by Gail, Stacy
Nate watched as she bent, caught his foot up, and wedged it between her knees. He froze while his imagination went wild as he stared at where they came into physical contact. With one move off the exam table, he could easily slide his leg between hers. He’d do it slowly, not to scare her but to entice her, and he’d enjoy the friction of it as his thigh parted hers, the slender columns of her legs sandwiching his in a warm embrace of need and hunger. He’d run his hands down her back to cup her lean little ass to encourage her to ride along the length of his leg. He wouldn’t stop as the warmth of the friction-created heat bloomed at the juncture of her thighs, and she would rock against him until that heat became an all-out blaze and she was moaning for more...
“...hurt you, I’m truly sorry for that.”
His skin flushed and tightened until he was the one who wanted to moan with the sweet pain of it. “You think I’ve got a hard body?”
She lifted dark brown eyes to him, and for a second he forgot how to breathe. “Are you listening, or is this another shining example of you not hanging on my every word?”
“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t follow the script. But in case you didn’t know, it’s a pretty decent bet that if you’re attacked from behind by some freak, he’s not doing it because he’s a compulsive bear-hugger.”
For a moment she looked like she wanted to wrap the bandage around his mouth. “Trust me, I grasp that fact in every possible way you can imagine. But for teaching purposes, I had a vague hope that I could walk the class through a few basic moves before addressing the much more advanced techniques needed to escape the clutches of, say, Sasquatch.”
Ouch. “Are you saying I have big feet?”
She rolled her eyes and began wrapping his knee in deft motions that were so fast and uniform it almost seemed unreal. “Newsflash, Nate. You’re not dainty.”
A slow smile curled a corner of his mouth before he gave himself a mental shake. “Damn it. I am not going to say it.”
“Say what?”
“Nope. You can’t make me say it.”
“Say what?”
Ah, hell. She asked for it. “You know what they say about men with big feet, right?”
The look she gave him probably should have peeled the skin off his bones. “Yeah. They have big shoes.”
Even to his ears his laughter sounded predatory. “I like how you have an answer for everything. It makes me want to trip you up.”
“Better men than you have tried. Now do me a favor and walk around a bit, just to reassure me that I didn’t cripple you.”
He did as instructed, circling the little room while she backed up to press against the sink. “Feels great. Professional, even.”
The room was so small he was able to hear her swiftly indrawn breath. “That’s because I am a professional.”
Definitely an answer for everything. Like that, his indecision vanished. “I must admit I am curious about you, Miss Ella Little. You seem to have a perfect Chicago accent—except when you don’t, and a hint of the South creeps in when you’re distracted or upset. You’re over-the-top wary, you have your friends here at the gym watching over you like over-protective parents, and I believe you were one thin hair away from taking me out just now with all the cold-blooded precision of someone who’s not afraid to kill in order to survive.”
He came to a stop just before her. There had to be something wrong with him, for him to get turned on by her dangerous stillness. “I’m trained in self-defense, Nate. That’s why I teach it.”
“And the effortless wrapping of my knee? You did that on total auto-pilot.”
“Do you have a point?”
“You’re certified in sports medicine, true. But this was too good of a job you did while holding a conversation and not even looking at what you were doing. It was second nature to you.”
A fine line of perspiration appeared along her dark hairline. “Who are you?”
“The question is, who are you? Are you really Ella Little, or could you possibly be...Gabriella Littlefield?”
For a moment he thought she might faint. Then without warning, the heel of her hand shot out toward his solar plexus. On instinct he dodged it, her movement drawing out in his eyes until she was caught in slow motion while he rocketed around the punch that would have otherwise caved him in two. Her look of stunned dismay registered even as he used his momentum to spin toward the door, which he opened with a flourish. No need to make her feel trapped now that he had her well and truly pinned.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Something broke free inside him, a wild thing that raged his triumph as he regarded the woman he’d feared he’d never find without his inner compass. “We can do this a couple of ways, Ella.”
Her face was so tight her skin stretched over her cheekbones and her bloodless lips pulled back in a snarl. “We’re not doing it any way. Get the hell out of here.”
“Can’t do that. One,” he added when she took an ominous step toward him, no doubt to try and persuade him to leave by any means necessary, “you can continue to try to beat the shit out of me, which I hope you realize by now would be a complete waste of time. Or two, you can calm down. Once you do that, we can have a nice, quiet chat over a cup of coffee or an early dinner someplace public so you’ll feel comfortable and not threatened by me. You choose the place—on me, of course.”
The universe seemed to quiver with the rage that boiled around her like a living thing. Her hands curled into fists, her paper-white face a frozen death mask torn between fury and an anguished agony he couldn’t begin to comprehend. A stab of remorse cut him; he’d brought this to her doorstep. But there was no getting around it. This had to be done.
Then she nodded once, a rusty jerk of her head that was so stiff it all but shrieked in silent pain. “Fine. There’s a restaurant around the corner within walking distance, so let’s just get this done. But make no mistake—after today I never want to lay eyes on you again.”
