Just Like a Man (25 page)

Yet Michael hadn't been able to sever his ties to Adrian completely, even knowing he was bad news. He didn't want to abandon his friend the way so many other people in Adrian's life had. And he'd still kind of liked the guy, even with his outlaw tendencies. Adrian was smart and funny, and he liked the same things Michael did. Of course, that last trait would prove less attractive later, when Adrian started liking Michael's wife. But until then, despite Adrian's borderline behavior, Michael remained his friend. So much so that when he'd been recruited for OPUS, he'd immediately thought of Adrian, too, thought it would be a career to which his friend would be well suited. And he'd hoped, too, that maybe going through the training at OPUS would curb some of Adrian's wildness—or, at least, offer a more acceptable outlet for it. He'd hoped Adrian would channel his anger and resentment at society in general into a more specific enemy—the threat to his country. And for years, that was exactly what Adrian did.

But when all was said and done, Michael should have realized that Adrian would never pledge allegiance to any-one but himself. It shouldn't have surprised him when Adrian turned on all of them, or that he'd used Tatiana the way he did—to hurt Michael in a way that he'd never been hurt before. Michael had been forced to realize then that Adrian hated everyone, even the people he'd chosen for his friends. And maybe Michael, by getting closer to Adrian than anyone else had, became the most hated of all.

Michael had hoped that by leaving OPUS, all of that would stay in the past. For five years, he'd pretty much convinced himself that it had. His feelings for Adrian now were only a shadow of what they had once been. Time had blunted the edges of Michael's fury. And he'd decided that what Adrian was, at his core, was bitter. Probably even Adrian didn't know why. But that not knowing why was precisely what made him so dangerous. And it was why he had to be stopped. Because Adrian would always be bitter. He would always be angry. And that bitterness and anger would only grow. Just as it had grown from a childish resentment into an adolescent rage. As an adult, Adrian might have better control over his feelings, but his feelings were still the same. He still felt like he was better than anyone else. And he still felt entitled. And he would still do whatever he had to do to get whatever he wanted.

Which was why Michael feared for Hannah's safety. If Adrian decided he wanted her—and after the way he'd pursued her this evening, there could be no doubting that he wanted her—he wouldn't stop until he had her. Whether she gave her consent or not. All Michael could do at this point was hope that tonight wouldn't be the night Adrian decided to collect. Then again, if it was the night, at least Michael would be around to stop him.

Oh, hell, he thought then when he heard Adrian's voice coming through the headphones again. Now he was ordering anisette to go with the torte. Wasn't that overdoing it? Hannah had to be on to him by now. She was too smart for this crap.

And that was another weird thing. Adrian never went for smart women, unless they happened to be the wife of a friend. He went for women he could manipulate. Women were nothing more to him than a repository for his overwhelming libido. So why had he taken an interest in Hannah?

"Really, Adrian," Hannah was saying now, and Michael adjusted the volume so that he could hear her better. "No anisette for me. I don't have room. As it is you're going to have to eat the torte all by yourself."

Yeah, that's it, Hannah,
Michael thought.
Tell him to eat it.

"Nonsense," Adrian replied. "There's enough here for both of us."

"If I eat that," Hannah said, "I'll be awake all night."

Silence met her comment, but Michael suspected Adrian well enough to know he'd be throwing her one of those come-hither smiles of his that should have made any right-thinking woman run screaming in horror in the opposite direction, but which had always worked amazingly well for the guy. And Michael was sure that was what Adrian had been doing when he heard him reply, "That's all right. I can think of a few ways to pass the time."

Michael rolled his eyes. Great. The diddle sign was blinking again.

Somehow he managed to listen to the rest of the revolting dinner conversation without losing his own dinner, then he discreetly followed Adrian's car back to Hannah's house. He parked the van a block over, close enough that he was still within listening range, but out of sight. Then he listened to more revolting conversation as Adrian walked her to the front door and did his best to wangle an invitation inside. And then—then—Michael had to listen to the most revolting thing of all.

He had to listen while Adrian kissed her good night.

And it wasn't one of those namby-pamby kisses on the cheek he'd hoped it would be, either. No, to make it look good, to prevent Adrian from becoming suspicious, Hannah kissed him good night the way she would kiss a guy she wanted to make her own. With a soft laugh, and a quiet murmur of acquiescence, and the rustle of fabric that implied the arrival of much touching, though Michael was confident she would keep it all above the waist.

At least, Michael hoped that was why Hannah kissed Adrian that way. Then again, Adrian had charmed an awful lot of women in his time. And Hannah had been seeing him before Michael entered the picture. Oh, sure, she'd sworn there was nothing serious going on between them—and Michael believed her—but she
had
been attracted to Adrian. Otherwise she wouldn't have been seeing him, however superficially. So when Adrian's breathing starting coming in great, hulking gasps the way it did just then, that was no reason for Michael to think Hannah was getting more into the kiss than she should be, right?

