by Lisa Jackson
“Don’t,” she whispered raggedly.
He didn’t stop.
Swallowing against the urge to fall down on the floor and wrap her arms around him, she pulled his hands away. “Don’t,” she said more firmly, and he reluctantly stepped away.
Turning, she pressed her back against the refrigerator. “Don’t use sex as a weapon.”
“Is that what I was doing?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You know damn well what you were doing. And I can’t go along with you on this Crowley thing,” she said, picking up the head of lettuce and tossing it into the sink. “It’s too important.”
“He’s just one crooked senator.”
A hard smile curved her lips. “But one I can take care of.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I must be doing something right, or he wouldn’t have tried to do me in on Salvaje.”
“He’s dangerous, Nikki, and apparently desperate. You can’t take any chances.”
Waving away the argument she saw in his expression, she strode to her computer and snapped on the power switch. “There’s got to be something,” she said, drumming her fingers impatiently as the machine warmed up. “Something in here. If only I can find it.”
Trent gave up arguing, and as she pulled up her chair, he propped his jean-clad hips along the side of the desk, bracing himself with his hands, crossing his ankles and watching her. She felt a rush of adrenaline as she settled her fingers over the keys and started entering commands. She’d been working on the Crowley piece for a couple of weeks behind her editor’s back. Dissatisfied with the turn of her career, she’d decided to take matters into her own hands when she’d been denied, yet again, a chance to write something more interesting than a story about the winners of a local bake fair.
She intended to prove to God himself, Frank Pianzani, that she could work with the big boys. She’d been trained as an investigative journalist and never been able to prove what she could do. Well, this time, people at the Observer were going to sit up and take notice.
Unless she got herself killed first, she thought with a shiver.
She scanned her work files, but nothing showed up. She flipped through the disks near her desk, shoving each one into the computer and viewing the documents on each one. Still a big zero. “Where is it? Where? Where? Where?” she mumbled, biting off the urge to scream in frustration. Impatience surged through her. The story and her notes had to be here. Somewhere.
Unless everything had been conveniently erased. Trent had a key and access to her apartment when she was gone. There were times when she left him alone in this room. When she’d taken a shower, when she’d been at work... She ground her teeth together in frustration. He was a proven liar of the worst order and he would do anything to stop her, for whatever reasons, noble or otherwise.
Her fingers didn’t move as her thoughts clicked steadily through her brain.
“Problems?” he asked, and when she looked up at him she expected to see mockery in his blue eyes, but he seemed genuinely concerned.
“I can’t seem to locate my file.”
Rubbing the stubble on his chin, he said, “Mind if I look?”
“Be my guest.” Warily she rolled her chair away from the desk, stood and stretched her back as he slid in front of the machine. Fascinated, she watched as his long fingers moved quickly over the keys. He was as familiar with her machine as was she, or so it seemed.
“You must have it under some kind of code,” he said, and she left him there, trusting him just a little. While he kept searching, she played the part of a domestic wife, washing the damned lettuce and using the groceries he’d picked up as the start of dinner. Her stomach rumbled in anticipation, but her mind was on the computer screen and her missing files.
She boiled linguine and cooked a shrimp, garlic and cream sauce while her thoughts swirled around Crowley. If he were behind her attack on the island, then good old Diamond Jim, her father’s friend, had tried to kill her. So he knew she was onto him. How?
She glanced at Trent and her throat grew tight. He wouldn’t! She licked the wooden spoon as she thought. What had Trent said—about a leak at the Observer. Connie? No! Frank? Max? “I can’t remember any code,” she said loud enough for Trent to hear. “It’s one of the last foggy details, I guess.” It was frustrating. Damned frustrating. Most of her memory had returned and yet this one important piece of information kept slipping her mind. “Come on, give it a rest. I’ll feed you.”
“Domestic? You?” He cracked his knuckles and stretched out, looking way too huge for her small desk chair.
“I figured I owed you, since you went to the trouble of restocking the larder.” She motioned him into a chair at the small table, where she’d set out place mats and lit candles. “Don’t get used to it,” she teased, but her laughter died in her throat when she remembered that their relationship was only temporary. Surprisingly her heart felt a little prick of pain at that particular thought and she disguised her sudden rush of emotion by pasting a smile onto her face and setting a wooden bowl of salad next to the pasta and sauce.
It was silly really. She slid into her chair and waited as he poured them each a glass of wine. The clear chardonnay reflected the candlelight as it splashed into the bottom of her glass.
Oh, Lord, she would miss him, she realized with a sinking feeling that swept into the farthest reaches of her heart. She’d gotten used to him, looked forward to his laughter and his lovemaking.
He touched the rim of his wineglass to hers. “To marriage,” he said, and her heart felt as if it had been smashed into a thousand painful shards. He was kidding, of course.
She painted on another false smile and said, “And to divorce.”
“Can’t wait to get rid of me, eh?” he asked, and she thought she saw a shadow of pain cross his eyes.
