by Lora Leigh
She stalked to her bedroom; minutes later, a manservant knocked. Angelica appeared at the door, handed a thick file to the servant, and pointed to Lilly’s suite.
“Hell of a thing for a woman to have to face at four in the morning,” Noah stated quietly.
“At any time,” Travis growled.
He hated that damned report. Hell, he had never agreed with the cover those girls had been given. They were called security “escorts.” Military trained, exceptionally lovely, and dangerous as hell. They were “hired out” to men who required beauty and brains in a deadly package.
They were rented to legitimate businessmen as well as criminal bosses and cartel leaders. Sexual services were not part of the package, but few of the men who paid for their services admitted that. They thought they were hiring discretion and protection. They had no idea they had hired highly trained operatives who reported back to an agency created for secrecy and efficiency.
To the world, though, the girls Santos Bahre and Rhiannon McConnelly handled were no more than well-armed whores.
And that’s what Lilly would read in that file.
Would she believe it?
“Everyone is now in their respective rooms,” Noah reported as he continued to scan the house. “Nik is slipping through the garden now.”
Travis stood with a quick nod and moved to the single bed where he’d placed his bag earlier.
Noah eased the door open, stepped into the hall, and waited, while Travis quickly packed the gear needed into the pockets of his mission pants.
As he pushed a small tool pack into the pocket at the knee of his pants, Nik stepped into the room ahead of Noah.
The door closed silently as Noah stepped back inside. Nik carried a small backpack, filled, Travis knew, with the electronics needed to finish bugging the house for sound.
He handed the bag off to Noah and moved to the table where the portable monitors waited.
Travis slipped out of the room with Noah, moving silently through the house to the office both Desmond and Angelica Harrington worked from.
They had yet to get camera or audio in the room. Each time they had attempted it, Harrington or his bodyguard, usually both, had been too close, if not in the room itself.
This time, the office was empty.
Moving to the door, he attached the security device to the lock, activated it, and waited as the alarm was bypassed.
When the green light blinked, he turned the doorknob and they slipped in.
He reattached the device on the other side, reactivated the alarm, and then he and Noah went to work. Noah began installing video and audio while Travis moved to the desk.
There was no time to check the computer, that would come later. Picking the lock to the file drawer at the side of the desk, Travis began searching files and papers instead.
The drawer held nothing of interest. The desk was scrupulously neat. Working silently, Travis searched the room. There were business logs, files, contracts, all as boring as hell. Rifling through them, Travis was ready to move on when he glimpsed a thick narrow envelope tucked into a file regarding real estate in the D.C. area.
Pulling the envelope free, he opened it quickly and pulled out several pictures and a three-page report dated a little more than a year before. The report wasn’t signed. It was handwritten. The last line held an account number.
Travis pulled a small digital camera from his pants and quickly snapped pictures of each page as well as the pictures.
Pictures of Lilly.
Each one had been taken in a different location for a different assignment. If he wasn’t mistaken, part of the report also held the name of the plastic surgeon who had supposedly changed Lilly’s face.
The same doctor who had been killed the day before Lilly had taken a bullet to the side of her head.
Desmond Harrington had known Lilly was alive long before he had been contacted by the hospital. Renewing his search through the files, Travis found two more similar envelopes, recorded the contents, and quickly replaced them.
It was nearly dawn before he and Noah finished. They were moving for the door when the sound of the alarm being deactivated had them racing for whatever cover they could find.
Noah headed for a heavily curtained windowseat while Travis ducked into the closet to the side of the desk.
Isaac Macauley stepped into the room silently, closing and locking the door behind him before moving to the desk.
Through the cracks in the folding doors, Travis watched as the bodyguard opened a drawer, pulled a device free of the desk, and opened it.
Well, now, there was a problem. That particular device was extremely difficult to come by and could block even Noah’s little electronic bugs.
Activating the device, Isaac pulled a satellite phone from inside his jacket pocket and keyed in a number. An international number if the amount of keys he hit was any indication.
“Harrington gave her the file,” Macauley stated, his voice low. “There was no chance to delay it.”
Macauley waited for whatever response came.
“Not as far as I can tell,” he answered moments later. “She appears less than stable now that Caine has shown up.”
Travis’s brows lifted. He thought Lilly was very stable.
“I’ve advised Harrington to deal with the mistake,” he reported after another silence. “He seems a bit squeamish at the idea, though.”
Strange, Macauley’s reputation was impeccable. This didn’t sound like an innocent conversation, though.
“I’ll take care of it,” Macauley stated. “I’ll let you know when they arrive.”
The call disconnected.
Macauley stood still and silent for long moments afterward before replacing his phone and deactivating the blocking device he had used.
Replacing it in the desk, he turned and left the room, reactivating the security behind him.
Travis moved from the closet as Noah met him at the desk.
“Let me check this,” Noah hissed as he pulled the device free again. “This bastard will screw with my electronics.”
