by Raye Morgan
Despite everything, she already loved that little child. And even if she didn’t she would have done just about anything for Samantha’s baby.
“Well, you know what I mean,” she amended a bit lamely.
“I don’t really care what you mean,” he said impatiently. “I want to know how you got in here. I want to know what you think you’re doing here.” His blue eyes darkened. “And most of all, I want you to go somewhere else.”
She winced. She could hardly blame him. “Okay,” she said, pulling herself up taller in the seat. “Let me try to explain.”
Was that a sneer on his handsome face?
“I’m all ears.”
She knew very well he was being sarcastic. He didn’t seem to like her very much. That was too bad. Most people liked her on sight. She wasn’t used to this sort of hostility. She sighed, too sleepy to do anything about it, and went back to contemplating his ears.
They were very nice and tight to the sides of his head. She admired them for a moment. Everything about this man was pretty fine, she had to admit. Too bad she always felt like a gangly, awkward teenager around men like this. She was tall; almost six feet, and she’d been that tall since puberty. Her high school years had been uncomfortable. She’d been taller than all the boys until her senior year. People told her she was willowy and beautiful now, but she still felt like that clumsy kid who towered over everyone.
“Okay.”
She rose and began to pace restlessly. Where to begin? She’d thought this visit was going to be pretty straightforward, but now that she was here, it seemed much more complicated. The trouble was, she didn’t know all the sorts of facts a man like this was going to want to know. She’d acted purely on instinct, grabbing Cici and heading for London on barely a moment’s notice. Panic, she supposed. But under the circumstances, she had to think it was understandable. She’d done the only thing she could think of. And now here she was.
She closed her eyes and drew in a deep, shaky breath. She’d come to this man’s apartment for a reason. What was it again? Oh, yes. Someone had told her he could help her find little Cici’s father.
“Do you remember meeting a girl named Samantha?” she asked, her voice cracking a bit on the name. Now it was going to be a chore just to keep from crying. “Small, blonde, pretty face, wore a lot of jangly bracelets?”
He swayed just a little and looked to be about at the end of his tether. She noticed, with a bit of a start, that his hands were balled into tight fists at his side. Another moment or two and he was going to be tearing his hair out in frustration. Either that or giving her shoulders a firm shake. She took a step backward, just in case.
“No,” he said, his voice low and just this side of angry. “Never heard of her.” His brilliant blue eyes were glaring at her. “And never heard of you, either. Though you haven’t provided your own name yet, so I really can’t say that, can I?”
“Oh.” She gave a start and presented herself before him again, chagrined that she’d been so remiss.
“Of course. I’m sorry.” She stuck out her hand. “My name is Ayme Sommers. From Dallas, as if you couldn’t tell.”
He let her stand there with her hand out for a beat too long, still looking as though he couldn’t believe this was happening. For a moment, she thought he was going to refuse to respond and the question of what she was going to do next flitted into her head. But she didn’t have to come up with a good comeback, after all. He finally relented and slid his hand over hers, then held on to it, not letting her go.
“Interesting name,” he said dryly, staring hard into her dark eyes. “Now tell me the rest.”
She blinked at him, trying to pull her hand back and not getting much cooperation. She was suddenly aware of his warm skin and hard muscles in a way that stopped the breath in her throat. She tried not to look down at his chest. It took all her strength.
“What do you mean?” she said, her voice squeaking. “What ‘rest’?”
He pulled her closer and she gaped at him, not sure why he was playing this game of intimidation.
“What is your tie to Ambria?” he asked, his voice low and intense.
She gasped, her eyes wide, and gazed at him in wonder. “How did you know?”
He inclined his head in her direction. “The Ambrian shield on your earrings pretty much gives it away.”
“Oh.” She’d forgotten. Her mind was full of cotton right now. It was amazing that she even remembered who she was. She touched one ear with her free hand. “Of course. Most people don’t know what it is.”
His eyes narrowed. “But you do.”
“Oh, yes.”
She smiled at him and he winced, and almost took a step backward himself. Her smile seemed to light up the room. It was too early for that—and inappropriate considering the circumstances. He had to look away, but he didn’t let go of her hand.
“My parents were from Ambria. I was actually born there. My birth name is Ayme Negri.”
That sounded like a typically Ambrian name, as far as he knew. But he didn’t really know as much as he should. This girl with the shields decorating her ears might very well know a lot more than he did about his own country.
He stared at her, realizing with a stunned, sick feeling that his true knowledge of the land his family had ruled for a thousand years was woefully inadequate. He didn’t know what to ask her. He didn’t know enough to even conjure up a quick quiz to test her truthfulness. All these years he’d had to hide his identity, and in the process he hadn’t really learned enough. He’d read books. He’d talked to people. He’d remembered things from his early childhood. And he’d had one very effective mentor. But it wasn’t enough. He didn’t know who he was at his very core, nor did he know much about the people he came from.
And now she’d arrived, a virtual pop quiz. And he hadn’t studied.
