Sainted Read online

  Sainted

  Heather Slade

  The Invincibles Book Eight

  Copyright © 2021 by Heather Slade

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  978-1-953626-42-4

  Contents

  SAINTED

  1. Harper

  2. Saint

  3. Harper

  4. Saint

  5. Harper

  6. Saint

  7. Harper

  8. Saint

  9. Harper

  10. Saint

  11. Harper

  12. Saint

  13. Harper

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  30. Saint

  31. Harper

  32. Saint

  33. Saint

  34. Harper

  35. Saint

  36. Harper

  Epilogue

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  1

  Also by Heather Slade

  SAINTED

  1

  Harper

  I flexed my hands, stiff from clenching my fists so hard there were nail marks in my palms.

  I hated flying.

  Not that I had much experience with it. Today was only the second time I’d been on a plane. The first, I wasn’t alone like I was today. Then I’d been with my fiancé. The man who was supposed to become my husband. Keyword: was. As of this morning.

  Since he wasn’t, I was on a plane alone, sitting in first class with an empty seat beside me. Like that song by the country singer—I should get drunk. What was the line? Drink cheap champagne from a real glass? Except the glasses weren’t real.

  I swirled the ice melting in the plastic cup, wishing I’d asked for something stronger than soda. I’d tell the stewardess—flight attendant, as my ex-fiancé had corrected me on my first flight—I’d changed my mind, but she was otherwise engaged, talking to a ridiculously handsome man who’d just boarded the plane. I couldn’t blame her. He was hot. Beautiful, really. His sandy-blond hair looked just this side of shaggy, and his skin was tanned from the sun. When he spoke, though, God, that English accent!

  It made sense he would be British, since I was on a nonstop flight to London.

  London—where I was supposed to honeymoon with Douchey Dave, as my maid of honor, Mouse, had called him when she had to tell me he wasn’t coming. He wasn’t just late, hadn’t been in a horrible accident, or gotten lost on the way to the church. He’d changed his mind. He didn’t want to get married. Not today. Or any other day.

  She’d convinced me I should go to London without him. “He paid for first-class seats; don’t you dare let them go to waste,” she insisted. She hadn’t needed to say it twice. Although I would never admit it to her or anyone else, the real reason I showed up at the airport was that I thought Dave might too.

  I closed my eyes and rested my head against the seat, shaking it at my own stupidity.

  “Hello.”

  I opened my eyes and looked into the sapphire-blue ones of the gorgeous man with the English accent, who was putting something in the bin above my row of seats while the enraptured flight attendant held his drink.

  The last thing I expected was for him to sit down in Douchey Dave’s seat, but since the doors were now closed and locked, I had to accept the fact that my non-husband wasn’t coming.

  “Hello,” I responded when he set his drink on the flat surface between our two seats, sat down, and fastened his seat belt. I pulled the emergency card from the seat pocket and listened as the woman—who couldn’t tear her eyes from the man seated beside me—explained what passengers should do in the event of an emergency.

  “You’re the only person I’ve ever seen follow along, let alone pay attention,” said my row mate.

  “It’s only my second time on a plane.” I glanced with envy at the drink the Englishman nursed.

  “And you’re traveling all the way to London?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Brave girl.”

  “Not really,” I mumbled. When it didn’t appear he’d heard me and I saw him looking at something on his phone, I turned away and stared out the window.

  “Bugger me,” he muttered. Maybe his day was as bad as mine. Doubtful since I was going on my honeymoon without a husband.

  I turned and held up my plastic cup when I heard the woman ask if she could bring another drink. Before I could respond, she was gone.

  “Bad form,” the man beside me said under his breath. “Did you want something?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “What what?”

  He smiled. “Would you like?”

  I bit my bottom lip. The main reason I hadn’t ordered anything earlier was because I had no idea what to ask for. “Whatever you’re having,” I said when I saw the woman returning.

  “Another, if you would, please.” He pointed to his glass. “And a crack of champagne.”

  “Certainly,” she said with a smile. For him. Not me. She hadn’t looked at me since shortly after I boarded and she brought me a soda. I wasn’t sure she’d glanced at me then, even when I thanked her.

  She set both bottles and a fresh cup of ice in front of him, and he poured a little from each before handing it to me. “This is called a scotch fizz. You may fancy this a bit more than the straight stuff.”

  I took a sip, coughed, and sputtered when simultaneously the bubbles went up my nose and the liquid burned my throat.

  “Right,” he mumbled, taking the drink from my hand. “Let’s try something a little tamer.”

  “It’s fine. Really.”

