by Kay Hooper
“I slept on the plane,” Zach said, glancing down to check his heading, then looking back at the water.
Lucas found a reasonably comfortable seat near the wheel, his mind turning to the reasons they were there. “You didn’t tell Rafferty we were coming?”
“No.”
Gloomily, Lucas said, “The boss is going to murder us. You and I are AWOL, you know.”
“Well, no, not really.” A faint smile softened Zach’s hard face and his gray eyes showed his amusement. “I called Josh. When he’d finished casting aspersions on my ancestors and damning me six ways from Sunday for interrupting his honeymoon, he gave us grudging permission to stick our noses in this.”
In a plaintive tone, Lucas asked, “Then why on earth didn’t we borrow the yacht instead of renting this damned fishing boat? At least we could have been comfortable.”
“And a target,” Zach pointed out dryly. “Look, even though no one could trace the registry of the Corsair back to Josh, it still reeks of money, and evidence suggests that the government of Kadeira seems to have a fondness for arresting wealthy visitors. Rafferty’s already a target in the Thespian, but that seems to be Hagen’s plan.”
Lucas frowned, his strikingly handsome face troubled. “Insane plan, if you ask me. Any idea what’s going on?”
“Rafferty didn’t say, but I can hazard a few guesses. According to the harbormaster in Trinidad, whom I spoke to before you arrived, the Thespian pulled out with its crew and two passengers—Rafferty and a young woman.” Zach glanced at Lucas, adding blandly, “His wife, I understand.”
“His—?” Lucas mused about that for a moment, then sighed. “Part of the cover?”
“I assume so.”
“She’s an agent?”
“Again, I assume so. Their destination is Kadeira, which, I discovered, is a political nightmare and believed to be the base for a pretty nasty terrorist organization.”
“And Rafferty wanted a gun,” Lucas murmured. He was looking grimmer by the moment. “Are we going to storm the place, or hover outside the three-mile limit in case we’re needed?”
“Play it by ear. The fishing’s supposed to be good near Kadeira, so we’ll anchor and keep an eye on the Thespian.” Zach was frowning, the long scar on his left cheek whitening as always in response to tension. “I’m betting they’ll go into port with heaven only knows what kind of plan.”
“We need to talk to Rafferty.”
“And we will, if we get the chance. But we can’t risk blowing his cover. Get your clever mind on that, will you?”
Lucas, who had an inborn talent for stealth and a genuine enjoyment of tactics, grimaced and nodded. But he made a despairing observation, one that both men felt keenly.
“I’m not as devious as Hagen. Who in hell can guess what he has in mind?”
“You’re going to what?” Rafferty asked carefully.
Sarah, who had never in her life been assertive, lifted her chin and met his incredulous gaze calmly. “You heard me. I’ve seen her, Rafferty, and we could be twins. We even have the same first name. And Andrés Sereno was wild about her; he would have married her in a wedding to rival British royalty, if she hadn’t run away.”
“Did it ever occur to you that she might have had good reason to run away from President Sereno?”
“He wasn’t cruel to her, or anything like that. Rafferty, he worshiped her; he would have given her anything—except her freedom. She had to run away to get that.”
“If Hagen told you—”
Sarah smiled. “No. She did. I talked to Sara Marsh two weeks ago. She’s hiding because he’s got people scattered all over the world looking for her.”
Rafferty felt more and more like he was in the middle of a nightmare, and morning was too many long hours away. “And so you’re going to take advantage of his obsession with this woman because you could be her twin? Sarah, that man sounds unbalanced. At the very least, he’s a dictator and used to getting his own way. What if he transfers his obsession to you?”
Softly, she said, “It isn’t likely. Still, he’ll probably be interested enough to want to spend time with me. We’re counting on that.”
“Sarah—”
“It’s our pass into Kadeira, Rafferty. While I … occupy the president, you’ll meet with our undercover agent and get the information.”
Tightly, Rafferty said, “We’re supposed to be married, newly married at that. Do I just cheerfully hand over my wife to some obsessed tin-pot dictator? Turn my head while he has his hands all over you?”
