Читать книгу: «The Complete Series»
Risking It All
The Proposition
The Dare
The Favor
The P.I.
The Cop
The Defender
Cara Summers
www.millsandboon.co.uk
Contents
Cover
Title Page
The Proposition
Dear Reader
Dedication
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
The Dare
Dear Reader
Dedication
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
The Favor
Dear Reader
Dedication
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
Epilogue
The P.I.
Dedication
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
Extract
The Cop
Dedication
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
The Defender
Excerpt
About The Author
Dear Reader
Dedication
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
Epilogue
Preview
Copyright
The Proposition
Natalie’s dress slid to the floor. She was wearing nothing beneath it.
Chance gripped her shoulders hard. “I want to know who the hell you are.”
Natalie smiled and stepped toward him. “I can be anyone you want.”
He couldn’t wait any longer to touch her. Clamping one arm around her waist, he pulled her into the shower with him.
She grabbed the soap playfully. “I can be Rachel.” Her slick hands slid over his skin, leaving trails of ice and fire in their wake. Her fingers drew a line to his waist and then lower. He closed his eyes as her hot fist enclosed him.
“Or I can be Calli.” She began to stroke him gently.
“Or I can be both.” Her laugh was a breath in his ear before her tongue darted inside. “I could be two women at once. Is that what you want?”
All Chance was certain of was that he needed her with a desperation that threatened to slice him in two. “What I want is you. Now.”
Dear Reader,
D.C. cop Natalie Gibbs prides herself on being able to handle men on the job and off…until Chance Mitchell comes into her life and she finds she wants her hands on the sexy insurance investigator a bit too much. When Chance proposes one night of no-strings, no-complications, no-etiquette sex, the very practical Natalie sees his proposition as the perfect way to get him out of her system for good.
The problem is that one night with Chance Mitchell isn’t nearly enough, and after three months Natalie decides that she’s willing to run any risk to lure him back into her bed—even if she has to disguise herself to do it….
This is just the beginning of Natalie and Chance’s adventure. I hope you’ll come along for the ride and watch them ultimately take the biggest risk any two people can take when they risk their hearts.
Developing this miniseries—RISKING IT ALL—has allowed me to write about three fascinating triplet sisters who have very different dreams, talents and goals. But they have one thing in common—they’re willing to risk everything to get what they want. I hope you will look for Rory’s and Sierra’s stories, The Dare (June) and The Favor (July), and that you will enjoy reading them as much as I have enjoyed writing them.
I would love to hear what you think about these stories. You can e-mail me through my Web site, www.carasummers.com.
Happy reading!
Cara Summers
To my sister in heart and dear friend—Kathy Eagan.
Thanks for your support, your inspiration and your never-wavering belief in me. I love you.
And to all sisters everywhere.
Prologue
Summer 1999
HARRY GIBBS was a man who’d spent his life taking risks and loving every minute of it. For an international jewel thief, risks were a part of the game, and Harry had always played the game very well.
Of course, he’d been born smart and lucky. As for his other talents—such as his Houdini-like knack for opening locks and his gift for disguise—well, those he’d honed to perfection over the years.
And look where his chosen profession had gotten him. Standing on the balcony of his Tuscan villa, Harry watched as the summer sun bathed the vineyards below in a golden light. Although he had a small cottage outside of Dublin and an apartment in Paris, this was his favorite residence in between jobs.
Some would call his the perfect life.
Harry bit back a sigh. No life was perfect, and he had reason to know this better than most men. Life, he’d discovered, boiled down to a series of choices that you either embraced or rejected. Ten years ago, he’d made a big decision—to leave his wife and ten-year-old triplet daughters behind so that he could resume his career as a master thief.
His wife Amanda had wanted Natalie, Rory and Sierra to have a “normal” life. He’d wanted that for the girls, too. So for ten years, he’d tried, but in the end he just couldn’t accept that “normal” life for himself.
As the light pouring over the valley slowly darkened and the shadows lengthened, Harry finally let out the sigh he’d been holding back. There wasn’t a day that passed when he didn’t miss his family. And on this particular warm summer night, the twentieth anniversary of the day the triplets were born, he missed them more than ever.
He moved into the salon, then crossed to the bar and poured champagne into a flute. Six more years—he and Amanda had agreed on that. He wouldn’t contact the girls or try to see them until their twenty-sixth birthday.
Tonight, the six years seemed like forever, and lately he’d begun to feel that perhaps time was running out for him.
He crossed to his desk and opened the photo album to three pictures he’d taken of his oldest daughter, Natalie. Then he raised his glass in a toast.
“To my courageous Natalie,” he murmured. “Happy birthday.”
In many ways, she was the most like him. Sipping the icy liquid, he continued to study the pImages** arranged on the page. They were his favorites. The first was one he’d taken when she’d had her tonsils out. She’d been twelve, and though she hadn’t known, he’d joined Amanda to sit by her side the night she’d spent in the hospital. The second was of Natalie getting her diploma at her high school graduation. That was just one of many days that he’d missed being with his girls.
His agreement with Amanda hadn’t stopped him from secretly attending important events in their lives and doing his best to watch them grow up. He just hadn’t ever been able to let them know he was there.
When they were small, his girls had idolized him. The last thing Amanda had wanted for them was that they would romanticize the career path he’d chosen. He didn’t want that either.
Harry bent to get a closer look at the picture he’d snapped of Natalie during her first day at the police academy. He grinned. No way was his oldest daughter going to follow in his path. If anything, she seemed determined to uphold the laws that he had lived his life breaking.
And that was his Natalie to a T. From the time she’d been able to walk and talk, she’d taken on the responsibility of both defending and ensuring just treatment of her sisters. A series of pImages** streamed through his mind. In each of them, Natalie would stand in front of her sisters like a warrior. By the time she was ten, Harry could see that his oldest daughter had inherited not merely his red hair, but also his knack for opening locks and his talent for disguise. She would have made a great jewel thief.
Raising his glass, Harry drank to that. Of his three girls, Natalie had always been the biggest risk-taker, and he couldn’t help but wonder if being a cop would help her to come to terms with that side of her nature.
If he could just talk to her…
And what the hell good would that do? Harry set down his glass. What could he say? The problem was he wanted his girls to be able to have their cake and eat it, too—but he and Amanda hadn’t found a way to do that.
His gaze shifted to the framed photo of his wife, one he’d snapped at the girls’ graduation. Reaching out, he ran a finger down the side of her cheek. He’d never stopped loving her.
And he’d never stopped loving his daughters. Thinking of Natalie, Harry reached for a sheet of paper and a pen and sat down at the desk. His risk-taking daughter, his seekers of justice, wouldn’t hesitate to take action. There had to be something he could say to her. Even if he couldn’t send the letter now, he’d find a way to get it to her eventually.
Harry took another sip of champagne in a toast to his oldest daughter. And then he began to write.
Dearest Natalie…
1
Spring 2005
CHANCE MITCHELL had never before been obsessed by a woman in his life. He glanced down the table to where Detective Natalie Gibbs was sipping a glass of white wine. He continued to study her as she tucked a stray curl behind her ear. The two women seated next to her could be described as equally attractive, but ever since he’d joined his friends for a celebration at the Blue Pepper, his gaze had returned to Natalie.
At nine o’clock the popular Georgetown bistro was crowded. Customers were lined up three deep at the bar, and a salsa band was playing on the patio. In some corner of his mind, Chance was aware of that, just as he was vaguely aware of the ongoing conversation at his table, but his focus remained on the fascinating detective.
Her hair fell past her shoulders, and in the dim light of the bar, the red-gold curls looked as if they might burst into flames at any moment. He wanted to touch those curls. He wanted to touch her, slowly and thoroughly.
Chance took a long swallow of his beer, but it did little to cool the heat that burned inside of him. Oh, he was obsessing all right, and he wanted to know why.
What he felt for Natalie had begun the first moment he’d seen her. They’d both been working undercover for different agencies, and she’d been disguised when she’d walked into his art gallery. From the instant their eyes had met, there’d been a connection. He’d felt a curious shock of recognition that had registered like a punch in his gut.
So far, he hadn’t acted on the attraction. During the three days that he and Natalie had joined forces and worked as partners, the cool, aloof redhead had kept him at arm’s length. And he’d let her. That’s what he couldn’t quite figure out. He was a man who knew how to get what he wanted, but Natalie Gibbs had him hesitating in a way he couldn’t recall doing since he’d been a teenager.
Perhaps it was time he put a stop to that. She didn’t look quite so cool tonight. Maybe it was the clothes. When they’d worked as partners, she’d always worn a jacket and slacks, the standard uniform of a woman who worked in a man’s world. But tonight, the blouse she wore left her arms and throat bare, and the lacy, sheer fabric revealed curves as well as skin.
His eyes shifted to the V-neck that ended just where he imagined the valley between her breasts began. He let his gaze lower to the tiny, pearl buttons that marched in a narrow line to her waist. He could imagine unbuttoning them one at a time, very slowly, drawing out the pleasure for them both.
As the pImages** filled his mind, the tightening in his gut turned raw and primitively sexual. Why in hell was he hesitating? Desire was something he was familiar with. He could handle it. Or he could walk away. Couldn’t he?
He took another swallow of his beer.
“You all right?”
Chance tore his gaze away from Natalie to face the two men seated beside him. Tracker McBride had asked the question. But it was Lucas Wainwright who was studying him thoughtfully. Seven years ago, Tracker and Lucas had worked with him in a Special Forces unit, and in the past two weeks, they’d had the opportunity to work together again to crack a smuggling ring operating in D.C. Tonight, they were supposed to be celebrating the successful closure of the case, and this was the second time he’d lost track of the conversation, thanks to Detective Natalie Gibbs.
“I think he has his eye on the fair detective,” Lucas said.
Tracker’s look turned speculative. “Really?”
Knowing that the best defense was a good offense, Chance said to Tracker, “Have you and Sophie set a date yet?”
Tracker’s gaze went to the tall blonde sitting to Natalie’s right.
Lucas grinned. “I hear from Mac that Sophie is talking about a fall wedding.”
Chance mentally shook his head at the satisfied expression on Tracker’s face and shifted his gaze to the third woman who sat at the other end of the table, Dr. MacKenzie Lloyd Wainwright. Mac and Lucas had been married for a year, and they were expecting a child. He’d never envisioned either of his friends marrying and settling down.
“Now that Lucas and I are pretty much spoken for, it’s your turn,” Tracker said.
Chance held both hands out, palms up. “Not a chance in hell.” Then he laughed as his friends winced at the pun. He just wasn’t the marrying kind.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like women. He did. And you could italicize the plural. Not that he had ever involved himself with more than one woman at a time. Going down that particular path had always seemed to him to be way too complicated if not downright suicidal. He’d always made sure that his relationships were simple, uncomplicated and a lot of fun while they lasted. Permanent wasn’t a word that existed in his vocabulary. Hell, nothing was permanent—not in this life.
“I don’t know,” Tracker said. “Sophie says that there’s a real spark between you and the detective.”
The sudden ringing of a phone had all three men reaching for their cells. Whoever was getting the call, Chance figured he was saved by the bell. Lucas opened his and a second later said, “I’m going to have to take this in a quieter spot.” Rising, he signaled Tracker to come with him. The two friends worked together now. Lucas ran his family’s company, Wainwright Enterprises, and Tracker headed up security for him.
Chance sipped his beer and found his gaze returning to Natalie. When she glanced up and met his eyes, there was a moment, a long moment, when everything else faded. A heated discussion at a nearby table, laughter from the bar, even the low sound of a saxophone became just a buzz in his ears. The faces of the other two women at the table blurred, and all he could see was Natalie.
Twin sensations assaulted him—a hard punch to his gut and a strange flutter just beneath his heart. No, this wasn’t the reaction he had to just any woman. Why did this particular woman have this kind of effect on him? A part of him wanted to find out; another part of him wanted to run.
The realization had a spurt of panic moving through him. No woman had ever made him want to run before.
“Hey.” Tracker’s amused tone only penetrated when he felt the nudge to his shoulder. Turning, Chance discovered that Lucas had moved to help Mac from her chair. “Our party’s breaking up,” Tracker said. “Mac’s tired so they’re driving home now. Sophie and I are going to walk back to her place. Do you need Lucas to give you a lift back to your hotel?”
“No,” he said as he rose from his chair. It had been years since he’d allowed himself to run away from anything. That part of his life was over. He was flying to London in the morning, but there was one thing he was going to do before he left. Chance moved with Tracker down to the other end of the table.
“Sorry to be such a party pooper,” Mac said, stifling a huge yawn.
“I’m the one who yawned first,” Sophie said. “The last few days have been hectic.” Then she smiled at Natalie. “But you should stay. Chance is an excellent dancer, and the music is good.”
“No, I—” Natalie began as she rose from her chair.
“Sophie’s right on one point,” Chance said. “The music is very good.”
“Please. Don’t let me break up your evening,” Mac said, taking Natalie’s hand and squeezing it. “Stay and have at least one dance. If I weren’t asleep on my feet, I’d drag Lucas out. There’s nothing more romantic than dancing under the stars.”
“What’s one dance?” Sophie said softly as she kissed Natalie’s cheek.
Chance waited until the two couples had taken their leave. “We don’t have to dance if you’re afraid of that Latin beat.”
Natalie’s eyes narrowed as she met his. “I can dance to that if you can.”
It was just the reaction Chance had hoped for. The one thing he’d learned from working with the beautiful detective was that she was never afraid to take a risk. That was his key, he realized as he took her hand and led her toward the patio. If he framed his proposition in the right way, they’d be taking a different kind of risk together before the night was over.
NATALIE KNEW she was making a mistake the moment that Chance took her hand. It wasn’t that he hadn’t touched her before. He was a very physical man. In the brief time they’d worked together, he’d taken her arm, or placed a hand at her back. But he’d never before held her hand. His was hard, his fingers callused, and just the pressure of his palm against hers had little ribbons of heat uncurling up her arm.
The intensity of the sensations had her wondering what it would feel like when he really touched her. And she’d been thinking of that since they’d first met in that art gallery. He’d been a possible suspect in an art theft ring, and it had been her job to keep an eye on him.
Natalie sent him a sideways glance as he made a path for them through the crowd. Keeping an eye on Chance Mitchell was nice work if you could get it.
He was a man any woman would look twice at. He had a long, rangy body that wore jeans and Armani suits with the same careless ease. Hair that looked brown one minute and blond the next. Eyes that were trapped somewhere between a smoky gray and blue. And a face that wasn’t quite handsome until he smiled in a certain way.
But for the three days they’d worked side by side, it was his hands that she’d become obsessed with—hands that held a priceless sculpture or a gun with equal skill. More than once, she’d struggled with fantasies of how those long, clever fingers might pleasure a woman.
And she knew enough about men to know that he was fantasizing just as much as she. The fact that she and Chance had been assigned to protect Sophie Wainwright from a ruthless killer had helped both of them keep their focus. But now…Sophie was safe. The case was over. There was nothing to divert her attention from this man. And she wanted him with an intensity that she’d never felt for anyone else.
Why?
Natalie found part of her answer the moment Chance drew her into his arms. Heat streamed through her and every nerve in her body began to throb. No one had ever made her feel this way, and she knew that this was only a promise of what he could make her feel if she would just let him.
Why was she so hesitant to do that?
“We fit perfectly,” he murmured.
Hadn’t she known they would? She was tall, but he was taller. His chin brushed her hair, and as he guided her across the small dance floor, his thigh pressed briefly against hers. The shock to her system had her stumbling even more closely against him.
“Relax.” His voice was just a breath in her ear as he ran those clever fingers up and then down her spine.
“Just listen to the music and let yourself go.”
Let yourself go. Natalie bit back a sigh as she struggled against doing just that. She’d always prided herself on her control where men were concerned. Two years of working on a D.C. police special task force had given her plenty of experience handling males, both on the job and in the bedroom as well. In the two serious relationships she’d had, her lovers had both been intimidated by the fact that she was a cop, and she’d learned from experience not to invest too much of herself in a relationship.
Instinct told her that Chance was different. He’d have the ability to break her control, and the idea of that tempted her almost as much as it made her wary.
When Chance drew back a little, Natalie barely kept herself from protesting.
“Much better,” he said. “Relaxation is the key.”
Of course, it was easy to relax when her bones were melting. But Natalie kept that to herself. Instead, she made herself focus. “You really do know how to dance. Where did you learn?”
“Here and there. I’ve found it a very useful tool.”
She raised her brows. “Tool?”
Chance smiled at her. “Absolutely. Dancing is the easiest method I know for getting a woman into my arms, and second only to my cooking for getting a woman into my bed.”
Bed. She should have had a quick comeback for that. Or at least she could have snorted. But the image, as well as the way he’d leaned close to her ear to say it, had a fresh wave of desire streaming through her.
The rhythm of the dance changed abruptly, and Chance slid his hands to her hips, pulling her close for one brief contact. Heat flashed through her as she felt the long hard length of him. The lower part of her body burned and melted. “Oh, yes,” one part of her mind said—even as another part said, “Get away while you can!”
But the negative voice in her mind was losing strength, and Natalie suddenly realized that she wasn’t going to play it safe. Hadn’t some part of her made that decision when she’d chosen her clothes tonight?
The admission sent a hot erotic thrill moving through her. A sliver of panic followed. It wasn’t like her to be thinking this way. Just as it wasn’t like her to dress with the intention of tempting a man. As the oldest child—by a few minutes anyway—she’d always been the responsible one, and she’d always had to control that wild, reckless streak inside of her that she’d inherited from her father.
“I want you, Natalie.” The words were nothing more than a breath in her ear, but her knees turned to water. She was suddenly aware that he’d steered her off the dance floor and into a darkened corner of the patio. Potted trees surrounded them; a brick wall pressed against her back. And he stood before her, the heat of his body so close…
“I want to take you to bed, I want to touch you—all over.”
She couldn’t prevent the quick thrill the words brought her any more than she could prevent her heart from beginning to hammer.
“I—”
“No.” He pressed a finger against her lips. “Let me finish. I have a proposition for you. I’m flying to London tomorrow morning. If I’m lucky, the assignment will take three months. If not, I’ll be gone even longer. So there’s just tonight.” He drew his finger down that line of her throat to the vee of her blouse and then down the tiny pearl buttons one by one. She was sure that her heart skipped a beat at each one.
“Spend just one night with me,” he said.
SHE HAD TO SAY YES, Chance told himself. He’d chosen his words very carefully. He always did where women were concerned. One night with no strings was just the kind of proposition that the cool, logical Natalie Gibbs he’d come to know would find irresistible. He figured she was cautious when it came to men because she didn’t want complications.
But as he stared into those cool, green eyes, he couldn’t get a hint of what she was thinking. She had to have felt at least part of what he’d experienced when they’d been dancing—the incredible promise of what they could share. And she had to be experiencing at least some of the desperation that he was feeling right now.
When he saw her lips part to speak, he raised his fingers to rest them there. “Don’t say no. I—” Chance broke off the moment that he realized what had nearly slipped out of his mouth. He’d almost said, “I need you.” And that wasn’t true. Being a little obsessed was one thing, but need?
Taking a quick breath, he spoke around the bubble of panic that had risen into his throat. “Just think about it. When was the last time you had sex for the sheer fun of it—no strings, no complications? No worrying about the morning-after etiquette? C’mon. What do you say?”
For a moment his question hung in the air between them. One night with Natalie Gibbs—that was what he wanted. And he wanted it very badly. That was all. Need had nothing to do with it. Chance Mitchell hadn’t needed anyone for a very long time.
Natalie took his fingers and removed them from her mouth. “That’s your proposition? No-strings, no-complications, no-etiquette sex?”
“Exactly.” Chance made himself stop with one word. Because he was very much afraid that he was going to babble. Worse still, he just might beg.
Her grin was quick and wicked. He’d never seen that look on her face before, and his heart did a little stutter.
“Proposition accepted,” she said.
Chance’s heart stopped altogether.
NATALIE LED the way down a narrow flagstone path to the back of a Federal-style house just three blocks away from the Blue Pepper. Lantern lights hung on either side of the door to her apartment.
She’d never before brought a man here—to her own space. But when Chance had suggested her place because it had to be closer than his hotel on Sixteenth Street, Natalie hadn’t argued. If she was going to give herself over to one night of reckless, no-strings, no-etiquette sex, she might as well do it in familiar surroundings.
Chance had said nothing since they’d left the Blue Pepper. He hadn’t touched her either, but she’d been very much aware of him walking at her side. When she drew the key out of her purse and slid it into the door, he laid a hand on hers.
She turned to look at him then. The full moon poured brightly into the garden behind him, but Chance’s face was caught in shifting shadows. His eyes were dark, and she couldn’t read what he was thinking.
“Second thoughts?” he asked.
The kindness of the question had some of the nerves in her stomach settling. But she’d made her decision, and she wasn’t going to run away from it. Shaking her head, she said, “You?”
“No.”
She led the way into the narrow foyer. After shutting the door with his foot, Chance moved quickly, using his arms and body to cage her against the wall.
“It’s not a night for any kind of thought,” he murmured as he lowered his mouth to within a breath of hers. “Tonight we’re just going to feel.”
Any lingering doubts streamed away in that first touch of his lips to hers. His mouth was firm, but giving, his hands almost gentle as he ran them up her arms and slipped them into her hair. And his taste—there was a dark sweetness there that she hadn’t expected. Natalie had one long moment to take a heady sample of it before he moved in even closer. His body, rock-hard, pressed against her, and she felt her own body soften and yield in response. He nipped her bottom lip then slid his tongue over hers.
Heat, one glorious, scorching wave of it, rushed up and over her. If she’d ever been more aware of a man before, she couldn’t recall it. Everything about him was hard—his chest, his hands, the angle of his hip and the long length of his thigh. Even his mouth had grown harder, more demanding, as if he was determined to find some flavor that she was hiding from him.
It wasn’t sweetness she tasted anymore, but a hungry desperation. Was it his or hers?
