Enticed by the Operative (Doctors in Danger, Book 1) by Lara Lacombe

collection of facts, but it was easy to dismiss the risk from the safety of the airplane. Once they were on site, knowing exactly how Olivia took her coffee could be the difference between success or failure.
    She was very precise in her answers, he noted. Her favorite color wasn’t just blue, it was the blue of a cloudless summer sky. Her favorite drink was mint tea sweetened with honey and poured over ice. She didn’t take sugar in her coffee, but instead added cream until it was the color of a brown paper bag. He smiled to himself, enjoying the images her descriptions evoked. It was a good thing she’d been so forthcoming in her replies, as it made his job a lot easier.
    And it was a job, he reminded himself. Even though he found her incredibly attractive, even though the more he learned about her personally, the more he wanted to know, even though she was in danger and he instinctively wanted to protect her, he couldn’t afford to lose sight of the fact that once they returned to the US, they would go back to being neighbors who were too busy to really connect. It was a disappointing thought, but it was better to acknowledge the truth now than be surprised by it later. He wasn’t going to let a woman hurt him again.
    Except... Olivia seemed different. There was no artifice in her gaze, no hint of falseness. Emma, on the other hand, had been a master of manipulation. He’d once marveled at her ability to work a crowd. She worked for an animal rescue charity, and once upon a time he’d been proud to watch her schmooze money out of donors, thinking she was a true believer in the goodness of her cause. She could charm the birds from the trees, and his mistake had been thinking her machinations didn’t extend to their relationship. He’d been so naive. Emma’s work made her a socially acceptable con artist. Sure, she didn’t rob people outright, but she played on their sympathies to separate them from their money, often lying to their faces if it meant getting a bigger check. He’d finally realized she enjoyed her job not because she was making a difference, but because she viewed it as a game. She got a rush from tricking people, and there had been no end to her capacity for deception. She’d seen everyone as a potential mark, and he’d been the biggest fool of all.
    Looking back, he could see all the warning signs he’d missed before. But that was the point of hindsight, wasn’t it? Recognizing what you’d done wrong so you didn’t do it again. Except in his case, all his hard-learned lessons were fading from his mind as he spent more time with the woman next to him.
    Olivia shifted in her seat, then settled into a new position with a sigh. It was a small, intimate noise, the kind a woman made in the middle of the night while lying in bed. It had been a long time since he’d been privy to such private sounds, and hearing one now triggered a wave of longing so intense it made him ache. What he wouldn’t give for the touch of a hand on his body! But he knew from experience that meaningless sex was not the solution to his problem. Scratching a physical itch did nothing to ease the loneliness in his soul, and he always walked away from the encounter feeling emptier. It was why he’d given up dating in the wake of Emma’s betrayal—until he was ready to really trust another woman, being with someone just made him feel worse.
    He glanced out the window, but the cotton-candy clouds obscured most of his view. This was going to be a difficult assignment, but he’d never backed down from a challenge before. He wasn’t about to start now, especially under these circumstances. His team had been tracking cartel activity for the past several years, doing its best to cut off the supply chain in the United States. They’d had some successes, but the satisfaction that came from intercepting a few thousand kilos of dope was tempered by the knowledge that there was a seemingly endless supply waiting in the wings. If