She was dead.

Panic rose within him, his breath caught painfully in his lungs, he swayed, and he threw out one leather gloved hand to grip the back of the nearest chair, steadying himself.


It had been easy to get into Suite 124, especially as the concierge was an active member of the French secret service. He had barely blinked an eyelid as the man had explained who he was, and why he had wanted access to Cecile Montreux's hotel room.

Not the anglicised Montrose but Montreux, the traditional French surname. A neat little twist, but appropriate, the man had decided as he had waited patiently for the elevator to ascend. Mademoiselle Montreux. Or as he knew her; Ashleigh Kain. The concierge had handed over the passkey with little resistance, strange men demanding to be let into equally strange women's hotel rooms barely scratched the surface of what he had seen in seventeen years of active service. He certainly wasn't going to argue with someone who seriously outranked him, even if it was in a foreign service.

Inside the room it was dark. A left on television was the only source of illumination in the room, and he used the bright, concentrated light to look round.

He saw the minor details first, the abandoned, opened suitcase, the mass of clothes thrown onto every surface, some still with the labels attached. In the white marbled bathroom, he was puzzled by the small dark hairs dusting the sink, reminiscent of his own sink after he had shaved, but these hairs weren't the short bristly stubble of a man, but rather longer, and soft. Picking up a small clear jar, he peered inside it, seeing the two small plastic baskets holding the thin plastic lenses suspended in solution. Strange, he thought to himself, Ashleigh hadn't worn contact lenses when he had known her. Agents were expected to have pretty much perfect eyesight, and if they didn't, then the only option was laser corrective surgery. Nothing less would do. He frowned, puzzled, and put the jar down. He headed back into the bedroom.

It was then he had seen her. She had been lying so still that he had merely glanced over her, not seeing her for shadows.

She was face down, one arm flung carelessly above her head. She wasn't moving.

She was dead, was his instantaneous thought. He swayed, one leather gloved hand gripping the back of the nearest chair to catch himself. Someone had gotten here first, removed whatever threat she had posed. He felt a cry form deep within him, and forced it back with deep breaths.

He had to think. Had to figure out what had happened. But all that came too him was the accusation that swam before his eyes. He had been too late. If only he had been here earlier…

He stretched out a hand, willing himself to turn her still form over, praying her eyes would be shut so he wouldn't have to stare into those cold brown depths. She would be cold to touch, he knew that, and he felt fearful of that coldness.

She stirred.

He leapt back in shock, heart pounding, another cry rising to his lips, until he realised, and he cursed himself for his own stupidity and paranoia.

Asleep, he told himself, she was asleep. He breathed deeply once more, until he felt calm once more. He gazed down at her.

He hadn't seen her for years. At least six years, he realised with a jolt of surprise, and even then, it had been at least eighteen months before then that they had really known each other. Then she had been an attractive young woman, with the vestiges of girlhood still clearly visible, eager, enthusiastic, and keen. There was no doubt that she was still the same girl, but now, there was no denying that she was a woman.

It was a cliché he realised, but an apt one. Her face was rounded, and soft, but there were cheekbones just visible now, that had been hidden under girlish cheeks. Her full lips were parted slightly, her dark lashes swept the top of cheeks, she was soundly asleep. He leant in closer, and saw more of the short dark hairs had stuck themselves to her forehead, and on her rounded shoulders. Her hair was sleek against her head, cropped short, and seemed unnaturally dark in the dim light. He frowned, realising the style was new, and it seemed strange to him that she had taken time out to get a hair cut when she had so much happening to her.

He shrugged, there would be time for answers later. For now he had a message to deliver. He propped the note up against the mirror and hoped that she would see it.

He took a final glance at her, and felt something within him stir. It had been so long, and yet she still had the same affect on him. And that was dangerous.

He slipped silently from the room. It was as if he had never been there.

Inside the room, Ashleigh continued to sleep. One hand tugged at her new shorter hair, strange even in sleep, and then was still again. The TV continued to drone on, the glamorous, and tres chic news presenter smiling glossily into the camera.

'In other news, the Comtessa De Silva will be opening the doors to her glamorous Parisian home for one of the most exclusive social events of the season. Celebrities, politicians and anyone who is anyone will be gathering in the name of charity on Saturday night… '

The anchorwoman continued her enthusiastic monologue, but still Ashleigh slept on.


The next morning Ashleigh smiled politely at the equally polite concierge as she passed over her room card.

'You slept well, mademoiselle?' he asked, a neatly groomed eyebrow arching slightly.

'Yes,' Ashleigh replied, somewhat surprised, 'thank you.'

As she walked through the lobby, she threw a glance back over her shoulder at the man. She felt a flicker of apprehension travel through her. What did he know? Subconsciously, her hand slipped into her pocket and fingered the note she had found that morning.

