She shifted. He felt her lips curve against his chest in a secret smile a moment before she raised her head to look at him. Something warm and giving stirred within him. “I guess we were pretty hot, weren’t we?”
“Pretty hot?” He laughed at the weak terminology. “The temperature in hell resembles a skiing resort in comparison.” His arm around her shoulders, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Would you like to adjourn to your bedroom?”
A small, panicky voice, buried deep inside her, standing on the shoulders of memories, whispered a frantic “No” in reply. She’d already taken too many steps down this road with him. It was time to retreat, to back away before it was too late.
But she nodded her head, determined not to be frightened, not to be cowed.
The next moment she found herself being scooped up in his arms. She laced her arms around his neck. Delighted in the fact that they were both wearing their ardor and nothing more.
She smiled at him wickedly. “A girl could get used to this.”
He spared her a look before beginning to walk down the hallway. “That’s the general idea.”
The general idea. Was he talking about the future?
Please don’t promise me something about the future, don’t try to give me what no one can.
Somehow she stilled the panic rising in her stomach.
London placed her finger to his lips and warned, “Shhh.”
It took him a moment to realize why she was doing what she did. She was telling him that there were still no strings between them. No links to couple them beyond the moment.
He told himself he understood, but he wasn’t sure anymore that he did.
Reese kissed her as he walked into the bedroom, passion flooding through his veins. But as he raised his head, something caught Reese’s attention. He looked again.
And stopped dead.
There was a flower on her pillow. A long-stemmed white rose. Tucked beneath it was a card.
She saw the look on his face. “What is it?” Twisting around in his arms, London looked toward her bed.
He saw the color drain out of her face.
Setting her down, he crossed to the bed and picked up the note.
“No.”
The single word was a stern command to him. He looked at her in surprise, the note in his hand.
London was determined to have no buffers. She couldn’t depend on anyone to be there for her of their own free will. To believe that would make her twice as vulnerable as she was at this moment.
“I’ll read it. It’s addressed to me.” Steeling herself, London extended her hand toward him expectantly.
Against his better judgment, Reese handed the small beige envelope to her.
Holding her breath, London opened it and quickly scanned the message. The print could have come from any one of a million printers.
“He’s not worthy. No one’ll ever love you the way I can.”
It was as if the air in her lungs had turned to ice. London let the note drop to the floor at her feet. She felt violated.
Damn it, how had he gotten in here? He had been here, in her apartment, in her room. By her bed.
How?
Reese quickly picked up the note and read it, then looked up at her. He saw the look in her eyes. Fury mingled with fear within him. This wasn’t the simple admirer she insisted it was. This was a stalker. “He knows about us.”
She nodded grimly. Her voice devoid of all feeling, she said, “He’s got to be watching the apartment, seeing us together…”
A chill went over her heart, climbed along her spine.
Reese didn’t understand. “How did he get inside? This is a secure building with a security system inside the apartment.” How much safer could they make her? And yet this scum had managed to get inside.
She dragged her hand through her hair, struggling to get ahold of herself. She felt like pacing, like running, like screaming. She stood perfectly still, torn in all directions.
“I don’t know, I don’t know.” Scrubbing her hands over her face, she looked at the pillow. “Get that out of my sight,” she cried, waving a hand at the rose.
He took it and the note, putting both aside on her bureau behind the framed photograph of her mother. “The police are going to want to see them.”
Giving in to the pent-up emotion, she began to pace. “I don’t want the police, I want Wallace.”
“No offense, but the man isn’t exactly keeping you safe, now is he? Not if someone can get into your apartment and leave this.” He nodded toward the things behind the photograph. “The police have more manpower and resources available.”
He was right, but she didn’t want him to be. London wanted fewer people in her life, not more. If the police were brought in, there would be nothing short of a media circus going on around her. It was the last thing she wanted.
She laughed shortly. “Just what I want, more manpower and resources thrown at me.”
She wasn’t taking this seriously. Trying to make her understand how grave the situation actually could be, Reese grabbed London by her shoulders, holding her in place. “This isn’t a game, London. Someone wants you—”
It suddenly occurred to her that they were having this discussion without a stitch of clothes on between them. A wanton smile curled along her lips as she desperately blocked out any thought about the man who had invaded her private terrain.
“You mean other than you?”
He knew what she was trying to do, she was trying to divert him. Maybe even divert herself. But for her sake he wasn’t going to let it happen.
“Other than me. With possibly very sick intentions. This is serious, London,” he insisted. How did he put her on her guard without frightening her? Or was she already frightened and this was the way she was dealing with it? He still didn’t know the details that went into making up the whole of London Merriweather. But he intended to, by and by.
Determined to distract both of them, she laced her arms around his neck. “I never argue with a naked man in my bedroom.”
Damn it, it was taking everything within him not to succumb to the fact that she was nude and supple against him and that he wanted her with every fiber of his being, potentially serious situation notwithstanding. “It’s not a joke, London.”
