She was shaking. She had to sit down on the cracked concrete of the front steps, she was shaking so hard. Her left knee was definitely skinned and bleeding through the hole in her pants. Her hair was rumpled and her sunglasses had broken. Sitting there, she looked forlorn—nothing like the cool, confident woman who’d stepped out of the limo just minutes earlier. It was as if that woman had deflated like a balloon the instant her elegant facade had been torn.
“You all right?” Harry sat down beside her, feeling sorry for her despite the fact he’d vowed not to. She wasn’t a victim. She’d gotten herself into this as surely as she’d given her wedding vows to Griffin Lamont.
“That depends on whether you define someone who’s about to throw up on your shoes as ‘all right.’ ”
Harry looked down at his shoes. “These are old. Do what you gotta do.”
Alessandra laughed, but then, almost instantly, her eyes filled with tears and her lower lip trembled. Just his luck. She was going to cry.
But she fought it, trying to blink back the tears. He had to give her credit for that. “I hate this,” she told him. “I hate this house, I hate my hair, I hate you.”
“I know,” Harry told her. She hated him. It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. “And I know you’re not going to believe this, but I am sorry.”
Sonya had been one of those women who looked even more beautiful when she cried. Harry’d expected—and hoped for—the same from Alessandra. Perfectly shed tears no longer had the power to move him.
But Alessandra’s tears came in a flood, in an unchoreographed rush, complete with swollen eyes and a drippy red nose. She savagely swiped at them, fighting them, even though it was obviously a losing battle.
Harry’s battle was a losing one, too. Cursing, he put his arm around her. He half expected her to stiffen and pull away, but she was completely overwhelmed. She grabbed on to him, clutching his jacket, her face pressed tightly against his neck.
She was warm—much warmer than she looked when playing the Imperial Princess. She was soft, too. And she smelled so damn good his throat ached.
He cursed again, softly, gently this time, as he couldn’t keep himself from touching her hair. As he ran his fingers through its baby-fine softness, he knew he wasn’t doing this merely to provide comfort. He’d been dying to touch her hair from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her.
“Is this dog going to stay here forever?” she asked, her voice muffled.
Forever. It was a relative term, considering that contrary to what Alessandra believed, she wasn’t going to be in Paul’s River for very long.
Besides, after Trotta attempted to kill her, after they got all they needed to put the bastard away for a good long time, she’d be moved again. Even then, there’d be no guarantee she’d stay in that new place for long. There were never any guarantees. Forever was an unrealistic concept—except when it came to death. Being dead, or grieving someone who had died, those were the only things Harry knew would last forever. Relentlessly, endlessly forever.
“If you want,” he told her, “the dog’ll go.”
“I want.”
“The dog really scares you that much?”
She held out her hand, tried to hold it steady but couldn’t. “No, I always shake like this.”
Harry smiled. He liked her attitude, her bitchiness, if you will, better than the emotionless chill of the Imperial Princess. “I’ve read the file Chris McFall mentioned. You told the agents you had a problem with dogs, that this was something that was well known by both your husband and his friends—presumably also Michael Trotta.”
“Michael Trotta knew,” she said flatly.
“So okay,” Harry said. “That’s why Chris thought it would be a good idea to have a dog here, why it’s in your best interest for Schnaps to stay. If you really don’t want Trotta to find you, you’ve got to look and act completely different from Alessandra Lamont. You’ve got to become Barbara Conway in every possible way. And if Barbara is more securely hidden because she has an enormous dog, well …”
She lifted her head. Her mascara was smudged around her swollen eyes and her nose was running. She looked almost human. “You probably think I should have let them keep my hair that ugly brown, right?”
He had to smile. “Is that what happened? You didn’t like the color, so you talked them into dying your hair this darker shade?”
She wiped her face with her hands. “It was really bad. It looked realistic, but who would ever actually want hair that drab?”
“Someone trying to hide from a mob hitman?” he suggested.
“Do you have a handkerchief?”
“Do I look like a guy who carries a handkerchief?”
She shook her head and, giving up, wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
He still had his arm around her shoulders, and he gave her a reassuring squeeze before he pulled away. “Why don’t you give yourself a few days to get used to the dog and—”
“I’ll never get used to it. Little dogs terrify me.” She drew in a deep, ragged breath and drooped dejectedly, her chin in her hands, elbows just above the torn spots of her pants. “I’m so tired.”
“It’s been a tough couple of days. I’m pretty tired, too.”
They just sat for a moment. As Harry gazed out at the unkempt yard, she stared down as if fascinated by an anthill being pushed out of the hard-packed dirt at the bottom of the stairs.
But then she spoke. “I didn’t get a chance to say this yesterday.” She glanced up. “But I’m really sorry about your son. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to lose a child that way.” She laughed, but there was no humor in it as she went back to her perusal of the industrious ants. “I know all about what it’s like to want one and not be able to have one, and I know what it’s like to try to adopt and get turned down, but that’s hardly the same thing.”
“Wait a minute.” Harry turned toward her. “You wanted kids?”
