Ran? “Are you sure?”
“I hailed her a cab myself.” He swung the door open again. “Have a good day, sir.”
“I’ll have a dandy day if I can just figure out what’s goin’ on here. What’s Ms. Sutcliffe’s apartment number?”
“That’s confidential information, sir.”
“Besides,” the bald guy interjected, “if you’re really a friend of hers, how come you don’t know her apartment number?” He took a couple of steps in Gage’s direction, his chest puffed out and his massive arms curled at his sides in a fair imitation of a dominant male gorilla defending his turf.
Gage looked over the ape’s shoulder, quickly scanning the names on the mailboxes until Sutcliffe popped out at him. Above the name was the apartment number. 7C.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave,” the doorman told him.
“That’s exactly what I wanted to hear you say,” Gage responded. “Your employer will be very pleased.”
“What?”
Gage withdrew his wallet and held up his fishing license as he backed away through the lobby in the direction of the elevator. “Sam Hill, Plaza Security Systems. The management hired me to check out the building and personnel for risk factors.” He slapped the elevator’s Up button. “They told me there’d be a bonus for every employee who followed proper security procedures. I’d say you qualify.”
“A bonus?”
The elevator doors opened. “Fifty percent,” Gage said as he stepped inside and stabbed the button for the seventh floor.
“Fifty percent?” the poor guy exclaimed as the doors closed and the elevator began its ascent. “Fifty percent of what?”
On the seventh floor, Gage was disconcerted to discover the door to apartment 7C standing ajar. He stepped inside and found himself in an elegant little foyer. Straight ahead was an open archway, on either side of which stood the requisite self-important columns, and beyond that...
Gage passed through the archway and found himself in... well, it had to be a living room, and for the most part it wasn’t a bad-looking one, if a bit too modernesque for his taste. But not only was it littered with pop cans and dirty dishes, it was chock-full of the damnedest knickknacks you’d ever want to see: eyeballs, rockets ships, monster masks.... There was a brain in a jar of green liquid that looked so realistic he thought for a second he was back in med school.
Old, yellowed movie posters were taped up all over the place, maybe just to cover up the bad paint job; the walls looked like someone had scrubbed a rag full of the wrong-color paint all over them. Scanning the posters, Gage began to notice a common denominator: all of them costarred just about the best scream queen who ever shrieked her way into the hearts of adolescent males everywhere, the luscious Candy Carmelle. Something in one of the posters caught his eye.
“I’ll be damned.” It was the ray gun—the one taped inside Zara’s coat—in the hands of the leading man of Return of the Atomic Bride. So the ray gun was a prop from an old B movie. Interesting, but it didn’t explain why anyone would want to kill for it.
Advancing into the room, Gage noticed a black leather couch facing a big-screen TV in the corner. In front of the couch, a lacquered coffee table lay on its side. Stepping closer, Gage saw, on the carpet next to it...
“Whoa!” It took him a second—a couple of seconds—to catch his breath as he figured out that wasn’t a real human head looking up at him from inside a glass dome; it was just another laugh-a-minute prop.
Gage looked around. A lamp with a crushed shade lay nearby. On the floor a couple of yards away was a silvery model of a rocket ship with a big dent in it. The evidence suggested a struggle. Had Zara been involved? Her mother?
Gage swiftly searched the apartment—the aggressively neomodern kitchen, white-on-white bedroom, disheveled guest room, marble bathroom and minuscule terrace hidden behind sliding glass doors and sheer curtains. It was empty. No Zara, no mother.
He took the elevator back downstairs, wondering how Zara Sutcliffe had managed to get so thoroughly under his skin in just twenty-four hours, why he couldn’t shake this white-knight compulsion of his and when he would ever, ever learn to stop coming to this town. He raced through the lobby with the doorman screaming after him, “Fifty percent of what?” and flagged down a cab.
“Take me to the local police station.”
