Dangerous Illusion

by Melissa James

Yeah. Way too tense for a woman with nothing to hide.

  At random he picked up a vase. It was flute-shaped, thin as the most delicate glass, of a blue so clear he could almost see through it, like a wash of oceanic beauty. A woman’s face superimposed, like a hologram for its fineness, its sweet lost-soul effect. “This is amazing.”

  She nodded with regal carelessness. “Thank you.”

  “How much?” Nothing in the whole studio had a price on it that he could see.

  She told him, her cool, clear voice almost a shrug. As if she’d picked a price off the top of her head.

  His mental alarm started shrieking. Everything she said and did was way too casual for the levels of tension he felt radiating from her. Oh, yeah, she knew him, remembered him. Was she fighting the same grinning demons he was? Wanting, aching for a touch, playing the fiddle of imperative danger while they burned with need….

  She apparently misinterpreted his silence. “That’s in New Zealand dollars, not American.” He guessed she was speaking in reference to his California accent, still strong after living for a decade in Canberra, Australia’s capital.

  “Very reasonable.” With almost two NZ dollars to each American dollar, the vase was almost indecently cheap. “I’ll take it.” And he wanted it. Even if it hadn’t been a piece of such clear-water, haunting beauty, he’d want it. He wanted a permanent part of her to stay with him even after she’d gone.

  Yeah, he’d hit the jackpot at last. No other woman had ever set his body on fire with such white-hot, furious need. Only Delia. She’d scorched him with every smile, every laugh at his jokes, every secret she’d told him—and she’d drugged his very soul with kisses so sweet, shy and desperate, his lips still burned with their imprint ten years later. In five months, she’d dragged his heart from its place of deep, dark hiding…and she’d slipped some intrinsic part of his self inside that incredible aura of hers, and taking it back had never been an option.

  Gut, heart, body and soul, all screaming, I’ve found her.

  Yet if she was Delia, she was another man’s wife, even if that man was a slime-bucket criminal who got rid of his enemies with his army of contract killers.

  And still McCall wanted her, his desire raging and unstoppable.

  Had he ever really known her? The Falcone case had long ago forced him to reassess everything he thought he knew. She’d been an eighteen-year-old girl when they’d met in secret for five beautiful months—then she was gone. Within a year she’d married Robert Falcone, a smiling demon who left the hearts of brave men slamming against their ribs and their guts knotted. What had life with Falcone done to the woman-child who’d been so pure, so protected and innocent to McCall’s world-weary eyes?

  Seeming oblivious to his turmoil, Elizabeth Silver, Potter of Excellence, wrapped the vase in tissue paper and placed it in a bag with her amazing design on its silvery folds. “Here you are, sir.” Her hands trembled slightly as she handed the package to him.

  On instinct, he zeroed in on her eyes, and saw unmasked terror…and haunting recognition. Then it was gone, so swift it felt like the passing of an F/A-18. He had to force himself not to blink. Was this an Oscar-winning performance, or was he wishing, hoping so damn hard for her to be Delia he’d gone catatonic?

  Right. You can do this. He handed her a credit card with his real name, watching her as she took it. Would she react? Not likely, if she didn’t react to my face or voice. But it was a risk he had to take, with only two days to gain her trust.

  Her eyes flicked over the name with detached professionalism as she made up the bill, then she handed him the slip to sign. “Thank you, Mr. McCall. Please come back.” Not a single sign of recognition, just a courteous dismissal.

  He didn’t believe it—didn’t believe her. She’d had a decade to perfect her act. He wasn’t going anywhere. Not when every screaming instinct told him he’d found her at last. “My mom has a set of pottery at home in a similar blue to this vase, but she broke her teapot. A tall one, in a classic design. Do you think you could make a replacement? I’d love to surprise her with a new one.” Since his mom had run off when he was eight, taking his sister, Meg, and leaving him alone with his drunken dad, she sure as hell would be surprised—surprised he’d bothered to find her. But it made him sound like an all-round nice guy, and women liked that kind of man. He had to gain her trust fast—it meant her life—and his long-absent mom may as well be useful to him for once.

