Unforgettable

by Joan Johnston

  He smirked. “Of course she is.”

  “Watch yourself.” He would only get hurt if he let himself fall for Lydia. She was British royalty, and she was practically engaged to a marquess’s son. She seemed to have no more use for a man who professed to love her than she had for a used tissue. Samantha didn’t want her brother losing his heart to the duchess’s daughter. He had enough wounds to recover from as it was.

  Not that Joe was a saint in the love-’em-and-leave-’em department. Before he’d gotten engaged, he’d gone through a great many women. Unfortunately, the one he’d chosen to give his heart to had abandoned him when the chips were down. Her brother was a lot less likely to lose his heart again anytime soon. And he was sure to be cynical of the next woman who made the mistake of falling in love with him.

  “You can sleep on the flight,” Samantha continued. “No drinking on the plane, Joe, do you hear? I want you sober when you land.”

  “I might need a hair of the dog.”

  “No hair of any dog. No beer, no whiskey, no nothing,” Samantha insisted. “And don’t forget, when you meet Lydia Benedict, your name is Sam.”

  Chapter Three

  Lydia usually did her flying in the family jet, so she’d never spent much time standing around in Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Fiumincino Airport. She watched a pair of carabinieres dressed in sharp-looking dark blue uniforms with a red stripe down each leg as they approached a backpacker sleeping on a bench. One of the Italian policemen prodded the young man with his Uzi.

  The bearded young man awoke with a start, took one look at the Uzis the policemen carried, grabbed his backpack from the bench where he’d been sleeping, and hurried away.

  Are Uzis really necessary in a place as beautiful as this airport? Lydia shuddered. The more she traveled on her own, the more she was learning how precarious life could be. Someone had drugged her. Someone had stolen the Ghost. The world was a much more frightening place this morning than it had been yesterday.

  She glanced over her shoulder and saw that the man who’d accosted her in the airport VIP lounge was still following her. She wondered if she should say something to the carabinieres. She glanced toward them, but they’d already moved off in the opposite direction. She would have felt silly running after them to complain that a well-dressed young man had told her how beautiful she was.

  Yesterday, she would have smiled and accepted the compliment. Today, she didn’t trust the Italian’s intentions. She’d told him she preferred to be alone, but he’d sat down in a chair near her anyway. He was polished and charming and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She’d always been able to handle the most aggressive males with aplomb. For some reason, this morning she couldn’t find the right mix of courtesy and coldness to discourage him.

  Finally, she’d given up and left the lounge. She was anxious to meet Sam Warren and get started looking for the Ghost. The bold Italian, with his exquisitely tailored suit and gold ring bearing a family crest, had followed her. He seemed to think she was playing some game with him.

  Lydia wanted to lash out at him to leave her alone, but she’d been taught from birth that a lady never lost her temper. And she was a lady from the top of the French twist in her silky black hair to the tips of her red, four-inch-high Jimmy Choo heels.

  She determinedly ignored the suave Italian, which only seemed to encourage him.

  “Tu sei bella,” he said, taking a step closer.

  He’d merely told her she was beautiful, but she felt a frisson of unaccountable fear. She told herself her would-be suitor was merely a handsome man, like many others who’d sought her attention, but the events of the previous day had changed everything. She was suddenly terrified of the unknown.

  Before she could turn to her tormentor, she heard a gruff male voice demand, “Are you Lydia Benedict?”

  Lydia gaped at the tall, dangerous-looking hoodlum with sunken eyes, a dark beard, and shaggy black hair who’d stopped a foot in front of her. She blurted, “How do you know my name?”

  He pointed to a sign she held down at her side—similar to those used by chauffeurs to locate their clients—which read SAM WARREN. She’d forgotten she was holding it.

  “I was told to meet Lydia Benedict,” he said. “I figured from the sign that you were waiting for me.”

  She was both confused and upset to find herself suddenly sandwiched between the two strangers. She wasn’t sure which man provided the greater threat, the one dressed in an expensive Italian suit or the one staggering drunkenly before her in military desert camouflage.

