Help Japan Auction Fic!
Title: Temptation Waits for No One
Author: telaryn
Characters: Sophie, Nate, Maggie, Sterling, Blackpoole
Word Count: 4790
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Set pre-series in London. Sterling and Sophie have a run-in that leaves her hungry for payback. In the process Nate comes between Sophie and the object of her desire, and Nate and Sophie are forced to confront the very real attraction growing between them.
Author’s Notes: Written for astridv, who won my auction offering at help_japan. She expressed an interest in pre-series casefic, with the opportunity to explore the UST that existed between Nate and Sophie during that time. Since I’m in the midst of filling a fairly harrowing angst_bingo card, this story ended up being a wonderfully welcome distraction.
I hope you enjoy it, astridv!
Sophie Devereaux had lost before - that wasn’t the problem. It was losing to somebody like Jim Sterling that rankled, especially when he burned one of her best aliases in the process. Jenny Agutter had been responsible for some of her finest acquisitions, and the fact that somebody like that had rendered her useless grated endlessly on Sophie’s nerves.
Ordinarily she would never have considered infiltrating IYS headquarters in London in order to retrieve her property, but irritation made her reckless. She’d spent six valuable months obtaining the Degas, and she wasn’t willing to give it up without a fight.
Sophie finished reading the file her contact had passed to her, cross checking it against the information on her laptop screen. It would have to be a fast sting - in and out, with minimal time for distraction. She would steal the Degas from under the noses of the best insurance investigators in the world, and they would think twice about coming after her in the future.
*********
God, I don’t want to be here. Nate Ford leaned back in his chair, listening to his wife detailing their son’s latest grand achievement in the world of babydom. He wanted to be home, witnessing at least some of these miracles for himself.
One of the locals leaned into his office, rapping gently on the door jamb. “Meeting,” she mouthed, holding up a hand with all five fingers outspread. Nate nodded impatiently, waving her away.
“What was that?” he asked, realizing that Maggie had questioned him about something. “I’m sorry sweetheart - somebody was just trying to remind me about something. What did you say?”
”Just wondering if you had any idea when you’d be home? We miss you.”
He smiled wistfully. “You have no idea how much I miss you two right now.” Awareness of the case he was working loomed large in the back of his mind. “Unfortunately,” he went on, sobering, “they’re talking about sending me to Calais in the morning. Our latest information says that the pieces may have already crossed the Channel.”
”Please tell me Ian’s at least going to give you some backup,” Maggie said. “You know I don’t like you being out there without somebody to watch your ass.”
Nate’s smile grew mischievous. “I feel the need to point out, Dr. Ford, that you watching my ass is how we ended up with the rug rat in the first place.” Outside his office, he saw an uptick in the number of people walking by and swore under his breath.
”Gotta go?” Her tone was wistful.
He sighed. “Unfortunately, yes. It’s Ian’s meeting, and I don’t think he’d accept emergency phone sex with you as an excuse for me ditching.”
That got a laugh, as he’d intended. Nate had promised himself once Sam was born that he would do his best to keep Maggie’s spirits up when they had to be away from each other. So far as he could tell his track record to date had been fairly impressive. They exchanged another minute of conversation, including a mutual promise to rain check the phone sex, and then Nate hung up - watching the last of the staff pass his window. “Dammit,” he sighed, groping for a notepad and getting to his feet.
************
When he saw what was on the conference room table, and who was sitting at Ian’s right hand, Nate almost did a one eighty and damn the consequences of skipping out on the meeting. He didn’t have anything personally against Jim Sterling. In fact, if Nate could be said to have any friends at IYS, Sterling probably topped the list.
The problem was that Sterling had an ego that was disproportionately larger than his achievements to date. This meant that any legitimate success, like the Degas currently gracing the polished wood table, was typically greeted with a sense of entitlement that made Nate want to punch his friend repeatedly in the head.
“All right, everybody,” Ian Blackpoole said, raising his hands for quiet. “Before we get into status reports on our open cases, I want to take a moment and acknowledge Jim Sterling’s recent recovery of Edgar Degas’ ‘Singer With A Glove’. As any of you who keep up with the monthly reports will have already figured out, Jim has saved IYS a fifteen million dollar payout with his excellent field work.”
Nate smirked. Blackpoole’s dramatic pause for effect might as well have come with its own neon “Applause” sign. Cynicism aside, he added his kudos to the overall acknowledgement of the room. Considering who had been rumored to have stolen the Degas in the first place, Sterling’s success was noteworthy.
Probably entirely accidental, he couldn’t help adding in the privacy of his own head, but noteworthy regardless. For fun he tried putting Sterling against Sophie Devereaux in his mind, and his brain immediately rejected any sort of Sterling victory as being completely out of the realm of possibility.
As Blackpoole resumed speaking, opening the way for Sterling’s own self-aggrandizing report, Nate found his thoughts beginning to drift. There were fourteen investigators between Sterling’s position and his, which meant he had a while before anyone would be looking for any sort of coherent interaction from him.
Sophie Devereaux. He hadn’t drawn the Degas theft, being already involved in another case at the time, but he’d crossed paths with the woman on more than one occasion. She always made the chase interesting, changing personas as easily as she changed her cutting edge outfits. Nate frowned, as his brain registered Sterling reporting the death of the “Jenny Agutter” alias. He’d liked Jenny - they’d met up in Prague a few years earlier. He’d pursued her for the better part of a month, trying to recover a collection of jewelry that had gone missing from the national museum.
In the end he’d come away with two thirds of the missing pieces. He’d also been left handcuffed to a bannister in one of Prague’s more notorious brothels, but that was something he’d spent a sizeable sum of money to make sure as few people knew about as possible.
The fact that he’d managed to successfully expense out a large portion of that amount was something he saw as being strictly between him and his God.
