Undercover Mistress

by Kathleen Creighton

  “Yeah, well, you can’t guarantee that. I’m not having any part of it.”

  “It’s completely understandable you wouldn’t want to go back there again,” Celia said sweetly. “I’m sure Max can find someone else to go with me.” Her gaze followed Roy as he pushed himself awkwardly to his feet-she just couldn’t help it.

  He stood glowering down at her, jaws black with beard, eyes black with fury, radiating heat and energy and danger…although…he did look a little silly, she thought fondly, with his hair all shower-rumpled, wearing baby blue sweats that were miles too short. But…with a shave and a good haircut, dressed in something…really classy…something elegant…say…Armani?

  Oh, my. A wave of heat nearly knocked her over. She caught her breath audibly, and Roy instantly rounded on her with a suspicious, “What?”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it again. “Nothing,” she lied. She couldn’t very well tell him she’d just gotten incredibly turned on from imagining him in clothes, could she?

  Well, it’s because I’ve already seen him naked, she told herself. No imagination needed there at all.

  With a supreme effort of will, she tore her gaze away from images of Roy-both real and fantasy-and turned back to Max, who was also getting to his feet, though with considerably less devastating effect on her senses.

  “Fact of the matter is, if she’s right-” he nodded at Celia as he pulled his sunglasses out of the pocket of his Hawaiian shirt “-she can save us a whole lot of the one thing we don’t have enough of, and that’s time. We might not have a choice.”

  He jabbed a finger at the yellow UCLA scrawled across Roy’s chest. “You-sit tight for the moment. Nobody knows you’re here-it’s a good safe house for you, until we know how badly your cover’s blown. I’m gonna send a company doctor to look you over, make sure you’re okay…get you some antibiotics. Meanwhile, I’ll run this idea of hers-” he nodded at Celia “-by the director, see what he says. And, I’m gonna need to talk to this Doc character, too. Where’d you say-”

  “Next door,” said Celia, trying not to sound too eager. “Doc’s okay-really. His name is Peter Cavendish. He’s a real doctor, just…well-” she bit down on her lower lip and gave him a winsome smile “-not currently licensed to practice. But that’s good,” she added quickly when she saw Max and Roy exchange glances, “because it means the last thing he’s going to do is tell anyone about this. Right?” She beamed at Max as she took his arm.

  Roy thought he could actually hear his teeth grinding together. His knew his stomach was in knots, and the phrase over my dead body kept running through his brain. He really wanted to kick someone’s butt-Max’s, for instance-but was pretty sure if he tried it, he’d only fall flat on his own.

  “I don’t suppose you remembered to bring me some clothes,” he called plaintively.

  In the doorway, Max snapped his fingers and half turned to give him a shrug of apology. “You know…I didn’t. Sorry-I was kind of in a hurry to get here.” His grin went crooked and all the humor went out of it. “Hey, I thought for sure you were dead. When I didn’t hear…” He cleared his throat, then tilted his head toward Celia. “She’s right, you know.” He smiled at her along his shoulder. “You do owe her. Big-time.”

  The two of them walked out of the room together, arm in arm, cozy as two kids heading off to the prom. Just as they disappeared from view, Roy heard Max say, “Could I get your autograph? It’s for my wife-she’s a big, huge soap opera fan…”

  Chapter 8

  Roy stood where he was and swore until he ran out of words. Then he figured the problem was he needed some air. He’d been laid up in bed, cooped up in a strange house with strange people, way too long.

  How else could he explain the antsy way he felt, watching a woman he barely knew smile at his friend and handler that way. She was a star, for God’s sake! Must have smiled like that at thousands of men. Probably didn’t think twice about it.

  He made it down the hallway and into the living room before he started to feel light-headed and woozy and had to stop and hang on to the back of a cream suede sofa until his ears stopped ringing. Amazing, he thought, what being a few pints low on vital body fluids could do to a man.

  Damn, but he hated the weakness. And he was going to have to get over it. Fast. Because Max was right about one thing-they were running out of time.

  Just thinking about that gave Roy a queasy feeling in his stomach, as if he were in some kind of vehicle moving way too fast and beyond his control. And Max. What the hell was he thinking? He had to be really feeling the pressure, too, if he was giving serious thought to Celia’s hare-brained idea.

