Once again, she dressed in a fashionable travelling outfit and donned Micky’s makeup.
Jacqui knocked on the door as she was finishing. “Would you like me to go over the room and make sure you’ve covered everything?”
“No, I’ve got it covered.”
Jacqui hesitated. “Did you have a nice day today?”
“I guess.”
Jacqui’s fingers squeezed her notebook. “It must have been…confusing. For Angelina,” she added.
“She’s not the only one,” Sahara replied dully. She saw the convulsive grip on Jacqui’s notebook. “You think Elias shouldn’t have done that. Forced Logan to introduce us.”
Jacqui swallowed. “What must it have done for Angelina?” she said quietly.
“Angel knew instantly I was not her mother. There was no confusion for her.”
Jacqui frowned. “But for you…?”
Sahara rubbed her forehead. “I didn’t even know he had a daughter! And then, to meet her…you know what she’s like, don’t you?”
“Most people underestimate Angelina,” Jacqui said, with a smile.
“Except you, apparently.”
“Oh, I also found her confusing the first few times. Then I learned to deal with her as an adult and that fixed it.”
“But that’s just it—she isn’t an adult,” Sahara said. “She’s an eleven-year-old girl with an adult’s knowledge and only a child’s way of coping with that knowledge. She’s terrified her father won’t come back.”
“Is that what has you so quiet?”
Sahara sighed. “I suppose. I don’t really know.”
Jacqui looked at her watch and straightened her spine. “Ten minutes until we leave. I’ll come and get you when its time.”
Sahara moved slowly into the bedroom and sat on the sofa under the window. There was nothing else for her to do. She sat staring at her manicured fingernails and felt like she could weep, and for no good reason at all.
Logan strolled into the room. He had changed out of his jeans into another suit, this one double-breasted pale cotton. His on-the-job uniform, she realized. The job that consumed his life and almost every waking hour.
“Everything packed?” he asked.
The roiling emotions in her gut bubbled up inside her, led by despair and sadness. “Yes, thank you,” she said sharply.
He lifted his brow. “What’s wrong, Sahara?”
“You have to be kidding me.” She stood up abruptly as anger grabbed her and shook hard. “You were there this afternoon. You know all of this better than me and you have to ask what’s wrong? How can you do this to yourself? How can you do it to her?”
He pushed his hand into his pocket. “You wanted to know why I’m doing this. Well, that’s why. I gave you my answer.”
Sahara was appalled. “You’re doing it for her?” she said, astounded.
He didn’t respond but she saw his jaw flex and anger flicker in his eye.
“I wish you had never taken me there today,” she told him.
“You’re so entrenched in your little world you resent it being rocked?”
“I’m sorry that Angelina got to see me pretending to be her mother. She didn’t need that on top of everything else you make her carry.”
“You don’t know anything about Angelina.”
“You know next to nothing too, Logan, and you’re her father. You don’t have my excuse!”
Logan’s anger was a huge thing. He was almost vibrating with it and fear touched Sahara, dampening her own temper. She had said too much. It wasn’t her place to criticize how a man was raising his daughter.
There was a noise by the bedroom door. Sahara looked up and saw Jacqui standing in the doorway. “It’s time,” she said, her voice rigidly polite.
Logan took a deep breath. Another. He visibly pushed the anger away, pummelled it into submission. When he turned to face Jacqui he looked calm and controlled as always.
“We’re on our way,” he told her. “You go ahead. We’ll be right down.”
Jacqui nodded and left the room.
Sahara was appalled. “My god, how can you do that?” she whispered. “How can you swallow your anger that way? It can’t be healthy to block it all up inside.”
His hands were still in his pockets and she knew they were still fisted. But he shrugged and gave a thin smile. “Childhood training. My family believes shows of any emotion at all are crude and unnecessary. The mark of the unwashed masses.”
He withdrew one hand and waved toward the door. “It’s another commercial flight,” he reminded her.
Sahara picked up her hand luggage, her mind reeling with dozens of questions. Her anger had been completely diverted.
But her preoccupation with the questions Logan had raised made portraying Micky easier than ever.
* * * * *
They reached the Hotel Alfonso XIII around three in the morning but despite the hour, they were greeted like royalty and shown to a suite of rooms decorated in an Arab theme. They were the most luxurious rooms Sahara had ever seen.
Jacqui stood with her arms crossed, looking about the sprawling main room with its swags of fragile cloth for walls, big floor cushions, the soaring arches and multi-coloured pillars. Gold leaf highlights shone everywhere and beautiful Byzantium tiles were underfoot.
For the first time since Sahara met her, Jacqui dropped her executive assistant poise. “My god, it’s gorgeous!” she exclaimed. She glanced at Sahara. “It matches your name,” she added and giggled with her fingers over her mouth. “I have no idea how I’m going to work in all this…opulence!”
But she pulled herself together and hurried away to oversee one more of the endless details that made up her work.
Sahara looked at Logan. He was staring out the window, one hand holding aside the sheer curtain, completely uninterested in the décor.
“You’ve been here before,” she said.
