He watched her in surprise. Only one other woman had ever grabbed him by the clothing and tried to shake him like that. Diana. He'd always gotten a charge out of it, knowing she was trying to be fierce. The same sweet ferocity shone on Jen's face now—an earnest mix of exasperation, anxiety and determination to be heard.
But she's not Diana. God Almighty, Trev … don't confuse the two! The familiar gesture, the sound of her voice, the scent of her hair and skin—all blended together to boggle his mind. And kick-start his heart.
Unable to stop himself, he reached for her. Hooking a hand around her nape and the other around her slim waist, he drew her nearer, breathing in her scent, relishing the feel of her. "I'm not going to pay you for this one, Jen," he whispered, his gaze dancing with hers. "Understand? I'm not paying."
She didn't back away, or try to evade him, but maintained her fierce hold on his lapels. Her lips parted, her breathing deepened. Her gaze darkened in that oh-so-familiar way.
He kissed her with solemn intent. He needed to taste, to probe, to analyze. But the heat flared with stunning swiftness and seared away all thought, all ability to reason. She was sweetness. Vitality. Life-giving fire. He needed her heat. Had been needing it for days.
Her arms went around his neck, and his hands splayed across her back, seeking the warmth and softness of her skin through the interfering silk of her blouse. Their kiss slanted and deepened, her tongue wrangling with his in the most provocative give-and-take, until sexual need smoldered within him. He longed to explore the very depths of her … every blessed one of them…
She uttered a groan that ended on a cry, and abruptly she broke the kiss.
He reeled from the sudden desertion.
"We can't do this, Trev," she said, her whisper rife with anguish. "You've got to leave. And stay away."
Frowning in frustration, he searched her gaze. "Is that what you really want?"
"Yes. Yes!"
"Damn it, Jen, you're lying again. You don't want me to go, any more than I want to." He felt her body grow tense, and knew that she was straggling to conceal the desire she'd admitted with her kiss. Biting back a curse, he reluctantly loosened his hold on her. "There's only one way that I'll leave."
"What way?"
"Give me what I came for. Three days of your company. Just three short days. If I can't convince you to accept my help in that time, I'll let you go, and never contact you again."
He wasn't sure what emotion leaped into her eyes. Wistfulness? Longing? Fear? "No, I'm sorry. I can't do that." With regret deepening the shadows in her eyes, she backed away from his embrace and leaned against her desk, as if she didn't trust her legs to keep her upright.
He fought the urge to pull her back into his arms and kiss her into submission. "Yes, you can. I'll talk to Phyllis. I'll tell her I need an office manager. Someone who's familiar with the way I run my business. She already believes that you used to work for me."
"She won't let you hire me. I don't work in the field."
"She'll make an exception this time." He intended to pay whatever it would take. "And I do need help. Setting up my office, and finishing a couple of projects. We'll work together, and you can get to know me. And, hopefully, to trust me."
Anxiously she studied his face, clearly debating the wisdom of accepting his offer. After an encouragingly long pause, she murmured, "I'm sorry, but I just can't afford the time away from the office."
"Two days, then. We'll need at least two."
She shook her head and made a move to turn away.
He caught her by the shoulders, trapping her against her desk. Persuasion hadn't worked. On to Plan B. "If you turn me down, I'll have to find another way to help you. I can't guarantee you'll like whatever tactics I'm forced to try. But understand this—I do intend to find your pimp, and to close down your nighttime operations … if I have to turn the whole town upside-down to do it."
She turned paler, which only strengthened his conviction that she faced terrible danger. The thought made his muscles jump with anger against whoever posed that danger.
"I … I was only kidding when I said I had a pimp. I just wanted to see what you'd say—and maybe intimidate you a little. I don't really have one at all."
"Then you don't have to worry about 'trouble' when I go looking for him."
