Undercover Bachelor

by Rebecca Winters

  On fire for him, she could deny him nothing.

  For the next little while their mouths fused in passion. The more they attempted to satisfy the clamoring needs of their bodies, the more they hungered. They were still giving each other kiss for kiss when the taxi came to an unexpected halt.

  “Why have we stopped so soon?” she moaned against lips that continued to devour hers. “Where are we?”

  “In an alley at the rear of our hotel. You’re going to use the back entrance and go in first. I’ll follow in a few minutes and come to your room.”

  Good. That would give her enough time to gather her wits before she accomplished what she’d been planning for the last few months.

  “I don’t want to leave you. I’m afraid you’ll do the honorable thing and decide to stay away from me.”

  He bit out an unintelligible epithet. “I haven’t felt honorable about you since the first moment I laid eyes on you.” There was a sharp intake of breath. “If you think I’d let you go now, then you don’t know anything about men. Trust me, Whitney. This night is just beginning.”

  Oh, I do trust you. Now hear me. Before this night is over you’re going to receive the reward you deserve.

  Gerard watched her hurry inside the back door of the hotel, her hair a glorious banner of gilt.

  He knew the driver was waiting for him to get out of the taxi, but he couldn’t move. Not yet. Whitney Lawrence had done things to him. Amazing things.

  He’d known desire before. Certainly it had been there for his wife. But he couldn’t recall ever wanting a woman so much in his life. Not even with Simone had he experienced this explosion of need.

  The urge to make love to Whitney on that dance floor almost overcame his reason.

  He’d once met a Gypsy outside Budapest who had tried to make him buy a potion that was supposed to create insatiable needs and bring new excitement to his lovemaking. One taste of it and he would crave more and more.

  Gerard had scoffed at the absurd notion. True love between a man and a woman generated that kind of passion on its own.

  So how did he account for this unquenchable fire burning him alive when the female in question was working with a foreign agent wanted by Interpol for espionage crimes?

  The sweet taste of Whitney was still fresh on his lips. He feared her effect on him was like that mythical potion. It didn’t seem to matter that she was playing a dangerous game. The craving for her was growing stronger.

  “Monsieur?” The driver wanted his money. Naturally he did.

  Gerard handed him a bill and got out of the taxi. On his way up the back stairs of the hotel, just. the thought of Whitney and the way she made him feel produced a surge of adrenaline that couldn’t possibly be healthy.

  His senses seemed to be more acute. Her mere presence heightened his excitement to be alive, to be a man. He hadn’t been to sleep in forty-eight hours, yet he’d never been more fully awake.

  He knew that when he returned to his room, he would end up in hers and there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it.

  In the past, he’d never made love to a woman unless they’d shared a meaningful relationship first. Even then, there had only been a few relationships apart from his marriage. That was the code he’d always lived by.

  So why now was he about to break his own rule with a woman he would probably end up sending to prison?

  Coming from the other end of the hall, he reached her door first. Beyond the point of no return, he tapped lightly.

  She opened it so fast it took his breath away. Her gorgeous face and figure took his breath away.

  “Tell me it’s too late and I won’t come in.” He had to say it to satisfy the wretched voice that used to be his conscience. Tomorrow he would face the harsh reality of her double life.

  Tonight the edges were blurred, marring his ability to think. All roads led to her. That was all he knew. Until morning he would pretend she was the innocent eighteen-year-old he’d fallen in love with.

  Those violet eyes never wavered. “I was terrified you wouldn’t come. What took you so long?”

  The only escape hole filled over his head. He shut the door and reached for her.

  For a long time they clung to each other, relishing the differences between man and woman as they feasted on each other’s mouths, unable to get enough.

  Without an audience they had no inhibitions and all the time in the world to touch and be touched. Her warmth and fragrance intoxicated him.

  He didn’t remember gravitating to the bed. The sound of her high heels falling to the floor gave the only clue that he’d carried her the short distance. It was too small for them, but somehow they fit anyway.

  After burying his face in her hair so he could revel in its silkiness, he lifted his head and stared into her darkly fringed eyes. In the dim light of the dresser lamp they glowed like precious gemstones, shot with blue and lavender fire.

  The shape of her mouth lured him to trace it with his index finger. “I want you, Whitney, but you already know that. Obviously I haven’t let your young age stand in the way of what I desire. That’s wrong of me, I know.

  “But when two people are as physically attuned as we are and have been since the meeting in Salt Lake, it seems equally wrong to deny the intensity of those feelings, or to hope they’ll go away.

  “I only know of one method to cure the ache we’re both experiencing, at least for tonight. Whether you believe me or not, I’ve never wanted any woman so much before.”

  “Not even your wife?” came the tremulous question.

  “Not even my wife,” he whispered, having already admitted that truth to himself. Simone was part of the past, when he had been a very young man. I’m a grown man now. What I feel with you can’t be described or compared to any other experience.

  “Are you divorced, or did she die?”

  With that question, she gave herself away, jerking him back to ugly reality.

