by Maggie Shayne, MaryJanice Davidson, Angela Knight, Jacey Ford
When Jake finally let go of her and sat up to find his discarded clothes, Lauren blinked up at him dumbly for several seconds.
"Wow," she whispered once she had her breath back.
"I'll second that," Jake agreed. Then he held out her bikini bottoms, holding the thin scrap of metallic fabric awkwardly between his thumb and forefinger. Lauren grabbed her suit and quickly got dressed, frowning when it occurred to her that Jake was acting awkward, though she didn't know why.
"Uh, what's going on here?" Lauren asked, feeling more than a little awkward herself.
Jake turned to look at her, his green eyes full of a self-mockery Lauren didn't understand until he spoke. "The urge to have sex after a stressful situation is normal. It happens all the time. It's just the adrenaline, nothing more than that."
"So you think I would have done the same thing with anyone?" Lauren asked, incredulous that Jake was trying to convince her that what they'd just shared meant nothing.
Jake shrugged. "Sure."
Lauren's gaze was steady as she looked back at him. "You're wrong, Jake. This wasn't just about scratching some primal itch. I like you—"
"You don't know me," Jake interrupted. He rubbed one hand along his jaw and shook his head impatiently. "I'm not the hero you think I am. I was going to leave you with Santos while I checked out the camp, even knowing you might be in danger."
"Why?" Lauren asked, tilting her chin to look at him when he stood up. She was surprised that he had admitted this to her after spending the last several months pretending to be exactly what he was now protesting he was not. What she wanted to know was, why now? Why, when she had just made it obvious that she was interested in him, was he intent on discouraging her? She also didn't point out that, despite what he'd said, he had come back to rescue her after she'd screamed. He'd admitted that much to her during their long hike out of the jungle earlier. So why was he trying to convince her now that he didn't care what happened to her? Unless what he was really trying to do was to convince himself that he didn't care…
"If I had to, I would sacrifice you to complete this mission and save the people of Isla Suspiro further suffering," Jake said bluntly.
Slowly, Lauren unraveled herself from her sitting position on the ground and got to her feet. "You know, Jake, it seems to me," she began, bending down to pick up her beach bag, "that is exactly what a real hero would do."
* * *
CH@%!*R 7
"Where is the American? I have it arranged it so that a reporter will discover the man's body at Tomas's estate this morning."
Rafael Santos narrowed his eyes and briefly considered lying to his brother. He knew how Emilio would react to the news that the spy had gotten away. Unfortunately, he didn't have much of a choice. The CIA agent had disappeared… along with the woman Rafael had begun to think of as his good luck charm. He wasn't certain which one made him angrier.
"He escaped, but my men believe he is dead. He went over the falls at Nuevo Rios. No one could survive that," Rafael said into his cell phone. He refused to let himself worry about the temper tantrums his brother threw whenever things did not go his way. Although Rafael was a year younger than Emilio, he had learned a lesson his brother had not—life did not always go the way one planned.
When Rafael had been young, he had been certain that he and Tomas would rule Isla Suspiro together, as a team. He did not know exactly what had turned his oldest brother against him. All he knew was that by the time Rafael was old enough to hold a position in the government, Tomas had come to think of him as the enemy.
But he couldn't allow the people of Isla Suspiro to suffer for the dissention within the Santos family. Tomas didn't know it, but Emilio kept Rafael informed about the workings of the new government. It had been Emilio who told him that Tomas—like the dictator before him—had become corrupt, taking bribes from honest businessmen to ensure their places of business would not be destroyed by Tomas's army and skimming profits from his own companies rather than increasing his employees' wages.
It was up to Rafael to challenge his brother's position and bring prosperity to the island. This was his destiny.
