Hidden Agenda

by Rochelle Alers

  He curved a forefinger under her chin, raising her face to his, inhaling sharply. His gaze moved slowly over her features. Eve’s black velvet eyes were filled with tears and fears, while her full, lush lips were compressed with anxiety.

  “I need you to trust me,” he said, exhaling and relieving the tightness in his chest. “And that means you can’t question what I do or say.”

  Closing her eyes, she nodded, unaware of the vulnerability softening her delicate features. “I’ll trust you, Matt.”

  She opened her eyes and he smiled. A lone tear flowed down her satiny, dark brown cheek. Lowering his head, Matt pressed his lips to her jaw, catching the salty moisture on his tongue.

  “It’s going to be all right, Eve.”

  She heard the deep, crooning voice, inhaled his masculine aftershave and the lingering aroma of tobacco and registered the unyielding power in Matthew Sterling’s body, feeling her despair easing. Something strange and unknown communicated itself, telling her that she would get her child back.

  “I believe you,” she whispered against his hot throat.

  She was tired, too numbed to argue and fight with him. She felt as if she’d been arguing for years. A whirlwind courtship and marriage to a stranger had taken its toll, and had drained her of her rebellious spirit.

  After Alex abducted Chris, Eve had almost lost the will to survive. But survive she did, because the drive to survive was as strong as the love for the child she longed to hold to her breast. She could not and would not give up.

  Matt’s left hand dropped while his right rested against the small of her back, his fingers caressing the curves along her rib cage and spine. “It’s time I got you settled in.”

  She tilted her chin. “Where are we going?”

  “You are going to stay with a cousin of mine. You’ll live with her family until we marry. After that we’ll travel south.”

  Applying the slightest pressure to her back, he steered Eve toward the elevator, the strength and warmth of his hand searing her through the fragile fabric of her dress. He did not remove his hand once they stepped into the elevator, and the brass doors closed behind them. His long fingers lingered loosely around her waist but she pulled away, moving out of his reach. The muted overhead light shadowed his eyes, but not the tensing of his jaw.

  “We’ll only have a month to get used to each other,” he stated in a low, ominous tone. Shifting, he stood behind Eve, and his moist breath feathered over the back of her neck while his fingers curved over her shoulders. “It will be for real,” he whispered in her ear. “And that means we’ll have to look like the loving couple. I expect you to respond to my kisses and caresses when we’re in public, and not cringe like a frightened virgin every time I touch you. And when we visit relatives, be prepared to share a bed with me.” Reaching over, he pushed a button on the panel and the elevator began its descent.

  Eve turned and stared up at him. Heat suffused her high cheekbones and darkened her eyes. “You forget why I’m here. I want my son. You won’t have to worry about me playing the part of the adoring wife. I’ve had more than my share of experience.”

  Matt slapped a button on the panel, stopping the elevator. “If that’s the case, then kiss me,” he challenged in a hoarse whisper.

  Her breath faltered before rushing through her parted lips. She watched Matt lounge lazily against a wall. Why was it she felt degraded having to please him because he had paid her? And he had paid her, once he agreed to look for Christopher. She was expected to perform sexual favors in return, only he sought to legitimize everything by marrying her.

  “Please don’t make me repeat myself,” he warned in a soft, no-nonsense voice.

  Eve struggled to contain her temper. She hated herself for the position she had been forced into. Matt didn’t believe she could play out her role as the loving wife.

  Her life had become a rerun. She could not count the times she and Alex appeared in public as the genteel couple after they’d traded vicious, scathing barbs only hours before.

  Moving closer to Matt, she felt the searing heat from his large body as his fingers brushed over her shoulders, then slid slowly down over her breasts. Everywhere they touched they burned her flesh, and she closed her eyes rather than allow him to see her reaction. His thumbs swept over her breasts, and the nipples strained and swelled against the lace of a matching black silk slip. She missed his smug grin. He knew she was not wearing a bra.