And all the while those clever, glorious hands raced over her—tracing the curve of her throat, cupping her breasts, and gripping her bottom to pull her even closer. Fire licked along her nerve endings as one sensation after another pulsed through her. Her body had throbbed before, but not like this. Her heart had hammered before, but not as if it intended to burst right out of her chest.
“More.”
Had she said the word aloud? The question had barely formed in her mind, when he answered it by slipping fingers into the vee of her blouse and ripping it open. Then in a lightning move, he jerked what remained of her blouse down her arms, trapping her hands at her sides.
Vulnerability. It was a feeling she’d fought against all of her life. But Natalie welcomed it now, along with the deeply erotic thrill that shot through her. She’d prided herself on always being in charge—on the job, in bed. Now, as those hard hands moved over her again, she couldn’t remember why she’d even wanted to be in control. When he began to use his mouth on her, she gave herself over to a fresh storm of sensations—the hot, rough texture of his tongue at her throat, the scrape of his teeth at her shoulder. One instant she burned, the next, she shivered.
Someone laughed. She didn’t recognize the low, sultry sound, and then his mouth closed over her breast. Fire, furious flames of it, sped along her nerve endings. There was another rip of cloth as she tore her arms free from her blouse. Then she threaded her fingers through his hair and tried to drag his mouth back to hers.
“More,” she repeated.
Her whispered plea became a drumbeat in his mind as hunger and need tangled inside of him. He’d been right that it wasn’t a night for thinking. He couldn’t seem to grab on to one coherent thought. Nor could he resist returning for one more sample of her mouth.
Would he ever get enough of the sweet, drugging flavor of her surrender, that throaty gasp of pleasure that ended in his name? And her scent—something wild and exotic that made him think of taking her quickly on a deserted, moonlit beach while waves thundered furiously over the sand.
Another second and he would simply drown in her. Drawing back, Chance fought to breathe, to clear his mind.
“Hurry. Please.”
Her words started his blood pounding in his head. Helpless to resist, he covered her lips again with his and plundered. This time it wasn’t sweetness he tasted, but a hunger as sharp and desperate as his own. The hands running over him were as eager and determined to possess as his. The change in her from surrender to fevered urgency swamped his senses, and need sliced through him.
His fingers fumbled as he tore her belt free and sent her slacks pooling to the floor. He ran his hand down her, pushing aside the remaining barrier of silk. Hanging on to a thin thread of control, he lifted his head—because he had to see her, needed to see her, as he slipped two fingers into her heat. She locked around him, and he watched her eyes darken and cloud as she absorbed the pleasure he was giving her. He knew the moment her climax began, and when she reached the peak, it was his name she breathed. The sound sliced through him and sharpened an ache deep inside him, sharper than any he’d ever known.
Even as the last ripples of her climax moved through her, Natalie knew she had to have more of him. Of this man. Of Chance. She pulled his shirt free and tugged at his belt. Together, they struggled to free him of slacks, T-shirt, shoes until the only barrier between them was the thin black fabric of his briefs. Unable to take the time to pull them down, she closed her hand over him.
“The bedroom.” His voice was ragged.
“Here,” she replied.
They dragged each other to the floor. Once they were there, she lost no time. Rolling herself on top of him, she began to explore him with her mouth, using her tongue and teeth on his shoulder, his throat, his chest. She couldn’t get enough. Her heart had never beaten this hard. Her body had never ached this sharply.
Rising to her knees, she straddled his thighs, dragged down his briefs. Hands clamped at her waist. He lifted her clear of the floor, and then she was sinking onto him. The moment he filled her, they began to move. Through a haze, she saw his smoky eyes, locked on hers as he filled her, withdrew, then filled her again. Pleasure, waves of it, engulfed her as they both increased the pace. As her vision grayed, she leaned down to cover his mouth with hers.
“Now,” she murmured against his lips. “Come with me, now.”
In one lightning move, he rolled her beneath him. Then he drove her, drove them both, until together they reached that peak and shattered.
2
Three months later…
WITH ONE HAND, Chance Mitchell reached into the cooler at his side and pulled out a beer. He was being watched. It was nothing that he could see in his brief scan of the shoreline—not yet. Still, the moment the boat he was on had rounded that last curve of the coast, all of Chance’s senses had gone on alert.
“The hair on the back of my neck tells me that I’m posing for pictures,” Tracker said from his position behind the wheel.
“Yeah,” Chance replied. That cinched it. If there was one person whose instincts he trusted more than his own, it was Tracker’s. “I’m getting the same feeling.”
Chance twisted off the cap on his beer and took a long swallow, all the while keeping a tight grip on his fishing pole. To any observer he looked like he was enjoying the fishing that the waters off the south Florida coast provided. That’s exactly what he wanted the security people he knew were watching him to believe.
And if they checked into it—as he was sure they were doing right now—they would find that the boat was registered to Lucas Wainwright III, CEO of Wainwright Enterprises, and that the man himself had indeed flown in from D.C. to spend the weekend in Boca Raton and had had his boat brought in from his place on the Keys.
Chance pulled his hat down hard. Luckily, he and his old friend Lucas were the same height and build, so all he’d had to do was use temporary black dye on his hair. But there was no telling how powerful those cameras were, and he didn’t want anyone on shore getting a good look at his facial features.
Something hit the line hard. The pole bent nearly double, then twanged upward. Chance nearly laughed out loud. Sometimes, he really loved undercover work. Here he was, on a job staking out the isolated Florida estate of Carlo Brancotti—a millionaire who’d made his fortune stealing from others—and he was going to have the pleasure of battling and landing a big catch. He couldn’t have planned it better for the audience that he was sure was recording his every move.
The only thing that might please him more was to land Carlo himself. Two years ago, a huge yellow diamond, the size of a baby’s fist, had disappeared from the Ferrante private collection in Rome, and Chance had been on Brancotti’s trail ever since. The theft had occurred while the jewel was in transport between the Ferrante palace and the museum where it was to be displayed. The real diamond had been taken and an amazingly accurate fake had been substituted.
From the moment he’d been called in to investigate the heist, Chance had been sure that Brancotti was the mastermind behind it. He’d been tracking the man for a long time, and Brancotti’s trademark was to leave an almost undetectable fake in place of the real jewel. By the time the theft was discovered, Brancotti would have found a buyer, and there would be no evidence to connect the man with the crime.
In this case, the substitution had been discovered within days because Count Ferrante had insisted on an appraisal of the diamond for insurance purposes just before the exhibition was opened to the public.
Chance had sold the insurance company and the count on offering a reward for the diamond, one large enough to tempt Brancotti to give it back. And Brancotti had taken the bait. It had been a good idea. If it had worked, the count would have gotten his diamond back, and Chance would have settled an old score and put Brancotti behind bars.
But the plan had gone terribly wrong, and Chance had lost his partner, Venetia Gaston.
The fish pulled hard on his line, and Chance dragged his thoughts back to the present. Mindful of the telescopic lens he was sure was aimed at him, he began to play the fish, releasing the tension on the line and then gradually pulling it taut again.
For two long years, he’d waited for news of a large yellow diamond to surface, and a week ago it had. Through one of his contacts, he’d received a tip that Carlo Brancotti was inviting a very select group of men and women to a weekend at his retreat in south Florida and that the Ferrante diamond would be auctioned off to the highest bidder.
The heightened security along the shoreline of Carlo’s estate cinched it. Carlo Brancotti was meticulously careful. That was why he’d never been caught. Tilting his head slightly, Chance kept one eye on his pole as he scanned the shoreline. The south Florida sun beat down, sending sparks skimming across the back-wash the boat was creating, but he didn’t miss the flash in the thick cypress trees that lined the shore, light reflecting off a lens. Someone was definitely watching them. He felt the quick kick of adrenaline that he always experienced when he knew the hunt was about to begin.
“Showtime,” he said to Tracker. “I’m going to need your help with this fish. It’s big.”
“Damn. You have all the luck.”
A second later, his old buddy was at his side. He’d been pleased when Tracker had agreed to help him with the case—they made a good team. Together, they watched the fish leap out of the water in a huge, graceful arc. The pole bent nearly double again as the fish dove below the surface.
“You spot anything?” Tracker asked as he grabbed Chance’s chair to steady it.
“One of them is at two o’clock as you face the shore.”
“Got it,” Tracker said. “There’s another one about a thousand yards to the left.”
The fish cleared the water again.
“A lot of security,” Chance remarked as he reeled in the line.
“Must be something needs guarding,” Tracker said.
“That’s the way I figure it, too. Keep a watch, will you? Landing this fish is going to require all of my attention. And if they’re watching me, maybe you can pick out a few more of them.”
“Right,” Tracker said.
For the next few minutes, they said nothing as Chance let out the line and then drew it in, over and over. By the time Tracker dipped the net over the side of the boat and they hauled the fish in, the boat had moved past the Brancotti estate.
Chance waited until they’d turned and were headed back. Tracker kept the throttle open, and Chance stood at the wheel with him while the video camera on the stern side of the boat recorded every inch of the shoreline. This time there was no telltale flash of light. Evidently, their cover had held. The photos that would make their way to Brancotti would show a very happy fisherman, heading home after a satisfying catch.
“Can you get in along the shore without being detected?” Chance asked.
Tracker grinned. “Is the Pope Catholic?”
“Carlo doesn’t leave anything to chance.”
“Getting you off the estate will be the easy part. You’ve got the tough job. You’ve got to get on the estate by getting invited to the party. And you have to steal the diamond.”
Chance smiled at his old friend. “I’ve got an invite already, thanks to a contact of mine. As for stealing the diamond—that will be the fun part.”
Turning, Tracker studied his friend for a minute. “This is more than a job to you, isn’t it?”
“Carlo and I go back a long way.” Longer than Chance would ever admit to anyone. He and Carlo had lived in the same orphanage for a year—one long year when he’d been a scrawny twelve-year-old and Carlo had been seventeen and his only friend and mentor. Of course, their names had been different then. Chance had hero-worshipped the older boy. But the friendship had died the night that Carlo had robbed the orphanage and made sure that Chance got the blame for the theft. That had been twenty years ago.
Tracker shot his friend a look. “If it’s personal between you and Brancotti, that could get in your way.”
“I won’t let it.”
“Is there any chance he’ll recognize you?”
“No. I was twelve the last time we saw each other.”
Tracker frowned, then said, “Why don’t I go in with you? I could pose as your bodyguard or your personal assistant.”
Chance grinned and shook his head. “Thanks, but I already have a partner in mind, and you won’t fit into the wardrobe.”
“There’s a wardrobe?”
“An expensive one. I’ll be posing as Steven Bradford. You probably haven’t heard of him because he’s very low-key, but he’s a software genius who made his billions in the high-tech boom. And as Steven, I’ll be bringing along my latest companion, a model type who, with my backing, is hoping to jettison her career into supermodel status.”
Tracker grinned. “The nerd and his arm candy.”
“Exactly.” Chance paused, then said what he’d been thinking about ever since he’d accepted the assignment. “I’m going to ask Natalie Gibbs to work with me.”
Tracker thought for a minute. “She’s a looker all right.”
“She’s the right body type and with blond hair she’ll be a dead ringer for Catherine Weston, who now calls herself ‘Calli.’” But it wasn’t just her looks that had kept Detective Natalie Gibbs in his mind and in his dreams for three straight months.
“I did some research on her.” He’d run a thorough check on Natalie, partly to figure out why she’d gotten to him. “Her father, Harry Gibbs, was an international jewel thief. One of those legends who’s the prime suspect in every big heist, but who never got caught. He died in an accident about six years ago.”
“The father’s a jewel thief and the daughter becomes a cop. Interesting.”
Fascinating was the word Chance would have chosen. The hell of it was, the more he’d learned about Natalie Gibbs, the more intrigued by her he’d become. “She’s not the only daughter. She’s the oldest of a set of triplets.” According to one source he’d talked to, Natalie took her position as the oldest quite seriously, especially since their mother had passed away six years ago.
“She evidently inherited some of her father’s talents,” Chance continued. “She worked her way through college cracking safes for various law enforcement agencies.”
Tracker eased the boat around a curve of land that cut them off from the Brancotti estate, then turned to study his friend. “Sophie’s pretty sure that there’s something going on between the two of you. Or that there could be something. She swears that sparks fly whenever you’re in the same room together.”
Chance shrugged. “It won’t interfere with the job.”
“It could interfere with your thinking. Take it from someone who’s been there.”
“The bottom line is I need her for the job. She’s got a cool head.” Except for when she was exploding in his arms. “Plus, she has a gift for disguise and a knack for undercover work.”
Tracker hadn’t taken his eyes off Chance. “You’re sure about this?”
Chance met Tracker’s eyes steadily. “She’s exactly what I want.” That was nothing less than the truth. Even before that one night in her apartment, he’d wanted her more than any other woman he’d ever met. The mistake he’d made was to think that having her once would get her out of his system. His miscalculation about that wasn’t the only error he’d made that night. He’d never been so rough with a woman before. Hell, he’d ripped her clothes off and taken her on the floor of her foyer. And he hadn’t been much gentler later in her bed.
To top everything off, he’d left before she’d awakened and flown off to London without so much as a note or a phone call to say goodbye. Chance liked women, and he prided himself on treating them well. But he hadn’t treated Natalie very well.
Truth be told, his response to Natalie Gibbs had scared him. It hadn’t been just the lack of control he’d had over his physical response to her. No. There’d been a moment when he’d stood in the doorway of her bedroom watching her sleep when he simply hadn’t wanted to leave. Ever.
That was unprecedented. Chance Mitchell never stayed in one place, never intended to settle down. He changed his name as often as he changed locations. But something about Natalie Gibbs pulled at him. That was why he hadn’t called or sent flowers. Now, three months later, he wanted her to help him catch Brancotti. And he still wanted her, period.
“You haven’t run any of this by Natalie yet?” Tracker asked.
“No.”
Tracker grinned. “I’d say you have your work cut out for you—on more than one front. She struck me as the straight-as-an-arrow type and I don’t have to tell you that you’ve always taken the riskier approach.”
“Yeah.” Tracker was the one who’d nicknamed him “Chance” when they’d worked together in a Special Forces unit.
“Have you got a plan?”
“Not yet.” Three days ago, he’d called her department, but at the last minute, he’d asked to talk to her partner, Matt Ramsey, instead.
“She didn’t strike me as the type who could be easily conned,” Tracker said, his grin widening.
“No.” Chance bit back a sigh. If he was going to convince Natalie Gibbs to join him, he was going to have to pull off some fancy moves all right. And so far, he hadn’t come up with a plan that had a chance in hell of succeeding.
“Tell you what,” Tracker said. “Sophie’s throwing a party at her antique shop on Friday to showcase some local artists. Natalie will be there. Why don’t you come?”
Chance thought for a minute. If he ran into Natalie at a party, she couldn’t refuse to see him. She’d have no choice but to talk to him at least.
“I’ll take you up on that,” Chance said. That gave him about forty-eight hours to come up with a strategy. Deadlines always sparked his creativity.
“Good. I was sure I was going to be bored. Now, I’ll have the chance to observe a master con man at work.”
“HERE ARE THE latest acceptances to your party.”
Carlo Brancotti didn’t glance up from his computer screen as his personal assistant, Lisa McGill, placed a manila folder on his desk. He was a careful man. Some judged him to be too careful, but he hadn’t remained at the top of his profession by letting down his guard. Anything out of the ordinary was reported to him instantly, and his surveillance team had phoned him the minute the boat had been spotted so close to shore. They’d already traced the license plate. It belonged to Lucas Wainwright. Frowning, he tapped his fingers on his desk. Wainwright…the name was familiar, but the details escaped him.
Suddenly, the information appeared on the screen. Carlo scanned it quickly. Lucas Wainwright, CEO of Wainwright Enterprises, owner of a resort hotel in the Keys and another in South Beach, frequently used his boat to fish.
Satisfied, Carlo turned his attention to Lisa. “Report.”
“All of the usuals, Sir Arthur and Lady Latham, the Moto brothers, the Demirs and Hassam Aldiri.”
“And the first-timers?”
Lisa frowned a bit. First-timers made her nervous because there was a chance, always a chance, that one of them would be a plant, someone that a big insurance company or a law enforcement agency had gotten to. Carlo was looking forward to that very possibility. Foiling those who thought they could catch him was half the fun of the business he was in. More than anything, he enjoyed the game. He always had. The money was just a very pleasant side benefit.
“Risa Manwaring, Armand Genovese and Steven Bradford have all accepted, and they will arrive on Sunday.”
The disapproval in her voice had him biting back a smile as he opened the file she’d placed on his desk. He wouldn’t show any disapproval for her concern, for it was her job to worry and to keep him safe. “You’ve put them under surveillance?”
“Of course.”
Carlo nodded in approval as he examined the photos in the file. Lisa had already run background checks on all three—Risa Manwaring, the retired film star, who now lived in seclusion; Armand Genovese, the Italian businessman, with rumored ties to organized crime; and Steven Bradford, the software genius, who reportedly had money to burn. Each would have his or her own reasons for wanting to acquire the Ferrante diamond. Which one, he wondered, would have that special craving for it that would run up the price?
Taking out the photos, he lined them up in a neat row, then pulled a magnifying glass from his desk. Not one of them offered a clear, accurate image. “These were the best you could get hold of?”
“Yes. I’m still working on it.”
He nodded in approval, but he didn’t expect her to find any better pictures of his future guests. He’d chosen these three specifically because all three shunned the media.
Which one would the man who called himself Chance Mitchell be impersonating? That was the question.
There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that the insurance agent who’d come so close to tripping him up on his last job would take the bait. The man was good. Too good. After their last encounter, Carlo had made it his business to learn everything he could about the freelance insurance investigator who went by the name of Chance.
Carlo doubted that was the man’s real name or that he even used it very often. There was even a possibility that Chance was a woman. In the past seven years, Chance Mitchell had become a legend of sorts in certain circles, the one person feared by anyone in Carlo’s business.
But Carlo wasn’t afraid. No, indeed, he thought as he smiled. He was looking forward to going up against Chance Mitchell again. Lately, he’d found that life offered too few challenges. With one long finger, he tapped each of the photos in turn. Which one would Chance choose to appear as? Risa, Armand, Steven or the woman on Steven’s arm? He lowered the magnifying glass to decipher the name. Calli.
“Run a check on this Calli also.”
“Yes, sir,” Lisa replied.
Carlo set down the magnifying glass. He would know each one of his invited guests intimately before they arrived at his estate. Which one would turn out to be the one he would have to kill?
3
NATALIE SPOTTED her sisters the moment she stepped into the Blue Pepper. Rory, as usual, was in the thick of things, having an animated conversation with the reservation hostess. Natalie had no doubt that in spite of the crowd, Rory would get them a table. With her pixie face and short, dark hair, Rory had always reminded Natalie of Puck, the mischievous fairy in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She had a knack for muddling things up the same way he had.
As Natalie edged her way through the crowd, she searched for a glimpse of her youngest sister, Sierra. Sure enough, Sierra was seated next to the reservation desk, looking on and jotting something down on one of the blue note cards she never seemed to be without. Natalie bit back a sigh.
With her straight blond hair and innocent air, Sierra had always made Natalie think of Alice in Wonderland. Though the academic Sierra was more intellectual than Alice and more shy, she was every bit as curious. However, Sierra never ever just tumbled into things the way Alice had. Instead, from the time she was little, she’d mapped out everything she did on blue note cards.
Well, Natalie believed in plans, too, but she drew the line at listing steps on note cards of any color. And she worried a bit that Sierra, who’d been sick a lot as a child, was a little too organized and too cautious in her approach to life. But whenever she broached the subject to Sierra, her sister would point out that her planning had gotten her two Ph.D. degrees and a tenure-track position at Georgetown University.
Ever since their father had left them, Natalie had always believed that it was her job to look out for her sisters, and she couldn’t help worrying about how they were going to take the news that she was bringing them tonight.
Outside on the patio, a saxophonist blew a trill of notes, and Natalie stopped short as the image of Chance Mitchell slipped, unwanted, into her mind. That was all it took for her body to respond. Annoyance streamed through her. It had been three months since she’d been here with him—three long months since she’d thrown caution to the winds and spent the night with him. And she still couldn’t get him out of her mind.
One night. That’s what he’d offered and what she’d agreed to. He’d promised no-strings, no-etiquette sex, and he’d certainly delivered. Just the memory of what he’d done to her, what they’d done to each other, was enough to have her skin heating and something deep inside of her melting.
It certainly wasn’t Chance’s fault that she’d never before experienced anything like it. Nor could she in all fairness blame him for the fact that she wanted to experience it again.
Her glance shifted to the patio where they’d danced and where he’d made her the proposition. Oh, there was a part of her that wanted to blame Chance, a part of her that wanted to pay him back for the fact that since she’d spent that one freeing night with him, she’d felt restless, unsatisfied with her job and with her life.
And dammit, she’d been perfectly satisfied before. Her work on a select task force that handled high profile crimes in D.C. was exciting, but lately she was…just plain bored.
“Detective Natalie! Greetings, greetings, greetings.”
Natalie smiled at Rad as he rushed up, grabbed her hands and rained kisses on the air several inches above her knuckles. The young restaurant owner was a full head shorter than she was, and he changed his hair color as frequently as he changed his ties. Tonight he was wearing his pale blond hair in spikes that were tipped with orange. She noted that the shade matched one of the swirls in his psychedelic tie.
Holding her hands a few inches out from her sides, Rad’s smile faded as he gave her outfit a thorough look. The linen suit she wore was khaki colored, the T-shirt beneath was black, and she could sense a fashion critique coming her way.
“How’s George?” she asked in an effort to deflect Rad’s attention. George, Rad’s partner, was a bronze-skinned, gentle giant of a man who managed the bar while Rad ran the restaurant.
Rad waved a hand. “George is gorgeous. Perfect, as usual. You, on the other hand…” He broke off to press a hand over his heart. “It cuts me to the quick to see you in such drab colors. Aquamarine would do wonders for you. Or mint-green.” He tapped a finger to his lips as he considered. “No, pink. You should really think pink.”
