Dangerous Illusion

Good reminder. The world righted itself again. That big, muscular bronzed body of his was unkickable…and that was as far as she’d trust him, no matter how often he fed her.

She got to her feet, and the world took a sharp turn right—uh, right or left? She blinked to reorient herself, but even half a dozen did nothing to reduce the sudden vertigo.

The low growl shivered into her nerve endings; his arms came around her, keeping her upright. “Come here.” A moment later she was in the big, padded wing chair she kept for customers. He crouched down right beside her, putting a morsel of warm sweet roll between her lips. Its rich flavor burst onto her tongue with lush stickiness. “How long has it been since you ate?”

She welcomed the taste of the honey, nuts and fruit inside the roll, like a fruity baklava, with a soft moan of delight. “I haven’t been hungry.”

He fed her another piece. “Get hungry. You can’t get away with erratic eating habits anymore. You’re a mother.”

His blunt words made her stiffen, but he was right. She couldn’t function properly if she allowed the stress of McCall’s eruption into her life to disrupt her eating habits. She couldn’t escape if she was too weak to run.

How ironic that the one person who should want her weak and needing and afraid was feeding her, taking care of her, keeping her strong.

He’s just trying to make me trust him. But she couldn’t stop eating the wonderful food, couldn’t hold back from looking into his eyes…eyes so tense and filled with commanding, compelling desire, she gave a hot shiver. His taut, muscular frame, masking burning heat and hiding a leashed savagery, made her feel alive and strong—and like a woman for the first time in a decade.

“C’mon, Beth, I know you like it. Open your mouth.” The low, sensual growl didn’t startle her; it had long ago become part of her, waking or sleeping, an internal “on” switch only he knew how to find in her. She opened her mouth for him without even making the conscious decision.

Frozen. She’d been frozen since Papa told her that the man she adored was a traitor to his country. Her emotions encased in a delicate layer of ice, afraid to trust her own judgment. Now the ice was melting. With one look from his forest eyes, fire slammed into ice and kept on burning, hard and bright and remorseless as the sun. Within a day he’d brought her back to life. The ice that had been her protection for a decade was a puddle of warm, slushy water at his feet.

She automatically opened her mouth for more food when he urged her, finishing the roll and fruit salad with yogurt.

“Good girl,” he whispered in her ear, making her shiver, warm and sensual. Fear and distrust, sweetness and pain, defiance and trust and need…McCall left her in a perpetual state of confusion. A man absolutely and utterly wrong for her, yet so right….

Yes, a hit man in the employ of an arms and drugs dealer would be just right for a woman on the run.

Yet when he held the polystyrene cup to her mouth, she drank, as trusting as a baby, and another taste explosion filled her. Oh, joy—her favorite South American blend of mocha coffee! She moaned as the exotic sweetness ran riot on her tongue. With cream and sugar, just as she liked it. Just as he’d brought it for her years ago, complete with hamburger and fries. Nobody else dared give her food that could make her put on a single ounce. But Brendan had known how much she loved rich food and drink; it was her personal ambrosia and nectar, and by the time she’d met him she’d no longer cared if she was super-thin or not, a supermodel or not. And he’d known that, too.

He knew too much…oh, dear God, what had she done? He’d set her the simplest of tests, and she’d failed!

She didn’t dare let her gaze fly to his, or let herself stiffen. Danny, think of Danny! “Oh, this coffee’s good….” Her purr was alive with sensual discovery. “Would you mind telling me what blend it is? I’ll have to put it on my shopping list.”

“Games can only last so long.” He tipped up her chin, making her look at him. “I didn’t buy the coffee to trip you up.”

Maybe he hadn’t, but she had tripped up, and they both knew it. “I’m feeling better now.” She got to her feet. “Thank you,” she said simply. “I hadn’t realized how long I’d gone without.”

He shrugged. “It’s been a while, but I’m kind of used to doing it.” For you.

The unspoken words shimmered in the warm, fragrant air inside the studio, the dangerous half light of the storm outside, and she wanted to scream. For years her cover had been impenetrable. Now, within a day, she was giving herself away with every word and act. Even to allowing him to feed her foods he knew his Delia would have loved. Dizzy as she was, her strict upbringing would never have allowed her to trust a real stranger so completely, the stranger she’d claimed McCall to be…and no man would know that fact better than he, who had seen her freeze when any other man even tried to make the slightest move on her.

She’d never allowed any man to touch her but her beloved SEAL, her Brendan, whom she’d brought to life as he had her.

From that first brooding look, she’d been intrigued; but when he didn’t try to touch her apart from the demands of the photographer, she’d felt drawn. Then, when he actually made her smile and even laugh amidst the crowd of bodyguards, hangers-on and wanna-bes she’d so hated, she’d tumbled, head over feet, straight into first love. She’d given Brendan her heart and soul, her hopes and dreams. So he’d learned what she couldn’t resist, and gave it to her with the smile that made her want to do anything to please him.