An hour later, he left the station in disgust. He’d gone in talking about the ray gun, which, in retrospect, was a mistake. Their eyes had glazed over immediately and remained that way during the entire interview, except when they were exchanging looks. Yes, they said, the subway incident had been unfortunate, likewise the trashing of Zara’s house and his pseudo-mugging, but that was New York. Sure, he could report Zara Sutcliffe missing, but since she’d been “missing” for all of twenty minutes, he couldn’t expect them to drop everything and tear the city apart looking for her, now could he? Sorry, but an overturned coffee table didn’t necessarily indicate a struggle. They urged him to calm down. One of the cops actually asked him if he was on medication, and if so, had he skipped any pills lately?
If Zara was in trouble, he would hope she’d have called him, but his phone hadn’t rung, and there were no voicemails. He called the Plaza Hotel and asked whether anyone had called and left a message for him, but no one had. Zara’s office building was only a few blocks away, so Gage walked there. That squeaky little redheaded receptionist, Tina, told him her boss hadn’t been back or called in since leaving yesterday afternoon one step ahead of him.
He hailed another cab and took it to Zara’s house in Queens, thinking she might have gone home, after all. She’d neglected to relock the door that morning, so he had no trouble getting in, but she wasn’t there.
It was midafternoon by the time he returned to the Plaza, crazed with worry. Zara had to be somewhere, but right now he was fresh out of ideas, and too hungry to think up any new ones. He’d get some lunch, and maybe by the time he finished it, he would have figured out where to look next.
The first thing he noticed when he opened the door to his hotel room was that a table lamp was on; he was sure he’d turned off the lights that morning.
The second thing he noticed was Zara Sutcliffe, sitting at the desk in the corner, writing something on a sheet of paper. She still had on the yellow suit; the gold coat hung from the back of the chair and her tote bag rested on the floor next to it. “Gage.” She stood up quickly. “I hope you don’t mind. I tricked my way in here. I found that Doughboy person and convinced him I was your wife. I needed someplace to go, ’cause when I went up to the apartment, my mother was missing and...”
Gage slammed the door behind him and crossed to her in a flash. Gathering her close, he kissed her... and kissed her... and kissed her. Relief and desire warred within him. The anguish and frustration of the past several hours merged into something new and hot and unstoppable... a passion, a need.
He felt her hands raking his hair, sliding beneath his jacket. Pressing her against the desk, he felt her breasts crushed to his chest, her thighs against his. She returned his kisses with the same reckless passion he felt, pulled him closer, closer.
He seized the front of her jacket with both hands and yanked it open; snaps pop-pop-popped; she gasped. He filled his hands with her warm breasts as she moaned his name. His heart hammered wildly; his breath, and hers, came in harsh pants.
Reaching behind her to shove the stationery box, menu and phone onto the floor, Gage lifted her by the waist and sat her on the edge of the desk, her legs on either side of him. He bent to suck a taut nipple into his mouth. She arched her back, clawed at his hair.
He reached between them and fumbled with her skirt, unsnapping it from the bottom up—one, two, three—just until he could reach inside... yes. She was naked beneath the skirt, and hot and wet and ready, and it was so quick but so perfect, so right.
Gage hurriedly unbuttoned his jeans and freed himself. She got that barn-kitten look in her eyes, just for a s
econd, and then she kissed him and closed her hand around his cock, and he thought he was going to detonate right then and there.
Pulling the strip of condoms out of his back pocket, he tore one open with his teeth and rolled it on in record time.
He shifted to position himself, grabbed her hips to steady her and drove in hard.
She cried out, her body tensing, her fingers digging into his shoulders. He buried his full length within her before it struck him that something was wrong, that she was in pain. And then it registered: he’d felt it, the fragile barrier, even as he broke through it.
No... it can’t be.
But she was tight—impossibly, almost painfully tight. And she was grimacing in pain and pushing at him. “Gage...”
“Easy now, sweetheart.” Taking hold of himself, he withdrew gradually; she sucked in her breath. “Easy.”
