Can You Forget?

by Melissa James

  With a gentle finger he tipped up her face, his mouth a whisper’s breadth from hers. “As long as you’re in my life, I can guarantee you I won’t even think about it.” His voice was hot and rough, starkly lush as the red Outback land they loved.

  “Not at all?” she whispered, moving closer, her gaze locked on his mouth. “Not even…with me? Not with me, Tal?”

  His eyes darkened. “There’s no one to see. You don’t have to put on a show.”

  She heard the words, swirling as if through warm, sticky fluid, making no sense. She was gone, her arm wrapping around his neck on its own, her mouth seeking his. She needed this, oh, she wanted him so much…to finally know how it felt to have him on top of her, inside of her, filling her emptiness with his dark magic…

  One kiss, two, and she was in his lap, her hands seeking his skin under his shirt while he hitched up her dress, his tongue dancing in her mouth and his moans—or were they hers?—took her away from all the pain, the past—and all she could do was feel here, feel now and want—

  The clinking was tiny, a frisson of sound, but it broke the heat like a bucket of ice water. As one they broke the kiss and turned to look at the source of the interruption.

  It seemed Nick Anson was human, all right. The Cheshire-cat grin he held inside showed in his eyes, the twitching of his dimples. “Um, I beg your pardon, sir, madam, but it seems your families have arrived a day early.”

  “She’s what?”

  Burstall looked up from the picture he held—a picture of Lissa in her wedding dress, with McCluskey’s face torn from it. Falcone’s words, so unlike his supersmooth tones, set him on edge. What the—

  Falcone’s face was pale, his eyes burning. “Mr. Brooks, if you’re lying…yes, yes, I know about him. When is the intended wedding?” His hand gripped the phone so hard Burstall thought it might crack under the strain. “I haven’t waited five years for my opportunity with the lady only to have it snatched from me. Kill him.” He gave a slow blink as the guy at the other end said something. “I see. Good evening, Mr. Brooks.”

  Burstall watched in silent fascination as smooth-as-silk Robert Falcone lost it. Swearing viciously, he slammed the phone down and tossed the table it stood on, smashing the fine china. He picked up the loose receiver and threw it at a collector’s print. The glass splintered, tearing the print beneath.

  Then, calm and smiling once again, he retrieved the receiver and dialed a number. “Mr. Longley? Mr. Brooks is of no further use to us. Kill him and take his place…follow Miss West as her official reporter, and kill one Dr. Tallan O’Rierdan, once he reaches the island with his bride. That will be all. Thank you.”

  Chapter 6

  Behind Nick, the faces of their parents, and Greg, told it all. They didn’t even bother to hide the size of their grins at the passionate encounter they’d just seen.

  She scrambled off Tal’s lap, pulling down the dress he’d hiked around her thighs. “Um, sorry…we were just, um…” She looked at Tal who shrugged and grinned, busy adjusting his own clothes.

  Her mother’s smile was misty. “Darling, if the two of you weren’t just, um—we’d be worried.”

  Aunt Sheila rushed over to them, her plump form quivering like her smile. “We’re so happy. Oh, Tal, darlin’, you’ve made your mum and dad so happy!” Her arms enfolded them both in a hug. “We’ve been so worried that you’d marry some city-girl doctor or patient and stay here. But marrying our darlin’ Mary-Anne—” she kissed Mary-Anne’s cheek “—this is our dream come true. You’ll come home one day and bring our grandbabies home to us.” Aunt Sheila smiled over at Mum, who joined in the group hug.

  As everyone took their turns at hugs and congratulations, Mary-Anne’s eyes met Tal’s and saw the same stricken guilt she knew must be hidden deep somewhere in her own. In giving in to a moment of mutual desire, they’d just done far more to reassure their families that they were madly in love than any amount of Nick’s forgotten hot chocolates.

  But they were living a lie—masks that were more shameful than the makeup covering Tal’s scars. Even if they were able to save the whole world, or a vital part of it, it didn’t make facing the people they loved most in the world any easier to bear.

  “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

  Watch what you wish for—you just might get it.