*************
Ass, Sophie thought, trying her best not to stare daggers at Sterling. She’d taken a chair in the back of the conference room, clustered with the research assistants. Predictably the man’s report to his colleagues was so inflated as to border on outright fiction. To hear him tell it, he’s Sherlock Bloody Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and a purebred Tennessee bloodhound all wrapped up in one heroic package!
She made sure to periodically glance down at the pad in her lap and scribble a note or two. Other assistants were doing the same around her - although for a completed case like this one there wouldn’t be a great deal left for them to worry about. Sophie looked at it as a rehearsal opportunity; her read of the people in her immediate vicinity told her better than a director’s notes that her cover was holding.
Even Sterling, arguably the one person on the planet who should have spotted her on sight, was so busy blowing his own horn that he didn’t realize she was sitting right in front of him. Okay granted, thirty feet away in a room full of people, but still…
She ducked her head again and dashed off a shorthand note about Sterling’s brilliant investigative technique. When she looked up again, Sophie realized that she’d seen something important. It was just a flash in the corner of her right eye, but her fight or flight instinct had deemed it significant enough to pull her attention away from the Sterling and the Degas.
Oh, bugger. It took every ounce of Sophie’s skill not to tip her hand as she turned to look more fully at the investigator who’d caught her attention. He’s supposed to be in Northern France right now! Calais or something, wasn’t it? She mentally reviewed the packet she’d studied the night before, and her memory helpfully confirmed that yes - the artwork Nathan Ford was tasked with recovering was believed to have been taken out of Great Britain by way of the Channel earlier in the week.
Sophie forced her attention away from the back of the man’s head, and quickly smothered the memory of the time she’d been close enough to run her fingers through that shaggy dark hair. Calm. Focus. She had to see the meeting through to its end. Excusing herself at this point was only going to draw unwanted attention, and even if Sterling hadn’t recognized her, Sophie knew Ford would. And I’ll just bet he’s holding a nice little grudge after Prague, she thought, even though memory of how she’d left him made her smile.
****************
His estimation of Sophie Devereaux had risen by a couple hundred notches in just the past five minutes. Nate could barely suppress a grin as he tried to appear focused on Sterling’s report - the audacity of her infiltrating a meeting where her own illegal acts were being discussed was off the charts. He felt like a gauntlet had been thrown into his face, and as far as he was concerned the challenge was accepted.
Game on. He risked another glance in Sophie’s direction and realized immediately by the way her posture had shifted that she’d finally spotted him. Even across the distance that separated them, he could see a flush on her skin, and a slight increase in the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed against an increased heart rate. Trapped. She couldn’t leave the meeting without blowing her cover and losing her chance at the Degas, and the longer she stayed, the greater the chance she would be recognized and her cover blown anyway.
He once again joined the chorus of polite applause for Sterling’s accomplishment, and then settled in to wait as the next investigator in line was given leave to begin his status report. It didn’t take a genius to figure out Sophie was working off inside information to know that the Degas would be on display for this meeting, but Nate had to wonder if her source had clued her in to exactly what she was getting herself into.
If cornered, he would have denied slowing down delivery of his own report when his turn came nearly an hour into the meeting. He would also have denied adding in as many irrelevant details as he could think of, but when he glanced over at Sophie and saw her openly glaring at him, Nate couldn’t resist flashing her his best, most charming smile. Choke on that, Ms. Devereaux.
**************
Bastard. How was it the man always knew how to get under her skin? And what game is he playing anyway? He knew she was there. She knew he knew she was there. He knew she knew he…
And he stands there making his damn report like there’s nothing at all unusual going on! ‘Oh no, ladies and gentlemen, there’s not a thief in your midst - oh no!’ Sophie ducked her head again to make some notes - not letting her character slip an inch, even as she hastily developed and discarded escape plans in her head.
Just when she’d decided that he was saving outing her until the end of his report, Ford stopped speaking and settled back in his chair. At the opposite end of the conference table, Ian Blackpoole’s attention shifted to the older woman at Nate’s right. “Brigid?”
After thanking Blackpoole, Brigid Kelly began giving her report. Nate’s expression slipped into the same bland, polite attentiveness ninety percent of the people in the room were displaying.
Sophie blinked, trying to process what was happening. Unless she had the measure of Nathan Ford completely wrong, he wasn’t going to out her to his colleagues. Not right now, at any rate.
That meant it would be a race. He was counting on being fast enough to catch her in the confusion, once the meeting was adjourned. Sophie smiled. It felt right - it felt true to the way their relationship had evolved over the years. Well, then. We’ll see who gets away from whom.
The meeting ran another twenty minutes, by which time Sophie was seriously considering stabbing herself in the neck with her pen. How do people live like this? she wondered, looking at the back of Ford’s head again. How do you?
“Okay everybody,” Blackpoole said finally from the head of the table. “Thank you.”
That seemed to be the signal everybody was waiting for. Oh thank God, Sophie thought, getting to her feet and heading immediately for the nearest exit.
******************
“Nate!”
Trying not to swear, Nate watched helplessly as Sophie joined the crowd of research assistants leaving the conference room. Okay. First move to you, he thought, mentally adjusting his strategy as he shifted to face the man coming towards him. “Jim!”
Sterling stopped next to him. “We still on for drinks?”
Nate nodded. “Absolutely. I’ve just got to make some calls - I’ll meet you in an hour?” Smiling broadly, Sterling clapped him on the shoulder. After offering him another quick round of marginally sincere congratulations, Nate snatched up his pad and left the conference room by a different door.
You should have just blown her cover, he thought - his guilty conscience finally deciding to make itself known. Never mind that she hadn’t been doing anything seriously illegal at the time, Sophie Devereaux’s file was thick enough that Nate could have legitimately bumped into her by accident on any random street in any random city and successfully taken her to the nearest police station for processing.