  It worked. He got another smile, a fluttering of her fingers. “Of course I can. Does the piece have any particular design on it?”

  “Daisies.” A spur-of-the-moment decision. “You know, like that old china pattern? Flannel daisy, wasn’t it?”

  Her cheeks flushed, her eyes glowed from within, like far-off stars warmed by sunlight. He didn’t know what, but he’d said something to bring her to life, one way or another. “I can make something similar, but please bear in mind that the design and china are classic. I can never hope to create anything that perfect.” She went on, neither needing nor wanting his reassurance on her talent. “I could have it finished in twelve days. Perhaps I can send it on to wherever you’re going?”

  “I’ve got two more weeks here.” He watched her in what he hoped was a strong-male-interest-without-interrogation manner. Hell, the best he could hope right now was that he didn’t look like a psychotic stalker. When it came to Delia, his feelings were so screwed he didn’t know what he looked like or what he felt.

  One of her eyebrows lifted. “Two weeks in the Bay, in autumn? You’re not touring the whole North Island?”

  Okay, that was weird. It was fixable. “I’m on long service leave. I’ve been here a month, with Auckland as my base, doing the beaches and wilderness. I’ve seen from the Harbors to the volcanoes around Rotorua and the ski fields, not that there’s snow yet. I checked out the South Island, too. It’s a gorgeous place, isn’t it? Just like it looks in Lord of the Rings.”

  Innocuous babble of an American tourist, lifted straight from a tour guide. He’d flown straight into the Bay last night, his security clearance absolute and unquestioned.

  This wasn’t working. His hatred of the lies he told wouldn’t show, he was too good to let it slip—but the people he lied to were the pond scum of the earth, and lying to this pristine princess made him feel as if he’d joined their ranks.

  If he kept up the act, she’d bolt. He had to tell her the truth, or the mission would blow up in his face. The consequences to him were immaterial compared to those before the whole Nighthawk team, and especially to this woman and her child.

  Because if he didn’t get her out of here fast, no matter what her name was, Elizabeth Silver would be a dead woman within days.

  Chapter 2

  B rendan?

  It took every scrap of self-control not to cry out his name, but she’d done it. She’d waited in silence for him to show a sign, to show her that he knew her, for him to tell her why he was here, and she’d received—nothing.

  Nothing but lies.

  McCall—she couldn’t think of this big, dark half stranger as Brendan, not her Brendan—was lying through his teeth; but Beth nodded at his tourist patter. Seeming to accept him at face value was the only way she could buy time to think—think about why he was really here, what he wanted from her. It was obvious, from his nonidentification, that he didn’t have positive ID on her, and he wasn’t going to recognize her.

  He should have known better.

  She’d been on the alert since the whispered phone call this morning, warning her that a man was casing all the potters’ studios, buying nothing but asking lots of questions.

  But she’d never expected this. Not him.

  Even after ten years she’d known him. Leaner, tougher, with deep scars hiding inside his forest-green eyes, and his black hair long and gypsy-wild instead of military-short—but it was still him. Her heart hit her throat and hammered, making her quiver with one look at him. No longer in the immaculate dress whites in which sh
e’d met him, or the self-conscious suits he’d bought for their dates—no, he was dark as the storm clouds gathering outside in jeans the shade of night, boots and an ankle-length black leather coat over a thick deep gray woolen sweater.

  He didn’t say her name. He didn’t show any recognition, and he didn’t say a word to reassure her about why he was here. He’d treated her as a stranger, asking odd questions, watching her, handing her his damn credit card.

  A word kept floating around in her head, keeping her cool and in control under the words straining to fly from her lips.

  Orders.

  She’d stake her business on the fact that McCall was under orders to keep her under surveillance, to stay close and not spook her. But she wouldn’t risk her life—or that of her son.

  Betrayal.

  This wasn’t her Brendan McCall, the young, intense, wonderful navy poster-boy with whom she’d spent the five most magical, stolen months of her life. Escaping from the bodyguards Papa set on her when she could, paying them off when they’d found her with him. Doing anything she could to be with him.

  Keep focused. One mistake and Danny won’t see his next birthday.

