One Baby, Two Secrets

“No,” he lied.

He was definitely doing something wrong. She thought she was searching for his lost watch.

“I didn’t want to embarrass you,” he lied again.

“Embarrass me how?”

He made a show of taking in her outfit from last night.

“Oh.” She wrapped her arms around her front, covering her cleavage and bare shoulders. “They’d think I spent the night with you.”

“They would.”

“Thanks, then.”

“No problem.”

A split second later, she gave a little shrug, dropping her hands to her sides. “But what would I care?”

It was a good question. He wasn’t sure why he thought she’d care about the opinions of strangers. He did know pretending to be chivalrous was a whole lot better than explaining to her that he’d been checking out Quentin’s computer.

“Who are they?” she asked, still keeping her voice low.

“Security guards. Quentin has a lot of them. Every one brawny, ill-humored and uncommunicative.”

“What did they mean that Quentin had better be persuaded?”

The question surprised Brody. No, not surprised. It shocked the heck out of him. “You speak Russian?”

“No. But they were speaking Ukrainian.”

That was another surprise. All along, he’d thought the guys were Russian.

He gave her a beat to elaborate.

She didn’t.

“Same question,” he prompted.

“Only a little. I understand it better than I speak it.” She moved away from the wall, peeping out the open door.

“And?” he asked, struggling to keep the impatience from his tone. “That’s because?”

“Oh. My best friend Nadia is Ukrainian. She grew up with her grandmother who lived across the hall from our apartment. Mrs. Ivanova was a crotchety old thing, and she didn’t speak much English. She wore baggy stockings and embroidered cloth shoes, but I liked her because she baked incredible honey cookies and Kiev cake.”

“And she taught you Ukrainian?”

Kate seemed to have a peculiar way of getting around to a point.

“Nadia and I tried to teach her English,” said Kate. “Turns out, we weren’t very good teachers.”

“But you were a good student?”

She made a tipping motion with her hand. “I was okay. Nadia’s fluent. I dabble.”

“You understood those two.”

“Only part of it.”

“What else?” Brody didn’t want to drag an unsuspecting Kate into his web of intrigue. But what she’d overheard could be important.

There were rumors Quentin had originally been financed by an Eastern European criminal organization. Assuming the rumors were true, Brody had wondered if the bodyguards might be connected to the financier. If they were, maybe they were into other kinds of crime, like corporate espionage.

One thing was sure: given the snippet of conversation Kate had interpreted, there was a real chance those men were more than just bodyguards.

“I didn’t understand most of it,” she said. “And I might be getting it wrong.”

He tried not to sound too earnest. “What exactly did you hear?”

“That Quentin could be or maybe had to be persuaded. Something about him accepting or maybe embracing Ceci.”

“Ceci?”

“That’s what I heard.”

Who was Ceci? “Did they mention a last name?”

“No.”

“Accepting her as what?”

“A girlfriend, maybe?”

“They said that?”

“I’m tossing out random guesses,” she said.

“What about the context?”

“I’m not that good.”

“But—”

“Brody, it was a tiny snippet of conversation in a foreign language from a distance. What do you want from me?”

He immediately regretted grilling her. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Why do you care so much?”