  His mustached mouth pressed against the sensitive flesh of her exposed neck, leaving a trail of moisture as his tongue tasted her ear before moving on to the hollow of her throat.

  “Good,” he moaned, his hands slipping down to her hips and bringing her thighs to his. “You and I are going to get along just fine.”

  Eve thought she was prepared. Matt’s eyes blazed with liquid fire seconds before his mouth claimed hers. His left hand held her hips prisoner while the right moved up, searching for the pulse along the column of her neck which began to flutter erratically under his callused fingertips. Her lips parted and she permitted him to inhale the moistness of her breath with his own. Her heart pounded wildly in her chest and she pressed closer, molding every curve of her body to his. His searching tongue extinguished the very last fragile thread of resistance, and her dormant fire raged out of control when her arms swept from his shoulders to wind around his neck.

  Matt was shocked at her response, and his own. The pleasure he’d derived from Eve’s mouth was euphoric. Beneath the dark, fragile beauty, Eve Blackwell was an inferno.

  Raising his head, he stared down at her. Her eyes were large pools of polished onyx, while her mouth was pouty and swollen from his passionate kiss.

  He cupped the back of her head in one hand, smiling. She was perfect. “We’re going to make a helluva couple, Eve Blackwell. No one will suspect that we’ve just met.”

  Releasing her, he reset the button on the panel, and the elevator continued its descent.

  Eve glanced up at his profile. He appeared totally unaffected by what had just occurred between them, while her heart pumped wildly against her rib cage. Matthew Sterling was too virile, too potent, to shrug off or ignore as a man, and he was the man she had to pretend she loved enough to marry.

  It’s only temporary, a silent voice reminded her. They would marry, find her son and bring him back to the States. Then they would go their separate ways, to live their separate lives.

  The elevator stopped at the hotel’s lower level and Matt grasped her hand firmly and led her down a narrow corridor and out to an underground parking area. “Your clothes have been packed and are in the trunk of my car,” he informed her. “You can’t stay here with me.”

  Eve took quick steps to keep up with his longer strides. “Why can’t I stay here?”

  “It’s not proper. Some of my very conservative family members will assume that I’ve been sleeping with you, and that our hasty marriage indicates that you’re embarazada.”

  “Embar—”

  “Pregnant, Eve.” He glanced down at her. “What are you smirking about?”

  “Somehow I didn’t think you would be that concerned about propriety.”

  He pushed open a door, and they stepped out into the warm night. “What did your uncle tell you about me?”

  “Not much,” she confessed.

  “Sure, I bet.”

  She studied his bold profile. “Do you really care, Matt?”

  He stopped suddenly, facing her. “Yes!” His gaze caught and held hers in the brightly lit parking lot. “I care very much,” he added in a softer tone.

  She touched his arm. “He said you’re the best. He also said there is something wild, almost savage, within you that will not permit you to acknowledge fear. And it is this lack of fear that makes you a winner, over and over again.”

  Matt caught her wrist in a firm grip. “Harry Blackwell is a liar. He thinks he knows me. No one will ever know the real Matthew Sterling.”

  Eve withdrew from him without
moving. Whatever closeness they had shared vanished quickly.

  Chapter 4

  There was an uncomfortable silence as Matt drove through the crowded streets of nighttime Mexico City. Twenty minutes later the streetlights dimmed and the traffic thinned as he maneuvered his spacious Lincoln sedan along a winding mountain road.

  At the higher elevation Eve barely made out the sparkling lights of the city that reminded her of New York City. Mexico City refused to go to sleep, although the blazing sun had long sunk behind the mountains, ending the day.

  She tried to, but could not ignore the man sitting beside her. Matthew Sterling’s double life intrigued her, and she wondered how he was able to shed his everyday persona once he went undercover.

  There was so much she wanted to know about him and so much she didn’t need to know about him.

  She chanced a surreptitious glance at him. Again, she encountered his impassive expression, wondering what was going on behind his mask of stone. How was she to pretend she loved this enigmatic man? Would she feel comfortable enough to spend a month with him, then feign passion after they married?