Her hand in his felt warm. He searched her face. Her eyes were bright and questioning, her lips slightly parted as though waiting for what was going to happen next and slightly excited by it. She looked like a teenage girl waiting for her first kiss. He was beginning to think that the alarm, which had gone off like a whistle in his brain, was a false one.
But who was she really and why was she here? She seemed so open, so free. He couldn’t detect a hint of guile in her. No assassin could have been this calm and innocent-looking.
It was pretty hard to believe that she could have been sent here to kill him.
CHAPTER TWO
“AYME NEGRI,” he repeated softly. “I’m David Dykstra.”
He watched her eyes as he said the name. Was there a slight blink? Did she know it was an alias?
No, there was nothing there. No hint of special knowledge. No clues at all. And it only made sense. If she’d wanted to finish him off, she’d had her chance while he was sleeping.
Still, he couldn’t let his guard down. He’d been waiting for someone to arrive with murder on his mind since that dark, stormy night when he was six years old and he’d been spirited away from the rebellion in Ambria and across the countryside in search of a safe haven.
The palace had been burned and his parents killed. And most likely some of his siblings had died as well—though he didn’t know for sure. But he’d been rescued and hidden with a family in the Netherlands, the Dykstras. He’d been spared.
All that had happened twenty-five years ago, and no one had ever come to find him, neither friend nor foe. Someday he knew he would have to face his destiny. But maybe not today.
“Ayme Negri,” he said again, mulling over the name. He was still holding her hand, almost as though he was hoping to gain some comprehension of her motives just by sense of touch.
An Ambrian woman, raised in Texas. That was a new one to him.
“Say something in Ambrian,” he challenged quickly. At least he had a chance of understanding a little of the language if she didn’t get too complicated. He hadn’t spoken it since he was a child, but he still dreamed in his native tongue so
metimes.
But it didn’t seem she would be willing to go along with that little test. Her eyes widened and a hint of quick anger flashed across her face.
“No,” she said firmly, her lovely chin rising. “I don’t have to prove anything to you.”
His head reared back. “Are you serious? You break into my apartment and now you’re going to take on airs?”
“I didn’t break in,” she said indignantly. “I walked in, just like everybody else you had here to your party. I…I sort of melted into a group that was arriving and no one seemed to think twice.”
She shrugged, remembering how she’d slipped into the elevator with a bunch of boisterous young city sophisticates. They seemed to accept her right to come in with them without a second thought. She’d smiled at a pretty young woman in a feathered boa and the woman had laughed.
“Look, she’s brought a baby,” she said to her escort, a handsome young man who had already had much too much to drink. “I wish I had a baby.” She turned and pouted. “Jeremy, why won’t you let me have a baby?”
“What the hell, babies for everyone,” he’d called out as the elevator doors opened, and he’d almost fallen over with the effort. “Come on. If we’re going to be handing out babies, I’m going to need another drink.”
Laughing, the group had swelled in through the door to this apartment and left her standing in the entryway. No one else had noticed her. She’d seen the host in the main room, dancing with a beautiful raven-haired woman and swaying like a man who’d either fallen in love or had too many rum drinks. She’d sighed and decided the better part of valor was to beat a hasty retreat. And that was when she’d slipped into the media room and found a drawer she could use as a bassinet for Cici.
“I don’t remember inviting you,” he noted dryly.
“I invited myself.” Her chin lifted even higher. “Just because you didn’t notice me at the time doesn’t make me a criminal.”
He was ready with a sharp retort, but he bit his tongue. This was getting him nowhere. He had to back off and start over again. If he was going to find out what was really going on, he needed to gain her trust. Making her defensive was counterproductive at best.
And he did want to know, not only because he was plain curious, but because of the Ambrian connection. There had to be a reason for it. Young Ambrian women weren’t likely to just appear on his doorstep out of the blue. In fact, it had never happened before.
“Sorry,” he said gruffly, turning away. Taking a deep breath and calming himself, he looked back and his gaze fell on the little child. There had been a period, while living in his huge adoptive family, when he’d spent a lot of time with babies. They didn’t scare him. Still, he could take or leave them. They were often just too much work.
But he knew very well what happened when one of this age was woken from a sound sleep, and the results were never very pretty.
“Listen, let’s go to the kitchen and get a cup of coffee. Then we can talk without waking up your baby.”
“Okay.” She stopped, looking back. “Shall I just leave her here?” she asked doubtfully.
Cici had been practically glued to her body ever since Sam had left her behind that rainy Texas day that seemed so long ago now. And yet it hadn’t even been a week yet. She smiled, suddenly enchanted with the way the child looked in the drawer.
“Look at the little angel. She’s sleeping like a lamb now.”
He frowned. “How old is that baby?” he asked suspiciously.
That was another question she wasn’t confident enough to answer. Sam hadn’t left behind any paperwork, not even a birth certificate.
“Her name’s Cici,” she said, stalling for time.
His glare wasn’t friendly. “Nice name. Now, how old is she?”