No fun in that, he thought, tossing the notepad into his office and heading towards the closest staircase. His brain was already working out all of Sophie’s possible scenarios for getting out of the building, cross checking them against her psychological profiles and what he personally knew of the woman to come up with her most likely course of action. The resulting buzz was better than any alcohol he’d ever enjoyed in his life.
He’d reached the landing at the seventh floor when he heard a fire door open beneath him. Leaning slightly over the railing, Nate was rewarded with a flash of dark hair and the sharp click of a woman’s shoe heels against the concrete.
Gotcha.
*************************
The first thought in Sophie’s head as she reached the safety of the stairwell was that she needed to send Jim Sterling a fruit basket. If she’d hired the finest playwright in London, she couldn’t have scripted a better roadblock for Nate Ford than Sterling himself.
She’d taken a fairly circuitous route off the executive floor, following the cluster of research assistants until she could safely break away and head for an elevator. Two floors down, then she’d crossed to a staircase on the east side of the building that would take her to the street level out of view of most of the security cameras.
The Degas is here. As confidence in her ability to escape grew, Sophie’s thoughts turned back to the reason she was in this mess in the first place. Singer With A Glove. It had been all she could do to keep from pulling a snatch-and-grab like some common street thief, sitting there with the spoils of her work so tantalizingly close.
They won’t return it to the rightful owners tonight. Sophie knew how bureaucracies functioned, and the paperwork involved in closing the case would keep the painting in one place for at least a couple of days.
She would later replay the scene in her mind, and wonder if it was a sound or some deeper sense that made her stop and look up just in time to see Nate Ford looking down at her. He was one flight up from her position - which as far as Sophie was concerned was much too close.
“You might as well stop,” he said, when their eyes met.
Sophie gave him her most challenging grin as she stepped out of her second favorite pair of Jimmy Choos. “Now what fun would that be, Mr. Ford?” Sweeping up the pumps in a single graceful movement, she began to run.
Adrenaline gave her wings - she managed to stay ahead of him until they reached the ground floor. He was close enough by then to grab her arm however; spinning her back into his embrace. Their combined momentum carried them into the far wall, but Nate twisted at the last second - taking the brunt of the impact himself.
*****************
He had her. She was warm and real and gasping for breath in his arms.
Now what? Before either of them had a chance to sufficiently recover, Nate turned again - this time putting Sophie in the nearest corner. Locking eyes with her, he slapped his palms lightly on the stone walls on either side of her head - clearly conveying that as far as he was concerned, she was trapped. “Now,” he said, his voice only slightly out of breath, “let’s try this again. I believe I told you to stop.”
Her pupils were huge pools of black in her large, beautiful eyes. “And why?” she challenged, “am I obliged to do as you say?” Her skin was flushed and glowing from her exertions; her chest rising and falling as she tried to calm her own racing heartbeat. The air swirling around them was abruptly too thick - charged with the energy of their chase and how much he suddenly wanted her.
When each of them would later replay the moment in their minds, neither of them would be able to say who had kissed whom. All they could say for certain was that one second they were staring at each other, unsure how to proceed - the next they were kissing each other as if nothing else mattered in the world.
God, yes… Nate pressed into her lightly, enjoying the feel of her body against his. She moaned softly, running her tongue along the swell of his lower lip before allowing it to slip inside his mouth. Her fingers combed obsessively through the tangle of his hair.
After a few frantic, fumbling moments, her hands dropped to his shoulders and then reached around to tug sharply on his tie. Growling low in his throat, Nate grabbed her wrists and pushed her hands over her head. Metal pressed lightly against soft flesh… He inhaled sharply, eyes opening wide as the feel of his wedding ring against her skin finally penetrated the lust clouding his thoughts.
“No.” Letting her go, he stepped back - pressing both fists to his forehead as he fought to bring himself back under control. “No.”
He would not do this. He wasn’t his father, to be led by impulse and entitlement to take for himself what he had no right to. Exhaling slowly, he finally lowered his hands and looked at Sophie again. “I’m sorry.”
She was watching him with something very like pity in her eyes. “Your wife is a very lucky woman,” she said finally.
Smiling sadly, Nate shook his head. “No. She’s not.”
*******************
An honest man. Sophie watched Nate as he battled against the pull of his baser nature. Everyone said it about him - he couldn’t be bribed, bought, or manipulated into breaking the rules. He would occasionally bend them, sometimes to the point of being unrecognizable, but he never broke them. Her own instincts were screaming at her to run, to take advantage of the opening he’d inadvertently given her, but Sophie couldn’t tear her attention away from the intimate little drama playing itself out in front of her eyes.
She’d known he was married - Ford had used his wife as a shield against their mutual attraction in the past. Sophie had never bothered to find anything out about the woman. She wasn’t interested in claiming Nate Ford for herself, although she definitely wouldn’t have turned down a chance for a deeper taste of the forbidden fruit.
“Forget the Degas.” Sophie shivered at the sudden darkness in his voice. His eyes met hers without any hint of hesitation, and she saw just how iron-clad his control could be. “You can leave, but I want your word that you’ll forget about trying to steal the painting again.”
She laughed, but it was a hoarse, shaky sound. “My word?”
He nodded.
Sophie considered lying to him, but it seemed cheap somehow - especially in light of everything that had just passed between them. “I can’t,” she said at last, gambling that he had no genuine interest in seeing her in prison.
Nate studied her for a long moment, then sighed. “You know I’m going to tell them.” He paused. “I have to.”
She nodded. “I know.” Overcome, Sophie reached up to brush a stray lock of hair back from his face. “Such a good Catholic boy.” The words were shaded with a light Irish brogue - all she could manage in the way of teasing him, under the circumstances. He shivered at her touch; a fresh crack revealed in his impressively impenetrable emotional armor.
“You know we could be great together,” she said, yielding to one final impulsive gesture. “You and me. It’s not so bad on my side of the line.”
