Undercover Husband

by Rebecca Winters

  She experienced relief knowing she would never have to open a letter or package from Glen Baird again.

  “Roman—I—I realize I sound like a broken record, but I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “It’s my job, Brit.”

  “One that puts your life in danger all the time.”

  “Not all the time,” he insisted wryly. “If you want to know the truth, it was inevitable that I was born with a desire to live life on the edge.”

  She blinked. “Inevitable?”

  “Hmm... Perhaps you’ve heard of C and G Surveillance Products, Inc.?”

  “No. I presume you’re talking about bugging devices and the like.”

  “That’s right. My grandfather, Constantine, and his brother, Gregorio, started the business before WWII broke out. Later, when the military came to them with a contract, the company grew into an enormous enterprise which my father and uncles expanded. By the time my brother Yuri and I, and all our cousins came along, it had gone national with outlets all over the country.”

  Brit was fascinated. “You mean your company makes suitcases that blow apart like we see in the James Bond movies?”

  He smiled. “Can you imagine what heaven that was? Two little boys growing up, playing with every spy gadget and camera known to mankind?”

  “I can. It’s something which would have appealed to me, as well. For a period of time in my young life, I wanted to be a boy because they had more fun. That is until Lance Crawford, the marble king of the fifth grade, told me I was a better player than all the boys, and gave me his favorite steelie marble. From that point on, I was kind of glad to be a female.”

  His chuckle joined hers and they stared at each other, fully enjoying the moment.

  “By the time we were adults,” he finally continued, “Yuri wanted to keep inventing stuff.”

  “Like what, for instance?”

  “Have you got all day?” Roman quipped. “The truth is, there’s every kind of camera known to man out there, and some you haven’t even thought of. If you’re really interested, I’ve got brochures. You’re welcome to devour the contents.”

  She gave him the benefit of an unguarded smile. “So he invents, and you try everything out.”

  His lips quirked. “That’s right. Today my brother is the CEO of the company. I’m a major stockholder, but I have my own life and I’m very content as I am. So you see? There’s nothing noble about what I do for a living.

  “Don’t imbue me with honorable traits for which I can claim no ownership. Basically I’m very selfish. Otherwise I’d be back in New York with the family, helping my brother and cousins in the family business. You might call me the black sheep.”

  Brit detected undertones and found herself wanting to know more about him. He’d talked about his family, but what about the woman in his life? Surely no man like Roman Lufka would be without one. In fact, she imagined there wasn’t a female alive who wouldn’t be susceptible to his charisma.

  Had an ex-wife or a fiancée been the reason he’d left the East Coast and his family to move to Salt Lake?

  Clearing her throat, Brit said, “If you mean that the other aspects of your life have to be put on hold while you’re undercover, then I suppose anyone waiting for a relationship with you would be frustrated.”

  His eyes narrowed on her mouth. “That’s one way of putting it,” he murmured cryptically, sounding far away.

  “Well, whatever it’s worth—” her voice trembled “—you’re a rare breed of man. All I can do is thank heaven that there are people like you, willing to lay down your life for a fellow human being.”

  He put his hands on his hips. She swallowed hard at the attractive male standing before her.

  “I appreciate your well-meant expression of gratitude, Brit. It has been duly noted. Now let’s agree to get off the subject and head for your condo.”

  She nodded, but it was hard to put a rein on her emotions.

  “We’ll have the movers clear everything out, then turn your keys in to the landlord. Shall we go?”

  As they moved down the hallway to the door leading to the garage, Roman grabbed a duffel bag sitting on a chair.

  “What’s in that?” she inquired after they’d gotten in his car and he’d pressed the remote to open the garage door.

  “A few gadgets I’m going to install at your condo while it remains vacant. If Baird attempts to break in, we’ll have it all on film.”

  When that revelation had gotten through to her, Brit’s gaze swerved to his face, but all she could see was his arresting profile. “I bet your house is full of them, isn’t it?”

  Except for the rev of the engine, there was silence.

  “Roman?” she prodded when he didn’t say anything.

  He finally spoke. “As you well know, last night you cried loud enough for me to hear you without the aid of anything electronic.” He read her mind with astonishing ease. “I’m not surprised. Hopefully you’ll start to feel safe with me and sleep without being disturbed by nightmares.”

  Guilt consumed her once more. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t say that again,” he warned. “If it will make you feel any better, I was working on your case.”

  He backed the car out of the driveway and they were off.

  “If that’s true, then when do you sleep?”

  “When I need to. Don’t you worry about it.”

  She took a fortifying breath. “You really think Glen’s coming soon, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know you’re running on instinct, but I have a feeling there’s a little more to it than that. Please tell me. I can take the truth a lot better than I can handle just sitting here agonizing over what it is you’re holding back from me.”

  “All right,” he muttered. “A colleague in the New York City Police Department has been doing some digging for me. I received his fax at three this morning. It verified what Glen Baird wrote in his first letter to you, that he preferred to call you Brittany, because it was a French name, and he’d spent time in the province of Brittany.

  “It seems that a Glen Baird, then from Indiana, took a package tour of Spain, North Africa and France, with Voyager Tours in the summer of 1992. Brittany was on the itinerary.”