She bit her lip, so clearly anxious that his heart turned over for her. He didn't enjoy using threats against anyone, least of all a woman, but the fear and anguish he'd sensed in her from the very start called out to him on a level too deep to ignore.
He hadn't been able to keep his wife safe. She'd disappeared without a trace. He'd damn sure do better for Jen—whether she appreciated the effort or not.
"Two days?" she said uncertainly. "If I give you those two days, will you let me go when they're over? Will you forget about me and my … nighttime operations? And stay out of my life for good?"
It was his turn to hesitate. What if two days weren't enough to persuade her to accept his help? Then again, two days were better than none. "I swear it."
Though she seemed slightly relieved, she wasn't convinced. "And you promise that during those two days, you won't try to find my pimp—who doesn't exist!—or dig out any information beyond what I tell you?"
Again, reluctance delayed his response. He itched to find out everything he could about her and the darkness that somehow enslaved her. Realizing he'd lose this opportunity to win her trust if he didn't compromise, he capitulated. "Okay. No digging for information. I promise."
She still didn't look quite satisfied. "You understand that I … I can't be seen around town with you. It could raise too many questions."
He clenched his teeth to keep from responding unwisely. She was afraid her pimp would find out that she was spending too much time with one john, slowing down her productivity. Trev yearned to find the son of a bitch—"who didn't exist"—and strangle him. "We won't be seen around town."
"I assume you also understand that my duties will be only clerical, and that my workday ends at five o'clock."
Silence settled between them.
This was one compromise he wouldn't make. He couldn't let her have the nights free. Not when some powerful evil held her in its grasp, forcing her into the arms of other men. Never had the thought been more repugnant to him than now.
"I won't try to buy your sexual favors, Jen." He meant it as a vow, to himself as well as to her. Nevertheless, he dug his wallet out of his pocket, extricated three hundred-dollar bills and pressed them into her hand, closing her fingers over them. "But I want the nights, too. Three of them. That includes tonight."
She didn't have to do it. She didn't have to go with Trev at all.
She could tell Phyllis that a family emergency had arisen out-of-state that required her immediate departure. She could board a flight this evening—to anywhere—while Dan Creighton dealt with the logistics of her permanent move.
But Trev's protective instincts were now engaged. If she didn't live up to their bargain, he would worry about what had become of her, or believe that his insistence on helping her had caused some major problem. He might very well start digging into her background in an attempt to find her, or at least understand her. His inquiries about Jennifer Hannah might trip off an alarm at the Marshals Service, which would then draw him to their notice.
Jennifer didn't want Trev brought to the notice of the U.S. Marshals. She'd gone to extreme lengths to avoid that very thing. Amazingly enough, she'd succeeded in withholding the fact from them that she'd ever been married or connected to Trev Montgomery in any way.
This had been possible only because she'd married Trev under a false name.
Closing her eyes and sinking down into a hot, fragrant bubble bath after a long day at work, Jennifer tried to calm herself. Oh, what a tangled web she'd woven! But she'd been caught up in a web of secrets and lies for as long as she could remember.
Secrecy came with the territory when one was raised in a family involved wit
h organized crime. Born Carly Palmieri, only daughter of "Big Vick" and his beauty-queen wife, she remembered being told as a child that certain occurrences or late-night visits to their sumptuous New Orleans home weren't to be mentioned. That Daddy's business wasn't to be talked about, and that if strangers ever questioned her, she was to tell Daddy immediately. As she grew older, she heard whispers about illegal bookmaking, and though she hadn't been sure at the time what it meant, she suspected it had something to do with the men who visited her father.
She hadn't paid much attention to her father's activities, though. Her life was filled with friends, cousins, family parties, pretty clothes, expensive shoes, and just about anything else her heart desired—as long as she followed her father's rules and behaved like a nice little Catholic schoolgirl should. She was, after all, Carly Palmieri, her father's pristine princess.
