Authors: Linda Howard
The bitter thought stuttered to a halt, and for a moment she felt her brain almost freeze in a sudden burst of comprehension. He’d wanted to retain the assassin’s services…. There was someone else he wanted dead, wanted it desperately enough that he’d swallowed his pride and given—loaned—his mistress to another man. Maybe that meant he valued her more than his actions said; maybe this gave her an advantage.
Her brain felt as if it were gummed with molasses; before she had time to work through her thoughts, Rafael stepped through the open sliding doors onto the balcony, halting when he saw her. “Why are you out here?”
His tone was so casual that the thick, sulfurous rage surged again inside her, and she had to clench her fists on the folds of her robe to keep from launching herself at him and tearing at his eyes with her nails. She gulped in huge breaths of air, fighting for control, fighting to think. She had to do something, say something.
She lifted her head and he flinched, his eyes widening with shock. Drea was acutely aware of how she looked, with her swollen eyes and ravaged face. She’d never before let Rafael see her looking anything less than perfect, but this time she didn’t care how she looked.
In another sudden burst of clarity, this one even more stunning than the first, she suddenly knew exactly what she was going to do, what she had to say. The enormity of the plan was so stunning that if she let herself hesitate she might chicken out. Rafael had to pay, and she knew exactly how she would make him do it.
She sucked in a deep, shuddering breath, bracing herself. “I’m sorry,” she choked out, tears streaming down her face again from the effort it took to apologize to the bastard. “I didn’t know…I didn’t know you were t-tired of me—” Her voice broke and she covered her face with her hands, her shoulders heaving from the force of her sobs.
She heard the scrape of his shoes on the tiles as he moved closer. Then there was a hesitation, as if he either didn’t know what to do, or knew but didn’t want to do it. Finally his hand settled on her shoulder. “Drea…” he began.
Drea jerked away from him, unable to stand even a casual touch from him. “No, don’t,” she said raggedly. She wiped her face with the sleeve of her robe. “I don’t want your pity.” More tears slid down to take the place of the ones she’d removed. “I knew you didn’t love me,” she whispered, “but I-I thought I had a chance, I thought one day you might. I guess now I know better, huh?” Her lips and chin quivered as she stared out into the distance, though most of the view was blocked by the wall. She didn’t dare look directly at him, afraid he would see in her eyes the utter loathing she felt for him. Thank God for these damn stupid tears that wouldn’t stop, even if she had to make Rafael believe she was crying because of him, instead of—
No. She was not crying because of that damned killer. She didn’t know why she was crying, but it definitely wasn’t because of him. Maybe she’d gone crazy, or something. But crazy or not, she’d play it for all she was worth. She was banking on Rafael’s ego, banking that he’d be so flattered that she’d actually fallen in love with him that he’d be willing to buy the line of bullshit she was handing him.
He crouched beside her, his dark eyes searching her face. Drea kept staring straight ahead and once more wiped her face. Maybe she couldn’t handle anything else that had happened today, but she would damn sure handle Rafael Salinas, or die trying.
“Did he hurt you?” Rafael finally asked, his voice quiet, the tone deadly and underlaid with something unlike anything she’d ever heard from him before.
She didn’t take the time to analyze it, just went with her instincts. “He didn’t touch me. I was upset and he got—He said I wasn’t worth the trouble, and left.” She gave a short, bitter laugh. “I guess you still owe him the hundred thou. Sorry ’bout that.” Rafael was Latino; knowing the assassin had had sex with her would lessen her value in his eyes, maybe even so much he wouldn’t try to keep her. She wasn’t ready to go, not yet, so she had to make him think nothing had happened.
“He didn’t touch you?” Rafael’s tone now held pure shock.
“That makes the two of you, huh? He didn’t want me, either.” She hadn’t meant to say that, the bitterness was too sharp and violent, but the words burst out of her. She regretted giving him even that much of a window onto her true feelings, though the emotion was genuine and that would carry some weight.
Once was enough.
Well, damn him to hell and back, once was more than enough for her. She knew now what he’d been doing: playing some kind of game with Rafael, one so subtle Rafael didn’t have a fucking clue he was even supposed to have been on the field. It was a game of sexual one-upmanship, and the assassin had won, giving her such an overdose of pleasure that she’d lost her mind and actually begged him to take her with him. She’d been fucked straight into stupidity, and she still didn’t have her brains back or she’d be able to stop this stupid crying.
Anguish washed over her again, still fresh and powerful, and she buried her face against her drawn-up knees as she wept.
Rafael hovered beside her, as if he couldn’t decide what to do. Nothing in their relationship had prepared him for this; Drea had always been accommodating, smiling, shallow and ornamental. He’d never seen her upset, or even annoyed. She would be willing to take bets that he thought she was interested in nothing except shopping and getting her hair and nails done, but then, she’d gone to extraordinary lengths to make him think that.
Finally he said, “I’ll get you some water,” and disappeared inside.
Water! As if a drink of water was going to comfort her. She was upset, not thirsty. Still, the gesture said something, because Rafael didn’t fetch anything for anyone; it was always the other way around, with others catering to him.
He was gone far longer than simply getting a glass of water would take, and she knew he was looking through the penthouse, searching for signs that she’d lied to him. Mentally she ran through everything she’d done, wondering if she’d overlooked anything.
