Her mouth turned up at the corners in a bitter smile. “You don’t waste any time, counselor.”
“And, Halina, let me just tell you that I know Saveli risked his entire political career by helping you. So give me a good reason for the man to do that.”
She pressed her hands together, linked her fingers, and squeezed them. A stress-relieving gesture he remembered from long ago. “How would you know that?”
“Because I know about your family. Your uncle and his business. And I know if anyone had found out that Saveli was helping you with whatever you were doing at DoD—”
“He wasn’t helping me with anything at the DoD. How do you know about my family?”
“Friend.”
“What kind of friend? Who are you trusting to get this kind of information for you? How do you know it’s accurate?”
“This person has deep government sources—”
“Government sources? Why would you trust someone in the government? You just said the government likes to screw everyone.”
Her tone got under his skin. “You say that like I haven’t already been screwed. And as a former government employee, you’d know all about doing that well, wouldn’t you?”
Her mouth tightened. Chin dipped in a signal of thinning patience. “I told you I’d try to answer your questions. But I’m not going to take your attitude. If you can’t be civil, I’ll move and we’ll talk when you can treat me at least as well as you treat your clients.”
Her cool tone infuriated him. “My clients don’t fuck me.”
Hurt streaked through her eyes and she surged to her feet. Dex immediately followed, jumping up from where he’d lain beside Mitch’s chair. “Don’t you—”
Christy approached with a drink tray and a scowl for Mitch. “We’re not even off the ground and you’ve pissed her off already?”
Self-disgust made his chest heavy and tight. His anger and hurt lost its edge. “It is my specialty.”
“Not on this flight, Mr. Foster,” Christy said, distributing glasses and drinks. “Don’t make me kick you out at thirty thousand feet.”
Christy opened the top of a black box and presented three lines of miniature liquor bottles to Halina. “Some spark for your grapefruit juice? You might need it. Lord knows he and I have spent a few hours disagreeing on flights in the past—”
“Hold on,” Mitch said, taking the opportunity for a distraction. “When have we ever disagreed?”
Halina sat, but her gaze cut between them again. Dex relaxed only after Halina did. Christy tapped the Belvedere vodka, her brows raised at Halina, who hesitated, then said, “No, thanks. Just the juice is fine.”
Mitch relaxed. He didn’t like being a watchdog, but he found himself already protective over the health of a possible pregnancy. He’d driven Alyssa crazy during her pregnancy. She’d gone so far as to have Teague run interference at times.
Christy ticked off the number of things she and Mitch had argued about on her fingers. “World hunger, arms trading, globalization, global warming, immigration . . .”—she paused for a dramatic deep breath and dove right back in—“offshore drilling, gay marriage, education, racism, poverty, taxes, social media—”
“Stop right there.” Mitch pointed at her, grinning at her quick mind. “We totally agreed on social media marketing.”
Christy rolled those big blue eyes toward the ceiling again, thought about it. “Ah.” She gave him a smart nod. “You’re right.”
Grinning, Christy relayed takeoff instructions and turned to leave them in privacy. “Oh, Mitch.” She glanced back and pointed toward the rear of the plane. “Change of clothes and toiletries in the bathroom.” Then she grinned at Halina. “Yell if he gets out of hand.”
“Hey.” Mitch reached out and gave her arm a squeeze. “Thanks for picking up the clothes.”
“Anytime.” She laid her hand over his. “You know that.”
Christy strolled toward the front of the plane and Halina watched her go.
Mitch remained quiet until Halina’s gaze returned to his, and she lifted her brow in question. “What?”
“Why don’t you just ask? I know you want to know if I’m sleeping with her.”
“That’s . . . arrogant,” she said. “And no. I absolutely do not want to know that you’re sleeping with her—”
“That’s not what I said—”
“And I’m sorry I mentioned the other women last night. I was . . . frustrated. It won’t happen again.” She sighed heavily, crossed her arms, looked out the window. “In answer to your earlier question about Savili, I didn’t question his motives for helping me.”
Up front, Christy took her seat, belted in, and pulled out a book. The airport slid past outside the windows as they taxied to the runway.
Mitch grabbed on to the subject. At least he could legitimately direct his frustration there. “He was taking great risks to help you here in the States and could have faced even harsher consequences back in Russia after he returned. It was selfish of you to ask a man with so much to lose to come to the aid of a second cousin whom he barely knew and to whom he owed nothing.”
She paused in the act of lifting her juice glass and gave him a cold stare. The engines revved and Halina paused before answering as they lifted into the sky.
Once the engine noise had dimmed, she set her glass on the table without drinking and crossed her arms. “I was desperate, I asked, he agreed. After Schaeffer threatened me, it was clear I had two choices—give him what he wanted or run. I knew if I just dropped everything and ran you would have searched for me. And I knew if you found me, they’d find me.” Frustration edged into her eyes. “I was trying to avoid this.”
That stab hit its mark, but he tried not to react. Her confession was too clean. Too simple. The extremes she’d gone to in an effort to hide, too drastic. Mitch had heard hundreds of schemes, from the painfully simple to the ridiculously insane. This didn’t add up.
“Schaeffer already had your research,” Mitch said. “Even if you refused to give it to him, he could have gone to court. By virtue of your employment with DoD, the government owned it all. That wouldn’t have changed if you’d quit or were fired. The courts would have forced you to turn it over or put you in jail until you did.”
He settled back in his chair, pressed his elbows to the arms, and threaded his fingers. “So give me the rest, Hali. Give me the inside story.”
NINE
Halina was baking inside her clothes. She could feel every beat of her heart at her throat, hear it in her temple near her ear. Heat burned across her chest, up her neck, and over her cheeks.
She’d never felt claustrophobic, but right now, she felt trapped. She pushed from the chair, squeezed past Mitch, and paced in the aisle. Beside his chair, Dex sat up and whined. Mitch petted his head.
At the front of the plane, Christy looked up from a book and raised her voice to be heard over the engine. “Do you need something?”
“No, thanks.” She gave the sweet flight attendant a brittle smile. “Just stretching.”
The other woman nodded and returned to her book, swiveling her chair just enough to give Halina and Mitch more privacy. Halina forcefully blocked thoughts of the woman and Mitch from her mind. Even if they’d never been together, Christy was too close to the hundreds of other women Mitch favored and reminded Halina of all she wasn’t, all she’d never be.
His furious confession of sleeping with them to get over Halina crossed her mind. She didn’t know what to make of that. The passionate, heat-of-the-moment way in which it had been made led her to believe its truth. And at first, that behavior made complete sense. But it didn’t explain his continued playboy lifestyle.