“They wouldn’t send us to the provinces if they didn’t,” she pointed out.

He gave the unconscious men one last curious look and then seemed to accept her story—or at least not feel like questioning it. Before he could say anything else, a streak of lightning cut the sky, followed instantly by deafening thunder and a downpour. Both of them moved toward the doorway and the shelter of the building, not that it did much good. Within seconds, Mae’s hair and dress were soaked. He glanced at the door and grimaced.

“You want to go somewhere else and get a drink? By which I mean, my place,” he added quickly. “No more of these dives. I’m sure you’ve had a lot of fun dodging fumbling provincial advances.”

“Sure,” she said. Maybe going off with a guy she’d just met would have been dangerous for most women, but Mae wasn’t most women. Besides, her gut told her he was safe, or at least safer than anyone else she was likely to run into tonight, and Cornelia had told her to take as long as she needed to deliver the message.

He led Mae back through the crowded club and out to the street. Those lined up to get inside were huddled against the building, trying to protect their party clothes as best they could from the rain. The sprawling apartment she was led to was only a few blocks away and was actually above another of Cristobal’s nightclubs. That club was in full swing too, and they could faintly hear music below them when they entered the apartment. The music faded to a dull beat as her companion shut the door.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s one of the downsides of this place. I can put on something else to cover it—unless you play.” He gestured toward a dusty piano on the far side of the living room and took off his coat, revealing a wine-stained shirt underneath.

Mae walked over to the piano. “You don’t?”

“Nope. Came with the place. Be right back.”

He disappeared down a hallway, and Mae sat down at the bench. She played a few lines of Danse Macabre and then let her hand drop as it began to shake from the implant’s metabolism. Her brief experience with Panamanian décor, at both the hotel and the club, hadn’t been pleasant, but this place was decorated almost as tastefully as something she’d find back home. Neutral colors. Fabrics that looked expensive without being gaudy.

He returned wearing a clean shirt and tossed her a towel. She did what she could to pat herself dry and then moved over to the living room’s brown leather couch. Two empty wineglasses sat on the coffee table, and he knelt in front of a nearby cabinet. “All I’ve got are Argentinian reds,” he told her. “They drink that stuff like water here, but it’s pretty good.”

“That’s fine.” The wine made no difference. The implant regarded alcohol as a toxin and metabolized it quickly, making it nearly impossible for prætorians to get drunk.

He filled their glasses and then settled beside her on the couch, wincing slightly as he shifted. “Another glamorous day in Panama. Nothing broken, at least.”

“Why were they after you?” she asked. Her hands were still trembling, and she kept them tucked into her lap to avoid attention.

“I beat them at poker,” he said quickly. “Not that it matters. Those young ones have so much to prove around here that it doesn’t take much. If you see where they come from, you can almost understand and feel bad for them. Almost.”

He didn’t elaborate on what work had brought him to Panama, and she assumed it was something government related that was none of her business. In fact, as the evening progressed, he spoke very little about the EA at all. He had plenty of funny Panamanian stories to share but seemed most interested in hearing her talk about the RUNA.

“You could just visit, you know,” she teased at one point, after he’d quizzed her extensively about the latest happenings in Vancouver. They were more than halfway through the wine. “Find me, and I’ll show you around.”

“Ever been out to Vancouver Island?” He looked astonished when she shook her head. “It’s gorgeous. And in the middle, there’s this observatory from before the Decline. They’ve restored it, and you can go out there and stand on the hill and feel like you’re in the center of the galaxy.” He spread his hands out. “Stars everywhere. And so quiet. Not many places are that quiet anymore.”

Mae wasn’t one for fantasies, but she could suddenly picture it and found herself taken with the idea of some starry escapade with a guy she’d just met. “Then you’ll have to show me.”

He gave her that heart-pounding smile, though it was tinged with a little wistfulness. “I’d like that, but…I’m pretty busy here. I don’t get home—or anywhere—very often.”

“Diplomacy’s hard work, huh?” She nodded toward the jacket he’d tossed aside.

“I suppose,” he said in amusement. “I don’t really think of what I do as diplomacy, though. Mostly I read people and figure out puzzles.”

“Are you any good at it?” He was right about the wine. It was excellent. Too bad she couldn’t experience the full effect.

“Well, I’d be fired if you were part of my job. You’re not so easy to read.” When she didn’t say anything, he gave a low chuckle. “But you like that I said that, which starts to tell me something after all.”

She lifted her eyes from the wineglass. “Like what?”