  The words floated around and around in her mind. Yes, she’d heard the words she’d always wanted to hear, found herself inside the scene she’d dreamed of for twenty-four years. She was beside Tal, taking the traditional, old-fashioned vows of forever love. She felt him slide his ring onto her hand, and she slid hers onto his. He wore the tux she’d seen in her dreams. She wore a lovely ivory designer silk gown, a garland of flowers in a unity ring style in her hair. Her family and his were here to witness the event, held in the secluded English garden in her yard. A photographer—not Gary Brooks anymore; John Longley from the same tabloid had taken his place—eagerly snapped pictures every few seconds.

  Her dream come true, yet she kept waiting for the nightmare landscape to arrive, for some disaster to stop the final words…

  “You may kiss your bride.”

  She looked up at Tal, feeling lost, helpless. He smiled down at her. “Chin up, kid,” he whispered, touching her cheek. “We’re in this together.” He drew her close and kissed her, less in passion than in tender encouragement.

  “Congratulations.” The marriage celebrant—which Nighthawk’s wife, lover, mother or girlfriend the woman was, they would never know—smiled at her.

  “Thank you.” She burrowed into Tal, desperate for warmth. She felt so cold, shivering yet somehow disembodied, as though an alien being had taken over her body and left her outside, watching in helpless fascination as her life changed forever.

  If only…if only she could be sure…if only—

  Though she knew the lives of many people hinged on this act—though what they’d done was noble and right—she couldn’t push aside the sneaking sense of shame. This mockery of a wedding followed the path of their acquaintance, all their lives.

  A secretive friendship. A long-hidden talent. A wedding with pomp and ceremony, surrounded by family—even the passion she’d always wanted—but they’d never have made it to this point without the job.

  And the scariest part was, deep down inside, she didn’t know if she cared…

  “Hang in there, Mary-Anne,” he whispered in her ear as the family once more crowded them in joyous hugs. “It’s almost over.”

  A shiver of foreboding rippled up her spine. They had only a week of their mission left to go. And that made each moment she’d have alone with him more infinitely precious.

  “Booking for Mr. and Mrs. O’Rierdan. Take the bags to Cabin 701, Vincenzo.”

  “Sí, señor.” The cheerful porter nodded and grinned, not seeming to recognize Mary-Anne. He took their luggage to their isolated luxury cabin at the beachside resort on a private, pristine stretch of coast off the Spanish mainland.

  Tal had already broken one of Anson’s first rules. The Boss had said to use a standard double room, to remain inconspicuous until the news of their marriage broke, but seeing the stress she was trying so hard to hide from him, the smile that trembled, he’d booked the honeymoon suite. He didn’t need Nighthawk money. He’d give his wife first-class treatment out of his own wallet.

  But the lovely rose-scented suite only reinforced his worst fears: tonight it was just Tal and Mary-Anne, facing each other in their new life together—with their new bodies.

  With the force of sheer bloody-minded will, Tal refrained from tugging at his shirt collar. Cold sweat trickled down his back, his stomach was a ball of burning pain and his heart had spent the day in a frenzied tachycardic-bradycardic arrhythmia, fast and then slow, as though it had gone schizophrenic on him.

  If it weren’t for that ruthless bloody Ghost, so willing to sacrifice their private past and feelings for the sake of the Nighthawks and faceless masses in danger from Falc
one’s black market arsenal, she wouldn’t even be here. Neither would he.

  “Thanks.” Mary-Anne’s voice startled him. The porter was closing the door behind him. Illogically, Tal felt as though his last defense had just fallen.

  She tossed off the big floppy hat she’d all but glued to her head to cover her famous tresses. Her heavy mass of hair tumbled down in rich fire to her waist. “Aaahhh. What a relief.” She lifted her arms in a stretching motion filled with slumbering sensuality. “I felt like I had a brick attached to my head.”

  He closed his eyes to shut off the glorious sight of her breasts lifting with her arms beneath the simple tank top, her long, toned legs revealed by the shorts she’d changed into in the private jet. “Why not cut it?”