She reached out to touch his hand, unsurprised when his only response was a deepening of his stony stare. “Our cover is that we’re a newly married couple, with a few problems. We’re supposed to stage a public fight or something. And as for his hands being all over me, President Sereno was very gentle with his Sara, Rafferty; he never tried to do anything against her will. In fact, they—they were never lovers.”
“Maybe he’ll decide to grab what he can this time around,” Rafferty suggested. “What then, Sarah? Just how far are you prepared to go in occupying him? Did Hagen wave the flag at you and explain that a good agent uses every tool available? Did he suggest a little bit of good old-fashioned whoring to get the job done?”
The question quivered in the air between them.
Sarah drew her hand back as though he’d burned her. She had never looked more poignantly lovely, her green eyes darkened to jade with the hurt.
“Sarah, I didn’t mean—”
She got up and moved forward, her slender back stiff. Within minutes she was gone from his sight.
Rafferty stared out over the water, his muscles taut until his body ached. Unforgivable. What he’d said was unforgivable, and not something either of them could forget. And the worst of it was that Rafferty knew it was purely and simply impossible for Sarah to do what he’d suggested. Such a thing was alien to her nature. But he hadn’t stopped to think at all, he’d just blurted out a hollow accusation born in fear for her and the jealous vision of another man who would be desperate for her love.
And if Andrés Sereno had truly been “wild” about his Sara, then it would probably be inevitable that the man would transfer that emotion to her look-alike. And Sarah would have to cope with that. Sarah, who was so damned vulnerable, so newly awakened that she was like a butterfly fresh from its cocoon, desperately fragile and susceptible to untold damage.
It scared the hell out of Rafferty.
What frightened him most, he asked himself? That Sarah would be hurt somehow while “occupying” the Kadeira president? Or that the charismatic Sereno would fire her awakened senses and capture her heart for his own?
Rafferty knew only too well that his own hold on Sarah was a tentative one. She was attracted to him, perhaps even something more. But she was also aware of the dangers of “shipboard” romances, and Rafferty himself had compounded the problem by proposing to make a game of seduction.
Pretense surrounded them, and pretense was an insidious danger. What would Sarah choose as her reality? Emotions sparked on a moonlit beach with a virtual stranger? Or the adoration of a charming island president? Unusually sheltered and innately shy, would Sarah prefer the golden cage of an extraordinarily powerful and wealthy man’s possessiveness to the more normal life that Rafferty could offer?
He was, Rafferty realized, conjuring up horrors. Sarah was here to do a job, to complete an assignment, and he believed that alone would motivate her. Surely she wouldn’t be so swept away that she’d forget the ruthless ambition of Sereno and his apparent welcome, if not approval, of terrorists in his country. She wouldn’t forget that.
Would she?
Slowly, worried and uncertain, Rafferty went in search of her. He passed both Tom and Dick, who were industriously polishing chrome that was already gleaming, and passed Captain Siran, who looked at him for an unreadable instant before smiling briefly and meaninglessly.
Sarah wasn’t topside, so Rafferty went below. He found her
in their cabin, in the bedroom, where she was busy unpacking. He could read nothing in her delicate face, and it occurred to him then that there was indeed a depth to Sarah even she hadn’t plumbed.
“Sarah?”
“Captain Siran says we’ll be just outside Kadeira by Wednesday morning,” she said, not looking at him. “We won’t go in until Thursday, though. Hagen was definite about that.”
“Sarah, I’m sorry.”
She moved past him to hang several garments in the roomy closet, saying impersonally, “All right.”
Rafferty caught her wrist as she tried to pass him again. “Sarah! I didn’t mean what I said. I know you’d never—Sarah, it just shook me up, that’s all. Sereno could hurt you.”
“I’m supposed to be married, remember?” She gazed steadfastly at the third button of his shirt.
“You think he’ll care about that? If he wants you, Sarah, a piece of paper and a husband won’t stand in his way.”