His eyes held her once more as he pondered for a few seconds. “That your whole life is—and has been—about different images. What people think you are. What people want you to be. What you want yourself to be. You don’t like people making assumptions about you, but you don’t want to show them the truth either.”

“And what truth is that?” She tried to sound joking but couldn’t quite manage it. His words hit too close to home. Again, he took a long time to answer.

“That you’re sad, for one thing.” He reached out and brushed messy, damp hair from her face. It was a gentle gesture, but it sent a spark of electricity through her. “What does a devastatingly beautiful Nordic woman who can throw grown men around and play piano arrangements of Saint-Saëns have to be sad about?”

Something in Mae tightened, and she suddenly had to fight an overwhelming urge to tell this handsome stranger about everything: her father, Porfirio, the prætorians, the recurring sense of an inexplicable force controlling her…. Instead, she smiled at something he’d said. “You know Saint-Saëns.”

“Of course I know Saint-Saëns.” The tone of his voice implied it would be ludicrous if he didn’t. “You’re trying to dodge answering.”

“Will you answer the same question? Why are you sad?”

Because he was. She hadn’t noticed it right away, not until he’d called her out. He’d been all charisma and wit tonight, and that disarming smile and the rest of his looks had done a good job at keeping her distracted by what was outside rather than within. But she could see it now as he studied her so intently: a melancholy inside him that resonated with her own. She expected him to respond with a quip, but he answered in all seriousness.

“I’m sad because you remind me of home.” He dropped his hand from her and sighed. “Because you’re beautiful and bright and dynamic and a whole lot of other things I haven’t seen for a long time…and won’t see again any time soon.”

Mae rested her hand on his. She felt an ache in her chest for the pain she sensed, even as the touch of his skin on hers again sent heat through her body. They’d barely known each other for two hours, but there was something about this man, who flipped effortlessly between charming and brooding, that drew her in. Mae had been adrift in her own life for the last few months, and being with him was the first steady moment she’d had in a very long time.

And yes, she wasn’t going to lie to herself about the effect he had on her physically. It was more than those dark good looks—not that those weren’t working too. It was his attitude, she decided. It was in the way he looked at her and flirted, with a confidence that was magnetic all on its own. Men like him get that self-assured because they know they’re good in bed, she thought. The chemicals of desire weren’t all that different from the ones that governed battle, and the implant, sensing the change in her, “helpfully” began increasing her body’s response. Maybe it was fitting. Sex and battle were each dangerous in their own ways.

“You’re talking like I’m already gone,” she told him at last.

“You will be,” he said.

“But I’m not.”

Mae leaned forward and found him already moving toward her. Their lips met and parted, and with that one kiss alone, she was lost. She couldn’t fix all of his problems any more than he could fix hers, but as she wrapped her arms around him and let him pull her body against his, she hoped that maybe when the night was done, they’d each have a few less problems weighing them down.

CHAPTER 4

EACH OTHER’S UNDOING

She was a dream made flesh, with a body even more exquisite than the fantasies his mind had conjured earlier. Her skin was alabaster and felt like silk, a soft contrast to the strong muscles he could feel when he ran his hand over one of her long, sleek legs. His athlete assessment hadn’t been far off. She was definitely someone who trained her body hard, but it hadn’t been at the cost of sensuality or femininity. She was still slim and lovely, with curves that he couldn’t keep his hands off of, and blue eyes that flirted with green.

Her hair, dry and unbound now, cascaded around her face like some golden veil, and her beauty made his chest hurt—which made it surprising when she turned off the lights in the bedroom. Someone like her was meant to be gazed upon while making love, worshipped even. But he didn’t question it. He was too lost in the taste of her wine-sweet lips, intoxicated by the scent of sweat and apple blossoms.

He entered her slowly, almost reverently, exulting in the way she felt around him. She was so wet, her body soft and yielding. She arched it up against his, murmuring softly in Finnish, as he began to move more forcefully. He lost himself in her, and everything in the world vanished, except an urgency to drive his body into union with hers. Her nails dug into his back, and then, without warning, she pushed up and rolled him over. Her hips straddled his, and she rode him into ecstatic oblivion, until at last, he couldn’t hold out against the mounting pleasure. He came with a great cry, finding release in that glorious body. Slowly, they both stilled, staying as they were and holding on to the weight of the moment. She was only a dark silhouette in the doorway’s scanty light as she looked down upon him, but for the space of a heartbeat, he could see her crowned in stars and flowers. It left him breathless for an entirely unexpected set of reasons.