by Tawny Weber
"So you admit you've read Mr. Cooper's book."
Bliss O'Hara looked him square in the eye. "Yes, I am very well acquainted with the J.B. Cooper novel."
"Then isn't it possible you might have picked up on his plot, albeit subconsciously, and interjected it into your story? I can understand how that could happen and surely your fans could, too."
Bliss' gaze shifted to Sherwood. "Most assuredly, I never copied anything that man—" she jabbed a finger at him "—ever wrote."
Consummate interviewer that she was, Sisi closed the show with, "So there you have it. Romantic Suspense author Bliss O'Hara and Action-Adventure writer J.B. Cooper face-to-face with nary a drop of blood shed."
Sisi glanced between the two of them. "And the plagiarism issue, is that settled?"
Jake shrugged. "I never saw one in the first place."
"Just as I've claimed all along," Bliss said, glaring at him.
Chapter 2
Bliss' publicist caught her by the arm as they stepped out of the studio where their limo waited, spouting, "You were fabulous. It was like you and that guy were the only people in the room, duking it out. The chemistry was electric. We gotta talk to him."
"Why?" Bliss demanded, still angry about the imposter's put down of the romance genre. "All he did was trash what I wrote."
"Only your romances," Lu said, tottering alongside Bliss on her stilettoes toward the passenger door the limo driver held open for them.
"He trashed my romances on national TV," Bliss howled. "Like we romance writers and our readers aren't dismissed enough as it is. In a country where money is the great definer, you'd think any genre that commanded over fifty percent of paperback sales would, at the very least, be respected."
"Calm down, Bliss. Look at the big picture."
The publicist's tunnel vision only fueled Bliss' fire. "Have you forgotten, Lucy, it is the income off those trashy romances that enables me to afford you?"
"Not at all," sang Lu as they reached the limo, reiterating, "Bigger picture."
"You've been exonerated of the plagiarism accusations very publicly as well," the agent said, catching up to them.
"By an imposter," Bliss muttered.
The publicist waved the limo driver off, shoved Bliss into the car, and ordered the privacy window raised. Taking a seat opposite Bliss, Lu continued in a conspiratorial tone. "By a man who fits the J.B. Cooper persona to a T. The publicity in this has been invaluable and we can make it work even more for us."
Bliss' agent climbed in beside Bliss and closed the door. "I think I'm beginning to see where you're headed with this, Lu."
Bliss gaped from her publicist to her agent. "Are you two about to suggest I let this guy keep impersonating my alter-ego?"
"We'd have to get him on board with the plan, Vi," Lu said to the agent as though Bliss wasn't even there.
"There are legal boundaries to establish," Vi said. "We can't have him signing off on endorsements and collecting speaker's fees, not without us getting our cut."
"Excuse me," Bliss yowled. "The man stole my identity."
"Just one of them, Hon," Vi said.
"But it's mine. I'm J.B. Cooper!"
"And you didn't want to come out," Lu said. "You didn't want to be exposed. Here's your chance to remain happily cloistered in your little office writing while we use this guy to promote the Cooper books. He's perfect for the persona. Think of him as just another promotion tool."
Bliss groaned. "You can't be serious."
Vi glanced toward the studio exit. "Here he comes."
Lu threw open the limo door and stepped out, her trajectory clear in the predatory fix of her eyes on the man who'd usurped the Cooper persona.
Lu intersected the imposter, fast-talking him as she herded him toward the car. Bliss almost felt sorry for the man. Almost. This guy was a trash-talking interloper. How dare he denigrate her romance genre.
Lu shoved him ahead of herself into the limo and onto the seat facing Bliss.
His long legs stretched toward her, his feet bracketing hers. It made her want to fold her legs up onto the seat beneath her. Yet, at the same time, the way he studied her through his Savage-blue eyes—eyes she'd never been able to describe to her liking in the first installment of her J.B. Cooper's Nick Savage series but knew would look just like his—made her want to slip off a shoe and slide her toes up his inseam.