  He unfastened his seat belt and walked the two rows to the front. When he returned a minute later with yet another bottle of liquor and a coke, he proceeded to fill the glass with the soda, added a small amount of alcohol to it, and gave it to me.

  “Thank you, um, sir.”

  When I took a sip, it tasted almost the same as what I’d had earlier without any alcohol in it. I set it on the tray, and he added more rum to it.

  “Drink up. We’re about to taxi for takeoff,” he said, downing what was in his glass. He tossed it in the bag one of the other attendants held out to him. I did the same after guzzling what was mainly coke.

  “I’m Niven,” he said, holding out his hand.

  I shook it. “Harper, and thank you.”

  “Not at all.”

  I gripped the armrests as the plane gained speed, and squeezed my eyes shut. If Dave were with me, it would be his hand I held rather than part of my seat. I felt my cheeks heat, remembering how embarrassed I’d been when my stepmother burst into the anteroom where I’d been ensconced for what felt like hours. “I can’t believe you were jilted at the altar,” she’d exclaimed. That had earned her a glare from my mother, who asked her to leave so she could speak with me privately.

  “I can’t stand that woman,” she’d muttered under her breath. Her sentiment didn’t come as any surprise, given my father had left her for the “skeevy bitch.”

  “What will you do?” she’d asked.

  “I’m going to London as planned.”

  My mother raised a brow.

  “As Mouse said, it’s paid for, so I should take the o
pportunity to travel.”

  She hadn’t had much more to say on the subject. I knew she thought I wouldn’t go through with it. Yet here I was, terrified I was making a huge mistake but at least proving her wrong.

  2

  Saint

  I studied the woman in the seat beside me. She reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly who. She was attractive-ish. Not my usual type. However, could I truly say I had one? I found most women beautiful in one way or another. This one, though, I found inexplicably intriguing. Given we had a little over seven hours to kill, I looked forward to getting to know her better. Anything to get my mind off the bloody events of the last few days.

  Longer than that, if I were being honest.

  It had been several weeks since I turned up at a meeting for a mission involving the extraction of a former CIA contractor to whom the Chinese government had given asylum.

  Securing the invitation hadn’t been easy since a few weeks before, I’d been sacked from MI6 for botching a different mission involving China. Once I was there, getting either of the units involved to add me to their team was even harder.

  As I sat in on the meeting, I felt the disdain of my peers. I hadn’t imagined it; their lack of respect was as heavy as it was thick.

  I’d used the derision to convince the lead operative—Paxon “Irish” Warrick—to let me go along. It was a feeling he’d experienced for much longer than I had. For several months, he, like the man we would be extracting, was believed to be a double agent—a traitor—someone to be reviled, not just by those he worked with, but the entirety of the democratic world.

  Begging as I had was not normally in my wheelhouse. At least not until then. My life had changed, though. I was no longer the bon vivant I’d once been. At thirty, I was young for a has-been, which meant a rebranding was in order.

  If anyone in the espionage community were to ask about me, the first word likely to be used would be lothario. Ineffective would certainly be in the top three. Former MI6 agent would fill the remaining slot.

  It wasn’t just my professional reputation I needed to fix. What people thought of me personally was just as unflattering. What was I especially good at? Seducing women—à la James Bond—I’d heard frequently.

  Perhaps when I set out to become a member of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service, I’d fancied myself to be the real-life version of 007. I’d relied on my looks and charm throughout my life. Not doing so would be a difficult habit to break.

  On the positive side of things, once the extraction had been successfully carried out—albeit with a minor gunshot wound to my right leg—I was one of the few people chosen to interrogate the man the Chinese called a “whistleblower” and everyone participating in the mission referred to as a bloody traitor.

  It was one of the times being British served me, given the American’s betrayal of his country was fueled by his hatred for it. Therefore, having a Brit question him instead of a Yank proved useful. That the Chinese had brought him to the brink of death when his “asylum” turned into detainment, made the man even more willing to give up the secrets we’d wanted him to.

  When I was invited to the celebration of the last part of a yearslong mission, I saw it as a win. It took place two nights ago after the very man who’d given me a second chance, Irish Warrick, was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

  While I’d sworn I would take it easy, the alcohol flowed freely at the gathering that had been arranged to take place in the hotel where most of us were staying. Thus, several of those assembled were more drunk than me. Not that being “less drunk” was something I could tout as an accomplishment.

  I’d approached the bar to order what I promised myself would be my last drink when I noticed a woman—a stunning woman—sitting alone, her glass nearly empty.

  “May I get you another?” I’d asked.

  “Um, I said this would be my last.” She lifted the drink that was now only ice.

  “I’ve made myself the same promise,” I said, motioning to the bartender. “One more, and then I’m cut off for the night.”