  A month! The time Matt had set for their courtship and length of engagement startled her into awareness. “I’m scheduled to return to Virginia on Thursday,” she informed him quietly.

  “That’s impossible,” he replied quickly, concentrating on the dark road in front of the automobile.

  Eve felt a rush of heat in her face as she leaned forward, straining against the seat belt restraint. “I have things to take care of—”

  “Your uncle can take care of your things,” he countered, interrupting her.

  “I need clothes,” she insisted.

  “I’ll buy you what you’ll need. We’ll go shopping tomorrow.”

  Easing back against the leather seat, she closed her eyes in resignation. It was only then that she realized her life was not her own to plan or control. It was as if she had surrendered her future to Matthew Sterling, a stranger, who would dictate every phase of her existence until she was reunited with her only child.

  An emotion swept through her, and she recognized it as rebellion. She had always felt the need to rebel—against her father and stepmother for sending her to the boarding school, and against Alex for his blatant infidelity.

  Alex had sought to absolve himself of guilt by blaming her for his infidelity. Every time he came home with the scent of another woman’s perfume clinging to his clothes, Alex had reminded Eve that he couldn’t make love to her after he’d witnessed the birth of their son; she found it impossible to comprehend that he was repulsed by his own wife’s body though he slept with other women who had given birth to children.

  She told Alex to seek professional help in overcoming his aversion to her body. He’d laughed, declaring there was nothing wrong with him, even though she’d threatened to leave him if he continued with his adulterous affairs. The threat became a reality when she moved out of their opulently decorated house and into a small apartment in Alexandria, Virginia. The day she moved, Alex was served with divorce papers.

  “How did you meet your ex-husband?” Matt queried, breaking into her musings, and again reading her mind.

  The dossier her uncle had forwarded to him revealed substantial details of her childhood. However, entries about the adult Eve Blackwell were sketchier. It was as if she had become more guarded, mysterious.

  And, despite the information he’d gleaned about her, he wanted and needed to know more about her. If she were to become his wife, he had to be able to react to every facet of her personality. He had to know what she liked, didn’t like, what frightened her, and whether he could trust her to not disclose his double life.

  He had become involved with only one woman after he accepted an assignment in the past, and the distraction nearly cost him his life. A muscle in his lean jaw twitched noticeably. This was to be his last mission, and Eve Blackwell would be the last woman he would permit himself to become involved with as an independent agent for the U.S. government.

  “I owned a gift shop in the D.C. area, and Alex would come in whenever he needed something,” Eve began, her voice low and soothing in the cloaking darkness of the luxury sedan.

  “What did he buy?” Matt questioned.

  “Collectible figurines. Lladrós.”

  “Who did he buy them for?”

  She smiled in the comforting darkness. “His mother.”

  Nodding, he filed away this information. “What else did you carry in your gift shop?”

  “Fine china, crystal, silver, and estate jewelry. Most of the business was generated through our bridal registry.”

  “How long did you know Delgado before you became involved with him?”

  Her head spun around, and she stared at Matt’s profile. He looked as if he had been carved out of granite, the distinctive features of his Mexican ancestry quite obvious. The jutting of his bold, aquiline nose, high cheekbones, and strong, square jaw complemented the darkness of his skin and heavy, wavy hair.

  “What do you mean by involved?”

  He glanced to his right, his sensitive hearing picking up the increase in her respiration. “Sleep with him,” he said before directing his attention back to the road.

  Eve bit down hard on her lower lip, feeling the heat stealing up her neck to her face. She’d tried for years to control the reaction. She was grateful for her dark coloring, because a lighter hue would have revealed her uneasiness immediately.

  Taking a deep breath, she said, “Alex came into the shop for almost a year before he asked me out.”

  A small smile softened Matt’s mouth under his mustache. “How soon after he asked you out did you marry him?”

  “A month.” The two words were barely audible.