Chapter Six
Antony’s Ristorante was all but empty, as most nine-to-five wage-slaves were just beginning to shuffle their way out the door. Settled in a booth across the aisle from a mahogany bar populated by a bored bartender idly flipping through channels on the plasma TV overhead, Ella clamped her jaw tight and tried not to throw up. She didn’t want to be here. With all her heart she wished she was safely tucked away in her tiny pitched-roof cottage with its peeling lavender paint and barred security doors and windows. Instead, she was sitting across from a man who had been nothing more than a living, breathing lie from the moment he’d approached her in kickboxing class.
And she’d thought that after all her training and mental barrier-building, no one could get to her. God. What an arrogant idiot she’d been.
And what a heartless ass he was.
Bitter betrayal curdled her blood until her eyes stung with it. It was a reaction that made no rational sense, but there was no way she could stop it. She’d been aware of this man’s existence a grand total of three days, a fact that landed him in the category of acquaintance. There should be no emotional attachment to someone who was barely more than a stranger. Yet she was on the verge of throwing her glass of water in his face. He’d hunted her from the beginning, the bastard. He’d come across as charming and charismatic—hell, he’d flirted with her. She didn’t know what else to call it when a man went out of his way to bring her attention to the size of his feet.
But it hadn’t been real. The manipulative jerk had just been trying to sneak past her defenses to pull the rug out from under her.
And stupid idiot that she was, she’d let him close enough to do it.
What really bugged her was that he’d obviously known from the beginning who she was. That meant there had never been any genuine interest behind his flirting. How could there be? If he knew her old identity, he knew her story. He knew e
verything.
Who she was.
What she was.
That she was nothing more than a scarred-up, screwed-up mess.
The muscles in her throat knotted like an angry fist. A wave of emotion too dark to untangle slammed her harder than a punch to the gut. Why had he bothered to toy with her? Why make her remember what it was to be just an ordinary woman swept up by the seemingly appreciative gaze of an attractive man? It would have been better if he’d left her to wither away in her numb cocoon of non-life.
A waitress came and went, taking their orders and depositing piping-hot Italian bread and seasoned olive oil before them. And all the while Ella grimly held her silence. She’d be damned if she’d help him in any way from this point on. She had a decent idea as to why he was here; the reason she’d left both her name and her life behind in North Carolina could be credited to the never-ending prodding of the insatiable media. Nate da Luca—if that was even who he really was—might be more determined than most, but he was like all those other bottom-feeder journalists demanding one more gory detail of what had happened in the Smoky Mountains. But she would never give him what he wanted. She’d cut out her own tongue before she’d give him the frigging time of day.
“So.” With his broad-shouldered frame taking up most of the space on his side of the booth, Nate looked too big to be real as he pushed the basket of bread toward her. “You should try and eat something. You look like you need it.”
She didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Layer upon layer of icy bitterness formed, locking her in place until she half believed she’d never be able to move again. Drown in my silence, you dick. Drown, drown, drown...
Seconds ticked by with agonizing slowness before he shook his dark head. “Maybe I should’ve let you hit me. It probably would have made you feel better.”
Ella had to bite the inside of her lip to keep from telling him that nothing would make her feel better about being found. But his comment did bring another thought up through the storm of rage. Though she wasn’t exactly proud of the way she’d launched an attack on him, it hadn’t done any good. Her instinctive reaction to lash out at a threat had garnered her nothing. Even now she had no clue how he’d dodged her. She’d never seen anyone move the way Nate had. She hadn’t even known it was humanly possible to move so fast that the lines of his body had somehow blurred around the edges.
Maybe in her shock and upset her mind had decided to play tricks on her.
His mouth tightened when she still didn’t respond. “Okay, let’s get this over with so we can both move on with our lives.”
“That’s what I’d been trying to do when you showed up.” Ah hell, she spoke. So much for drowning him in the silent treatment. But there was no way she’d let him get away with complaining that she was now wasting his precious time. “Just who the hell are you?”
“My full name is Nathanael da Luca, but my friends call me Nate—”
“You have friends? Will wonders never cease.”
His dark eyes narrowed in a dangerous look she’d never seen from him before. At last, a glimpse of the true Nate da Luca. “I know you’re pissed off. And considering your background is that of a fighter, I’m not surprised your first instinct is to try and take my head off. The thing is, I’m not your enemy.”
“Oh, don’t be modest.” The anger and ridiculous hurt honed the edge of her voice until it was lethal enough to slice. “Of course you’re my enemy. There’s no way you can be anything else.”
“If you’ll just listen, I can prove I’m on your side.”
“Sure you are.” She crossed her arms in the universal body language that signaled the shutting down of all higher brain function, and wished with all her might that looks really could kill. “I’m listening.”
She thought he might have trembled on the verge of swearing at her. “Fine. Let’s start with the basics. What I told you was true—I really am from Atlanta, Georgia. I’m a private investigator hired by a legal firm, Archibald and Associates, to find a Miss Gabriella Littlefield. This law firm specializes in family law and the settling of estates. Are you with me so far?”
So he wasn’t a journalist. Not that it mattered. “There are a lot of people who might want to find Gabriella Littlefield. Are you aware of that?”
