I'd Rather be in Paris Read online

  When he didn't answer, she shot a glance at him. His brows were drawn together and he stared at her, assessing her.

  "I'm fine.” She turned her gaze back to the road. “I want to drive."

  "You are so not fine,” he said, throwing her own phrasing back at her. “Quit trying to prove something here. You're scared and you're tired. Pull over and let me drive."

  She jerked the wheel and sent the car skidding into gravel on the side of the road. A car behind them blared its horn as it passed. She slammed on the brakes and shoved the gearshift into park. Then she turned on Lawson. “I am not scared. I am not tired. I just want to get us to Christian's where we'll be safe. Then we can think through what happened back there and what we're going to do about it."

  "Who's Christian?"

  "A friend."

  "Boyfriend?"

  Zara threw her hands up in disgust. “No, he's not my boyfriend, and what difference does that make? You just killed two people and we're now running from the police in a stolen car. Christian has a house where we can hide for tonight, and right now that sounds a whole lot better to me than a jail cell."

  "What are you so pissed about?"

  "I'm not pissed!” As her voice rang inside the car, she forced herself to take a deep breath and calm down. “I'm just having a really, really bad night."

  Lawson got out of the car and came over to her side. He opened the door and pulled her out of the seat, putting his hands on her shoulders. “I'm not going to let anything happen to you. I promise."

  She looked into his face, and without warning, burst into tears.

  Mortified at her lack of control, she brushed Lawson's hands off her shoulders and walked to the rear of the car. The tears rolled down her cheeks, and she pressed the sleeve of the robe to her face in an attempt to hide them.

  "Hey.” He came up behind her and rubbed her back. “It's not that bad. I've been in a lot tighter situations than this."

  She shrugged his hand off. “You just killed two people and you think I'm overreacting?"

  Lights from a passing car touched his face. He guided her to the other side of the Audi and leaned her back against the passenger-side door, planting his hands on either side of her.

  "I didn't say you were overreacting.” He dropped his face close to hers. “Yvette was going to kill you, plain and simple. I took care of her before she could do the job. At that point, it became necessary to stop Giovanni as well. If I'd left him alive, he could have followed us or reported back to Yvette's friends and then we'd have a classic Chinese goatfuck."

  His gaze traced over her face. “Right now, we've dodged the police and whoever may follow up on Yvette's death. We need to get on the road again before we call any more attention to ourselves, and I need to make contact with Langley."

  Zara wiped at her eyes again, took a breath and regrouped. As she was driving, her brain had red-flagged a couple things Yvette had said. “I think Yvette was tied in with the same group Varina Scalfaro is running for the Mafia. She kept talking about her clients and her business partner. I don't think Yvette's playing mistress for a handful of rich men solely for her own gain. I think she was actually running a prostitution ring in partnership with someone else, probably Varina.” She hated herself for what she was about to say. “And in that case, I'm not sure what Director Flynn has up his sleeve."

  In the deep shadows of the night, Lawson nodded. “We just ran out of people we can trust, didn't we?"

  "What are we going to do?"

  Lawson eased her to him. “Shhh. Don't cry."

  "I'm not crying, you moron.” She smacked his chest and attempted to push him away at the same time. Although she wasn't sure why she was pushing him away. She felt better when he was close. “I had dinner all planned out. We were going to go someplace nice, but not too fancy, because I knew you wouldn't like that, and ... and ... Damn it!"

  Lawson smiled down at her. “So we have to take a rain check on the dinner thing. The mission isn't over yet. We've still got time."

  "But I wanted to do it in Paris, and now we're fugitives on the run from there. We can't go back. Not even for dinner."

  He pushed a stray hair away from her face and hooked it behind her ear. “When the mission is over, our names will be cleared. We'll have a proper dinner anywhere you want then, okay?"

  She studied his expression in the dark shadows of the night. “If I didn't know better, I'd say you're trying to placate me. After the mission is over, we won't be partners anymore."

  "That doesn't mean we can't have dinner."