He smiled sadly at her, shaking his head. “That will never happen.”
**********
In the end he gave her enough of a head start to clear the area. His motives weren’t entirely altruistic; Nate knew he needed time to collect himself before stepping back into his corporate life.
He would not be that man. He never wanted to look into his wife’s eyes and have her see anything but the truth of how much he loved and wanted and honored her, and how lucky he was to have her in his life. He never wanted her to have any reason to doubt him. She and Sam were everything he needed to be happy.
Sophie called to the part of him that had grown up on the streets - a mobster’s son, surrounded by that way of life. She was smart, heart-stoppingly beautiful, and challenged him in a completely different way than Maggie did, but she belonged to a world he’d rejected years ago. Alone in the stairwell, Nate promised himself again that as much as he wanted Sophie Devereaux, he would never step over that line into a place where he didn’t belong.
When he could trust himself again, Nate went back into the building proper and headed for the first floor elevators. It was late enough in the day that he had the cab all to himself on the ride up to the executive level.
“Where’ve you been?” Predictably, Sterling was waiting for him at his office. “I was getting ready to call you, but…” He passed Nate a small black rectangle; he’d left his phone in his office before the meeting instead of risking it distracting him.
Nodding his thanks, Nate slipped the Blackberry into the pocket of his jacket. “Is Ian still here?”
Sterling seemed to notice finally that something was off with his friend. “In his office, I think. Nate - what’s happened?”
Smiling ruefully, Nate clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on.”
********************
He did as he’d promised Sophie he would. Nate told Blackpoole and Sterling that Sophie Devereaux was targeting the Degas, and that she had every intention of reclaiming it for herself from IYS headquarters. “I’ve already had it removed to the basement vault,” Ian revealed when Nate had finished his report. “We’ll order extra guards and tighten security until she’s found.”
They each thanked him for the warning; neither man questioned him as to the source of his information. Nate privately rationalized withholding the details by repeatedly reminding himself that he’d done his duty to the company. The client’s property would be protected. Beyond that, the Degas was Sterling’s case - Sterling’s triumph. Nate was under no obligation to sacrifice Sophie on the altar of his friend’s ego and ambition.
By the time he and Sterling were in a position to leave, it was too late for drinks. “How early are you leaving in the morning?” Sterling asked. “Want to grab dinner instead?”
Nate accepted the invitation gratefully. His flight was later in the morning, and after the emotional roller coaster of the previous couple of hours he really didn’t want to spend the evening alone. For all his personal shortcomings, Jim Sterling was exactly the sort of distracting dinner companion Nate needed at the moment.
The friends grabbed a late supper at their favorite restaurant, followed by drinks at their favorite pub. By the time Nate returned to his apartment it was two in the morning. He was well fed, pleasantly buzzed, and able to call home without feeling guilty.
When he finally fell asleep he dreamed of Maggie, and if her hair was a shade darker in his dreams than it was in real life, Nate decided he could live with that.
************
The call came the next morning as he was packing for his trip. “Mr. Blackpoole wants you right away,” Ian’s secretary told him, unable to hide the tremor in her voice. “He says not to worry about the Calais flight. We’re putting you on a later plane.”
Nate’s heart dropped when she finished by telling him that as soon as he arrived he was to meet Ian at the basement vault.
Stupid! he thought, locking his apartment and heading out to catch a cab to the offices. He’d tried to give Sophie a pass - tried to warn her off - and she’d gone after the piece anyway.
She’s a thief; a grifter, he reminded himself. She can’t stop herself. Still, he knew it would kill something inside him to see somebody like Sophie Devereaux taken to prison.
The fact that she might have told Ian about their encounter the previous day - the fact that Nate had her in his grasp and let her walk away a free woman - only occurred to him as the cab pulled up in front of IYS headquarters. So be it, he thought, paying the driver and stepping out onto the sidewalk. He’d talked his way out of much tighter spots. Even if she lied outright in attempt to get him in trouble, Nate knew he could pit his credibility against hers any day of the week.
The basement was a buzzing hive of activity. IYS security mixed with London police and rank and file IYS employees. Everyone was occupied - giving or taking statements, examining the scene for clues, or gathering anything that could be used as evidence. The one thing Nate couldn’t see as he scanned the area was any indication that they had someone in custody for causing all this.
“Nate!”
Startled, Nate finally spotted Ian waving him over. The head of IYS had been talking to a mixture of security, authority and employees, but he sent them all away as soon as Nate was in earshot. “Well, she did it,” he grumbled as soon as they were alone.
“She tried for the Degas?” Nate asked.
Blackpoole snorted. “Tried for it? She fucking succeeded! All that added security, all that effort, and she apparently conned poor Simmons into just opening the vault for her! Waltzed out with the thing like she didn’t have a care in the world!”
Nate knew he hadn’t been able to keep the shock off his face at the news, but luckily for him the context allowed for it. “Jim must be out of his mind,” he finally managed. I never saw this coming.
“Apoplectic,” Ian confirmed. “I sent him upstairs to cool off for a bit.” He paused, eyeing Nate shrewdly. “I also wanted a chance to talk to you alone.” He took Nate’s arm and steered him towards the open vault.
“What about?” Nate asked, resisting the urge to pull away from his boss’s grasp. This can’t be good.
Blackpoole didn’t answer him until they were standing just inside the vault door. “That,” Ian said, gesturing at a pile of jewelry that was being examined by members of the respective civil and corporate forces tasked with dealing with everything that had happened.
Nate knew what it was even before he went to the table himself for a closer look. The missing pieces from the Andropov collection.
Ian had come up behind him. “You never recovered everything from that case in Prague, did you?” he asked.
“No,” Nate acknowledged. “We’ll need to match the pieces up against the reports, but I’m betting this is the balance of what was stolen.”
