Luke had followed her to the hotel, then to the school. He’d seen the attacker enter through the side exit, but he had no idea where Vanessa was in the building. It had been one of the most anxious moments of his life searching for her and finally finding her in the closed classroom, struggling with her attacker.
He couldn’t have lived with two people dying because of his mistakes—and because of Nicky. He wondered if Nicole had set Vanessa up, or if it was simple coincidence that had put Vanessa in danger. She looked enough like Nicky to have fooled him, at first. He supposed it stood to reason that if he had seen her on the airport security footage that had first clued him in to her location, someone else might have, too.
Fate. Luke believed that he was destined to find Nicole and to make things right. Vanessa was apparently part of that journey. He’d learned, during his eastern studies, not to discount things like karma. The flow of energy, the cycles of the universe that moved everyone along in life. Everything was connected; Luke believed that. If protecting Vanessa was part of what he had to do to get to Nicky, then that’s what he’d do.
Turning onto a dirt road not marked on his GPS, they ended up by the water, parked by an abandoned marina.
Getting out of the car, he looked around and sensed no one in the vicinity. For a few heartbeats, he didn’t spot Vanessa and thought maybe she’d ditched him or missed the turn, but then her headlights shone on the dirt path coming at him. He walked up to the car when she parked.
“What are we doing?” she asked.
“We can leave your car here. In the old storage facility over there. It belongs to a guy I know. Take everything valuable, all ID, out of it.”
She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.
“What if something happens to it? My insurance would go through the roof. I can’t afford to lose it!”
“They’ll know you booked the rental, and they’ll look for it. You can come back and get it later. Nothing will happen to it here.”
“Fine,” she muttered as she started the engine again and drove the car over to the storage building.
Luke knew it was difficult. No doubt Vanessa felt out of control of her life, and he was asking her to put herself in his hands. Well, technically she had insisted...figuratively speaking, anyway. But if she wanted to see this through, she had to trust him. He’d heard his cousins talk about the immediate bond that had to be forged between a bodyguard and the client they were protecting. Usually, the principal—the person being protected—would resist it. No one liked losing control, but control was illusory, at best. Luke knew that better than anyone.
He’d thought he had everything under control when Nicky had come into his life. He didn’t realize he’d been fooling himself until it was too late. Nicky was gone, and a man was dead.
Vanessa wasn’t Nicky.
He had to get that through his head. It was difficult, though. How could he look at her and not think about those times with Nicole? She’d been a wildcat in bed and out of it. The memory shot a bolt of desire through him. He’d been with some women since he was with her, of course, but none who were the same. Nothing as intense.
Until he’d kissed Vanessa. Touched her. But that was when he thought she was Nicky, right? He switched his gaze to the city’s lights that shone over the water in the distance.
This woman was off-limits. He had to stay focused if he was going to do this right. Nicky had to be at the center of this, somehow. Ultimately, finding her was what would make Vanessa safe again and allow him to get on with his life.
Luke peeled the door of the storage unit open, watching Vanessa drive in and shut off the engine. Climbing out of the driver’s seat, she grabbed her few things and joined him.
“What now?” she asked after they delivered her belongings to his car and he closed the storage unit door, bolting it.
“We go back to my place. You can’t go to the hotel. Did you need anything there?”
She hesitated. “I left all of the clothes I bought and my cosmetics there.”
“I’ll get you new. Now, let’s move.”
“Thanks for the help, Luke,” she said quietly as they returned to the main road.
“It’s what I’m here for.”
He needed to remember that.
* * *
“TAKE OFF YOUR BLOUSE,” Luke said once they were inside the door of his hotel room.
Vanessa stood in the middle of his suite like a startled deer.
“What?”
Vanessa could count the times she’d been in a strange man’s hotel room on exactly one finger.
At thirty-one, maybe that made her naive or inexperienced, but her life had been her work and her family. She’d had a few lovers, but they were usually men she’d known for a while. None of them had been spectacular or lasted for very long. She always managed to screw up the relationship somehow. She knew she maintained too much distance between herself and men. She didn’t let them in, didn’t open up. Emotionally or sexually. She didn’t know how to change that. Luke’s demand made her back up a step.
He seemed to understand, nodding. “I only want to look at that cut. Then I can go get you what you need while you shower.”
“I can go. You don’t know my size, or what I like,” she objected as he approached her.
“Please, let me see how bad it is, Vanessa.”
His green eyes were kind and focused, though exhaustion was showing in the strain in his face. It was only evident if you looked really close, like she was doing now. It reminded her that pretty much everything she’d been through in the last twenty-four hours, he’d been through, too.
Even so, she wasn’t about to take her shirt off on his command, but she did shrug off her blazer, lifting the edge of her blouse where blood had soaked through, partly drying the fabric to her skin. She jumped as she pulled gingerly at it.
“Don’t do that. Wait,” he said and stalked off down the hall, returning with a wet towel. “This will loosen the fabric from your skin.”