And as Emilio cursed and accused him of incompetence for allowing the American to evade capture, Rafael's resolve strengthened. He was weary of Emilio's constant censure and the way his brother had of acting as if he were the one in charge. As Rafael disconnected the call, he made a decision. He had the funding he needed. His troops were trained and ready. Emilio wanted Rafael to wait until tomorrow to act. There was a festival today to celebrate the end of the rainy season, and Emilio reasoned that Tomas's army would be tired and hungover after the day's revelry. But Rafael figured that a large part of Tomas's troops would be out enjoying the festivities this afternoon and, thus, his mission would be easier to complete than if he waited until tomorrow.
Yes, he would attack today.
Perhaps that would finally prove to his brother who was leading this charge.
You are one stupid son of a bitch.
That thought kept running through Jake's mind as he and Lauren slowly made their way down the mountain to where she assured him a helicopter would arrive later that morning. She'd taken a helo tour of this area when she'd first arrived on the island and had apparently memorized the tour operator's schedule. Jake had been duly impressed.
As a matter of fact, everything about Lauren Devlin impressed him, which was why he couldn't believe he'd been stupid enough to push her away after she'd slept with him. What kind of idiot was he anyway?
The kind of idiot who couldn't believe that a supermodel like Lauren would have sex with the real Jake Haven—not the one who embellished the truth and pretended to be a superhero, but the man he really was inside. Still, that didn't mean he couldn't have let Lauren continue believing his lies… at least until after he'd gotten laid again.
Jake sighed and put a hand on Lauren's leg to help steady her as she dropped down onto the outcropping beside him. She was driving him nuts wearing nothing but that little bikini that left little to the imagination. When she looked up at him with her big blue eyes, Jake had to fight the urge to take her right there on the cliff and to hell with knowing that she thought he was something he wasn't. He hadn't realized that his BS job had worked so well. Before this op, Lauren had always treated him with a sort of cool detachment. He never knew that the stories he'd told her about his exploits in the field—some exaggerated and some not… well, okay, most exaggerated but a few not—had convinced her that he was some larger-than-life hero. If he'd been smart, he would have thanked God for that and just kept his mouth shut.
Since when had he grown a fucking conscience?
"Is something wrong?" Lauren asked, licking that luscious bottom lip of hers and blinking up at him innocently, as if she had no idea that just watching her suck her bottom lip into her mouth made him hard.
Jake stared intently at the rock face of the cliff. He had to stop thinking about Lauren's bikini, Lauren's lips, and anything to do with Lauren sucking anything. He had to stop thinking about Lauren, period.
Pretend she's Race, he ordered himself, then almost burst out laughing. Yeah, right. There was no man alive who had that good an imagination.
"No," he answered shortly. "I'm just thinking about what I need to do once we get back to the other side of the island." Liar.
"Oh. Well, obviously, we need to let Tomas Santos know about the delivery trucks," Lauren said, scooting backward in preparation for dropping down to the next ledge.
Jake scrambled down first and held out his arms to make sure she didn't fall, although she didn't really need his help. He'd worked with female agents before, of course, and wasn't some Neanderthal who expected them to whine and complain and not know how to do their jobs, but Lauren wasn't exactly the same as other agents. He didn't have the heart to tell her that there was no such thing as "intensive" field agent training. He wasn't sure why Martha McLaughlin had lied to her—most likely because she was a bitch and she wa
nted Lauren to continue providing intel without giving her a chance at a real promotion.
It was dirty and underhanded and just the sort of thing he would have expected from Lauren's handler.
After this op, Jake was going to recommend that Lauren be considered for a real field agent position. And if that meant he'd have to battle Martha McLaughlin over it, then that's what he'd do.
"We're almost there," Lauren said excitedly, interrupting his thoughts.
Jake glanced over his shoulder to see that they were nearing the clearing where Lauren had indicated the helicopter tour company made their landings. Intent on keeping the conversation light, he jumped down to the next outcropping and said, "That was a good idea about sending the jeep down the falls without us."
