Covert Makeover

by Mallory Kane

“Rafe, Isabelle, please stay. I have something to discuss with you.”

  Once the others were gone, Rachel sat. She placed her cell phone on the table, then clasped her hands in front of her.

  “What’s going on, Rachel?” Rafe asked brusquely.

  “Sean was only able to get three words out of Fuentes. ‘Ladera,’ and ‘army base.’”

  Rafe’s dark eyes sparkled. “There are only a few army bases—no more than four or five. But they’re all up in the mountains.”

  “I knew you’d have that information. Do you know where they are?”

  He shook his head. “No, but I can find out.” He dug in his pocket for his cell phone.

  “Wait.” Rachel stopped him with her hand. She turned to Isabelle, who was still watching Rafe guardedly. Rachel considered them. She’d wondered if they were dating, but a bit of careful investigation had told her they weren’t. Still, the sparks were there. The heat in any room went up several degrees whenever they were together.

  It was ironic that Isabelle was the perfect Confidential agent to accompany Rafe to Ladera. For a few seconds earlier this morning, when she’d made the decision to send them, she’d debated whether it was a good idea to throw them together in such dangerous and emotionally charged circumstances. But ultimately, she’d made her decision, as she always did, based on the facts. Emotion didn’t enter in. If it entered into their relationship, that was their business.

  “Rafe, you’ve lived in South America. You know the areas, as well as the drug trade, intimately.”

  She turned to Isabelle, whose eyes were wide with wary expectation. “Isabelle, as spokeswoman for Weddings Your Way, it will make perfect sense for you to travel to Ladera. You’ll be doing damage control. You will make statements to the local press assuring them that the DeLeon-Botero wedding is still on. You will also meet with Juan DeLeon’s family and reassure them that Sonya will be found safe and sound.”

  Isabelle stared at her. “I can’t go with him.”

  “What?” Rafe leaned forward. “Why not? I think it’s a great idea.”

  Rachel didn’t say anything. She stood.

  “But Rachel, if I’m there with him, everyone will think—”

  “Exactly. It’s a beautiful plan,” Rafe said. “You will keep the locals occupied with your press conferences and appearances while I search for Sonya.”

  “You’re not going to leave me to answer all the questions alone. I want to find Sonya as much as you do.”

  Rachel slipped out the door of her office and headed downstairs to tell Vicki to make airline and hotel reservations.

  Sparks were flying, all right. She hoped she’d made the right choice about who to send.

  SOPHIE POURED A CUP of coffee and wandered around her living room. There were still a few strips of crime-scene tape dangling from doorknobs and shelves, and the whole place was littered with fingerprint backing strips.

  She leaned over to pick up a couple, but her hand hurt and her head felt woozy.

  She hadn’t slept a wink all night. She’d tried listening to music, reading, taking a hot bath, even drinking warm milk. Nothing had helped. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Sean with blood spreading across his white T-shirt as the paramedics urged him to lie down. It was the first time anyone realized he’d been shot.

  After Jose Fuentes had dropped his weapon, things happened so fast that she’d been dazed.

  She should have known he was hurt. She’d sat there in the backseat of the limousine while he’d leaned on the door. If she’d dared to look closely enough, if she’d had the courage to speak to him, she’d have known something was wrong.

  But she’d been too cowardly and too selfish. She hadn’t wanted to face the scorn she was sure she’d see in his eyes.

  He’d been right about her all along. She was too much like his ex-wife. He’d said he wasn’t a good judge of women, and she had to admit he was right.

  Then, once she’d realized he’d been shot, she’d backed away even more. Seeing him hurt and vulnerable, seeing how close he’d come to dying, had forced her to confront an awful truth.

  She loved him.

  It was stupid. It was fruitless. And it was her own fault. She’d let him in. But none of that made one bit of difference.

  She was in love with him. She had no idea how she could live without him. And that was what had kept her from sleeping.

  She sat down at her little table and looked at the clock—9:00 a.m. He’d probably been up since six, had breakfast with Michaela, dressed, gone by the hospital to check on Carlos, then to the police station to sign his statements.

  “Oh, Sophie, stop it,” she told herself sternly. She couldn’t spend her days thinking about what he was doing. He was gone. Out of her life. He and Michaela.

  Something splashed on her hand. She looked down, then realized she was crying.

  “This is why you never date,” she reminded herself, sniffling and wiping her eyes. “This is why—” She sobbed.

