Page 20 of Devil
Lily’s eyes flickered to Darius, but he kept his mouth shut. Yes, he’d thought she was a spoiled princess when he’d first read her file. But he hadn’t been privy to the facts he now had, nor had he known her the way he did now. Not that he’d even touched the tip of the iceberg that was Lily Devillier, but he was beginning to.
“Last I heard MI6 isn’t a dating agency, Franklin, it shouldn’t matter if we get on or not,” Lily pointed out.
“Au contraire, my dear. We excel at partnering people up with complementary skills,” Franklin countered.
“Which, again, does not mean they need to get on. Why Darius?” she asked abruptly. He’d wondered the same thing a time or two since he’d been issued the orders, but his chain of command had never let him ask. He was glad Lily’s wasn’t quite as hierarchical.
Franklin let out a put-upon sigh. “As I told Six, you four have been in the game a long time. Eventually, the chances are that your enemies will come home to roost. The work you do for your countries coupled with the financial status of your families make you all very high-value targets.”
Darius didn’t disagree with the man, but that did not answer Lily’s question. Why him? And why now?
“We have always been and will always be high-value targets, Franklin. I call bullshit,” she said. She hadn’t quite snapped at the old man, but it was damn close.
“Call it whatever you like, dear. It’s your new reality. I think you’ll find the commander a welcome addition to your little club.”
Lily’s jaw tensed. It was the only outward sign of how annoyed she was, but it was enough to cause Darius to step in.
“I think you’ll find this whole thing would have been a lot easier had you given both of us all the information. I can almost understand why you didn’t give me all the intel—I’m nothing to you. But to insert someone into Lily’s life that she neither needs nor wants, and to do so without giving her the courtesy of telling her, speaks of either callousness or cowardice. I haven’t yet decided which,” he said.
Lily’s eyes held his as he spoke. Her expression gave little away, although now there was something softer there than he’d seen before. Maybe he was making progress.
To his surprise, Franklin chuckled. Both their gazes dropped to the phone, then Darius looked back up to see Lily frowning. He gestured with his hand, catching her attention, and she lifted her gaze to meet his again. She gave a small shake of her head. Apparently, she didn’t understand Franklin’s reaction, either.
“You’ll do, Commander,” Franklin said. Then without another word, he ended the call.
Silence filled the room. Finally, Darius spoke. “Is he always that enlightening?”
A ghost of a smile touched Lily’s lips. “Franklin’s a pain in the ass. Always has been.”
“Have you ever asked to work with a different handler?”
She shook her head. “He may be a pain in the ass, but he’s a legend in the field, and he takes very good care of us. It helps that he thinks of us, not just Cyn, who is his biological niece, as his nieces. In exchange for having the benefit of his experience, patronage, and, to some extent, protection, though, we have to put up with shit like that.”
Darius huffed out a laugh.
“What?” Lily demanded.
He smiled. “Not that we’ve spent much time together, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear until tonight. And so far, I’ve lost count of how many times you have…and in multiple languages, too.”
She stared at him for a beat, then shook her head as she rose, though he did see a sparkle in her eyes. “Yes, well, get used to it. Dinner’s almost here, and we have some serious shit we need to figure out. Not what’s going on between the two of us, or how we’re going to work together. We can sort that out as we go. But I think we can agree there’s some fucked-up shit going on in Dr. Pritchard’s lab, and I have a feeling it’s going to be up to us to stop it.”
CHAPTERELEVEN
Darius glancedat his phone for the eighth time in the past hour, but still no text from Lily. He felt like a teenager, and it was somewhat—a lot—humbling. He’d dated plenty in his life, even been married for a very short time, but he’d never been asinterestedin a woman as he was in Lily Devillier. Not even his own wife, which was a sad commentary on the choices he’d made as a young man. Thankfully, Amanda, his ex, had never held his lukewarm affections against him. They’d been good friends before the marriage and should have just stayed good friends. She’d figured that out before him and had been the one to end it. She was now married to a man who adored her, and they had eight-year-old twins.
Buteverythingabout Lily interested him. And his desire to know everything about her made it difficult, if not impossible, to stop thinking of her. He recognized that this was a honeymoon phase of sorts. Possibilities were endless, and the lure of exploring something new held a special appeal. The fact that it was a platonic honeymoon phase did not in any way make it less enticing.
Not that he didn’t want to explore a nonplatonic relationship. For now, though, putting the physical aspects of a relationship on the slow burner probably wasn’t a bad idea. He was nearly forty-two; he could deal with pent-up lust.
Probably.
Although if she looked at him again the way she had when he’d left the suite, with speculation in her eyes, it wouldn’t be easy. He still wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed in himself for not seizing the opportunity or proud of the fact that he hadn’t pushed. In the end, she’d said good night and sent him on his way.
Dragging his attention back to work, his phone dinged with a text just as he opened the week’s financial statements. He smiled as he read the message.“Dinner at my place tonight. You’ll meet the club and the supporting cast members. They know everything, so it will be a brainstorming session.”
“Everything?”She’d told him about her three best friends and Joe Harris and Gavin Cooper. Interestingly, while her school, St. Josue, had been in her file, he hadn’t known much about her friends or the fact that the school’s true purpose was to train girls and young women to be spies.
Neither could explain why Franklin had chosen to dribble out information to Darius. Although, to be fair, while Gavin had received a full file on Violetta Salvitto—known to the group as Six—Joe Harris hadn’t even been told of his role until after he’d taken the position of chief of police of Cos Cob. So in a sense, he was kind of the baby bear of the group of men who’d been tasked with supporting the work the women did.