Natalie suppressed a shudder. A cop wearing pink? Not to mention what the color would look like in contrast to her red hair. She thought not. In a second attempt to distract Rad, she said, “Nice hairdo.”
He flashed her a grin. “Thanks. There’s a lot of product up there.”
“Excellent match with the tie.”
Rad fluttered his hand an inch above the spikes. “I had to work on the color for over an hour. I could do something quite wonderful with yours.”
“I’d rather you found me a table.”
Rad glanced over to where Rory was beaming at the reservation hostess. “I think your sister has taken care of that. I’ll run interference for you.”
Straightening her shoulders, Natalie followed Rad through the crowd. Tonight she and her sisters were going to celebrate their mutual birthdays, and she was bringing them a surprise present.
The envelope she carried in her purse had arrived this morning. It had contained a note from her father’s attorney and three separate sealed envelopes for Harry Gibbs’s daughters. Inside were messages from their father—messages that he’d written six years ago and had wanted them to read on their twenty-sixth birthday.
All day long the letters had been weighing on her mind and her heart. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about them. Harry Gibbs had walked out on his family when she and her sisters were ten years old. When they were twenty, he’d died in a fluke climbing accident. Her father had always been taking risks. Within six months of receiving the news of Harry Gibbs’s death, their mother had died, too.
Natalie had always known that her parents had loved one another—and there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that her mother had died of a broken heart. But ten years before their deaths, Harry and Amanda Gibbs had split up because of “irreconcilable differences.”
In this case the difference they couldn’t reconcile was the fact that Harry Gibbs was a master jewel thief who found it impossible to settle down, and their mother Amanda wanted to raise her daughters in a stable, conservative environment.
Six years ago their father had suddenly decided to send them some kind of message they would receive on their twenty-sixth birthday? Personally, Natalie felt half pissed and half saddened by that, and she suspected that her sisters would feel the same.
Just then, Rory spotted her and called out, “Nat! This way.”
Not content with waiting for Natalie to reach them, Rory grabbed Sierra by the hand and began to muscle her way through the crowd. The picture that they made moving toward her was one she’d seen so often—Rory rushing forward and Sierra having to be dragged along. Natalie had sometimes wondered why Rory hadn’t made it first out of the womb.
“Happy birthday,” Natalie said when they reached her.
“Happy birthday,” Rory echoed.
“Ditto,” Sierra said as they exchanged hugs.
“It’s not every day we all turn twenty-six,” Rory said in an undertone. “When I explained it to the hostess, she agreed that we should have a table on the patio. C’mon.”
The patio was the last place Natalie wanted to be, but she didn’t have the heart to spoil Rory’s delight with herself. Still, as they moved down the short flight of stairs, she had to put some effort into keeping her eyes from straying to the spot behind the potted trees where Chance had drawn her to make his proposition.
“You all right?” Sierra asked as they followed Rory across the dance floor.
Natalie managed a smile. “Absolutely. How’s the research going, Dr. Gibbs?”
“It’s going. Of course, all the data isn’t in yet.”
“Don’t pay any attention to her. Her research is going brilliantly,” Rory said. “It always does. The big news is that my job at Celebs magazine is going well. A first for me. There’s a senior reporter there who’s taken me under her wing and I’m really enjoying the work.”
“This calls for champagne,” Sierra said.
“Agreed,” Rory said as she sat down and picked up a menu. “And I’m starved.”
Natalie waited until they were all seated before she said, “Maybe we ought to hold off on the celebration.”
“What is it?” Sierra asked.
As Natalie explained the package she’d received that morning, she took the sealed envelopes out of her purse and placed them on the table. For a moment, all three of them simply stared at the white rectangles.
“To open them or not to open them, that is the question,” Sierra finally said.
“Exactly.” Natalie could always depend on that fine analytical mind of Sierra’s to cut to the bottom line.
“They’re from our father,” Rory pointed out.
“So what?” Natalie said, letting a little of her anger show. “We agreed to stop calling him ‘father’ when we were ten because he left us.”
Silence stretched between them again.
“It’s been sixteen years since we last saw him and six years since he died.” Sierra placed one finger on the corner of her envelope. “Why now?”
“Exactly,” Natalie said again. “He’s never once gotten in touch with us—not when we were sick, not for a birthday or a graduation. Not for anything. Why did he instruct the attorney to get those letters to us now?”
A waiter appeared, pen poised at the ready. “Drink orders, ladies?”
“A martini,” Natalie said without taking her eyes off the envelopes. “Very dry with an olive.”
“I’ll have what she’s having,” Sierra said.
Rory sighed. “Ditto. Champagne just isn’t going to do it. And bring us one of those appetizer samplers with three of everything. I’m definitely going to need food before I deal with this.”
After the waiter hurried off, the silence descended again for a moment.
“Neither of you has to deal with this right now,” Natalie finally said. “But I think I do have to open mine. I’ve got too much of Harry in me just to throw it away.”
“We all have too much of Harry in us,” Rory said.
Sierra drew in a quick hitched breath and let it out. “I’m afraid to open mine.”
Natalie reached for her sister’s hand. “Are you all right? Do you need your inhaler?”
Sierra shook her head. “I’m not having an asthma attack. I’m just a coward.”
“No, you’re not.” Natalie and Rory spoke in unison.
“Tell you what,” Natalie said. “We’ll make a plan and you can jot it down on one of those note cards.”
Rory nodded in agreement. “Even I could use some kind of plan for this.”
Sierra pulled a blue card out of the canvas bag she always carried with her.
“We’ll go in the order of our births. I’ll go first,” Natalie said.
Rory patted Sierra’s arm. “Number one—Natalie, our fearless leader. And put me down for the number two slot.”
“And I’m number three,” Sierra said as she added her name to the list.
“And I’m the only one who’s going to open her letter tonight.” Though Natalie could sense that Rory might want to open hers tonight, she willed her to go along. “The two of you can wait. For a few weeks, a year, five years—take all the time you need. Harry certainly took his time getting these to us.”
“Good plan,” Rory said.
As Natalie slipped a finger under the flap, she could see some of the tension fade in the way Sierra was gripping her pencil. Finessing the envelope open, she took out the letter. Then clearing her throat, she read it out loud.
Dearest Natalie, my warrior and seeker of justice, Happy birthday. You’re probably wondering why I’m sending you this letter on this particular birthday, and the answer is a bit complicated. Your mother and I were exactly twenty-six when you came into our lives. Ten years later, I gave you up. Your mother and I agreed when we separated that I would cut off any contact with you until you were twenty-six. We thought that was for the best. I now know that leaving you and leaving your mother was the biggest mistake I ever made. If something happens to me and I can’t be with you on your twenty-sixth birthday, I want you to know this: Don’t make the same mistake that I did. When you see what you want, trust in your talents. Risk anything it takes to get it. And most importantly, hold on to it.
Love,
Harry
“Well,” Rory said.
Natalie placed the letter down on the table and ran her finger over the signature. She couldn’t put a name to any of the feelings swirling through her. “You’ve got to hand it to him—he’s a man who walked his talk. He went for what he wanted, and we all paid the price.”
“Look.” Sierra pointed at the envelope. “There’s something else inside.”
Natalie pulled out three photos. One was taken at her high school graduation, another on her first day at the police academy. The third one was from when she was twelve, and she’d had to stay in the hospital overnight to have her tonsils out.
“He was there,” Rory said. “I’d figured he’d forgotten all about us.”
Sierra studied the photos when Natalie passed them to her. “I’d always suspected that he and Mom made some sort of deal that he had to stay away. She was so afraid that we would take after him.”
“And now he seems to be advising you to do just that,” Natalie said. “‘Trust in your talents…risk anything it takes….’”
“That’s exactly what you want to do, isn’t it?” Sierra asked as the waiter set their drinks and a platter of appetizers in front of them. “That’s what’s been bothering you for the past three months, right?”
Natalie stared at her. Sierra was the most observant of her sisters, but Natalie hadn’t thought she’d been that transparent. “I don’t want to become a jewel thief, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“But…” Sierra urged.
Natalie sighed and turned to Rory. “It was a mistake to let her get that Ph.D. in psychology.”
“You’re just evading the issue,” Rory said around a mouthful of shrimp. “You haven’t been yourself lately. Even I’ve noticed that. But I don’t think it’s because you’re thinking of ditching law enforcement for a career in grand larceny. I’m betting it’s a man.”
“I’ve sworn off,” Natalie said with a frown.
“Here, here.” Rory lifted her glass. “I’ll drink to that. Ever since Paul the jerk dumped me, I’ve decided that the only men I’ll allow in my life are the ones I create in my fantasies.”
Sierra laughed and joined in the toast. “Which particular man have you sworn off, Nat?”
Natalie slanted Sierra a look. “You should have been a cop.” Then with a sigh, she set down her glass. Who better to talk to than her two sisters? “The man is the one I worked with on that smuggling case three months ago. I haven’t been able to get him out of my mind.”
“So what’s the problem?” Rory asked. “I’ve never known you to have any trouble getting a man if you wanted him?”
Natalie turned to face her two sisters. “That’s just it. I don’t want to want him. Besides, the feeling doesn’t seem to be mutual. I haven’t heard from him in three months. Not that I expected to. We had an agreement—for one night. That was all.”
“That is a problem,” Sierra said.
Natalie sighed. “That’s not the only one. Ever since I worked with him on that case, I’ve begun to be restless at my job. I’ve been grumpy with my partner, Matt, my office seems to be closing in on me and I want more than anything to escape.”
Shocked at what she’d just admitted, Natalie stared at her two sisters and found them staring right back at her. “I am just like Harry.”
“Of course, you’re like him,” Rory said, helping herself to a crab puff. “We try to deny it, but we’re all like him. I count on luck to get me out of scrapes. Sierra uses that marvelous brain she inherited from him. And you take the risks that he thrived on, though you try very hard to keep a lid on that tendency. But, face it, we can’t escape our genes.”
“Sierra,” Natalie said, “you want to help me out on this one? Tell her she’s wrong.”
Sierra shook her head. “I can’t. Rory’s right. We are, all of us, his daughters—for better or worse. But if you want my advice…”
“I need something,” Natalie said, waving away the shrimp that Rory offered her. “And I don’t mean food.”
“I think that you ought to follow his advice. You’ve seen what you want. Why not trust in your talents and take a risk?” Sierra said.
Natalie turned her gaze to Rory.
“You’re not going to get any argument from me. You like this guy who hasn’t called you in three months. I say go get him. And if you want to give up your job as a cop, do that, too. For years, you’ve been the responsible one, holding down a steady job, helping Sierra apply to another graduate school, helping me write yet another résumé. But Sierra and I are officially all grown-up now. You can stop worrying about us and escape.”
“I’m not giving up my job.” The thought had a little curl of panic tightening in her stomach. “I heard this afternoon that he’s going to be at the party Sophie Wainwright is throwing at her shop on Friday.”
“Excellent,” Rory said. “Sierra was invited, and she’s bringing me as her guest. We’ll be there to cheer you on.”
Natalie drew in a deep breath, then let it out. “I’m just not sure….”
“Do you want him?” Rory asked.
“Yes.” She couldn’t deny that. It had been three months, and she hadn’t gotten him out of her head.
Rory selected another mushroom. “Then I say follow Harry’s advice and take a risk. What have you got to lose?”
Natalie said nothing as the curl of panic tightened in her stomach. As a cop, she was used to facing her fears. As a woman, she was less sure of herself. Except for that night she’d spent with Chance. She lifted her hands and dropped them. “We had an agreement—for one night.”
“Agreements can be renegotiated.” Rory sipped her martini.
“Whose idea was it to make it one night?” Sierra asked.
“His,” Natalie replied.
“Figures,” Rory said.
“In many primitive cultures, the woman is the hunter when it comes to mate selection,” Sierra said.
“Whoa.” Natalie lifted her hands, palm outward. “I’m not on the hunt for a mate. I’m more in the mood for a fling. And I was in total agreement about the one night.”
“And all you want is one more night?” Sierra asked.
“Yeah,” Natalie said. One more night. Maybe then, she could get him out of her system and get her life back to normal.
Sierra cleared her throat. “Then I have a suggestion. For my current research project, I’ve been researching the sexual fantasies of different cultures.”
“That’s our girl,” Rory said, lifting her glass.
After they toasted again, Sierra continued, “One of the most universal fantasies is sex with a stranger—someone you don’t know and never will know.” Pausing, she cleared her throat again. “So why don’t you just pretend that you’re someone else for the night?”
When her two sisters turned to stare at her, Sierra hurried on. “It makes sense. You love undercover work and you’re good at it. So just come to Sophie’s party as someone else.”
“That’s a great idea,” Rory said, waving a shrimp.
“I don’t think—”
“That’s your problem, Nat,” Rory said. “You over-think everything. Sierra’s got a great idea.”
“You’re so good at disguise,” Sierra continued. “You could just let yourself be this other person. That way you can put Natalie Gibbs’s fears and hang-ups away for the evening and be free to make a play for this man as a totally different person.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Natalie asked.
“Absolutely.” Sierra leaned forward. “It’s the age-old concept of Mardi Gras. For one night you put on a mask and do things that you would never do as your real self. Very freeing.”
Rory shot Natalie a look. “Freeing? Does this sound like the baby sister we used to know and love?”
Natalie shook her head, seriously considering her youngest sister’s idea. She glanced down at her drink. The glass was still half-full, so she couldn’t blame the martini. Her gaze shifted to the letter and her father’s words.
When you see what you want, trust in your talents. Risk anything it takes…
Natalie ran her finger over her father’s signature again. She wanted Chance, and if she took Sierra’s suggestion, she could go after him with a clean slate. She wouldn’t be Natalie, the woman he hadn’t called for three months.
“Think about it,” Sierra said.
If she did decide to follow Sierra’s advice, she knew two things for sure. Chance Mitchell wouldn’t recognize her. And he wouldn’t know what hit him.
CHANCE STOOD outside on the flagstone patio at the back of Sophie Wainwright’s antique and collectibles shop and scanned the crowd through the window. From what he could see, the event was a success. Three musicians were tucked away in a corner playing Mozart, and a white-jacketed waiter offering flutes of champagne was threading his way through the crush of guests.
In between the potted trees and terra-cotta urns bursting with pansies and geraniums, Chance spotted a prominent senator, a congresswoman and several well-heeled collectors who’d been frequent clients at the gallery down the street where he’d worked undercover.
The person he hadn’t spotted yet was Natalie Gibbs. He’d told himself that he came through the back alleyway because of the line of guests waiting to get in the front door of the shop, but the truth was he was stalling. He still wasn’t sure how he was going to handle Natalie when he ran into her.
Damn if his hands weren’t damp. With a frown, he rubbed them on his pants. A woman hadn’t made him nervous since junior high school. He’d spent two days thinking of ways to convince her to go with him on the Florida caper. The best scenario he’d come up with was to play it by ear. Not that he was worried about that part. He wasn’t a planner by nature, and he’d gotten himself out of plenty of scrapes by improvising. He wasn’t worried about the job—she’d come with him to Florida, all right. It was on the personal level that he wasn’t quite sure how to handle Natalie Gibbs.
Later, he couldn’t have said what it was that drew his gaze to the small balcony on the second story of Sophie’s shop. But the moment he saw the woman, he felt his mind go blank and then fill with her. Her hair was blond, parted in the middle, and it fell in a straight, smooth curve almost to her shoulders. The tiny black dress revealed curves in all the right places and left more bare than it covered. The summer sky was finally beginning to darken overhead, but even in the less than perfect light her skin had the pale perfection of an old-fashioned cameo. Chance let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.
She was the kind of woman who would get a second glance from any man, but Chance couldn’t seem to get past the first one. The quick tightening in his gut was unexpectedly raw and hot, but what surprised him most was the flicker of familiarity, recognition almost, that pushed at the edges of his mind. He could have sworn he’d never laid eyes on her before. If he had, he certainly would have remembered.
And then her eyes met his, and for the second time in as many moments, Chance felt his mind empty. The primitive streak of desire that moved through him had him scanning the iron railing, looking for a staircase, a ladder—or tree branch that extended far enough to…He hadn’t realized that he’d moved closer to the balcony until he bumped smack into a waiter. The man’s tray tilted, two champagne flutes began a downward slide. Chance barely managed to catch them.
“Sorry,” he murmured as he settled them on the tray.
“No problem, sir.”
“I’ll take one of those, if you don’t mind.” He took a long swallow of the icy wine before he raised his gaze to the balcony again.
She was gone.
Disappointment warred with astonishment. Had he really been thinking of doing the Romeo thing and scaling a balcony? What in hell was the matter with him? Shakespeare’s star-crossed hero had been all of about sixteen. Chance was twice that age. Hormone-driven foolishness was a thing of his adolescent past. Or it should be.
Still there was some similarity between Romeo and himself, he thought as his lips curved in amusement. In a way, he was crashing a party. He hadn’t gotten an engraved invitation from Sophie, merely a verbal, secondhand one from his friend Tracker. But that’s where the parallel would end. He hadn’t come here to meet some woman he was going to lust after at first sight and then fall madly and tragically in love with.
He was here to make an offer to Natalie Gibbs that she would not be able to refuse. Taking another sip from his glass, Chance made his way to the French doors that opened into the shop. But it took more effort than he liked not to glance back up at the balcony.
4
WITH A HAND firmly pressed against the nerves jittering in her stomach, Natalie closed the door to the balcony behind her and took two steps into the office above Sophie’s shop.
So much for the hope that the attraction she felt for Chance Mitchell had faded with time and distance. His absence from her life might not have made her heart grow fonder, but it had sure increased the lust factor.
One look, one meeting of eyes at a distance of some twenty feet had her nipples tightening and muscles she hadn’t even known she had clenching deep inside of her. If he could do that to her with a look, what would happen if he touched her, kissed her, made love to her again? At the image that filled her mind, an arrow of pleasure, hot and sweet, streaked right to her center. Natalie lowered her hand from her stomach to the spot where she throbbed and reminded herself to breathe.
There was no need to panic. She could handle this—because she was Rachel Cade. Drawing in a deep breath, she moved toward the antique mirror in the far corner of the room. All she had to do was get into character the way she did for a job. She met the eyes of the woman who stared back at her from the silvered glass and let the tension ease from her shoulders. She could barely recognize Natalie Gibbs at all. Rachel Cade had straight blond hair. Natalie’s hair was red and had a tendency to curl. Rachel’s eyes were blue. Natalie’s were green. Rachel was wearing a dress—what there was of it—that Natalie never would have bought.
In front, the thin black silk covered her from breast to midthigh, and the back was bare from neck to waist except for a narrow strap that went over the shoulder. Oh my, no. She smiled at her reflection. Natalie Gibbs would never have worn this dress because she held men at arm’s length and dressing like this would have been counterproductive.
Rachel Cade didn’t have any hang-ups about men. Thank heavens! With a smile, she watched Rachel push her hair back behind her ears. It wasn’t a wig. Midsummer in D.C. was far too hot for that. So she’d had it dyed and flat-ironed. Her hairdresser had had to double up on his anxiety medication, but she’d been firm about the color change. Besides, if she was going to take Sierra’s advice and be someone else, even for a short period of time, she was going to go all the way. For the next few days, she was Rachel Cade. She’d arranged to take the time off that her partner, Matt Ramsey, had been pushing her to enjoy. No sense in doing something unless you were willing to risk anything it takes.
She shook her head and watched her hair settle back into place. This was her chance to see if blondes really did have more fun and if gentlemen preferred them.
After fishing lip gloss out of her bag, she slicked it on. This was what she’d always most enjoyed about being a cop—the opportunity it gave her to become someone else for a while. It was a weakness, she knew, but it was also very liberating. And becoming Rachel Cade was especially so. When she did undercover work, the persona she created was often dictated by the job, but she’d had complete freedom with Rachel. The tall blonde staring back at her from the mirror was a distant cousin of the Gibbs sisters. She’d come from her home in South Florida to visit for two weeks.
Natalie had never been to South Florida in her life, so she’d read up on it. Not that she expected Chance to give her a pop quiz, but in a good undercover operation, one always had to be prepared, just in case.
Just thinking about him had an image of Chance slipping into her mind. The tuxedo he was wearing certainly enhanced that long rangy body….
No. She wasn’t going to go there, or she’d be stuck in this room all night imagining what it would be like to get her hands on him again. Natalie might be satisfied with a fantasy life, but Rachel preferred the real thing. She gave herself one last glance in the mirror as she reviewed her plan. Rachel Cade—blond ambition and material girl all rolled into one—wanted to have a hot, wild and mutually satisfying night—or two or three—with Chance Mitchell. He would have fun. She would have fun. And they could go their separate ways.
Luckily, that would never bother a girl like Rachel. She would just move on to the next man. Oh, she was going to like being Rachel Cade. After beaming one last smile at the girl in the mirror, Natalie walked to the door.
“YOU DON’T LOOK like you’re having a very good time.”
As usual, Chance hadn’t seen or heard his friend Tracker approach. “I haven’t yet spotted my quarry.”
“She’ll be here. Her sisters arrived about twenty minutes ago with a cousin who’s visiting from South Florida. Sophie took them on a quick tour. She’s out-done herself with this place, don’t you think?”
Chance glanced at his friend, intrigued by his tone that contained a mix of pride, approval, and… Searching for a word, all he could come up with was loyalty. “You haven’t even tied the knot yet, and you’re beginning to sound like an old married man.”
“Yeah.” A man of few words, Tracker thought for a minute. “Yeah.” He didn’t sound a bit displeased. “By the way, I developed those pictures we took on our fishing trip. Looks like there are only the two sentry stations we spotted, but I’m betting he has other guards patrolling the beach. It won’t be a piece of cake, but I can get you off the place by water. Any word on when you leave?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
Tracker shot him a look. “You’re cutting it close. What if Natalie doesn’t agree to go?”
