Unauthorized Passion. Amanda Stevens
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and someone screamed.
Jack saw the terror in Celeste Fortune’s eyes a split second before he dove.
* * *
CASSIE WAS MOMENTARILY frozen by shock and fear, and then it was she who screamed as the stranger hurled himself toward her. He slid across her table, tipping her chair backward, and they both went crashing to the floor.
She was frozen again, this time without breath. The stranger lay sprawled on top of her, his lips only inches from hers, his blue gaze peering into hers.
“Are you okay?” he asked anxiously.
Cassie still couldn’t speak. All she could do was lie there gasping for air.
“You’re not hurt, are you? Oh, God, you’re not—”
“Can’t…breathe…” she managed.
He rolled off her. “Stay down,” he warned, and then he got to his feet, vaulted over the wrought-iron fence surrounding the patio, and sprinted into the street. A horn sounded, tires squealed, but he didn’t seem to notice. In a matter of seconds, he’d disappeared into the traffic.
Cassie glanced around. She was the only one on the floor. In fact, a number of people had hurried over and stood staring down at her.
“It’s okay,” someone said. “It was just a car backfiring.”
Nervous laughter erupted on the terrace.
Now that Cassie’s initial fear had dissipated, mortification set in. “I thought it was a gunshot,” she muttered as she struggled to her feet.
“So did I,” the waitress who’d dropped the glasses said sheepishly. She reached to give Cassie a hand up.
“It was that old blue truck that just went by,” someone commented. “I thought it was part of the Art Car parade at first, but then I realized it hadn’t been painted to look that way. The metal was just all rusted. And it had Louisiana plates.”
Cassie glanced up sharply. Danny’s uncle drove an old rusty blue pickup, and he and his nephew were as thick as thieves. What if they’d come to Houston looking for Cassie?
But that was impossible. She hadn’t told anyone where she was going. That was part of her and Celeste’s agreement. In order for the plan to work, no one could know where she was, so she’d packed up and left town in the middle of the night.
The rusty, blue truck had to be a coincidence. No way Danny and Earl could have found her so quickly and, besides, there wasn’t a Cantrell alive who’d be caught dead in Montrose.
“Where’d your friend run off to?” the first waitress asked Cassie.
She tore her attention from the street. “He’s…not my friend. I never saw him before.”
“Maybe he was just embarrassed by the way he overreacted.”
I think we both overreacted, Cassie thought, remembering the way his finger had slowly traced the edge of his glass. She felt that odd little shudder go through her again.
The waitress cocked her head as she studied Cassie. “Say, do I know you? You seem familiar.” She snapped her fingers. “I know. You look like that actress. The one who was in—”
Cassie was spared from having to answer by the maître d’ who pushed his way through the crowd. “Miss, are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Nothing hurt but my pride,” Cassie tried to quip as she brushed off her two-hundred-dollar jeans.
“We’ll get this mess cleaned up and have a new table ready for you in a matter of moments. In the meantime, if you would care to wait at the bar…”
“Oh, I don’t think I could eat a bite after all that excitement,” Cassie said with a weak smile. “I’m still a little shaky. If I could just have my check?”
He waved her off. “It’s on the house, of course. Please accept our sincerest apologies for the inconvenience.”
As he escorted her from the terrace, Cassie heard the waitress say behind her, “She looks just like her! You know the one I mean. She was in that movie…damn, I can’t think of her name…”
The maître d’ walked Cassie through the restaurant and even accompanied her out to the street after taking the time to personally call her a cab.
“You don’t have to wait with me,” she assured him. “I’m perfectly fine.” She felt a bit of what Mrs. Ambrose-Pritchard had experienced the night before with Lyle Lester. She wasn’t sure if the man’s solicitousness was truly out of concern for her safety or fear of an impending lawsuit.
Apparently convinced that he’d done everything he could to ward off such a threat, he wished her a good night and went back into the restaurant.
The cab showed up a few minutes later, and as Cassie climbed into the back, she glanced at the building across the street. For some reason, her gaze was drawn upward, and she saw someone standing on the roof looking down at her. In the split second before he disappeared, she could have sworn he was the stranger from the restaurant.
But…what was he doing up there?
* * *
JACK WATCHED CELESTE’S cab drive off, then he turned his attention back to the roof. He hadn’t found anything yet, but he knew what he’d seen. Light reflecting off glass. Someone had been up there. He was still convinced of that even though he’d realized by the time he was halfway across the street earlier that the sound he’d heard was a backfire and not a gunshot.
Besides, a professional hit man would have used a silencer.
Professional hit man? Whoa, hold the phone. Jumping to a few wild conclusions there, aren’t you, buddy?
Who would want Celeste Fortune dead?
The cop in him silently began to list suspects. Owen Fleming’s wife. An old boyfriend. A jealous roommate.
And that was just off the top of his head. He knew from experience the potential for animosity was endless when it came to women like Celeste Fortune.
But if someone had really been watching her earlier, the culprit was probably just some sleazy tabloid reporter who’d followed her to Houston, hoping to catch Owen Fleming in a compromising position with his hot, young mistress. What Jack had seen on the roof could have been light reflecting off a camera lens.
His theory made a lot of sense, and he might have been able to buy it if not for that nagging sensation in his gut telling him Celeste Fortune was in danger.
A similar sensation had warned him that Casanova was still on the loose, and look where that premonition had gotten him.
* * *
THE FRONT DESK was deserted when Cassie walked into the lobby a few minutes later. She wondered if Lyle Lester had come on duty yet, and if he might be lurking about somewhere. For some reason, the notion of him skulking about in the halls and stairwells made her shiver, and she hurried across the lobby into a waiting elevator.
The car began to ascend, then jerked to a stop when the power went out. Cassie was plunged into pitch black for a moment before a dim emergency light came on. Trying to remain calm, she pressed the red button on the panel, but nothing happened. She couldn’t find a phone, either, so what was she supposed to do?
Panic! a little voice screamed in her head, but Cassie ignored it. No need for that. The power had simply gone off, and she was trapped somewhere between the first and second floor. It wasn’t like she was in danger of plunging hundreds of feet to her death. If worse came to worst, she could try to reach that little door in the ceiling, climb out, and—
A soft thud sounded from somewhere above her, and then the elevator shimmied as if…someone…had…jumped…on top…
Slowly, Cassie lifted her gaze.