  Oh, she was pathetic.

  Her doorbell rang.

  She jumped, and spilled coffee on the table. Who would be at her door?

  It was probably the police. She’d meant to check in with Rachel this morning before she went down to the station to sign her statement. She wanted to make sure she didn’t give out too much information about Confidential.

  She’d just tell the detective she’d talk to him later. She stood and looked down at herself. She had on cotton pajama bottoms and a tank top. As she went to the door, she grabbed a light cotton zippered sweater to cover her arms.

  Peeking through the peephole, she couldn’t see anything. She opened the door cautiously.

  “Sean!”

  He stood there, in jeans and the frayed Miami Heat T-shirt she’d seen before, looking heartbreakingly handsome, and surprisingly fit for someone who’d been shot.

  “Can I come in?” he asked.

  Her fingers wouldn’t work for a few seconds, then she finally grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door open far enough to let him in.

  As he walked by her, she got a whiff of woods, citrus and him. The scent swirled around her like a ghostly embrace. She sniffed quietly and patted her cheeks with one hand.

  He turned, and she realized he didn’t look as well as she’d first thought. His mouth was pinched and white at the corners, and there was an irregular bulge under the T-shirt between his shoulder and his neck. A bandage.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  He nodded, not meeting her eyes. “Sure. Just a flesh wound. You?”

  “Of course. I’m fine.” She stood there for a few seconds, hugging herself and looking at the neck of his T-shirt where the edge of the bandage stuck out.

  “How is—”

  “Can I—”

  They both spoke at the same time. Sean smiled and gestured for her to go first.

  She gave a tiny shrug. “I just wondered how Carlos is.”

  His smile faded. “He’s all right, but he can’t take much more of this. None of the strokes have been major, but he’s losing strength. I’m afraid he’s losing hope.”

  “He can’t. We will find Sonya.”

  He nodded. “Got any more of that coffee?”

  She took a deep breath. “Sure.” Brushing past him, she grabbed a mug and filled it, then stared down into it, realizing how little she really knew about him. Except that he was honorable and decent. He loved his daughter more than anything, and he’d made love to her as if he’d loved her.

  “I don’t know what you like in your coffee,” she said sadly.

  “Nothing.”

  She held out the mug.

  He took it in his right hand. “Thanks.”

  What was he doing here? He didn’t seem to want to talk, or maybe he was as uncomfortable as she was.

  “Did you need to tell me something?”

  He took a sip of his coffee, then looked up at her from under his brows. “Yeah.”

  She waited, but he just s
tood there, drinking his coffee.

  “I guess Rachel filled you in on the Confidential Agency.”

  He nodded.

  “Look, Sean. I’m sorry about all that. I’m sworn—”

  He banged the coffee cup down on the table.

  She jumped and backed away until her hips pressed against the counter.

  “Damn it, Sophie,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She crossed her arms and pressed them against her middle. “What do you want?”

  He stood there, too close, for a moment, while she kept her eyes on the A in the word HEAT on his T-shirt. It was all she could do to keep from crying. If she looked at him, at his teal blue eyes, at his mouth that was just a little crooked when he smiled, she’d break down. She thought about pushing him aside and running out of her apartment, but that wouldn’t be a permanent solution. She’d have to come back eventually.

  “It wasn’t really my idea to come here.”

  Hope that she hadn’t even known was there dissolved, like an ice cube in boiling water. Quickly, totally, painfully.

  “It was—”

  She closed her eyes and waited.

  A soft touch on her chin surprised her. His finger, pressing, urging her chin up.

  “Look at me, Sophie.”

  She opened her eyes, humiliated that they were wet.

  “Michaela wants to see you.”

  “M-M-Mi—?” She couldn’t even talk. She sniffled.

  He nodded, his face solemn, his eyes as blue as the sea. “She wants to play bounce on Sophie. I told her I’d ask if you wanted to.”

  Sophie couldn’t stop the tears that poured down her cheeks. She had no idea what Sean was talking about. Her thoughts and emotions were all mixed up.

  “It won’t work,” she said finally, turning her back on him and pressing her palms down on the cool counter-top. She squeezed her eyes shut. “You were right in the first place. I am just like your ex-wife. I’m worse. I did drugs. I—I didn’t know I was pregnant, but still.” Her breaths were coming short and shallow. She covered her mouth for a moment, trying to regain control. “Your wife may have abandoned Michaela, but at least she left her safe with you. I abandoned my baby in the worst way. I killed her.”