“I’ll just have to make her an offer she can’t refuse.” Chance’s gaze drifted to the flight of stairs that ran up the far wall of the store. He knew there was one display room on the second floor and another, smaller space where Sophie kept an office. His mystery woman had to be up there.
“Natalie’s sisters are right over there if you want to ask them when she’s expected to arrive.”
Dragging his eyes from the stairs, Chance shifted his attention to where Tracker was pointing.
“The blonde is the academic,” Tracker said. “Her name’s Sierra and Mac says that there was quite a buzz when both the anthropology department and the psychology department at Georgetown hired her. And the short dark-haired one is Rory. She’s a freelance writer. If you want, I can introduce you— Uh-oh, Sophie’s giving me a signal. You’re on your own.”
The moment Tracker began to make his way through the crowd, Chance opted to edge his way along the wall to where the two Gibbs sisters were standing and surveying the party. But reaching them was easier said than done. Two major hurdles stood in his path—a group of women and a tall potted tree. He began to edge his way around the women.
“This is such a crush,” a tall brunette said. “I’m going to have to come back when I can really see this place.”
“Me, too,” another woman said.
“Look, over there. Isn’t that Mame Appelgate who writes a column for the Washington Post? All it will take is a mention from her, and it’ll be a crush here tomorrow, too.”
Chance found himself temporarily wedged between the wall and a potted palm. Through the leaves, he could see Sierra’s cheeks were flushed, and she shook her head as Rory offered her something from the well-stocked plate she was holding.
“I can’t eat,” Sierra said.
“Relax. Natalie will be fine,” Rory managed around a mouthful of pastry.
Sierra glanced at her watch. “I think you should go upstairs and check on her.”
Though he hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, Chance moved closer.
“Uh-uh. I value my life too much,” Rory said. “Besides, she said she only needed a few minutes to get in character. You know Nat. She doesn’t like to appear as a new ‘persona’ until the disguise is perfect and she’s had a chance to assume her new persona. Harry was like that, too. Remember the game he played with us when he would show up at the door and we wouldn’t be able to figure out who he was?”
“Nat always knew,” Sierra said.
“Just like I always knew when he was bluffing at poker.” Rory paused with a shrimp halfway to her mouth to sigh. “You know, I still miss him.”
“Me, too,” Sierra said. “Have you thought about when you’re going to open your letter?”
“No. I figure I’ll know when the time is right. But I’m going to wait until Natalie has had her adventure. I’ll need both of you there when I do.”
“Yes,” Sierra agreed. “I will, too.”
Rory studied the food on her plate and then offered it to Sierra again. “Come on. You’ll feel better if you eat something.”
“I’m too nervous,” Sierra said. “I just feel so responsible for this. I suggested the plan.”
Rory reached out a hand to pat her sister’s arm. “I’m sure Dr. Frankenstein felt the same way right after he threw the electrical switch for the first time.”
“Not funny.”
Rory rolled her eyes. “Nat is going to be fine. And your plan is brilliant. Pretending to be someone else is the perfect ticket for her. For a little while, she can leave all of her responsibilities behind and be someone entirely different. As soon as my job at Celebs is more secure, I may try a masquerade thing myself.” She tossed a morsel of food into her mouth. You’ve really got to try these crab puffs.”
Masquerade. Chance tried to make sense of the thoughts swirling through his mind as he replayed the snatch of conversation he’d just heard. Natalie Gibbs was adopting a new persona? She was going to be someone else for a while? Chance scanned the crowd, this time more carefully than he had before. He’d seen Natalie Gibbs in an undercover disguise twice. She was good, but he should be able to spot her.
He made one full circuit of the store and came up empty. Frustrated, he moved out onto the patio. Immediately, a ripple of awareness moved through him. Natalie. But when he turned, it wasn’t Natalie he saw. It was his blond mystery woman from the balcony. Even then, he might have continued his search for Natalie. But the blonde chose that particular moment to shove her hair behind her ear, something that he’d seen Natalie Gibbs do countless times. He dropped his gaze to her feet. Sure enough, one of them was tapping. That was another habit Natalie had.
Then he simply stared. Could it be? Was this the disguise that Sierra and Rory had been referring to? Could his blond mystery woman be Natalie Gibbs?
Chance accepted a drink from a passing waiter and sipped without tasting what he’d chosen. He had to think, and the first step would be to unglue his eyes from his mystery woman’s legs. He was not going to find the answer to his question there. He shifted his gaze slowly upward.
Gestures aside, this woman was a sharp right turn from the Natalie Gibbs he knew. But his gut instinct, which rarely failed him, was telling him that the detective he was searching for and the blonde he was looking at were one and the same person. The light was no better than it had been before, but he was closer, and there was no balcony blocking his view.
Over the years, he’d honed his observation skills, but they’d seldom brought him more pleasure. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, her mouth slick and cherry-red. During the time he’d spent with Natalie, she’d either been disguised as a man, or had been wearing muted makeup colors. He wasn’t close enough to make out the color of her eyes. Natalie’s, he recalled, were a deep shade of bottomless green, but he was willing to bet that the blonde’s were a different color. When a professional put on a new persona, he or she went all the way and changed everything that could possibly be changed.
Like the hair. Natalie’s was red and long and curly. He’d thought of an exploding sunset the first time he’d seen it. The blonde’s hair, shorter and straight, with the finish of newly spun silk, held its own attraction. The slick fall of it tempted a man to touch, and once he did, there would be all that smooth skin to explore. Then there were those legs—his gaze slipped back to them. They were nothing short of miraculous.
It occurred to him that he’d never seen what Natalie Gibbs looked like in a dress because she’d always hidden her feminine figure beneath trousers and a jacket. His mystery woman didn’t seem to believe in hiding anything. The contrasts fascinated him. Natalie Gibbs was all work. His mystery woman shouted “play.” Detective Gibbs’s sex appeal, out of sight beneath pantsuits, was muted like the steady hum of a current along a wire. The blonde’s sex appeal snapped and crackled around her like static electricity.
A man was bound to be burned if he got too close. And he was being drawn as inevitably as a moth. He’d already moved halfway across the patio toward her, and he still hadn’t decided how he was going to handle her. Oh, this was Natalie Gibbs all right. Hadn’t he known it on some level from the first moment he’d spotted her and felt that tiny click of recognition? This Natalie was the one he’d discovered when they’d made love in her apartment that night three months ago.
Just what kind of a game was she playing?
A warning voice told him to wait until he’d weighed his options and come up with a strategy. But the inner voice he’d always trusted was reminding him that he did his best work when he played it by ear.
5
NATALIE KNEW the moment that Chance spotted her, and she struggled to keep the tension out of her shoulders. It was bad enough that her stomach was jittering again.
She could feel his eyes on her and sensed the instant they moved from her face down her body to her legs. Though it took some effort, she stopped tapping her foot. He was sharp, and he knew all about disguises. This would be the supreme test of just how good her persona was. She signaled a passing waiter and took a glass of champagne. As yet no one had known who she really was.
As a preliminary test, she’d asked Sierra and Rory to introduce her to Tracker McBride and Sophie Wainwright. They’d been pleased to meet the Gibbs sisters’ cousin, but she’d detected no gleam of recognition in their eyes.
When the short, bald man to her left said something, she shoved her hair behind her ear and smiled down at him. Before she could catch his name, she found herself surrounded by the two other men he was with. Instantly, she was ankle-deep—no, make that waist-deep—in a discussion of a new water pollution bill that was going to the house floor the next week. Because it was part of her job to know who was who in the nation’s government, she recognized all three of the men. One was a congressman who’d been elected as an environmentalist; the two others were senators who had coauthored the bill under discussion.
“Darling, I’ve been looking all over for you,” said a voice at her side. Then Chance took her arm in a firm grip, and shot a five-hundred-megawatt smile toward the three men who’d boxed her in. “Sorry, gentlemen, but I have to borrow back my wife. I have a proposition to make her. We’re still newlyweds.”
Natalie made no protest as Chance led her back into the store. Instead, she used the time to remind herself that she was Rachel. And Rachel Cade would never object to a man who looked like Chance leading her away. Nor would Rachel Cade care a fig if Chance Mitchell saw through her disguise. And any minute she would know if he had or not.
When he stopped in front of one of the display cases, he turned to her. “Aren’t you even going to thank me?”
“For what?” she asked in the low voice she’d chosen for Rachel.
“I saved your life. Another five minutes and they would have bored you to death.”
She felt her lips twitch, and some of her tension eased. She saw no hint of recognition in his expression. He hadn’t seen through her yet. “What if I told you that I find environmental problems sexy?”
“I’d immediately find a job with the E.P.A.”
She couldn’t prevent the laugh, and she didn’t stop him when he placed a finger under her chin and tipped her face up so that their eyes met for the first time.
“Blue,” he said. “I wondered.”
For five whole seconds, Natalie held her breath. Chance’s dark, smoky gray eyes held no knowing look. All she could see was curiosity…and the tiniest flare of heat. The heat she understood because his hand on her arm had created a flame that was spreading over her entire body. “Why did you wonder about my eyes?”
“Because I couldn’t tell from across the room. Who are you?”
The blunt question had the rest of her nerves easing. He wasn’t suspicious yet. It was up to her to make sure he stayed that way. “Rachel Cade.”
He smiled and held out his hand. “Chance Mitchell.”
She raised her brows. “Did I ask?”
Chance withdrew his extended hand and pulled an imaginary arrow out of his chest. “And after I saved your life.”
Natalie laughed—not just because of what Chance had said but because she knew that she was in the clear. Her disguise was working, and she could feel the freedom move through her. If she were Natalie and Chance was flirting with her, she would make some excuse to leave and check on her sisters. But as Rachel she could eat it up. In fact, the only way to keep him believing in her persona was to do just that.
Chance reached over to tuck her hair behind her ear. “You know, I hate to use such a corny line, but when I first came in, I saw you standing on the balcony that overlooks the patio, and I thought for a moment that I’d seen you someplace before. Except if I had, I’m sure I would have remembered it.”
The man had more than his share of charm. Natalie would have been wary of it. Rachel could simply enjoy it, just as she was enjoying the fact that his hand was still lingering on the sensitive skin behind her ear. “Nicely put. I’m told that I bear some resemblance to my cousins, the Gibbs triplets. Perhaps, that’s what you see.”
He studied her for a minute, and Natalie held her breath.
“Well, that’s one mystery solved. On to another. Just who is Rachel Cade?”
Natalie smiled, trying not to let any trace show of the relief she was feeling. Now that the first hurdle had been cleared, it was time for step two of her plan. Seduce Chance Mitchell before he knew what hit him. She ran one finger down the lapel of his jacket.
“Who is Rachel Cade?” she repeated. Perhaps it was time to explore that question thoroughly. One thing she was discovering—Rachel wasn’t nearly as patient as Natalie. And for some reason, Rachel seemed to be even more vulnerable to the attraction she was feeling for Chance. The moment he’d touched her, every nerve in her body had seemed to come alive. And the way he was looking at her now had her melting inside. She had a short bio all set to deliver, but suddenly she didn’t want to waste the time. “That’s a long, boring story. I can think of something we could do that would be much more fun than exchanging life stories.”
CHANCE COULD almost hear some of the synapses in his brain disconnect. There wasn’t much chance of making a snappy comeback when that happened. He heard his heart skip one full beat and then begin to pound until the noises of the party—the chatter, the clink of glasses, the music—all of it faded to a hum. And all the while, he simply couldn’t take his eyes off of her. As if the combination of cherry-red lips and startlingly blue eyes weren’t lethal enough, she now had a slew of very improper pImages** flooding his mind. Thoroughly fascinated by this side of Natalie, he could barely wait to see what she would do next.
She filled in the silence by taking the fingers that were still at her ear and raising then to her mouth. He felt the warmth of her breath, then the cool brush of her lips just before the heat scorched through him. Even after she released his hand, he felt as if the skin had been singed by a candle.
“Where are you staying?” she asked.
“The Meridian,” he said.
She ran one finger from his tie down the front of his shirt, stopping at the waistband of his pants. Then she traced the buckle of his belt. “You know, the moment I saw you, I thought to myself—when was the last time I made love with someone just for the fun of it? And I couldn’t remember.”
She was seducing him in the middle of a crowded party. And he wasn’t doing a thing to stop her. He wasn’t even taking over the task. He didn’t want to. In some dark corner of his brain, Chance recalled that he’d come to this party with a job to do and that he was on a deadline. But none of that seemed to matter anymore.
Her fingers had slipped below his belt and were resting lightly on his erection. “Am I moving too fast for you? I have a tendency to do that.”
“I think I can keep up.”
She smiled at him. “Good. I’m only in town for a few days, and I’d hate to waste my time here.”
“Time management just happens to be my specialty.” Chance took the hand that was toying again with his belt and linked her fingers with his. “Let’s go.”
By the time he’d led her through the gate and down the alley to where he’d parked his car, he’d organized his thoughts a little. At least he thought he had. But when they reached the sleek red convertible, Natalie turned so her body brushed against his, and his brain seemed to switch off.
“You know, we’re about to go off and have a bout of hot, wild sex,” she said. “At least I hope we are. But we haven’t even kissed yet. Maybe we ought to try it to see if we have the right chemistry.”
Oh, they had the right chemistry all right. The luscious red lips were only inches away, and he was sure he could smell his synapses frying again. He had to get some kind of handle on his response to her.
He had not come to Sophie Wainwright’s party to seduce Natalie Gibbs. He’d come to convince her to come to Florida with him. He needed her help, and what he was about to do might blow his chances of ever convincing her to help him catch Carlo Brancotti.
But from the moment she’d looked at him through those baby-blue contact lenses and told him that she wanted to do something a lot more fun than exchange life stories, he’d been unable to think about anything else. He might be about to make the biggest mistake of his life, but he wanted this Natalie just as desperately as he’d wanted the woman who’d haunted his dreams for the past three months.
But that didn’t mean “Rachel” was going to have it all her way. Two could play the little game she’d started. He moved forward, just enough to push her back against the car and bring his body into full contact with hers. The quick hitch of her breath gave him a great deal of satisfaction. “If I kiss you now, really kiss you, I won’t stop,” he murmured, bringing his lips to within a breath of hers, “until I’m inside of you.”
He saw the quick flash of heat in her eyes, felt it in the way her body melted against his. He rested his mouth against hers, just long enough to sample the yielding softness. Then he drew away. His words had conjured up in his mind a very clear image of what it would be like to take her right there on the hood of his car. He was ready. He’d been ready since he’d first spotted her on the balcony. And he could very easily find out if she was ready. All he had to do was slip his hand beneath the hem of her dress and up the satiny softness of her thigh. He had no doubt that she would be hot and wet and welcoming. The alley was deserted right now, and the party was in full swing. The sounds of string music and muted laughter carried clearly on the still night air.
When she looped her arms around his neck, and pulled his head just that little bit closer so that his lips were brushing hers again, he nearly gave in to the temptation to taste her. Later he would thank the blast of music from a car driving past the alley for saving them both. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he drew back. “We could get arrested.”
“Arrested?” The cloudy mix of desire and confusion in her eyes nearly snapped his control.
“Yeah. Mug shots, fingerprints, one phone call. It could really take all the fun out of the evening.”
“Yeah.” She gave her head one quick shake to clear it, then pushed her hair behind her ear. Though he couldn’t have said why, he found the nervous gesture endearing.
“I’ll take a raincheck on that kiss,” he said.
“Ditto.”
He managed to get her into the car without touching her again. That was the easy part. The hard part was the drive to his hotel. They’d no sooner pulled out of the parking lot when she scrambled onto her knees and began to loosen his tie.
“Rachel, getting into an accident is another way to take the fun out of an evening.”
Her laugh was quick and breathless in his ear. “I’m just trying to save us time. You did say you were into time management.”
“Yeah.” His tie was off, and her fingers were already slipping beneath the buttons of his shirt, leaving a trail of ice and heat on his skin. “Two rules. You keep your hands above my belt, and I’ll promise to keep both of mine on the wheel.”
Laughing, she closed her teeth around the lobe of his ear. “Deal. But don’t they say rules are meant to be broken?”
NATALIE HADN’T convinced him to break the rules, but it had been a close call. She could tell by the quick way he handed the car keys over to a valet and drew her with him into the hotel. The Meridian was one of D.C.’s more posh accommodations for travellers. Many of the rooms boasted a view of the Washington Monument and the Mall, though she didn’t think that she and Chance were going to spend time looking at either. She could feel heat radiating through her body from where his hand was pressed at the small of her back.
His touches, his kiss, had been tame so far, and she was beginning to crave him. When his body had brushed against hers in the parking lot, it had been hard, solid. In the three months since she’d last seen Chance, she’d spent some time imagining exactly what that body would feel like pressing into hers. Natalie, of course, had pushed those fantasies out of her mind. Rachel, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to make those fantasies and more come true. Had Rachel always been living inside of her? That was something she would consider later. Right now, she was going to focus all her attention on Chance.
She said nothing until they were in the elevator and the doors were sliding shut. Then she turned to him. “Are you ever really going to kiss me?”
“Soon.” He settled his hands at her waist, but instead of pulling her close, he turned her instead, so that she could see them both reflected in the mirrored walls of the elevator. Then meeting her eyes in the mirror, he moved one hand to her breast, the other to the hem of her dress. The sight of those long, lean fingers moving on her skin only doubled the sharp stab of pleasure moving through her. She was on fire where he touched her, and she was sure that her knees had turned to jelly.
“I’ve wanted to touch you like this ever since I first saw you on that balcony.”
His fingers slipped beneath the bodice of the dress as his other hand began to push up the hem of her skirt. He moved so slowly. She wanted him to hurry. She wanted the sensations to go on forever. When her dress was up to her hips, he ran his finger along the lacy edge of her panties, from the top of her thigh to the narrow vee that disappeared between her legs. “When we were standing in the parking lot, I was tempted to do this.”
Natalie watched his finger slip beneath the band of her panties.
“And this.”
He pinched her nipple at the same time that he slipped a finger inside of her.
The orgasm that moved through her in one long, crashing wave had her sagging against him. Later, she couldn’t recall exactly how they’d gotten out of the elevator and down the hall to the room. But by the time Chance had opened the door, she’d gotten some of her strength back. And she was thinking more clearly.
A sudden feeling of déjà vu struck her as he drew her into the narrow foyer. It grew sharper when he used his body to trap her against the wall. She recalled that he’d used the same move when they’d entered the tiny foyer of her apartment three months ago. He’d kissed her and then taken her, or they’d taken each other, on the floor.
Natalie had surrendered without a second thought, just as she’d surrendered in the elevator a few seconds ago.
“Now, I’ll kiss you,” Chance said as he pressed his body more fully against hers.
But she didn’t have to be Natalie. Tonight, she could be Rachel. Despite that her body was heating, melting against his, she avoided his mouth at the last moment. Her voice was breathless when she said, “Not yet. Turnabout’s fair play. Now it’s my turn to touch you.”
6
BEMUSED, CHANCE STEPPED back and then followed Natalie into the sitting room of the suite.
“Ahhh. Mirrors. Just what I need.” There was a wicked gleam in her eyes when she turned to face him.
Chance studied her for a moment. The woman in the elevator had been the Natalie who’d haunted his dreams for three months. He would have bet his life on it. But the woman who’d driven him crazy in the car and the woman facing him now was “Rachel.” And he wanted her just as much.
He moved toward her, cupped a hand at the back of her neck. “I want you now.”
She placed a hand on his chest with just enough pressure to preserve the distance between them. “You can have me. But what’s the rush?”
His eyebrows rose. “You were in a hurry in the car.”
She smiled up at him. “What happened in the elevator sort of took the edge off for me.”
He increased the pressure on the back of her neck, and she moved closer so that her body was in contact with his.
“It only built the pressure for me.”
“Yes, I can feel that. But I do have a solution.”
He felt his heart quicken against her palm, saw her eyes darken when she felt its rapid beat, too. She slipped a finger beneath the top button of his shirt and freed it. “You’re going to enjoy what I’m going to do to you. I promise.”
Chance felt his mind begin to cloud as she continued to unbutton his shirt. Each time her fingers brushed against his skin, ribbons of heat fanned out across his skin. She pushed the shirt off of his shoulders and it slid to the floor.
“I wanted to do this right in front of everyone at Sophie Wainwright’s party.”
And she very nearly had, Chance recalled. Her hands were spread out along his waist now, and with her thumbs touching, she drew them upward over his ribs until they were resting just at the bottom of his rib cage.
“Watch what I’m doing in the mirror.”
He could do that. His arms were beginning to feel heavy, but he could still move his eyes.
She rubbed her palms over his nipples and he sucked in a breath.
“You like that,” she murmured as she did it again.
He felt his nipples harden. Her skin was so fair against the darker color of his. And the sensation—
“Let’s try this.” Leaning forward, she moistened one nipple and then the other with her tongue. “I love your taste,” she murmured then repeated the process.
His breath was backed up in his lungs or he would have told her to stop this torture now…or never.
She wrapped her arms around him, slipped her hands beneath the waistband of his trousers and dug her nails into his hips as she began to suckle, first on one nipple and then the other.
When he felt the scrape of her teeth, Chance groaned. What was she doing to him? He’d desired her before. And the strength of that desire had made him reckless and rough. But what she was doing to him now made him weak. No other woman had made him feel this way. Fear mixed with a need so deep that he felt paralyzed.
“You still have too many clothes on,” she murmured.
In the wall of mirrors, he watched her move around him. Her tongue stroked lightly on the skin at the back of his neck, then trailed a damp path down his spine. His skin felt icy and hot at the same time. He couldn’t think, could barely breathe as he watched her strip him of his belt and send his trousers to the floor. Next she removed his briefs. Then she moved around so that she was facing him again.
More than anything he wanted to grab her, pull her to the floor and bury himself in her. But his arms still felt heavy, and he wasn’t sure that he could raise them.
“Watch,” she said. “I’m going to touch you now.”
He was helpless to do anything else as she closed both of her hands around him. Her fingers were hot, and she was doing something magical, twisting gently with one hand at the base of his penis as she pulled with the other.