Lauren's cheeks flushed with pride at the compliment, and Jake realized that he'd never seen her blush when people praised her good looks. As a matter of fact, she was more likely to give her admirer a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes and respond with a cool but polite "Thank you" than take the compliment to heart.
"I can't take all the credit. I got the idea from my Secret Agent's Handbook," she admitted as she slid onto the rock next to him.
Jake blinked. "Your what?" he asked.
"My Handbook" Lauren said. "My handler told me all the agents have them."
Jake closed his eyes. Oh, God. He was going to kill the bitch.
When he opened his eyes again, Lauren was frowning at him. She reached into the bag she had slung over her shoulder and rummaged around for a moment before pulling out what looked to be an ordinary novel. "Yours may be different than mine. I mean, it would be suspicious if we all carried around the same book, right? But what's inside is probably pretty similar. You know, once you look at it through the special lens."
She was beginning to sound desperate, so Jake swallowed and nodded. "Yeah. Mine works the same way," he said.
Lauren slowly put the book back into her bag, watching him the entire time. Jake knew he could be a convincing liar when he had to be—he wasn't certain if the skill had come with the job or if he'd gotten the job because he already had the skill—but he knew he'd botched this one when Lauren glanced away. She swallowed several times, as if trying not to cry, and Jake felt as if someone were stabbing him in the heart with each passing second.
"I'm sor—" he began, but stopped when she rounded on him furiously and held up one hand to make him shut up.
"No. Don't you dare apologize. I'm the one who fell for it. The whole thing was a lie, wasn't it?" she asked, but didn't give him time to answer. "Of course it was. There's no such thing as intensive field agent training, and this book is nothing more than a sophomoric prank that Martha McLaughlin assumed I was too stupid to figure out. Well, it looks like she was right. She got me good. Ha, ha. Joke's on me." With that, Lauren reached back into her bag and pulled out the book. She thumbed through the pages for a moment, her expression so full of self-disgust that Jake couldn't stand to watch her, so instead he looked up at the lightening sky and wished he could rewind the last five minutes and do them over again.
"I'll bet you can get these stupid things at any bookstore, right?" Lauren asked, but Jake refused to answer.
Without another word, Lauren gave the book one last disgusted look, pulled back her arm, and threw the offending object into the jungle with all her might.
* * *
CH@%!*R 8
"The American is coming this afternoon," Tomas Santos announced as he pushed open the door to Emilio's office at the Isla Suspiro Rum Company headquarters.
Emilio slowly swiveled in his chair to face Tomas and then nodded. Yes, he had expected the CIA agent to show up here after Rafael had foolishly let the man escape from the rebel camp. He had not believed for one moment that the man was actually dead. Emilio prided himself on his ability to always stay four or five steps ahead of other people. Most of them were fools, so anticipating their every move wasn't difficult.
"It's a trap," Emilio said, leaning over to pull open one of his desk drawers. He didn't know if the American had discovered Rafael's plans, but he was not going to take any chances. The American agent had to die.
Emilio extracted a white envelope from the drawer and held it out to his brother, who had stepped inside Emilio's office and closed the door. "These are photos of the man, taken yesterday at Paradise Resort. I doubt you'll have any trouble recognizing our youngest brother's henchmen. You will also see that the man went willingly. None of Rafael's men have weapons." At least, it didn't appear so in any of these photos. Emilio had been careful to destroy the three that clearly showed the gun that had been pressed into the CIA agent's back when Rafael's men had come to take him away.
"Who's the woman?" Tomas asked, frowning.
"She's one of the models here for the photo shoot. I don't know what she was doing with the agent, but I'm certain she knows nothing of this matter." He assumed that Rafael's henchmen had left the woman at the hotel since Rafael had made no mention of her. Besides, she was a model. What danger could she possibly pose?
"And you believe the American was expecting Rafael's men?"
"Yes. I think the CIA wants to see you stripped of your power, and they are now making deals with our brother to take over in your stead. I believe the American was sent to assassinate you," Emilio stated bluntly.
