Hidden Hearts

Suddenly he stopped, and she almost ran into him. Roarke’s incredible patience seemed to be running out. He grimaced with distaste at her smell. Right now she was very glad she smelled, because the last thing she wanted was for this too-perfect man to find her attractive in any way.

His charming tone now held an edge. “This would be easier if you cooperated.”

“Cooperate?” She didn’t bother to hide her growing panic. Didn’t care that he looked truly sorry for causing her fear. If he didn’t want her to be scared, he could let her go. “Am I supposed to read your mind and know where we’re going? Am I supposed to know which way you intend to tug me and when?” She didn’t want to go anywhere. Especially to her apartment.

Especially with Roarke Stone.

Chapter Two

Alexandra glanced sideways at Roarke and wondered how to persuade him to head anywhere but back upstairs. Clearly, the man was used to getting his own way.

But she needed to stay in public view. Sooner or later, someone might come by, someone she could call to for help. Or maybe calling for help wouldn’t be believable—not if anyone came close enough to see Roarke’s too-handsome face. Maybe she should yell Fire.

Roarke seemed oblivious to the possibility of rescue. He stood calmly, supremely confident that everything would go his way. Yet when she looked more closely she noted that despite the stillness of his head, his eyes scanned from side to side as he half-led, half-pulled her around the building and out into the sunlight.

The big jerk. If she wouldn’t cooperate, he’d use force. No problem seemed to deter him. Alexandra gasped and yanked him to a halt.

“Now what?” Roarke sounded as though he suspected she was up to mischief.

If he was a bodyguard, which she still very much doubted, he wasn’t taking her situation seriously enough to suit her. But he seemed just too handsome and too supremely confident to be a bad guy. Alexandra had to remind herself that Ted Bundy had looked handsome throughout the trial in which he was convicted of killing several coeds. He’d looked good right up to the day the State of Florida had fried him in Old Sparky, the electric chair. Good looks had nothing to do with morals or whether one chose to be a criminal. Neither did confidence. Or arrogance.

She really didn’t like Roarke Stone. She didn’t like the way he assumed she would go along with whatever he said. She didn’t like the way he used his smile to try to convince her he was a good guy. And she especially didn’t like the way her pulse quickened at his extraordinary looks and kept making her forget how dangerous he could be.

Still, if she had to be manhandled, she preferred Roarke to the man he’d fought upstairs. The man who might have recovered and might even now be waiting for them to return. “That man might still be up there.”

“Don’t worry about him. He’s long gone.” Roarke didn’t blink one long black eyelash at her suggestion that they might be about to walk into danger. He tugged her along the sidewalk toward the steps leading up to her terrace.

“You can’t know he left,” she insisted, knowing that trying to change Roarke’s one-track mind was probably futile.

“I saw him drive away in his Saturn while you were in the Dumpster.”

Ha! She’d caught him. “So you lied to me when you said he was upstairs ransacking my apartment?”

“I said I wouldn’t want that man upstairs having free access to my apartment.” He repeated his earlier words exactly. He didn’t even bother with a sheepish grin when he added, “I didn’t say he was there.”

But he’d implied it. And his excuse seemed too convenient. Roarke must have been born with a remarkable memory to recall his own words with robotic precision. Only there was nothing robotic about the way his eyes lit up with desire when he glanced her way. Nothing robotic about the way her tummy fluttered in response.

Alexandra had met several men like him during her career. Smart. Good-looking. Self-assured. Unfortunately, one was a past boyfriend. And she’d learned not to trust a word Patrick said.

Her ex-lover had been so convincing that she’d often wondered if he had believed his own distortions of the truth. He’d been too handsome for her good—just like Roarke. She’d been naive back then. Before she’d realized that his gorgeous face hid a rotten character, he’d broken her heart. She’d learned a lesson she hadn’t forgotten.

If she could just keep Roarke spinning his tall tales, surely someone would come along soon. Someone who would notice she wasn’t willingly walking alongside him. Someone who would call the fire department when she shouted. But she didn’t yell yet, waiting for the right moment when she’d spy one of her neighbors, knowing she might only have one chance.

She tried to keep her tone conversational. As if every day strange men pulled her along the sidewalk with them. “Why didn’t you go after the man who broke into my apartment?”

“My job is to protect you.”

“Well, I’d feel a lot more protected if the bad guy was in jail instead of driving away.” Her words might be sarcastic, but in truth, she was starting to shake inside. Since she rarely came home during office hours, she hadn’t realized just how deserted the apartments were during the day. Not a curtain moved. No kids played outside.

He spoke with a confidence that didn’t reassure her. “I have the license-plate number.”

“You do?” If he’d written that down, it would help her believe he really was a bodyguard sent by her brother to protect her. Her hopes rose a notch. Surely she couldn’t be lucky enough for this guy to be legitimate. “Let’s see the number. We can call it in to the cops and let them trace it. They might lock the guy up before lunchtime.”

“First of all, I didn’t have time to write down anything.” Her hopes plummeted. With his free hand, he pointed to his temple. “I memorized the number and letter combination. And second, you have unfounded faith in a police department that’s overworked and underpaid. Have you ever reported a crime?”

“My car was stolen once.” It had taken the officers hours to come out and take her statement.

“And?”

“They found it.”

“How long did it take?”

“Three months,” she admitted, wondering how else she could stall. “If my brother Jake really hired you, tell me what he looks like.”

Roarke couldn’t know she’d never seen a picture of Jake.

“I accepted the job over the telephone.”

Damn! He had an answer for everything. Maybe he was telling the truth. He had fought off that other man. He had placed his body between her and the gun aimed at her. Yet, wouldn’t a bodyguard welcome help from the local authorities, not avoid it?

When he’d offered her back her blueprints, her suspicions had abated. She knew such a small gesture shouldn’t weigh so heavily in his favor. And yet, a criminal wouldn’t be so considerate, would he? Would a criminal have stopped and explained as Roarke had just done?

Maybe—if her cooperation would make it easier for him to get her back into her apartment…where she would be alone with him.

She couldn’t make up her mind. If Roarke Stone was really a bodyguard, why would he want her to return to her apartment where she could so easily be found? She shook her head as once again he tugged her toward the stairs leading to her back terrace.

Again she halted. “Why are you so insistent on taking me back to my apartment?”

“You need a shower.”

“A shower?”

No way was she about to take off her clothes with him around. Not in a million years. She wouldn’t trust a locked door. With shoulders like his, he could break through in an instant. And she just knew from the determined look in those baby blues glinting with amusement that he had no intention of leaving her alone.

“Lady, you reek.”

She’d always objected to being called lady, or woman. As though she wasn’t an individual with her own name. Besides she wanted this man to think of her as a person with her own life. He might be less inclined to hurt her if she didn’t act like a nameless victim.

“My name’s Alexandra.”

“Fine, Alexandra. You stink, and client or not, I refuse to be around anyone who smells as bad as you do.”

While she couldn’t refute the truth of his statement, she hesitated. Removing her clothes while he stood outside her door still wasn’t a viable option. She’d be way too vulnerable.

Pretending she believed his story about being there to protect her was the best way to deal with Roarke. She tried to calm her leaping nerves. “We shouldn’t go back up there. He might have left, but he could return.”

“I won’t leave you alone.”