.

“I don’t hurt women.”

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