  She chuckled. “The cover, my dear. Verity West’s famous hair. You wouldn’t believe the amount of times in the past few years I’ve looked at women with bob cuts and felt so much jealousy.”

  “I reckon it’d suit you,” he said gruffly. Oh, yeah, she’d look gorgeous with shorter hair. Less glamorous, definitely, but with that sweet, pixie-like face and sleepy, silver-green eyes, she’d look like a wood sprite. More like a woman he could—

  Don’t go there!

  He was a man; of course he went there. He must’ve thought of sex at least two hundred and forty times a day since she’d walked back into his life those few days ago.

  Hello, Tal. From Mary-Anne, it was all the foreplay he needed.

  “No point in thinking about it. I’m stuck with this mess for now.” She ran her hands through the sexy disarray, and her body flowed into the movement with sinuous grace.

  If he’d seen her do it three years ago—a year and a half ago—he’d have been dead sure it was a sweet, provocative come-on, a signal that she was as ready to finally fulfill their secret love as he was.

  But now he couldn’t be sure this wasn’t Songbird the Spy, playing her part for the sake of world peace, giving to charity like a warped beauty pageant contestant.

  But it didn’t stop his body screaming its response to her.

  “You want a drink?” She smiled at him, but it was shaky, as if she was scared. Of him—or what he wanted to do with her? “I don’t know about you, but long flights make me thirsty.”

  “No. Thanks.” He didn’t want a drink. He wanted to haul Mary-Anne into his arms and to kiss her senseless. Strip her slowly, lay her on the bed and love her as he’d never been able to before, the girl he couldn’t tear out of his heart even if he tried.

  If only he could be sure her kisses weren’t orchestrated by Anson to make their courtship look bona fide! But the words she’d used on the island taunted him every time he dared to hope her passion wasn’t a fake. I’d do anything to stop it. Anything…

  “How about ordering room service?” She crossed the room to the phone. “We haven’t eaten much today, and that isn’t good for you, with the physical stuff you might have to do this week—”

  She was babbling now. Her hands were shaking—he could see that from the other side of the room. Her nerves were strung as tight as his.

  How the hell did they get through this? It felt as though he was balancing on electrical wires over water: aching for her, wanting to lose himself in her, scared stupid that one look at his worst scarring would send her screaming out of the room.

  Over and above all that, he had a strange, tingling awareness of being within fifty miles of Burstall and Falcone. Losing concentration equaled heightened danger. Those gut instincts that had saved his butt more than once on SAR ops were already on high alert—far more than they should be right now.

  “Okay, we’ll eat,” he said quietly. “But I don’t think we can afford to want anything but food and sleep right now, Mary-Anne. We have a big week ahead of us.”

  Stark white replaced the soft rose in her cheeks of a moment before, her freckles standing out in sharp contrast against the paleness. She turned away, but he saw her face: as devastated and betrayed as it had looked their last night at the billabong.

  At that moment he knew what she’d meant by her fame being her cover: deep down Verity West was still Mary-Anne Poole, the girl who’d taken the gibes of everyone at their school in silence. The girl who’d allowed the barbed insults to impale her soul.

  Fat girl, fat girl, they’d taunted her. Mrs. Ronald McDonald. The walking, talking, red-haired clown.

  He closed his eyes and sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Honey, I didn’t mean that the way you took it—”

  “Stop it! You don’t want me—I know, all right? Just don’t apologize!” She spat the word out like an epithet, cutting him off before the second word of apology had left his lips.

  Before he could move or think of what to say to her, the door slammed. She was gone, bolting from him and the anguish he’d never meant to inflict on her.

  Just like last time.

  He found her just before sunset, running on the beach, drenched in sweat, her feet pounding on the cooling white sand.

  “Mary-Anne!” He waved and limped toward her.

  She bolted straight past him, her face set and cold despite its rosy flush. Her hair flew out behind her like a banner of dangerous fire. Her eyes, like delicate chips of ice, warned him not to come any closer.

  But like a fool—or a driven man—he ploughed on. “Come on, stop and talk to me,” he yelled. “You don’t understand!”

  She didn’t even pause, her near-flying feet taking her where she knew he couldn’t follow anymore.