  Brit! You wanted the truth. So why are you dreading what he’s about to tell you?

  “In the fall of 1994, while he was living in Tennessee, he took another tour to South America with Sunburst Tours. As far back as 1989, while he was living in Oklahoma, he took a trip to the California coast, always with a different group tour company.”

  “He’s lived all those places?” Brit cried out.

  “That’s right. Each time he’s held a different job. Sometimes with the railroad, other times with a trucking company or a manufacturing plant.”

  She turned anxiously in his direction. “So what are you thinking?”

  There was a slight hesitation before he said, “I have a hunch he goes on these tours to find women. Obviously he’s never been successful, which might account for the large number of times he has changed jobs and moved on. It also makes me wonder if he has a record of harassment dating back as far as the time when he first came to Salt Lake. My sources are researching that now.”

  “It makes me sick.”

  “He’s sick. That’s why I’m not taking any chances where you’re concerned. I plan to investigate every possibility,” he ground out fiercely. “Now maybe you can understand why I wanted to move fast on this one. He’s already left Madison, and an APB hasn’t turned up anything on him yet. It’s vital we set the trap now, just in case. If you can, leave the worrying to me, all right?”

  She nodded, but his suspicions left her brooding. It was just as well they had work to do helping the movers, otherwise she would have made herself sick over the latest revelations.

  After everything had been cleared out and they’d gone to talk to the landlord, she thought Roman would take her back to the house so he could leave for
work. When she said as much to him, he stared at her with a puzzled expression.

  “You are my work.”

  The truth of his words finally sank in.

  After they’d gotten in the car he murmured, “Where shall we go to get your wedding dress?”

  Her heart leaped in her chest. “You mean, now?”

  “Of course. We also have to see about the cake, the food, the flowers. I need to arrange for a tuxedo and a pianist who will provide traditional background music for us.”

  Under ordinary circumstances it was understood that the bride took care of all the wedding preparations. The groom was supposed to be the reluctant one who didn’t show up until the moment when he had to say, “I do.”

  With Roman ticking off the list of things to be done before the big day arrived, Brit felt superfluous.

  Be honest, Brit. You’re hurting like crazy because this isn’t a real wedding. Because you’re not really marrying Roman Lufka.

  You can’t ever let him see how all this is affecting you on the inside.

  “I suppose we could go to one of the department stores downtown for my dress. There’s a tuxedo rental on South Temple. We could stop there on the way.”

  “I know the exact place. Let’s go.”

  Within fifteen minutes they’d reached the shop she had in mind. It didn’t take Roman long to pick out several styles and colors of tuxedos, all of which made him look incredibly handsome. With a legitimate reason to stare, she drank her fill of his tall, dark figure.

  But one glance at him in black with a silver cummerbund and Brit couldn’t prevent herself from voicing her preference with such enthusiasm, the college-age man waiting on them grinned from ear to ear.

  Roman couldn’t have helped but pick up on the rush of emotion that accompanied her outburst, but he kept his thoughts well hidden.

  Furious with herself, she remained silent while he made arrangements to pick up his tuxedo on the morning of the wedding. When that was accomplished, they headed for town. If Roman wondered why she was so quiet, he didn’t say anything. Thank heaven.

  The bridal department at Z.C.M.I. had every kind of wedding dress the modern bride could hope to find. But to her shock, Roman seemed dissatisfied with what he saw.

  “I believe there’s an exclusive bridal shop on Third South. Let’s go there,” he muttered, not bothering to ask her opinion.

  Brit knew the one. It was a boutique that carried a lot of internationally renown designer fashions. A shop for the wealthy.

  “I don’t understand—” she said as they got back in the car and drove the short distance to the other store.

  “None of those dresses looked like you,” came the eventoned explanation, turning her insides to liquid. “I’ll know the one I like, just as you knew the jacket you liked the second I shrugged into that black tux.”

  She had given herself away earlier. Roman’s eyes and antennae missed nothing!

  “Do you have a dress along simple lines—no extra frills—something that looks demure, like a maiden?” she heard Roman ask the salesclerk a few minutes later, after they’d entered Celeste’s Bridal Boutique.

  A maiden? Brit mouthed the words in stunned surprise. Because he saw her as young and virginal?

  The stylish older woman perused Brit’s face and figure. If she thought it strange that the groom was actually buying the wedding dress for his bride, she didn’t show it and Brit supposed that more and more the tradition of the groom not seeing the bride’s gown before the big day was being overlooked.

  Suddenly the clerk nodded. “I know just the gown. It’s been waiting for you! Come.” She motioned.

  Brit had no choice but to follow her to the fitting room, leaving Roman behind with a glimmer of satisfaction hovering around his mouth.

  “That incredible fiancé of yours has exquisite taste,” she commented moments later, carrying an impossibly white wedding dress in a soft crepe-like material over her arm. “You’re a lucky young woman. The creation is a Rimini original. The Italians know exactly how to drape a woman. This is from a private showing of the famed ‘Madonna of the Pieta’ collection.”