  Whitney Lawrence was on a quest for information. What exactly did she want to know? Had Bowen become suspicious of Gerard and told her to find out what she could? Was this part of the plan they’d hatched out at Malmaison?

  Until Gerard heard from Roman and knew Whitney’s true agenda, it would be wisest to vacate her bed and call it a night, difficult as that was going to be to do.

  “I don’t blame you for asking that question.” He kissed her long and hungrily. “Naturally you want to know everything there is to know about me before we make love for the first time. I agree there should be no secrets between us.

  “Though I don’t feel gentlemanly, I’m going to do the gentlemanly thing and slow things down a little. You’re so young and vulnerable, I have no right to touch you, but I can’t seem to help myself,” he said in a husky voice. “I don’t want to make any mistakes with you. I need you to be very sure this is what you want.”

  “But I do wa—”

  “Trust me, Whitney.” He quieted her protest with another deeply satisfying kiss. He would never be able to get enough of her. “We have plenty of time and opportunity to learn all the private, intimate things there are to know about each other. Our tour has only Just begun.

  “When we reach Switzerland, there are places I want to take you where we can be totally private and make love to our hearts content. Right now isn’t the time. Besides, you’re almost ready to pass out on me.”

  Exhaustion had only enhanced her beauty. Her eyes were glazed by passion. That part she couldn’t hide or fake. The chemistry between them was so powerful, if he didn’t remove himself from her arms in the next minute, he wouldn’t be going anywhere. Such a mistake could jeopardize everything.

  She studied his features longingly. At the same time her hands molded his shoulders, driving him insane with needs he could barely control. “After tonight it will be hard to pretend we’re just student and teacher in front of the others,” she whispered.

  “You don’t know the half of it. Whitney—” He sucked in his breath. �
�For the rest of the tour I’m going to be seen spending a little more time with the boys. Rest assured it’s a ploy to protect you from further gossip. Do you understand?”

  “I’ll understand as long as you promise we’re going to be together in Switzerland. Really together.”

  “I swear it,” he vowed before his mouth closed over hers one more time. A few minutes later he buried his face against her throat to kiss the warm, scented hollow, then he stole away.

  With a sense of dread he returned to his own claustrophobic hotel room and its empty bed.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  WHITNEY undressed quickly and got ready for bed. Though she was dead on her feet, she stared into the darkness long after he’d gone, torn apart by conflicting emotions.

  Tonight she’d come close to exposing him. In fact she could have forced the issue. But when he suggested they take things slow and easy, she decided her revenge would be all the sweeter if she waited until he felt the timing was right. Then the setting for the crime would be his creation.

  The more she thought about it, the more she realized the seduction scene should not take place in her hotel room where she could be blamed for enticing him. Under the law, that kind of setup was known as entrapment.

  No. She needed the kind of proof that would place the blame wholly on his shoulders.

  His shoulders. His mouth. That magnificent male body . . .

  Whitney groaned out loud because her body was still reacting to the passion he had aroused. The scent of the soap he used still clung to her skin. She explored her swollen lips with a sense of wonder.

  Did Christine lie awake nights haunted by the same soul-destroying memories?

  Of course she did!

  The two of them had made love twice. Christine had memories Whitney could only imagine. Christine had borne his son who would probably grow up to be every bit as attractive as his father.

  Before Whitney succumbed to sleep, she found herself wondering how many paternity suits could be brought against him if anyone took the trouble to find out? How many naive teenage girls had known rapture in his arms?

  When Gerard first heard a phone ring, he thought he was dreaming and covered his head with his pillow. The ringing started again. On about the tenth ring, he realized it was his cell phone, not the hotel’s. Roman!

  He grabbed for it and said hello.

  “Before you yell at me for disturbing the dead, I thought you ought to hear this. It might make you feel a little better.”

  Nothing could make him feel better. “I assume we’re talking about Whitney Lawrence I don’t know if I can handle any news about her right now.”

  “Not even if we don’t think she has any connection with Bowen?”

  Gerard flung off the covers and sat up, his heart thudding. “Say that again?”

  “She’s a corporate attorney with Sharp and Rowe law firm in Salt Lake.”

  Whitney Lawrence was an attorney? Gerard raked a hand through his hair. Sharp and Rowe was one of the more well-established, prestigious firms located in the Kennecott Building.

  “Still feel you can’t handle any more news?”

  Gerard’s emotions were in chaos. “Lord, Roman!”

  “Amen. She recently passed the Utah bar with high marks. It will interest you to know she graduated from the University of Utah Law School magna cum laude.”

  That explained her crossword puzzle and choice of reading material.

  “She was born and raised in Salt Lake, attended East Valley High School, graduated with honors, four point average all four years. Was a pianist for the orchestra and choir, won the Sterling Scholar Award in Business and was captain of the East Valley ski team that brought home the coveted Peruvian Trophy all four years.”

  That meant she’d spent a lot of time training for her ski races in Alta, Gerard’s backyard. Those would have been the years he’d been working for Interpol in Europe.

  “There’s more. In college, she did a summer internship in Senator Pike’s office in Washington, D.C., and is serving on the Governor’s Board for the 2002 Olympics.”

