Traitorous Attraction Read Online Free PDF Page A

she needed a break after months and months of long hours and high stress. Lots of her colleagues took sabbaticals from work. Vacations were encouraged to keep stress from causing mistakes. Her work leave shouldn’t have been a big deal or raised any red flags. Was Connor right? How closely did Sphere track her activities?
    Connor took off in the direction from which they’d come.
    Kate grabbed her bag from the ground and chased him. “Where are you going?”
    “Getting out of this airport. You need to ditch your clothes and that bag,” Connor said. He tore the bag from her hand and shoved it inside a nearby trash can.
    Kate looked at it and then him, confusion and fear overwhelming her. Her clothes and supplies were in that bag. He was making fast, impulsive decisions as she knew field operatives were trained to do. Indecision cost precious time that was sometimes in short supply. On her training missions, she’d had time to think and plan. Connor was moving in the opposite direction of the exit signs. With a final look at her bag, Kate left it in the trash can and followed him. Connor glanced over his shoulder.
    “They know I made them,” he said.
    Glancing behind her, Kate felt her heart rate escalate. The same man and woman from the airplane and the hallway were following them. Though they weren’t running, they were closing the distance and moving quickly. Could it be a coincidence that the couple had changed their direction soon after Kate and Connor had?
    She wasn’t that naive. Not anymore. “What should we do?” Kate asked, accepting that Connor was the expert on this mission and they were safest following his directions.
    Connor didn’t say anything. He’d quickened his pace. He pushed at doors as they passed, perhaps searching for an open one to duck inside. After several tries, a door popped open. They slipped inside an office with a window to the outside. She assessed their options. The L-shaped desk and bookcase were cheap particle board covered with laminate and the file cabinet was made of scratched and dented mental. Connor grabbed the desk and pushed it across the carpet. He slid the file cabinet in front of it, angling it against the wall to barricade the door.
    He unlocked and opened the window. “It’s a ten-foot drop. Can you make it?”
    Kate looked between the door and the window. Ten feet? That didn’t seem high.
    The door opened partially before slamming against the desk Connor had used to block it.
    “Open the door. Kate, please be reasonable. We’re worried about you.”
    They’d used her name. She tossed away the final remnants of her flimsy theory that she and Connor had misread their intent. They were agents from Sphere.
    “I’ll go out first and break your fall,” Connor said.
    Break her fall? Running to the window, she looked down and her vision blurred. She’d told Connor her fear of heights only included life-threatening falls. Faced with one that might only injure her, dizziness washed over her and fear threatened to freeze her in her tracks. The desk moved across the carpet, and the file cabinet ground into the drywall and slid along the wall as the agents forced open the door.
    Connor disappeared over the ledge, his backpack strapped to him. With a final look back, Kate mimicked his actions. She slipped through the window onto the ledge, refused to look down, wobbled at the edge and jumped. Several seconds later, she was pressed to Connor, his strong arms around her. He’d caught her fall as he’d said he would. As far as she could tell, nothing had been broken.
    Her stomach was against his face. As she slid down his big body to get her feet on the ground, the friction between their bodies burned through her. She wove her arms around his neck to gain her balance. He set her down and his arms lingered around her. “Are you injured?” he asked.
    The eye contact set off a tiny shower of sparks between them. “I’m fine. I think I lost my job, though.”
    “Those