Risking It All: The Proposition / The Dare / The Favour / The P.I. / The Cop / The Defender

But even as the thought went through his head, he knew that keeping his hands off Natalie would be next to impossible.

SHE WASN’T ACTING like a professional. Natalie admitted that to herself as she reached the water. The sunlight glinted off the surface so intensely that she lifted a hand to shade her eyes. The quiet water and light breeze signaled that the day would be hot. The one thing that she’d always prided herself on was that she never let anything interfere with a job.

But last night, they’d…for the life of her, she wasn’t sure what name to put to what they’d done to each other in that shower. All she was sure of was that when she’d seen Chance standing there in the doorway, she’d forgotten all about the job. All she could think of was having him.

Shoving down a fresh bubble of panic, she turned and started up the beach. What she needed was a bit of time to analyze what had happened. More importantly, who had allowed it to happen. From the time she was a child, she’d always loved pretending to be someone else. Her sisters had always enjoyed playing dress-up too, but for her it had always been about more than putting on outfits. She loved the whole process of getting into another person’s psyche. For as long as he’d lived with them, her father had always encouraged her to develop her skill for what he called “slipping into other people.”

With a dry laugh, she angled her path closer to the shoreline. Well, she’d “slipped” into some doozies last night. And the worst of it was, she’d enjoyed it. Never in her life had she felt so uninhibited, so wanton, so desirable. It had been wonderfully exciting until—

The cry of a gull had her shading her eyes and looking out over the water again. The white bird contrasted sharply with the wide expanse of blue sky. It called out again as it soared higher.

Freedom, Natalie thought. “Slipping into other people” offered her the freedom to escape from herself. Oh, she was her father’s daughter all right. But last night she hadn’t been able to completely carry off the charade. In the end, it had been Natalie who’d made love with Chance—in the shower and again in the bed. And…she’d lost a part of herself.

Stumbling, she pressed a hand against the tension in her stomach. Hadn’t she known from the first time she’d looked into his eyes that he could touch her as no other man could?

It wasn’t just the sex. It never had been just about the sex. That was why she hadn’t been able to get him out of her mind for three months. That was why she’d decided to don a disguise for her next encounter with him. She’d done it to protect herself and it hadn’t worked.

Natalie increased her pace and moved toward a part of the beach where tall grasses edged closer to the shore. She just needed to think. To plan. Choosing a spot near a lone palm tree, she sat down, drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them.

What in the world was she going to do about Chance Mitchell? With a sigh, she rested her head on her knees. She supposed the answer to that question was simple and quite out of her hands. In a few days, the job would be over, Chance would go off to work on another case, and she would revert to being Detective Natalie Gibbs. Everything would return to normal, except that the job she’d loved for the past three years no longer held any appeal for her.

With one hand she scooped up white sand and let it flow through her fingers as she considered another question. Who was Natalie Gibbs? A part of her was her father’s daughter, someone who loved dressing up and accepting the call to adventure. But she’d never before tried to analyze just what that said about who she was as a person. Why did she need to escape into other people? Or were they really “other people?” Just how much of Natalie Gibbs was in the people she slipped into? She scooped up more sand. There was a lot of her in the Rachel she’d created, and probably more of her than she’d thought in Calli. And if parts of her really were those other women, then did she know who she was at all?

Natalie wished that her father was with her so that she could talk to him about it. It wasn’t often that she allowed herself to wish for him. At eleven, a year after he’d walked away from them, she’d locked those feelings away. For the sake of her sisters and her mother, she’d had to be strong and in control. But every so often, the need and the emptiness slipped past her guard and filled her as they did now. Even if her father couldn’t tell her what to do, surely he could sympathize. Had he ever wondered who he was?

SWEARING UNDER his breath, Chance jogged along the beach. In the time it had taken him to get down the stairs and out of the villa, Natalie had disappeared from his view again. The moment he found her, they were going to have a talk, and he was going to get her word that she wouldn’t go off by herself again.

Then he saw her, sitting with her head on her knees, her shoulders slumped and he increased his pace immediately. Something was wrong. Natalie never sat like that, and for that matter, neither did Rachel or Calli. He thought of the woman he’d squared off with on that mat in the Meridian’s gym. She hadn’t given an inch. He thought of the woman he’d been with last night, the woman who’d matched each of his demands with one of her own.

Something was definitely wrong. Quickening his pace, he knew the minute that she sensed his presence. Her shoulders stiffened and she lifted her head. But her gaze remained fixed on the water as if she needed a moment to gather herself.

When he reached her, neither of them spoke. He wanted to reach out a hand and stroke her hair, but once he touched her, he wasn’t sure he could stop touching her.

“You shouldn’t go off like this on your own,” he finally said.