There were too many questions in her life, and each day merely brought new ones. She was tired of chasing them.

Later that afternoon, Ashleigh wandered mindlessly through the tourist areas of Paris. She didn't care where she went, what she did, she was merely killing time.

This was what real spying was about, she realised as she headed towards the Louvre. The glass pyramid of the building glinted brightly in the strong sunlight. Waiting. Endless waiting. A spy had to be patient, had to wait for the opportunities to present themselves.

She could well remember the days spent pouring over mindless information at MI6, doing all the hard groundwork, searching for each significant detail amongst endless amounts of data. It had hardly been the glamorous life style that she had imagined when M had first offered her the opportunity of joining MI6.

Finding out her father had been a spy, and one of the highest ranking, most elite and important spies in the country had been more than just a shock. She had found herself sitting opposite M, a woman she knew to be her father's employer, but not in the capacity she had thought, her mouth hanging open, the coffee in the cup she was holding rapidly cooling, trying desperately to process the information she had been given.

David Kain had been a 00 agent. Licensed to kill, licensed to thrill as the running joke within the hallowed halls went. Her father? A spy? At first the information had been so overwhelming that she hadn't even made the connection. Her father had died in a car crash, but he had been a spy.

M had realised then that she still didn't fully understand. For a moment she had regretted the decision to tell the girl, after all, she had only just turned twenty one, could she really be expected to fully understand the implications of what had just been revealed? Slowly, carefully, she had begun to explain. How David Kain had died in the line of duty, how the car crash had been a carefully concocted cover story.

At first there had been anger, pure, unadulterated rage, fury that M had so carelessly thrown her father's life away. Then finally, understanding. It had been her father's choice to die for his country, and for the first time in years, Ashleigh had felt close to her father, a father who had become a memory. She was proud of him, she realised, and now she had that opportunity to follow in his footsteps. The training had been enthusiastically undertaken, all thoughts of other careers pushed away as she strove to be her best, physically, mentally, and above all else, to be in the select few that would go forward to become field agents. She learnt how to use the latest technology, how to fire weaponry, she studied martial arts, learning both how to attack, and how to defend.

There had been other shocks. Discovering James's true identity had suddenly explained so much. At first it had been difficult, but he had been encouraging, more encouraging than she had ever known him, supporting her as she struggled through the more intense parts of her training. Learning to kill had been the worse, but as James had rightly pointed out it was a primeval instinct, kill, or be killed. Survival of the fittest, so to speak.

There had been one other major shock.

Alec.

Her teenage years had been filled with idle thoughts of the man, regret that he had died, and intense memories of the few times they had met.

Suddenly she was forced to contemplate the unimaginable, that this man had betrayed everything that she had now come to believe in. And that not only had he lived when she had thought he was dead, he was now truly dead, killed by James Bond.

Alec.

It all came back to Alec, it always did. He was her drug, her addiction, and yet at the same time, her rock. She knew Alec Trevelyan, she thought fiercely, no one else did.

Her decision to join him had not been made lightly. She hadn't even known if he wanted her, she only had her own feelings, and what M had told her to go on. Had M misunderstood?

Her arrival had been through a drugged haze, and met by an extremely reluctant man. They had been suspicious of each other, but in some strange way they had been happy too. Happier than either of them could have imagined. He had come to realise that she wasn't just there to spy on him, she was there because she wanted to be. She had given up everything for him, and that had appealed to his ego.

Love.

She could count on one hand the amount of times he had told her that he loved her, yet she knew, she knew how all consuming their love could be. Yet she didn't know when she had fallen in love with him, or he her. Perhaps they had always been in love, and because they hadn't recognised their feelings, they hadn't understood the implications of them.

At first, they had been suspicious of each other, sidling around, refusing to allow trust into their relationship. But when desire overcame that suspicion, when they had given in to the urgent need, to the passion that brought them together in a night that had been hot, sticky, and desperate, their sweat drenched bodies entwined in a violent expression of their need, they had known.

Known that they were together, known that they could touch each other whenever they wanted, without fear, without suspicion, only with desire, and mutual need.

One night, everything had changed.

Slowly, he had caressed her. Slowly he had touched her, kissed her, surrounded by darkness, enveloped by the heat of the night, she had let him, lazily letting her body take over, feeling him fill her, complete her, a satisfaction she had never known before, wrapping herself around him, her mouth pressed hungrily against his, wanting more, and seeing her own need reflected in his face.

Their confusion had been clear in the silence that had followed. They had lain in each others arms, tentative, shaken, hearts pounding, realising that something had happened in that moment, something that had been threatening them since the moment they had met.

She knew then she could never leave him.

They had slept fitfully that night, both of them tormented by feelings of being overwhelmed.