  When Roy thought about that-when he thought about the man he’d come face-to-face with on the Bibi Lilith, the man who’d interrogated him, the man who’d shot him…touching Celia…smiling at her in that cruel way, looking at her with those dead eyes…

  No. No way. He straightened himself up, gritted his teeth and fought off the dizziness with sheer willpower. He had to get his strength back. Had to get back in the game before that crazy woman convinced his boss to do something incredibly stupid.

  Weaving like a 2 a.m. drunk, he made his way through the living room and out onto the deck, which was where Celia found him a few minutes later.

  When he heard the sliding glass door open, he turned away from the view of sky and sea that was so different from the one he knew. Turned away, too, from the homesickness that had come upon him unexpectedly, along with thoughts of the beach house he’d left behind…gray-shingled siding with white porches, sitting tall on its stilts among gentle dunes tufted with sea grass…looking out upon endless sugar-sand beaches and sunny blue waters. Here, the beach houses of the rich and famous crowded close to the sand, yuppies jogged along the water’s edge and teenagers threw Frisbees to one another, while surfers sat patiently on their boards beyond the breakers. But he knew those undulating, coppery swells hid dangerous rip tides, forests of kelp and jagged volcanic rocks, and the ever-hovering fog shrouded the horizon in a sinister curtain. The Pacific, he had reason to know, was anything but peaceful. It was cold, and vast, and lethal…

  Suppressing a shiver, he braced his backside and his hands on the deck railing to steady himself and watched Celia come toward him, smiling, positively glowing with satisfaction, like a cat fresh from dining on a canary.

  “You might as well wipe that smirk off your face,” he said in a gravelly voice, “because you are not doing this. It’s just a plumb crazy idea.”

  “Well, now,” she said sweetly as she joined him, leaning her hands on the railing and lifting her face to the reddening sun and the chilling breeze, “it’s really not up to you, is it? It’s up to Max-and the director, whoever he is. And Max seems to think it’s a good idea. Seems to think the director will, too.”

  “Seems to me,” Roy said, scowling, “Max is way more susceptible to the influence and charm of a beautiful woman than a married man ought to be.”

  Her laughter seemed to sparkle like the sun out there on the water. She looked at him along her shoulder. “Seems to me,” she countered in a husky voice, “you were pretty susceptible yourself not so long ago.”

  “That was before I knew what a devious woman you are,” he muttered. “Before I knew you had an ulterior motive for kissing me.”

  She jerked as if he’d startled her, and an emotion he couldn’t identify flashed like a seagull’s shadow across her face. “I don’t have any…ulterior motives, as you put it. It’s like I told you-I just want to help. I want-” her breath caught and she turned back to the water, her blue eyes for a moment eerily reflecting its coppery glow “-I want to do something I can take credit for. Something…important. Something-okay, this is going to sound corny-something meaningful.”

  “Fine,” Roy said savagely. “Why don’t you go volunteer at an old folks’ home? Adopt an orphan from Bolivia? Why do you have to do something that could get you killed?”

  The breeze blew her hair across her
face when she turned it toward him. She lifted her chin as she fingered her hair back, revealing a sardonic smile. “You’re being a bit melodramatic, don’t you think?”

  “Melodramatic?” His voice cracked on the word. “Lady, you tell me you listened to my nightmare ravings, heard every word. You’ve seen me-living, breathing proof of how rough these people play. And you think I’m being melodramatic?”

  “You were caught trespassing,” Celia pointed out with airy confidence. “Obviously up to no good. I, on the other hand, will be Abby’s invited guest. What danger can there be in that?”

  Roy couldn’t argue with her logic, and he couldn’t find a way to explain his to her, either. Maybe he didn’t have any. He just knew he didn’t want Celia Cross-or any woman, he told himself-getting anywhere near the Bibi Lilith, Prince Abdul al-Fayad, or the thugs who’d tried their level best to put an end to Betty Starr’s little boy Roy.

  Finally, after working his jaw on it for a couple of minutes, he stuck his chin out in her direction and said, “Fine. Get me an invitation. That’s if the director gives the okay. I’ll take it from there.”