The warm, wet towel felt good against her sore side as they peeled her blouse back from the wound, and Vanessa was shocked to see how much she’d bled.
“Oh,” she breathed out, dizzy.
“Here.” Luke guided her to the sofa.
She eased back, letting him investigate her injury. From a knife. That someone had wanted to use to kill her.
Unreal.
“It bled a lot, but it’s not bad and the bleeding has stopped. It won’t need stitches. You got lucky.”
“Why does everyone keep telling me that?”
Luke smiled and looked closer at the wound. “I can get some butterfly bandages, antibiotic and gauze. We’ll be able to fix you up quite easily. Will you be okay to take a shower on your own?”
Vanessa’s heart skipped a beat. For a second, she thought he was going to offer to help her.
What would she have said?
He’d been a complete gentleman. There was no hint of anything suggestive or sexual since their kiss in the parking lot.
Confusing.
Especially as she stood here, thinking about Luke in the shower with her and not automatically dismissing the idea.
“I’ll be fine. It doesn’t hurt that much. I was just surprised by how much blood there was,” she said with a weak laugh.
“It’s understandable. I saw a Marine faint at the sight of his own blood once, so don’t be too hard on yourself.”
Vanessa smiled. His hands were gentle around the wound, and his tone was soothing. She studied his hair as he knelt before her, and she wanted to push her fingers through it. Everything had done a complete turnaround since a few hours before, when she was sure he was the one after her. Now she wanted him to stay close. Very close. That was so unlike her, and a sign that she really wasn’t herself.
“Okay, then,” he said, standing quickly. “Tell me what else you need, and I’ll go to the store while you shower.”
“Let me give you my credit card, or my ATM—”
“No. You can’t use any of those things until we know what’s going on. I’ll contact the detective and let him know you’re with me, so the police don’t go looking for you, but that’s it. Otherwise, you need to stay off the radar as much as possible.”
Vanessa blinked. “How could anyone track my money, or my car? I mean, who does that other than the government?”
Luke frowned. “You’d be surprised. It’s how I found you.”
“Yeah, actually, I meant to ask you about that. How did you find me?”
“We can talk about it later. For the moment, let’s get the basics attended to.”
She told him what she needed. “I feel awkward having you pay for all of this. Keep the receipts, at least, so I can reimburse you.”
“Sure, no worries,” Luke said, though she doubted his tone. “I’ll be back in an hour or so. I have a key. Do not open the door for anyone, under any circumstances. I don’t care if it’s life or death, room service, whatever. You keep it locked. Keep the curtains closed, too. Clear?”
She nodded soberly. Vanessa couldn’t help but feel that this was overkill, but then again, someone had tried to kill her twice in one day.
“Yes.”
“Good. Take your time, relax. I’m going to get us some food, too.”
“I ate earlier,” she said, not wanting to cause him any more trouble.
“I didn’t,” he said with a grin, and she felt her cheeks heat.
“Sorry, I just... Never mind.”
Luke offered one more smile and headed out the door, closing it firmly behind him.
Alone, Vanessa thought she might be swallowed by the sofa as her muscles turned to jelly. She’d held herself tense the entire time Luke had been touching her.
He’d only been checking her injury. There hadn’t been anything more to it than that. But still, his touch, and how he looked at her... She couldn’t help but feel something.
She didn’t know if it was the adrenaline, being completely lifted out of her usual reality, or the need for comfort, but she wished he would kiss her again. Just as he did in the police parking lot.
It was crazy, but if he asked her again to take her blouse off, she might not hesitate.
It really was unbelievable. She chided herself sternly as she stood up, minding her side as she headed to the bathroom.
Vanessa had never been in such a luxuriously appointed room before. Clearly, Luke liked to travel in style.
The bathroom was larger than the one at her house. Then again, the suite was almost the size of her entire first floor. Well, when she’d had a first floor.
Stripping off the clothes she’d bought that afternoon, she started to fold them and then sighed in disgust and threw them in the trash. They were all bloody and dirty, anyway.
Stepping into the hot shower was heaven. She didn’t have any of her usual shampoos or soaps, but Luke had some on the counter, so she used his.
It was intimate, she thought, moving the bar of soap he’d likely used that morning over her naked skin. She eased the bar down along her thigh, catching her breath for a second.
Her eyes popped open. What was going on with her? She never behaved like this. It was like her skin was sizzling, her blood pulsing with desire from using this soap.
The events of the day were messing with her brain. They said people who confronted death often wanted to express themselves sexually. It was a way of confirming they were alive.
Vanessa was feeling a bit too alive, perhaps. She wasn’t sure she could trust her instincts right now.
Briskly washing up, she stepped out and grabbed a few towels from the warmer in the corner. It was Florida, and it was summer, but the room was cool and the warm towels felt delicious against her skin.
