Nina Berry: City Of Spies

But Devin wasn’t here. She might never see his sardonic smile again, and the martini in Sammy Davis, Jr.’s hand would go very nicely with a cigarette instead.

Who do you want to be, Pagan? After four months of daily AA meetings, weekly therapy and gratitude for every sober breath. She could be the girl who didn’t drink. Or she could be the messed-up loser who did.

“Going to get some air,” she said to Thomas, and wound her way through the bodies, out into the clear air of the arcade. The swimmers and couples drinking and talking out there pushed her farther past the lounge chairs out onto the lawn.

Peace at last. She took a deep breath, removed her heels and sank her stocking feet into the damp grass. Above, the stars were startlingly clear, and the noise from the glowing glass mansion sank away into the night.

A shadow moved to her left. She startled, spinning.

“Well, if it isn’t the notorious Pagan Jones.”

Out of the darkness beside the arcade stepped a familiar form, tall, knife-thin, with dark hair and eyes like the ocean during a storm.

Her whole body wanted to open itself, to stretch out to him. Her pulse thrummed through her veins all the way down to her fingertips.

Devin Black was back.

CHAPTER TWO

Chatsworth and Hollywood, California

December 15, 1961

BAILAMOS

More of a statement than a question the man asks a woman: Shall we dance?

“Devin.” She breathed it more than said it. Had she conjured him with her thoughts? She took two steps toward him, on her tiptoes. “Are you real?”

“That’s a matter for debate.” He smiled at her with a delicious fondness that sent blood rushing to her cheeks. “You, however, look very real.”

The impulse to obliterate the distance between them, to throw her arms around him, was almost irresistible. The fierce way he’d kissed her the last time they met was imprinted on her body like a brand. But something made her pull herself up short.

His gaze may have been more than friendly, but he hadn’t walked up to her or taken her in his arms. He stood at a distance, all coiled grace in his custom-made suit, keeping a good six feet between them.

It had been four months and two days since they last saw each other. Anything could’ve happened. She needed to reverse the overeager impression she’d given him, and fast.

“Delighted to see you haven’t been slaughtered in the line of duty,” she said, keeping her tone light. Years of actor training came in handy at times like this. “Last thing I needed was to be haunted by your ghost.”

He took a step toward her. “It’s good to see you.”

His natural Scottish accent, which he could turn off or on, depending on which persona he needed to be, warmed as he spoke more personally. It fanned the tiny flames dancing inside her heart.

“Took you long enough, laddie,” she said, using her own deadly accurate Scottish accent. “I was in your neighborhood a little over a month ago.”

“Shooting Daughter of Silence in London.” His voice flattened into a flawless American accent, as if answering an unspoken challenge. “Becoming an emancipated minor, and turning seventeen. Happy belated birthday.”

“Thanks,” she said, dropping the accent. “I got the flowers you didn’t send.”

He winced. “I’m sorry. I was rather busy. I promise.”

It sounded like the truth, but with Devin you could never tell. “Oh, that whole ‘I was away serving my country doing unspeakable things’ excuse. Very handy.” She smiled.

“I hear that the director is so happy with the movie, and with your performance, that he’s submitting it to the Cannes Film Festival.”

“So you’re still pretending to be in the movie business?” she asked.

“I’ve stepped back in actually. That’s why I’m here.”

“And you’re keeping tabs on me,” she said. “Should I be scared?”

“Could you be scared?” His smile was knowing.

“Don’t ask me to drive a red convertible.” The only way to deal with the paralyzing anxiety brought on by memories of the accident was to puncture it with jokes. “Or wear something off the rack.”

“How’s your Spanish?” he asked.

It sounded like a non sequitur, but all at once she knew why he was here. It felt so good that it scared her. She took a moment before replying to steady her voice. “Why don’t you ask the real question you came all this way to ask me?”

Admiration shone in his eyes. “No more facade between us, is that it?”

Of course he’d understood her immediately. But she hadn’t been prepared for him to look at her like that. She clasped her hands to stop them from trembling. “We’ve pretended with each other enough for one lifetime.”

He dipped his head in acknowledgment. “I’ve come to ask you to help us out, one more time.”

“Us?” she asked. “Are you an American now? The last time I saw you...”

“I work for MI6, the British secret service,” he said. “The CIA has asked to borrow me for this particular mission. I’m on loan.”

“Because they think you have some kind of power over me.” It was half question, half assertion.

“To be fair,” he said with a smirk, “that’s only one of my many valuable skills.”

Her eyes fell to his lips. “I remember.”

It was hard to tell in the dark, but she could’ve sworn he flushed. “It would be better if you didn’t.”

Her throat tightened. He was pushing her away, all right. But she’d gotten a reaction, however much he might try to deny it. “Who is she?”

He glanced away from her briefly. His expression didn’t change, but it was enough to make her feel like someone had stabbed her in the gut.

Carefully, he said, “What matters is that I never should have...done what I did the last time we met. I truly thought I’d never see you again. I thought...” He broke off and tilted his head back, eyes heavenward, inhaling a deep breath. “I’m not here to renew our acquaintance.”

So after all they’d been through together in Berlin, after they’d shared a kiss that nearly burned down a hospital, he wasn’t here to be with her. It shouldn’t have surprised her, or hurt her. She should’ve been over him by now, on to some new sweetheart who didn’t come and go like a thief. But it hurt so bad she had to shore up her face with a sarcastic look she’d overused in Beach Bound Beverly.

“You mean the CIA didn’t send you all the way to Los Angeles to make out with me?” She raised her eyebrows. “But what better way to spend our tax dollars?”

He exhaled a small laugh. “If you’re interested in helping us out, then you should accept a starring part in a movie shooting in Buenos Aires, which will be offered to you very soon.”

“Argentina?” She knew very little about the country. Something about grasslands and cattle and Eva Perón. “I do all right in Spanish, but there’s no way I could pass for a native speaker, even with all of Mercedes’s coaching.” Her best friend, Mercedes Duran, had grown up in a Spanish-speaking house and was fluent. Pagan, who had learned some French and Italian during her lessons on set and grew up speaking German and English, had picked Spanish up from her fast.

“You won’t need to be anyone but yourself,” Devin said.

Argentina. Something in her memory was stirring about that country. “Why send Pagan Jones to South America?”

He shook his head, regretful. “I’ll tell you after you say yes.”

“So I’m going to say yes?”

He paused, lips twisting sardonically. “Yes.”

She eyed him. If he was that annoyingly certain about it, he was probably right. “Why?”

“Because you want to,” he said.

He was right about that. Even her disappointment at him keeping his distance hadn’t dulled the buzz in her fingertips, the lift to her ego at the thought that they wanted her back, that they needed her. No one before had ever thought she could make the world a better place, even in the smallest way.