“About six weeks,” she said, trying to sound sure of herself and pretty much failing at it. “Maybe two months.”
He stared at her. Skepticism was too mild a term for what his gaze was revealing about his thoughts on her answer.
She smiled brightly. “Hard to remember. Time flies.”
“Right.”
She followed him out into the living room. He snagged a shirt from the hall closet as they passed it, shrugged into it but left it open. She made an abrupt turn so he wouldn’t find her staring at him, and as she did so, she caught sight of the view from the huge floor-to-ceiling picture window.
She gasped, walking toward it. It was four in the morning but the landscape was still alive with lights. Cars carried people home, a plane cruised past, lights blinking. Looking down, she was suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of detached wonder. There were so many people below, all with their own lives, going on with things as though everything was normal. But it wasn’t normal. The world had tipped on its axis a few days ago. Nothing would ever be the same again. Didn’t they know?
For just a moment, she was consumed with a longing to be one of those clueless people, riding through the night in a shiny car, going toward a future that didn’t include as much heartbreak and tragedy as she knew was waiting for her once this adventure in Britain was over.
“Wow. You can see just about all of London from here, can’t you?” She was practically pressing her nose to the glass.
“Not quite,” he said, glancing out at the lights of the city. He liked this place better than most. It was close to the building where his offices were—centrally located and perfect for running the British branch of his foster father’s multinational shipping business. “But it is a pretty spectacular view.”
“I’ll say.” She was standing tall, both hands raised, fingertips pressed to the glass to hold her balance as she leaned forward, taking it all in. She looked almost poised to fly away over the city herself.
He started to suggest that she might want to keep her hands off the window, but as he watched her, he checked himself. With her long limbs and unusual way of holding her posture, she had an unselfconscious gawkiness, like a young girl, that was actually quite winsome. But she really wasn’t all that young, and in that short skirt, her legs looked like they went on forever. So he kept quiet and enjoyed his own temporary view, until she tired of it and levered back away from the glass.
“Cities like this are kind of scary,” she said, her tone almost whimsical. “You really get the feeling it’s every man for himself.”
He shrugged. “You’re just not used to the place. It’s unexplored territory to you.” His wide mouth quirked. “As the song says, faces are ugly and people seem wicked.”
She nodded as though pleased that he saw the connection. “That’s the way I felt coming here tonight. A stranger in a very weird part of town.”
He almost smiled but hadn’t meant to. Didn’t really want to. He needed to maintain an edgy sort of wariness with this woman. He still didn’t know why she was here, and her reasons could be costly to him for all he knew.
Still, he found himself almost smiling. He bit it off quickly.
“This part of town is hardly weird,” he said shortly. The real estate was high class and high-toned, and he was paying through the nose for that fact. “Maybe you miss the longhorns and Cadillacs.”
She gave him a haughty look. She’d caught the ill-concealed snobbery in his tone. “I’ve been out of Texas before, you know,” she said. “I spent a semester in Japan in my senior year.”
“World traveler, are you?” he said wryly. But he rather regretted having been a little mean, and he turned away. He needed to be careful. The conversation had all the hallmarks of becoming too personal. He had to break it off. Time to get serious.
He led her on into his ultramodern, wide-open kitchen with its stainless-steel counters and green onyx walls. He got down two mugs, then put pods into the coffee machine, one at a time. In minutes it was ready and he handed her a steaming mug of coffee, then gazed at her levelly.
“Okay, let’s have it.”
She jumped in surprise. “What?” she asked, wide-eyed.
He searched he
r dark eyes. What he found there gave him a moment of unease. On the surface she seemed very open and almost naive, a carefree young woman ready to take on the world and go for whatever was out there. But her eyes held a more somber truth. There was tragedy in those eyes, fear, uncertainty. Whatever it was that she was hiding, he hoped it had nothing to do with him.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” he asked again. “Why are you carrying around a very young baby in a strange city in the middle of the night? And most important, how did you even get in here?”
She stared at him for a moment, then tried to smile as she took a shallow sip of the hot coffee. “Wow. That’s a lot to throw at a girl who’s only half-awake,” she noted evasively.
His grunt held no sympathy. “You threw a six-week-old baby at me,” he reminded her. “So let’s have it.”
She took a deep breath, as though this really was an effort. “Okay. I think I already explained how I got in here. I hitched a ride with a party group and no one minded.”
He groaned, thinking of some choice words he would have with the doorman later that day.
“As I told you, my name is Ayme Negri Sommers. I’m from Dallas, Texas. And…” She swallowed hard, then looked him in the eye. “And I’m looking for Cici’s father.”
That hit him like a fist in the stomach. He swallowed hard and searched her gaze again. He knew very well that he was now treading into a minefield and he had to watch his step very carefully.
“Oh, really?” he said, straining to maintain a light, casual tone. “So where did you lose him?”
She took it as a serious question. “That’s just the trouble. I’m not really sure.”
He stared at her. Was she joking? Nothing she said was making any sense.
