**** PART THREE ****

Hearing her voice, Michael turned around. "Let's go." He said, indicating for everyone to load into the van. Once aboard the plane that would fly them to Italy, Nahla found herself seated next to Michael, and directly across from Roarke. Mentz and the rest of the team were settled further in the back.

Sitting with her head cradled in her hands, she was startled when a hand settled on her shoulder. "You'll be fine. We'll be near so you don't need to worry." Michael said, giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

Nahla lifted her head to look at him. "What I'm worried about, even you can't save me from."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Roarke inquired.

Nahla blushed at the thought of telling Roarke her worries; it was a private subject she wasn't comfortable with talking about openly. As it turned out, Michael seemed to read her mind, but didn't have such qualms.

"She may have to sleep with the target," he explained.

Nahla could have happily melted through the floorboards at his comment. Instead she had to settle for smacking him on the arm. "Thanks a lot, Michael. Why don't you just tell the rest of the plane my private business while you're at it!"

"They already know, it's common knowledge regarding valentine missions."

"Michael, your finesse needs a little fine-tuning. Have a heart will you?" Roarke said, paying attention to Nahla's obvious discomfort. "Are you worried about Jace?"

"Jace?" Nahla asked. "Jace is SO going to freak out when he finds out!"

"Finds out? He doesn't know?"

Nahla shook her head. "No, because I knew he'd wig out. I've got enough to worry about without that added to it."

Roarke reached across the aisle to take Nahla's hand. "I'm sure he'll understand. It's not like you have a choice in the matter. "

At that statement, Nahla felt tears well up in her eyes. "It's SO not fair! It's not supposed to happen this way!"

"Nahla." warned Michael.

"What?!" she cried. "You think I don't have a right to be upset about this?"

"Just do the job, and leave your personal feelings out of it." he said.

"Don't you dare try to tell me what I should feel!"

"OK, what's going on that I obviously don't know about?" Roarke asked, clearly confused.

Nahla paused before giving an explanation. "Let's just say that Section is making me do something I've never done before."

Roarke furrowed his eyebrows, still unclear as to what she was trying to say. "I know you've never been on a mission before, especially a valentine mission, but ."

Nahla shook her head. "No, you don't understand," she paused again, this time longer than the first. "I've never done *it* before," she explained.

Realisation slowly dawned on Roarke and his eyes quickly cut to Michael. "You knew about this?"

Michael didn't say anything for a moment, but just looked at Nahla and Roarke with his typical blank stare. "Yes."

"Son of a bitch!" Roarke exclaimed, drawing the attention of several operatives behind them.

"Keep your voice down." Michael hissed. "Yes, I knew about it but there's nothing I could do. I tried to find another operative to take her place before the mission went active but I didn't have enough time." He said to Roarke before turning to Nahla. "I'm sorry," he said, letting the mask slip just long enough for her to see he truly meant it.

Nahla nodded, accepting his apology. "Thanks for trying though."

Roarke still held her hand in his, and gave it a gentle squeeze. "I'm sorry too, that they're making you do this."

Nahla shrugged. "Maybe I'll get lucky and things won't go that far.

The flight was long and Nahla wondered if they were ever going to get there, but arrive they did. It was late afternoon, but the day had been warm. Mentz and Nahla took a separate car from the airport to the hotel, the rest of team would follow later that evening.

The hotel was very old and absolutely gorgeous, it nearly took Nahla's breath away. They quickly checked themselves in and retired to their room to freshen up before dinner. Once in the room, Mentz set up his laptop to check in with Birkoff. Everything was in place and ready to go.

Madeline had chosen a beautiful full-length satin gown in iced lavender for Nahla to wear. The satin was overlaid with real Italian lace. She wore her hair down, for she was told that Vitriani would be more receptive to it that way. Mentz wore a black tuxedo that Nahla had to admit looked very good on him.

Arriving in the dining room, they were ushered to a table near the centre of the room. Nahla noticed Michael sitting at a table near the back, and Roarke sat at the bar. Unknown to Nahla, Vitriani sat a few tables away. The waiter took their order and they settled in to enjoy dinner.

Nahla expected to meet Vitriani sometime during dinner, but it seemed someone had other plans. Just as she was taking a bite of the steak in front of her, Mentz suddenly threw his napkin in his plate, obviously upset about something.

"What do you mean you won't sleep with me?!"

Nahla was absolutely mortified. "What are you doing??" she hissed, looking around at the looks his scene was causing.

"Why do you think the reservation is for one room and one BED?" He said, loud enough for the few tables around them to hear, but not the whole room. There were several nervous titters.

Nahla didn't catch on that the scene Mentz was creating was simply to get Vitriani's attention and so she lashed out without thinking. "Hell no I won't sleep with you!"

"Are you really that naïve, Nahla?! Well to hell with you! The little miss innocent act was cute, but I thought it was just that, an act. Now that I see it's the real deal, I don't want any part of it!" and with that he stood up and strode out of the room.

Looking around, Nahla saw that several people were staring at her. A few were even shaking their heads, almost as if they felt sorry for her. It proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back. To her horror, she knew she had to get out of there before she started crying right here in front of God and everyone else. To hell with meeting Vitriani.

Not two seconds after her own flight from the room, Michael and Roarke watched Vitriani stand and leave the room, they hoped to follow after Nahla.

"Cooper, confirm that target is following Nahla." Michael whispered, the Comm unit he wore picked up the softly spoken command and transmitted it to the rest of the team.

"Confirmed. Target is following subject, the plan worked." came the reply.


**** PART FOUR ****

Nahla found a quiet hallway off the main lobby and seated herself in one of the large wingback chairs. What was she to do? There was no way she could go back to the room and chance running into Mentz.