Realizing her gaze had dropped to his crotch she blinked up at his face…and found him looking back at her, amusement glinting in his eyes. Her cheeks flooded with heat.
Vi leaned forward from her side of the bench seat, demanding, "What's your game, Mister?"
The suggestion of humor evaporated from his eyes and, without moving his gaze from Bliss, he answered Vi's question. "I don't play games."
The liquid heat of his deep voice melted through Bliss' veins clear to her core. It took all she had not to squirm. No wonder she'd forgotten there'd been a studio full of people and millions watching via television. The man oozed sexual intrigue.
No. Wrong. He'd insulted her writing genre, one of her very few hot buttons. That's why she'd forgotten everyone else in the studio, but him. That had to be what happened.
"Then what were you doing walking into that studio pretending to be J.B. Cooper?" her agent demanded.
He gave Vi a cursory glance, his gaze fixed back on Bliss before he answered. "I never pretended to be Cooper."
Lu leaned so close, another millimeter and not even one of Bliss' paperback romances would have fit between Lu's lips and the interloper's ear, her voice silky as she said, "You let them introduce you as J.B. Cooper."
Spreading his arms across the back of the seat forced Lu to retreat, his testosterone-laden presence filling the space, taking control of the meeting he'd been ambushed into having. "And why would you doubt I was him?"
Having reached her boiling point in more ways than one, Bliss lurched forward and thumped her chest. "Because I'm J.B. Cooper."
One dark eyebrow lifted ever so slightly. "Didn't see that coming."
The gleam in the enigmatic blue eyes studying her sent a rush of heat through Bliss, the kind of heat that burned off much of her bravado and turned her core into molten lava.
"So what's the deal?" Vi demanded from Bliss' side. "Were you impersonating Cooper or not?"
He shifted his gaze from Bliss to Vi. "I came here looking for J.B. Cooper and the staff assumed I was him. Had me powdered up and on stage before I could say boo."
"You did nothing to correct the misconception," Bliss accused, squaring her shoulders in an attempt to regroup, but her silk blouse slipped across her skin like a lover's caress. Silently, she damned her hungry hormones. That's all this is, right?
"How'd you like a job?" Lu purred, elbow propped on the back of the seat in contact with his arm. "She'd rather stay behind the scenes." Lu nodded in Bliss' direction. "You could act as her beard."
He raised both eyebrows at Lu. "Beard?"
"Yeah. Do book signings. Give book talks. Be the face of J.B. Cooper."
"I already have a job," he said, bringing his gaze back to Bliss. "Which brings me to the reason why I came here to confront Cooper."
"Confront?" Bliss asked, her voice rising an octave. "What on earth do you have to confront my alter-ego about?"
He leaned toward her, his hands moving to his knees which now nearly touched hers. "J.B. Cooper has stolen my life."
Bliss blinked at him. "Th-that's not possible. I'd know, being that I'm Cooper."
"His Savage character is living my life."
She shook her head. "Not possible. Nick Savage is a fictional character."
"Who is living my life—leading my missions," he all but growled, the hinge of his jaw popping. "I want you to stop writing about me and I want to know who you're getting your intel from."
She shook a finger in his face. "No, no, no. You're the imposter. I get my plot ideas from my brother—from his life—his adventures. I've based Nick Savag
e's exploits on Robbie's work."
"I don't know any Robbie," the interloper said, his eyes going all steely the way she envisioned Savage's would when he meant business. "And you will stop putting me and my men at risk by writing about my security company."
His security company?
The hairs at the back of Bliss' neck stood on end, all the doubts she'd ever had about the validity of Robbie's exploits crowding in on her. Robbie had never been particularly physical. Robbie had never been ambitious. But Robbie did have her creative nature…with a tendency to exaggerate…a lot.
No. Robbie had changed. He'd found his calling, the maternal side of her argued in defense of the brother she'd practically raised.
