by Amelia Autin
He’d considered bringing her here on their first date two Saturdays ago, but had rejected that as a bad idea since her abduction had been too fresh in her mind at that point. So he’d taken her to another tourist destination instead, the Tian Tan Buddha on Lantau Island. He’d been so—he couldn’t think of a better word than enamored—of her after their first date that he’d invited her to spend the next day with him, as well...an invitation she’d promptly accepted.
She doesn’t play games, Jason had reminded himself then and several times since, loving Alana’s open delight in the sights she’d visited with him, as well as being in his company.
He’d monopolized her free time the past two weeks, but he hadn’t so much as kissed her for one critical reason—once he started, he didn’t trust himself to stop. And he’d promised her she’d be as safe with him as she wanted to be. She was a temptation he didn’t want to resist, but he’d given her his word...and he always kept his word. Until Alana gave him the green light, it was easier not to start than to stop partway.
But that meant he’d spent nearly every moment with her in a constant state of semiarousal. Painful, but it wouldn’t kill him. At least that was what he’d told himself...repeatedly. Problem was, the ache only grew stronger and more urgent the more time he spent in her company. Jason knew the day was not too far off when something would have to give.
* * *
They finally reached the end of the long street, and Alana said abruptly, “I’m hungry.”
Jason smiled. “Not surprising, given how little you ate at lunch.”
“Yes, well...” She didn’t want to revisit that discussion. “All this walking has given me an appetite.” She pointed to the McDonald’s across the street and halfway down the block. “I’d like one of those taro pies. Do you mind?”
Alana stepped back on the sidewalk to allow three young women chattering away in Cantonese to pass them, and Jason did the same. Then she continued, “I know fried anything isn’t all that healthy for you, but I don’t care. I love the little fried apple pies at McDonald’s in the US, but the taro ones here in Hong Kong are to die for.” She put her hand on her purse. “My treat, okay?”
He’d just opened his mouth—probably to argue with her—when it happened. A white van screeched to a halt in the middle of the cross street, and the side door slammed open. Alana watched in horror as two men wearing black masks jumped out and grabbed the smallest and prettiest of the three women who’d just passed them on the sidewalk. One of the men held a white cloth over the woman’s nose and mouth. She struggled for a moment, then sagged limply against her attacker. The other masked man pushed the woman’s two companions to the ground, then he joined the first, and together they began dragging the unconscious woman toward the white van double-parked in the road with its engine running.
For a split second déjà vu held Alana frozen, then she darted forward. “Stop!” She grabbed the arm of one man and kicked at the legs of the other. “Let her go!” she screamed. “Help!”
She saw the fist aimed at her head and flinched, but it never made contact. Jason was there parrying the attacker’s arm, then delivering a flurry of punishing blows to the man’s midsection. The second masked man dropped the woman he was holding and produced a switchblade knife. He lunged at Jason, who danced back, out of danger. Then the man grabbed his fellow attacker and bundled him into the van, which roared away even before the side door was closed.
“Oh, my God, Jason, are you okay?” Alana launched herself at him, running her hands over his body to make sure the knife hadn’t made contact. Reassured when she found no blood, she swung around to the unconscious woman lying in the middle of the street, whose two friends had already recovered enough to be huddling around her. One woman had her cell phone out, she saw with relief, probably calling for the police and an ambulance.
Suddenly Jason was there. “Let’s get her out of the street,” he said, and such was his air of authority that when he barked a command in Cantonese, two bystanders moved in to help.
Now Alana could hear police sirens in the distance, and the adrenaline that had allowed her to fight to prevent another kidnapping drained away, leaving her shaking and cold. The memory of her own abduction swamped her...especially those moments of near-despair on the cot in that horrible apartment, and she sank to her knees, hugging herself for warmth. “Oh, God,” she whispered to herself. “Oh, God.”
Jason had his back to her, but when she glanced up she could see he was talking into his cell phone. Then he turned around, saw her and disconnected almost immediately. He was at her side in an instant.
“Alana?” She knew he meant, “Are you hurt?” by the way his face contracted with concern, the way his hands touched her so gently yet with implacable purpose.
“I’m fine,” she managed, trying desperately to catch her breath.
He drew her to her feet and pressed her head against his chest, then his arms closed around her. “It’s okay,” he soothed as if he realized exactly what she needed to hear. “Just breathe. That’s right. Just breathe.”
His body heat transferred itself to her, dispelling the chill. But it was his embrace that truly gave her what she needed. Safe, her frantic mind reassured her, just as it had during her dramatic rescue three weeks earlier. Jason’s rescue. You’re safe.
* * *
Jason took charge at the police station, refusing to let Alana be questioned and insisting Detective Inspector Lam of the Organized Crime and Triad Bureau be called in. “Miss Richardson was abducted the same way three weeks ago,” he explained. “He’s already working the case.”
Alana allowed herself to be seated in the tiny interrogation room, moving on autopilot. A second of near-panic was dispelled when Jason dragged his chair over to sit next to her. His strong arm drew her to his side. “You’re okay,” he reassured her in the same calm voice he’d used in the aftermath of the attack.