Her ivory tower remained a fairly happy place throughout her teenage years, although her father's strictness began to chafe. He seemed too overprotective—scrutinizing every new friend, forbidding her to venture too far from home. He actually hired a driver to take her to and from school—even after she'd graduated from high school and went on to study cosmetology.
And then one summer day, her uncle was gunned down on the sidewalk outside his house while she and her aunt were chatting in the side courtyard garden. A stray bullet hit her five-year-old cousin, killing him, too. Her aunt never recovered from the drive-by murders of her husband and son.
Neither did Carly. Their bloody slaughter opened her eyes to a terrifying truth. She wasn't safe. None of her loved ones was safe—even the most innocent.
She noticed then that her father himself seemed afraid. He wasn't as loud, happy and self-assured as he used to be. And her beautiful, vivacious mother soon lapsed into illness—from the torturous stress, it was widely believed.
On her deathbed, her mother told her of other violence committed against family members and friends, merely because they'd angered the wrong people. "Leave home, Carly. Move far away. Cut all ties with everyone you know. Don't let this life touch you or anyone you come to love."
Her mother gave her a wad of cash, some identification papers that bore the name "Diana Kelly," and a false Social Security number. She wouldn't say where or how she'd gotten the documents. "It's better that you don't know. I made certain of one thing, though—no one knows you have them. Not even your father. If anyone asks, say you were born in Chicago. And pay attention to the birth date on the certificate. You're nineteen now, not twenty. Don't tell anyone who you really are, or you'll be endangering yourself and the husband or children you may have someday. Don't tell a soul the truth, Carly. Promise me."
She'd solemnly promised—a deathbed vow to her mother.
And after the funeral, at age twenty-turned-nineteen, she'd run away from her father's stifling home to the freedom of California. The newly created Diana Kelly chopped off her long, dark hair in a spiky new style, pierced her ears in several places, tattooed a butterfly beneath her navel and found work near the Santa Monica pier as a hairstylist.
One of her best customers was Trev's slightly eccentric grandmother, whose ears were also pierced in several places. Babs Montgomery, in her loose-fitting blouses and long gauzy skirts, invited her home for lunch one day to discuss their favorite subject—writing. Babs was an aspiring novelist, and Diana was working on a play.
They were deep into a brainstorming session, when Trev came in. He'd steered Babs into an adjoining room and scolded her for bringing strangers home from the pier again. Overhearing them, Diana knew that he was only trying to protect his grandmother. Emotionally, though, Diana was still Big Vick Palmieri's princess, and the implied suspicion against her was more than she could take.
She thanked Babs for lunch, apologized curtly to Trev for intruding in his home, and stalked out the door. Babs insisted that Trev bring her back.
They had nothing in common, she and Trev. He was a hardworking college graduate with an architecture degree who was struggling to raise his three parentless siblings, keep his wayward grandmother in line and start up his own construction business. Diana was a footloose rebel struggling with a major identity crisis and a hole in her heart where her family used to be. After her sheltered life at home, her sudden freedom had begun to overwhelm her, and the quirky characters that populated her new life often frightened her.
She fell in love with strong, solid, protective Trev Montgomery halfway through his apology. And before she'd even accepted that apology, they'd both been mesmerized by the most irresistible sexual allure…
That was another new facet to her freedom—sex. No man in her past had dared get too carried away with Vick Palmieri's daughter.
She and Trev got carried away. Quickly. Frequently.
He married her two months later, without knowing her real name or her real background. She'd feared from the start that his love for her had been based merely on sex. And, worse yet, on lies. But she'd felt justified in the deceit. She swore the danger from her past wouldn't compromise the safety and happiness of the kind, loving family she'd married into.
After only three months of marriage, though, her illusion of safety was shattered. Her father appeared on the national news. He'd been arrested on racketeering charges and had agreed to testify against a powerful crime boss.