Game, set and match.
Author: telaryn
Characters: Sophie, Nate, Maggie, Sterling, Blackpoole
Word Count: 4790
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Set pre-series in London. Sterling and Sophie have a run-in that leaves her hungry for payback. In the process Nate comes between Sophie and the object of her desire, and Nate and Sophie are forced to confront the very real attraction growing between them.
Author’s Notes: Written for astridv, who won my auction offering at help_japan. She expressed an interest in pre-series casefic, with the opportunity to explore the UST that existed between Nate and Sophie during that time. Since I’m in the midst of filling a fairly harrowing angst_bingo card, this story ended up being a wonderfully welcome distraction.
I hope you enjoy it, astridv!
Sophie Devereaux had lost before - that wasn’t the problem. It was losing to somebody like Jim Sterling that rankled, especially when he burned one of her best aliases in the process. Jenny Agutter had been responsible for some of her finest acquisitions, and the fact that somebody like that had rendered her useless grated endlessly on Sophie’s nerves.
Ordinarily she would never have considered infiltrating IYS headquarters in London in order to retrieve her property, but irritation made her reckless. She’d spent six valuable months obtaining the Degas, and she wasn’t willing to give it up without a fight.
Sophie finished reading the file her contact had passed to her, cross checking it against the information on her laptop screen. It would have to be a fast sting - in and out, with minimal time for distraction. She would steal the Degas from under the noses of the best insurance investigators in the world, and they would think twice about coming after her in the future.
*********
God, I don’t want to be here. Nate Ford leaned back in his chair, listening to his wife detailing their son’s latest grand achievement in the world of babydom. He wanted to be home, witnessing at least some of these miracles for himself.
One of the locals leaned into his office, rapping gently on the door jamb. “Meeting,” she mouthed, holding up a hand with all five fingers outspread. Nate nodded impatiently, waving her away.
“What was that?” he asked, realizing that Maggie had questioned him about something. “I’m sorry sweetheart - somebody was just trying to remind me about something. What did you say?”
”Just wondering if you had any idea when you’d be home? We miss you.”
He smiled wistfully. “You have no idea how much I miss you two right now.” Awareness of the case he was working loomed large in the back of his mind. “Unfortunately,” he went on, sobering, “they’re talking about sending me to Calais in the morning. Our latest information says that the pieces may have already crossed the Channel.”
”Please tell me Ian’s at least going to give you some backup,” Maggie said. “You know I don’t like you being out there without somebody to watch your ass.”
Nate’s smile grew mischievous. “I feel the need to point out, Dr. Ford, that you watching my ass is how we ended up with the rug rat in the first place.” Outside his office, he saw an uptick in the number of people walking by and swore under his breath.
”Gotta go?” Her tone was wistful.
He sighed. “Unfortunately, yes. It’s Ian’s meeting, and I don’t think he’d accept emergency phone sex with you as an excuse for me ditching.”
That got a laugh, as he’d intended. Nate had promised himself once Sam was born that he would do his best to keep Maggie’s spirits up when they had to be away from each other. So far as he could tell his track record to date had been fairly impressive. They exchanged another minute of conversation, including a mutual promise to rain check the phone sex, and then Nate hung up - watching the last of the staff pass his window. “Dammit,” he sighed, groping for a notepad and getting to his feet.
************
When he saw what was on the conference room table, and who was sitting at Ian’s right hand, Nate almost did a one eighty and damn the consequences of skipping out on the meeting. He didn’t have anything personally against Jim Sterling. In fact, if Nate could be said to have any friends at IYS, Sterling probably topped the list.
The problem was that Sterling had an ego that was disproportionately larger than his achievements to date. This meant that any legitimate success, like the Degas currently gracing the polished wood table, was typically greeted with a sense of entitlement that made Nate want to punch his friend repeatedly in the head.
“All right, everybody,” Ian Blackpoole said, raising his hands for quiet. “Before we get into status reports on our open cases, I want to take a moment and acknowledge Jim Sterling’s recent recovery of Edgar Degas’ ‘Singer With A Glove’. As any of you who keep up with the monthly reports will have already figured out, Jim has saved IYS a fifteen million dollar payout with his excellent field work.”
Nate smirked. Blackpoole’s dramatic pause for effect might as well have come with its own neon “Applause” sign. Cynicism aside, he added his kudos to the overall acknowledgement of the room. Considering who had been rumored to have stolen the Degas in the first place, Sterling’s success was noteworthy.
Probably entirely accidental, he couldn’t help adding in the privacy of his own head, but noteworthy regardless. For fun he tried putting Sterling against Sophie Devereaux in his mind, and his brain immediately rejected any sort of Sterling victory as being completely out of the realm of possibility.
As Blackpoole resumed speaking, opening the way for Sterling’s own self-aggrandizing report, Nate found his thoughts beginning to drift. There were fourteen investigators between Sterling’s position and his, which meant he had a while before anyone would be looking for any sort of coherent interaction from him.
Sophie Devereaux. He hadn’t drawn the Degas theft, being already involved in another case at the time, but he’d crossed paths with the woman on more than one occasion. She always made the chase interesting, changing personas as easily as she changed her cutting edge outfits. Nate frowned, as his brain registered Sterling reporting the death of the “Jenny Agutter” alias. He’d liked Jenny - they’d met up in Prague a few years earlier. He’d pursued her for the better part of a month, trying to recover a collection of jewelry that had gone missing from the national museum.
In the end he’d come away with two thirds of the missing pieces. He’d also been left handcuffed to a bannister in one of Prague’s more notorious brothels, but that was something he’d spent a sizeable sum of money to make sure as few people knew about as possible.
The fact that he’d managed to successfully expense out a large portion of that amount was something he saw as being strictly between him and his God.