“I’m going to make you come,” she said.
He wanted to crush her to him. He wanted to feel her beneath him on the floor. But he couldn’t take his eyes off what she was doing to him in the mirror. The steady movement of her hands and the incredible waves of pleasure she was bringing him.
She moved closer to him then until her lips were brushing his. “You can kiss me now. Why don’t you kiss me while you’re coming?”
Whether it was her words or the fact that she kissed him, Chance felt strength and power return to his arms. He gripped the front of her dress and ripped it down the center. Then she was beneath him on the floor.
They rolled as one, mouth to mouth, body to body. Triumphant, Natalie gave herself over to Chance and to the needs that consumed her. This was what she’d wanted from him—this consuming hunger. She could feel the power of it as his hands raced over her, molding, pressing, bruising. She rolled on top of him and devoured. His skin tasted darker and more dangerous now. But she only got a sample before she was crushed beneath him again.
And then he was poised above her.
“Look at me while I take you.”
She stared into his eyes and saw herself. I need you. The words pulsed through her as he drove himself into her. And she gave herself over to the madness.
CHANCE WINCED as he stepped beneath the cold spray of the shower. He was hoping it would clear his mind of the woman he’d just spent the night with. He needed to think.
Just who the hell was she?
As he lathered his shoulders and arms with soap, Chance considered that very fascinating question. The blonde with the sky-blue eyes was definitely Natalie Gibbs but in her new persona, she was different. “Rachel” was more playful, more inventive—he frowned, searching for the right word—more free.
It wasn’t that one woman was any sexier than the other. They were simply two thoroughly delightful sides of Natalie Gibbs, a woman he’d wanted with a desperation that had taken him to the limits of his control—and beyond.
Still, the differences between Natalie and “Rachel” fascinated him. Detective Gibbs had the cool head and the detachment of a cop. He’d admired that from the first time they’d met. And even in the way she made love, she was focused. “Rachel” seemed more impulsive. She had a talent for absorbing herself entirely in the moment. Damned if she hadn’t tempted him into doing the same. In fact, he’d been so absorbed in her that instead of coming up with a plan to convince her to join him on his Florida job, he’d just given himself over to exploring the pleasure they could bring to each other.
The whole night had been a battle, and Chance still wasn’t sure who’d won. He could vividly recall the way her hands had torn at his clothes and his had torn at hers, the way he’d finally dragged her to the floor and she’d wrestled him across it.
He wondered if he would ever forget the way her body had bucked and shuddered beneath his, or the way she’d cried out his name as they’d both drowned in pleasure. Each time when they’d finished with each other, they should have been content. But they hadn’t been. Their appetites had been insatiable.
Never had the need to possess a woman been so intense. It should have scared him. He should have wanted to get out of there—and fast. On some level, he was sure that he did. But overriding that fear was the determination to have Natalie Gibbs with him when he went to Brancotti’s estate.
Turning around, he let the cold water slap him in the face. The night was over. He had to get it out of his head and decide how to approach her about the Florida job.
Would she admit to him this morning that she was Natalie Gibbs, or would she continue to pretend that she was Rachel Cade? That was the question.
It might be fun to have them both along on the Florida job. But having fun wasn’t the issue. Catching his old childhood nemesis was. He couldn’t allow himself to jeopardize that.
After stepping out of the shower, Chance grabbed a towel and rubbed himself dry. The night was over. If Natalie didn’t put an end to the masquerade, he would. The situation might be a little difficult at first—especially if she didn’t want to be unmasked. But Natalie, the cop, was someone he knew how to deal with because they were a great deal alike.
Still, he thought with a smile, he was going to miss Rachel.
NATALIE SURFACED SLOWLY, her senses awakening one at a time. Rain—the steady sound of it lulled her. Keeping her eyes closed, she let herself drift, savoring the protection of the warm cocoon she was still wrapped in. This was one of her favorite parts of the day, the brief span of time in the morning before her alarm rang when she could feel the sunlight splashing across her bed, see the lightness of it beyond her eyelids and still not have to face it.
Burrowing more deeply into her pillow, she drew in a deep breath. Something was different. For a moment she couldn’t put a name to it. How could she feel sunshine and hear the soft, steady fall of rain at the same time? Even as the question formed in her mind, she realized it wasn’t the scent of her vanilla candle she smelled. It was…Chance.
Opening her eyes, she sat up as everything came flooding back into her mind. A quick glance around the room told her that she hadn’t dreamed the night she’d just spent with Chance Mitchell. She was in a suite at the Meridian, and the rain that had lulled her was the sound of the shower.
When it had stopped, she pushed hair out of her face and felt a little flutter of panic. At any moment Chance could step into the room.
And then what?
The second flutter of panic was strong enough to have her throwing back the covers and grabbing one of the hotel robes. As she was tying the belt, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and dropped her hands. She wasn’t Natalie Gibbs. Lifting a hand, she toyed with the ends of her hair. She was Rachel Cade. Natalie might have concerned herself with morning-after etiquette, but Rachel Cade didn’t.
A smile curved her lips. After living in Rachel’s skin for one long glorious night, Natalie knew that her alter ego didn’t concern herself with much of anything but the pursuit of pleasure.
Raising her arms over her head, she stretched. Each little twinge of muscle brought back pImages** and sensations from the night she’d just spent with Chance Mitchell.
He had kissed her—finally. And the man had an incredible mouth. She ran her fingers over her lips and sighed. Nothing had ever come close to what she’d felt or what she’d done during the two nights she’d spent with Chance Mitchell. Natalie might have worried about that. But Rachel was already wondering about stretching the experience into another day at least—and perhaps a night.
Natalie laughed. She was going to have to thank Sierra for her suggestion. Sex was a lot more fun when you didn’t have to bring your personal baggage along.
A buzzer sounded at the door of the room and she heard a muffled voice say, “Room service.”
When she opened the door, the waiter rolled a cart in and positioned it near a window that offered a view of the Mall.
“Rolls and glassware are on the lower shelf. Will there be anything else, ma’am?”
Natalie waved a dismissive hand, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the spread that the waiter had delivered. Four white plates with silver covers were arranged on a cheery yellow cloth and in the center stood a pitcher of orange juice, a thermal container of coffee and a champagne bottle in a silver bucket.
A funny little feeling moved through her as she ran a finger over a single yellow rose that lay on one napkin. This kind of care wasn’t something she’d come to expect from a man.
She peeked under one silver lid and saw crisp bacon and plump sausages.
“I didn’t know what you’d like, so I ordered a bit of everything.”
Natalie turned to see Chance walk into the room. He was wearing trousers, but not his shirt. His feet were bare, his hair still damp from the shower. Her throat went dry. Incredibly, she wanted him all over again.
“I’d like you,” she said.
THE VOICE, the look she was giving him told Chance it was still Rachel he was dealing with, and if she continued to look at him in that way, the breakfast he’d ordered was going to get very cold.
Business, Chance reminded himself. Keep it light. “I thought it might be nice if we shared a meal—since we never got around to eating last night. That way we can talk and get to know one another.”
She laughed. “So we have a night of wild, sweaty sex and then we have a date?”
It occurred to him that he’d never had a date with Natalie in either of her personas. “Something like that. I’d like to get to know you.”
It was nothing less than the truth. In spite of his resolution to end the game she was playing, he was still intrigued by this side of Natalie. What could it hurt to delay the unmasking until after breakfast?
Natalie lifted one of the silver covers at random, then settled herself into a chair. “An omelet. I guess I could use the protein for energy.”
It was his turn to laugh as he took the seat across from her. Oh, it was definitely Rachel he was dealing with. He was going to miss her. “I was beginning to think you had an unending supply.”
She sliced into the eggs. “Well, we could certainly test your theory.”
Chance concentrated on the practical matter of lifting silver covers until he found what he was looking for. Then he scooped yogurt into a bowl and added fresh fruit and a little wheat germ.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He glanced up startled. “What for?”
“That.” She pointed to his bowl of yogurt. “You must have ordered that for me. Here.” She pushed her plate toward him. “Have some of the omelet. It’s delicious.”
“Thanks, but this is what I eat every day.”
“You’re kidding.”
The horrified expression on her face made him smile.
“I like to be careful about what I put into my body.”
“And here I’d pegged you for a risk-taker.” She met his eyes. “But I guess you’re doing something right. You’ve got a great body.”
She was making it hard to stick to the date plan. “What do you usually eat for breakfast?”
She shrugged as she lifted another forkful of eggs. “I’m a cop, so you get one guess.”
“Donuts?”
She pointed a fork at him. “You got it. I prefer them day old so I can dunk them in the dreadful coffee they serve at the station.”
Chance’s eyes narrowed. “So…you’re a cop like your cousin Natalie?”
As she set her cup down, some of the coffee spilled onto the saucer. “Yes. Fort Lauderdale.”
For a few moments, she busied herself with eating, and Chance wondered if admitting to being a cop had been a slipup. Perhaps, now was the time to tell her that he knew who she was. He could reach over, take her hand and say, “Natalie, I know.”
But once he did that, would “Rachel” disappear? “Do you like being a cop?”
“Sure.” This time when her eyes met his he saw a trace of amusement. “Is this the part where we exchange bios?”
Chance shrugged as he set down his spoon. “Standard first date talk. You interest me, Rachel Cade. Ever do any undercover work on the job?”
She hesitated only an instant. “Some. You should see me in my hooker clothes.”
A vivid image filled Chance’s mind, but he shoved it away. “I’ve heard your cousin Natalie is good with locks. Any chance that you’re good with them, too?”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Anything Nat can do, I can do better. You know, this is beginning to sound like a job interview.”
Chance couldn’t help thinking that Rachel’s mind was every bit as sharp as her “cousin’s.” “How long are you going to be visiting your cousins?”
“I’m not sure.” She lifted her cup and drained it. Then she sent him a provocative smile. “Why do you ask?”
Because at some point in their conversation, Chance had scratched his original game plan and come up with a new one. He wasn’t at all ready to lose Rachel Cade yet. He wanted her in Florida with him. His head might tell him that he was taking a dangerous risk by not ending Natalie’s masquerade right now, but something much closer to the bone was telling him that he was going to need both women to catch Brancotti. “I’ve got a little proposition to make you and it will involve about a week of your time.”
She reached over and ran a finger down the back of his hand. “Sounds perfect. Especially, if it’s anything like the proposition I made you last night….”
Chance shook his head. “It’s more of a job offer, and it’s dangerous.” He saw something flicker in her eyes, just once. Surprise or something else? “You’ll have to wear a disguise.”
She said nothing, but her expression had stilled and the woman studying him now was Detective Natalie Gibbs through and through.
“I was thinking of asking your cousin Natalie. I need someone who’s good at disguise and it wouldn’t hurt at all if you could break into a safe. If you’re interested, I think we could work very well together.”
She said nothing at all, but he could almost hear the wheels turning in her head. Chance felt a little sinking sensation in his stomach. Would she tell him that she was really Natalie? With the seconds ticking away, he watched her closely. If there was any struggle going on inside of her, he saw no evidence of it. Oh, this was the cool, sharp detective all right. But he couldn’t help remembering the impulsive and incredibly responsive woman he’d spent the night with. How many other facets were there to Natalie Gibbs?
Finally, she said, “I might be interested. Tell me what it involves.”
Leaning forward, Chance did just that. He explained everything just as he had to Tracker—the missing Ferrante diamond, its resurfacing and the upcoming auction for a select group of invited guests. Then he told her about the cover. They would go in as a billionaire software nerd and his current piece of arm candy. The only things he left out were Venetia Gaston’s death and his personal relationship to Brancotti.
“Brancotti’s estate is in South Florida. Have you heard of him?”
Natalie shook her head. “We wouldn’t if he keeps himself as clean as you say he does.”
Smooth, Chance thought. But of course, she wouldn’t lie unless she had to. No one who had lived undercover and had to tell lies for long periods of time ever told more than necessary.
“What do you say?” Chance asked.
YES. NATALIE HAD to bite down hard on the inside of her cheek to keep from saying the word out loud. As much as the “Rachel” part of her wanted to agree, she knew that she had to think. More than that, she needed to make a few phone calls and find out more about this Brancotti. She couldn’t just up and run off to Florida and pretend to be some high-tech billionaire’s arm candy. Could she?
Of course not. She never acted on impulse. Oh, she took risks, certainly. But she always weighed her options, ascertained the consequences and made plans accordingly.
But she was so tempted to throw caution to the wind and say yes. Chance was offering her just the kind of assignment she’d always dreamed of. She could use her talents, and she would be working with one of the best men in his field.
She lifted the pot and refilled her cup. There were other things to consider. There had to be. For one thing, he thought she was Rachel Cade. She should tell him right now about the trick she’d pulled on him. But if she did, would he become annoyed and withdraw his offer?
Plus, she wasn’t at all sure that she wanted to give up being Rachel Cade.
The voice came then, pushing past the fears and doubts skulking around in her mind like a shadowy thief. “Trust in your talents.”
Chance chose that moment to take her hand in his and raise it to his lips. “What do you say, Rachel?”
It was Natalie who was dithering, and she knew in an instant what Rachel would say.
“What time do we leave?”
SHE HAD TO BE CRAZY, Natalie thought as she lifted the ten-pound weights that Chance had given her. He selected heavier ones for himself, then turned to face her.
“Do what I do,” he said as he raised his arms until they were level with his shoulders, held for a count of five and then lowered them.
She did. Although she’d told him that she was in good shape, he’d insisted on putting her to the test. The moment that she’d agreed to go with him to Florida, he’d told her that they were going to take a five-mile run through Rock Creek Park. He’d even bought her some shoes and workout clothes in one of the hotel’s gift shops.
When she’d asked why he was testing her, he’d merely said that he needed to make sure she could keep up with him if they had to make a run for it. The run had lasted well beyond five miles. After forty minutes she was still matching him stride for stride, and he’d been the one to call it quits.
Now they were using the hotel gym. It was located on the lobby level, and offered weight machines, tread-mills, free weights and a large pool that started indoors and ended outside. Four glass walls made the room about as private as a fishbowl.
Lifting the weights to her shoulders, she began to follow Chance’s lead through a combination of lunges and squats. When he finally set down his weights and took hers, he said, “You’re good.”
Her brows shot up. “I’m a cop, remember.”
“Not all cops stay in shape.” Then turning, he led the way to a mat. “Let’s see what you can do in hand-to-hand combat.”
For a moment she stared at him. “You’re serious?”
He smiled at her. “Unless you think you can’t take me.”
Unable to resist the challenge, she stepped onto the mat and began to circle slowly. He knew what buttons to push. She’d have to remember that and push a few of her own. He was bigger than she was and stronger. On the job when she’d had to use physical force, she’d always been able to play the looks-like-a-fragile-woman card. That wouldn’t work here. So her best option was distraction.
Keeping her eyes on his, she said, “What’s next? Target practice?”
He laughed, and she very nearly allowed herself to be distracted by the sound as she moved in and hooked her foot behind his. Once she had him off balance, she aimed her elbow at his stomach. An instant before it connected, she found her arms pinned to her side and before she could blink, she was lying beneath him, facedown on the mat.
While she struggled for a breath, she was vaguely aware of applause. But she was much more aware of Chance’s body pressing hers into the mat, of his voice in her ear. “You’ll have to work on your eyes. They give you away.”
She would work on that, she vowed as she got to her feet.
This time she let him make the move, and she blocked it.
“Good,” he said. “Now try this one.”
He moved fast as a snake, but she moved faster. He didn’t talk after that, and neither did she. She wasn’t even sure how much time had passed as he made one move after another and she attempted to block them. She lost count of how often she ended up pinned to the floor. But each time, he helped her to her feet and taught her the countermove that would have stopped him.
He was very good, better than any martial arts instructor she’d ever trained under. But she would have bitten her tongue out rather than tell him. Nor was she about to tell him that she’d never before responded to martial arts instruction like it was foreplay. Her mind might be calculating countermoves, but her body had become very sensitized to his touch. In the course of their workout, his forearms had brushed against her breasts. His hands had gripped her calves, her thighs, her hips. Twice when they’d rolled on the floor his leg had been between her thighs. When he finally called it quits and grinned at her, in spite of her annoyance, she wanted to jump him.
If there hadn’t been an audience with their noses pressed against the glass walls surrounding them, she might have. Instead, she smiled at him, shook his hand. As they walked together toward the shower rooms, she bided her time. When he was least expecting it, she gave him a quick shove into the pool.
Then with the applause of the spectators in her ears, she waited until he surfaced and grinned down at him. “Thanks for the tip about the eyes.”
“Anytime,” he said as he gripped the side of the pool. “I don’t suppose you want to give me a hand out of the pool.”
She grinned down at him. “Do I have the word Sucker written on my forehead?” Then she turned and walked away.
CARLO BRANCOTTI sat in his office, looking over the file that Lisa had just handed him. Sun streamed through the open French doors and a breeze from the ocean played with the wind chimes on the patio. When he finished reading Lisa’s report, he glanced up. “So—which one of these would a clever insurance investigator choose to impersonate?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t able to eliminate any of them.”
Carlo studied her for a moment. Lisa was a very cautious woman. He paid her to be just that. “Take an educated guess. If you wanted to trap Carlo Brancotti, which one of these people would you attempt to impersonate?”
She thought for a moment. “I’d choose Steven Bradford. But you don’t pay me for guessing.”
“Why Bradford?”
“I suppose because he’s so squeaky clean. He’s never entered this kind of a market before. Plus, he avoids the press. The only picture I was able to come up with was from his college days. If Interpol wanted to slip someone in, we’d be hard-pressed to see through the disguise.”
It wasn’t Interpol he was worried about. Carlo studied the picture of a thin young man with long, brownish-blond hair. Bradford would be twelve years older now, a man instead of a boy. The body would have filled out, the hairstyle changed.
“Good choice,” he murmured. Then he glanced at the photos of Steven Bradford’s current girlfriend.
She hadn’t been a model long. The one layout that Lisa had come up with featured a tall blonde modeling a bathing suit while playing volleyball. She was wearing sunglasses in each picture. He picked one up and studied it more closely. Steven Bradford was a lucky man. “What about the woman? This…” he paused to find the name, “Calli? The government doesn’t always send a male agent.”
Lisa frowned. “But you won’t invite her to the actual auction. She won’t have access to the diamond.”
True. Still, he wasn’t going to dismiss the possibility that the model known only as Calli wasn’t as harmless as she appeared. He was going to enjoy getting to know her better when she arrived. He picked up the next picture. “What about Armand Genovese?”
“He would be my second choice. He’s wearing a hat and sunglasses in every picture, so we can’t be sure what he looks like either. Also this is his first venture into the black market.”
Now Carlo smiled. “Only because he has other sources for stolen art and jewels. Ones that don’t always require top dollar.”
“True. Which makes it a little surprising for him to contact you. Perhaps because of his methods of acquisition he’s made a deal with the government.”
“Good point.” This was precisely why he paid Lisa McGill a very good salary. She had a razor-sharp mind as well as a knack for computers and research.
For the first time since she’d come into the room, Lisa relaxed slightly. “Thank you, sir.”
Carlo turned his attention to the third photo. When it had been taken, Risa Manwaring had been the toast of Hollywood. That had been at least twenty-five years ago. “And why might a very clever insurance agent choose to impersonate Risa Manwaring?”
“Because once she married that British lord, she shunned the press, so no telling what she looks like now. And as you said yourself, the government doesn’t always send a male agent.”
“True. Good work, Lisa,” Carlo said as he slipped the file into a drawer and locked it.
“Thank you, sir.”
“When Bradford arrives, we’ll put him in the Venetian room. That way we can keep very close tabs on him. Signore Genovese will stay in the Tuscan room, and Ms. Manwaring in the Neopolitan room. Make sure that all three rooms are wired and that the security cameras in the walls are well hidden.”
“I’ll see to it myself, sir.”
When Lisa left the room, Carlo rose from his desk and turned to the painting that hung behind him. After moving it aside, he opened his safe and took out two velvet pouches. One was red and the other was black. After setting them on his desk, he removed a diamond from each pouch, then carried them out through the French doors to his patio. It was early, not yet eight o’clock, but the sun was pouring directly into the courtyard. It shot light into both stones and the facets in each captured that light and seemed to glow from within.
Both were a rare shade of canary-yellow, and only one of them was real—the Ferrante diamond. The other was a very carefully crafted fake. Only a skilled gemologist would be able to tell the difference.
Carlo smiled as he looked down at them. He would use them both to set a trap for “Chance Mitchell.” There was nothing that he enjoyed more than a game of cat and mouse with a worthy opponent.
Too bad that he would have to end the game for good this time.
7
BY THE TIME Natalie arrived at the Blue Pepper, second thoughts were attacking with a vengeance. Not that the “Rachel Cade” part of her was having any. No, it was good old Natalie who’d called her sisters for an emergency meeting. She’d told Chance she had to talk to her “cousins” and inform them of her change in plans.
The restaurant was crowded. And the number of patrons, more than the quick glance she gave her watch, told her that she was running more than half an hour late. And she was never late. At least Natalie wasn’t ever late. Plus, she was exhausted. Both conditions, she blamed completely on Chance Mitchell.
During a long, grueling day of cramming, shopping and packing, she’d discovered a whole new side to the man—one that made her think of Simon LaGree. Not in a million years would she have suspected that the laid-back man she’d known as Chance Mitchell would turn into such a taskmaster.
The run in Rock Creek Park and the workout had just been the beginning. When she’d passed those little tests, he’d dragged her back to his room at the Meridian to study. He hadn’t been satisfied until she’d known everything there was to know about Carlo Brancotti.
He’d even quizzed her. Of course, she’d passed. She prided herself on her sharp memory.
Brancotti wasn’t the only name he’d ever used. There were at least half a dozen other aliases, and the man hadn’t limited his dealings to art and jewels. Over the years, he’d trafficked in just about every black market commodity he could lay his hands on, including drugs and arms. Brancotti’s trademark as a jewel thief was leaving a high quality fake jewel in place of the real one, and usually by the time the theft was discovered the trail was cold.