Finger-combing her hair, she took in the darkening bruises from her fall earlier in the day, and the cut on her side. It wasn’t bad at all, really. Relieved at that, she looked for something to put on. Usually there would be a robe in the bathroom, but she didn’t see one.
Luke must have used it that morning.
Padding down the narrow hall, she found the suite had two bedrooms and Luke’s luggage was in one of them.
She saw the robe thrown over the back of a chair, and while she didn’t feel right intruding on his personal space, she couldn’t walk around in a damp towel, either.
She picked up the robe on the back of the chair and let the towel drop as she wrapped the thick, blue terry around her.
It smelled like him—like his soap. She smelled like him, too.
Her eye caught a folder on the small table next to the bed, and she knew she shouldn’t look, but she was here in a hotel with a man she didn’t know. She only had his word and the word of the detective about who Luke really was. She approached the file as if it might bite her, carefully picking it up and opening the cover.
Her own face stared back at her—she didn’t recognize the photo, but then she realized it was from her return trip from Puerto Rico. This had to be from airline security.
How could Luke get his hands on something like this? Wasn’t it restricted to the government? A chill chased down her spine as she flipped through the papers and blinked, tears stinging her eyes.
Julie.
Though the file called her Nicole. Nicole Brooks.
Nicky.
Of course. Logic had been lost in the panic of what had been happening, but now it made sense. Luke and Vanessa were both looking for the same woman. Her sister.
Vanessa paged through a few more of the files. There were a lot of pictures. Pictures of Julie with Luke, the two of them together, looking close. Intimate.
Her breath caught again. Luke had been her sister’s lover.
Is that why he wanted to find her so desperately? Why he’d kissed her? And why he’d stopped, knowing that she wasn’t the woman he was searching for? The woman he wanted.
Vanessa’s hand shook as she closed the file to put it back on the nightstand.
“Anything you want to know, feel free to ask.”
Vanessa jumped, dropping the file as she did so, Luke’s voice startling her.
“You’re back. I, um, I came in looking for a robe, and...”
“And you saw the file. It’s understandable. I would’ve done the same thing,” he said, unperturbed.
He set two bags down on the bed.
“Do you need help bandaging your side?”
Vanessa wasn’t sure if she was more flustered by being caught peeking or that he didn’t seem upset by it.
“I’ll be able to do it myself, thanks.”
What she’d seen in the file had poured ice over all of her adrenaline-fired fantasizing. When Luke had kissed her, he wasn’t kissing her. He’d been kissing Nicky.
So she was using an alias. No wonder Vanessa hadn’t been able to find her sister. She’d been looking for Julie Newman—her sister’s last registered surname—not Nicole Brooks all this time.
When she turned around, Luke was gone, and she was still sitting on his bed. Getting up, she took the bags and went into the other, unoccupied room. She was glad she found the file. It meant that she might be closer to locating her sister, and it also meant she could keep a clear head about Luke Berringer.
No more crazy romantic dreams. He was clearly in love with Julie—Vanessa could see that from the pictures of them together. What mattered to her was that she was one step closer to finding her sister, and Luke Berringer would help her do that.
She took off the robe and put on the lacy underwear and soft cotton shorts and tank that Luke had bought her—much se
xier than what she would have bought for herself. Her mind went back to the file as she dressed. What this also meant was that Julie was in danger—someone clearly wanted to kill her. While Luke appeared smitten in the photos in the file, he hadn’t appeared that way earlier, in the police cruiser, when he thought she was Nicky.
He’d looked like he hated her.
Vanessa supposed there was only one way to really know what was going on. Luke said all she had to do was ask, so that was exactly what she intended to do.
4
LUKE DIDN’T EVEN taste his food as he ate. All he could think about was Vanessa sitting on the side of his bed, naked under the robe he’d worn that morning. She’d gone directly to her own room, and he assumed she went straight to bed. Maybe to avoid him after he caught her in his room going through his files.
It wasn’t a big deal, really. He believed her that she’d needed the robe and had picked up the file out of curiosity—and he probably would have done the same. She deserved to know why someone was after her and how he had come to find her. What he hadn’t expected was the devastated look on her face when he caught her.
“Hi. Mind if I join you? It’s too early to sleep, even though I’m worn out.”
She was standing in the entry, poised as if she were ready to run in the other direction. So different from Nicky. As he took her in, the salad nearly lodged in his throat. He really should have bought her some baggy sweats.
The shorts hugged her like a second skin, the tank top revealing the curve of her hip and breast. What had he been thinking? The clothing had seemed innocent enough when he’d picked it from the shelves.
With her damp, curling hair and no makeup, she looked much younger, more vulnerable, and he would never have mistaken her for Nicky. Her breasts were smaller, her general stature a bit more slight. And there was that mole....
Luke cleared his throat.
“Sure, come on in. Help yourself if you’re hungry. My eyes were bigger than my stomach,” he managed conversationally, though he had a hard time not watching her cross the room, admiring how gracefully she moved, even with her injuries.
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