The worst idea Cress ever had?
Well, there were many. Especially since she'd met Carswell Thorne.
But making the executive decision that Thorne would join her in the van for surveillance was topping her list of bad ideas.
She didn't exactly want to be inside at the Dalian International Conference either. But having him in the van with her was all her fault. She was the one who'd insisted he even come along to Dalian. At the time it had seemed like the right thing to do. If he was right there with her, she could make sure he didn't pull any cons on them. But now she was stuck with him in the van, their entire history jumbled between them like dirty, tangled laundry.
And everything he'd confessed on the plane...
She tried not to think about it.
"What does this button do?"
Cress nearly jumped out of her skin as Thorne sat down next to her.
"Stay in the back where I can see you," she said, swatting his hand away from any and all technology.
"Shouldn't you be able to see me better if I'm next to you?"
Cress pointed at the huge panel of camera screens, one of which focused on the back of the van. "Get back in your designated seat where I can see you. No funny business."
He went back to his seat reluctantly. "Funny comments okay? On TV they really liven up these stake-outs."
Cress ignored him and went back to monitoring her screens. The Dalian International Conference was filling up with participants, but nobody of interest had shown up yet. Kai was in the exposition hall with a bored-looking Levana at his side. Cress had muted their conversation for now, unable to stand the incessant babbling of the older woman Kai was dating, or fake dating, or both. She would tune back in when something more interesting happened.
Which, if Cress were honest, she hoped was nothing. She didn't want Cinder's team to show up with Iko. She didn't want confrontations or fights or whatever else they thought might happen tonight. She wanted to curl up on her couch in San Diego with a steaming cup of tea, some chocolate, and Th—
Stars, no.
Not with Thorne.
She was over Thorne.
Her whole body shook at the thought that she might not be. But it was just because of his proximity. Some sweet words that were probably made up didn't change everything he'd done to her. They didn't negate everything else he'd said.
"I knew you were lonely and I was irresistible. What else did I need to know?"
"We analyzed Cress and saw that she was someone who lacked connection."
"You had your big, beautiful eyes all wide and vulnerable and trusting me and I—"
No! Cress repeated the more horrible things he'd said and deleted the good just like she was deleting all evidence of her surveillance here at Dalian International. It was all a plot from the start and just because he'd had a crack in his conscience later—
There was movement in one of her screens and Cress snapped to attention. But it was only Thorne, craning his neck to view the screen which featured him. "This is a terrible angle. It's giving me a double chin. Why is the camera so low? Is this a crotch shot, Cress?"
Cress turned red. "I didn't have enough tape to get the camera to stay somewhere high."
"You don't need to watch me." He came to sit next her again. "I mean, if you want to watch me, you can."
Her fists clenched.
"I'm going to breeze right past the double meaning of that," he continued. "I'm trying to tell you that you can trust me. I'm not going to attack you or something. And if I were, it'd be easier to do from behind anyway."
Cress finally met his eyes.
He must have noticed her alarm because he held up his hands. "Please let me sit up here. I'm going crazy back there not knowing what the aces is going on. And I can help. I can, really."
"You literally couldn't even figure out how to plug in the cables when Kai was in here."
Thorne looked around like he was trying to figure out if there maybe was a cable he could plug in. "There are a lot of screens. I bet it's hard to monitor them all at the same time. What if you do all the typing and switching and coding and whatnot, and I just watch the screens? I'm good at watching people." His brow furrowed. "Also breezing past the double meaning of that. What do you say? Let me be your assistant?"
Cress looked back at her screens, wondering how much she'd missed just since he'd started talking. Maybe if he sat up here, he would at least shut up.
Unlikely.
But if he was constantly talking to her from the back?
"Or how about this, Cress? I'll sit here and if someone attacks us, I can protect you…the equipment…whatever needs protecting."
Cress threw up her hands. "Fine! Just sit there, be quiet, and tell me if anything's happening on Quadrants A9 through A12."
"A9…?"
She jabbed her finger at his side of the screens.
"Ah, of course. Have I ever told you that you being so smart is incredibly sexy?"
She glared at him.
His half-hopeful smile face turned into a cringe. "Right. Sorry. Not sexy at all. This is like the most unsexiest thing I've ever done in the history of unsexy. Being in a van alone with the girl you love who's got new hair and some sort of spy costume thing on—"
Cress's nerves tripped as she stared down at the sleek black leggings she'd put on, along with the black tanktop, which she'd worn because it was hot and wasn't that what all tech people who stayed in the vans wore? Black?