  Right. Focus. She flicked a glance at him, and she could see the honed instincts of a professional beneath the veneer of intense male interest. The tourist patter didn’t fit the searing glances, the tense, unable-to-relax stance of his tall, super-muscular frame, the way he was taking everything in with mathematical precision, taking mental notes. If he was a tourist, she was a native resident of Antarctica.

  So McCall had finally found her…but obviously he hadn’t come out of love—and whether he was on the side of the angels or the devils didn’t matter. If he’d found her, Danny’s father couldn’t be far behind. Just by showing up here, McCall could bring the force of eternal night down on her little boy.

  She repressed a shudder. Danny’s father wanted his son, and if he knew who she really was…

  He didn’t want me, Deedee—he wants Delia de Souza. Even after I bore him a son, he kept saying that I didn’t match up to his expectations of Delia. I got so mad I told him I was Ana—and I told him the real Delia is hiding in England. I didn’t know how obsessed he was with you, or that he’d come send his men after you. I thought he loved me, but as usual, it’s you he wants….

  She jumped into speech. “That’s what I love about New Zealand—you get every weather and place, all in two islands. I love the beaches here, and I head down to the ski fields in winter. It’s always quiet here then, and I can close up shop for a week. I can’t ski, but jumping on a toboggan is fun.” That’s it, play the tour guide, the friendly businesswoman. Even if he knows who I am, he can’t get any confirmation unless I give it.

  And she wouldn’t give him a thing, not even knowledge of the magnet-to-polar effect he was having on her.

  He was even more incredible than he’d been when they first met. In his dress whites, he’d been sexy in an immaculate, awe-inspiring, bad-boy-in-hiding style. Now he was strong and weathered, taut and hot and intensely masculine. Dark as night, rugged and turbulent, like a living storm inside a cloud—a jagged-edged force about to unleash. He was discordant poetry, unchained symphony and all man.

  He didn’t have a go-to-hell face—more like come-to-hell. He was already there, burning inside his own heat, the inferno beckoning her, irresistible, insatiable—and the moth’s wings were already on fire.

  And I’m a fool. He’s not here for himself. Someone sent him.

  She watched him smile and nod, but inside those deep forest eyes, he was adding up every word she’d said, and breaking it down. “You don’t ski? I thought most New Zealanders would.”

  Delia had been an enthusiastic skier. There were hundreds of photos of her as the unsmiling snow queen. “Not after knee surgery. I don’t have the flexibility for it anymore.” Not bad, for a spur-of-the-moment story.

  “Did you have an accident?”

  He was on the hunt, and if he were in Falcone’s pay she was up that wild Renegade River outside, without a paddle.

  Don’t think of him as Brendan…don’t…but he’d haunted her too long, his long-ago love for her was her only balm in a world gone insane—and she felt a piece of her, the innocent girl, dying with the need to pretend. To lie to him.

  “I was a mad netballer as a kid. Dad and Mum—” she forced the New Zealand pronunciation through an aching throat “—took me all over the country. When I was fifteen I lost my cruciate ligament twisting to throw the ball. I took up pottery while I recuperated, and was hooked. I need my leg in good working order for the wheel pedal. I won’t risk another operation just for the sake of skiing. Toboggans are great fun.”

  Doubts. Shadows. A web of confusion spun at a moment’s notice, born of fear and the scent of danger surrounding her—the danger emanating from him, this dark stranger with eyes like the Amazon rain forest, taut whipcord muscle beneath his snug jeans, and specters of fire and shadows stalking his heart. He made her hot and cold all at once, filling her with memories of tender starlit magic.

  As if he was remembering, too, his eyes grew lush and hot. “Have dinner with me tonight, Elizabeth Silver.”

  Well, that was a curve ball out of left field she should have expected, yet she felt her cheeks heating and her breath freeze in her lungs. Just as well, since she’d almost blurted, Your employer wouldn’t appreciate that, would he?

  And damn it, he was already tempting her too much. Oh, to be a normal woman again, free to be with this forbidden fruit of a man….

  The man who sold his country’s secrets to the highest bidder, and only got out of treason charges because he disappeared from America and never went back.