“Why here rather than his room?” Travis mused, wondering why Macauley didn’t have the device in a place he wouldn’t be caught using it.
“Security,” Noah stated. “Harrington obviously uses it. If it were found in his room, he’d have to explain it. Besides, these puppies are damned hard to acquire.”
Noah attached it to another device he had with him.
“Can you bypass it?” Travis asked.
“Maybe,” Noah answered. “I’ll try, but it sounds to me like we’re not going to have a lot of time here.”
“Then we better hurry,” Travis growled. “The next time, Lilly’s luck just might run out.”
And that he couldn’t allow to happen.
Travis simply couldn’t imagine his life without Lilly, which made her a very dangerous weakness.
A weakness he knew he could ill-afford.
“Got it.” Noah quickly replaced the device, then stored his own in a pocket of his pants. “Let’s roll.”
They left quickly and made their way back to Noah’s room. Travis left the house just as dawn began to brighten the sky and he couldn’t help but stare up into Lilly’s window.
The lights were on and he had no doubt she was reading the report Harrington had received.
And she was alone.
There was no one to soften the shock or the blow being dealt to her. He wasn’t there to hold her. He wasn’t there to make it easier.
No matter what the doctors said, he thought, Lilly would remember everything soon, and when she did?
There would be hell to pay.
Chapter 5
the next morning Lilly lay in her bed, the hefty report giv
en to her the night before still lying beside her, the pages scattered haphazardly across the bed.
She stared at the ceiling, dry-eyed, a frown pulling at her brow as she considered the information she had been given.
First, she had been suspected of killing her father because she had disappeared.
And second, according to the investigator—a rather reputable one—Lilly had been a high priced whore available only to certain clientele. Clientele requiring a well trained lover rather than a helpless one. And she evidently hadn’t cared if the clients were legitimate businessmen, or those considered highly illegal. Criminals, suspected terrorists, or international CEOs. She had been hired out to the best of them.
Lilly had been trained in Israel, Pakistan, China, South America, and Mexico. The training she had received, secretly, through MI5, before her supposed death, paled in comparison to the eighteen-month course she had taken to become part of Santos Bahre and Rhiannon McConnelly’s stable.
She and the three other girls she was known to work with were considered four of the most elite whores in the world. Wow, she should be impressed with herself, she thought sarcastically. She had gone from society princess to exclusive call girl. And she hadn’t stopped there. Hell, no, when she wasn’t playing “eye candy” for whoever paid for her services, then she was having fun causing trouble elsewhere. It was no damned wonder someone had tried to kill her.
She had been in more than one hot spot in the world with Travis Caine, who seemed to have required her services extensively. As a matter of fact, it seemed that outside of “business” they were actual lovers as well. Lovers who caused trouble wherever they went. In more than one instance, they had started fights that had nearly gotten them killed.
It sounded like she had had a hell of a lot of fun.
Except it just didn’t ring true.
There were pictures of her with Travis Caine as well as several other men. Men known for their rather subversive criminal activities. Weapon sales, drug deals, terrorist negotiations, the list went on and on. She and the three other girls were reputed to be not just highly experienced sexually, but also rather enthusiastic when it came to creating or cleaning up the messes their lovers were involved in.
The men whose identities had been included in the file seemed too familiar. Santos Bahre, Travis Caine, Micah Sloane, John Vincent, and Nikolai Steele were the most familiar. There was something about their pictures that pricked at her missing memories.
The pictures and the locations looked familiar. The pictures themselves appeared to have been taken from security footage from hotels and restaurants. Those would have been easy enough to come by. Once the investigator had a name, and a picture of her, he could have tracked many of her movements, as well as her associations.
The pictures of the men in the file had her eyes narrowing, though.
These men she and the other three women seemed to have the most association with.
John Vincent was a “broker.” Though he often brokered legitimate deals, he was also suspected to broker not so legitimate deals. Deals that often involved high-priced, top-secret stolen arms or information.
Nikolai Steele was a suspected assassin. He’d been questioned many times in regards to those activities, but there had never been enough proof to tie him to a kill. He also hired himself out occasionally as a bodyguard and was known to work often with Travis Caine and John Vincent.
Then, there was Travis. “The Facilitator,” he was called. He brought together products, services, or clients. He facilitated major business deals, matching buyers, sellers, and brokers.
He was also suspected to do the same with less savory clients.
Each man had, more than once, required Lilly’s or one of the other girls’ services.
Somehow she couldn’t see the very possessive, very dominant Travis Caine standing idly by while Lilly slept with his bodyguard.
Then, there were the women.
Nissa Farren, Raisa McTavish, and Shea Tamallen. She couldn’t rid herself of a feeling of urgency where they were concerned. There was something she should know about them. Something she was supposed to do, and she couldn’t pull the memory free.