FOUR
HER FACE SEEMED to quiver for just an instant. Tonelessly, she said, “I’m not going to seduce him, Rafferty. I’m just going to distract him long enough for us to get that information. That’s my job.”
Rafferty realized then that she was scared, that sheer bravado had carried her this far and that precious little of her fragile courage was left now. He reached out, suddenly hating himself for badgering her, but she pulled away stiffly.
“I have to finish unpacking.”
He refused to let go of her wrist. “I know I hurt you,” he said steadily. “I can never take back what I said, but I didn’t mean it. I’m afraid Sereno will hurt you, and I’m afraid of losing you.”
Sarah pulled her wrist from his grasp, and this time he didn’t try to stop her. She went over to lift a pile of folded lingerie from the suitcase lying open on the bed, then paused to gaze at him with bewildered eyes. “I don’t understand you,” she said softly. “You talk as if you expect me to be attracted to him. This is a job, Rafferty. I don’t like anything about it, least of all him. If only half of what’s suspected about him is true, the man’s a charming monster. Are you so willing to believe I’d crawl into bed with that?”
Rafferty went to her quickly, his hands finding her shoulders. “No. No, Sarah.”
“Then why? Why do you keep talking as if you do believe it?”
He hesitated for only a moment. “Because … you said it yourself, Sarah. You’re in an unfamiliar situation, playing an unfamiliar role, and under those circumstances it’s hard to hold on to reality. Because if you’re really the image of the woman he loved so obsessively, he’ll love you the same way—and he is a charming man, they say. And because a new Sarah was born on a moonlit beach. I can’t help wondering if maybe it was the beach, and not me.”
Sarah jerked away from him and went to place the armful of silk and lace in a drawer. Then she turned back toward him. “I was afraid of Andrés Sereno until now,” she said in a small, still voice. “But I’ve no need to be afraid of him. He can’t hurt me, Rafferty. Not the way you just did.”
“Oh, hell, Sarah—”
Her face was white, and her green eyes blazed in a surging tangle of emotions. “It’s nice to know what you really think. At least now I know where I stand with you. So something started an itch on that beach, and I don’t care who the hell scratches it? It was the right time and place, I suppose, and you just happened to be there? Or maybe I got drunk on moonlight, and I’m still a little mad? And anything male with a charming smile is going to sweep me right off my feet?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“You did. And you were right when you said we didn’t know each other well. We don’t know each other at all.”
Rafferty stared at the spot where she had stood, listening to the outer door close with deadly softness. Then he listened to the silence, and his own confused thoughts. He had been so concerned about Sereno taking advantage of Sarah’s fragility that he hadn’t even considered the fact that he himself could hurt her for exactly the same reason.
“Dammit,” he said very quietly.
Sarah stood at the bow, letting the warm wind dry her cheeks and clear her mind. She felt shaken, drained by emotion. The old Sarah, cautious and tentative, suggested that she might have wronged Rafferty, might have read unintended meanings into his words. But this new Sarah, suffering an imperfect control over her emotions, was only too sure she had been right.
He actually believed that Sereno, reputed to be charming and charismatic, could—and would—sweep her right off her feet and into his bed. And if not that, then he was half-convinced she had been sent on this assignment under orders to sell herself for the price of stolen information.
Half-convinced she would take such orders …
Sarah had never in her life felt so wildly furious, so bitterly hurt, and so utterly bewildered. Unaccustomed to extreme highs and lows of emotion, she felt overwhelmed. The battering was too much, just suddenly too much. For the first time in her life, she had taken a chance and risked being hurt, and Rafferty had hurt her deeply. Like a child burned by the heedless touch of a flame, she shied violently from a second experiment.
Using the only defense mechanism left in the confusion of her thoughts, she simply turned everything off.
By the following morning, Rafferty had realized that more than apologies were needed. Sarah had avoided him, and when they were more or less forced to be together—dinner, for instance—she had been utterly silent. And she wasn’t giving him the silent treatment, he realized. She simply wasn’t there.