  “I’m Warren,” the unshaven man said.

  Lydia was appalled as she stared into his inscrutable ice-blue—and bloodshot—eyes. This was her help? This was the great Sam Warren? She’d been expecting someone much older. And more sober.

  “I’m Lydia Benedict,” she said at last. “You’re my mother’s private investigator?” She made it a question, still not quite believing this barbarian worked for the Duchess.

  His mouth turned down, almost in disgust, as he repeated, “I’m Warren.”

  “I was expecting someone older.”

  “You got me.”

  Her nose wrinkled in distaste. “I don’t think you—” At that moment, the Italian laid a possessive hand on her shoulder. Before she could protest, Sam Warren grabbed the Italian’s wrist, jerked him forward, and back-heeled his feet out from under him. As the Italian landed hard on the marble floor, Warren stumbled and almost fell.

  Lydia automatically reached out to steady him and felt a large male hand graze her right breast and brush across the nipple. She gasped at the intimate touch, but the huge hand had already found its way to her shoulder.

  “Lost my balance,” he said. “War wound.”

  Lydia took another—astonished —look at the man before her.

  What she saw was a drunken male in army fatigues but with hidden strengths like power and agility and quickness. Was it possible this ruffian was good at solving crimes, like the theft of the Ghost? Even if he was, what about that “accidental” touch? Was she going to have to fight off the private investigator’s unwanted attentions while they searched for the missing necklace?

  Lydia eyed Sam Warren askance, trying to judge whether he’d merely stumbled or whether he’d actually had the nerve to feel her up in public. One look at his scarred face told her he’d been in battle. He’d certainly put that Italian in his place. When Warren took a step back, she realized he had a limp and bore most of his weight on one leg.

  So perhaps the invasive touch had not been planned.

  Nevertheless, she flushed. The rough-looking Texan’s unexpected caress had managed to arouse her more than her would-be fiancé’s ever had. She stared at the infamous Sam Warren, wondering if the Duchess had ever seen him in this condition.

  His breath, when he’d fallen against her, had smelled of whiskey. His hair was unkempt, his cheeks and chin shadowed by dark beard, his clothes rumpled. He looked disreputable.

  On the other hand, the military shirt and camouflage trousers did nothing to conceal a body that was broad in the shoulder, lean in the hip, and unbelievably strong.

  That last part she knew not only from how easily he’d put the Italian on the ground but from having put her hands on him to keep him from falling. Her palm had landed on a belly that was rippled with taut muscle, and her hand had gripped a bicep that felt more like stone than human flesh. And yet, he had trouble standing on his own. She wondered if that was more a result of the war wounds or the whiskey.

  The Italian chose that moment to sit up.

  “Stay down,” the hoodlum, who apparently, unbelievably, was her mother’s private investigator, said in a harsh voice.

  The man on the ground took one look at the primitive warrior standing over him and did as he was told.

  “You have a car?” the drunken man asked her.

  “Of course.”

  He started walking toward the doors that led to the street.

  Ly
dia hesitated only an instant before she hurried after him, her Jimmy Choos tapping on the marble floor. “Wait!”

  He didn’t slow down, but his limp made it possible for her to catch up. “I need the best help I can get, Mr. Warren. You can barely keep yourself upright.”

  He stopped abruptly but near enough to a glass wall of windows to put a hand out to hold himself upright. He turned to her like a dog-baited bear and said, “I’m what you’ve got, lady. Take it or leave it. I’d be more than happy to turn around and get right back on that plane.”

  She was angry enough to send him back to Dallas. But then what would she do? She didn’t know anyone she could trust with the fact that the Ghost was missing. The loss of such a priceless gem would be a tremendous scoop for the tabloids. She couldn’t be sure that anyone else she hired wouldn’t sell her secret to those vultures. The way things went viral on the Internet, her parents would know thirty minutes later that she’d lost the Ghost.

  “I need your help,” she said at last. “Where do we start?”

  “I need some sleep.”

  Her eyes went wide in disbelief. “You didn’t sleep on the plane?”