  He kicked his shoes off and sat on the sand to wait. There was nowhere she could go but back to the resort, unless she wanted to be mobbed at the local pub, less for being Verity West than a scantily clad beautiful woman. What if they—

  No need to worry about her on that score. She was a Nighthawk now. She had the training to take on every single one of the drunken fools at the pub and wipe the floor with them without a hassle. It still left him reeling, thinking of his gentle, never-fight-back Mary-Anne, kicking arse…

  Full darkness soon surrounded him, warm and close. He sat quiet and unmoving, watching the waves touch the shore, waiting.

  Long before he saw her, he heard the slow, uneven pounding of exhausted feet, the high-pitched ragged gasps of exhaustion. She slowed as she got close to where he sat unseen, and came to a stop on the stretch of sand approximately behind their cabin.

  He peered through the soft, fragrant velvet darkness. Seeing little at a thirty-foot distance, he moved closer, with all the stealth he’d been taught in training.

  She was bent over double, holding her sides. Her face, strange and ethereal in the rising moonlight, turned toward their room, filled with that look of helpless self-hatred she’d always had when she looked in a mirror as a girl or copped abuse from the kids in town for being so different.

  A tear trickled gently down her cheek and fell to the sand.

  “Stupid, stupid,” she muttered, and dashed at her face. “Why do you keep hoping? Don’t you ever learn?” Her open hand rose, smacking herself on the temple. “He doesn’t want you. It’s never going to happen. You’re always going to be alone!”

  He almost gasped at her words. Dear God—the press called this woman The Iceberg?

  Before he’d gathered the words to break the horrifying sense of hopelessness, self-hate and silent anguish he felt radiating from her, she spun on her heel and staggered to the water’s edge. A slow, careful look around, then she kicked her shoes and socks off, put them out of the water’s way, then stepped clothed into the shimmering dark ocean, the moon playing off soft silver lights on her gilded hair and pale skin.

  “Mary-Anne,” he called, quiet yet commanding. “Come on—enough’s enough. We need to talk.”

  Up to her knees in the warm water, she stood frozen, her curly hair falling down her back, her fists clenched. “How long have you been there?” Her voice was neutral.

  “Since you ran past me.”

  She sighed. “What’s to say? I got the message. You made it l
oud and clear.” She didn’t turn around, wouldn’t or couldn’t look at him. “It’s old, familiar territory.”

  “Even if that was true, nothing about this is familiar,” he retorted bluntly. “You’re the famous one now, you’re the one who’s bloody gorgeous—and I couldn’t keep my hands off you when you weighed nearly twice what you do now.”

  Her head drooped. “There’s no need to lie about it. You’re here for revenge. You know I can act. Falcone and Burstall will never know we aren’t happily married. So you’re off the hook.”

  He chuckled wryly, limping over to her. “Oh, he’ll know the difference all right, sweetness. Any man would. When a woman’s frustrated, she’s cold or tense. When she’s satisfied, she glows. It’s unmistakable to any guy. Trust me.”

  “So I’ll rub Vitamin E oil on my face and smile a lot,” she snapped, still facing outward to the shimmering ocean. “Now would you please leave me alone?”

  “It wasn’t about you, Mary-Anne. No, yes, it was—but not how you think. We’re in a bloody dangerous assignment and if I start touching you I’ll lose control—and neither of us can afford that.” At her stubborn silence he grabbed her shoulder, twisted her around to face him, his eyes burning. “You want the whole truth? Fine—I was too bloody scared to take my clothes off in front of you!” He thrust his face at her, his ugly mess of a cheek. “This makeup won’t be on forever. I look at you, so bloody beautiful you take my breath away, and I look at myself and wonder how a woman who could have any man she wanted could be crazy enough to want to look at my face and leg in bed—even just once—without wanting to throw up.”

  If she answered him in words, he wouldn’t believe her. If she argued, self-disgust would still conquer reason. But one simple act stunned him: she blushed so furiously her face, throat and shoulders were scorched, visible even in the moon’s dim light. She turned away in terrified silence.