Taking the Bait: An ARC Operatives Romance Read Free Page B

you would have bothered to come home that night.” His blue eyes were bright and intense in his face, the picture of a sexually frustrated and thwarted husband. It took her breath away for a moment, and for a split second she wondered how much of that basic want in his expression was real and how much was the game they were playing. She looked away to gather her thoughts. They walked down the open hallway to the ballroom for that evening’s wine tasting and informal meet and greet with the other conference attendees.
    “Talk like that and you won’t be seeing it on the floor tonight either,” she finally hissed back, and was pleased to see the couple they’d come down with beating a hasty trail to get out of the bubble of domestic dispute brewing between her and Nicolai. She could do this, she had a handle on it, and so did Nicolai apparently… a few minutes in and she was already relaxing into the role easily, and was proud that he was as well. Unless something major came up, and both Balfour and Rykov hadn’t expected anything to, she thought they could totally pull this off as a successful first mission together. They’d behave themselves once they got in the room, but the marital tension would give them an excuse to part company throughout the night when they needed to.
    A long bar was set up at the far end of the ballroom, and Daria made a beeline for it the moment Nicolai peeled away from her to join a cluster of older businessmen near the entrance. Once she had a cocktail firmly in her hand (virgin, although none of the glitterati would know because the bartender was an ARC operative planted there), she idly milled through the crowd of dark suits and glittering dresses until she found her husband again. He was talking in furtive tones with an elderly gent wearing what had to be a $50,000 suit, given the diamond-adorned cufflinks he was sporting that probably out-valued even the suit itself (she’d totally aced the mini-course on pricing garments and accessories during basic training). Daria wondered how much pent up rage was boiling in Nicolai’s gut, since he had a more Marxist view of what defined a bourgeoisie. Growing up eating plain spaghetti and only being allowed to turn the heat on a few hours a day had given him a general disdain for the haves since his family had been so very much one of the have-nots, at least from what he’d told her the few times they’d spoken of family.
    “Ah, there she is- Mila , please come meet my new dear friend, Mr. Bouvier. Mr. Bouvier, my wife, Mrs. Daria Dushku,” Nicolai smiled at her more affectionately than before, placing his broad hand on the small of her back and urging her forward. She surged a little into Mr. Bouvier’s personal space, and held out her hand to shake it. She knew his face from the profiles, he specialized in moving high-priced goods for leaders of the free and not-so-free world, and by goods the dossier had meant designer drugs, exotic wildlife, and sex slaves. Her skin was crawling before he ever touched her. The older man grabbed her fingers none-too-gently and hauled them up towards his mouth, planting a bristling and wet kiss onto the back of her hand. She tensed for a microsecond and then relaxed, as smiling warmly as she was able to.
    “Mrs. Dushku, your husband was just telling me how you went to Brown. My daughter is there, perhaps you know her? Emily Bouvier?” He finally let her hand go. The name of course, didn’t ring a bell and she smiled, looking over at her husband and laughing lightly.
    “Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t know her. The last year of my time at Brown was honestly spent in a cloud because of this guy.” She tugged lightly at Nicolai’s tie and then smoothed it down over his chest, ducking her head against his shoulder, suddenly the picture of an adoring wife. Internally she cursed herself. She was supposed to be bait, a desperate housewife that a lonely old man would take interest in, loosen his tongue around and