Never been particularly physical. A tendency to exaggerate. …Maternal wishful thinking.
But she hadn't seen him since he left the country. He could have changed. That had been the point of her letting him go—not hovering and being all overly protective mother these past two years plus, hadn't it?
"My brother works for a security firm," she insisted with the tenacity of a mother bear, even though she'd never truly believed the exploits Robbie had written about to her to be anything more than exaggerations that provided good fodder for her crossover into the male adventure genre. "Might that be the reason there're similarities between what you do and what he writes to me about?"
"Your Savage character is a former SEAL, like me.
Just as Robbie had described.
"Savage's team is former military, like mine."
"Robbie said the team he worked with was mostly military. I'm the one who made them all former military."
The interloper gave her a look that stopped her from further defense.
"The plot of the Cooper book describes to a T an extraction mission me and my men did a year and a half ago right down to how we executed it. All you did was change the location from South to Central America and make the kidnap victim a U.S. Senator rather than a drug company CEO." He quirked a humorless grin. "A female Senator with which your Savage had a romantic entanglement. That never happens on my jobs."
"That's called taking literary license," she said, hating that she blushed at his reminding her of Savage's tryst with the Senator. Given her writing background, it was natural to add a touch of romance in the midst of the action.
"Besides, Savage is an Alpha male. I can't have him living a celibate life," she elaborated trying to bring her focus back to the issue at hand.
"Could another security firm have done a similar job?" Vi questioned.
"Not that job," the imposter said with such finality that a chill of apprehension skated up Bliss' spine. "Nobody else would take it on. That's why the client came to me."
His words only added to her doubts about Robbie. Getting hired as security was one thing. Getting hired by a company who dealt with jobs no one else would take on went well beyond the qualification of any entry level hopeful. And hadn't she considered Robbie's earliest emails little more than descriptions of one of the on-line games he was obsessed with?
But, the details had struck her creative nerve and Nick Savage had grown out of Robbie's tales. When she found no games matching the plot he'd described, she'd thought she was safe to write Savage's story. When Robbie's tales continued, she saw the birth of a series built around Nick Savage, sold the series through her agent, and became J.B. Cooper.
But the narrowed eyes now studying her told her she hadn't been free to repeat what Robbie had shared with her.
"O'Hara," the man owning those eyes said. "Married name?"
"I'm not married," Bliss said.
"Don't know any O'Haras, either," he said, his eyes becoming little more than slits. "Does the name Burns mean anything to you?"
She blanched. "It's my mother's maiden name."
"Uh oh," Vi and Lu chorused.
Her Savage lookalike fisted his hands on his knees. "Rob Burns."
"Robbie," she corrected, her voice fading as it sank in that her brother had altered his name, that the man sitting in the limo across from her did indeed know her brother.
"I know him as Rob," the stranger said, the veins in his neck popping out.
A tendency to exaggerate.
With the realization Robbie must have been sharing sensitive material with her, Bliss ventured in barely more than a whisper, "He does work for you, then?"
"Yeah," the man with Savage-blue eyes said through tight lips. "He works for me."
Good news, Robbie hadn't totally lied to her. He had a job. Bad news, he'd told her things he shouldn't have…and he undoubtedly wouldn't have his job much longer.
She flexed an apologetic smile at Robbie's employer, probing further. "And he's part of your security team?"
The man she'd initially thought as an interloper snorted. "I don't know if I'd exactly consider Rob as part of the team. He's my computer geek. He's the guy who keeps the electronics running and gathers information we need from the Internet."
"Speaking of Internet," Vi rushed out. "Bliss gets a lot of her research on-line. It's not all from her brother."
Bliss caught the silent message in Vi's eyes. Agree.
She could and with total honesty. But most of her research had come from Robbie.
Robbie's boss fired off a handful of details she'd gotten from her brother, most of which she'd used in the Cooper book. It was those she hadn't used that knotted up her stomach.
