by MJ Rodgers
“To A.J., the best mystery solver on the planet, and the best sister a guy could ever have.”
And that was when Zane saw what belied all that formality surrounding the man—the telltale moisture behind the ice of Adam Justice’s pale eyes. Then Zane and the partners at Justice Inc. witnessed a very rare event as A.J. walked up to her stalwart brother and wrapped her arms securely around him in a heartfelt hug.
“WHAT TIME IS IT?” A.J. asked as she nuzzled Zane’s neck in the lazy lassitude following their hours of lovemaking later that night.
Zane glanced at his wrist. “I don’t know. My watch stopped again.”
She nuzzled closer and he felt her smile against his neck. “It’s a great watch.”
“I think it’s time to get that Timex.”
“No way.”
“But I’ve been late to everything these last couple of weeks, trying to rely on it.”
“Not everything,” she countered as she kissed a very sensitive spot just beneath his chin that sent a whole new beat to the blood coursing through his veins.
“The guys at the office are beginning to snicker. How am I going to maintain discipline in the ranks if I don’t show a good example? This doesn’t make any sense.”
A.J. reached over to his wrist and pressed in the button on the bottom. Zane’s recorded voice played into the room.
“I love you, A.J.”
“She can’t hear you. She’s already in the fantasy.” Clarise’s voice said.
“I know.”
“Then why did you say it?”
“Because I wanted her to hear it.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“Actually, I think our love makes perfect sense.”
A.J. turned off the recording and rewound it for the next playback. “You see? It makes perfect sense. Words right out of your own mouth.”
“But A.J.—”
“Zane, I love this watch. If it hadn’t recorded every single thing that happened to you since the moment you got on the plane for Fabulous Fantasies two weeks ago, we wouldn’t have had that evidence for the federal warrant. Because of it, your team knew what they had to look for in their subsequent amphibious assault. Because of it, we learned how much we’d grown to care for each other, despite Clarise’s brainwashing. Because of it, we let Dr. Damian Steele put us under hypnosis and bring back all those memories of our times together.”
“Yes, but the only part you continue to play back is that last one. You’re going to wear out the computer chip.”
“Vanack said it can be played back a zillion times.”
Zane chuckled. “A.J., you have played it back a zillion times.”
She raised her head and looked into his eyes, so dark and deep and dear, and her heart swelled with the glow of love she saw there. Love for her. Love she knew would last a lifetime.
“I don’t ever want to forget again what we’ve shared, not a minute of it, not even for a second.”
He cradled her against his chest and kissed the rich raw silk of her hair.
“You won’t forget. I won’t let you. I love you, A.J. Tonight, tomorrow and for all our tomorrows to come. And I plan to tell you again on each and every one of them. I love you. I love you.”
Epilogue
The melting music and velvet blackness drifted away as the mask was removed from A.J.’s face. She blinked at the stark white ceiling. Clarise Ingram’s beaming face bobbed into view.
“So, what did you think of your first virtual reality experience?” Clarise asked.
A.J. sat up quickly. “Why aren’t you in jail?”
Clarise laughed. “In jail? Your brother warned me you’d be a tough critic, but I had no idea—”
“My brother? What have you done with—”
A.J. interrupted herself abruptly as memory suddenly flooded back to replay a telephone conversation from the night before.
“A.J., do me a favor and sit in on a virtual reality fantasy session tomorrow,” Adam had said.
“Virtual reality?”
“Dr. Clarise Ingram over at the University of Washington has been working with that computer whiz, Lex Linbow, to try to come up with a fantasy mystery administered through a computer.”
“I’m not a believer in fantasy, Adam.”
“Which is why I told Dr. Ingram I’d be sending the hardest critic I know to try out their prototype. Go on, A.J. It’ll give you something to do while your arm is on the mend. Dr. Ingram says the VR mystery is so good, you’ll swear it’s real.”
Swear it’s real. It wasn’t real? A.J. sat up and pushed back her shirtsleeve to look at her right arm. The wound was still very sore and raw-looking, no more than two weeks old.
“From the moment I walked into that courtroom, I’ve been living a VR fantasy!” she said in disbelief.
“A.J., are you all right?” Dr. Ingram asked.
“There was never a trial,” A.J. said, forcing herself to say the words to regain her mental equilibrium. “There’s no such place as Fabulous Fantasies. Adam never went to jail to avoid suborning his client’s perjured testimony. I never spent a fantasy weekend with…well, with anyone, as it turns out.”
Clarise frowned. “I’m getting anxious, A.J. Please tell me you’re all right.”
A.J. sighed as she looked at the plain white walls and then into Clarise’s concerned brown eyes. “I’m all right, Clarise, I just…how long was I in the VR fantasy?”
Clarise squinted at her watch. “About three hours.”
Three hours? That was all?
A.J. let out a heartfelt sigh as she swung her legs over the side of the fiber-optic bed and reached for her shoes.
Of course it had been a fantasy. Silly of her to have thought anything else. Her background checks on Zane proved he was far too professional to have taken a chance on using that Lamont Cranston alias. Her imagination had just “created” it all—including those conversations Clarise and Linbow had outside her hearing. And including her falling in love with Zane. Yes, the clues had been there. She should have known. All along. Some things were just too good to be true.
She pulled hard to tighten her shoelace and it broke in her hand. Yep. This was the real reality, all right.
“A.J., you seem so upset,” Clarise said. “What is it?”
“Let’s just say that your program was a little too real. For a moment there, I was confused about which reality was which.”
“Those are exactly the words our other volunteer used,” Linbow’s rusty-hinge voice said as he walked in from the adjoining room. A.J. started before remembering that, like Clarise, Linbow was a harmless scientist.
If any scientist who dealt with virtual reality could be considered harmless. She doubted she’d ever be completely convinced of that again.
Linbow shoved his thick glasses on his nose with his stubby fingers and angled his hairy Brillo-pad head in her direction. “We have a few questions. They won’t take long.”
“Okay,” A.J. forced herself to say.
Twenty minutes later, A.J. had left the door with the big VR nameplate behind her and waited in front of the elevators that would take her to the parking garage.
With each passing minute she felt more and more in touch with reality—and more and more filled with a longing to return to that fabulous fantasy.
She was glad Adam had never gone to jail, of course. And that four couples had not had their lives so cruelly disrupted. But the time she had spent with Zane and what they had shared…that was a fantasy worth living.
Even now, as she closed her eyes, she could almost see that wonderful scowl that furrowed Zane’s brow; she could almost feel the brush of his shoulder against hers; she could almost smell his distinctive sandalwood and sage scent; she could almost hear his deep voice say—
“What’s a nice private investigator like you doing in a place like this?”
A.J.’s eyes jolted open.
She swung toward that distinctive drumroll baritone.
<
br /> And there he was. Standing right next to her. In living color. Real. An unmistakable deep glow in his anthracite eyes.
“Zane! What are you doing here?” she asked, finding herself suddenly short of breath and tingling all over.
His lips drew into that combative smile she knew so well as he draped a warm steel arm across her shoulders.
“Learning that some fantasies are definitely better when shared. A.J., you and I have a lot to talk about.”
eISBN 978-14592-7574-4
LOVE VS. ILLUSION
Copyright © 1996 by Mary Johnson
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part In any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter Invented, Including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly Inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure Invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
Printed in U.S.A.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Table of Contents
Praise
Dear Reader
Dedication
Cast of Characters
About the Author
Books by MJ. Rodgers
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Epilogue
Copyright