  “I was too busy drinking.”

  He was totally unapologetic about arriving drunk and disheveled, Lydia realized. He didn’t seem to realize the urgency of the situation.

  “Do you have a bed I can use or not?”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “I didn’t make a reservation, just got on the plane and came to Rome. You called and here I am.”

  Yes, here he was. A crippled drunk. She stopped herself right there. His bad leg hadn’t stopped him from putting that Italian on the ground.

  Perhaps the best move was to take him to the Hotel Hassler and clean him up. Maybe he would show to better advantage when he was sober and shaved.

  Or maybe not. Maybe it would be better to throw herself on her mother’s mercy. She caught her lower lip in her teeth. Not necessarily the best option when the Duchess had a reputation for being merciless.

  Lydia slid the straps of her Gucci handbag higher up on her shoulder. She’d never been very good at facing consequences. Being rich and beautiful and smart had allowed her to avoid taking responsibility for a great many wrongs she’d done in the past. Somehow, she didn’t think she’d escape unscathed if she gave up the hunt and simply admitted that she’d lost the Ghost.

  It would be humiliating to have her dishonesty exposed to her brother. Humbling to admit her deception to her mother. She shifted the placard containing Sam Warren’s name in her hands, uncertain what to do. Should she toss it, and him, or hang on?

  Warren shrugged and turned to leave.

  “Wait!” she cried.

  He stopped and glanced back over his shoulder.

  “Can you really help me find the Ghost?”

  “That’s why I’m here, ma’am,” he replied with an ironic twist of his lips.

  It irked her to be called “ma’am,” but she bit back a retort. Her restraint was wasted, because he’d already turned his back on her and started walking, or rather limping, away again. She realized he hadn’t retrieved a single piece of luggage. It seemed he’d left Texas with nothing but the clothes on his back.

  The inestimable Sam Warren made his way, half limping, half staggering toward the exit, apparently expecting her to follow.

  Totally exasperated, she dumped the placard in the nearest trash can and hurried after him. “I would prefer that you call me Lydia,” she said. “What should I call you, Mr. Warren?”

  He glanced back, focused his bloodshot blue eyes on her, and said, “Call me Joe.”

  Chapter Four

  Joe figured he must really have tied one on last night. His head ached and his mouth felt dry as desert-boot leather. He looked around for the woman who’d likely spent the night with him, considering he’d woken up naked in a powder-blue-silk-canopied bed made up with matching powder-blue silk sheets. Funny, he didn’t feel sexually sated.

  He rose slowly because his head hurt, but also to give the muscles in his injured leg time to warm up. When he moved the injured calf, a sharp pain shot all the way to his hip. He hissed a profanity. This is your life, he thought. Pain. Forever and ever, Amen.

  He would have stayed where he was, but he needed to take a piss. He gritted his teeth as he used his hands to ease his bad leg over the edge of the bed. He probably should have had the damned thing cut off when he’d had the chance. He sat waiting for the stabbing pain to recede as he scouted the room for furniture he could lean on as he hobbled his way to the john. Maybe it was time to get a cane.

  He balked at the thought. He wasn’t a cripple.

  Like hell you’re not! Look at yourself. Go ahead. Look.

  He glanced down at his ruined calf muscle. Ugly red gouges remained where flesh had been burned out by molten steel. He stood, putting weight on the leg, and bit back a yelp as he dropped onto the bed again. Damned thing hurt like a son of a bitch.

  He heard a woman speaking Italian in the next room. Where the hell was he? He glanced around the upscale bedroom. Whoever the chick was, she was high end.

  Then he remembered. And groaned. He was in Rome pretending to be Sam Warren, PI, at the invitation of the stunningly beautiful woman he’d met at the airport. He rubbed his bleary eyes and groaned again when he remembered how he’d told the lady to call him Joe, after his sister had warned him to use the name Sam. Too late now. The damage was done.

  He wondered how long he’d been out. The curtains weren’t completely closed, and from the angle of the sun, it looked like it was late afternoon. Apparently he’d slept the day away.