Bliss closed her eyes. She had no reason to believe a word spoken by the man sitting opposite her. But that the facts he recited, particularly those left out of the Cooper novel, fit everything Robbie had shared with her could only mean this guy was the real deal.
Besides, deep in her gut, she had never believed Robbie could have turned from computer gamer to security muscle in two short years. Add in the brush with the law he had in his early teens over hacking…
She opened her eyes and stared into those eyes she'd dreamed of from the day she'd created them for her fantasy lover. "What do you want from me?"
"Not so fast," Vi said. "He's got to prove copyright infringement before he can demand anything."
"Yeah," Lu agreed.
"I think we're talking about identity theft here," their unwanted guest said.
"But—I—he," Vi sputtered, clearly unsure where to go with this accusation, while the usually jumps-at-any-publicity-opportunity Lu looked on in wide-eyed horror.
Their guest turned his attention back to Bliss. "I'm not looking for monetary compensation. I just want you to stop exposing my life in your stories."
Vi opened her mouth. Bliss held up a silencing hand.
"And my brother?" she asked.
"I'll take care of Rob."
Pieces of her Cooper plots, present and future, flashing through her mind, particularly those pieces where Savage took out an enemy, she blanched. "What do you mean you'll take care of Rob? You aren't going to—"
"Contrary to all the mayhem in your Cooper book, I don't kill anywhere near the number of bad guys your Savage character does. That's one area where you used your literary license."
She blinked at him, not sure whether that meant her brother was safe from harm or not.
Mr. Sees-All apparently misread her reaction as his eyes narrowed again and, in a low, mocking voice said, "Yeah. I know some literary terms, even if I don't know anything about the romance genre…as you pointed out on stage in front of TV cameras broadcasting across the country."
His mention of the first genre she wrote in—the one that had provided a living for her and Robbie—warred with her concern for her brother, and she couldn't help but give this man—who was turning her world upside down, not to mention churning up her hormones—a jab.
"Sisi Sherwood's audience is international," Bliss said.
A guttural sound rumbled up from his throat and his eyes darkened. Bliss sucked a deep breath, holding herself in place when all she wanted to do was sink back into the plush leather of the limo seats and escape the anger emanating fr
om him.
"Robbie's well-being is of the utmost importance to me," she said, pleased her voice didn't shake.
The growl morphed into a gruff sigh. "I guarantee your precious Robbie will come out of this with nary a hair on his head out of place. Jobless but safe."
"One more thing," she said, proud of how commanding she sounded. "I want to know where Robbie is."
"I'm not at liberty to reveal that information. But I'll make sure he tells you…just as soon as he's well away from my command center."
There it was again, that sense that she could trust in this stranger's word. Maybe it was the authority with which he spoke. Maybe it was the decisiveness behind his words.
Maybe it was because Nick Savage always kept his word and she was having trouble separating this guy from her fictional hero.
"Fine," she said, shaking off that last thought—conceding that Robbie losing his job was fair. "We have an agreement. You don't harm my brother and I'll no longer use any information my brother has supplied me in my J.B. Cooper books…unless it's verifiable via outside research and, therefore, already public knowledge."
"That's all I'm asking for," he said, offering her his hand.
"Not so fast," Vi said, leaning into the space between Bliss and their guest before they could shake on the deal. "Bliss has an imminent contract deadline for her next J.B. Cooper book. This deal excludes that book."
"Cancel it."
Vi shook her head. "Breaking a contract in the literary world can be career ending."
"Not my problem," he said.
"It will be if she publishes her current Cooper installment as written, a book due on her editor's desk in less than two weeks."
"Then we're back to me charging her with identity theft," he said. "That should put the skids on the book getting published."
"You might think so," Vi said, "but I've seen publishing houses move past far bigger scandals. And, with Bliss' track record of sales, the publisher will base any decision they make on the bottom line. Money."
"Right," Lu said, perking to life. "And you'll have to endure hordes of publicity, something I suspect you don't want your company exposed to."