* * *
“Trace McKinnon was here to see you, sir,” Alec’s bright young administrative assistant told him the minute he entered the outer office. “He stopped in, said he was early for your meeting and would be back at eight on the dot.” She looked at Alec’s calendar, then added, “He’s not on the schedule.” There was just a hint of reproach in her voice.
“Yeah, I know,” he told her ruefully. “I just arranged it last night. But I knew I didn’t have anything else scheduled for this morning, not until my eleven o’clock meeting.”
He started for his office door but then turned to ask a question. Before he could, his administrative assistant volunteered, “It’s been swept already. I was here when the team came in.”
Alec knew she wasn’t referring to a cleaning team but rather to the electronics team that swept his office daily for listening devices. “You must have come in very early.”
Her laugh held a trace of shyness. “I have a date tonight, and I was hoping I could leave exactly on time...maybe a few minutes early, if it’s okay with you.”
Alec smiled to himself. His administrative assistant, Tahra Edwards, was the person he’d had in mind when he told Angelina that a shy six-year-old would grow up to be a shy adult. Tahra—whose name rhymed with Sahara—was bright, articulate and a real go-getter where her job at the embassy was concerned, but painfully shy when it came to dealing with the opposite sex.
She was far from plain, but lacked the sophisticated veneer most young women her age wore like a shield. She was the kind of woman who appealed to his brother Liam.
“Fine with me,” he said now. “You’re not a clock watcher, and you’ve put in more than your share of OT these past few weeks helping me get up to speed. So feel free to leave early. Anyone I know?” A tinge of protectiveness made him ask the question. Not that he was responsible for Tahra, but still. Any decent man would be concerned, he justified to himself. She’s as vulnerable as a lamb among wolves.
Tahra shook her head. “I don’t think so—he’s Zakharian.”
Alec didn’t know why her answer mollified him—Zakharian men could be wolves, too. But then again, Zakhar was fifty years behind the times in many ways. Men still treated women with old-fashioned courtesy here—unless the women were trying to move into jobs that had previously been reserved for men. Still, it wasn’t a bad thing from Tahra’s perspective. He didn’t want anyone pressuring her—
Then McKinnon walked into the outer office right at eight o’clock, and Tahra’s date was driven from Alec’s mind. “Come on in,” he told the other man. To Tahra, he said, “I don’t want to be disturbed for anything or anyone other than the ambassador. And that reminds me. Try to set up an appointment for me with him, will you? This afternoon, if possible, but if not, as soon as he’s free.”
Once in his office with the door closed and locked, Alec indicated one of the chairs in front of his desk and settled himself behind his desk. “Unless you object, I’m going to take the ambassador into my confidence regarding the investigation,” he said, almost before they two of them were seated.
McKinnon shook his head. “No objection from me—we’d already cleared him. Last night’s meeting was just confirmation.”
“I agree,” Alec said before moving on to the next topic. “I talked with Keira when I got back to my apartment. You didn’t waste any time calling D’Arcy, did you? And apparently he didn’t waste any time, either. Keira told me he’d already contacted her, told her to give us anything we need. Whether or not we ask for it.”
“Yeah, sounds like D’Arcy. So I take it you already gave Keira the list of names last night?”
Alec nodded. “But I forgot to tell her I was going to ask Angeli—Lieutenant Mateja to—”
McKinnon cut him off. “You’re still trying to kid me you and she aren’t involved?” He snorted. “I thought you were smarter than that.”
Alec stiffened. “Whatever’s between me and Lieutenant Mateja doesn’t have anything to do with this case,” he said coldly.
“Maybe not. But I’ll say the same thing you said to me back when I was falling for Mara. If it was important to the case, you’d tell me. Right?”
Something in that steady blue stare reminded him of the way he’d looked at McKinnon when he and Liam had confronted the other man about Princess Mara. Now the shoe was on the other foot, and he didn’t like it. Not one bit. “I had a hell of a nerve back then, didn’t I?” he admitted.