Dangerous Illusion. Melissa James
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in the solar plexus. Just one smile and he was winded, scrambled, foolish and fooled. Part of him wanting like hell to believe she was Delia, the other half so bloody naive it was laughable, all wishing and wistful. A dumb-ass jerk wanting her to be genuine—just Elizabeth Silver, Potter of Excellence. A legal identity to smile at, think about, take dancing or to dinner and make love with, like any other woman…as if she weren’t the runaway wife of a billionaire black-market arms and drugs dealer whose men were reported to be hot on his tail right this minute, bent on kidnap and revenge of said runaway wife.
Both halves of him so fierce in their driving male need, so finely balanced on a hot knifepoint he felt as if he walked an electric tightrope, and he was nobody’s gymnast. This mission could all fall apart because he couldn’t change the way he felt any more than he could stop the sun rising tomorrow.
Tomorrow. One day closer to Falcone getting her. Yet he stood here like a teenager in his first burst of lust. Lost in the same old need, its ache undiluted. He had two days max to gain her trust, while from half a world away Falcone sat smack between them, pulling his strings and smiling like an obscene demigod, holding a high-caliber automatic to her head.
She’s in danger. Just do your job.
She was watching him. Checking him out…and not in a sexual manner. Beneath her ultrafeminine, gentle exterior, her eyes acted like a computer, seeking out his secrets. Finding what he wanted to hide. Working out his agenda.
He made himself nod, still watching her. “Thanks. I’ll look around. Did you paint that sign yourself?”
“Yes.” Her words were cool and distant, a step back, a mile above. The star-being, the haughty Brazilian princess. She’d retreated behind barriers he couldn’t navigate, jamming his prelim-data radar like an EA 6B Prowler at night.
He couldn’t blame her. The intensity of his briefest gaze on her almost blistered his own skin.
Get a grip on yourself!
He wandered around the studio. The bell above the door’s connected by wire to an intercom system too high-tech for a business this small. Window onto the main road looks double-glazed—bulletproof. Both the doors to the outside, and the door leading into the private house, look at least two inches thick, with a one-sided quadruple locking system protecting the house.
She’s watching every move I make. Her eyes are calm, but she just dented the pot on the wheel again, her fingers are gripping its base so hard. It’s already twisted out of shape with her foot jerking the wheel pedal.
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.