  Her pulse tripped over a couple of beats. “You want to have dinner with me after the assignment's over?"

  He lowered his face and leaned his forehead on hers. “Jesus. I've spent the past twenty-four hours trying to come up with an excuse to do just that."

  "We don't even like each other."

  He brushed her lips with his in response.

  A jolt of electricity shot all the way down to her toes. This could not be happening. “You are bent, Lawson Vaughn,” she said, smacking his chest again.

  "Then we make a good pair."

  This time, his lips were more insistent against hers, demanding and possessive. Zara closed her eyes and kissed him back. One of his hands went to the small of her back, and he drew her in close to his body, pressing her against the car frame and sinking his other hand into her hair.

  He held her head as he parted her lips with the tip of his tongue, and she let go of the last of her hesitation and ahhed into his mouth. She ran her hands under his jacket, and the solid muscles of his back tightened under her palms. Rising up on her toes, she pulled their bodies even closer.

  She wanted to forget about Yvette and Giovanni. She wanted to forget about being on the run from the police and whoever Yvette worked for. She wanted to forget she and Lawson were running out of people to trust.

  At that moment, in the darkness of the French countryside, she wanted to forget all of it, to give up control and forget about everything except the tough, sexy man holding her close.

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  Chapter Seventeen

  He couldn't believe it. Zara was kissing him back.

  When she rose up on her toes and sighed into his mouth, all his brain processes shut down. The kiss turned wetter, hotter and when her hands went under his jacket, pulling him in tight, his brain exploded in an array of fireworks.

  Jesus, she wasn't just kissing him back, she was inhaling him.

  This is wrong. She'd just been through a hell of an experience and here he was, jumping at the chance to wrap his arms around her and console her. He was taking advantage of her at a weak moment.

  There's not an ounce of weakness in her.

  Fury had crashed into him when he'd returned to the hotel and saw her at Giovanni's feet. He should have shot the bastard the minute he opened the stairwell door and walked in on the scene, but Zara had been too close to the guy and Lawson didn't want to risk hurting her. So he'd checked the anger and called on his professionalism to size up the situation and figure out the best alternative. He didn't know who the man was at that point and frankly didn't care. It didn't take a Harvard grad to know what Zara would suffer if the man kidnapped her.

  Unfortunately Yvette's appearance had thrown him off, but only for a moment. She'd actually done him a favor. The second she'd pulled the gun on Zara, Lawson sent his professionalism packing and proceeded with his gut instinct. Zara now had another rotten experience to add to her collection but, by God, at least she was still alive.

  Very alive, Lawson thought as she pressed her lower body to his, and very willing.

  He broke the kiss and slid his lips to her neck. She tilted her head to give him better access, and he buried his mouth in the curve of her shoulder. She hitched her breath in that familiar way, and he enjoyed the response her body gave as she arched into him a little further.

  A fleeting memory of her body moving against his during the self-defense se
ssion earlier in the day popped into his head, and he smiled into her neck. She'd been emitting that whole woman-in-charge aura since the minute they'd walked off the plane at Charles de Gaul. Even up to a few minutes ago, she'd been cool, calm and collected every step of the way.

  It was bugging the shit out of her that he'd killed Yvette and her bodyguard, as evidenced by the fact she'd mentioned it twice already, but how many women would have enough sense after witnessing such a thing to go back into the hotel room and grab their running shoes? How many would then have sat in plain view of a police officer and applied lipstick with the nonchalance of a seasoned actress? And how many would have called his bluff about driving the freakin’ car?

  Jesus, he hated women ball-busters, but this take-charge woman was starting to grow on him. Hell, she wasn't just growing on him. At the moment, with her hands tangled in his hair and her tongue halfway down his throat, he was ready to drop her robe on the ground and let her drive more than his getaway car...

  The sound of a motorcycle cut through the lust building in Lawson's body and he stilled, every sense on high alert. He raised his head and listened.

  "Lawson?"