  Celia shook her head. “Oh, no. Not without me, you won’t. I’m in on it, or no deal.”

  Roy felt his body go tense and still. He drew himself in around a humming core of anger and, with ominous calm, said, “What do you mean, ‘No deal’?”

  “I mean,” she said, not the least bit impressed or intimidated, locking eyes with him, “you’ll have to find another way to get on board Abby’s yacht. You should also think about the fact,” she added, leaning closer to him and dropping her voice to a seductive whisper, “that I know things you wish I didn’t know. And I have mainline access to the media.”

  Roy’s breath hissed between his teeth. “You wouldn’t.”

  Again her smoky blue gaze didn’t waver. “Don’t bet on it.”

  He didn’t know how long he stood there, staring down into those eyes, with his heart banging against the walls of his chest and his belly quivering with a hellish combination of physical weakness and cold fury. Dammit, she was so close…too close…and vibrant and sweet-smelling and beautiful and warm. Kissin’-close, if he’d been of such a mind.

  Which he sure as hell wasn’t. Right then, he’d have been more likely to strangle her.

  Then, as abruptly as if someone had flipped a light switch, a smile burst over her face, dispelling the tension the way light eliminates darkness and causing a queer little kick in Roy’s chest. “But why are we even talking about such things? It’s not ever going to come to that. You’ll see. Max is a smart man-he knows a good thing when he sees it.”

  She clapped her hands together, reminding him of nothing so much as somebody trying to distract a difficult child. “So-what would you like for dinner? That was it for the pot roast, but I’ve got…let’s see…meat loaf, lasagna, and…oh yeah, chicken cordon bleu.”

  “I just ate,” Roy reminded her, scowling. He was still smarting and the last thing he wanted to do was play her game, but, damnation, it was hard to resist that smile.

  “Oh, I know,” she said gaily, “but I’m planning ahead. It’s all frozen, you see. I have to get something out to thaw.” She paused for a moment to cock her head as if replaying that inside her head, then gave him an impish version of the smile. “I can’t believe I thought of it, actually. Wow-I’m better at this domestic stuff than I thought.”

  He snorted-he’d be damned if he was going to let her make him laugh. If she wanted to declare a truce for the time being, fine, that was all right with him. But this war wasn’t over. Not by a long shot. There was just no way he was going on an undercover mission with thousands-maybe millions-of lives at stake, with a soap opera star as his partner. No way.

  “Yeah,” he muttered, “you’re a regular Julia Child.” He didn’t tell her he was surprised a TV actress would even eat, much less cook.

  If possible, her smile grew even more dazzling. “Thank you.” Then she added, in a chummy, conversational way, “I actually knew her, you know. She and my parents were good friends.” She stuck out her lower lip in a regretful pout. “It’s a pity, I suppose, they never asked Julia to teach me to cook. The truth is-” now the lower lip was captured by perfectly even white teeth “-I can’t boil water. But-” and like the sun playing peekaboo with clouds, the smile reappeared “-I nuke fairly well.”

  Roy stared at her through the whole amazing display, and when she turned with a flirty little flounce to go back into the house, it was a beat or two before he could find his voice, to ask her the question that had come to him, whether he wanted it to or not.

  “What was it like?” He knew his voice sounded harsh but didn’t do anything to fix it. He waited while she paused to look back at him, then continued on the same gravelly way. “Growing up like that, I mean-in a Bel Air mansion, with famous movie stars for parents?”

  She came back to him slowly, like a prowling cat, measuring him with her eyes. He watched her with a sardonic smile on his lips, fortified against her, now, expecting another performance. “Poor Little Rich Girl,” maybe? But as she came closer, her smile seemed to grow wistful…then sad. And there was something in her eyes that made him think this time it-the smile and the sadness-might be real.

  “It was…wonderful,” she said softly. “More wonderful than you can possibly imagine. It was like…not even a fairy tale, because there was nothing evil or scary or bad. Ever. My life was always filled with laughter and love and music and…and the most amazing people. Everyone I knew was either beautiful or brilliantly talented or funny-sometimes all three-and it seemed as though everyone adored me. Everyone was always kind…”

  She was beside him again, hands resting on the deck railing, gazing out at the water, but closer than before. He jerked as her shoulder brushed against his arm; though it seemed accidental, it sent a shock wave through him and set off a thrumming beat low-down in his belly.