She struggled against the fog that seemed to envelop her. “I know. It’s just...remembering...” When his arm tightened around her shoulders, she added disjointedly, “The scene today. That’s exactly... In broad daylight. In the middle of a crowd. I couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it was happening.” She buried her face against his shoulder. “I was terrified,” she confessed.
“But you fought them. Three weeks ago and today.” Admiration colored his words.
“But—”
He stopped her before she could continue. “No buts. You fought, Alana. That woman today is safe because of your quick thinking.”
She shook her head slightly, unwilling to leave the comforting shelter of Jason’s embrace. “No. She’s safe because of you. I couldn’t stop them. I just—”
“Delayed them long enough for me to intervene.” Something brushed against her forehead, and Alana realized it was Jason’s lips. His first kiss, her brain recognized, and she hugged that knowledge to herself like the precious memory it would always be.
“She’s going to be okay, isn’t she?” she asked.
“I don’t see why not. Chloroform doesn’t leave any lasting effects—you know that. She was taken to hospital, but I doubt they’ll keep her once she regains consciousness.” His voice roughened. “I’m sorry.”
She raised her head to look at him. “For what?”
“For putting you through that experience again.” The corner of his mouth twitched against strong emotions held firmly in check. “I brought you there on purpose today, but I would never have done that if I had any idea...” When she just stared at him in incomprehension, he explained, “I didn’t want one bad experience to color your perspective of Hong Kong.”
She blinked. “Why?”
He didn’t respond at first. Then, his dark eyes full of meaning, said, “Because this city is my home.”
He didn’t say anything more. It took her a minute, but ev
entually her eyes widened in dawning comprehension.
She almost blurted it out, but stopped herself in time, instead saying, “I’m glad you brought me there...whatever the reason. Yes, it triggered all those bad memories, but I’m so glad we were able to save another woman from being abducted. Remembering my own similar experience is a small price to pay.”
Their gazes locked and held, and another nonverbal message was exchanged...this one momentous. Then a brisk knock sounded on the interrogation room door, breaking the spell, and the door opened to reveal Detective Inspector Lam.
Alana straightened and made as if to pull away from Jason, but he refused to let her go. She knew from the deliberately impassive expression on Detective Inspector Lam’s face that he’d put two and two together, but had no intention of raising the issue since it wasn’t germane to the situation.
“Miss Richardson, Mr. Moore,” he acknowledged smoothly. “Sorry to meet you again under these difficult circumstances.”
* * *
Two hours later Alana and Jason were free to go. Detective Inspector Lam ordered a squad car to take them back to where Jason’s rented car was parked. “Home?” he asked her when they were standing on the sidewalk.
She shook her head emphatically. “Not unless you want to. I’m not ready for this day with you to end.”
Pride in her surged through him. The same pride he’d felt during the attack today. The same pride he’d experienced listening to her steady answers to Detective Inspector Lam’s questions, despite the latent fear he’d known still held her in its sway.
Pride? he asked himself suddenly. Why pride?
The answer, when it came, jolted through him like an electric shock. Alana wasn’t his, but he wanted her to be. And that blew him away. You’ve only known her three weeks, the rational side of his brain protested. You haven’t even slept with her, for God’s sake!
But none of that seemed to matter. It was as if he recognized in her the mate he’d been searching for these past ten years. A woman who cared as passionately as he did about right and wrong, about protecting the innocent, no matter the cost. A woman who would sacrifice everything, even her own life. Not just for someone she loved, but for a stranger.
Just as he would.
* * *
Jason’s smartphone sounded as he and Alana were sitting down in McDonald’s with their somewhat-delayed taro pies, and he answered it with, “Wei?” He listened for a moment, then replied in staccato Cantonese too quick for Alana to decipher. She’d been taking lessons since she’d first arrived less than two months ago, but so far she’d only really mastered the basics that any tourist needed to know, like “bathroom,” “train station,” and “Star Ferry”—the most common way to cross from Hong Kong Island to the mainland if you were on foot. When Jason disconnected she raised her eyebrows in a question.
“The license plate on the van was stolen,” he admitted.
“Detective Inspector Lam told you?”
“No.”
Just the one word, but Alana wasn’t stupid. “RMM.” She nodded to herself. “That’s who you were talking to on your cell phone earlier today, right after it happened. I should have realized, but I...I wasn’t quite myself at that moment.”
Jason didn’t confirm or deny, but there was something in his eyes that made her feel she’d earned his approval again.
She opened the end of the cardboard container holding her taro pie and stared at it for a moment. Then she raised her gaze to Jason’s. “Would you tell me something?”
He hesitated. “If I can.”
“How did you become involved with RMM?”
Chapter 6
Jason froze. He’d known if he spent time with Alana, that question, or one like it, was bound to come up eventually. But just because he’d fallen hard for her didn’t mean he was ready to reveal all his secrets. He wasn’t about to tell Alana that RMM was his creation. That the money bankrolling the organization came from him. “Why do you ask?”