*************
Ass, Sophie thought, trying her best not to stare daggers at Sterling. She’d taken a chair in the back of the conference room, clustered with the research assistants. Predictably the man’s report to his colleagues was so inflated as to border on outright fiction. To hear him tell it, he’s Sherlock Bloody Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and a purebred Tennessee bloodhound all wrapped up in one heroic package!
She made sure to periodically glance down at the pad in her lap and scribble a note or two. Other assistants were doing the same around her - although for a completed case like this one there wouldn’t be a great deal left for them to worry about. Sophie looked at it as a rehearsal opportunity; her read of the people in her immediate vicinity told her better than a director’s notes that her cover was holding.
Even Sterling, arguably the one person on the planet who should have spotted her on sight, was so busy blowing his own horn that he didn’t realize she was sitting right in front of him. Okay granted, thirty feet away in a room full of people, but still…
She ducked her head again and dashed off a shorthand note about Sterling’s brilliant investigative technique. When she looked up again, Sophie realized that she’d seen something important. It was just a flash in the corner of her right eye, but her fight or flight instinct had deemed it significant enough to pull her attention away from the Sterling and the Degas.
Oh, bugger. It took every ounce of Sophie’s skill not to tip her hand as she turned to look more fully at the investigator who’d caught her attention. He’s supposed to be in Northern France right now! Calais or something, wasn’t it? She mentally reviewed the packet she’d studied the night before, and her memory helpfully confirmed that yes - the artwork Nathan Ford was tasked with recovering was believed to have been taken out of Great Britain by way of the Channel earlier in the week.
Sophie forced her attention away from the back of the man’s head, and quickly smothered the memory of the time she’d been close enough to run her fingers through that shaggy dark hair. Calm. Focus. She had to see the meeting through to its end. Excusing herself at this point was only going to draw unwanted attention, and even if Sterling hadn’t recognized her, Sophie knew Ford would. And I’ll just bet he’s holding a nice little grudge after Prague, she thought, even though memory of how she’d left him made her smile.
****************
His estimation of Sophie Devereaux had risen by a couple hundred notches in just the past five minutes. Nate could barely suppress a grin as he tried to appear focused on Sterling’s report - the audacity of her infiltrating a meeting where her own illegal acts were being discussed was off the charts. He felt like a gauntlet had been thrown into his face, and as far as he was concerned the challenge was accepted.
Game on. He risked another glance in Sophie’s direction and realized immediately by the way her posture had shifted that she’d finally spotted him. Even across the distance that separated them, he could see a flush on her skin, and a slight increase in the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed against an increased heart rate. Trapped. She couldn’t leave the meeting without blowing her cover and losing her chance at the Degas, and the longer she stayed, the greater the chance she would be recognized and her cover blown anyway.
He once again joined the chorus of polite applause for Sterling’s accomplishment, and then settled in to wait as the next investigator in line was given leave to begin his status report. It didn’t take a genius to figure out Sophie was working off inside information to know that the Degas would be on display for this meeting, but Nate had to wonder if her source had clued her in to exactly what she was getting herself into.
If cornered, he would have denied slowing down delivery of his own report when his turn came nearly an hour into the meeting. He would also have denied adding in as many irrelevant details as he could think of, but when he glanced over at Sophie and saw her openly glaring at him, Nate couldn’t resist flashing her his best, most charming smile. Choke on that, Ms. Devereaux.
**************
Bastard. How was it the man always knew how to get under her skin? And what game is he playing anyway? He knew she was there. She knew he knew she was there. He knew she knew he…
And he stands there making his damn report like there’s nothing at all unusual going on! ‘Oh no, ladies and gentlemen, there’s not a thief in your midst - oh no!’ Sophie ducked her head again to make some notes - not letting her character slip an inch, even as she hastily developed and discarded escape plans in her head.
Just when she’d decided that he was saving outing her until the end of his report, Ford stopped speaking and settled back in his chair. At the opposite end of the conference table, Ian Blackpoole’s attention shifted to the older woman at Nate’s right. “Brigid?”
After thanking Blackpoole, Brigid Kelly began giving her report. Nate’s expression slipped into the same bland, polite attentiveness ninety percent of the people in the room were displaying.
Sophie blinked, trying to process what was happening. Unless she had the measure of Nathan Ford completely wrong, he wasn’t going to out her to his colleagues. Not right now, at any rate.
That meant it would be a race. He was counting on being fast enough to catch her in the confusion, once the meeting was adjourned. Sophie smiled. It felt right - it felt true to the way their relationship had evolved over the years. Well, then. We’ll see who gets away from whom.
The meeting ran another twenty minutes, by which time Sophie was seriously considering stabbing herself in the neck with her pen. How do people live like this? she wondered, looking at the back of Ford’s head again. How do you?
“Okay everybody,” Blackpoole said finally from the head of the table. “Thank you.”
That seemed to be the signal everybody was waiting for. Oh thank God, Sophie thought, getting to her feet and heading immediately for the nearest exit.
******************
“Nate!”
Trying not to swear, Nate watched helplessly as Sophie joined the crowd of research assistants leaving the conference room. Okay. First move to you, he thought, mentally adjusting his strategy as he shifted to face the man coming towards him. “Jim!”
Sterling stopped next to him. “We still on for drinks?”
Nate nodded. “Absolutely. I’ve just got to make some calls - I’ll meet you in an hour?” Smiling broadly, Sterling clapped him on the shoulder. After offering him another quick round of marginally sincere congratulations, Nate snatched up his pad and left the conference room by a different door.
You should have just blown her cover, he thought - his guilty conscience finally deciding to make itself known. Never mind that she hadn’t been doing anything seriously illegal at the time, Sophie Devereaux’s file was thick enough that Nate could have legitimately bumped into her by accident on any random street in any random city and successfully taken her to the nearest police station for processing.