Suddenly he had woken her, and in the dark hours just before dawn, made his confession.

She had looked into his scarred face, scars that she didn't see anymore, stared into his deep green eyes and knew that he spoke the truth. The response sprang to her lips automatically, as quickly as it had when others had said those words, and she had hesitated, knowing she could only reply if it were true.

It was true. She knew it to be true and so she had whispered it into the night, feeling his arms tighten around her, crushing her to him.

There had been no fanfare, no chorus of angels, and no dramatic change of perspective. It had simply been. They had merely said what they knew to be true, and returned to sleep.

But there was more than one kind of love, and Ashleigh knew that now too. Discovering she was pregnant had been terrifying, she had been alone in a foreign country, with a man she couldn't be sure of, not knowing if he even wanted to be a father. She had blamed the symptoms on everything else possible, the different climate, the change in diet, the stress of her new life, anything to fight back the suspicions that she had been ignoring for at least two months.

There was so much to be frightened of; but at the back of her mind one thought always came through. Children lost parents. She had lost hers, an orphan at the age of thirteen, and Alec had lost his, something she knew would always haunt him.

Her bag had been packed, her ticket from Sicily booked, Alec had been away for the day, and she had planned to be gone before he had returned. She would vanish, and he would never know. She would make her decision later about the child, but for then, she had wanted nothing more than to escape. Parenthood had never been in their plans, Alec wanted a lover, not a mother.

Fate had intervened, she had forgotten her passport, and Alec had returned early. He had taken one look at her packed bags, the retrieved passport in her hand, and the look of stubborn determination on her face and demanded an explanation. He had been furious, and that anger had scared the truth out of her.

They had been married a month later. She had been four months pregnant, her rounded stomach just noticeable beneath the white sundress she had worn. Two English speaking tourists had been dragged in from the street to act as witnesses. It was not the wedding she had dreamt of as a child, but gazing at Alec, dressed in an open necked white shirt, as she stumbled through her vows, it all seemed somehow right.

Five months later, as Christmas approached, her daughter had been born. At first things had been difficult, as she had realised motherhood wasn't as natural as she hoped. Combined with Alec's jealous possessiveness of his daughter, she had struggled through the first few weeks, but finally, the bond had been there.

Natasha had been the key to giving them what they had both always wanted, but never had. A family. Ashleigh could gaze for hours at her daughter, trying to see what features were her's in Natasha's face, and what were Alec's. There was no doubt that the thick dark hair, and full lips came from Ashleigh, but her eyes were Alec's. The grey green colour, the thick lashes, and the intense look were all his, as were the angular cheekbones. Her daughter would break hearts in the future, Ashleigh knew, with the same effortless ease as her father.

Ashleigh stopped walking, feeling the memories threaten to overwhelm her. Angry tears pricked at her eyes as she thought of her daughter, out there somewhere with no one to protect her. She had to concentrate on finding her, or finding Alec. If she could just find him, then they could find Natasha together.

She had come to Paris to find him, a place she remembered from her childhood, but had no idea where to start. The note in her pocket seemed to burn her, had Alec left it for her? The block capitals were as impersonal as one could get when writing, with no sign of Alec's usual flamboyant script, the single sentence merely instructing her of a time and a place. In, she had to admit, not a particularly appealing area of Paris.

She sat on a bench, gazing up at the magnificent structure of the Louvre. She wondered whether it was worth heading inside, and killing a few hours being a tourist for once. The appeal of gazing at beautiful artwork was definitely growing, but as the summer sunshine beat down on her, she shook her head. This wasn't the time to be enjoying herself. Her daughter was missing.

She ran a hand over her hair, feeling the unfamiliar shortness slip through her fingers. The hair stylist at the exclusive salon had flexed his razor in glee when she had described what she had wanted. The sharpened blade had sliced effortlessly through the thick, close to shoulder length hair, tapering it into the neck, creating the jagged crop. Next had come the colour, the black so rich it seemed to glint almost blue in the sunlight. Her eyes itched, explaining to the optician what she had wanted had certainly tested her French language abilities, but the contacts had worked amazingly well.

She almost hadn't recognised herself in the mirror that morning. Deflection. She had never bothered with the technique before, but somehow, she felt it might come in handy now she had half of MI6 on her back, and probably most of Interpol too. They were looking for a woman with longer hair, brown in colour, and with brown eyes. Instead they would see a woman with short black hair, and vivid blue eyes. A form of camouflage, she supposed, and hopefully enough to deflect interest away from her. Even if the blue tinted contact lenses caused her eyes to itch like crazy.

She glanced at her watch. She had just enough time to get back to the hotel and change before she ventured out that evening to meet her mystery note leaver. She felt the rush of adrenaline pump through her veins at the thought; finally it felt like she had a lead.

Fighting her way through the crowds she almost missed the blond hair at first.