Damn! That meant she didn't have a place to stay tonight, didn't have any other clothes, no money. And she couldn't contact Michael or Roarke or anyone else from the team because it would expose them. She wasn't supposed to know anyone else here besides Mentz.

"Excuse me, miss?"

Nahla looked up into to find an extremely handsome gentleman standing in front of her. "Yes?"

"I hope I'm not bothering you, but I happened to witness that little altercation in the dining room, and I came to see if you were alright?"

Nahla turned beet-red, hiding her face in her hands. "Oh I'm so embarrassed I could die!"

"If you don't mind me saying so, the guy was a class one asshole for treating you like that. I'd say it's his loss and my gain."


Nahla's head snapped up. "Your gain?"

He smiled and it transformed his features from handsome to drop dead gorgeous. "Yes. You can't tell me you're considering going back to him?"

"No, I'm not," Nahla replied, wondering why she was allowing him to stand there and play twenty questions with her.

''I noticed your man's departure interrupted your dinner, would you care to join me and get something to eat?"

Nahla was completely baffled. "I'm sorry, but I have a strict rule against having dinner with strangers, Mr. ?"

"Vitriani. Domingo Vitriani," he said, bowing his head slightly in greeting. "But my friends call me Dom."

'This was Vitriani??' Nahla thought to herself. This man didn't even come close to resembling the picture Operations and Madeline had shown during her briefing in the Perch. If she had been deceived about his appearance, what else had she been deceived about?

Suddenly it clicked what Mentz had been up to in the dining room. The entire scene had been staged to gain Vitriani's attention. But why hadn't they told her? You could bet that somebody had some explaining to do.

"And you are?" Dom asked, bringing her attention back to the present.

"N-Nahla," she replied with a slight stutter. Regardless of the fact that he was a target, she still got nervous when it came to talking to men, especially when that man was gorgeous.

"Well, N-Nahla," he said with a grin, "now that we've introduced each other, you can hardly say we're strangers. So what do you say to dinner?"

Trying to give him the impression she was considering his request, Nahla remained quiet for a moment before agreeing.

"Great!" he said, extending a hand to help her rise from the chair. Once on her feet, he tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow. "Shall we?"

Smiling shyly, Nahla nodded. As they approached the dining room though she came to a dead halt.

"What's wrong, having second thoughts?" he asked.

Nahla shook her head. "No, but I can't go back in there after what happened earlier."

Dom smiled. He hadn't found a gem like this one in quite a while. "Not a problem, the manager here is a good friend of mine, I'm sure I can arrange for a private dining room. If you don't mind waiting here for a moment, I'll go find him."

"Ok," she answered. The moment he was out of view, she heard someone clearing his or her throat. The sound caused her to glance in that general direction. Michael was seated in a chair a few feet away from her. She hadn't seen him as he'd had a newspaper open to hide his face.

She moved over to stand in front of the flowering plant situated on a table near his chair, acting as if she were looking at the plant and not speaking to the man next to it.

"Where did he go?" he asked.

"He went to see the manager about getting a private dining room. And why didn't anyone tell me what Mentz was going to do?!" she whispered
angrily.

"Your reaction had to be genuine," he told her. "How are you holding up?"

"Fine so far, but then we haven't gotten down to the nitty-gritty yet have we?"

"Nahla."

"I know I know, don't lecture me, not right now."

"Michael, wrap it up, Vitriani's on his way back." Roarke chimed in through the Comm unit.

"Return to where you were standing, he's coming back." Michael told her.

"How.?"

"Go!" he ordered.

"Alright alright, don't bark at me!" She had just made it when Dom came back into view, accompanied by a man whom she assumed was the manager.

The manager led them to a simple yet elegant private dining room adjacent to the main dining hall. Over the next hour, Dom's charming personality helped Nahla relax and begin to enjoy his company. They spoke on several subjects, finding they had many things in common. By the end of the meal, the line between what Section had told her of this man and what she was seeing for herself was blurring.

As the dishes were being cleared from the table, Nahla stifled a yawn behind her hand.

"Am I boring you, Nahla?" Dom inquired.

"No, of course not! It's just been a very long day and I guess it's finally catching up with me," Nahla replied. A moment later something caused her to frown.

"What's wrong?"

"I just realised that I don't have a place to stay tonight."

"Not a problem," Dom said, smiling. "I'm sure there are plenty of open rooms, you forget I know the manager."

"That's true, but all my things, including my purse and wallet are upstairs in a room. And I don't want to face *him* in order to get them." Nahla spoke with a hint of despair in her voice.

"Now now, my dear, that can be easily remedied. Since we're finished here, why don't we take a stroll up to the main lobby and let me see what I can do."

Not knowing what else to do, Nahla agreed. Once they arrived in the lobby, Dom left Nahla seated on a couch while he went to speak with his friend.

"It's all taken care of," he said upon his return. "I have a room for you and the manager is on his way upstairs as we speak to personally retrieve your belongings."

"But how do you know which room it is?"

"Ah ah ah, a man never reveals his secrets." Dom replied with a sly grin, waving his pointer finger back and forth. "Trust me."

Nahla really didn't have any other option but to do just that.

"Why don't we go into the lounge for a night-cap while your belongings are getting retrieved?"

"Ok," Nahla agreed, hoping that maybe a good stiff drink might ease her nervousness.

"If you're ready to call it a night, I can take you up to your room?" Dom offered nearly forty-five minutes later.

Nahla nearly panicked, the moment she had been dreading was suddenly here. Was he going to simply bid her goodnight at the door, or was it going to require something more? "Thank you, I'd appreciate that."


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