She considered him for a moment. “Because it’s important to you,” she said quietly.
“What did Dirk and Mei-li tell you?”
“Not much. Just what the initials stand for, and that the phrase comes from a quotation. That RMM does whatever it has to do to rescue the innocent.” She paused for a second. “Oh, yes, and that RMM played a key role in rescuing Dirk’s twin daughters when they were kidnapped last year. Were you involved in that?”
Jason nodded. “Mei-li asked for my help and I gave it.”
“Just like when you rescued me three weeks ago. Mei-li asked and you said yes.”
He nodded again.
“Does RMM ever say no?”
Jason allowed himself a small smile. “The organization doesn’t get involved in solving every crime, if that’s what you’re asking.”
She shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. I know RMM isn’t the police.” An expression of—could it be frustration?—crossed her face. “I’m just trying to understand you,” she said in a low voice.
He thought about what he could tell her. “You see...or maybe you don’t...but my family didn’t live in Hong Kong year-round. My father—perhaps you’ve heard of him? Sir Joshua Moore? He’s a producer and director, pretty highly regarded in the movie industry.”
“I’ve heard the name. Didn’t Dirk do a movie with him? Isn’t that why he came to Hong Kong in the first place?”
Jason smiled. “Yes. Well, as I started to say, we didn’t live in Hong Kong year-round. My father traveled to the locations of his movies for three or four months at a time, and my mother and Mei-li accompanied him.”
“Not you?”
“Only until I turned thirteen. That’s when my father sent me to school in England.” He named a world-famous prep school.
“That’s a prestigious boarding school, right?”
He nodded. “My father went there. He wanted that for me, too.” Just as Jason had never said anything to his parents about his experience there, he wasn’t about to tell Alana, either. “But I spent most summer and Christmas breaks here in Hong Kong, with my mother’s family. And mine, too, whenever my father wasn’t on location.”
Alana’s eyes softened with compassion. “That had to be a lonely life for a teenage boy, growing up away from your parents. Your sister.”
It had been a lonely life in many ways, although not all that unusual in the upper echelons of British society. His paternal grandfather’s world. The world his father had tried not to impose upon his only son, except in this one way. “It wasn’t too bad. I had two close friends growing up, Sean and David.” Both Sean and David had been fifth-generation Hong Kong natives. But whereas David was Chinese, Sean had still been considered a foreigner by most of Hong Kong’s residents. Their roles had been reversed in England, where David had been the foreigner; most of the students at the school had never let him forget it, and not just in subtle ways.
And then there was Jason. Never quite fitting in anywhere, despite his parents’ best efforts. The target of jealous and malicious cousins who’d also attended the same prep school. But he wasn’t going to share that with Alana.
“Both of my friends were born here in Hong Kong. And like me, they were both sent to the same boarding school in England when they were old enough.” His school years would have been appallingly desolate if he hadn’t had his two best friends with him. “We were the Three Musketeers. At least, that’s how we thought of ourselves.”
“Ahhh, I see.” Alana smiled. “Where are Sean and David now? Are you still close to them?”
He’d let himself forget for a moment as he lived in the past, but the present came crashing down on him. “David, yes. He works here in Hong Kong, as I do, and I see him fairly often. But Sean...”
When he didn’t continue, she prompted, “Sean?
”
“Sean...died. He’s the reason I...became involved with RMM.”
* * *
Alana reached across the table and gently touched Jason’s hand. “What happened?”
He didn’t reply at first, as if it was difficult for him to talk about. Finally he said, “Sean was a great guy. I’m not just saying that because he was my best friend. He was also going to be my brother-in-law. He and Mei-li...” He cleared his throat. “Sean had fallen in love with my sister when she was sixteen and he was barely twenty, but he was a true gentleman. He never said anything. Never tried to put the moves on her or anything like that. He waited until Mei-li was eighteen before he asked her out. They became engaged a year later.”
A long silence followed. “And?”
“Three days before the wedding, Sean was kidnapped. I don’t know how much you know about kidnapping here in Hong Kong, but in many ways it’s almost like a business. First rule of thumb is, if the ransom is paid, the victim is released unharmed. Which is why most people don’t report kidnappings to the police until after the fact. Until after the victim is returned safe and sound.”
“Isn’t that what Mei-li does for a living? Private investigator and ransom negotiator?” Then it clicked for her. “That’s why,” she said softly. “That’s why she went into that line of work. Because of her fiancé.”
“Yes.” Jason’s voice roughened. “Sean’s parents made the payoff, but there was a horrible screwup, and Sean was killed.”
Alana’s hand tightened on his, and tears filled her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, blinking hard, her throat aching for his obvious pain. “That’s why you joined RMM.”
“It was more than twelve years ago,” he said, his voice harsh. “But I’ve never forgotten.”
“I understand.” And she truly did understand. Tragedy had never touched her life, but she could see that for a man like Jason, there was only one response to something so life-altering. “So...you and RMM...you do whatever you can to prevent this from ever happening again.”