Tears trembled in her eyes; she was shaking all over.
Looking down, he saw blood on himself.
She covered her face with her hands.
“I’ll be right back.” In the bathroom, he tidied himself and soaked a washcloth with warm water, his mind reeling. She was a virgin and he’d initiated her brutally. He’d hurt her, made her cry. He hated the idea of causing a woman pain, bringing her to tears. Guilt swamped him, yet how could he have known? How could this be? Zara was a divorced woman, for God’s sake.
She was still sitting on the desk, resnapping her jacket with a dazed expression, when he returned to the room. “Come here.” He led her by the hand to the bed, where he made her lie down while he stroked the washcloth lightly between her legs. There was a little blood, not much. “How does that feel?”
She shook her head, an arm thrown across her face. “Good. I didn’t think it would hurt that much.”
“It wouldn’t have, if I’d only known. I would have been careful, taken my time....” That wasn’t true, Gage realized. He wouldn’t have done it at all if he’d known. You didn’t deflower a girl and then fly out of her life; he didn’t, anyway. The guilt resurfaced, this time tainted with anger. She’d let him think she was sexually experienced. Now he’d not only hurt her, but taken something from her that he’d never meant to take. He felt all the more responsible for her, and protective of her, for having treated her so shabbily, regardless of his intent.
He returned to the bathroom, rinsed out the washcloth and hung it up. She was sitting up and resnapping her skirt when he came back in.
“I tried to tell you,” she said, not looking at him.
“That you were a virgin? I don’t remember—”
“That I was Emma.” She looked up at him now, with those big, hot-fudge eyes. “I tried. You wouldn’t believe me.”
Gage just stared at her for a moment, and then he sat down numbly on the edge of the bed. They sat there in silence while he thought it all out and came to the remarkable conclusion that this woman, this woman he’d fallen for so hard and fast, this woman he thought he’d gotten to know so incredibly well in such a short time, this woman he’d... he’d...
“Fuck me.” He hadn’t even known who she was. A dull throbbing filled up his brain. He rubbed his forehead, wincing when he touched the knot near the hairline.
“What happened to you?” Zara—no, Emma—reached out to him, but he rose abruptly and paced away from her.
“I had a little wall-to-wall chat-fest with the maniac who pushed you in front of that subway.”
“What?”
He heard her rise from the bed, and turned to face her.
He must have looked as unapproachable as he felt, because she stopped in her tracks, her eyes enormous.
“It was right after I left you at your mother’s apartment building.”
“That’s... Zara’s building,” Emma said quietly. “Our mother’s been staying with her, but it’s Zara’s apartment. I’m—”
“The house in Queens, that’s yours?”
“Yes. I moved in a few days ago. Gage, I’m really—”
“Is this how you two get your kicks? Finding gullible guys and impersonating each other—”
“No, Gage.”
“Then what the hell is going on here?” he demanded, a lot more heatedly than he’d intended; she flinched and took a step back. “Explain it to me. Can you just explain it to me? And this time make it the truth.”
EMMA STUDIED GAGE’S BACK as he gazed out the window, absently fingering the silken drapes.
“I hate this town,” he said quietly. “I never should have come here.”
Emma rubbed her arms. The sense of loss she’d felt when they’d said goodbye in front of the Sans Souci was nothing compared to this. At least then, she’d known he cared for her. I could fall in love with you, he’d said. It would be so easy. But I can’t stay here. Now, he’d retreated in shock, as she’d known he would when he found out the truth. He would still fly back to Arkansas tomorrow, but now he’d leave hating her. The dull hurt between her legs, where he’d been inside her so briefly, echoed a heartbreaking ache in her chest.
“Bear with me while I get this straight,” he said, turning around and leaning on the windowsill. “You impersonated Zara to sell the ray gun to this MacGowan Byrne.”
“Right.”
“For two million dollars.”
“Right.”