“Griffin and I tried to have a baby for two years.” She shrugged expansively but her lip trembled again, and he knew she felt far from matter-of-fact about what she was telling him. “I went through just about every test in the book before being declared sterile. God, I hate that word. The doctors think a case of scarlet fever I had when I was in sixth grade might’ve done the trick.”
Well, there was a new spin on the story. Griffin Lamont hadn’t started divorce proceedings against his wife because she refused to have his child. Lamont had left her because she couldn’t have his child. The son of a bitch.
“Christ,” Harry said. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe you and Lamont tried to adopt and were turned down.”
“Griffin refused to adopt. I only tried after we split up. There’s this baby named Jane Doe—can you believe someone in the hospital actually named her that? Nobody wanted her because she would probably never be able to walk, and she had to have all these operations on her heart. But I love her, and they still thought she’d be better off in an institution than with me. That’s why I got so crazy at the thought of losing my new clothes.”
He didn’t understand.
“When the car bomb went off,” she explained, “and I, you know, kneed you …?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I remember that pretty well.”
“There was a meeting I was supposed to go to—an interview to see if maybe I would be acceptable as Jane’s foster mother.” Her lip trembled. “I thought if I looked good, they’d like me and let me have her. It didn’t occur to me at the time I was risking my life for those new clothes, that I no longer had a house to bring Jane home to.”
“I thought you were crazy,” he told her.
“Yeah, maybe I am,” she said. “If loving that baby makes me crazy, then I definitely am.” She looked at him, her eyes brimming with tears again. “I’ll never get her now.”
He couldn’t stand it. He reached out hesitantly, knowing that touching her was a major mistake. Still, he awkwardly placed the palm of his hand on her
back. “I’m sorry,” he said.
She sat up and turned toward him, throwing herself into his arms as if she were starved for any kind of human contact—even from a man she professed to hate. “I want to go home,” she whispered. “Please, can’t you just take me home?”
Her home was a pile of rubble and ashes, cordoned off by yellow crime-scene tape.
He patted her back awkwardly, ineffectively, afraid to hold her too tightly. “I can’t do that, Barbara.”
“God, don’t call me that!”
“It’s your name now. You’ve got to get used to it.”
“I don’t want to get used to it! I want to go home! I want to be able to visit Jane.” She lifted her head. “Please, Harry! She must wonder where I’ve gone. I just want to go back to Long Island.”
His heart twisted. “I can’t take you there.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Her mascara ran down her cheeks in smudgy black rivers. “I don’t have to be here, do I? You can’t make me stay. Can you?”
Oh, damn. He could not let her leave. “It is your choice, but—”
“Maybe I should just go and take my chances with Michael Trotta.”
Harry gripped her more tightly. “Do you want to die? Is that what you want?”
“No! But I don’t believe Michael really wants to kill me. I find it hard to … After I returned the money …?” She wiped her eyes, tried to explain. “If I stay here, I’m going only on what the FBI is telling me. How do I know you’re not wrong?”
He held on to her shoulders, afraid if he let go, she’d realize that she could leave. And she could leave. At any given time, she could just get up and walk away from all of them. Straight back to Trotta. Who would kill her.
Harry did not want her to die. “We’re not wrong.”
“But if you are … Don’t you see? I could have my life back.”
He pulled her even closer, holding her tightly against him, pressing her head against his chest, knowing what she wanted, knowing how she felt. It wasn’t fair. Her life had been taken from her. The injustice was profound. “You can’t, Allie. It’s gone. The house is gone. Everything’s gone.”
She shook her head as if blocking out his words. “I want my life back.” She made a noise that was half sob, half laughter. “God, sometimes I think I’d even take Griffin back if I could.”
“You can’t,” Harry said flatly. “He’s dead. Go back to Long Island, and you’re dead, too.”
She gripped his jacket. “If I stay, I’m Barbara Conway. Alessandra Lamont will be just as dead.”
“Yeah, well, maybe it’s about time you got rid of her anyway, huh?”
She lifted her head at that, her eyes wide, tears clinging to her eyelashes. His nose was inches from hers, her mouth close enough to kiss.
Close enough to kiss.
Harry saw the exact moment she, too, realized she was in his arms. And just like that, their embrace wasn’t only about comfort anymore.
She felt like a woman—no longer just another human body against him, but a female body with soft, full breasts. He felt the tautness of her thigh, the curve of her hips. He felt the promise of something incredible.
And his arms no longer felt awkward around her. His hands settled comfortably, one against the small of her back, the other tucked up against her neck, beneath her hair. She was a perfect fit. And he was holding her so easily, as if he’d been practicing for this moment for most of his life.
It wouldn’t take much effort for him to lower his head and cover her mouth with his. Her breath smelled like coffee and chocolate, and he knew she would taste just as sweet.
But he didn’t move, and she didn’t either. He didn’t speak, and she, too, was silent. They just hung there, suspended, hardly even daring to breathe.
Seconds ticked by, more and more of them. Why the hell didn’t she pull away? Did she want him to kiss her? Dammit, what was he doing? Kissing her would be completely insane.