Tomas rubbed his forehead as he studied the photos laid out on Emilio's desk. When he looked up and met his brother's gaze, his own eyes were dark and unreadable. "What do you propose I do about it?" he asked.
Emilio hid his surprise. He was not accustomed to Tomas asking for his opinion where politics were concerned. "Let me deal with it," he said smoothly. "That way, the man's disappearance cannot be traced back to you if I'm mistaken."
"How will you know if you're wrong?" Tomas asked, eyeing him curiously.
One side of Emilio's thin mouth drew up in a mockery of a smile. "I won't," he answered.
"And you have no qualms about killing an innocent man?" Tomas leaned forward and watched his brother, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped loosely in the space between them.
Emilio had to force his teeth to unclench, to gaze back at his brother without a hint of guile in his eyes as he answered, "Not if it means removing a threat to my beloved brother's life, I don't."
Tomas's gaze remained fixed on him for a long moment before he finally nodded, unclasped his hands, and, with the slowness of one who is weary beyond his years, pushed himself up from the chair and quietly left Emilio's office.
Lauren winced as the makeup artist hired for the Isla Suspiro Rum shoot smoothed thick cover-up over the bruises she had acquired the day before. She wasn't certain which were more prominent—the bruises on her body or the dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. Good thing the makeup artist had experience covering both.
As Lauren had predicted, the helo tour arrived at the base of the waterfall at 9:30 that morning, and Jake had bribed the pilot to take them back to the resort immediately. Lauren had taken a shower and hurried to dress while Jake did the same. He had an appointment at one o'clock with Tomas Santos at Santos's home, which was part of the rum company's walled-in compound, where today's photo shoot was taking place.
They'd commandeered one of the resort's vans to transport everyone involved in the shoot from the hotel to the rum company. The compound itself was impressive—fifty acres of lush green land enclosed on three sides by a concrete wall topped by ten-foot-high wrought-iron bars. The fourth side was bounded by the Caribbean Sea, the beach patrolled round the clock by guards with machine guns.
Their driver had told them that there would be a parade this afternoon honoring the gods for putting an end to the rains and threat of hurricanes that plagued the island throughout the summer and early fall. On their ride to the compound, they'd passed vendors already setting up stalls to provide the townspeople with food and drink. Most workers had the day off, and Lauren could already hear the pop of fireworks and the sho
uts of children beyond the compound's gates.
"Looks like the people of this island take their festivals seriously," Jake said as he breezed into the makeup tent that had been set up for the photo shoot and handed Lauren a paper cup of coffee. "There are already hundreds of people lining the street outside, trying to get good seats for the parade."
He had told her that he planned to head back up to the rebel camp after his meeting with Santos, and Lauren could tell that he'd expected her to insist on coming along. But she hadn't. There was no use in either of them pretending that she was anything but what she was—a pretty face that could get them into presidential palaces and parties, and nothing more.
She sighed dispiritedly. She knew exactly why she had been so gullible. She'd wanted so badly to be part of something important. After a lifetime of being treated like cotton candy fluff that would melt at the slightest hint of rain, she had wanted someone to believe that she could be something more.
"Come on, drink up," Jake encouraged, crouching down in front of her and laying his warm hands on her bare knees.
For today's shoot, she was wearing a nearly sheer dress with a red bodice and multicolored scarf-like pieces of fabric that made up the filmy skirt. Her sandals were red, with four-inch-high heels that sank into the thick grass when she walked. Thanks to the makeup artist's magic, Lauren knew she looked great, but she had never felt worse about herself than she did right now.
Obediently, she took a sip of the rich dark coffee Jake had brought her. She needed the caffeine. Besides, she didn't have the spirit to argue.
When she lowered the cup, Jake leaned forward and surprised her by putting his forehead against hers. "Don't give up on yourself," he said. "You did great out there."