TITLE: Undercover Love
AUTHOR: Clairisant
CLASSIFICATION: Webb/Other
FEEDBACK: Would love to hear both good and bad feedback but please try to be kind and constructive. Clairisant
CREDITS: A special thank you to my beta readers Qupeydoll and Shane.
Chapter 1
Clayton Webb loved Italy in the spring, it was fragrant with flowers and the temperature was just about perfect. Unfortunately, it wasn't spring. It was mid-summer. The temperatures were sweltering and the humidity made it hard to breathe. To make matters worse, he was undercover as a bakery assistant! The heat radiating off of the ovens in the small enclosed kitchen made him feel like he was roasting alive.
He'd been on this current mission for a week already with no progress as yet. The only bright spot in his daily routine was another assistant at the shop. Shane Harvey was absolutely gorgeous! She had long flowing chestnut colored hair that she had to keep up in a tight bun covered with a hairnet while she worked. The only reason he knew of its true beauty was that at the end of her shift each day she would let it down and shake it loose. Her sparkling green eyes would glow with happiness at being off work. Then she would hurry out of the shop and get into a sleek Italian sports car and be driven off.
The driver was a wealthy Italian Count by the name of Giraldo VaTalli. The Webb family fortune could easily compete with the Count's. But, while he was undercover, he wasn't Clayton Webb of the Boston Webb's, with his family's wealth behind him. He was Antonio Campanili, poor shop assistant. Hardly a temptation when compared to the wealth and privilege offered by the other man. He'd been wanting to ask Shane out, but how could he compete with the Count without blowing his cover? The answer simply was, that he couldn't. It was times like these that he really hated his job! But he was stuck until he found the leak. The agent reportedly passing info was supposed to be doing it through this little Italian bakery.
It was a highly unlikely place to traffic government secrets through, but that was what was making it so successful! If Agent Hobson hadn't managed to get word to Clay's office before being shot to death in a random mugging, they would still have had no idea about this place.
Clay had been sent undercover because he could speak Italian like a native and with his dark hair and eyes he could also pass as one. That was what he had been doing for the last week, looking for anyone or anything suspicious going on at the bakery. However, nothing had set off his highly trained spook senses. The only thing that had happened was that he'd learned to make several melt in your mouth pastries and he'd fallen in love with Shane Harvey.
So, not only was he keeping lovelorn eyes on her, but his spy brain said that much as he hated it, she should be watched for other reasons as well. She was an American and had a finishing school way of talking, but she was in Italy speaking the language as well as he did and working as shop assistant. But if she was a traitor to the United States, why hadn't he seen any evidence of it this past week? Was he blinded by his love for her or was he off base all together and she wasn't anything more than she claimed?
During the early morning hours, when they were baking the mouthwatering treats that filled the shelves out front of the shop they had plenty of time to trade life stories. She had been trapped in a dead end job and had gotten a small inheritance from her grandmother. Chucking everything, she had headed to Europe determined to learn to create edible masterpieces so she could return to the States one day and open her own restaurant.
He, of course, had been stuck with his cover story. Antonio Campanili came from poor but honest working folks who'd poorly managed their income from the bakery they'd owned. Upon their deaths and settlement of the estate, their son was left with no business to inherit. Now he was forced to work for others to make a living.
To be continued…