A person didn't grow up in a family like hers without knowing what happened to "rats" … or their families. An alias might suffice to keep her out of harm's way under normal circumstances, but not under these circumstances. The pressure was on to find her—Big Vick Palmieri's only offspring. His princess. His Achilles' heel. She knew what she had to do.
She left Trev—safe, uninvolved and unaware—in the happy, normal life he'd always known, with the family who needed him and the business he'd worked so hard to start. She packed a suitcase, told him she was going to a writers' conference for the weekend—and drove directly to FBI headquarters.
Though she'd felt as if her heart had been torn out of her at leaving Trev, she'd known she was lucky to reach sanctuary alive.
At one simple announcement of her name, agents seemed to spring out of nowhere to swarm around her. She was drawn into an inner chamber, frisked for weapons and wires, then flown in a private jet and driven in a windowless van to the "safe house" where her father was being held. He squeezed her in a warm, hard bear hug and sobbed with relief. "The feds promised they wouldn't tell the media that I was going to testify until we'd found you, Carly. It leaked out, anyway. If you hadn't come, I wasn't going to testify. The men I did business with—they're murderers. They've got to be stopped. But they'll come after us, Carly. Both me and you."
Her emotions had been painfully divided. Though she loved her father as much as always, she couldn't help a certain fury at the way he'd ruined both her life and that of her mother. But her issues with her father would have to wait. The U.S. district attorney was anxious to induct them into the Witness Protection Program.
When asked by the authorities about her recent activities, it was surprisingly easy to omit the fact that she'd lived and married under a different name. She told them she'd been bumming around the California beaches for the better part of a year, spending the cash her mother had given her. Intent on securing her father's testimony against the crime boss, the D.A. hurried the paperwork through the system.
Her father insisted that they undergo plastic surgery to alter their appearances. Although the government refused to pay for the surgery, they had doctors on hand to perform it. Her father spared no expense. "Change everything you can."
In a matter of weeks—long, painful weeks of recuperation and then indoctrination into the Program—Carly Palmieri ceased to exist. A cautious, subdued Jennifer Hannah was born. And Diana Kelly Montgomery vanished into thin air—as far as her husband knew.
She hadn't intended for the latter to happen. Ensconced in a small apartment at the Witness Security Safe Site and Orientation Center in Washington, D.C., a heavily guard
ed compound run by the U.S. Marshals, Jennifer had written a letter to Trev, stating that she wasn't what he'd thought her to be, she wasn't happy with him, and that she would never come back. Brutal, yes, but necessary to set him free. She'd signed the letter with a D rather than her name, and didn't mention anything about marriage or divorce, just in case the letter fell into the wrong hands. She assumed Trev would divorce her on the grounds of abandonment.
All mail had to be sent through secured channels, though, and she'd hesitated to give the letter to the U.S. Marshals for fear that they would read it and add Trev's name to their files on her. With the way she'd been raised—unable to trust anyone too much—she couldn't imagine that any agency run by human beings could be impenetrable by organized crime. She was willing to entrust her own life to the U.S. Marshals because she had no better alternative, but she wouldn't trust them with Trev's life. His name would not appear in their paperwork. Thus, she gave the letter to a motherly secretary she'd befriended at the compound. Jennifer explained that she didn't want the Marshals to read it, and asked if the woman would mail it in confidence.
That letter obviously had never been sent. But since no one from the Marshals Service had mentioned her previous association with Trev Montgomery, she assumed that none of the Marshals had read it, either.
As much as she hated the pain she'd caused Trev for the past seven years by not mailing that letter through proper channels, she was fervently glad that she'd kept him out of harm's way. The men who hunted for her and her father would not hesitate to use her husband—or even a former lover, if they believed she cared about him—to draw them into the open.
She'd kept Trev safe so far. She didn't want to risk that safety now by having him probe into the background of one Jennifer Hannah. His inquiries might trip an alarm and draw the attention of the U.S. Marshals … or, if he pursued the prostitution angle and flashed around sketches of her, the underworld.
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