Harry slowly lowered his head and she still didn’t pull away. In fact, she lifted her face and—
The front door opened behind them, and Alessandra sprang up and away from him.
George pushed open the screen, giving Harry a look that told him he hadn’t missed the implications of Alessandra’s rushed movement—her imitation of teenagers getting too friendly on the playroom couch, startled by mom or dad. “All clear. Nic wants you inside.”
Alessandra was wiping her face again and trying futilely to fix her hair. She adjusted the holes in the knees of her pants, but it was hopeless. Until she washed her face and changed her clothes, she was going to look bedraggled, not chic.
“You got a handkerchief?” Harry asked George.
Of course George had one. He silently handed it to Harry, who passed it to Alessandra, who kept her tear-streaked face carefully averted.
“We’ll be in in a sec,” Harry told his partner.
George discreetly faded back, closing the door almost all the way behind him as Alessandra wiped her eyes and blew her nose with an indelicate honk.
What was he supposed to say? Should he apologize for almost kissing her? Or apologize for not taking the opportunity to kiss her when he could have? It would probably be good to address this attraction thing point-blank. Acknowledge it, get it out on the table between them, and deal with it accordingly. When Alessandra took a breath, about to speak, Harry steeled himself for the words to come. She’d been caught up in the emotion of the moment. She didn’t even like him. She’d appreciate it if he could keep his wandering hands to himself from now on.
She said none of those things. “I don’t want them to know I’ve been crying,” she admitted, her back still toward him. “Don’t tell them I was crying—please?”
Or … she could completely ignore the almost-kiss. Simply pretend it didn’t happen. That was definitely an option.
He cleared his throat. “I won’t.”
Alessandra turned to face him. “Do you think they’ll be able to tell I was crying?”
Harry gazed at her mascara-smeared raccoon eyes, still puffy with emotion, at her red nose, at the tear-streak lines visible on her cheeks where her makeup had been washed away. He wondered if he had kissed her, would she still have pretended it hadn’t happened? “Yep.”
“That definite, huh?”
He took his sunglasses from his jacket pocket and handed them to her. “These’ll help.”
She gave him another of those funny little smiles as she put them on, and they went inside.
Seven
HARRY PUSHED THE door to Alessandra’s bedroom open with a crash, the sound of her scream still echoing in his head.
He took everything in at once. Allie, still in bed, sitting up but cowering, still breathing, no blood, still alive, thank you Jesus. An empty room. No furniture except for the metal-framed double bed and a bargain-basement dresser. No hitmen. No mobsters. No other people.
The closet door—double sliders—shut. Shades pulled down tight over the two windows—one a dormer, the other on the west side of the house.
He realized in an instant that Alessandra was cowering because of him, bursting into her room the way he had, half dressed, gun drawn. He watched her out of the corner of his eye as he did a quick check of the room. Closet—empty but for a few shirts hanging there, a pair of shoes and sneakers on the floor. Windows—tightly locked. Bed … He went into a quick squat as he scanned beneath the bed. Not even a dust bunny in sight.
George stood in the doorway, his gun held at ready.
“False alarm,” Harry told him. He rose quickly, crossing to the windows and lifting the shades one more time, giving a quick signal to the agents watching the house. All this op needed was twenty agents rushing in to save the day. Allie was sharper than he’d first thought. She would realize instantly that this was no standard Witness Protection Program operation. She’d know it was a setup.
God, he hated that this was a setup.
“I had a nightmare,” she said, her voice
shaking. “I’m sorry, did I scream very loudly?”
Did she scream very loudly?
Harry still had about twelve quarts of adrenaline raging through his system from the power and intensity of that scream. He’d never heard a scream so filled with terror, and he’d heard his share of screams, that was damn sure. One moment he’d been sound asleep, the next he’d been taking the stairs to the second floor three at a time.
He slipped the safety back on his weapon then bent over, resting his hands on his knees. Thank God he was still too young and in too good shape to have a heart attack.
“It was that dog.” Alessandra’s dark hair was rumpled, her face slick with perspiration. She held on to her knees as if she were afraid her entire body would fly apart if she let go. “I used to have this same nightmare all the time when I was little.”
“You look like you’ve got this under control,” George said, vanishing back down the hallway.
“Wait.” Harry straightened up, but George was already gone.
Damn. He’d done his best to avoid being alone with Alessandra all afternoon and evening. And now here he was, alone with her in her bedroom, for christsake, with only the dim light from the hall shining into the room. It was warm, it was dark, and it was cozy as hell.
Alessandra was wearing the same pajamas she’d had on back at the hotel. They covered her completely. There was nothing sexy about them—except for the fact that she was wearing them.
And right now, that was enough.
“I’ll be downstairs if you need me.” That was a stupid thing to say. Why on earth would she need him?
But she nodded, as if the fact that she might need him was completely reasonable and even likely.
“Can you check the back door for me?” Alessandra asked. “Make sure the dog can’t get in?”
He turned back from the door to look at her. “The dog really bothers you that much?”
Alessandra couldn’t see Harry’s face. He was completely backlit, just a shadowy shape standing there. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she could feel him watching her.
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