She raised herself up on her toes, brushed a kiss against his lips, needing him at this moment more than she’d needed him all the other moments combined. There was just no getting away from the fact that he made her feel safe. Protected.
“I wasn’t laughing.”
It was incredibly hard resisting her, harder than anything he’d ever done in his life, but with his hands on her shoulders, Reese moved her away from him. His eyes held hers, the eyes being the only place he could look without feeling his knees grow weak.
“London, we have to call.”
London bit her lip and then nodded, a flippant remark dying before she voiced it. She knew he was right. And wished he weren’t.
With a sigh she surrendered to logic and the inevitable. “I’ll get dressed.”
He allowed himself one last sweeping glance. “It’s either that or have the detectives fall to their knees in worshipful reverence when they get here.”
She smiled then. A real smile that began in her eyes. He instinctively knew how to make her feel better.
“Reverence, huh?”
“Worshipful.” He crossed to the doorway. His own clothes were still out in the foyer. He pointed toward her walk-in closet. It was best if they remained separate for a few minutes or neither one of them was going to get dressed. “Now put something on before I forget to be smart about this.”
She inclined her head and opened her closet. He’d scored another point in a tally she was keeping almost despite herself. She kept it because she was unconsciously searching for that flaw, that inevitable flaw that all men had.
So far there was nothing on the negative side.
Wallace frowned as he used a handkerchief to
pick up the card.
He’d followed the doctor stoically when the latter had come down to summon him. He had to admit he was surprised that it was the man rather than London who had come. It was obvious to Wallace that she was allowing this relationship to go further than the ones he’d read about in the last bodyguard’s report on her.
He’d said very little during the elevator ride up. His words and theories were all for London’s ears, not some flavor-of-the-month who had attached himself to her side for a time.
Wallace shook his head as he stared at the note. “How the hell did he get in here?” he stormed, then flushed as he slanted a look at London. “Sorry.” He didn’t like to curse even mildly in front of her. Laying the note back on the bureau, he blew out a breath, supplying the answer to his own question. “It was probably when I was tailing you earlier.”
Wallace stood over London, looking every bit the part of the gentle giant in some outlandish fairy tale. Except that the look in his eyes was not so gentle.
“If you’d let us put up security cameras in the apartment…” he chided her.
Wallace got no further in his reprimand. Her objections still held, even after this. “No. I won’t let you do that. I’d feel like I was in the middle of a peep show.”
“Maybe he’s right,” Reese finally said. He’d held his peace until now, letting London do the talking. After all, it was her life that was in jeopardy, her bodyguard asking the questions. But there was a fine line between brave and foolhardy, and she was being unduly stubborn. “Better a live peep show than any alternative.”
He noted that Wallace didn’t look particularly happy, despite the fact that what he said was actually supporting the bodyguard. But he wasn’t here to make Wallace happy, he was here to do what he could for London.
When she said nothing in response, Reese crossed toward the telephone on her nightstand.
Her eyes widened and she quickly darted in front of him, putting her hand on the phone before he could pick up the receiver. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t even bother looking at Wallace, convinced the bodyguard was probably snarling. “The police, remember?”
She’d let that discussion die away, hoping he would put it out of his mind once Wallace was up here. Obviously, the man had too long an attention span.
“No,” she insisted. “I don’t want them called in. I’ve already got three around-the-clock bodyguards. The police can’t do any more for me than that, and if the police do get called in, somehow this is going to wind up in the tabloids. I don’t want to be on page two.” There was a slight hitch in her voice that she damned herself for. She didn’t want to get emotional about this, just get her point across. “That’ll just bring more crazies out.” She put her hand on his in supplication. “Please, Reese, I know what I’m saying. No police. Let Wallace and his team handle this.” She glanced at Wallace with a look of confidence. “They can keep me safe.”
With reluctance Reese released the telephone receiver. He still wasn’t convinced that the police couldn’t do more than Wallace could, but she did have a point about the crazies. The last thing she needed was a copycat stalker.
“All right,” he agreed, his voice low, steady, “but then, I’m moving in.”
That had come out of nowhere and for a second it took her breath away. Collecting herself, London demanded, “What?”
He couldn’t decide whether she looked like a deer caught in headlights or a tiger about to charge. In either case, Reese didn’t want her to think he was taking advantage of the situation.
“You have a spare bedroom. I’ll stay there for a few days when I’m not at the hospital.” He wanted her to agree. Most of all, he wanted her to be safe. “Call it insurance.”
“You’re not a professional,” Wallace pointed out, grinding out the words so that there was no doubt in Reese’s mind just what the man thought of amateurs.
“Doesn’t take a professional to care.”
Care.