  He looked over at her. The setting sun lent her skin and hair a summery warmth that contradicted a damp and chilly wind that was sharp enough now to redden her nose and spark tears in her eyes. At least, that was what he told himself was responsible for that display of apparent vulnerability. He didn’t want to believe it was real. Didn’t want to feel sympathy for the likes of Celia Cross. He didn’t want to feel anything for her-to be truthful, not for any woman, right at the moment, but especially not a woman like this one. A woman as devious, as manipulative, as skilled an actress as this one.

  “What about your parents?” he asked gruffly. “I’d think they’d have had to be gone quite a bit.”

  “They were.” Since he wasn’t looking at her, he felt rather than saw her nod. Heard the little catch of her breath. “When they could, they took me along. I loved that-I got to have a tutor, and when my parents weren’t busy on the set, we had the most marvelous adventures.” She flashed him a wind-whipped smile. “I’ve ridden on elephants and camels. And once, even in a rickshaw.” She looked away again, across the water. “When they couldn’t take me, they’d bring me back things…marvelous things from faraway places. You saw some of them-in the bookcase in my…in your room.”

  “It must have been hard,” he prompted when she didn’t go on. He didn’t know why. Maybe he was thinking about his own daddy again. “To have all that end.”

  She flashed him a look. “Oh, it didn’t end. I mean-there was a lot in my life that didn’t change at all when my parents died. I’d always had an army of people looking after me-nannies, housekeepers, maids, cooks, gardeners, lawyers, business managers, music teachers, dance teachers…you name it. That went on the same as before, paid for by the trust my parents had set up for me. I went to the same school-private, but not boarding.” Her smile was wry now. “I was driven to school every day in a limo and picked up afterward the same way. Which wasn’t unusual for the school I went to, actually.”

  “So, you mean to tell me everything went on just the same? You didn’t miss your parents at all?”

&nb
sp; She flashed him another look, one that stung like a slap. “Of course I miss them. They were the only people in this world who loved me unconditionally. I miss them every day of my life.”

  Something tightened inside his chest, and he turned restlessly to face the water. “You don’t have any other family?”

  “Nobody.” She shook her head, at the same time lifting her face to the wind and the dying light, as if, he thought, she were shaking off a cloak or a veil. Then she turned toward him and propped one elbow on the railing. “What about you? Are your parents alive?”

  Distracted, he shook his head, then amended it with a shrug. “Well-my daddy died when I was just a kid. Momma’s still goin’ strong, though.” He purposely said it in the accents of Oglethorp County, Georgia, where he’d been born and raised, and she smiled in appreciation.

  “Any brothers and sisters?”

  Grinning, he drawled, “A whole bunch. Three of each.”

  She seemed to absorb that for a moment, head canted as if she were listening to voices from far away. She straightened up and pushed away from the railing. “I hope you know how lucky you are,” she said softly.

  She left him standing there, alone, listening to the whisper and sigh of surf in the dusk. Muttering swearwords under his breath and wondering why it was he always seemed to feel off balance and uncertain about things after conversations with this woman. Particularly since the words off balance and uncertain weren’t ones he’d ever felt obliged to apply to himself before now.

  He didn’t know how he felt about her, for one thing. Though he knew for sure how he didn’t want to feel. Grateful to her, for one thing-although he was; he valued his life a great deal, and was more than glad she’d saved it for him. What he didn’t like was being beholden-feeling as if he owed her something, and her being manipulative enough to hold that over him to get her way. Even if, in a way, he could understand why she wanted it…

  Well, he for damned sure didn’t want to feel sympathy for her. He didn’t want to like her, either, not even a little bit, and he didn’t want to fall for the charm and sex appeal she undoubtedly had-in spades. Especially the sex appeal. It was so damned blatant-and still he couldn’t seem to help but respond to it. How stupid was that? Like seeing the damn pit trap right there in front of him and tumbling into it anyway.