"—and she's a genius who's about to stop world domination in a foreign country while you're on a stakeout?" Thorne propped his chin up and stared at his assigned quadrants. "Totally unsexy," he said with a sigh.
"Just concentrate on your quadrants."
Thorne sat up straight, clearing his throat. "All right, I've got Firework over here in A10. She's not doing a great job of disguising herself, so let's hope she doesn't run into Kai and Levana."
Cress raised an eyebrow, distracted by her own screens. "How do you know her code name is Firework?"
"You talk to yourself while you're working on your programs."
"Oh."
"Sometimes you even sing. But that was more at Satellite Technologies. Lately, it's more of a frowning hum, if that's possible."
Something panged in Cress's heart at Thorne's observations. And while normally, she might've blushed that someone had caught her singing or even humming while working, it just saddened her now. She wondered what other things he might have noticed about her — things that usually only those who really cared bothered to notice.
Thorne seemed to notice her discomfort and rubbed the back of his neck. "Maybe we should just focus on the conference."
"Great idea."
He managed to stay silent for approximately one minute and thirty-seven seconds.
"Can you believe Kai is with that woman? Just look at her."
Cress double-checked Thorne's screens for movement, but he was staring at her own quadrants, his chin propped up on his fist again.
She bristled, thinking Thorne was checking out the obvious beauty of Kai's companion. Despite her age, Levana Blackburn was unparalleled in poise, elegance, and good looks. "What exactly am I supposed to be looking at?"
"It's just creepy," he said.
Cress stared at the screen that featured Kai and Levana. They were just mingling. Only problem was, they often conversed in Chinese dialects, so Cress had to read the translations she'd installed, and it was almost half a minute of a delay. But, from what she could tell, Kai was acting like everything was fine and normal, discussing his father's company and introducing himself to Levana's business associates, old and new.
"I know you didn't get a great impression of Cinder at the warehouse," Thorne continued, something hardening in his voice, "but she wasn't always like that. She didn't deserve the way Kai treated her. They made a fantastic couple and he shouldn't have dumped her."
"Cinder said you haven't seen her since college."
It wasn't a question, but all she could think about were the pictures that Thorne had placed in his penthouse in San Diego to trick her into thinking he had a regular life.
"And Boots is dead," she added.
"But he was real. So was my friendship with Cinder, and my friendship with Kai. Cinder and I drifted for what now should seem like obvious reasons, but I didn't realize Kai had turned into such a jerk." Thorne scowled. "He told me we were enemies."
Cress shifted in her chair, unsure of what to say.
"I may have lied about a lot of things, but I never thought in a million years Kai could be involved in all this shit. He just used me to get information about Cinder. Probably to get information about you too."
Her eyes bored into her screen. "Doesn't feel good to be used, does it?"
He didn't say anything.
Cress turned on the audio after a long, uncomfortable silence.
"Ah, Miss Rajam," Kai was saying. "It's so wonderful to finally meet you. Levana has told me so much about all the good you do for charity organizations around the world." His hand pressed into the small of Levana's back.
"This is despicable," Thorne said. "I can't watch them."
Cress finally faced him, fists clenched. "You're not allowed to make those kinds of judgments. After everything you did to me, how dare you?"
But Thorne stayed indignant. "Look, it's different with Cinder and Kai. I don't have years of history with you. I don't use your name for all my passwords. I don't fly across the country and seek information about a girl I brutally dumped and now harbor some fetish for. He's essentially a stalker, if you think about it, going up to old friends and pretending like he's all innocent and shit."
"You pretended to be innocent."
"But I don't have feelings for someone else on the job!" He held up his hands. "I'm not talking about now, with this job, where everything changed. I may have done a lot of bad things, but I'm not treating women the way Kai does."
"You cannot think that you are better than him!"
He huffed. "Uh, yeah? I've never been in a committed relationship. I've never planned on being in one. Meanwhile Kai is two steps away from tattooing Cinder's name on his ass if he hasn't already done it. Did I not mention his password is Cinder? And yet, here he is, doing stars knows what with this random woman."
"You can love someone and still try to move on with someone else. Maybe that's what Kai did. He tried to move on, but whenever he saw you or something that reminded him of Cinder, he found himself still falling back to those feelings. Maybe he hasn't met the right person."