By the end of the cramming session, the cop part of her had known that she hadn’t made a mistake in agreeing to Chance’s proposition.
It was the feminine part of her that was having second thoughts. Pushing past the crowd clustered around the hostess station, she scanned the restaurant and spotted her sisters seated at a small table on the upper level. They were looking in her direction, but when she waved, they didn’t seem to see her.
Of course, they were looking for Rachel Cade. And she wasn’t Rachel anymore. Thanks to Chance Mitchell, she’d been transformed into “Calli,” a wannabe supermodel who’d been cohabiting with software billionaire Steven Bradford for the past six months.
“Welcome to the Blue Pepper.”
Natalie glanced down to see that Rad had suddenly appeared in her path. “Hi.” Though she smiled at him, he didn’t grab her hands or kiss the air near her cheeks. The disguise must be working with him, too. But then he wasn’t looking at her face. His eyes were riveted on the skinny tank top she was wearing.
“Oh my, oh my, oh my.” He pressed a hand to his heart as he stepped back to run his eyes down her. “Oh my, oh my, oh my.”
Several people turned to stare, and Natalie glanced down, praying that everything about the skimpy outfit she was wearing was still in place. Both the pink shorts and top were cut high, leaving plenty of leg and stomach bare. She tugged the edge of the shorts down a bit, hoping there wasn’t anything showing that might get her ticketed for indecent exposure.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing. You are perfection! The hair, the shoes. And that color is soooooo you!” Rad clapped his hands together. “I have a friend who should be wearing this color. I’ve told her over and over to think pink.”
As Rad began to circle her, she caught a glimpse of herself in one of the mirrored columns that flanked the bar.
She had to hand it to Chance. It was the perfect outfit for her new alter ego. The hair, the earrings that fell to just above her shoulders, even the ankle-breaking sandals suited “Calli” to a T, and the whole package together sent out a promise of hot, steamy sex.
Rad had completed his circle, and he was facing her now. “Love the hair! Where did you get that cut?”
Beginning to enjoy herself, Natalie tucked a curl behind her ear as she leaned down to whisper. “Arturo at the Meridian.”
“He is an artist!”
“Thanks. I’m looking for the Gibbs sisters.”
“Wonderful! Then you’ll get to meet my friend, Detective Natalie. She’s not here yet,” he said as he began to cut a path through the crowd for her. “You must tell her about Arturo.”
Natalie recalled that Chance had slipped Arturo an enormously large tip to layer her hair and pile on the products until it looked like she’d just got out of bed with a man. But she hadn’t gotten a chance to see if she could achieve the look naturally by doing just that. Chance, the taskmaster, hadn’t made a move on her since she’d agreed to work with him on the Brancotti job.
There hadn’t been much time, of course. Still, the change in him had started her thinking. Had he gotten his fill of Rachel Cade in one night just as he seemed to have gotten his fill of Natalie?
Would the same fate await Calli?
As they reached the stairs, she shot a quick look over her shoulder and caught her reflection again in the mirror. Calli might have something to say about that. Rachel definitely would. Perhaps the two women would have to tag-team him. A quick laugh bubbled up at the direction her thoughts had taken. On her own, she would never have come up with that idea. She was beginning to enjoy the different persons she was discovering within herself.
Rad stopped at the top of the short flight of stairs and pointed in the direction of her sisters. Pushing all thoughts of Chance out of her mind, Natalie made her way to the table.
“Do you mind if I join you?” she asked.
“Sorry,” Sierra said, glancing up at her.
“We’re waiting for our sister,” Rory explained.
“She won’t mind,” Natalie said as she settled herself in the empty chair.
“Now, wait just a minute,” Rory began. “You can’t just…”
“Wait.” Sierra cut off her sister by squeezing her hand. In the space of five beats, Natalie saw the recognition seep into her youngest sister’s eyes.
Three seconds later, Rory said, “Who in the hell are you supposed to be?”
“The name is Calli, and I’m a wannabe supermodel.”
“Okay,” Rory said, intrigued now. “I can buy that. The question is why?”
Natalie sighed and signaled a waiter. “It’s a long story, and I need a drink.”
“What’ll it be, ladies?”
“A martini, dry with an olive,” Natalie said.
“Make that three,” Rory said not taking her eyes off of Natalie. “And we’ll have the appetizer sampler.” The moment the waiter hurried off, she said, “Whatever the story is, I vote you wear that outfit every time we come here. We’ve never gotten service this fast before.”
“What I want to know is what happened to our dear cousin Rachel?” Sierra asked. “Didn’t the disguise work?”
“Oh, it worked. Maybe too well.” Then Natalie leaned forward and told them everything, pausing only when the waiter served their drinks. Once she’d finished, Rory drained the last of her martini and said, “You were getting bored with your job. This man has offered you the kind of assignment you’ve always secretly dreamed of having. On top of all that, you’re attracted to him. What’s the problem?”
Natalie shifted her gaze from Rory to Sierra.
Sierra shook her head. “Don’t look at me. I think Rory summed the situation up nicely. Unless you don’t think you can pull it off.”
Natalie shook her head. “The job isn’t the problem. I can do it. It’s Chance. He’s the problem.”
“So?” Sierra asked. “Is he going to be any less of a problem if you change your mind and tell him Rachel doesn’t want to turn herself into Calli and fly to Florida tomorrow?”
Natalie thought for a minute. “No, but…”
“You’ll only regret it if you let this opportunity slip by,” Sierra said.
“And you won’t just be saying goodbye to the job. You’ll be kissing off the guy, too,” Rory pointed out. “Are you ready to do that yet?”
Natalie sipped her martini, then set her glass down. That was the real problem. She wasn’t ready to cut Chance adrift. Not yet.
“I thought spending another night with him would get him out of my system,” she said.
“That’s one of the problems with our society,” Sierra said. “We want quick fixes, and sometimes that’s just not possible.”
Narrowing her eyes, Natalie glanced from to Sierra to Rory. “I wanted the two of you to talk some sense into me.”
Rory shot her a bland look. “I thought that’s exactly what we were doing.”
“We think you ought to go,” Sierra said.
Natalie ran her finger around the rim of the martini she’d hardly touched. “I should probably tell him that I’m Natalie.”
“Why? It’s Rachel he invited along,” Sierra pointed out.
Rory grinned at her. “Do you really want to go back to being Natalie yet?”
“No.” She wasn’t ready to give up being Rachel Cade yet. “But I’ve never tried to be two people at once before.”
Rory rolled her eyes. “You can’t have forgotten that Halloween when you were Wonder Woman and you kept slipping away from us so you could reappear and terrorize us as Jason from Friday the Thirteenth. You did it three times before we figured out it was just you.”
Natalie laughed. “I had forgotten that. Still, this is a little different.”
“Do you still want Chance Mitchell?” Sierra asked.
“Yes, but…”
“That’s Natalie talking,” Sierra pointed out. “How does Rachel feel about it?”
Natalie grimaced. “She’s the one who said ‘yes.’”
“What about Calli?” Rory asked.
“She’s got her bags packed.”
“There you go,” Rory said. “Two to one—they’ve outvoted you.”
Sierra reached over to take her hand. “Calli and Rachel are parts of you. Maybe it’s time you trusted them.”
Grinning, Rory lifted her glass in a toast. “To quote Harry, ‘trust in your talents.’”
Sierra smiled and raised her glass. “‘Risk anything it takes.’”
CHANCE STRODE into the bedroom and checked the suitcases for the third time since Natalie had left. The designer name luggage looked well used. Brancotti would notice that. He was a man who noticed everything. Not even a small detail would escape him. And new luggage would give rise to questions.
That had been the reason that he’d urged Natalie to pack some of Rachel’s clothes as well as the new things they’d purchased for “Calli.” He’d insisted on stopping by Natalie’s place where “Rachel” was staying so she could collect her belongings. Flipping open the top of one of the smaller pieces, Chance fingered a lace camisole in a shade of icy pink. He’d often wondered what Detective Natalie Gibbs had worn beneath those tailored suits. In his mind, he’d pictured the stereotypical black lace, but for some odd reason, he found the pale pastel shade even more alluring. Of course, he’d known that Natalie had her vulnerable side. What he hadn’t known was that it would appeal to him just as much as her strength did.
When he caught himself reaching for Rachel’s cosmetic bag, he stopped himself. He’d already checked it and assured himself that it contained a mix of new and old makeup—just as any woman’s would. The only question he wanted in Brancotti’s mind was how much Steven Bradford would pay for the Ferrante—the diamond that had already caused the death of a fellow agent.
For a moment, he let himself think of Venetia Gaston, the woman who’d been his partner during his last encounter with the man who now called himself Carlo Brancotti. For two years, he’d blamed himself for Venetia’s death. He’d set up the meet, and it should have gone smoothly. Carlo was to bring the diamond he’d just stolen and Venetia was to turn over the money. Then Interpol would move in. But Venetia had never reached the spot where the exchange was to take place. Carlo had intercepted her somehow. When they’d found her body, the money had been gone, and she’d had a fake diamond in her purse.
Chance firmly pushed the image of Venetia out of his mind. Dwelling on a past mistake was not going to help him now. He drew his thoughts back to the present and lifted a skinny little tank top that he’d had “Calli” model for him earlier in the day. This time he wasn’t taking any chances. He was going to face his old nemesis himself, and he was taking someone in with him that Brancotti would have no way of knowing. Chance’s lips curved slightly. How could Brancotti know that the sexy woman known as Calli was also a tough cop who was equally adept at handling a gun and opening safes?
Chance dropped the tank top and closed the suitcase. The suite had suddenly seemed empty when she’d walked out. Her request to meet with her “cousins” had surprised him, but it had made sense. Of course, she would want to let her sisters know that she was leaving town. But what if she had second thoughts? How could he handle them if he wasn’t there?
Turning, he strode back into the living room of the suite. He’d just have to handle them when she got back. He wasn’t going to Florida without Natalie Gibbs. The file he’d shown her that afternoon was still spread out on the coffee table. He doubted she was aware of it, but when she worked she was all police detective. The intensity of her concentration and the strength of her endurance—both were qualities he’d come to admire throughout the long and grueling day he’d put her through.
She hadn’t once flinched or complained. And not so much as by a twitch of a muscle had she let it be known that anything in his old enemy’s file had shocked her. She’d looked up from it once to say, “You lost your partner?”
“Yes,” he’d said. She deserved to know the truth. “Brancotti killed her.”
“I’m sorry.” Then she’d gone back to reading the rest of the file. When she’d finished and met his eyes, there’d been the look of a warrior on her face.
Recalling it now, he felt more reassured than he’d been since she’d left. The woman who’d read that file wouldn’t back out on him. She wanted to bring Brancotti to justice almost as much as he did. Isn’t that why he’d wanted her with him in the first place?
Or at least partly the reason, he thought as his gaze moved to the foyer, one of the many places in the suite where they’d succumbed to their desires the night before. How many times during the day had he wanted to make love to her again? Hell, he’d nearly pulled her into the woods at Rock Creek Park and taken her there. The truth was he wanted Natalie/Rachel/Calli—all of the women who made up Natalie Gibbs—with an intensity that had him being…cautious. No woman had even made him cautious before.
When the doorbell rang, Chance strode forward to answer it. But it wasn’t Natalie he found on the other side. It was Tracker and Lucas, carrying a brown bag.
“Are we interrupting anything?” Lucas asked.
“No.” Chance hoped that he was hiding his disappointment as he stepped back from the door.
“We thought you might be busy with that blonde you left Sophie’s party with.” Tracker removed a six-pack of imported beer from the bag.
“‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts,’” Chance quoted as he took the one Tracker offered to him. “What’s up?”
“Tracker is worried about you,” Lucas said.
Chance raised his brows. “I’m touched.”
“I’ve been doing a little digging on Brancotti, alias Phillipe Sagan, alias ‘Damien.’ The two of you go back a long way.”
Chance didn’t even let a flicker of surprise show. He’d known that Tracker was about the best there was when it came to running background checks, but he hadn’t expected him to unearth the “Damien” alias. Still, there was no way he could have traced Damien back to that orphanage. “I’ve been tracking him for a long time.”
“And you lost your partner in Rome two years ago,” Tracker said.
“Yes, I did.”
“Besides being dangerous, this man has the reputation of being very smart.” Tracker raised a hand when Chance opened his mouth to give his opinion. “Let me finish. Lucas and I will concede that you’re a very smart man, too. The thing is you nearly had Brancotti for stealing this diamond two years ago. He’s not a man who’ll forget that. Put yourself in his place. There’s a good chance that he took the time to find out exactly who was on his trail then, and that he’s kept tabs on you. He could be expecting you.”
Chance took a swallow of his beer. “I’m sure he is.”
“It could be a trap,” Lucas said.
Chance met his old friend’s eyes. “It could be. But I wouldn’t be where I am today if I ran every time I suspected a trap.”
Lucas glanced at Tracker. “I told you we wouldn’t talk him out of it.”
“Relax,” Chance said. “There’s no way he can suspect my cover. We’ve built it very carefully. Both Steven Bradford and his current love interest have agreed to go into seclusion until this is over. Their private plane will arrive here tomorrow morning. They will be whisked off in a hired limousine and delivered here to this suite where they will stay until the job is done. Steven is shy of the press. I won’t have any trouble passing for him.”
“I want to go in as your bodyguard,” Tracker said. “Someone who hides from the press as much as Bradford does would be eccentric enough to insist on a personal bodyguard.”
Chance shook his head. “The invitation was very specific. One guest. If Bradford tries to bring anyone besides his girlfriend at this point, it could mean he’ll be refused admittance to the estate, and I won’t risk that. Besides, Natalie Gibbs is perfectly qualified to be my bodyguard.”
Tracker and Lucas exchanged looks again.
“You convinced Natalie Gibbs to be your partner then?” Tracker asked.
Chance hesitated for only a second, then cursed himself for it. “Yes.” He knew that both of his friends were studying him more closely now. In another minute they’d demand to know the whole story.
“Natalie never did show up for Sophie’s party, and you left with a blonde,” Tracker pointed out.
“It’s a long story,” Chance said.
Tracker passed a beer to Lucas and took one for himself. “If we’re your backup and rescue team, we deserve to be filled in.”
Since he couldn’t argue with that, Chance took another drink of his beer and then laid it out for them. By the time he was finished, both men were frowning and regarding him intently.
“So she doesn’t know that you know she’s really Natalie Gibbs?” Tracker asked.
“Right,” Chance said.
“Why the masquerade in the first place?” Lucas asked.
“I couldn’t ask without letting her know I saw through the disguise,” Chance said.
“Right,” Tracker said. “That much makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is why you didn’t inform her that you knew who she really was.”
Chance’s brows shot up. “Hey, I didn’t see through her disguise at first. Neither did the two of you.” He’d like to think that he would have seen through it even if he hadn’t overheard her sisters talking. “Even though I quickly realized it was Natalie, that doesn’t change the fact that a very sexy and attractive blonde made a play for me. By the time my brain was functioning again, things had gotten…complicated. I wanted Natalie on this job with me for a number of reasons. My chances were slim to none if I got her pissed at me for not fessing up that I’d known it was her almost from the get-go.”
Lucas’s grin spread slowly. “In other words, you made your bed, and now you have to lie in it.”
“Yeah.” Chance sighed. “Something like that.”
Tracker took a sip of his beer and then asked, “Is she aware of the dangers?”
“She’s read the file. She knows about my last partner. And she knows what kind of man Brancotti is.”
“Okay, so both of you are aware that you’re dealing with a very nasty guy. Have you considered the possibility that there’s someone on the inside of the insurance business who’s on Brancotti’s payroll?” Tracker asked.
Chance met his friend’s eyes steadily. “I’ve had two years to think about how he got away with the diamond the last time. He had to have been getting inside information to steal the diamond in the first place. That’s why I insisted that no one could know the route that Venetia was taking that day except me.”
Tracker frowned. “And Venetia. You think she was the traitor?”
“I’ve given it some consideration. Carlo’s quite a ladies’ man. Perhaps he used her, then killed her because she’d served her purpose and he didn’t want to share. This time I’m working on my own. No one at the insurance office knows I’m going in as Bradford. I haven’t even told them that the Ferrante diamond has resurfaced.”
“I told you he’d be on top of it,” Lucas said, then glanced at Chance. “Tracker here’s a real worrywart.”
“Humor me,” Tracker said as he passed a slip of paper to Chance. “That’s my private cell phone number. You’re the only person who can call me on it. As long as you’re on that estate, I’ll be close by.”
Chance glanced at it, memorized it and handed it back.
“You better make sure that Natalie memorizes it, too,” Lucas said, “just in case.”
“Done,” Chance said.
Tracker leaned back and for the first time since he’d entered the room, he smiled. “One other thing.”
“Yeah?”
“What happens when Rachel finds out that you’ve known all along she’s really Natalie?” Tracker asked.
“I’ll handle it,” Chance said. And he wished to hell that he felt as confident as he sounded.
8
“YOU’RE SURE you’ve got it?” Chance asked as the limousine pulled away from the Meridian. There wasn’t even a hint of the sun in the eastern sky, and the street-lights they passed offered only intermittent illumination in the car.
Natalie gave him a sharp salute. “Aye-aye, sir. From the time we step on the plane we are no longer Chance Mitchell and Rachel Cade. We are Steven Bradford who’s just made another million or two this morning and his new best friend, Calli.” She tilted her head to one side. “You really think Brancotti might have Steven Bradford’s plane bugged?”
“It’s been sitting on the runway since yesterday evening. I’m banking on it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re hoping he bugged it, aren’t you?”
“I want to give Brancotti every opportunity to assure himself that we are who we say we are. Most of the others he invited for his little auction are returning clients. Steven Bradford is an unknown, and Brancotti is very cautious.”
Natalie had to hand it to him for thinking of allowing Brancotti to wire the plane. Everything so far about the cover that Chance had built for them had won her admiration. As far as she could tell, nothing had been overlooked. The small purse she carried contained a driver’s license, passport and several well-worn credit cards that identified her as Catherine Weston. The driver’s license was from San Diego, California, and would expire in eight months. But if Brancotti ran a check on Catherine Weston, now “Calli,” he would find that she’d been born and raised in a small town, nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Under Chance’s careful supervision, she’d spent three hours boning up on Catherine Weston’s background instead of sleeping. And once the real Calli had arrived at the hotel, Natalie had spent another three hours studying and talking with her.
Natalie stifled a yawn. She hadn’t slept more than two hours, but how could she complain when Chance was being just as thorough as she always was when she adopted a new persona. A perfectionist. That was the one word she would use to sum up Chance’s approach to this job, and she had no choice but to admire him for it.
She glanced at him and saw that he was using a pocket flashlight to read the open file on his lap. The Steven Bradford disguise was excellent, and as Natalie studied him, she marveled again at how far it went beyond the wrinkled tan suit he was wearing.
The tiny lines that furrowed his brow as he frowned at something he was reading were new. So was the way he ran his fingers absently through his hair. Body language, she knew, was as important as the costume in creating an authentic disguise. She watched his fingers toy with the edges of the manila folder on his lap, folding the edge back and forth. She would have been willing to bet that Chance Mitchell had never fidgeted in his life. He was the most self-contained man she’d ever met. The only time she was certain of what was on his mind was when they were making love.
What would the man sitting across from her be like in bed? Would the perfectionist streak in Chance force him to carry the impersonation of Steven Bradford that far?
One thing Natalie did know from the time she’d spent with the real Catherine Weston—the woman’s relationship with Steven Bradford went beyond her ambition to become a supermodel. The dreamy look in her eyes when she’d spoken about Steven was a dead giveaway. Natalie would have bet good money that Catherine Weston had fallen hard for the software billionaire.
Did Chance’s Steven Bradford have similar feelings for his Calli, she wondered? If so, she had no doubt that Chance would have carefully noted it in that mental notebook she suspected he carried with him. What would the perfectionist in him force him to do with the knowledge?
One thing Natalie knew for certain—her Calli was not going to wait much longer to find out. One of the many things she’d learned about her namesake was that she had boundless energy and enthusiasm—and Natalie was sure it extended to the physical side of her relationship with Steven Bradford. Gut instinct told her that Catherine Weston had even fewer hang-ups than Rachel Cade. And she couldn’t wait to try out that facet of Calli’s personality.
A sliver of pure excitement shot up her spine. For the first time, she admitted to herself how much she really wanted to work at Chance’s side during this operation. She was definitely her father’s daughter, and for the first time in her life, she wasn’t going to feel guilty about embracing that part of herself. Instead, she was going to enjoy it, and she was also going to enjoy exploring a relationship with Chance.
There’d be a price to pay. There always was. But as she watched Chance turn his flashlight off and insert it in the breast pocket of his shirt, she knew that however she was going to pay for saying yes to Chance Mitchell’s proposition, she was sure it was going to be worth it.
And she had plans for him. He’d evidently been satisfied after one night with Natalie. And last night he’d been able to resist making love to Rachel. But his one-night stand days were over. Calli was going to see to that.
CHANCE WAS very much aware of Natalie’s eyes on him. Just as he was fully aware of the excitement radiating from her in little spurts. She might look like Calli, but right now her body language was totally Natalie’s. Her arms were folded across her chest and her foot was tapping. He knew exactly what she was feeling because he felt it, too. He was equally impatient for the adventure to begin. There was nothing like going up against a worthy and challenging opponent.
What worried him a little was that challenging Brancotti wasn’t all that was on his mind. He was also thinking of being with Natalie. And those thoughts were distracting him from the file he was reading. It was taking him twice as long as usual to memorize Tracker’s latest surveillance map of the Brancotti estate. Swamps bordered the estate on two sides, and they were kept well stocked with alligators. That left two avenues for escape in an emergency. Through the entrance gate on the western side or by boat on the ocean side.
A red dot just inside the southern edge of the swamp marked where Tracker had hidden an inflatable boat. Hopefully, all would go well, and they could use it to meet Tracker once they had the Ferrante diamond.
