Lying and Kissing by Helena Newbury Read Free Book Online Page A

she’d thought of me all this time? That I was fucked up?!
    Roberta caught my expression. “I was just trying to protect you. That’s all I want, Arianna—to protect you.”
    I swallowed, thinking of Adam and how he believed in me. “I know. But I want to do this.”
    Roberta sighed and sat down heavily in her chair. “It’s my fault,” she muttered. “I should have let you move into field work.” She opened a filing cabinet and, from the very back of the drawer, pulled out a bottle of Scotch.
    Roberta drank?! During the day?
    She must have seen my look. “Only on special occasions,” she said. And she poured two glasses, handing me one.
    I stared at the amber liquid. My brain was still trying to catch up. “You’ve been a great boss,” I said truthfully. Until today. And maybe she had just been trying to protect me. And what she’d said was true—I was fucked up. But I hadn’t wanted her to tell Adam that and I hadn’t wanted to hear her say it. Hearing that conversation had made me want to prove her wrong and impress Adam even more.
    “I know you want to get out of here,” Roberta said despondently. “I just—You’re so good at what you do, Arianna. I need you here. And I don’t want anything to happen to you.” She looked me in the eye. “Russia’s nothing like America. It’s hard. Brutal. Adam should know better—he worked over there for years before he got moved up the ladder. I can’t believe he’s even thinking of sending you. I don’t even understand why he wants to do this op in the first place.” She shook her head. “Look—don’t do this. Not Malakov.”
    “I can do it,” I said, with a certainty I didn’t feel.
    “Can you? Really?” She sighed. “This sort of man can be charming, but underneath he’s pure ice. He’ll kill you if he finds out. He won’t hesitate. Mafia guys are all about loyalty. You’ll be violating that in the worst possible way. And if you can keep him fooled, you’ll have to be with him.” She sipped her Scotch. “God knows what he’ll want in the bedroom. A man like that, Arianna, he’s not going to be…” She sighed again. “He’s not going to be like one of your boyfriends.”
    A chill went through me. A chill that changed to heat when it hit my groin. God, what’s wrong with me? I flushed.
    When I met Roberta’s eyes again, she was staring right at me, a worried look on her face. She can’t know how I feel about him...can she?
    “Arianna, reconsider,” she said. “You’re about to get into shit you can’t handle.”
    I took a deep breath...and shook my head.

 
     
     
     
     
     

     
     
    Airports all look the same. That’s what my dad used to tell me, when he returned from a business trip. But Moscow was utterly, terrifyingly alien.
    There was something in the air, as soon as I stepped outside the terminal building. It felt harsh against my lips, as if they were being scoured. It wasn’t just the cold, although it was snowing and a long way below freezing. It was the rawness of the air. It made the air back home seem warm and perfumed and soft as satin.
    Behind me, the terminal building was like a long, green bottle on its side, all clean lines and elegant curves. Beautiful, but uncompromising. And on top of it, in huge metal letters, a sign in Cyrillic that looked straight out of the Cold War. I spent all day listening to Russian, back home, but to see the unfamiliar letters was still a shock. Your brain gets used to the alphabet, ever since you were a kid watching Sesame Street. Stumbling over letters again is like suddenly forgetting how to swim.
    I hadn’t been ready for customs, either. It wasn’t that it had taken a long time, or that they’d asked all that many questions. It was just something in the look the officer had given me, the way he’d almost flung my passport back to me. Travelling from the US to Mexico or Canada—the only other countries I’d ever been to—I’d always felt welcome, or at least