"Cress." Thorne shook his head, something sad coming over his features. "I know you're more romantic and idealistic than many of us, but even you have to admit that sleeping with a woman to get information out of her crosses a line you can't come back from."
"But you—"
"I didn't. I've never. I thought I explained this in the bathroom."
Cress's face heated when she thought of how long she had sat on his lap throughout the turbulence. His arms around her, her body pressed back into him, his words whispering in her ear.
She turned back to her screens. "You think you're different, but you're not. You still manipulate women emotionally with your charms to get what you want."
She cranked up the volume on Kai's audio. "Is that so?" he said. "I hadn't heard those rumors." He turned to Levana. "Do you think that's something my father's company would be interested in?"
Levana pressed against him in a semblance of a seductive hug. "If it is, you'll have to outbid me in the auction."
"Oh? Are we going to fight?" His lips curled into a dashing smile.
"Only if you don't let me win."
Thorne slammed his hand on Cress's keyboard, turning off the audio. "I'm done, Cress. Since meeting you, I don't want to do this anymore. I can't. That's what I'm trying to tell you."
Cress switched it back on to hear a nauseating giggle from Levana. "Oh, you're so bad. When we get home tonight, I'm going to—"
Cress and Thorne reached for the off button at the same time. Their hands brushed against each other and Cress retracted her fingers as if he'd burned her. She shook them out and looked back at the quadrant that Thorne was supposed to be watching, where Scarlet was now meeting up with another person from their team — Kai's team, really.
"Did you hear what I said, Cress?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Stop making these comments. Stop talking about us. Stop talking about something that's never going to happen."
His gaze dropped to his hands. "Never. Right. I screwed everything up."
"And you're going to jail when all this is over."
A muscle in his jaw ticked. "Ask yourself something, Cress. You've blackmailed me, taken control of all my money accounts, located everyone in my life who might have any connection to me. What motivations do I have to stay here in this van with you? Especially if you tell me I'm going to jail when all this is over?"
He got up abruptly. Cress reached for anything — her keyboard, the van's keys, her portscreen — anything at all that could protect her. But Thorne didn't attack her or try to overpower her. He just walked back to the seat in the van that she'd assigned him and crossed his arms.
She opened her mouth but her earpiece crackled. "Cress? Are you seeing this?"
She jerked back to her screens and there was Kai, subtly turned toward a dessert tray with a finger pressed to his ear like they did in spy movies. He spoke so quickly Cress barely caught it. "Left corner of the room, blue hair, braids. She's here."
Cress's eyes flew up to the widescreen of the entire exposition hall and there she was — Iko. Registered to this event as Darla M. And, to Cress's dismay, looking as human as anyone. "She's headed in this direction, making a beeline for the food. Alert Scarlet. Make sure she knows not to engage. We need to know what they want with her first. I'll attempt casual contact at an opportune moment."
"You do realize I can hear you," came Scarlet's irritated voice.
But Kai had already let go of his earpiece and was back with his arm around Levana.
Iko strutted through the crowd, people parting to make room for her. Her hips swung as her heels clattered across the floor in the perfect tempo of a runway model that Cress had never managed. Just seeing her confidence reminded her of the first time she tried to impress Thorne — and ended up with her hair tangled in his zipper.
Iko was possibly even more beautiful than Levana, because she looked less fake. Which, for an android, actually spoke more volumes about Levana, in Cress's opinion. There was movement in another screen, but it was only Thorne in his seat behind her. But instead of his angered stance, he looked like he was drooling over Iko's body as he took her in.
A streak of jealousy came over her, and as Iko slowed her walk and reached the dessert table, Cress felt ridiculous. She had just gotten done telling Thorne now they would never be together. Now she was jealous when he stared at a robot?
"Kai Huang!" the android screeched, flinging her arms around the shocked man. "I've just been dying to meet you."
Hello! Welcome back to Code Name Lunar Gift. I know, I know, updating this one got a little away from me with life, health, other work, and summer vaca, but I'm going to hopefully be able to update more frequently from now on again. As always, if you're still enjoying the story and want more, it'd be great to know that people are still reading/engaged so I feel motivated to update! (That's a blanket statement for pretty much any fic writer). I have several tricks up my Evil LLC sleeve so stick around for some twists I hope you'll enjoy or maybe break you. Hahaha.