“As soon as possible.” Tossing back the cool wine, she imagined the small circle of gold around her ring finger, and her throat grew so thick she could barely swallow. A new, fresh pain cut through her at the thought that no matter what, soon Trent would be just another murky memory in her mind.
They finished dinner in silence, each wrapped in private thoughts. As she put the dishes in the dishwasher, he started a fire, and they finished the bottle of wine with their backs propped against the couch and the flames crackling against dried moss.
When he turned to her, it was as natural as the wind shifting over the sea. His lips settled over hers and she fought a tide of tears that stung her lashes. His arms were strong and comforting, his hands possessive.
He slipped the buttons of her blouse from their bindings and she gave herself to him, body and soul, knowing deep in her heart that she’d never love another man with the same blind passion that now ruled her spirit as well as her life.
She was his wife. If only for a few more days. If only because of the lie that bound them together and would, as surely as the moon tugged at the currents in the sea, pull them apart.
* * *
Nikki woke up with a start. Sweat streamed down her back, and her heart was pounding a thousand beats a minute. The nightmare had stolen into her sleep, burning through her conscious and terrifying her. Even now, snuggled against Trent, one of his arms flung around her, she shivered. Would the fear never go away?
She glanced at the clock and groaned. Four-thirty. The bed, tucked in the corner under the eaves, was warm, rumpled, smelling of sex and Trent, and through the window she saw stars, clear and bright, glittering above the city.
Letting out a long breath, she cuddled against Trent, when suddenly the memory slammed into her like a freight train running out of control. She remembered what she’d done with the Crowley file. The last wisps of her fear disappeared like night melting into the dawn. She slid from the bed. Trent growled and rolled over, his breathing never disturbed. Tossing on her robe, sh
e walked to her computer, not bothering with lights. A few glowing embers smoldered in the fireplace, casting red shadows on candles that had burned down to pools of blue wax, their flames long ago extinguished, the wine bottle left empty on the coffee table, the wrinkled afghan where they’d made love left carelessly on the floor.
Her heart caught for a second before she told herself to quit being a romantic fool. She had work to do. On the day before she’d left for Salvaje, the very day she’d argued violently with her father, she’d decided to hide her information on Crowley, just in case someone from the Observer, or someone in Crowley’s employ, wanted to know what she was up to. She’d carefully hidden all her notes and the computer disk in a box of Christmas ornaments on the floor of one of the closets tucked under the eaves.
Quietly, she opened the closet door and yanked on the hanging chain dangling from the exposed rafters. With a bare bulb for illumination, she worked around the mousetraps and pulled out a heavy box with the stand for the tree, then dug through another crate filled with ornaments and lights.
On the very bottom, tucked in a cardboard envelope, was the disk. In a manila folder were her notes. “Son of a gun,” she whispered, pleased that her memory had finally come through. Leaving the closet door open, she carried her prize to the desk and snapped on the green-shaded banker’s light.
Trent snored softly and rolled over again.
Almost afraid of what she might find, she clicked on the computer, and as it hummed to life, she rifled through old newspaper articles, magazine clippings and her own notes. “Great stuff,” she congratulated herself. She felt a sudden sense of pride in her job and in her life, and she wanted to share it all with Trent.
She glanced over to the bed. He’d blinked his eyes open and was watching her, his black hair mussed, his beard dark, his naked torso bronze in the reflection of the dying embers. Stretching, he glanced at the clock and groaned. “You’re out of your mind, Carrothers,” he said, patting the warm spot on the bed that she’d recently vacated.
“I know, but I remembered!”
“Hallelujah!” he growled sarcastically as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Couldn’t it wait?”
“No way.” She held up the old articles and pictures. “Evidence, McKenzie. That’s what this is.”
He levered up on one elbow and his brows drew over his eyes. “You’re sure?”
“I think so. My guess is that good ol’ Diamond Jim owes favors to some of the most influential businessmen in Tokyo, Seoul and Hong Kong.” She couldn’t restrain a smile of pride as she flipped through the articles taken from newspapers around the world.
“You’ve got old news,” he said. “People have been trying to tie Crowley to a bribery scandal for years. Nothing ever sticks.”
“This will,” she said, as she skimmed her notes. “What ties it all together is a tip I received from someone who used to work for him. He claims that the senator did all his dirty deals, taking the cash and laundering it into a Swiss bank account, through a small island in the Caribbean.”
“Let me guess,” Trent said, his eyes no longer slumberous, every sinewy muscle of his shoulders and chest tense. “Salvaje.”
“Bingo,” she whispered. “That’s why I was down there.” She glanced through the window to the lights of the city winking through the trees. “That’s why he tried to have me killed.”
“Nothing you can prove.”
“Yet,” she said, determined to get the fat-cat senator. She dropped the clippings onto the desk beneath the lamp, and one yellowed article slid away from the rest. Along with the report was a picture of Senator Crowley with the head of an automobile company headquartered in Japan.
