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“You’re so damned beautiful.”
Holt drew back a step. “We shouldn’t do this.”
“I disagree,” Cecelia insisted.
Of course she would. But it was a mistake, more on her part than his.
“I don’t want to be gentle with you.” He wanted to scare her, wanted to back her off. But it wasn’t fear he saw in her eyes, it was…anticipation.
“So don’t be gentle.” She tugged at his tie and slid it out of his collar.
“Cecelia.” It was the only coherent word he could get past his lips.
“I’m right here.”
Her fingernails scraped lightly across his chest.
“I’m not that white knight you’re looking for,” he said with an ache that almost undid him.
“I don’t care.”
Would-Be
Christmas
Wedding
Debra Webb
DEBRA WEBB wrote her first story at age nine and her first romance at thirteen. It wasn’t until she spent three years working for the military behind the Iron Curtain and within the confining political walls of Berlin, Germany, that she realized her true calling. A five-year stint with NASA on the space-shuttle program reinforced her love of the endless possibilities within her grasp as a storyteller. A collision course between suspense and romance was set. Debra has been writing romance, suspense and action-packed romance thrillers since. Visit her at www.debrawebb.com or write to her at PO Box 4889, Huntsville, AL 35815, USA.
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Contents
Chapter One
The National Mall, Washington, D.C.
Thursday, December 18, 11:45 a.m.
So this is how it feels to be a traitor.
Emmett Holt exited the metro at the Mall. Of all his less-than-admirable traits and accomplishments, this one had brought him to an all-new low.
There was no going back from this, no explanation or excuse he could offer for the damaging evidence he was about to hand over. While it was only a flash drive, it felt like a fifty-pound weight-lifting plate from the gym. He knew Director Thomas Casey had someone tailing him and he knew better than to waste time trying to make that identification.
If this sting backfired, if either Thomas Casey or his nemesis, Bernard Isely, got impatient, Holt—standing between them—would get cut down in the crossfire. Not exactly the way he’d seen himself going out of this business, much less this world.
Handing over the reports from the Germany mission when Casey had killed Isely’s father was a stop-gap measure. Isely wanted both the intel on the old mission and the vial of the deadly virus Mission Recovery had seized two months ago.
It didn’t take a genius to know Isely wanted a whole hell of a lot more than that. The man had one goal: to exact revenge and destroy Director Casey.
Holt was running out of excuses to keep both men at bay. And timing was everything.
He walked with purpose toward the National Air and Space Museum gift shop, just another man picking up another gift amid the throng of tourists. The weather was clear and the wind cold, but winter hadn’t turned truly bitter yet and people were still wishing for an idyllic white Christmas.
Holt could only wish he would still be alive come Christmas.
He stopped where the text message had told him to stop, feeling like a damned puppet on a string. Even knowing at the beginning that it would come down to this didn’t make it easier to stomach the reality of doing so. He was used to giving orders, not taking them.
Handing over this tiny piece of technology and the huge intelligence it stored marked the beginning of the end.
It might have been a few years since his last field op, but the skills didn’t go away. They were far too deeply engrained. He checked his phone, made the drop and didn’t die or get arrested as he walked back to the metro station.
“Did my warning help?”
Holt