by Cindy Dees
She didn’t actually believe it. But she was willing to at least talk to the stranger. Listen to what he had to say. If Julia truly had sent him, at least he could tell her how her sister was doing. If Julia was happy, then she could die in peace.
For once, she was truly grateful for her high-profile party-girl image. Now she could only pray that Joe had kept his word and was still waiting for her to show up at the tango club.
She still had no idea who this Joe guy was. She’d asked a few of the maids if they’d ever heard Julia mention a friend named Joe, but none of them recognized the name.
Whether or not she could believe his story and trust him was another unknown. But it wasn’t like she had any choice. Eduardo had murdered her only trustworthy friend in Gavarone.
She prayed a dozen times on the ride to town that Joe had waited for her. She didn’t know if she could take another big disappointment right now.
He had to be here. He had to.
Curbing her impatience as the limousine and an SUV full of her father’s goons pulled to a stop in front of the upscale nightclub, she waited while Freddie and Neddie went inside to scope out the place. She knew the routine. They would check for exits and put a man on each one so she couldn’t make an escape, and they would make sure the customers didn’t include any known enemies of her father’s.
By the time they finally came back to let her out of the car, she was a jangling bundle of nerves. “Gentlemen,” she asked the pair as politely as she could muster around the tightness in her throat, “may I please have a little privacy tonight to enjoy myself in peace?”
The two men exchanged a glance. Freddie growled grudgingly, “You can go upstairs. There’s a bar and a small dance floor up there and only the one staircase for access. We’ll stay downstairs.”
“Thank you, Alfredo,” she murmured gratefully. Please be here, please be here, please be here…
A gaping Neddie lurched into motion as she moved past him, falling in behind her.
She stopped just inside the door. The place gave the impression of an old-fashioned ballroom, with abundant gilding, mirrors and crystal chandeliers. High-tech lighting, a modern bar and a stage for a band kept it from being an old-fogey joint. She looked around carefully and didn’t see anyone remotely resembling that shadowed face from the ocean. Her heart leaped into her throat. He had to be here!
She’d been to this club a few times, but she certainly wouldn’t call it one of her regular haunts. It was more mature—classier—than the places she usually chose. She usually gravitated toward clubs that were wilder. Raunchy. Although, truth be told, she preferred places like this. But the other kind of club aggravated the living shit out of her father.
Freddie nodded toward the stairs and she flew up them like there were rockets on her feet. The bar was located at the far end of a wide mezzanine, flanking a long, narrow dance floor that ran the length of the balcony. True to the club’s name, about once an hour a set of tangos played, and one was in progress now. She dodged promenading couples and made her way over to the gleaming mahogany bar. She bellied up to it and leaned forward to talk to the bartender under cover of the tango playing behind her.
“I’m here to meet a guy named Joe. Have you seen him, by any chance?” She prayed the bartender wouldn’t ask her for more details because she hadn’t actually registered much about Joe that crazy night.
She needn’t have worried. The second she uttered his name, the bartender’s eyebrows shot up to somewhere in the vicinity of his hairline. He stared at her with open curiosity. “Over there.” He lifted his chin in the direction of a booth and added, “I thought for sure you stood him up after all this time, but he kept saying you’d show.”
Joe was here. He’d waited for her.
Abject gratitude at this stranger’s perseverance flooded her, and she blinked away tears of relief.
A new set of jitters attacked her as she turned in the direction the bartender had indicated.
Over there. In a booth tucked into the darkest corner of the room.
What would he look like, her mysterious savior? She’d been pretty freaked out that night, but she did recall that he was incredibly strong, and his eyes had looked black in the moonlight. His voice had been gravelly, but that might’ve been from the cold water and the dry oxygen in his scuba tank.
Julia had sent him, he’d said. Please be real. Please be real…
How had he known she would come racing out into the ocean like she had? Was he some sort of mind reader?
She approached Joe from an oblique angle, taking a moment to study him before he spotted her. The first thing she noticed was his thick, dark hair. Its silky, sable waves begged a girl to run her fingers through them. And his face—a plastic surgeon would kill to create a nose that straight or a jaw that firm. His age was hard to peg. Maybe thirty. Except his eyes looked older than that. But his tanned skin was so smooth and taut that she could easily be wrong by five years in either direction.
He glanced over toward her just then, his eyes not showing the faintest recognition. Startled, she watched as his gaze slid past her cautiously, and only when he saw she was alone did his gaze return to her.
He smiled.
Oh, Lord, he was so gorgeous it almost hurt to look at him.
He slipped smoothly out of the booth and stood up, waiting for her. Tall. Six foot two, maybe. Lean. But muscular. Physically fit. As in really fit. Wow. Just wow. She was a sucker for a good set of biceps, and his were perfect. Bulging with power but not too over-the-top obnoxious.
She walked toward him, hyper-aware of her body; of how she tingled everywhere his gaze touched her. For the first time since the murder, she actually felt alive.
Joe’s smoky gaze slid downward slowly and thoroughly, approval registering as he lifted his gaze once more. She was completely mesmerized by the way his dark eyes looked straight into her soul. He all but consumed her with that intense look.