Then she did look at him, and there was nothing of the sadness that he’d sensed in her posture.

“I needed to think.” With a smile, she patted the sand at her side. “And we need to talk.”

She was Rachel. Chance was as certain of that as he was that she’d been Natalie when she’d been sad. Suddenly, he wanted the role-playing to stop. He wanted to talk to Natalie, find out what was bothering her.

But telling her now that he’d known all along that she was really Natalie Gibbs could put their whole job in jeopardy. Oh, she’d help him steal the Ferrante diamond. But there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Natalie would hate him for deceiving her. And Carlo Brancotti was good at reading people. Even the subtlest change in the relationship between Calli and Steven Bradford might make him suspicious.

“We’ll have to be quick.” She glanced past him down the beach. “I doubt that we’ll be allowed to be here alone for very long. And I want to tell you where I think the safe is.”

Chance cursed himself under his breath. As usual, she had her mind focused on the job. He didn’t. Chance tabled the war going on inside of him. Now wasn’t the time for his personal problems, but there was one thing he could do.

He took her hands. “I was too rough with you last night. You drove me crazy. I’m sorry.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “You don’t have to apologize.” Then she smiled, and he caught a glimpse of that light in her eyes that was so characteristic of Natalie. Chance once again found himself stifling the urge to grip her by the shoulders and tell her that he knew who she was.

Leaning forward, she brushed her lips against his. “I wasn’t very gentle with you either.”

Her scent filled him and sent pImages** tumbling into his mind.

“I could be gentle.” The words were a whisper against his skin, and then she used her tongue to trace his lips. “I could be very gentle if that’s what you’d like.”

Chance had slipped his hands into her hair and was about to take control of the kiss when he realized that it was happening again. All she had to do was touch him this way, and every other thought shot out of his mind.

He set her firmly away from him. “I think that until we get the diamond, we’d better keep totally focused on the job.”

“I can multitask.”

“I…” Chance paused for a second as he recalled just how good she was at multitasking. Then he cleared his throat. “I’m not as good, I’m afraid. It’s not you. You’re…” He paused again, battling both anger with himself and frustration. “Hell, yes it is you. You…distract me, and I want it to stop. I’ve waited a long time to get Brancotti. Can you understand that?”

“YES.” Natalie studied him through narrowed eyes. She thought she understood a great deal more than what he was saying. He’d spent one night with Natalie and disappeared for three months. Then he’d spent one night with Rachel and turned all business.

Now, he’d spent a day and a night with Calli, and he was all set to run for the hills again.

Chance raked a hand through his hair. “We can pretend we’ve had a fight. You’ve run away to the beach and I’ve followed. That will give us an excuse to keep our distance, and tonight I’ll sleep on the couch in our room.”

Not going to happen, she thought. This time, she was going to have something to say about it. She had a hunch all three of the women inside of her would.

“Do you turn tail and run every time you have great sex?” she asked.

“No.” There was shock in his eyes, followed by a frown. “What are you talking about?”

Keeping her eyes steady on his, she leaned back against the palm tree. “Well, you spent one night with me when I was Rachel and backed off. Now, you’ve spent a day and a night with Calli and you’re ready to back off again. My cousin Natalie never said you were a coward.”

His gaze narrowed. “I’m not. I’m concerned about the job. Don’t tell me that you aren’t having some of the same misgivings. Otherwise, why would you have run away down here to think?”

In spite of the jitters in her stomach, she raised her brows and sent him a cool look. “Sure, I came out here to think and, yes, I find you distracting, too. But not enough to change our game plan. We’ve set up Steven and Calli as lovers who are passionately involved and just a bit unpredictable. Tonight at the masquerade ball, I figure we’re going to need an excuse to slip away together so that we can pin down the location of the safe. Sex is something that Brancotti understands, and we’ve laid the foundation for it.” She reached over to pat his hand. “Stop worrying about the sex and let’s concentrate on getting the diamond. I think I know where the safe is.”

“He showed you his office?”

“Twice. When he finished showing me the gardens, he let me into the house through the wing where he keeps his ‘workspace.’ He didn’t take me inside, but he made sure I saw the coded keypad.”

“That’s where the diamond is?”

She shook her head. “That’s where he wants me to think it is.”

Chance frowned. “Then you think he suspects you?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Well, yeah. We’re in a room where we can’t even talk to one another unless we go in the bathroom and turn on the shower.” She shrugged. “But I think he suspects everyone.”

“Okay. So why don’t you believe that the diamond is behind the door with a keypad lock?”

“Because of a couple of things. One, he’s a man who believes that he’s smarter than anyone else and constantly likes to prove that. And two, he told me himself that he likes playing games.”