He stepped back out onto the balcony and crouched beside her once more. “Here,” he said. “Drink some water.”
The tears had subsided enough that she thought she could talk, so Drea lifted her head and wiped her face before reaching for the glass and taking an obligatory sip. “I was going to pack,” she said wretchedly, her throat so clogged she was barely intelligible. “But I don’t have a-anywhere to go. I’ll start looking for a place, if you’ll let me s-stay here for a couple of days.”
“You don’t have to go,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder again. “I don’t want you to go.”
“You don’t want me,” she said, shaking her head and finally daring to look at him, or at least look in his direction; her vision was so blurred with tears he was just an undefined shape. Her voice wobbled, but she swallowed hard and managed to keep going. “You g-gave me to him. You could have just told me to go, you didn’t have to do that. Maybe I should have seen you were getting tired of me but I guess I hoped so much you might love me that I—” She interrupted herself, shaking her head. “Never mind.”
“I don’t want you to go,” Rafael insisted. “I would never have—Look, he had me over a barrel and he knew it.” He looked around, as if assessing their vulnerability to electronic eavesdropping, and said impatiently, “Let’s go inside, we can’t talk out here.”
Drea let him pull her to her feet and usher her inside, his hand resting possessively on her waist. Triumph roared through her, pushing the tears away, at least for now. Yes! She’d bought herself the time she needed to put her plan into action. She just had to hide her true feelings from him a little while longer, but she had so much practice at that it wouldn’t be a strain.
Rafael would pay, and pay big.
“WHAT DO YOU make of that?” Xavier Jackson asked in astonishment, blinking at what the parabolic microphone had just picked up. The sound quality wasn’t great, because of the wind, the distance, and other factors, but the computer program could filter out a lot of the interference.
“I think we need to find out who the mystery man is,” replied Cotton, “if he’s important enough to make
“If he has, we missed him. But then, we haven’t seen him entering the building, either. Ever.”
“Then he either has a tunnel, or he’s in disguise.”
“I don’t rule out the tunnel,”
“Who knows?” Cotton sighed, rubbing his hand over his head in frustration. “That shot the hell out of using this to get to her, though, because even if
They both stared at the computer screen in frustration, even though right now it was showing them exactly what they had: nothing.
RAFAEL SALINAS QUIETLY OPENED DREA’S BEDROOM DOOR and walked to her bedside. He had seldom been in this room, though he’d had his men regularly search it to make certain she wasn’t up to anything. Her chosen decor was so fussy and frilly it was cloying, and normally he didn’t like being reminded that his mistress had such bad taste. Tonight, for some reason, the excess not only didn’t bother him, but in a strange way was almost touching. Her room was like the room of a young girl whose doting mother had let her decorate however she wanted, almost innocent in its exuberance.
She was asleep, lying on her side facing away from the door, curled in a tight knot on the very edge of the bed. She looked smaller than usual, as if she’d been diminished. The light from the hallway spilled across the slightly exotic cast of her cheekbones, tangled in the heavy mass of her curly hair. She had cried until she was exhausted, and even in the dimness he could tell how swollen her eyes were.
He wasn’t a man who suffered from self-doubt; that was for fools and pussies who either didn’t know what they were doing or didn’t have the guts to do what they wanted. Still, for the first time in years—decades—he felt crippled by uncertainty.
Equal amounts of panic, anger, and confusion churned in his gut. How had this happened? Why was he feeling this way about Drea, of all people?
He sat down in the bedside chair, moodily watching her. She’d been with him for two years, longer than any other woman, but only because she was placid and undemanding. He didn’t have either the time or patience to deal with whines, pouts, and demands. Being with Drea, however, was easy; she was even-tempered, slightly dumb, and interested in nothing except shopping and looking pretty. There was never any drama from her, no tantrums, no demands for expensive gifts or, worse, his time. He never gave her much thought; she was just there, smiling and complacent, whenever he wanted sex.
If he’d had to think about it, though, he would have said sex was the only reason he kept her. He hadn’t wanted to let that bastard have her, sure, because no man worth his cojones shared his woman, but his options had been limited, and all of them bad. If he’d said “no,” which his pride and ego wanted to do, he’d have lost the killer’s very valuable services—services he would very much need when the time was right. There was also the real possibility that the killer would take his refusal personally, and while Rafael wasn’t afraid of anyone, he was smart enough to know there were some people you just didn’t fuck with—and the assassin was one of those people.
So he’d swallowed his pride, his temper, and said “yes,” and he hadn’t liked it one fucking bit. He’d stewed about it all afternoon, imagining his woman naked with another man, and he’d even caught himself, damn it, wondering if the bastard’s dick was bigger than his. He didn’t have to worry about shit like that, so he was pissed that the little niggle of doubt had intruded. He had the money and the power, and that was what mattered to women like Drea.
But even though he’d seen the shock in her eyes when he agreed to let the assassin have her, he hadn’t expected her to really care very much. After all, sex was how she paid her way. No big deal, right?
Part of him really thought he’d find her filing her nails, or watching that damn shopping network she loved so much, as placid as always. Instead he’d found her huddled on the balcony, crying her heart out, and he felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. Her appearance had shocked him: her hair wet and slicked back, no makeup, eyes swollen from crying. Her face had been pinched and white, as if she was in shock, and the expression in her eyes—