  While she spoke, Brit took off her clothes, donned the underslip and allowed the woman to help ease the dress over her head.

  When she could breathe again, she looked in the mirror and gasped in disbelief. The gown was so simple, it put her in mind of a painting she’d seen in France of a long garment worn by Joan of Arc. The simple round neck and sleeves to the wrist gave the slim dress which fell to the floor a demure look of purity and virtue.

  “Here is the pièce de résistance.” So saying, the clerk placed a floor-length mantilla over Brit’s head. Made of the finest sheer tulle, the two-inch border of French Alençon lace framed her face and fell to the carpet, creating the illusion of a madonna.

  “It’s perfect,” she heard a deep, familiar male voice whisper. “We’ll take it.”

  Still looking in the mirror, her shocked blue eyes met Roman’s. The way he was staring at her, the sudden stillness of his hard, lean body set hers trembling. She had this suffocating feeling in her chest.

  The second the clerk had gone, Brit turned a flushed face to Roman whose gaze roamed freely over her figure. “This dress is going to cost a small fortune.”

  “Let me worry about that.”

  Her rounded chin lifted in defiance. “It’s beyond my price range.” But in truth, she adored it. This was the dress she would want if they were really getting married. To wear it to a mock ceremony would be sacrilege.

  After a tension-filled pause, “Just so you understand, I’m a very rich man and can afford it,” he fired back, his irritation pronounced.

  From all he’d told her, she suspected he came from a monied background, but the bald revelation caught her on the raw. “Unfortunately, I can’t. Since I hired you, we’ll have to function on my meager budget.”

  “I’m in agreement with that except where this dress is concerned. As the clerk said, it was made for you, and it’s the one I want. Let it be my wedding gift to you. You can save it for the day when you give yourself to your true husband.”

  As the electricity crackled between them, she felt a strange twinge of pain in the region of her heart. Somehow she couldn’t imagine anyone else but the magnificent man standing before her filling the role of her lawfully wedded husband. Not even if she lived to be a hundred.

  She swallowed hard. “No, Roman.”

  “It’s already decided,” he said in a tone of steely command. “Now, if you’ll turn around, I’ll undo you and save the clerk the trouble. We’re in a hurry.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MUCH as Roman could tell Brit wanted to scream her protest, he could count on her not to make a scene in front of the salesclerk who was innocent of the whole affair.

  Like a robot, Brit removed the mantilla and clutched it to her bosom before doing his bidding. She trembled when his hands went to the satin-covered buttons, slowly undoing each eyelet. As he made his way down her back to her waist, his fingertips savored the velvety smoothness of her skin till they met the barrier of her slip, a thin tissue-like substance which trapped her warmth.

  The perfume emanating from her reached out to him like a living thing. His breath caught in his throat as the insane impulse to remove her dress and everything else that hid her body from his hungry gaze virtually overwhelmed him.

  He had no business being this close to her, no business finding any excuse he could conjure to go on touching her.

  What in the hell do you think you’re doing in a ladies’ fitting room, undressing the woman you’ve been hired to protect, Lufkilovich?

  Dear God—Another minute and Brit was going to need protection from him! Visions of what had occurred in the middle of the night didn’t help the situation. His plan to go undercover as her husband was backfiring at a breathtaking pace.

  In a burst of self-deprecation, he removed his hands as if her skin had scorched him. “I’ll wait for you at t
he desk,” he muttered to the back of her head. The desire to tangle his hands in the ash-blond hair that swirled in attractive disarray across her bare shoulders was palpable. He needed to get out of there before he did something unforgivable.

  “I—I’ll hurry and change,” came the slightly muffled response, causing him to wonder if his nearness was affecting her the same way.

  Before leaving the room he added, “Since it doesn’t need any alterations, I’ll inform the clerk we’re taking the dress with us.”

  Without giving her a chance to respond, he left her to her own devices, breathing deeply to quell the violent hammering of his heart.

  After telling the saleswoman to put the charge on his credit card, he pulled the phone from his pocket and called Cal.

  Early that morning he’d bad a long talk with his friend about Brit’s case. They’d ended the conversation by tentatively planning a special dinner out for that evening. To make everything look more real, he wanted to show Brit off in a public place, a sort of informal engagement dinner with champagne and dancing.

  Since Brit had already talked with Diana over the phone and had made a personal connection, the four of them ought to enjoy each other’s company. Now was his chance to finalize their plans.

  Sooner than he would have believed, Brit reappeared ready to go. The clerk thanked them both with a smile and handed the garment bag to Roman. After they left the shop, his companion remained curiously taciturn on their walk to the car.

  “Do you know of a good pastry shop?” he questioned after he’d spread the bag across the back seat and started the ignition.

  “Yes. Becker’s. Their wedding cakes are famous. It’s on South Temple, a few blocks away from the tuxedo place. The Becker family are close friends of our family.

  “He escaped from Germany with his mother when he was just a young boy. They’d witnessed the shooting of a group of Jews behind their pastry shop and decided to get out. His mother sewed money in the lining of his little coat. They fled the country by holding on to the underneath of a boxcar of a train.” Her voice trembled.