  “I guess I could have one more.”

  Three drinks later, for each of us, we were frantically tearing at one another’s clothes in the lift that would take us to the top floor and my hotel room.

  Like with my resolve not to overindulge, I vowed instead tomorrow I would curb my carnal excessiveness.

  When I woke the next morning after very little sleep but hours of mind-blowing sex, I wasn’t surprised to see my lover, whose name I couldn’t recall, had sneaked out sometime between dawn, when we both passed out from exhaustion, and now.

  I’d stretched my arms over my head, checked the time—a little after ten—and rolled out of bed. “One day at a time,” I’d muttered to myself as I looked in the bathroom mirror at the man who looked far more like my father than the way I saw myself.

  Two hours later, I’d walked onto the lift that would take me to the office of the newly named CIA director. Once there, I would request assistance in locating a Chinese national named Jinyan Tai Man. He was the son of a British diplomat and MI6 asset I’d been assigned to protect for the last two years.

  Taking the mission on personally—since I hadn’t yet been able to get support from either MI6 or the CIA—was yet another item on my path to redemption.

  If I were to find Jinyan, who had been in hiding for almost a decade—and whom the US and the UK had great interest in questioning, maybe I’d be able to check “professional reputation improved” off my list.

  I stepped out when the doors opened and, to my utter dismay, came face-to-face with the woman I’d shagged the night before. Repeatedly.

  “Good afternoon,” I said, approaching the less-stunning-than-I-recalled creature who had gone ghostly pale the moment our eyes met. “I’m Niven St. Thomas, and you are?”

  Things hadn’t improved from there. Director McTiernan—or “Money” as he was known to those of us who’d worked with him—exited his office just then. The man had not just an astronomical IQ, but also an uncanny sense when it came to picking up on nuances, particularly between members of the opposite sex. Not that he’d needed it in this case. That something inappropriate had happened between me and Ms. Just One More Drink was abundantly clear.

  He’d stepped out of his office at the most inopportune moment to witness my exchange with his assistant, whose name I still hadn’t learned.

  When he motioned me into his office with a heavy sigh, I decided to change my tack and not even mention the mission I’d originally come to discuss. Instead, I thanked him for inviting me to the prior evening’s celebration. I stood then and told him I’d be returning to England the next day.

  So, here I was, on the first flight I was able to catch, and it had been on standby at that. I wondered if the woman seated beside me—Harper, she’d said—knew the person who had missed the flight, thus allowing me the last-minute seat.

  I looked to where her hands still gripped the armrests. We were close to cruising altitude, and her eyes remained squeezed shut.

  “You can let go now,” I said, tapping the back of her left hand with my index finger.

  She slowly opened her eyes and peered out the window. “I hate that part,” she said, rolling her shoulders. “I actually hate all of it.”

  “Landings bother me more,” I confessed.

  “Why?”

  I was about to launch into a diatribe about failed landing gear and fatigued pilots, but looking into her wide eyes, I refrained. Instead, I changed the subject.

  “I don’t suppose you know the bloke whose seat I managed to usurp?”

  I instantly knew I would’ve been better off terrifying her with the dangers of crash landings. Her face tightened and turned red, and her eyes filled with tears.

  “Bloody hell,” I mumbled under my breath. “My apologies. I shouldn’t have—”

  “It’s okay.” She pulled a tissue out of her bag and blew her nose with all th
e grace of a baby elephant. While that might’ve turned most fellas off, it came to me then whom she reminded me of—Dr. Emerson Charles—the most beguiling woman I’d had the pleasure to get to know and my former boss’ wife.

  “My apologies,” I repeated. “Fancy another drink?” I bloody well did. Rather than wait for her response, I stood and went to the galley.

  “Well, hello again,” said bottle-blonde, heavily made-up, overly perfumed Jane. One would’ve thought with all the physical embellishments, she might’ve spruced up the moniker a bit.

  “Another round, if you’d be so kind. For myself and for the lady.”

  “Of course, sir,” she responded a bit too abruptly. “My pleasure,” she added with a saccharine smile.

  I returned to my seat and set both drinks on the flat surface between the armrests. “I made a right mess of things, and I—”

  Harper rested her hand on my arm. “Please don’t apologize again. You’ve done nothing wrong. In fact, you’ve been really nice to me, considering I’m a blithering, emotional idiot who’s also afraid of flying. You probably hoped you’d be sitting next to someone who had their nose buried in a book or was wearing earbuds and planned to sleep the whole flight. Instead, you won the jackpot when it came to the most annoying person to sit next to for seven hours.”

  I waited for a moment to see if she intended to continue. She took a long sip of her drink, sighed, and looked out the window.