No fun in that, he thought, tossing the notepad into his office and heading towards the closest staircase. His brain was already working out all of Sophie’s possible scenarios for getting out of the building, cross checking them against her psychological profiles and what he personally knew of the woman to come up with her most likely course of action. The resulting buzz was better than any alcohol he’d ever enjoyed in his life.
He’d reached the landing at the seventh floor when he heard a fire door open beneath him. Leaning slightly over the railing, Nate was rewarded with a flash of dark hair and the sharp click of a woman’s shoe heels against the concrete.
Gotcha.
*************************
The first thought in Sophie’s head as she reached the safety of the stairwell was that she needed to send Jim Sterling a fruit basket. If she’d hired the finest playwright in London, she couldn’t have scripted a better roadblock for Nate Ford than Sterling himself.
She’d taken a fairly circuitous route off the executive floor, following the cluster of research assistants until she could safely break away and head for an elevator. Two floors down, then she’d crossed to a staircase on the east side of the building that would take her to the street level out of view of most of the security cameras.
The Degas is here. As confidence in her ability to escape grew, Sophie’s thoughts turned back to the reason she was in this mess in the first place. Singer With A Glove. It had been all she could do to keep from pulling a snatch-and-grab like some common street thief, sitting there with the spoils of her work so tantalizingly close.
They won’t return it to the rightful owners tonight. Sophie knew how bureaucracies functioned, and the paperwork involved in closing the case would keep the painting in one place for at least a couple of days.
She would later replay the scene in her mind, and wonder if it was a sound or some deeper sense that made her stop and look up just in time to see Nate Ford looking down at her. He was one flight up from her position - which as far as Sophie was concerned was much too close.
“You might as well stop,” he said, when their eyes met.
Sophie gave him her most challenging grin as she stepped out of her second favorite pair of Jimmy Choos. “Now what fun would that be, Mr. Ford?” Sweeping up the pumps in a single graceful movement, she began to run.
Adrenaline gave her wings - she managed to stay ahead of him until they reached the ground floor. He was close enough by then to grab her arm however; spinning her back into his embrace. Their combined momentum carried them into the far wall, but Nate twisted at the last second - taking the brunt of the impact himself.
*****************
He had her. She was warm and real and gasping for breath in his arms.
Now what? Before either of them had a chance to sufficiently recover, Nate turned again - this time putting Sophie in the nearest corner. Locking eyes with her, he slapped his palms lightly on the stone walls on either side of her head - clearly conveying that as far as he was concerned, she was trapped. “Now,” he said, his voice only slightly out of breath, “let’s try this again. I believe I told you to stop.”
Her pupils were huge pools of black in her large, beautiful eyes. “And why?” she challenged, “am I obliged to do as you say?” Her skin was flushed and glowing from her exertions; her chest rising and falling as she tried to calm her own racing heartbeat. The air swirling around them was abruptly too thick - charged with the energy of their chase and how much he suddenly wanted her.
When each of them would later replay the moment in their minds, neither of them would be able to say who had kissed whom. All they could say for certain was that one second they were staring at each other, unsure how to proceed - the next they were kissing each other as if nothing else mattered in the world.
God, yes… Nate pressed into her lightly, enjoying the feel of her body against his. She moaned softly, running her tongue along the swell of his lower lip before allowing it to slip inside his mouth. Her fingers combed obsessively through the tangle of his hair.
After a few frantic, fumbling moments, her hands dropped to his shoulders and then reached around to tug sharply on his tie. Growling low in his throat, Nate grabbed her wrists and pushed her hands over her head. Metal pressed lightly against soft flesh… He inhaled sharply, eyes opening wide as the feel of his wedding ring against her skin finally penetrated the lust clouding his thoughts.
“No.” Letting her go, he stepped back - pressing both fists to his forehead as he fought to bring himself back under control. “No.”
He would not do this. He wasn’t his father, to be led by impulse and entitlement to take for himself what he had no right to. Exhaling slowly, he finally lowered his hands and looked at Sophie again. “I’m sorry.”
She was watching him with something very like pity in her eyes. “Your wife is a very lucky woman,” she said finally.
Smiling sadly, Nate shook his head. “No. She’s not.”
*******************
An honest man. Sophie watched Nate as he battled against the pull of his baser nature. Everyone said it about him - he couldn’t be bribed, bought, or manipulated into breaking the rules. He would occasionally bend them, sometimes to the point of being unrecognizable, but he never broke them. Her own instincts were screaming at her to run, to take advantage of the opening he’d inadvertently given her, but Sophie couldn’t tear her attention away from the intimate little drama playing itself out in front of her eyes.
She’d known he was married - Ford had used his wife as a shield against their mutual attraction in the past. Sophie had never bothered to find anything out about the woman. She wasn’t interested in claiming Nate Ford for herself, although she definitely wouldn’t have turned down a chance for a deeper taste of the forbidden fruit.
“Forget the Degas.” Sophie shivered at the sudden darkness in his voice. His eyes met hers without any hint of hesitation, and she saw just how iron-clad his control could be. “You can leave, but I want your word that you’ll forget about trying to steal the painting again.”
She laughed, but it was a hoarse, shaky sound. “My word?”
He nodded.
Sophie considered lying to him, but it seemed cheap somehow - especially in light of everything that had just passed between them. “I can’t,” she said at last, gambling that he had no genuine interest in seeing her in prison.
Nate studied her for a long moment, then sighed. “You know I’m going to tell them.” He paused. “I have to.”
She nodded. “I know.” Overcome, Sophie reached up to brush a stray lock of hair back from his face. “Such a good Catholic boy.” The words were shaded with a light Irish brogue - all she could manage in the way of teasing him, under the circumstances. He shivered at her touch; a fresh crack revealed in his impressively impenetrable emotional armor.
“You know we could be great together,” she said, yielding to one final impulsive gesture. “You and me. It’s not so bad on my side of the line.”