Alec?

The thought was in her head before she even realised it. The man was ahead of her, tall, she realised, walking confidently through the crowds.

'Alec?' she whispered. She started forward, struggling to move forwards, suddenly it seemed like everyone else was heading in the opposite direction to her, it was like trying to swim against the tide.

'Alec!' she cried, wanting the man to turn around, to see the narrow green eyes that would flash in recognition, to see him smile as she came towards him.

Where was he? She had lost sight of him, she realised, she glanced around frantically, there! Taking a deep breath, she fought onwards, apologising without realising it as she grew closer…

It was like being rugby tackled, she thought, as she collided with something, or someone incredibly solid. The air was forced from her lungs, and it was all she could do to keep her balance. Her shoulder bag slipped from her grasp and crashed to the ground.

Instinctively, she bent to retrieve her belongings, before realising there was someone else assisting her.

'My apologies, mademoiselle,' a gruff voice murmured close to her. A gold ringed hand reached out, and picked up her battered diary from where it had fallen, offering it to her.

She took it, and glanced up into cool blue eyes, beneath the brim of a panama hat. 'My fault, entirely,' she replied in French, her innate sense of British politeness kicking in automatically.

'Forgive me for asking,' the man, 'but are you alright?'

'I'm sorry?' Ashleigh asked distractedly, reaching for her mobile phone that had crashed worryingly to the floor. She glanced at the man once more, and stopped short.

His face was thrown into shadow by the panama, but she could make out a wide nose, that had been broken more than once in his life time, and a concerned look on face. His jaw and chin were covered in a thick, but neatly groomed beard. He was a solid looking man, she realised, no wonder it had hurt when she had crashed into him. He was in his late sixties, she decided, but still fit, and still a commanding presence. There was no sign of his age as he straightened smoothly, and handed her the bag.

'Its just you seem flustered,' his French was superb, Ashleigh realised, but there was a trace of something else in his accent, something she couldn't quite pick up on.

'Oh,' she coloured, and then shrugged helplessly. 'I thought I saw someone… someone I know…'

Her voice trailed off as she realised how pathetic her hopes had been. Alec was the last person who would be walking openly around Paris.

The man smiled kindly at her. Distractedly she realised he had a gold tooth. 'Perhaps you did, mademoiselle. I'm sure you'll find whoever it was you were looking for.'

He gestured with the bag, and she took it, thanking him for his help. She turned as he walked away, and saw him glance back at her again. Smiling once more, he touched the brim of his hat to her, and then was swallowed up by the crowd.

Ashleigh walked away, dazed to think how easily she had been caught up in her own wild fantasies of Alec being in Paris that she actually thought she had seen him.

She stopped short. Confusion danced across her face. 'But I never said I was looking for anyone…' she murmured, startling the doorman who was holding open the door to the hotel for her.

To his credit, he merely nodded politely at her. Still shaking her head, Ashleigh headed inside. She had obviously been in the sun for too long.


The Bois de Boulogne was an area of Paris that Ashleigh had heard many rumours of, but had never actually visited. Somehow, despite it being a park, she had always somehow imagined it to be like Soho in London, a place that could be entirely respectable, even fashionable by day, and a completely different world at night.

Glancing around the dark, heavily wooded park, she decided that this was nothing like Soho. She walked briskly through the park, making eye contact with no one, definitely not the women, the men, or the strangely asexual figures that catcalled to her, making her offers, that despite their promises, she knew she had to refuse. She stayed near the edges, daring not to venture too deep into the 'Garden of Earthly Delights'.

She wore black, all the better for hiding herself, and she tugged her leather jacket tighter around herself, feeling more vulnerable than she had in some time. It was just like Alec to organise a meeting in a place like this, it appealed to his sense of drama.

'Where the hell are you?' she muttered, then snapped 'Not you,' as a respectable suited man glanced interestedly her way. He shrugged, as if to imply it was her loss, and headed away. Heaven only knew what his suit concealed.

She was feeling more frightened with every minute that passed. It was long past the appointed meeting time, and she felt a trickle of nervous sweat snake down her spine. This place scared her, the woods seemed dark and intimidating, and while she doubted there were any wolves waiting in there, she was scared of its more human occupants.

She screamed as strong arms clamped around her, and began dragging her backwards.

She ground her heels into the dirt, fighting, twisting, desperate to pull away, but whoever had a hold on her was stronger, and intent on dragging her into the night, one hand clamped painfully over her mouth to silence.

'Don't scream,' a voice hissed in her ear, low and dangerous. She nodded slowly, and felt the hand move from her mouth, the grip loosen on her body.

She turned so quickly, she nearly fell, and stared into the face of her mystery correspondent.

Fear turned into outright shock.

'You!' she finally managed to gasp.