Charmed: A Masters and Mercenar - Lexi Blake Page 0,6
careful enough on an oil rig. He didn’t have Mike’s gunshot scars. But if one was only studying faces, there was next to nothing that would tell them apart. How well did Nina and Mike know each other? McKay-Taggart was a big company and she worked in London while his brother was here in the States. It was possible they’d never met, but he was almost certain she would turn and see him and come over to talk about the fact that his company was the target of international spies and he better not fuck this up.
Maybe he should have gone straight to Mike’s penthouse condo and raided his brother’s Scotch. The beer wasn’t doing much for him.
He needed something else. He needed to be out of his head for a while, but that wasn’t going to happen.
He glanced up and saw Sandra had gone and Nina was looking right at him.
She quickly averted her eyes, but not before he saw the look in them. Like he was an ice cream cone and she hadn’t had a sweet treat in so long.
Neither had he.
Fuck. She would definitely think he was Mike. Was she interested in his brother? Mike hadn’t told him anything about her except that she was highly competent and selected because absolutely no one on the leadership team had come into contact with her, so her cover would be easy to keep. It was precisely why Sandra was going in as backup. She hadn’t been with the company for long. McKay-Taggart had handled many of Malone Oil’s security issues over the years, but Nina was fairly new to the London team and she’d never worked in the States before.
Had she caught sight of him staring at her? Would she be terribly disappointed to find out he wasn’t his brother at all?
“Hi.” She was standing in front of him, a glass of red wine in one hand and a beer in the other. “You looked like you could use another. Please tell me if I’m intruding. I don’t want to bother you, but I’m a bit on the lonely side and you didn’t seem to be waiting on anyone.”
“I’m not.” She wasn’t talking like she knew him—or rather knew his twin. She was talking like a woman who’d seen someone she was interested in. “Please join me.”
She smiled and he was utterly dazzled. “Thanks. It’s been a long time since I chatted up a bloke. You’ll have to forgive me if I’m terrible at it. I’m Nina.”
He loved that accent. It was familiar since his mother had been born in England. She hadn’t moved to the States until she’d married his dad. That accent oddly sounded like home.
He didn’t want to say his name now because he liked the idea that he was nothing more than a guy in a bar and she was a woman who wanted to spend a little time with him. But he wasn’t going to lie to her. “Jackson. But my friends call me JT.”
She held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, JT.”
There wasn’t a hint of recognition in her eyes.
She had no idea who he was. None. She didn’t know he was the heir to an oil company, had no clue he was considered one of America’s most eligible bachelors, had been asked to star on reality shows where he would date twenty women and probably dump them all because no one should find their soul mate on national television. Which was why he’d turned them all down.
He was JT, a guy in a bar.
He reached for her hand and took it in his. “Nice to meet you, Nina. And I’m lonely, too. I appreciate the company.”
It wouldn’t hurt to pretend. Just for a little while.
Chapter Two
Nina wasn’t sure what she was doing, but she knew one thing. She didn’t want to turn back and go to her own room. She’d spent the last two hours with JT. She didn’t know his last name and didn’t care. He didn’t know hers, either. There was something freeing in being JT and Nina.
Not exchanging last names didn’t mean she didn’t know anything about him. She’d found out he worked for his father’s company and his job took him all over the world. He was an utterly charming mix of down-home boy and sophisticated world traveler. He was a good listener. He had a brother and loved his family.
He was so sexy it hurt.
The lift doors opened and he held a hand out, allowing her