She reached for the article, but her fingers stopped in midair. Another man was in the grainy photograph, a man standing just behind the shorter industrialist, a man she recognized. Her world stopped and tilted as her future and past collided. She swallowed against the bitter taste of deception as she stared down at the unmistakable, rough-hewn features of Trent McKenzie.
Chapter Eleven
NIKKI STARED AT the picture in disbelief. Anger surged through her bloodstream. He’d lied to her again! God, why had she trusted him, believed in him?
“What is it?” Trent asked, his voice rumbling and deep with recent sleep.
“I, um, found something interesting.” A cold settled in the pit of her stomach. Her first impulse was to shove the damning piece of evidence under his nose, demand answers, rant and rave about truth and justice and the pain in her heart. Instead, she told herself to be calm, and with trembling fingers, she forced herself to tuck the picture deep into the notes.
“What?”
“More evidence. I have to talk to one of the aides who used to work for him. Barry Blackstone,” she said, remembering a name she’d seen mentioned several times. “He quit working for Crowley a few months back and I’ve written a note to myself that indicates he can give me inside information.”
“Blackstone?”
She stood and walked on wooden legs to the edge of the bed where she dropped onto the quilt near the lying son of a bitch...the man she loved. “What can you tell me about him?”
Trent’s jaw tightened and his skin drew flat over his features. He tried to reach for her, but she pushed his hands firmly away.
“Not now,” she said, disguising the fact that her heart was breaking, that she’d never let him hold her again, that they would never again make love. Here, with the scent of sex still clinging to the sheets, she vowed never to fall into his tempting trap again. To shove temptation from her grasp, she moved to the couch and leaned against its lumpy back. A world without Trent. It seemed so bleak. Suddenly world-weary, she crossed her arms over her chest. “You’ve heard of him, I assume.”
“I’ve met Blackstone,” Trent said, regarding her warily, as if he sensed the silent accusations charging the air. He slid into his faded Levi’s. Threadbare at the knees and butt, the pants threatened to split as he strode barefoot to the fireplace, crouched down to lay a piece of dusty oak onto the grate and blew into the coals. Sparks glowed bright, catching on the moss and dry bark. “I used to work for our friend, the senator,” Trent finally admitted, stirring the warm ashes with a poker.
Nikki couldn’t believe his admission. Had he read her mind—known that she’d caught him in yet another evasion? Her heart began to pound and she didn’t know if she wanted to hear the rest of his story. Would it be the truth or a lie? Would he admit that he was in league with the man who had tried to have her killed? “You never said anything.”
“Never seemed like the right time.” Red embers pulsed against the charred pieces of firewood. “A few years back, I was one of Crowley’s bodyguards for a few weeks.”
Too convenient. He must suspect that you saw a photo of him or read his name in one of the articles. Still, she played along, wondering whether if she kept giving him more rope, he would hang himself. “But you’re off the payroll now?” Nikki asked. Betrayal, like a serpent, coiled around her insides and squeezed.
“Yep.” He shoved another hunk of wood onto the crackling, hungry flames. “I quit four years ago.”
“Why?”
He hazarded a glance over his shoulder. His mouth was drawn into a hard, cynical line. “I didn’t like the working conditions.”
“Meaning?” She knew she was pressing him, but she couldn’t stop herself. After this one last time, she promised herself, she’d never again listen to his half truths and lies.
Standing, he dusted his hands on his rear, then slapped his palms together. “Meaning I was beginning to suspect that Jimbo wasn’t on the up-and-up. A few things had happened that I didn’t like. I suspected he was on the take, from international lobbyists as well as from corporations here in the States. I confronted him.” A nostalgic, satisfied grin curved his lips. “He told me to take
a hike.”
“You were fired?”
“Terminated is the word he used, I think,” Trent replied. “Nice, huh?”
Nikki shivered and rubbed her arms. Don’t believe him. Not a solitary word he says.
“But it was too late, anyway. I’d already turned in my resignation.” Shoving his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, he sauntered toward her, the firelight playing in red-and-gold shades upon the smooth skin and sleek muscles of his torso. She tried not to notice the webbing of black hair that swirled across his chest and narrowed to a thin line that dipped seductively past the straining waistband of his jeans. She avoided staring at the sinewy ridges in his shoulder muscles or the way his eyes, deep-set and so blue, stared at her.
Her heart did a stupid flip, but she didn’t even smile. “You lied to me.” The whisper echoed to the rafters and swirled around them like a cold whirlpool.
“We’ve established that already.”
“No, I mean you lied to me again. You didn’t want me to know that you were connected with Crowley. Why?” She angled her head up defiantly as he stopped just short of her, his bare toes nearly touching hers, his gaze delving deep into hers.
“I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“What about me? Didn’t you think I might want to know?” she demanded, anger burning through her blood and controlling her tongue. The nerve of the man!
“What good would it have done?”
“This isn’t about good and bad, Trent! This is about the truth and lies, about trust. You expect me to pretend you’re my husband, let you live in my house, allow you to have a key to my door, for crying out loud, and you can’t even show me the consideration of telling me how you’re connected with Crowley!”