Pocketing the flashlight, Chance closed the file and for the first time since they’d entered the limo, he met Natalie’s eyes. “Ready?”
“What did you have in mind?”
The grin she flashed him and the quick arch of her back told Chance he was dealing with Calli now. As Rachel, Natalie was slower moving and much more aware of her effect on the opposite sex. She knew to a T what she had in her arsenal, and she matched the weapon to the man.
Calli was more spontaneous, and her heart ruled her head. She didn’t even think about attracting men, but everything she did, including the back stretch, was incredibly sexy.
“You’re very good at impersonation,” he said. So good that he was wondering how being Calli would affect her response the next time he touched her.
“So are you.” She pushed her hair behind her ear. “Right now I’m wondering what it will be like to make love to Steven Bradford.”
“Rachel, I—”
She leaned closer, and he caught her scent.
“Aren’t you wondering what it will be like to make love to Calli? We could find out.” She reached for his tie, but before she could pull it off, he grabbed her hands.
“We’re almost to the airport. If you’ve got any questions about the plan once we get to the estate, now would be a good time to ask them.”
Natalie raised her brows. “Plan? I wouldn’t call what we have a plan exactly.”
“Sure it is,” Chance said easily. “Find the safe, pick a time to crack it, replace the real diamond with the fake one that Brancotti left behind the last time, and then leave.”
“It’s a little short on the details,” Natalie pointed out.
Chance was beginning to enjoy himself. Whether she realized it or not, Detective Natalie Gibbs was beginning to shine through, and he found he’d missed her. “You’ll just have to trust me. We’ll improvise the details as we go. If you’re nervous, you can just follow my lead.” He regarded her steadily for a moment. “Unless you think you can’t keep up.”
Her chin lifted, and Chance had to bite back a grin.
“I’m way ahead of you,” she said. “My plan is to charm Carlo into giving me a tour of the house and see if I can spot the safe.”
Chance frowned. “It’ll be better if we take the tour together.”
As the limousine pulled to a stop, she shot him a Calli smile. “Relax. I’m pretty sure my plan will work faster.”
“You can’t be too obvious.”
Her brows shot up. “I can be very subtle when I want to.”
Natalie didn’t worry him. It was Calli who made him nervous.
Before she got out of the car, she patted him on the knee. “You’ll just have to follow my lead.”
NATALIE GIBBS slept like a rock, Chance thought as he sat across from her, watching her. She’d curled up on the seat across from his the moment the aircraft had reached cruising altitude. When they’d hit some turbulence over Virginia, she hadn’t stirred, not even when he’d pressed his hands briefly against her to keep her on the couch.
He’d been tempted to do more than touch her, but he’d resisted—just as he’d resisted making love to her last night. It had been late when she’d finished her session with Catherine Weston, and he’d pretended to be asleep when she’d slipped into bed beside him. Oh, he’d been tempted then to turn and see which of the two women had joined him—Rachel or Calli. But he’d resisted. And he would be wise to continue resisting until the job was done.
Of course, that was much easier said than done. She was stretched full length on the seat across from his, and she was wearing “Calli” clothes—a stretchy, midriff-baring tank top and shorts. Looking at her was not helping to strengthen his resolve. Taking a quick sip of the ice water he’d poured for himself, he decided to take a break from his self-imposed torture and browse through his file on Brancotti once more.
NATALIE CAME AWAKE in stages the way she always did, and out of habit she remained perfectly still until all the layers of fog in her brain had disappeared. The hum of the jet’s engine told her where she was, and she could feel Chance’s presence as well as smell him. Was he looking at her? She’d selected her outfit with the main purpose of making him do just that. And she’d posed herself on the couch to tempt him while she slept.
That was step one of her plan. Now it was time for step two.
Keeping her eyes closed, she stretched and felt the tank top inch its way upward. Then in one smooth movement, she sat up and opened her eyes.
Humph. He wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he was sitting, shoulders hunched, poring over his file. And he had horn-rimmed reading glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. For some reason, just looking at him wearing them had a little tendril of lust uncurling itself in her stomach.
Oh, it was more than time for step three.
“Steven?” she said in her high, effervescent Calli voice.
“Hmmmm?” Chance didn’t even glance up from the papers he was reading.
It was damned hard to seduce a man when he wouldn’t even look at her. Good thing she had a foolproof plan.
Taking the file out of his hands, she slid onto his lap. “Hi.”
“Calli—”
“Shhhh.” She cut him off by pressing a finger against his lips. “I’ve been wanting to do this ever since I came back to the hotel last night.”
He closed his fingers around her wrist and drew her hand away. “We’ll be landing in a very short—”
This time she cut him off by pressing her lips against his. The heat ignited immediately, leaping from her to him and back again. Drawing away, she said, “I can be very quick.” As if to prove it, she slid to her knees and pulled his belt free, unbuttoned his trousers and slid the zipper down.
When his hand covered hers again, she drew back a little and tugged her tank over her head. “I want you, Steven.” She touched him then, taking him into her hand. “You want me, too. You always want me, don’t you, Steven?”
HE DID. Later, Chance told himself that if he’d had a moment to think before she’d taken him into her hands… If she hadn’t called him “Steven,” or looked at him in that particular way… Or maybe if he hadn’t been looking at her for the past hour and fantasizing about taking her on the floor of the airplane… Maybe then he would have been able to resist her and stick to his resolution.
He couldn’t think at all when she rose to her feet and wiggled out of her shorts.
She was wearing nothing underneath. His hands came to life then, pulling her so that she could straddle him. And then she was taking him into her. Only then did she lift his glasses off and set them on the table.
“We wouldn’t want to fog these up, would we?” she asked before she found his mouth again and began to move.
9
THE LATE-AFTERNOON SUN beat down mercilessly as the limousine turned onto a sleekly paved drive. The limo had been waiting for them when the plane touched down on Brancotti’s private landing field. The driver, a tall blond muscle builder in his mid-twenties, had assured them that the twenty-minute ride would be as cool and as comfortable as he could make it. In her persona as Calli, Natalie didn’t have to hide the fact that she was totally impressed with the chilled champagne and the fruit and cheese tray that awaited them in the plush interior of the limousine. Mozart poured out of a speaker, and she sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor, turning the knobs on a small TV.
Unless and until they could be absolutely certain that they weren’t being bugged, they were to stay completely in character. That was the plan, and Natalie decided that being Calli was liberating. The woman didn’t seem to have any hang-ups.
And seducing Steven Bradford had been almost as exciting as seducing Chance Mitchell. There’d been an added kick to realize that initially he’d tried to resist her. It occurred to her that she’d never before tried to seduce a reluctant man. But once Steven had gotten over his initial resistance, he’d been a more than willing participant. And if she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn that the man she’d made love with on the airplane was different than the one she’d made love to two nights ago. As a lover Steven was gentler, or perhaps sweeter was a better word.
Did Chance feel the same way about Calli—that she was a different lover from Rachel? Which woman did he prefer? The thought fascinated her. Gazing over her shoulder, she studied him for a minute. It was definitely Steven she was looking at. What would it be like if she could make him lose control and become Chance when he wanted to be Steven Bradford?
Running her hand along the lush carpeting, she considered what it might be like to discover the answer to her question right now. Right here.
Turning, she sent Chance a slow smile. “Want to fool around?”
Without taking his eyes off of the papers he was poring over, he threaded his fingers absently through her hair. “Later. I have a call with Harold scheduled for five o’clock, and I need to get through these.”
The call would be with Tracker McBride. That much Natalie knew. The conversation would sound like business, but there would be a coded subtext. Right now the subtext of his message to her was to keep her mind on the job.
But wasn’t part of her job establishing the fact that she was totally besotted with Steven Bradford? Knowing that the driver was listening and probably watching through his rearview mirror, Natalie twisted around and placed her hand on Chance’s thigh. “You know what they say about all work and no play.”
In a quick move that she didn’t anticipate, Chance closed his hands over her shoulders and drew her close for a long, hard kiss. Then even as heat flared to life, he moved his mouth to her ear and whispered, “You’re playing with fire.”
She laughed. “I hope so.”
She felt his lips curve as he brushed soft kisses at the corners of her mouth. There it was again, that unexpected gentleness. Was it part of Chance or merely a layer to the persona of Steven Bradford? She was leaning forward when he slipped his hands out of her hair and set her away from him.
“Too late. We’re here,” he murmured.
Glancing through the window, she saw that they’d stopped at a mammoth gate set in a tall stone fence. The moment it opened, the limo slid through and continued up a winding narrow drive. Flowers bloomed on either side. To the right, there were three tennis courts where two hardy souls battled the heat and each other. Through the tall cypresses to her left she caught a glimpse of a landscaped patio area surrounding a huge pool. A few guests sat sipping drinks in the shade of red-and-white striped umbrellas.
Then as the car swept around a curve and the main house came into view, Natalie let her mouth drop open. The building was huge, three stories high with wings on either side. The entire structure was built out of slabs of gray marble streaked with shades of rose and pink. It reminded her of an Italian villa as she supposed it was meant to. At its right stood a low-slung building—an old carriage house, she guessed. Now it probably served as a garage and servants’ quarters.
“Wow,” she said as the car pulled to a stop. Though she didn’t repeat it, she might have said the same about the man who descended the marble steps to greet them. In person, Carlo Brancotti was even better-looking than he’d been in the photos Chance had shown her.
Tall and broad-shouldered, he wore black trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. But it was his face that drew and held her attention as Chance guided her out of the limo. The slash of cheekbones and the hair hanging loose to his shoulders made her think of ancient warriors. The hint of the savage in contrast with the elegant clothes and surroundings made for a devastating effect. She had a moment to absorb the impression as he shook hands with Steven Bradford. When he took her hand and looked into her eyes, a quick prickle of unease moved through her.
For a second, just until he released her hand, she had the uncanny sensation that he could see right through her. It passed the moment he smiled at her.
“I’m so glad I made an exception and allowed Steven to bring you along.”
“So am I.” The smile she sent him was genuine. “You have a lovely place.”
“It’s even lovelier now,” he said. Lifting a hand, he signaled for a man who wore a uniform identical to the one the driver had worn. “Show Mr. Bradford and Miss Calli to the Venetian room.” Then he turned to Steven. “Make yourselves at home in any way you wish. I’m giving a small party tonight so that my guests can get to know one another.”
Steven frowned. “I’m a busy man. I didn’t come to party.”
Brancotti smiled and shook his head. “So American. You’ll have to learn to relax and enjoy my hospitality.”
Then he turned and led the way into the house.
A PRICKLE OF UNEASE had worked its way up Chance’s spine the moment that Carlo had said the words Venetian room. It moved through him once more as he read the same words on the engraved brass plate that adorned the door to the suite they were shown into. Venetia and Venetian. Was the name of the suite a coincidence or Carlo’s way of letting him know that he was aware of who he was?
A part of his mind said no. There was no one at the agency who knew that he was coming here as Steven Bradford. Still, his mind raced as he watched Natalie move around the suite and peer through the French doors that led to a small balcony. She was playing her part beautifully, just the right mixture of sex kitten and wide-eyed innocent. And he was finding the combination fascinating. So damn fascinating that in spite of his resolution, he hadn’t been able to resist her when she’d begun to seduce him on the plane.
“Look, we have a view of the pool and the ocean.” Then she was skirting around the valet who’d escorted them to the room, and opening the door to an adjoining bath.
“Wow!” she said. “The shower takes up the whole wall, and there’s a hot tub.”
“Will there be anything else, sir?” the valet asked.
“No.” Chance followed the valet to the door. Before he closed it, he glanced once more at the brass plate.
Brancotti might suspect any one of the guests he’d invited to the estate. He might even put Steven Bradford at the top of his list. But he couldn’t know for sure.
Still, he should tell Natalie that they might be under suspicion. When he turned back into the room, she was moving through the suite, running her hands over the polished surfaces of old antiques, oohing and aahing. If Brancotti was listening, he’d hear a girl raised in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains nearly going into ecstasy over his home. He might be rattled, but Detective Natalie Gibbs was doing her job, checking for any hidden cameras or small microphones.
Emotions streamed through him—admiration and something he couldn’t quite put a name to. She was getting to him, and for both their sakes, he couldn’t let that distract him from the job he’d come here to do.
“This is so lovely,” she cooed as she climbed onto the bed and ran her fingers over the carved headboard. Then she stretched out on the mattress and sent him a quick grin. “Any idea about what we could do to while the time away until that dinner party?”
“You could take a swim in the pool,” he suggested.
“Too hot.” She made a face as she rolled over and then dropped her chin on her hands.
“I need to work,” he said.
She made another face. “Too boring.”
Moving to the bed, he took her hand and drew her up and off the mattress. “Why don’t you try out the hot tub?”
She locked her arms around his neck. “Why don’t we try it out together?”
“I really need to get some work done.” But he leaned closer, caught the lobe of her ear between his teeth and whispered, “What did you find?”
Keeping her arms looped around his neck, she drew back and mouthed the words. “No cameras, two mikes here in the bedroom. One mike in the bathroom.” Then she said aloud, “Oh, Steven, you worked on the plane.”
“I need to talk to you,” he whispered right against her ear. “Tonight, during the party, find an excuse to entice me away for a while. We’ll walk along the beach.”
“Oh, Steven.” Her voice was a throaty purr as she drew back again. “You’re always working. Can’t we play? Just a little?”
Pursing her lips in a little pout, she pulled his tie loose. Then before he could even think to stop her, she was working on his belt.
“Calli.”
“I want you.”
Quite suddenly, he wanted her. Calli, Rachel, Natalie. They were all parts of the same woman, and he wanted them all. But they had a job. They should both rest.
The thought slipped away as her hand enclosed him.
“You know I can’t go for very long without sex. It’s a curse.” She kissed him then, making sure that every soft curve of her body was pressed fully against his.
Chance flipped on the stereo beside the bed to mask the noises he knew they would make and then eased her back onto the mattress. “Then we’re both damned.”
NATALIE HAD to hand it to Carlo Brancotti. The man knew how to throw a party. Dinner had been a sumptuous seven-course affair served in a room that reminded her of a medieval dining hall. Her dinner partner had been a portly British gentleman, Sir Arthur Latham, who’d seemed sincerely interested in Calli’s aspirations in the modeling field. The woman on her left had looked vaguely familiar, but it wasn’t until Sir Arthur had introduced her that Natalie realized she was Risa Manwaring, a retired actress who had married a British lord.
By the time they’d finished with dessert, Risa had the name of her agent as well as a list of her most recent modeling jobs.
At the far end of the table, “Steven” had been seated to Carlo’s immediate right, and as far as she could tell, the conversation between the two men hadn’t flagged once.
Were she and Chance being tested—or was she just being paranoid? Natalie had always found that when she was doing undercover work, a little paranoia was a good thing. But hers had been increasing steadily from the moment she’d looked into Carlo Brancotti’s eyes that afternoon.
She was pretty sure that Chance was feeling the same way. She’d felt the tension in him escalate the moment they’d entered their suite. There’d been that urgent request that she lure him away from the party. And she’d sensed an even greater urgency when they’d made love. What did he need to tell her?
Whatever it was, he was willing to wait until they could be absolutely sure that no one was eavesdropping. So it was important, but not urgent.
The gathering at dinner had been small—under a dozen in all. Besides Sir Arthur and Lady Latham and the retired film star, there’d been two Japanese gentlemen, the Motos—father and son. Natalie recognized them as the two men she’d seen playing tennis earlier in the day. She’d also been introduced to the Demirs, a distinguished-looking businessman and his wife from Turkey, and another man with very hard eyes—Armand Genovese. Carlo’s personal assistant Lisa had rounded out the number. Though she wasn’t sure why, Natalie had expected more guests.
Once Carlo had led the way from the dining room to the conservatory for after-dinner drinks, the men had retired to the patio to sample some of his cigars. Natalie had toyed with the idea of joining them and insisting on sampling one herself, but had decided at the last moment that it wasn’t something that Calli would have done.
Instead, she joined the four other women as Lisa led them on a guided tour of the flowers growing in the conservatory. It wasn’t difficult to keep her expression awestruck as she admired more varieties of orchids than she’d ever seen. The fact was, she wasn’t finding it difficult at all to be Catherine Weston.
Maybe it was the fact that the woman was about as uncomplicated as they came. She’d come from nothing and her ticket to the big time in modeling was Steven Bradford. Natalie Gibbs might not have gone about it the same way, but she could certainly admire Calli’s single-minded determination to make a different kind of life for herself.
After all, wasn’t that what she’d tried to do with her own life? For twenty-six years she’d lived with the fear that she was her father’s daughter—that she might be tempted to follow in his footsteps. She’d joined the D.C. police because she’d wanted to make sure that she satisfied her desire for adventure on the right side of the law.
And now as Calli she had the opportunity to have her cake and eat it, too. A diamond heist—it didn’t get much better than that.
She was even beginning to like the wardrobe that Chance had picked out for Calli. Natalie fingered the spaghetti straps that held up the silky white sheath she was wearing. Whether or not they made the man, clothes definitely made the woman. Each time she dressed in one of the outfits, she felt that she came to a deeper understanding of the part she was playing. Or perhaps, she was coming to a deeper understanding of herself.
When she’d slipped into the silky white dress that Chance had selected for her tonight, she’d instantly felt both beautiful and desirable. Natalie Gibbs rarely allowed herself to feel either of those ways.
But then the old Natalie would never have worn a dress that stopped at midthigh. Nor would she have thought of seducing a man twice in one day. No, three times. She had plans for that walk on the beach.
“It’s a lovely room, isn’t it?”
Natalie turned to smile at Sir Arthur’s wife, Lady Latham. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
The glass walls and ceiling of the conservatory allowed a view of a starlit sky, and the air was scented with exotic flowers and candle wax. A small band tucked in a corner and surrounded by potted palms was playing a movie theme she couldn’t quite place.
“But you’re missing your young man?”
Natalie smiled. “A bit.”
“Carlo is European and old-fashioned. He still honors an old tradition that men and women separate for a time after dinner. That is not the case in America, am I correct?”
“Yes, that is not the case in America.”
Lady Latham smiled at her. “Well, maybe you were right to fight for your independence. But don’t tell Sir Arthur I said that.”
Natalie pantomimed locking her lips and then throwing away the key. She was beginning to like Lady Latham very much.
“You ought to go out there and lure your Steven away. A man with someone like you doesn’t need imported cigars or the poker game that Carlo will entice them into next.”
Natalie studied the woman for a minute. Though she was well into her sixties, she could see that Lady Latham must have been quite a beauty in her day. The smile she saw in the pale gray eyes looked sincere. “I promised Steven to be on my best behavior tonight. He wants to conclude his business with Carlo as quickly as possible.”
Lady Latham’s brows shot up. “There won’t be any business done until tomorrow or the next day. Hassam Aldiri’s plane was delayed, and he won’t arrive until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. Carlo will wait for him. Hassam has a lot of money. Even if he decides that he doesn’t want the diamond, I doubt that Carlo will want to offend him.”
“Well…in that case.” Flashing Lady Latham a conspiratorial smile, she moved toward the doors she’d seen the men exit through earlier. The night air was warm in spite of the breeze from the ocean, but one quick glance told her that the patio was empty. Hurrying toward the balustrade that separated it from the sprawl of gardens below, she caught sight of the men seated at tables in a small candlelit gazebo.
“I understand Steven has a weakness for poker.”
Natalie pressed a hand to her heart as she turned to face Carlo. She hadn’t heard him approach. “Yes, he can never resist a game. How did you know?”
“I make it a point to get to know the people I do business with.”
Though she couldn’t see his eyes as clearly as she had earlier, Natalie felt the intensity of his gaze. “I was hoping to lure him away for a walk on the beach.”
Carlo held out his arm. “Perhaps you’ll allow me to stand in for him?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Natalie said with a shy smile. “I had more than walking in mind.”
“Ah.” Lifting a hand, he drew a finger down her cheek. “I would be delighted to be his substitute for that also.”
“Oh no. I could never…” She and Chance had discussed the possibility that Carlo would make a move on her, but she hadn’t expected it to be so soon.
For a moment he said nothing. Natalie waited. She was pretty sure that Carlo Brancotti was not a man who accepted rejection easily. This might blow her chance of ever getting that private tour. Finally, she saw the quick flash of his smile. “I admire loyalty. It’s a precious commodity.”
Natalie eased away a step so that he was forced to withdraw his hand. The last thing she wanted to do was alienate Carlo Brancotti, but she had no choice except to react to the situation the way she believed that Catherine Weston would react. “I don’t want to interrupt Steven’s game, so I think I’ll retire to my room,” she said.
“I apologize if I offended you. I want you to feel perfectly comfortable and enjoy your stay here.” He smiled again and held out his hand. “Could we, as you Americans say, wipe the slate clean and begin again?”
“Sure.” She put her hand in his and felt the warm press of his palm before he released hers.
When she turned to go back into the conservatory, he placed a hand on her arm. “Please. I will feel that I have failed as a host if you retire so early. How about if I offer you a tour of the gardens or the house—or both?”
Natalie hesitated, then smiled. “I’d love to see both. Steven has a couple of great homes—a ranch and a house he just built outside of L.A.—but I’ve never seen anything like this place. How old is it?”
“It’s relatively new.” He didn’t touch her but merely held his hand out to indicate the direction. “I bought the house from a Saudi Prince two years ago, but the gardens are new. Flowers are my passion.”
“I admire anyone who can grow things,” she said enthusiastically as he guided her down a circular stair. “Not that I have a green thumb. I don’t. But I love flowers.”
“It’s a passion that we share then,” Carlo said as he urged her toward a door beneath the stairs. “Shall we start with the house and save the best until last?”
10
CHANCE HELD three royal ladies in his hand, but the woman who held his attention wasn’t in the cards he’d been dealt. She was standing on the patio talking to Carlo Brancotti. And she could handle herself. Wasn’t that the reason he’d been so determined to get Natalie Gibbs for this job?