Get a grip, girlfriend. He’s only a guy.
A little voice in the back of her head whispered, Yeah, but what a guy.
He wore competence like a cloak enfolding him, but it did nothing to hide the sex appeal rolling off of him.
She could seriously see herself devouring him whole, which was completely unlike her. Although she was a flirt and physically uninhibited when she was out in public, she also cultivated a more accurate image of herself as being untouchable. The unattainable prize. As such, she never threw herself at any man, or let any man actually get too close to her.
But this guy. Without putting to fine a point on it, he was to die for.
The thought jolted her. She wasn’t about to die for him, and she bloody well had no intention of letting him die for her. One soul was already more than her conscience could bear. She didn’t need any more blood on her hands.
He grasped her elbow politely and guided her to a seat in the booth. He slid in across from her and smiled again. Handsome didn’t even come close to describing him. Hypnotic was more like it.
“Miss Ferrare, my name’s Joe Smith.” His voice was like melted chocolate, rich and dark and warm.
Somehow, she managed to refrain from fanning herself with the nearest thing at hand. “Uh, nice to meet you officially. I’m Carina Ferrare. But you already know that, don’t you? My friends call me Cari, but I’ll bet you know that, too…”
She realized she was babbling and cut off speaking, abruptly. Good grief, she sounded like some teenaged airhead.
“Like I said before,” he continued easily, “your sister sent me to rescue you from your father.”
Alarm shot through her. The very fact that he’d just uttered those words made him a target of her father’s wrath. She couldn’t help but glance nervously over her shoulder at the stairs. No sign of Freddie and Neddie. Whew.
“How do you know my sister?” she asked cautiously.
“She’s engaged to a friend of mine. And she’s very worried about your safety.”
“Julia’
s engaged? To whom? When did that happen? Why didn’t she tell me?”
It was so implausible to imagine her sister meeting some guy and falling for him in a few weeks’ time that she almost laughed. If this guy was lying, he would have to come up with something a whole lot more believable than that.
The man called Joe smiled again. “Julia’s going to marry a guy named Jim. He’s a friend of mine. A good man. As for when, I don’t think they’ve set a date, yet. Things happened pretty fast between them.”
“How did she do it?”
Joe frowned. “How did she fall in love? Who knows? These things just happen.”
Carina laughed. “No. How did Julia get away?”
Chagrin flashed across Joe’s features, lowering his guard for a moment and drawing her to him even more potently than his physical beauty.
“Ah. As I understand it, she contacted some people in the U.S. government who helped her escape from your father.”
She narrowly eyed the man across from her. He was built like a soldier, as disciplined in his reactions as a soldier, and he’d been floating around in the ocean, wearing the high-tech diving gear a soldier would have. She took a chance. “Don’t you mean she contacted the Blackjacks? You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
Joe leaned back, staring at her evenly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said flatly.
Yeah, right. The denial clinched it. This guy was definitely a soldier from the Special Forces team that was her father’s nemesis. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d listened to Eduardo rant about the Blackjacks and what a pain in the ass they were.
Hope flared in her chest. If Joe was part of the Blackjacks, she might just stand a chance of getting away, after all.
He interrupted her thoughts. “The important thing is that your sister’s safe and happy. She’s worried about you, though. She thinks it’s imperative that you get away from your father sooner rather than later.”
Relief and joy reverberated in Carina’s chest, along with a hint of envy. Julia had done it. She’d slipped out from under their father’s oppressive control. No more acting as his bookkeeper, no more house arrest, no more gorillas following her everywhere she went.
More to the point: no worries about friends turning up dead in her bed.
Cari replied wryly, “I think it’s imperative that I get away from my father, too.”
“What’s the rush?” Joe asked lightly.
A shudder of lingering horror whisked down Cari’s spine. She still couldn’t sleep with the lights turned off. For the first week after Tony’s death, she couldn’t even walk into her room for more than a minute or two at a time.
She still had to have a light on to even step inside what had become a ghost chamber to her. Her father refused to let her move out of the room and had called her a coward for being frightened of her own bedroom, so she’d been sleeping awkwardly on the loveseat in the corner.
A pair of warm hands gripped her icy fingers. “Hey. Are you okay? You look a little rattled.”
She took a tremulous breath. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be rude.”
A melting smile. “I’m just glad you’re here. I was beginning to worry you wouldn’t come.”
She sighed. “It took me this long to get out of the house. As it is, a whole carload of my dad’s thugs are with me. Freddie and Neddie, my usual bodyguards, are downstairs, and there are guys stationed at every exit.”
Joe frowned slightly. “Then I guess we won’t be making our escape from here, tonight.”
Cari blinked. “You’re serious? You were really expecting to whisk me away just like that?”
He shrugged. “It would’ve been nice if it were that easy. A guy can always hope, can’t he?”
She was silent while a waitress approached and set a glass of mineral water in front of her. She fiddled with the wedge of lemon perched on the lip of the glass, bemused by Joe’s choice of drinks for her. Most men plied her with booze to help along the cause of getting into the sack with a famous party girl.
