“I know that part,” Mia said. “That’s why I was sent there-to help uncover the ring of thieves.” She’d been thrilled to get an undercover assignment so quickly after finishing her training. “But you were Diego.”

“Not at first. After he was killed, the director of intelligence came to see me.”

Tiny Calandria had a director of intelligence? The island was barely the size of Manhattan.

“He and his men had decided the best way to trap all the would-be thieves was for me to go in and pretend to be Diego. We told no one. Not even the Americans who were assisting us. As no one knew Diego had died in a car accident outside of Paris, it was easy for me to step into his place.”

She walked to the wooden railing at the edge of the vegetable garden and rested her arms on top. Her head hurt from trying to get all this straight. “You were a plant?”

“Yes.”

“Then you were never the bad guy.”

“Not in the traditional sense.”

Mia would deal with that later. When she was alone, she would pick apart his story, piece by piece, and try to get her mind around the fact that Diego hadn’t been bad at all.

She looked at him, then wished she hadn’t. Listening was safe, but seeing the differences in his appearance startled her. Not that he wasn’t good-looking now, but everything was wrong.

“You set me up. You wanted me to see you die so I would report that little tidbit back to my government. You used me.”

“I didn’t want to, but there wasn’t another way. Per the plan, the authorities arrived to arrest everyone. You escaped, Diego’s people watched Diego die, and the heritage of my country was restored.”

All very tidy, Mia thought, except for the fact that she’d been in love with Diego. She’d gone against all her training and her beliefs when she’d found herself falling for the man she thought was the enemy. Torn between what her head told her was right and what her heart begged her to claim, she’d barely been able to function.