  Miss High-and-Mighty had brought him back to her hotel room and tried to talk him into starting the search for her missing jewel right away. If he hadn’t anesthetized his leg with Jack Daniel’s on the long flight over the ocean, he might have given in to the entreaty in those amazing eyes of hers.

  Lady Lydia Benedict was gorgeous. Stunning, really. He’d felt his heart jump when he’d gotten his first look at her as he left customs. She was almost too perfect. Flawless skin, so creamy he’d wanted to lick it. Full strawberry lips that made him wonder how she’d taste. And those violet eyes, both innocent and . . . wary? No wonder, with some Italian lothario on her heels.

  He’d wanted to kill the bastard for laying a pilfering hand on her. He’d put the guy on the ground, but he’d forgotten about his bad leg, lost his balance, and nearly ended up falling on his ass. Fortunately, Miss High-and-Mighty had saved him that ignominy.

  But not before his hand had brushed against a soft breast and a surprisingly taut nipple. Her eyes had been indignant when she thought he’d copped a feel, then questioning, when he’d started to fall. He felt his body throb at the memory of how good she’d felt. Which reminded him he needed to take a leak. He dreaded the pain when he finally tried walking on his leg, so he put it off a few moments longer.

  Joe couldn’t believe he’d let his sister talk him into this harebrained scheme. He remembered reminding Samantha before he’d boarded the plane that he had no idea how to find a missing jewel. She’d assured him that she would do all the research to see who was bidding on the jewel, or where it might be transported, and get back to him. Supposedly, all he had to do was be a body in place. A wrecked body in place, he amended sourly.

  Samantha should have told the Duchess of Blackthorne that Sam Warren had disappeared, and that she’d been doing all the investigative work over the past couple of years.

  Joe swore as he realized he was supposed to have called his sister the moment he arrived. He’d turned his phone off on the plane and hadn’t turned it back on. He’d left the phone in the pocket of his cammie trousers, which he’d dropped on the lush carpeting when he’d stripped and toppled into bed. A quick look revealed his pants, along with the rest of his clothes, were gone.

  “What the hell?” he muttered.

  Another look revealed the contents of his pockets—wallet, passport, pho
ne, chewing gum, and paper clip—scattered on the bedside table. The paper clip was a weapon, about all he could get past the TSA these days.

  Maybe the Brit had sent his clothes out to be laundered or something. He’d been planning to buy something to wear anyway. He grabbed his cell phone, turned it on, and saw there were eight messages, about one an hour, from his sister. He ignored them and punched in the number Samantha had programmed for him.

  “About time!” she said after a single ring. “Where have you been?”

  She sounded worried. Hell. He was a grown man, a former Delta sergeant. She didn’t need to worry about him.

  “Joe?” she prodded.

  He was embarrassed to admit the truth. “I was sleeping.”

  “You were supposed to call when you landed.”

  “I didn’t. So what’s going on? Have you located the pearl?”

  “The Ghost is a ghost,” Samantha said, sounding miserable. “There hasn’t been a peep out of whoever took it, no sign of it on the black market, no sign of anything.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “Maybe the thief is traveling.”

  “Let’s hope not. Otherwise, I’ve wasted my time coming to Rome. What do you want me to do?”

  “Have you had a chance to question Lady Lydia?”

  “No.”

  “Then you should do that. You need to find out—”

  “I think I can manage an interrogation,” he interrupted.

  “Don’t interrogate her. Question her. She’s a lady, Joe.”

  “I noticed.”

  “Don’t notice her. Don’t get any ideas at all about her. She lives in a different stratosphere,” she warned.

  “Got it,” he said. “Is that all?”

  “I’ll be in touch if I get any info. Go back over everything Lady Lydia did the twenty-four hours before she lost the Ghost. If you discover anything useful, give me a call.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Take care of yourself,” she said in a softer voice. “And whatever you do, don’t fall for Lydia Benedict.”

  He didn’t reply, just turned off the phone. He remembered the look on Lydia Benedict’s face earlier that morning when she’d tried to talk him out of getting some rack time.