And when, some hours later, he had left the deck to go to their cabin, Sarah had been in bed and asleep, so far over on her side of the bed she was in danger of falling off.
He hadn’t awakened to find her in his arms this time.
Rafferty himself was silent during breakfast, aware that Harry looked at them both anxiously while he served another of his truly excellent meals. But the cabin boy said nothing.
Sarah went up on deck after the meal, and Rafferty followed. He almost forgot the stone wall between them as he watched her discard her caftan for the astonishingly brief bikini she wore underneath and lie down on a padded lounge. It was a good five minutes—during which he drank in the sight of her curved body—before he reminded himself that Sarah was slipping rapidly beyond his reach.
“We have to talk.” He sat down on a matching lounge, forcing his mind away from vivid mental images.
She looked at him, her pale green eyes as enigmatic as seawater, her face immobile. “Do we?”
Rafferty was silent for a moment, not weighing what he was about to say but questioning the timing of it. Not that it mattered; he had no choice. “I read something once—couldn’t tell you where, but I believe Virgil wrote it—about falling in love. He remembered the sensation vividly, remembered being swept away by the madness of it. Madness. There’s nothing rational about love, Sarah. Nothing predictable. There’s just a madness, filled with hopes and fears, literally impossible to control.”
Sarah frowned a little. “Just because I look like his Sara doesn’t mean Sereno—”
Softly, Rafferty said, “I wasn’t talking about him.”
For the first time since she had retreated into herself, Sarah began to feel again. “We don’t know each other,” she said in a curiously suspended voice.
“Do you think that matters? Do you think it matters that this is the wrong time and place, and Lord knows the wrong circumstances for anything as fragile and unpredictable as love?”
“I don’t—”
“Sarah, what I’m trying to tell you is that it doesn’t help me to know you’d never sleep with Sereno to get that information. It doesn’t help to know he’d be the last man in the world you could feel an attraction for. It’s because love isn’t logical or rational that I said what I did yesterday,” he finished simply, “because I love you, and I was scared.”
She chewed on her lower lip unconsciously, staring at him. And feeling again was p
ainful because the ascent from despair and anger to a giddy, half-frightened happiness was just as abrupt and unsettling as it had been the other way around. And somewhere in that earlier journey, some of the old Sarah had come creeping back in, cautious and wary.
“Rafferty, in a few days, we’re both going to be playing parts. A couple on the verge of ending a brief marriage. And I have to try and fascinate a man who’ll likely make my skin crawl. You have to meet with an undercover agent and get that information from him.” She swallowed hard, wondering what he was thinking behind the glow of his tawny eyes. “In spite of what happened in Trinidad, we can’t let our personal feelings control us in this. We can’t afford the luxury.”
He smiled suddenly. “What am I seeing now? A fusing of two Sarahs? Enough of the new to contemplate vamping an island dictator, and enough of the old to warn me off?”
She managed a faint smile of her own. “That’s stating it too simply and you know it.”
“Maybe. But it’s essentially the truth. And it won’t work, Sarah.”
“It has to.”
He shook his head. “The human element, remember? The scenario you and Hagen have apparently concocted just won’t work. I might be able to fake an argument with you; I might even be able to act furious and uncaring for a while. Maybe a day. And then what? If I come within twenty feet of you and Sereno sees me, he’ll know I love you. How will he react to that if you’ve been busy fascinating him?”
Sarah felt a sudden chill. There were, she realized belatedly, many holes in Hagen’s scenario. Although, to be fair, he hadn’t planned on “the human element” interfering this time.
Dryly, Rafferty said, “Now you see it. At best Sereno might try to talk you into divorcing me. At worst, he could decide to eliminate one bothersome husband.”
The thought of something happening to Rafferty brought her heart up into her throat, and Sarah swallowed hard. “No. No, I won’t let that happen. I’ll make certain he knows that—that I love my husband. I won’t try to fascinate him, I’ll just sympathize because he lost his Sara. I’ll cry on his shoulder. If he knows I love you, he won’t hurt you. He won’t.”