That bothered her more than the fictional information that she had been nothing more than a troublemaking whore. She knew better. She knew who she had been before she had disappeared six years ago, and she would have never elected to take money for sex, especially considering that she had been a virgin at her supposed death.
So then what was the truth?
For a while, she had entertained the thought of demanding explanations from Travis, but something told her she didn’t want to do that. She felt a wariness about bringing her suspicions to anyone, as though she knew instinctively that at the moment, she couldn’t trust anyone.
Rising from the bed, Lilly pulled the file together, pushed it back into the large envelope, then moved to the small safe in the wardrobe closet across the room. Locking the report safely inside, she turned and moved to the bathroom.
The large mirror beside the three-head shower reflected her image back at her, a face she still wasn’t certain of, eyes that were the wrong color. Her chin was slightly more pointed than it had been, her eyes had less of a tilt than she remembered, her cheekbones were a little flatter and her nose more rounded.
Why? That question wouldn’t leave her mind. Why had she gone to such extremes to hide?
And who had she been hiding from?
Or had she, as others supposedly suspected, killed her father and attempted to fake her own death?
She had loved her father. She had adored him. It wasn’t possible that she had harmed him. Just as it wasn’t possible that she could have been some high priced call girl with an adrenaline addiction.
Then what the bloody hell was going on?
Stepping into the large cubicle, she quickly showered as she considered her options. It was a very short list. Looked like Travis was her only choice.
Dressing quickly in a pair of cream-colored silk slacks and matching top, she pushed her feet into stylish sandals and put the articles she needed from her bureau into a tan leather purse. Slipping downstairs quickly, she headed to the narrow hall at the back of the house and into the garage.
The electric-red Jaguar rented for her use was parked in its bay, the keys hanging in the ignition.
Sliding into the driver’s seat, she hit the automatic garage door opener, waited for it to slide open, then started the car and pulled out.
Her mother would go ballistic. No doubt Desmond had someone following her. The fact that he did so bothered her. There was something different about the way she felt about him now versus her feelings for him in the past.
He had been her beloved uncle. He had spoiled her all her life, but there was a distrust now that she couldn’t seem to shake.
Actually, she seemed to distrust most people now.
She drove to the house Travis had taken her to the night before.
She was hurting. She felt as though her insides were being shredded by that report. As though her soul were cringing in shame.
He was the last person she should run to . . .
But she needed the sense of security she had felt in his arms the night before. She needed the mindless pleasure, a few stolen moments to forget that whatever or whoever she had been for six years, that others had seen her as a whore.
Clenching her teeth, she turned into the driveway and pulled the car to a stop. As she turned off the ignition, she wasn’t surprised to see Nik as he opened the front door and stepped onto the wide stone porch.
Long white-blond hair was pulled back from his imposing features. Icy blue eyes stared at her as a small smile tipped his lips. He just didn’t seem to be a man she would sleep with.
Familiarity gleamed in his eyes, though, as well as in
his expression.
Tightening her fingers around her purse, she moved up the short walk to the house and stepped onto the porch.
“Is he here?” she asked, her brow arching inquisitively.
“He’s been waiting for you for several hours.” Nik nodded. “I’m surprised you escaped your uncle so easily, though.”
Lilly shrugged at the comment. “I didn’t try to escape, I merely walked out.”
And strangely, no one had seemed to notice. That was odd in and of itself. Since her return, her mother had been waiting for her each morning when she came from her room. Some mornings, she’d actually brought her breakfast in bed. This morning, though, the house had seemed deserted.
“Come on in, Lilly.” Nik stepped back, his large, muscular body shifting with animal-like grace as she stepped past him.
The front room he led her through was the modern, upscale room she had met Desmond in the night before. Beyond that was another living room, just as cold and uninviting. The short hall was warmer, with honey-toned wood floors and tall windows on one end. Turning into another room, Lilly was pleased to see the décor change. This was an area she hadn’t seen the night before.
This room was carpeted in a rich dark honey brown, the walls were a soft pale green, the cherry furniture was polished to a warm hue with large cushiony chairs, a sofa and a couch, arranged beneath a skylight.
“Nice,” she commented when Travis rose from the couch to greet her.
He was dressed in jeans and a loose white shirt. His feet were bare, his demeanor relaxed though he seemed tired. He seemed more approachable than he had the night before, and he had been very damned approachable then.
She tossed her purse on a table as she passed by it, strode across the room, and, much to her own surprise, moved to him, lifted herself against him, and sealed her lips to his.
It was like a narcotic she had to have.
Immediately his arms went around her, his head tilting, his lips slanting over hers, as sensual, sexual need began to consume her.
She could stop, she assured herself though a part of her knew better. He truly wasn’t vital to her. But she didn’t want to stop. She was suddenly starved for the taste of him, the touch of him. She didn’t feel as though a part of her had been ripped from her very being when she was in his arms. She somehow felt complete, which made very little sense if even half the report she had read the night before was correct.