  She reined in her thoughts. Control, control! The mantra had been her best friend over the past six years, and she grabbed at it with all the fevered intensity of a woman hit by a wallop of terror—and unwanted desire. “I prefer Beth.” Why did I say that? I’m talking too much. “Sorry, but I’m busy.” Much better.

  He took a step closer. She could feel the heat inside him, the wildness he kept under tight leash. The hidden lightning in his soul called to her long-forgotten heart and spirit—the promise of a breaking storm on a deep summer’s night. And oh, the woman in her screamed to run into the uncontrolled tempest inside him, and get absolutely soaking wet…. “Tomorrow night…Beth.”

  She managed to hold in the strange, delicious quiver of feminine need and met his eyes, willing a veneer of calm to cover the tangled emotions within. “You’re not my type.”

  He didn’t flinch, didn’t even move. The only indication of his feelings at her lie registered in the slight hardening of his fine-chiseled mouth, the deep grooves of his dimples slashing downward. “Do you have a type, Elizabeth Silver?” he asked in his deep, rough voice—a creature of the night, a gypsy spirit hiding beneath the tourist’s mask.

  “Teddy bears,” she said blandly. “I like the boy next door. A guy who takes his kids and wife to games and the movies.”

  He took a step closer. “I think you’re lying.” His voice, dark and wild as the night, vibrated into her soul, stripping its layers of defense. “I think you’ve got a weakness for bad boys.”

  Ana. Not me! Ana! Ana had been the one who liked bad boys, and she had made it known internationally.

  Beth closed her eyes and dragged in a harsh breath, sucking air in till her lungs felt ready to explode. The gentle jasmine scent in the burner, meant to uplift her customers, felt obscene in her nostrils as she waited for the words to come. So it had come back again, the reap-what-she’d-sown consequences of one stupid decision—the reason she’d left her life behind. The foolish mistake she’d made when she was all of nineteen, yet it still dragged behind her like a chain gang’s weight. In tearing grief for her parents’ deaths, she’d allowed the cousin who’d been like a sister to her walk in her shoes for a month. Poor little Ana, with the near-identical face to hers, brought up by Delia’s parents after hers died—but with such a dif
ferent life. So sheltered and cosseted and lonely, spending most of her childhood and teen years in hospitals or in grueling physical therapy for a bent back from severe scoliosis. Finally healed, she’d wanted to know how it felt to be Delia de Souza, supermodel, beautiful and admired and worldly—just for a little while, Deedee…a few weeks? It would be fun for me…and you’ll get a chance to rest for once….

  She’d been paying the price for allowing the charade ever since. Years and years of running, paying for Ana’s innocent, foolish mistakes—and her penchant for dangerous men.

  What was she saying? Ana was the one who’d paid. She’d lived with her mistakes—Ana had died for hers.

  “You’re wrong,” she said now, with the conviction of utter truth. “Bad boys have bad hearts. I want a nice guy, the nice house, picket fence and all that.”

  “And based on ten minutes’ acquaintance you know I don’t fit the mold?” His lifted eyebrow and a slow, knowing smile emanated an aura, a feeling of currents too deep and strong, and she was flailing in waters too uncharted for her to swim in safety.

  Breathe, her mind whispered.

  Smiling with would-be blandness, she lifted a tourist guide from the counter. “You quoted the guide verbatim. You’ve never been south of this part of New Zealand, have you?”

  “No.” His mouth twitched into a full-bodied grin. With the rumbling chuckle, a lock of dark hair flopped over his forehead, as if to hide his eyes. “So one lie—a white one at that, meant to impress you with my wealth and ability to be idle for long periods of time, excludes me from the teddy bears’ picnic?”

  It was so hard to keep a straight face with him moving closer, wearing that lazy grin. She’d almost forgotten how his rumbling, self-mocking humor always made her laugh. McCall had bad boy written all over him, yet he was good—too good. A man who made her want to smile, tease and flirt just as her life had exploded in her face was way too dangerous to play with. She had neither the experience nor the ammunition for it.

  She moved back to gain perspective, which she couldn’t do with his taut, jaguarlike body leaning close to her, just close enough to be screaming male interest. “Afraid so.”