Damn it, she’d just revealed another chink in her armor—her unconscious acceptance of the rights she’d once given him to touch her, feed her, care for her. The past she’d tried so hard to lock away in darkness had been brought to light with a stupid cup of coffee and sweet food.

Pull yourself together! Danny’s innocence and freedom—and your life—depends upon this. McCall’s knowledge of you is stronger than anyone alive. You can’t let him see inside, just like he won’t let you see inside him.

Denial was not only superfluous at this point; it was ridiculous, beneath her intelligence and his. So she chose to take refuge in deflection. “I need my wheel now, Mr. McCall.”

His eyes turned as dark as the crashing clouds outside as he got to his feet. He stood before her with feet splayed and arms folded, aggressively male. “Playing the fiddle while Rome burns? It’s too late, too dangerous, to continue to deny what I already know is the truth. We have to talk.”

Meeting fire with fire, she lifted her chin in cool challenge, daring him to keep trying to get inside her mind. “We do? We do—does that mean you’ll give me something beyond your tourist prattle and your former rank and serial number?”

The walls slammed into place before her eyes, bricks and mortar rendered in granite. “I thought not.” She nodded toward the door. “Mr. McCall, this is still my property. Watch from across the street. I may not have any customers until after the storm, but you’d scare any off that dared to come out in this weather.”

He took a step toward her, two. “That’s the intention.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Well, we’ve come forward—some honesty at last. Maybe soon you’ll even tell me what you want from me.”

Taking the final step, he touched that high-held chin. His gaze, burning hot and dark as starless midnight, settled on her mouth, and she shuddered in raw desire and hopeless confusion. “Take out the ‘what’ and ‘from,’ and you get the picture. I want you, no matter what your name is.”

Aching, she lifted a hand, and the dry clay on her fingers and palm cracked and fell to the floor at the same time as thunder split the sky outside—and his last words penetrated her consciousness. Her hand fell. “More honesty. That’s impressive. A shame it all seems to revolve around your delusions of who I am.”

He gave a low growl of frustration and cupped his hand around her arm, his touch as tender as his words were uncompromising. “You don’t have much time left. They’re on the move. He’ll come himself this time. And he’s not coming to reclaim his wife. You humiliated him in front of his people, his world. He’s coming to kill you personally.”

On some deeper level she felt the gentle motions of his hand supporting her, but over and above it was the whitening of her cheek, like a gunshot to a vein leeching out her life force. Control, control… It took all she had, drawing on strength she didn’t know was still inside her after so many years on the run, but she didn’t sway into him, or lean on him. “Let go of me.”

His hand dropped. He took a step back. Watching her.

Her eyes held his, shattered, pleading. “Let me go. Please. I can make life safe for my son again, if you leave for an hour.”

Fingers curled into palms, making tight fists, as his eyes squeezed shut. A breath came from him as if it had been forced, a warm, coffee-scented zephyr from the heart of a man in torture. “I can’t. God help us both, Beth, even if you and your son weren’t in more danger than you can handle, I can’t.”

She dragged in air. His scent came inside her like a beloved enemy, and she knew that scent, heat and coffee and rain, ancient pain and pagan need, would haunt her for the rest of her days. “Don’t do this to me. Don’t destroy my life.”

Eyes bleak as midwinter opened. “I don’t have a choice. You have a day, two at most. You’ll need me when it all goes down.”

You don’t have much time. They’re on the move. The echo of his voice kept resonating back to her, each time more urgent, more imperative. You humiliated him…he’ll kill you personally.

Given what Ana had told her about Falcone, every word made perfect sense. Did he know from personal experience?

“There’s an umbrella in the stand behind the door,” she said quietly. It wasn’t an inference; it was a command. Go.

Without a word he tossed the coat over his shoulder and strode out into the rain. Half-wild storm winds swirled around him, soaking him. And from the hill across the road he watched still, tense and strong and with an overwhelmingly masculine beauty. Yet he’d never looked more alone.

She turned from the sight, aching with regret for what couldn’t be. Whether he was a good guy or in Falcone’s pay, no matter how she felt about him, she didn’t have a choice.

You have a day. Two at most.

She’d been responsible for enough deaths. She had to get away—from here, and from McCall—before she killed him, too.

McCall stood across the road, watching her close the store. Though the rain worsened with the close of day, his coat stayed slung over his shoulder; he barely noticed the lashing bite of the hard-hitting needles of water. All his life, from fishing boats to the navy and SEALs, and now with the Nighthawks, he was used to extremes of weather, especially water. He was used to being alone and cold; it didn’t bother him.

What got to him was Beth dismissing him. Take the umbrella and go. Watch me from outside, out in the rain where you belong.

Even when she’d said she loved him a decade ago, he’d always felt on the outside looking in with her, a guttersnipe daring to look at a duchess. Nothing had changed in ten years, except her address and marital status. The freezing tone of her voice—the dismissal bordering on contempt—left a slightly acrid taste in his mouth, as if he’d inhaled the cordite from a smoking gun.

Yeah, and the gun was from his own pocket. Being near her was a constant game of Russian roulette, yet like a fool he just kept on turning that barrel….