The word hit London smack in her chest, causing an upheaval. Causing panic. He’d just admitted to caring about her. Caring for her. She looked at Reese, wanting to cling, wanting to run, hating the abundance of both feelings that were flooding her. She was supposed to be stronger than that.
“I’ll be fine,” she assured both men firmly. “I appreciate you two butting heads on my account, and I’m flattered, I really am, but I won’t have whoever this is making me afraid in my own home.” She looked from Wallace to Reese, wanting to make this point absolutely clear. “He’s never threatened me, he’s never done anything but be a gentleman.” To Reese she said, “Wallace and the team can take care of me, and you can date me. Nothing has to change.”
The trouble was it already had, and she knew it and was afraid of knowing it.
But because playing a part made her feel better, she did so.
As was becoming his habit, Wallace took the note and flower with him, intending to put it with all the others.
Softening, hating to have to pull rank, she looked at her bodyguard. “If it makes you feel better, Wallace, you can stand guard outside the door tonight.”
The almost boyish face looked unsmilingly at Reese. “How about him?”
Cocking her head, striving very hard for a nonchalant pose, she shrugged.
“He’s free to do whatever he wants. If he wants to leave, he can leave. If he wants to stay,” she looked at Reese significantly, “he can stay.”
The way she looked at him at times turned his mouth to cotton and his knees to water. It took effort to look as if he were unaffected, but he did his best as he shifted his eyes to Wallace. “I’ll let you know.”
With a swallowed oath about amateurs, Wallace walked out of the room and then out of the apartment. The front door closed a little more loudly than it might have.
Reese had already fixed his attention back to London. “I don’t think he approves of me.”
She couldn’t truthfully argue with that. But then, she doubted if Wallace truly approved of anyone she’d dated. He’d lumped them all under the heading of “security risk.” “Don’t let that bother you. He’s just being my bodyguard. What matters is whether I approve of you.”
That sounded like an invitation if he’d ever heard one. “Do you?”
She smiled, winding her arms around his neck. Pressing her body against his. “What do you think?”
As he tightened his arms around her, he realized that she’d put nothing on under the dress she’d hastily thrown on in his absence. The fact that she was naked beneath it made his pulse race. He was beginning to think that wasn’t ever going to change. What was more, he was relieved it wasn’t.
“I think that you are a lady who is used to getting her own way about everything.”
Her smile widened, pulling him into the heart of it. “Handsome and brilliant. I think this time I struck gold.”
He would have liked to think, as he brought his mouth down to hers, that this time would also be the last time for her.
But he knew better than to try to predict what London would do. She seemed to be content with only the moment, and that meant so should he.
The problem was, the moment was no longer enough for him.
Chapter 14
London shifted on the sofa. The newspaper that was sitting on her lap began to slide off and she grabbed it, nearly sending the telephone receiver tucked between her neck and shoulder tumbling after it. On hold, she’d been debating hanging up and calling again later.
But just as she settled back into place, she heard a deep, familiar voice on the other end say hello. It was about time.
“Hi, Dad, it’s London. Your daughter, not the city.”
It was an old joke, very worn around the edges, voiced at times in exasperation, at other times in memory of a jest her mother had once made when she was trying to get her husband’s attention about a matter concerning their only child.
“London, what’s wrong?”
There he wa
s, cutting to the chase as he always did with her. No glimmer of the charming chitchat he was known for. Was that concern or impatience she heard in his voice? Probably the latter.
The connection to Madrid was not the clearest, and there was static crackling across the lines, thanks, no doubt to the storm she’d heard was roaming its way across the Atlantic. It had taken her a solid fifteen minutes of transfers once she’d gotten through to the American Embassy in Madrid before she’d been put through to her father’s personal line.
It occurred to her that if this had been an emergency, she could have been dead by now. The kidnappers her father claimed to be so worried about would have grown exasperated, given up and dumped her body in the river.
She glanced down at the lead story on the front page of the L.A. Times. The story that had prompted her to make this call. Freedom could finally be in her grasp.
“Nothing’s wrong, Dad.” Absently she traced the outline of the man being led away in handcuffs just below the bold caption. “Everything could be very right. Did you happen to read the front page of your favorite newspaper on the Internet today?”
Except for the subdued crackle, there was silence on the other end of the line. So much so that for a moment London thought she’d lost the connection. “Dad? Are you still there?”
A quiet sigh preceded the ambassador’s reply. “I’m here, London. And yes, I read it.”
She’d thought that he’d be a little more animated than this. Maybe they weren’t talking about the same thing. “They caught the terrorist who kidnapped Susannah Parker. It wasn’t any huge network of terrorists, it was just one guy, off his nut, working independently. He’s also the one who sent the notes to the other women,” she said in case her father hadn’t read that far. It was difficult to contain her excitement. “This means we can finally call off the dogs, right?”
“London…” Her father’s voice was as serious as she’d ever heard. It was the voice he employed when there was no budging him. “…Wallace called me the other day.”
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