  He put a finger to his lips and his eyes slid to the left, checking the dark highway. Traffic was light and the bike was still a half-mile away. No sirens, but something about it had his gut knotting and the spot between his shoulder blades twitching.

  Police were in general easy to evade, and Yvette and Giovanni had both been free of identification so it would take awhile for their names to be reported. That should slow Yvette's business partner down considerably if he followed-up and looked for her killer. But there were always people watching. For all he knew, Yvette may have been a regular customer at the Ambassador. The hotel's manager may have had a direct line to Yvette's boss.

  Lawson tried to place the make and model of the bike. High-precision, high-speed. Ducati.

  "Get in the car,” he said and hustled Zara into the backseat. For once, she didn't protest or ask why. He ran around to the driver's seat and jumped in, jerking the car into drive and pulling onto the road in a spray of gravel.

  Zara's voice sounded calm. Too calm. “Police?"

  The motorcycle's headlight hit the rearview mirror. It was picking up speed. He planted his foot on the accelerator while he adjusted the seat to fit him. “Keep your head down."

  The Audi was an older model, but the owner had kept it in good condition. It wasn't as easy to manipulate as the Duke but it was damn close. Germans, they knew how to build kick-ass cars.

  "Darn it,” Zara said from the backseat. Her head was down but Lawson saw clothing flying around.

  "What?"

  "I don't have any underwear."

  He was pushing one hundred miles an hour on the speedometer and the bike was still crawling up his ass. The headlight in his mirrors blinded him enough to keep him from identifying whether there was more than one person on the bike, and more importantly, whether or not either of them was armed.

  He heard the sound of a zipper from behind him, and Zara muttered something in French. Then the back window shattered and she screamed.

  His blood ran cold. Question answered. The men on the bike were definitely armed. Swerving the car from side to side to make them a harder target to hit, he asked the real question burning in his gut. “Zara? Are you all right?"

  The second it took her to answer was the longest one he'd ever endured. “I think so,” she said, her voice still sounding unnaturally calm. “But there's glass everywhere. I'm afraid to move."

  He let out the breath he was holding and zigzagged by a car in front of them. An oncoming car dodged out of his way, horn blaring, but the flustered driver blocked the motorcycle for crucial seconds.

  He had two options. Evade the threat or eliminate it. “Get up here and drive."

  "What?"

  "Come on, you're a woman of action, right? You wanted to drive, so get up here and drive the damn car."

  Zara's head rose from the backseat, her gaze catching his in the rearview mirror as she leaned forward. “Stop yelling at me."

  Lawson reached back and grabbed her arm, hauling her into the passenger seat. She flailed and fumed and once she'd righted herself, he saw she'd exchanged the robe for her leather jacket and miniskirt. She tugged the hem of the skirt down and sent him a scathing look. “What exactly—?"

  "Take the wheel. We're going to exchange places, okay?"

  "While the car's moving?"

  Lawson flipped the steering wheel up as high as it would go. He set her hand on the wheel. “You're going to slide on top of me, got it? Like you're going to sit in my lap."

  Her hand tightened and Lawson saw her shift into spy mode. A second later, she climbed across the gearshift and slid between his legs.

  "That a girl.” He released the wheel and extracted his body from around hers. “Keep the car on the road, but don't make it easy for them to shoot us again. When I give you the signal, I want you to pull the hand brake and crank the wheel to the left like you're doing a hard U-turn. You're going to turn the car counterclockwise and land on three o'clock. The car will be blocking the road and I'll be facing the motorcycle. Got it?"

  She dropped her hand and repositioned the seat, her eyes shifting between the rearview, him and the road ahead. “And what are you going to do?"

  Lawson hauled the gun out of his waistband. “My Dirty Harry impersonation."

  "Oh God.” She gripped the steering wheel in a ten-and-two position. “We're going to die, aren't we?"

  "No,” Lawson grunted, checking the clip in his gun. “We are not going to die. Ready?"