He didn’t turn. “This was Micky’s favourite hotel in Europe.”
“And she never brought Jacqui here?” Sahara was puzzled.
Still he did not turn. “We had our honeymoon here and whenever she returned here it was only for pleasure.”
Sahara sighed. “Until now.”
Logan gave no answer.
* * * * *
Nelson caught up with Logan as he stepped out of the suite. “Elias is looking for you,” he said diffidently.
“But you’re the one who found me,” Logan pointed out.
Nelson blushed. “I’m not his lapdog.”
“No?” Logan halted and turned to face Nelson, challenging him.
Nelson shoved his hands into his pockets. “I came to warn you.”
“Warn?”
Nelson nodded. “I went through the mug shots from Seville airport. His name’s not on the manifests but Adar flew in today. He must have been using an alias.”
“You actually went through every photo?”
“I downloaded them to my cell phone and went through them on the way from the airport.” Nelson rubbed his neck awkwardly. “I don’t know if Elias will tell you. He didn’t want to tell you about Seoc working for Zaram.”
Logan nodded. “Thanks.” He started walking again.
“Don’t forget Elias is looking for you,” Nelson called.
“Yeah but you never found me and we never had this conversation.”
“Right.”
* * * * *
Her bedroom was just as grand as the main rooms of the suite and the bathroom connected to it was a cool, dark-tiled luxury. But Sahara’s gaze kept returning to the bed.
She hurried through her ablutions, for there were no more sounds of activity and voices in the main rooms. Everyone had retired. That meant that Logan, as per the new security arrangements, would be prowling around alone out there.
Her heart was pattering hard as she slipped on the pale green robe and moved into the bedroom proper.
“We need to talk, Sahara.” It was Logan’s voice, fro
m behind her.
She whirled, smothering the shriek with her hand. Logan perched on the low table with the curled legs that sat in front of the divan. He’d shed his jacket and the harness. Both lay on the table next to him. The gun was next to his right hip.
“What, thought you’d just pick up from where you left off last time?”
He got to his feet. “Something happened yesterday. Something happened to you.”
“You as much as told me Angel was none of my business. Well, now I’m saying the same thing. Stay out of my life. Stay out of my head. I don’t want you there.” She pulled the robe tight around her throat and backed away from him.
But he simply moved forward, closing the gap between them. “Liar,” he said softly.
“I don’t want you in my bed either,” she snapped.
This time he just smiled.
“What?” she demanded, backing up more.
“It’s actually my bed,” he pointed out.
She came to a standstill. “What?” she repeated. “You have been paying for all…this?”
“A lot of it. The Seurat has paid their share,” he admitted. “But Micky’s portion, so to speak, has been my tab.”
All the clothes she was wearing. All the makeup, the luggage, her hair, the jewellery. Sahara nearly moaned. “Why would you do that?” she croaked. “How could you do that? On an army pay check?”
He gave a half laugh. “My army pay check doesn’t even cover Angel’s tuition. When I left college, I cashed in my share of the family business and invested in real estate. There were some lucky finds and real estate has boomed for the last fifteen years. I got out before the crash and diversified my holdings across the globe. I’ve been financially independent since I was twenty five.”
“That doesn’t explain why,” she insisted.
“I did it because the company would have tried to cut corners and go cheap on it. These people we’re dealing with and especially Malik—they knew Micky. Nothing but the real thing was going to do. If they saw rip-offs, or anything less than genuine, one hundred percent Micky, then you—and the operation—would have been in jeopardy.”
“So all this is yours,” she said dryly, “and you’re just overseeing your property.”
“Sahara….”
“Well, if that’s the case, I want no part of it.” She strode over to the tall wardrobe and yanked open the doors. “You’d better just take it all back.” She grabbed an armful of garments and turned and threw them at him.
“Sahara, for heaven’s sake.” He strode forward and raised his arm protectively as she threw another handful at him, then grabbed at her.
She swivelled out of his grip and ran to the bathroom. “Don’t forget all this either!” she cried and swept every bottle and container off the counter with her arm. They clattered and crunched with unmusical notes as they hit the tiles below but she was beyond caring. The fury that had boiled up in her earlier that night was back and this time it was so huge and so hot that she could barely think beyond the need to hurt Logan.
To drive him off.
He stepped over the mess on the tiles and instead of grabbing her as he had first tried, this time he just wrapped his arms around her and used them like bonds.
“Don’t, S’ara,” he said softly. “It’s not me you want to hurt. Not really.”
It fuelled her rage. She began to struggle, to try to escape him but he was too strong. He carried her back out into the bedroom, her struggles not hampering his progress in any way. Her helplessness was another goad and she hammered on his arms and shoulders and chest. There was nothing else she could do and the hard knot of emotions in her chest would not let her simply cease and grow still.
Her knee rammed squarely into his thigh. It was a purely lucky blow but Logan staggered and went down. Even then he protected her, managing to twist in midair so that he took the brunt of the landing on his shoulder and she fell on top of him. She heard the air push out of his lungs with the double impact.