He smiled sadly at her, shaking his head. “That will never happen.”
**********
In the end he gave her enough of a head start to clear the area. His motives weren’t entirely altruistic; Nate knew he needed time to collect himself before stepping back into his corporate life.
He would not be that man. He never wanted to look into his wife’s eyes and have her see anything but the truth of how much he loved and wanted and honored her, and how lucky he was to have her in his life. He never wanted her to have any reason to doubt him. She and Sam were everything he needed to be happy.
Sophie called to the part of him that had grown up on the streets - a mobster’s son, surrounded by that way of life. She was smart, heart-stoppingly beautiful, and challenged him in a completely different way than Maggie did, but she belonged to a world he’d rejected years ago. Alone in the stairwell, Nate promised himself again that as much as he wanted Sophie Devereaux, he would never step over that line into a place where he didn’t belong.
When he could trust himself again, Nate went back into the building proper and headed for the first floor elevators. It was late enough in the day that he had the cab all to himself on the ride up to the executive level.
“Where’ve you been?” Predictably, Sterling was waiting for him at his office. “I was getting ready to call you, but…” He passed Nate a small black rectangle; he’d left his phone in his office before the meeting instead of risking it distracting him.
Nodding his thanks, Nate slipped the Blackberry into the pocket of his jacket. “Is Ian still here?”
Sterling seemed to notice finally that something was off with his friend. “In his office, I think. Nate - what’s happened?”
Smiling ruefully, Nate clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on.”
********************
He did as he’d promised Sophie he would. Nate told Blackpoole and Sterling that Sophie Devereaux was targeting the Degas, and that she had every intention of reclaiming it for herself from IYS headquarters. “I’ve already had it removed to the basement vault,” Ian revealed when Nate had finished his report. “We’ll order extra guards and tighten security until she’s found.”
They each thanked him for the warning; neither man questioned him as to the source of his information. Nate privately rationalized withholding the details by repeatedly reminding himself that he’d done his duty to the company. The client’s property would be protected. Beyond that, the Degas was Sterling’s case - Sterling’s triumph. Nate was under no obligation to sacrifice Sophie on the altar of his friend’s ego and ambition.
By the time he and Sterling were in a position to leave, it was too late for drinks. “How early are you leaving in the morning?” Sterling asked. “Want to grab dinner instead?”
Nate accepted the invitation gratefully. His flight was later in the morning, and after the emotional roller coaster of the previous couple of hours he really didn’t want to spend the evening alone. For all his personal shortcomings, Jim Sterling was exactly the sort of distracting dinner companion Nate needed at the moment.
The friends grabbed a late supper at their favorite restaurant, followed by drinks at their favorite pub. By the time Nate returned to his apartment it was two in the morning. He was well fed, pleasantly buzzed, and able to call home without feeling guilty.
When he finally fell asleep he dreamed of Maggie, and if her hair was a shade darker in his dreams than it was in real life, Nate decided he could live with that.
************
The call came the next morning as he was packing for his trip. “Mr. Blackpoole wants you right away,” Ian’s secretary told him, unable to hide the tremor in her voice. “He says not to worry about the Calais flight. We’re putting you on a later plane.”
Nate’s heart dropped when she finished by telling him that as soon as he arrived he was to meet Ian at the basement vault.
Stupid! he thought, locking his apartment and heading out to catch a cab to the offices. He’d tried to give Sophie a pass - tried to warn her off - and she’d gone after the piece anyway.
She’s a thief; a grifter, he reminded himself. She can’t stop herself. Still, he knew it would kill something inside him to see somebody like Sophie Devereaux taken to prison.
The fact that she might have told Ian about their encounter the previous day - the fact that Nate had her in his grasp and let her walk away a free woman - only occurred to him as the cab pulled up in front of IYS headquarters. So be it, he thought, paying the driver and stepping out onto the sidewalk. He’d talked his way out of much tighter spots. Even if she lied outright in attempt to get him in trouble, Nate knew he could pit his credibility against hers any day of the week.
The basement was a buzzing hive of activity. IYS security mixed with London police and rank and file IYS employees. Everyone was occupied - giving or taking statements, examining the scene for clues, or gathering anything that could be used as evidence. The one thing Nate couldn’t see as he scanned the area was any indication that they had someone in custody for causing all this.
“Nate!”
Startled, Nate finally spotted Ian waving him over. The head of IYS had been talking to a mixture of security, authority and employees, but he sent them all away as soon as Nate was in earshot. “Well, she did it,” he grumbled as soon as they were alone.
“She tried for the Degas?” Nate asked.
Blackpoole snorted. “Tried for it? She fucking succeeded! All that added security, all that effort, and she apparently conned poor Simmons into just opening the vault for her! Waltzed out with the thing like she didn’t have a care in the world!”
Nate knew he hadn’t been able to keep the shock off his face at the news, but luckily for him the context allowed for it. “Jim must be out of his mind,” he finally managed. I never saw this coming.
“Apoplectic,” Ian confirmed. “I sent him upstairs to cool off for a bit.” He paused, eyeing Nate shrewdly. “I also wanted a chance to talk to you alone.” He took Nate’s arm and steered him towards the open vault.
“What about?” Nate asked, resisting the urge to pull away from his boss’s grasp. This can’t be good.
Blackpoole didn’t answer him until they were standing just inside the vault door. “That,” Ian said, gesturing at a pile of jewelry that was being examined by members of the respective civil and corporate forces tasked with dealing with everything that had happened.
Nate knew what it was even before he went to the table himself for a closer look. The missing pieces from the Andropov collection.
Ian had come up behind him. “You never recovered everything from that case in Prague, did you?” he asked.
“No,” Nate acknowledged. “We’ll need to match the pieces up against the reports, but I’m betting this is the balance of what was stolen.”
Game, set and match.