  The information was coming faster than Gerard could absorb.

  “She’s never been married. As far as we can tell, there’s no man currently m her life. Except you, of course,” Roman added adroitly. “She lives alone in the Millcreek-Road apartment complex.”

  Gerard blinked. He passed that apartment on his way to the office every morning.

  “She owns a 1997 Jeep Wrangler and is still paying off a student loan. Her father died years ago and her mother remarried a Thomas Mason. She has an unmarried half sister, Christine, and a nephew named Greg.

  “Before now she has never traveled outside the U.S. except for two trips to Acapulco and Matzatlan which only required a visa. We don’t place her in any area or time frame that would coincide with Donald Bowen’s known movements.”

  After a long silence Gerard blurted, “What in the hell is she doing on this trip posing as a teenager?”

  “That’s for you to find out, Comrade. Perhaps now I can wish you happy hunting. Go back to sleep. We’ll talk later.”

  “I forgive you for the phone call,” Gerard muttered.

  “I thought you would.” There was a click.

  He stood there with the phone still clutched in his hand. Whitney Lawrence had an agenda all right, but he’d thought that in spite of it, the chemistry between them had been real and spontaneous.

  After hearing of her background and accomplishments, he realized she had the brains and the capacity to carry off any charade as long as it furthered her objectives.

  Could a woman fake the response she’d shown him tonight? Had she decided to use him for her own purposes because he was on the spot and available?

  Upon introspection he found the idea of either of those questions being answered with a yes untenable.

  As to whether or not Whitney would go so far as to finish what they’d started earlier tonight, he guessed he would find out when they got to Switzerland. In the meantime, maybe he ought to do the job he was being paid for and nail Bowen.

  Needing something to lower his temperature, he headed for another cold shower.

  “Hey, Whitney? Come with us this afternoon.”

  The tour group had finished lunch after coming back from the Louvre and had split up for the rest of the day. Some had gone with their teachers to the Gare D’Orsay Museum. Others from Mr. Grimshaw’s group had befriended Whitney and wanted her to go with them to the Pompidou Center.

  Much as Whitney would have loved to see some of the Impressionist paintings, she knew Mr. Smith was headed there with Jeff and Roger. He had said he was going to spend the bulk of his time with them. After the intimacy they’d shared last night, she needed to stay away and sort out her feelings, which were growing more confused.

  If she ended up alone with him again, she was afraid she wouldn’t have the strength to deny him. The desire for that closeness was so powerful, she no longer trusted herself with him.

  In fact today might be a good day to isolate herself from everyone.

  As unobtrusively as possible, she approached him at one of the tables of the sidewalk café. “Mr. Smith?”

  At the sound of her voice his head turned in her direction, casting her an enigmatic regard. But she knew he was remembering last night. They’d kissed each other senseless and she still hadn’t recovered. “What is it, Whitney?”

  His nearness made it hard to think. “I’m going to stay at the hotel this afternoon. I want to call my grandmother and write a few postcards to friends.”

  “Thanks for telling me. If you decide not to join us after dinner for the opera, then don’t forget we leave early in the morning for Versailles.”

  Neither of the boys hearing that response would think anything was going on between her and their chaperone.

  “I won’t.” She smiled at the guys. “Have a good time.”

  Much later in the day, after she’d called her family and had chatted wi
th John Warren, she gave a surreptitious glance around the lobby hoping none of the group were still here, then left the hotel to visit the place housing Rodin’s works. She’d studied the famous sculptor in college, hoping one day to see his statues in person.

  Within ten minutes a taxi had deposited her near the museum where she had her first glimpse of The Thinker. The sight of the famous masterpiece should have thrilled her, but her involvement with Mr. Smith consumed her thoughts, robbing her of the full pleasure she should be feeling at this rare opportunity. Without him standing next to her, the excitement had gone out of the day. I miss him.

  Disturbed by this knowledge, she moved inside to view The Shades and The Cathedral, two acclaimed works. As she stood there marveling over them, her eye caught sight of a marble statue farther away. She started toward it, then realized she was staring at The Kiss.

  The way the man was kissing the woman took her breath. Rodin had captured the two lovers’ emotions in the stone so they appeared lifelike.

  After last night she shouldn’t be looking at anything this intimately beautiful. It seemed to capture the essence of what she’d felt with Mr. Smith. What she couldn’t forget . . .

  “This is my favorite piece, too. You’re a true lover of the arts, aren’t you, Whitney? Your French teacher prepared you well for this tour.”

  Mr. Bowen’s voice. She’d thought he’d gone with his students, but there were no set rules. The teachers covered for one another to allow flexibility.

  His showing up here was obviously a coincidence. She just wished she could have spent this afternoon alone, and preferred to be standing in front of any other statue than Rodin’s most erotic work.

  “Hello, Mr. Bowen. I thought you would be at the Pompidou.”

  He gave her a half smile, cocking his head. “Once is enough. When I’m in Paris I always visit certain treasured spots, this being one of them. Unfortunately the museum is closing, and I need to get back to my students. Shall we share a taxi to the hotel so we won’t be late?”