  She knew that would stop Sean, and it did. He didn’t say anything for a long time. She felt him behind her. Heard him breathing.

  “Is that what you think? That you killed your baby?”

  “What would you call it? I let my boyfriend talk me into using drugs, and my baby died.”

  “You told me you had a miscarriage. Is that true?”

  She nodded.

  “You were seventeen. A child yourself.”

  She buried her face in her hands.

  “How far along were you?”

  How much more could she take? Not much. “I didn’t know I was pregnant. Maybe a few weeks.” Her voice was muffled by her hands.

  “Have you done drugs since?”

  She shook her head.

  He touched her shoulder, then squeezed gently. “You hadn’t been with a man since either, had you, until the other night?”

  She jerked away from his touch and turned around. “How much more do you want to know?” she demanded. “How many times we did it? How long I did drugs? What I do for fun these days?” Her jaw hurt, her eyes burned, and she had to stop this. She adored Michaela, but she couldn’t afford to become any more attached to her. It would hurt too much to be so close to him.

  “You already know that my real mother abandoned me, that the woman who raised me beat me, and of course I let my own child die. What else can I tell you?”

  His eyes turned stormy. “I’m trying to make a point,” he said impatiently. “But apparently you’re too filled with self-pity right now to think straight.”

  She gaped at him.

  “Are you angry now? Good. Because I don’t like you when you’re feeling sorry for yourself.” He grabbed her hand and when she tried to pull away, he squeezed it more tightly.

  “Now listen to me. I was wrong about you. I think I knew that from the beginning. I was just feeling sorry for myself and making excuses.”

  She pulled against his grip again, but he was relentless.

  “Stop it. I want to hold your hand and look into your eyes while I say this. Sophie Brooks, I think you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And the second most stubborn, after my daughter. Maybe third. Rosita is pretty stubborn, too.”

  Sophie couldn’t help but smile.

  Sean pulled her closer and let go of her hand, only to slip his arm around her. She put her hands against his chest—hands that trembled.

  “My daughter and my housekeeper seem to think that they’d like to have you around.”

  “I thought you were trying to make a point,” Sophie said. “Will we be getting to it anytime within, say, the next five years?”

  He smiled his crooked smile and leaned down and kissed her. His mouth was hot and firm. He tasted of coffee, and his kiss sent little erotic thrills all the way through her.

  When he lifted his head, she reached for his mouth with hers, so he kissed her again, then pushed the sweater down her arms and trailed his lips and tongue down her neck and along her shoulder to the curve and farther, to the bad scar. He kissed it and made it better.

  Sophie threw her head back, and he kissed her throat and the underside of her chin. “Do you even know how beautiful and brave and special you are?” he whispered against her skin.

  “Sean, please stop. I’m no good at this. I don’t think I can have a casual relationship—”

  He put his finger against her lips. “Exactly the point I was trying to make. Sophie, do think you might consider marrying me?”

  Marriage. She blinked away the haze of desire and stared at him. “I never thought I’d get married.”

  Sean nibbled on her ear. “I hear it’s all the rage,” he whispered.

  “I’ve never been one to follow fashion.” Her calm words didn’t reflect how she was feeling inside. Her stomach was fluttering, her pulse was racing, and she had the strangest urge to laugh out loud.

  Sean looked her in the eye. “Someone told me the groom likes long black silky stockings.”

  The laughter burst forth, free and light and healing. “Long black stockings? Those are so hot, especially in the summer. I think I may be wearing long swishy dresses and cool linen pants from now on.”

  “You could always save the black stockings for the bedroom.”

  Sophie’s cheeks burned, and Sean smiled and kissed her as he ran his hand up her waist under the tank top until his warm fingers touched the underside of her breast. “Now, speaking of bedrooms, where’s yours? The groom is impatient to get started on the honeymoon.”

  Sophie pulled away and glared at him. “You don’t think you fooled me, do you, Mr. Security Chief? You’ve been in my bedroom, snooping around. You know exactly where it is.”

  His blue eyes sparkled as he smiled. “That’s right. I do.” And with a wink, he took her hand to lead the way into their future.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

  Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to

  Mallory Kane for her contribution

  to the MIAMI CONFIDENTIAL miniseries.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-2547-3

  COVERT MAKEOVER

  Copyright: ©2006 by Harlequin Books S.A.

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  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distan
tly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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