  The road ahead was empty of traffic. He moved to lean out the passenger-side window and Zara said, “Wait! What's the signal?"

  "I'll yell ‘go!’”

  "My mother is going to spend the rest of her life scandalized because her only daughter died bare-assed in the middle of France in a stolen car."

  But then she said, “I'm ready."

  And Lawson yelled, “Go!"

  The brakes kicked down and the tires screeched as she swung the car around, bringing it in a two-hundred-and-seventy degree arc. Lawson held onto the car frame and as he came around, he saw the Ducati's driver and passenger instinctively pull back in their seats as if the shift in their body weight alone could keep the bike from its forward trajectory.

  Without hesitation, he raised his Beretta and fired.

  * * * *

  The night was on his side. He and Zara were alive and both bad guys were dead. The road was empty for now, and the Duke was still intact. All in all, things were looking up.

  Lawson removed the MP5 Heckler and Koch submachine gun from the dead man at his feet and dropped the strap across his chest. Shoving the gun around to his back, he dragged the body off the road toward the Audi. Once there, he grabbed his leather bag from the backseat and stuffed the body into the car.

  Zara muscled the motorcycle into an erect position several feet away. “Where do you want this?” she called through chattering teeth. The temperature had dropped at least ten degrees in the past hour.

  "Other side.” He ran to the second body and hauled it to the Audi, depositing the dead man into the front seat. Now all the evidence was off the highway, except for some blood and brain matter mixed with bits of helmet. In another minute, the car was going to go up in a ball of fire, eliminating the dead men and the evidence that could link them to him and Zara.

  Lawson searched Zara's purse for her Glock, her passport and the travel-size bottle of antibacterial hand soap she carried. The gun and passport he set on the trunk of the car and then he squeezed a big gob of soap out and briskly cleaned his hands with it. He wiped his hands on his pants and threw Zara's purse into the car through the missing back window.

  "What are you doing?” She set the kickstand on the bike and marched to the back of the car.

  Lawson picked up his bag and began strapping it on to the bike. “Your purse goes up with the car."


  "What?” Zara looked between him and the car. “Why?"

  "Those two.” Lawson used his chin to motion at the Audi as he yanked a hankerchief from his bag. “They aren't the police, so who does that leave who wants to chase us down and shoot us? People from Yvette's world, that's who. And how do you think they found us?"

  Zara thought for a second. “Tracking device? But how?"

  "Yvette was intent on not losing you. She probably stuck it in your purse while we were out in the hallway dealing with Giovanni. Might be in your cell phone or your lipstick or actually inserted into the lining of the purse itself, but we don't have time to look for it.” He walked to the trunk of the car and handed Zara her gun and passport. “The purse goes up with the car."

  Lawson waited for the argument, but it didn't come. Zara stared blankly at the spot where her purse had disappeared. Then she took the Glock from his hand and turned away from the car, slipping the weapon into the waistband of her skirt. Straddling the passenger seat of the bike, she crossed her arms under her breasts and hung her head.

  He couldn't help but think she'd given up too easily on that one, but he didn't have time to analyze Zara's mood. He stuck her passport in his jacket pocket and stuffed most of the handerchief into the Audi's gas tank. Leaving about half of the material hanging out, he used a lighter he'd found in the glove compartment to set the cotton on fire.

  Running to the bike, he hopped on and started it, adjusting the MP5 so it sat across his stomach.

  The compact German-manufactured gun fit perfectly in his lap and was small enough he could ride with it partially concealed under his jacket.

  Accurate and reliable weapons, various versions of the MP5 were used by SEALs and other elite units around the world. It was lightweight even with a 30-round magazine in it and could fire parabellum 9 mm rounds at 800 rounds per minute as well as single-action fire.

  With Zara's hands resting on either side of his waist, Lawson drove down the highway for several yards before circling back and getting a running start at the Audi. As he flew by the car, he riddled the rear passenger side with bullets. Zara flinched as the car's gas tank exploded like a giant Molotov cocktail behind them.