He shook his head. “Try as I might, I can’t quite wrap my brain wrinkles around the fact that there’s a human being alive who’s willing to pay that kind of scratch for a movie prop. A long-lost Van Gogh might bring that at auction. But a toy gun in a private transaction? It’s just too much money. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I know, but that’s what the guy offered us. Or rather, my mother.”
“Right. Your mother. Candy Carmelle.”
Emma nodded.
“A movie star without a cent to her name.”
“An ex-movie starlet who lost everything she ever had a long time ago.” Including her own children, to the savage vindictiveness of a husband who cared about nothing and no one but himself.
“That’s Act One,” Gage said. “Act Two opens with you, all decked out like Zara, stopping at her office for the ray gun. Enter the hapless costar, the country cracker who still believes in truth, justice and the American way.” He pushed away from the windowsill and took a step toward her; something in his expression made her take a step back. “At first it just seems like he’s there for comic relief, but then comes the little Perils of Pauline scene down in the subway, and he gets to stretch, do his action-hero thing—”
“Gage—”
“But it’s later that night,” he said, stalking toward her as she backed away, “during the scene in the hotel room, when he really shows his range. Suddenly he’s the romantic leading man, and he’s amazingly convincing, ’cause he’s a method actor, really feels every part he plays. Unlike the leading lady, who pretty much just puts on a costume and pretends.”
She backed into the wall. “Gage, please, I wasn’t pretending then.”
He flattened his hands on the wall on either side of her head, nailing her with his luminous gaze. “Sweetheart, you were comin’ on to me, in case it escaped your notice. Which was fine with me, ’cause I was comin’ on to you, too. Only, what I didn’t know was that the actress underneath that tarty little costume had never played this particular role before in her life. It was all make-believe.”
“Gage, I...” He had a point. She’d flirted with him shamelessly, deliberately set out to seduce him, all the while playing it like Zara.
“I can’t help but wonder,” he said, “why a woman of your... limited experience... would have led me on like that. Did you really want me to follow through?”
“Yes.”
“Why? I mean, you hardly knew me.”
“I...” How could she explain it?
“The truth,” he growled. “You owe it to me.”
Emma swallowed hard. “I’m going to be thirty soon, and... I just... I felt like I was missing out on something bec
ause I’d never...”
Swearing under his breath, Gage wheeled around and strode away. “You were using me to get rid of an unwanted hymen.” He turned and speared her with a withering look. “Sorry I didn’t finish the job. Maybe you can place an ad on Craigslist—‘Wanted, one erect penis. Man optional.’”
“Very funny, but it’s not quite that simple.”
“Have I mentioned how anxious I am to get about a billion miles away from here?”
Emma slammed her hands on the wall. “Gage, listen to me.”
“I have. It’s been most enlightening.” He laughed humorlessly as he dragged both hands through his hair. “You kept up the Zara act because it facilitated your plan to lose your virginity by the big 3-0. I guess it’s best I found out about your little masquerade before I did something stupid, like fall...” He closed his eyes, his jaw set. When he opened them, his expression was determinedly remote. “This is for the best. This way, there are no complications when I get on that plane tomorrow. I can wash my hands of you and this city in good conscience.”
The statement stung, as he’d no doubt intended it to. It really was over between them; Emma couldn’t delude herself about that. But she couldn’t leave him thinking she was the opportunistic creature he’d convinced himself she was. Taking a few tentative steps toward him, she said softly, “I did care. Or I never could have...” Heat rose from her throat to her face. “I couldn’t have...”
He searched her eyes, his expression softening, then reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You didn’t care enough,” he said, his voice low and rough, “or you would have told me the truth before this.”
“I did. I tried. First in Zara’s office and then in the cab. You refused to believe me.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and scrutinized the carpet. “I’ll give you that. You took a couple of stabs at it—when you weren’t puttin’ on the Zara Sutcliffe show, and doing an eerily convincing job of it. You got to admit I was getting mixed signals.”
Good to Be Bad (Double Dare Book 1) Page 13