But as quick as a cat he flipped her over so that she was pinned to the carpet beneath him, his thighs clamping around her hips to keep her still, while his hands locked over her wrists.
“It’s not me you’re fighting, either,” he said, his chest rising and falling with his exertions. “And that leaves just you, Sahara.”
Her need to escape evaporated at his words and she grew still. The tears were near the surface but there was also strong need to reach up and hold onto him. To draw comfort from him.
This was the man she loved.
Their positions were strongly suggestive and she was responding to it. Languor spread through her and a hot need was battling with her overwhelming fear.
“Sahara, look at me,” he commanded.
She knew if she did he would see her desire, so she turned her head away.
His weight settled on her hips, as he rested himself on top of her and pinned her with his body weight. Her wrist was freed as he curled his hand around her chin and drew her face back to look at him. With her free hand she tried to push him away but he spread his arm so her hand couldn’t reach around his shoulders.
He studied her face. “You’re a mass of contradictions, aren’t you?” he said softly. “I thought you were just a beach girl with a simple life and no great ambitions but I was wrong. I get the feeling I could delve inside you for a dozen years and still not reach the bottom.”
“You’re never going to get that chance,” she hissed at him.
“If you mean because the operation is nearly over—”
“I mean because you’re going to get yourself killed one day soon, by someone smarter and meaner than you. I won’t stick around to see it, Logan. I refuse.”
He stared at her, shock writing itself on his face.
Sahara felt a single hot, hard tear slide from her eye to drip onto the carpet beneath her head. But that single tear carried with it all the bitterness and burning that raged inside her. Just like that it was gone.
It left sadness in her instead. Finally, the love returned.
“Oh, Logan,” she murmured and cupped his face with her hand.
His lips seared hers with a deep kiss that seemed to reach into her soul. She gasped for breath as he released her but the reprieve was momentary. His arms circled her and he kissed her again, igniting a fire of need every bit as hot and hard as her fury of moments before.
Their lovemaking was frenzied. They frantically tore at each other’s clothing, reducing themselves to sensual nakedness as quickly as possible.
Logan’s lips burned invisible tattoos across her flesh and his hands seared their own imprint. He was everywhere at once and her body throbbed with the maelstrom of stimulation.
When she accepted him into her, he gripped her hips and pushed in deep and she arched hard against the carpet, the rich joy of the moment adding to her building pleasure.
Their climax was mutual and so powerful that Sahara could see stars dancing in her vision and her heart skittered under the strain. For a moment they lay still, recovering and she could hear Logan’s heart thundering like her own.
“You get under my skin, Sahara,” he whispered and kissed the flesh over her collarbone. “I came here only to talk to you.”
She reached for him again, prodded into it by the fear his words nudged awake. “Shut up and kiss me,” she muttered, knowing it would distract him.
It did.
Chapter Nineteen
Logan found he was not the first one at the breakfast table. Jacqui was sitting eating a rich, vegetable-studded omelette and reading the local newspaper, her notebook by her side.
Logan checked the level of her cup. “Want a refill?” he asked.
“Yes, please. It’s been years since I read so much Spanish. It’s giving me a headache.”
He returned her filled cup and sat at the table with a loaded plate for himself. He looked at the food and grimaced. He should be feeling pleasantly drained, physically tired and emotionally spent after
the night he’d shared with Sahara.
All he felt was uneasiness.
He pushed the plate aside and reached for his coffee instead.
“I’d have thought that under the circumstances, you’d have an enormous appetite,” Jacqui said, lifting her head from the paper and skewering him with her direct stare.
“You’ve figured it out then,” he said. He added carefully, “Do you mind?”
“Micky and I were college roommates about a century ago. After that, the relationship diminished. Which was perfectly natural under the circumstances.”
“So you don’t mind?”
“No. But don’t underestimate her, Logan. She’s not as sweet and simple as she appears.”
“I’m learning that,” he said with feeling.
Jacqui grinned and picked up her coffee. “You have a way of complicating your life, don’t you?”
He let out a deep breath. “I suppose there’s some sort of clinical name for it, right, doc?”
“Stubbornness?” Jacqui suggested sweetly.
He grinned back. Jacqui was such an inbuilt part of the pattern of his life that her presence and gentle manners was almost a comfort—like others reacted to home-grown cooking, he supposed. He studied her, wondering if he could impose upon her more than he and his family already did.
“Why don’t you ask your question?” she said to him. “It’s going to eat you up until you do and we both know it.”
He frowned. “Why the hell didn’t you become a full time psychologist after college, like you said you were going to? Then you could be meddling in the minds of adults everywhere and leaving mine the hell alone.”
Jacqui sipped and smiled at him. “What and miss the globe-trotting adventures Micky gave me?”
There was an odd note in her voice, something that made Logan reassess her statement. It fell into place with a dry click, as the past unravelled in his mind and rebuilt itself. Jacqui’s devotion to Micky, her own lack of a personal life….
“Jesus, Jacqui,” he said softly. “I never realized until now. I’m sorry.”
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