“I am.” He didn’t drop his gaze, even as he seemed to brace himself. “I know who you are, what your history is. It occurred to me that I might be used as some sort of stalking-horse to uncover your whereabouts for some ulterior motive, so I had to be convinced that Archibald wanted to find you for a legitimate reason. I’m convinced. So here I am.”
Ella curled her hands into fists. There it was—confirmation he’d known all along what damaged goods she was. Just when she thought she couldn’t feel any worse. “Why did this Archibald law firm want to find me?”
“A large sum of money was bequeathed to you by Mrs. Claudine Pierpont-Rainier upon her death six weeks ago. This law firm has a duty to fulfill the last requests left in her final Will and Testament.”
At the name, Ella’s heart stilled. The blood drained from her head, her neck, her body, leaving her in a strange and icy limbo suspended between life and death. Then her pulse started up again with one almighty thump, and the possibility of vomiting in a spectacular fashion resurfaced with a vengeance.
His eyes widened and he came halfway out of his seat. “Ella?”
She managed to hold up a hand, and she didn’t know whether it was to stop him or to plead for a mercy fate had never bothered to show her. “You must have the emotional depth of a mud puddle to mention the name Rainier to my face. Are you sure you know who I am?”
“You really don’t remember me, do you?”
Still rattled, she stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m the one who found you coming out of the woods the day you escaped, carrying that other girl on your back.”
Her jaw dropped. In a day full of shocks, that was a lulu. “What?”
“I’m not surprised you’re pulling a blank when it comes to me. But I remember you.”
She could only shake her head. Automatically her mind flew back to that moment when someone had found her, held her, whispering, “I’ve got you. You’re safe now.” She’d been too traumatized to remember any detail other than a feeling of relief and being engulfed by a towering presence of indomitable safety. In a world gone hellishly mad, that one voice had brought her a sense of security so piercing, it may have saved her sanity.
It took a massive effort to pull a coherent thought together. “You said you were from Atlanta...”
“That nightmare may have happened up in Asheville, but I assure you it was all over the news in my town. I was a cop in the Atlanta PD back then, and when you and the other women were reported missing, I wanted to help. So I headed up the interstate to volunteer to look for you and the others.”
“You did?”
He nodded, his hardened expression making him almost unrecognizable. “It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out there was a monster hidden somewhere in the Smoky Mountains. In one week, three women who had no connection to each other except for their similar appearance—blond hair, blue eyes, early twenties, average height—suddenly vanished without a trace. By the time you, the fourth and final victim, vanished, I was ready to head up north and offer my services. Since I wasn’t too bad at finding things, I thought maybe I had a chance of finding you before it was too late.”
“You’re good at finding things, all right.” The words were out before she could stop them. “I can attest to that.”
“All four of you had disappeared at the edge of town, close to a logging road that led more or less in the direction of Charles Rainier’s posh cabin,” he went on, ignoring the acid she tried to throw his way. “None of the locals wanted to even touch that well-heeled family, but since
I didn’t give a damn, I went for it. I’d been there less than an hour when I found you stumbling out of the tree line—naked, shocky from blood loss and carrying another one of the missing women over your shoulder. I almost couldn’t believe it.”
That made two of them. “I do remember...someone. Having that girl I was carrying, Jasmine, taken off my shoulder was such a relief. And there was a coat...”
“A jacket, actually. I gave you my Atlanta Braves baseball jacket with the sheepskin lining. You were shaking so hard I feared you’d die of shock then and there. Then I took the other victim, Jasmine Sims, wrapped her up in my shirt and got you both out of there as fast as I could. I didn’t know yet who had taken you, or that he was...”
“Dead.” The word came out like the flatline of a heart monitor. All things considered, that was probably appropriate. “I still have your jacket. Do you want it back?”
“What I want is for you to realize I’m on your side, Gabriella. I have been, long before now.”
How wonderful it would be if she could believe him. “Don’t call me that. Gabriella died at the hands of Charles Rainier. Just as surely as he died at mine.”
For some perverse reason Ella looked for signs of shock or revulsion at what she had done to survive, waiting viciously to hold his pious condemnation against him. But all he did was nod in what looked like glowing approval. “I did everything I could to get my hands on the police report, just to make sure Rainier really was as dead as the news was saying. I can’t tell you how proud I was of you when I read you’d taken the knife he’d used to carve his so-called art into you and the others, his ‘living canvases,’ and nearly took his head off with it.”
Her jaw locked as the memories tried to drown her—the horror of watching the others slowly bleed to death rising like a toxic tide to fill her stomach with acid. Even now she had no remorse for fighting her abductor when he’d unshackled her from the cabin wall where he’d kept his “canvases,” grabbing his favorite tool—a hunting knife—and charging at him in an all-or-nothing gambit. Two women had already perished, left to hang on his wall as Charles Rainier’s sick idea of masterpieces, while the third one was so anemic and traumatized she’d stopped speaking during the two days that Ella had been held captive. When Ella had decided to strike, she’d known it was either end up like the rest of them, or die trying to live.