The waitress retreated and Cari said, “My father’s a really powerful man. Dangerous.” She added for emphasis, “Deadly dangerous.”
“I know.”
Joe’s quietly uttered words made her look up at him sharply. His gaze was sympathetic, but it was something else, too. Intelligent. Razor-sharp. This guy knew exactly who and what her father was.
“I have to warn you, Joe. Anyone who crosses my father ends up dead. As in six feet under.”
Another calm nod.
“And you still want to try to rescue me?” she asked incredulously. This guy was definitely in the Blackjacks. Either that or he was nuts.
“Yup. Except I’m not just going to try. I’m going to succeed.”
“How?” she asked in escalating disbelief. Even if he was in the Blackjacks, her father’s security measures were legendary. She was guarded around the clock, and if Joe tangled with her father’s men, he and possibly a whole lot of innocent bystanders would end up dead.
“I have a plan,” he said mildly. “Would you like something stronger to drink?” He looked across the room, trying to get the attention of a waitress.
Nobody plotted against her father this casually. “Which is it?”
He looked back at her in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”
“Which is it? Are you insane or brain dead to cross my father on his home turf?”
Joe draped an arm across the back of the booth. The tanned limb was wreathed in muscles that made her gulp. He asked lightly, “Have you considered the possibility that I’m actually capable of taking on a man like your father and winning?”
She snorted. “Nobody’s that good.” Not even if he was in the Blackjacks.
“I am.”
Again, he spoke with a quiet certainty that stopped her cold. Was he that good? Could it be? Had her despairing pleas to a heretofore deaf God finally been answered? In a daze, she ordered an American-style iced tea while he asked for another glass of water.
After the waitress left, she asked him bluntly, “Who are you?”
He completely ignored the question, saying instead, “So, Cari. Tell me about a typical day for you at your father’s house.”
Over the next half hour, she answered his every question, and there were dozens of them. Even though they were pleasantly delivered, they amounted to nothing less than an all-out interrogation.
Finally, Joe pushed back his empty glass and stared at the bad Van Gogh reproduction on the wall above their booth. He sat that way for a long time, and she didn’t break his intense concentration. What would it be like to have all that attention focused on her? A tingling started low in her belly that made her squirm against the vinyl seat.
His gaze shifted to her, pinning her in place. “Well, Cari, I don’t see any feasible way for you to get out of your father’s house and leave with me without tipping off Eduardo’s goons…and hence, blocking all our escape routes. I’ve been watching you for weeks and your father’s security is close to impregnable. Worse, we’re in Gavarone, on his turf, like you said. His informants are everywhere.”
Disappointment slammed into her, flattening her fleeting hopes. For a minute there, she’d thought she might actually have a chance. Why, oh why, had Joe stopped her from drowning if he couldn’t come through for her now?
“So,” he continued casually, “I guess we’re just going to have to go with my original plan. I’m going to come inside the walls and rescue you with your father’s blessing, more or less.”
She stared at him in shock. “How in the hell are you planning to do that?”
“I’m coming into your father’s house and getting you out myself,” he said with quiet finality.
“You’re going to break into my father’s house? Didn’t you hear what I said? The place is an armed fortress.”
“I’m not going to break in. I’m going to infiltrate the place. I’ll come in with a cover story and get inside that way.”
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br /> She frowned. “My father doesn’t hire just anybody. Nobody gets close to him personally unless they’ve worked for his organization for years and proven their loyalty a hundred times over.”
Joe nodded. “True, but he doesn’t completely control who gets close to you.”
She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
A slow smile curved his mouth and the thought of kissing it all but made her swoon. “How do you feel about getting married?” he asked.
“Married?” she echoed, clearly one step behind in this conversation. “To whom?”
“Me.”
The room swirled around her and she grabbed the edge of the table as dizziness practically knocked her over. “We hardly know each other,” she choked out.
“I’ve been giving this a lot of thought and I think it could work. You have a reputation for being—” he paused delicately “—impulsive.”
Now there was an understatement.
Joe was talking again. “I’m betting your father isn’t too crazy about your wild child behavior. Am I right?”
She snorted. “He hates the way I act. Have you seen the way my bodyguards are plastered to me, chasing off any guy who gets near me? Trust me. Daddy dearest despises my…lifestyle choices. And he’s doing everything he can to change them.”
Joe nodded. “Perfect. I’m proposing that I sweep you off your feet and single-handedly mend your wild ways.”
Whoa. Now there was a thought. Tempting, actually.
“It’ll all be an act,” he added.
Her stomach—and her fleeting hopes—plummeted. Well, hell.
He continued, “You and I will elope. After we’ve had a whirlwind romance, of course.”
Of course.
Joe continued. “I’m betting your father will let me into his house in profound gratitude that someone else will finally be responsible for curbing your wild ways. In effect, he’ll transfer responsibility for keeping you on the straight and narrow from his pet gorillas to me.”
She blinked, startled at the depth of insight into her father that his idea showed. It might just work.
But…a husband?