  Throwing back his head, he roared with laughter. It was the sound of undeniable masculine triumph. “A month,” he repeated in a high falsetto, mimicking her. “I can’t wait a month, Matt,” he continued. Glancing over at her averted face, he sobered. “It is apparent you couldn’t wait to become Señora Alejandro Delgado.”

  He didn’t know why, but he was annoyed that Eve would marry Delgado after dating him a month, while openly balking at his offer of marriage.

  As a Sterling he exemplified stability. His family heritage claimed an important link in Texas and Louisiana history, with slaves, ex-slaves, and free people of color adding to its past and present; and with his recent purchase of land in New Mexico, where he intended to breed Thoroughbreds, he would sink Sterling roots deep within another state.

  “There’s a big difference between meeting someone for the first time and agreeing to marry them,” Eve argued. “And more importantly, to marry someone who earns his money the way you do,” she continued, not caring whether he heard the censure in her voice.

  His eyes burned amber liquid fire in the dimness of the car. Taking a deep breath, he said, “I don’t ever want to hear you say that to me again for as long as we’re connected to each other.” His voice was soft and lethal. “Do I make myself clear?”

  Her fury almost choked her. “Don’t tell me what to say.”

  “Eve!”

  The sound of her name exploding and vibrating in the automobile shocked both Matt and Eve, and there was a strained, uncomfortable silence.

  Her anger dissolved into shock before old fears and uncertainties surfaced. Matt sounded exactly like Alex.

  “Matt, please don’t ever raise your voice to me again,” she warned quietly.

  He glanced up at the rearview mirror, signaled, and maneuvered off the road to an unpaved shoulder. Unbuckling his seat belt, he pushed open the car door and stepped out into the blackness of the Mexican night. A sprinkling of stars, a slip of a last quarter moon, and the steady beam of the Lincoln’s headlights provided the only illumination.

  He walked around the car, opened the passenger-side door, and in one motion unbuckled Eve’s belt, eased her gently off the seat, and pulled her up close to his chest.

  “Let
’s get something straight, Miss Blackwell, before we go another kilometer. Don’t ever mention how I earn my living outside the States, and I won’t yell at you again.”

  Matt’s hold on her upper arms was loose enough for her to break, but for some foreign reason she wanted him to hold her. Despite her disastrous marriage she needed to feel a man’s strong, protective arms around her. It had taken her a while to realize she had substituted Alex for her father.

  However, that would not happen with Matt. He would become her husband in name only. There would be no promise of love, no passion, and no protection.

  Leaning heavily against him, she nodded. “Okay.”

  Gathering her closer, he dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Good. I hope this means that we understand each other.”

  Eve nodded again. “Yes.”

  They returned to the car and there was an unspoken agreement and a comfortable silence until Matt turned off the road. A large house, surrounded by outdoor lights, loomed in the distance.

  “Is your cousin expecting us?” she asked him.

  Matt drove into a driveway and turned off the engine. “No.”

  “But—”

  “It’s all right,” he cut in. “Remember, you’re my novia. My fiancée,” he translated quickly.

  She gave him a skeptical look, permitting him to help her from the car and escort her through a courtyard and loggia, and to the entrance of a two-story, Spanish Colonial style villa.

  Towering cactus and piñon trees surrounded the pale adobe walls, and even in the velvet darkness of the night the structure’s beauty was obvious.

  “What’s your cousin’s name?” Eve queried, hoping Matt’s relatives wouldn’t resent her unplanned stay at their home.

  “Alma Sterling-Navarro.”

  “Sterling?”

  “Our fathers are brothers,” he explained.

  Ceiling fans turned slowly from a deep overhang of cypress in the loggia, while wrought-iron lanterns attached to the adobe walls bathed Matt and Eve in a soft, flattering light as their gazes met and held. Night sounds shattered the stillness of the warm spring night. She inhaled the fragrance of the different flowers blooming and creeping up one wall near a massive, decoratively carved iron door.