“Are you in, Mr. Bradford?”
Silently cursing himself, Chance glanced back down at his cards.
Natalie was focused on the job. He was the one who was allowing himself to be distracted. The truth was that whenever he made love to her he became so drawn into the moment that he almost forgot that he was here to do a job. When he glanced back up at the patio, it was empty.
Chance ruthlessly suppressed the mix of panic and anger that tangled in his stomach. Natalie had made her plan clear. She was going to persuade Carlo to give her a tour. Obviously, the plan was working.
But Venetia had been following a plan, too.
“Are you in or out?” Armand Genovese’s voice was thin with impatience.
“Give me a minute.” Chance tore his gaze away from the patio and found four pairs of eyes staring at him. What he read in them ran the gamut from annoyance and mild curiosity to speculation and amusement. It was the speculation that bothered him the most because it came from Sir Arthur Latham, the man he suspected would report his every move to Carlo.
Get a grip, he warned himself. He could hardly throw down his cards and go running after Natalie. One of Steven Bradford’s weaknesses was poker. He had a group of friends, ones who went back to the founding of his company, that he regularly played with. Chance had to believe that Brancotti’s dossier on Bradford would have included that little known piece of information. So he could only conclude that the poker game had been arranged to keep “Steven” occupied and separated from “Calli” for the evening.
“Mr. Bradford?” The question came from the Turkish man who was also clearly annoyed.
“I think that Mr. Bradford may be thinking of other ways that he could be spending the evening,” Sir Arthur said. “And I can’t say that I blame him.”
Chance pushed a pile of chips into the center. “I’m in.”
For the rest of the hand, he kept his attention focused on the game. Natalie was doing her job. If he wanted to keep her safe, all he had to do was concentrate on doing his.
“YOU DID SAVE the best for last,” Natalie said as Carlo led the way down a winding path bordered on either side by jewel-colored flowers.
“You delight me. Most women are more impressed with the main salon or the gallery,” Carlo said.
“They were lovely, too. But the paintings in the gallery made it seem more like a…museum.” She sent him an apologetic smile. “I’m not much on museums.”
As they continued down the path, Natalie reviewed the tour Carlo had just given her in her mind. He’d taken her through all of the rooms on the first floor—except for one that had a coded access pad. His workspace, he’d said as he’d guided her past it. Then for the length of a long hallway, he hadn’t spoken. Natalie suspected that he was waiting for her to ask to see it. She hadn’t. Instead, she’d stopped to “ooh” and “aah” over a marble-topped table with a mosaic inlay.
Gut instinct told her she was still being tested. Did he suspect that she wasn’t the real Calli or was he always this careful?
The main salon took up the entire first floor in the wing opposite the conservatory. Marble floors gleamed, mirrored walls caught the reflections of carved pillars and crystal chandeliers. French doors opened onto patios with a view of the ocean. Natalie had spotted at least two surveillance cameras.
“The masquerade ball will be held in here tomorrow night,” Carlo had said. “Who will you come as?”
Natalie had realized that she didn’t know so she’d shot him a flustered look. “I can’t tell you that. Steven says the whole point of a masquerade is that no one knows who you are. For one night you get to be someone else entirely with no consequences.”
“How will I find you?” Carlo had asked. “All I would ask for is a dance.”
Hoping for the best, Natalie had allowed herself to remain a bit flustered. “I really can’t tell you. Steven hasn’t even told me what costumes he brought.”
Carlo had laughed. “You’re charming. Steven is a very lucky man. But I will still try to figure out who you are.”
Which wouldn’t be much of a challenge, Natalie had thought. She’d spotted two cameras in the hallways, and Carlo would see them leaving the Venetian room in whatever they were wearing.
“I do love playing games. I believe your Steven does too,” Carlo had said as he’d taken her arm and drawn her back to the main hall. “Come, I want to show you something.”
The something had been a small room down the hallway. Oval in shape, it boasted two ornately carved pillars at the midpoint of the room.
“This gallery is my favorite place. We’ll have the auction here. What do you think?”
“Wow,” she’d said as she’d let her gaze sweep the room. Furniture was positioned to form conversation areas on richly hued oriental rugs, and settees were placed at intervals along one wall. Across from them hung the paintings.
Natalie had counted ten, and she’d been hard pressed to keep her mouth from falling open. She’d recognized several of the painters, but she hadn’t been sure that Calli would.
“It’s like you have your own museum,” she said. And while Calli had stared in awestruck wonder, Natalie had catalogued the pieces in her mind. There were two van Goghs, a Manet and what she was pretty sure was a Renoir. But there were other works whose artists she wasn’t as familiar with. Just how many of them had Carlo Brancotti acquired legitimately?
As if in answer, Carlo had stopped midway down the length of the room, leaned against one of the pillars and told an amusing story of how he’d won one of the van Goghs in a poker game.
Watching him, Natalie had felt a kind of prickling at the back of her neck, one that she hadn’t felt in a very long time. She hadn’t dared look around to figure out what had caused it because she’d had to appear utterly fascinated by Carlo’s story. The pillar he’d leaned against was ornately carved and right behind his head was what looked to be a bronze sundial. The prickling sensation had increased.
The moment Carlo had finished his story, she’d smiled. “If you’re that good at poker, you should be out with Steven and your other guests.”
“Then I would have missed this opportunity to share my most prized possessions with you,” Carlo had replied as he’d led her back outside.
His most prized possessions. Now, as they toured the gardens, the phrase lingered in her mind. And what was in that room that had made the back of her neck prickle like that?
“The gardens are boring you,” Carlo said.
With a start, Natalie jerked her thoughts firmly back to the present. “No, they’re magical. Sorry.” She made the first excuse she could think of. “I guess I’m just missing Steven.”
“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?” Carlo asked.
“No—I—” To her complete astonishment, Natalie felt herself blush. “We’re just…I…he doesn’t want…”
Carlo put one finger under her chin, tipping her face up so that he could see it.
Natalie felt a skip of panic as she stared up into those dark eyes. What would he see? For an instant there, she hadn’t been sure whether she was speaking as Natalie or as Calli.
She held her breath through a stretch of silence before Carlo dropped his hand and said, “Steven is a very lucky man.”
Carlo then gestured her forward, and for a while they walked in silence. The garden path was covered with a soft green mulch and bordered by lights. At regular intervals miniature streetlamps were nestled between palms.
“How clever of you to install the lights,” she said finally. “I feel as if I’m walking through a fairyland.”
“I had them installed because the temperatures are often so hot here in South Florida, and I wanted my guests to be able to enjoy the gardens once the heat of the day had passed.”
The streetlamps also offered the perfect places to install video surveillance equipment. Natalie was certain she’d spotted a tiny camera beneath the ornate shade of the light they’d just passed. She bet there were microphones, too. Carlo Brancotti was a very suspicious and very careful man.
Turning, she shot him a very steady look. “And yet you offer entertainment that keeps your guests otherwise occupied.”
He smiled at her. “Sometimes I prefer to enjoy the gardens under less crowded conditions. Come, there’s a new orchid I want to show you over there.”
Though she kept her pace slow and her attention focused on the varieties of blooms that Carlo was pointing out to her, Natalie was thinking about the man walking next to her. Not once since he’d told her that he admired loyalty had he tried to touch her in any kind of personal way. Yes, he’d made it clear he wanted to dance with her, but even when he’d tipped her chin up to study her face, his touch had been impersonal. He was being a charming host and very much the gentleman—a persona that was a far right turn from the man she’d read about in the file Chance had compiled.
But there were reasons other than romance why he might want to separate her from Steven. There’d been that moment in the gallery and another when he’d bypassed his “workspace” that she’d felt something. Did he suspect that she and Steven weren’t who they pretended to be? She couldn’t rid her mind of the certainty that this whole tour was some kind of test.
Natalie the cop would use this opportunity to pump him for information, so she didn’t. Instead, she yawned, then glanced guiltily at Carlo. “I’m sorry. It’s not the company. Steven woke me very early for the flight here.”
“Come. I’ll take you inside.”
“And Steven?”
“Sometimes the poker games go on into the morning hours.”
She allowed disappointment to show in her eyes before she glanced away. “Oh.”
“If you wish, I’ll send him to you,” Carlo offered as he led her back along the path.
She shook her head. “No. He loves the game. It’s his one vice.”
When they reached the door that he’d escorted her through earlier, he opened it. “If you go in this way, you can avoid the others in the conservatory.”
She met his eyes again. “Thank you. Your home is lovely.”
Natalie walked down the hallway without a backward glance. And she made very sure not to glance at the door with the coded access pad that led to Carlo’s “workspace.”
CHANCE FOUND himself glancing at his watch for the fourth time in two hours. Natalie had not reappeared on the patio, and neither had Carlo Brancotti. He’d managed to keep his mind on the game, and he’d even managed to win a few hands. But he hadn’t been able to shake off the urge he had to go to Natalie. The rational side of him told him that she was perfectly capable of handling a man like Brancotti.
But each moment that ticked by made him feel less and less reasonable. Chance shoved a pile of chips into the center of the table and waited for the other bets to be placed. When Sir Arthur turned over his full house, Chance laid down his cards and pushed himself away from the table. “I’m finished, gentlemen.”
There were a few grumbles. Chance paid them no heed as he let himself out of the screened gazebo and strode back toward the house. He might be making a mistake. He’d been weighing the odds of that for the past two hours. Logic told him that Steven Bradford would stay at the game. But gut instinct told him that he had to go to Natalie, and he hadn’t gotten where he was by ignoring his instincts.
Let Carlo Brancotti make what he wanted of the fact that Steven Bradford was so besotted and so hot for Calli that not even a high-stakes poker game could keep him distracted for very long.
The conservatory was empty when he moved through it. At another time, he might have paused to enjoy the orchids, but now he only quickened his stride. There were surveillance cameras everywhere. Not surprising since there were expensive pieces of pottery and sculpture on display even in the hallways. But then, Chance didn’t think that anyone Carlo invited to his estate would dare to steal from him.
No. The state-of-the-art surveillance equipment was for keeping tabs on his guests’ movements. Chance took the stairs two at a time. If Carlo was watching, he would see a man who was desperate to get to his woman. And Chance was. He needed to see her, to satisfy himself that she was all right.
He needed her. Chance felt himself rocked by the realization. Before he had time to absorb or reflect on that, he reached the door to the Venetian room. It was locked. As it should be, he told himself as he swore silently and searched in his pocket for the key.
NATALIE PACED back and forth inside the suite. Since she’d come back to the room, she’d gone over everything that had happened that evening—from the time Carlo had appeared on the balcony to when he’d let her into the house, making sure she walked by his office again.
He’d definitely wanted to know about her relationship with Steven Bradford. And she had to hope that it had rung true. She’d blushed, for heaven’s sake. And she was almost positive that it was Natalie’s cheeks that had heated, not Calli’s. When panic threatened to bubble up again, she ruthlessly pushed it down. She was not going to worry about that now.
Natalie paused in front of a mirror and faced her reflection. She was playing a game. That was all. Calli was in love with Steven Bradford. But Natalie was not falling in love with Chance Mitchell. What she felt for Chance was lust. And professional respect. The emotions tumbling around inside of her had no relation to what Catherine Weston felt for Steven Bradford. She couldn’t afford to let the different roles she was playing merge. Giving herself a nod, she began to pace again.
Gut instinct told her that Carlo Brancotti had not only been testing her, he’d also been playing some kind of a game with her. Her mind kept circling back to the fact that the tour had been his idea. He’d wanted her to see the layout of the house, his “workspace,” the salon and his gallery. Why?
She stopped pacing and began to tap her foot. It was in the gallery that her neck had begun to prickle. She often got that feeling when something meshed for her on a case. She and Chance had assumed that the Ferrante diamond would be locked in a safe in his office. Could it be in the gallery?
A quick glance at her watch told her it was midnight, the witching hour. There was no telling when the poker game would break up, and she needed to talk to Chance. Foot still tapping, she considered her options. As Natalie, she’d have to think of a plan. At the very least, Rachel would have to run through the possible repercussions. Thankfully, all Calli had to do was to go down to that poker game and tell Steven that she needed a walk on the beach before she could sleep.
She was at the door when she heard the knob turn, and she opened it just as Chance was fishing out his key. What she saw stopped her short for a moment. His hair was mussed, his expression impatient and just a bit dangerous. Her mouth began to water. But it was what she saw in his eyes—the mix of frustration and desire that had her heart taking a tumble. For just a second, she couldn’t move, couldn’t even think.
CARLO STUDIED the TV screens in the security room adjacent to his office. One of the security men had buzzed him the moment that Steven Bradford had left the poker game. And now Bradford was standing in the doorway to his room.
“What do you think?” he asked Lisa.
“He’s a man who prefers his woman to a poker game,” Lisa said.
“But it’s well known that poker is his weakness. He plays twice a month with old friends. He doesn’t rush home to be with his Calli.”
“Perhaps that’s because he’s playing with friends. Or perhaps he was overcome by jealousy when you spent over an hour giving his Calli a tour of the house and gardens.”
Carlo glanced at her sharply. Something in her tone told him that she didn’t approve, but it wasn’t like her to criticize him. “Are you jealous, too?”
She met his eyes, but said nothing.
“You don’t think the tour was wise.”
“No. You haven’t yet decided who the plant is, and yet you showed her the gallery where the safe is.”
Carlo smiled then and lifted a hand to trace it along her cheek. “Where one of my safes is.”
“You’re playing with fire.”
“It’s just a bit of misdirection, my dear Lisa. And I know what I’m doing. If they think the Ferrante diamond is in the gallery safe, it will make the game more interesting. And you can stop being jealous. My other guests will receive the same tour.”
“I still don’t like it,” Lisa said.
He leaned down and brushed his mouth over hers. When her lips warmed and softened beneath his, he drew back and raised her hand to his lips. “Come. I think we can leave the lovebirds to themselves. And perhaps I can make it up to you for spending so much time with Calli.”
FOR JUST A SECOND after Natalie opened the door, Chance couldn’t move. Feelings swamped him. She was here. She was safe.
And he didn’t have any idea which woman he was looking at. That realization fueled both his frustration and his desire. Stepping forward, he urged her back into the room, closed the door and locked it. Then he grabbed her arms, drew her up on her toes and closed his mouth over hers. Heat. He could feel it shoot from her to him and back again. He wanted, no, he needed…
Drawing back for a moment, he stared at her in the moonlight streaming into the room. Who are you? he wanted to ask. He wanted to shout it. But he couldn’t.
What he said was, “I want you.” Then before she could answer, he pushed her back against the wall and kissed her again. By damn, he was going to find out which part she was playing. He had to.
The flavor would give her away. Rachel was slightly tart. He tasted that. Calli was sweet—like wild honey—and he found that, too. He nipped her bottom lip and discovered the dark exotic flavor that had haunted him for three months. Natalie. Even as all three tastes flooded through him, he was desperate for more. Changing the angle of his head, he took the kiss deeper.
When he dragged himself back this time, they were both panting. In another moment, he would have pulled her to the floor and taken her right there. Scooping her up in his arms, he carried her into the bathroom and kicked the door shut behind him.
He didn’t set her down until he’d twisted the knobs of the shower. There was a small mike on the ledge of the hot tub. He wanted to make sure that the spray would block any sound. He said nothing as he began to strip out of his clothes.
Natalie waited, watching as he removed his shirt and allowed his trousers to pool at his feet. In the moonlight pouring through the balcony doors, he looked like a god. She moved closer. Then, placing her hands on his shoulders, she drew his head down and spoke into his ear. “There are cameras throughout the garden, probably microphones, too. And I’ve been everywhere on the first floor. I know where Carlo’s office is.”
He gripped her hips and set her far enough away that he could see her eyes. They were a bit puzzled, but focused on his. Did she believe that he’d brought her in here to hear a report? She was thinking of the job and all he was thinking of, all he could think of, was her.
“Do you care if that dress gets wet?”
He couldn’t hear his own words over the noise of the shower, but she must have read his lips because she turned and pointed to the zipper.
It extended all of three inches down from the small of her back, and as the silk parted, his fingers brushed against soft, damp skin. She shrugged her shoulders, wiggled her hips, and the dress slid to her feet.
She was wearing nothing beneath it. Chance’s mouth went dry as a bone. He’d wondered, of course. So had every other man at dinner. But he hadn’t known and hadn’t truly believed that the woman he’d known originally as Natalie Gibbs would have gone to a dinner party, wearing nothing at all under her dress. Even Rachel Cade had worn underwear, hadn’t she? To think she’d spent one hour alone with Carlo Brancotti wearing nothing but that thin swatch of silk.
Turning, Natalie looped her arms around his neck and pulled his ear to her mouth. What was she going to tell him now? That she knew where Brancotti’s safe was?
He gripped her shoulders hard. “You can give me the damned report later. First, I want to know who the hell you are.”
She didn’t answer him immediately, but he could see the way her eyes darkened, the way the pulse at her throat fluttered. Then she smiled and suddenly her mouth was at his ear again. “I can be anyone you want.”
Not quite gently, he clamped one arm around her waist and kept the other gripping her arm as he pulled her into the shower with him.
“I can be Rachel.” She nipped his earlobe. Somehow she’d managed to get hold of the soap, and her hands slid over his skin leaving trails of ice and fire in their wake.
“I love touching your body.” Her voice had become a breathy whisper. “Do you like it when I touch you here?” Her hand slithered from his shoulders down his chest.
“How about here?” Her fingers drew a line to his waist and then lower. “Or here? Do you like this?”
He closed his eyes as her slick, hot fist enclosed him.
“Or I can be Calli.” She dropped a quick line of kisses along his jaw and began to pump him gently.
“Or I can be both.” Her laugh was a breath in his ear before her tongue darted inside. And then she was whispering, “I could be two women at once. Is that your fantasy, Steven?”
He felt his head literally spin, his strength drain away.
“I could give you your fantasy,” she breathed. “Right now, I’m Rachel.”
Chance felt the subtle change in her posture. Her hand grew firmer on him and began to move more quickly.
“All during dinner, I thought of doing this. And this.” She ran a slick hand over his shoulder and down his back to spread her fingers over his buttocks. “If you’d been sitting next to me, I would have found a way to touch you—even with Lady Latham watching us from across the table. Can you imagine it?”
Her whispered words had the image filling his mind.
“We might have been caught while I was slipping down your zipper, inch by inch. And then I would have done this.” Her hand stilled, then milked him in one long pull.
With a moan, Chance slammed one hand against the shower wall to steady himself.
“You like that. Would you like me to make you come this way?”
This was madness. As he lifted his head and tried to clear it, she was all he could see—those wide eyes, the color now as dark and mysterious as the sea at night. That soft, soft mouth. In the misty steam that swirled around them, she made him think of a mermaid, and for the first time in his life, he understood how mythical sirens had lured sailors to their deaths. Those men simply hadn’t cared about anything else.
Then she smiled, and releasing him, she stepped closer until the length of his hardness was pressed against her softness. Her mouth was at his ear again.
“Now, I’ll be Calli. I’m not nearly as experienced as Rachel, but I read. When I was on the patio watching you play poker, I thought about this wickedly sexy book I read. It was all about what went on in this Victorian brothel. On Friday night, the men would gather in the parlor for a game of cards, and the lady of their choice would crawl under the table, and slip between the gentleman’s knees…can you picture that?”
As the image formed in his mind, she slithered down his body and took him into her mouth. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. He was drowning in her. Everything he was became centered on the sensations she brought him—the movement of that soft, hot mouth, the sharp press of her fingernails as she kneaded them into his backside.
He’d never felt a pleasure so intense. He wanted it to go on forever. But he wanted to be inside of her when he came. The struggle between those two desires was brief and vicious. But he finally found the strength to free himself. He knelt with her on the floor of the shower.
Water sluiced over them. Her wet hair clung to her forehead in jagged wisps, making her look different once again. The thought had barely entered his head, when she drew his ear to her mouth again.
“I’m a stranger you’ve just met. You don’t even know my name.” Her quick, wicked laugh only punched up the heat that was boiling inside of him.
“We have no history, no future, no expectations. You just know that you want me. You do want me, don’t you, Chance?”
Later he would wonder if it was her use of that name that pushed him to the edge. He didn’t know exactly who she was. When he looked into her eyes, all he saw was himself, trapped. All he was certain of was that he needed her with a desperation that threatened to slice him in two.
She smiled, but it wasn’t Rachel’s smile this time. Nor was it Calli’s. “I want you. Now.”
Chance was sure that he heard something inside of him snap as he dragged her to him.
HIS MOUTH crushed hers. The kiss wasn’t loverlike. It was hard, demanding, and Natalie reveled in the onslaught of sensations sprinting through her. This was what she’d wanted, the mindless passion that only he could bring her. She could almost feel the barriers crumbling inside of her. He made her so aware of herself, so free.
No other man had ever made her feel this way. It was forbidden. It was delightful.
Even as his mouth devoured her, his fast, clever hands were everywhere, molding, pressing, possessing. Pleasure, hot spiky arrows of it, pierced her at every contact point.
When he drew back, she was trembling. Then he dragged her close again. “You’re mine.” His voice was a harsh whisper in her ear. “Mine.”
Mine. The word echoed in her head as his mouth returned to hers. She’d wanted this madness, craved it from the moment she’d opened the door and seen him standing there. Now, he gave her no time to think, to breathe—no time to orient herself or anticipate. He ran his hand up her thigh and slipped two fingers into her, and her hips bucked to meet his touch. When he began to move his hand, her body moved with him, her muscles bunching, straining until her release, hot and hard, rocked her system. Only then did he drag her beneath him and drive himself into her on the floor of the shower.
“Look at me.”
Shuddering, breathless, she opened her eyes to him. Water poured down, but even through the mists, she could see his gaze—dark and fixed on hers. Her vision and her body were filled with him. Her whole world had narrowed to him. There was nothing that she would have refused him.
“Say my name,” he said.
For a split second, she hesitated, trying to clear her mind enough to remember who she was supposed to be. But he’d stripped all of those women from her.
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