Because this was Hannah, he reminded himself. She wasn't the type of woman to be charmed by a man she knew was trouble. Adrian could pull out every amorous weapon in his arsenal, and she'd remain unmoved, right?

Right?

So then why was she moaning the way she was just then? And why was her breathing suddenly as raspy and unbridled as Adrian's? Just what the hell was going on out there?

Knowing he shouldn't, but unable to stop himself, Michael jerked off the headphones and exited the van, leaving the tapes running, but locking up behind himself. Then he stole between the houses that abutted Hannah's backyard and ducked through a shrubbery that landed him behind her detached garage. It was dark by now, but there was enough streetlight available to cause him problems if he wasn't careful. He crept across the backyard and edged the side of the house that lay in shadow, halting when he came to the front corner. Now he could hear Hannah and Adrian without the benefit of the microphone. But it still sounded pretty revolting.

Risking a peek around the corner, he saw them, and his stomach pitched at the sight. Adrian's back was to him, but he had pulled Hannah close—too close… too goddamned close—and Hannah's arms were roped around his waist. Michael clenched his hands into fists, and ground his teeth together hard. Then he forced himself to pull back, pressing himself against the brick, and waited for the torture to end. And he told himself that as hard as this was for him to stomach, it had to be even worse for Hannah.

Finally, though, it did end. The kiss, anyway. Adrian's cajoling, however, had just begun.

"Come on, Hannah," he said. "Let me come in for a little while."

"Adrian, I can't," she said. "I wish I could, but I can't. I have to work tomorrow."

"So do I," he told her. "But that doesn't have to spoil our fun unless we let it."

"I'm sorry, Adrian," Hannah told him. "Maybe next time. On the weekend."

"The reception is coming up," he reminded her.

"Let's plan to spend more time together that night, then," she said.

And that faint promise seemed to appease Adrian. For now. But OPUS damned well better figure out what the hell was going on before then, Michael thought, or else Adrian would collect on that promise, however faint. Michael had until next Friday to keep Hannah safe, he thought. Because Adrian Padgett didn't take well to people who went back on their word. Never mind that he was an expert at that himself.

With one final, parting kiss, Adrian left, fairly skipping down the walkway as he went. The prick. Michael heard Hannah open her front door and go inside, then close it behind herself. A*nd he heard her slide the deadbolt into place. He waited until Adrian's car pulled away from the curb, counted slowly to fifty, then circled to the back of the house. Hannah might think her evening was over. But Michael had one more thing he needed to do before he could call it a night.

Hannah had stripped off the dress she'd worn to dinner with Adrian and tossed it into the garbage—she never wanted to wear it again, since he had pawed all over it—when she heard a soft knock at her back door. It couldn't be Adrian, because he wouldn't go to the back door. Nor would he knock. Had he returned for what he had so reluctantly surrendered tonight, he wouldn't let something so crass as a locked door stop him. She lifted a flowered silk robe off its hook inside the closet door and pulled it on over her slip, then strode barefoot to the back door and pushed aside the curtain to see who was there.

Michael. She should have known. He'd probably come to debrief her. Or maybe he wanted to pick up where Adrian left off and, um, debrief her. If so, then the joke was on him, because she was actually wearing bikini panties. She winced inwardly at the lame attempt at humor. She was getting punchy. Or maybe she was just trying to think of something—anything—that would take her mind off of the evening she'd just spent with Adrian.

Michael, she was sure, had come to do the first kind of debriefing. Because that was what they did to people after completing a mission, right?

She still couldn't believe she was involved in this… this… this
Mission: Implausible.
All she'd ever wanted was a normal life. A secure life. An uneventful life. She'd spent years trying to win that for herself and had finally accomplished it. She should have just butted out and let Michael and his OPUS pals do their jobs. But she'd gone and offered herself up for the task, too, even though it was a job for which she was completely untrained and in no way prepared. What had she been thinking, to volunteer herself for this?

She'd been thinking about her kids, she recalled. She'd been thinking about the school. She'd thought she could avert any trouble that might befall the Emerson community. If Adrian was as bad as Michael said he was, she wanted to do whatever was within her power to stop him. Before he did something that would, at best, compromise the school, and, at worst, destroy it.

And now that she was involved, no matter how bad things got, she was determined to see it through to the end. Hannah Frost was no quitter. When she decided to do something, she did it until she got it right. She just hoped this something was the right something. Then again, having Michael appear at her back door just then did feel strangely right.

He didn't come in, only stood on her back porch in the darkness, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of a leather bomber jacket that was zipped halfway up over blue jeans and a navy blue sweater. She liked this more casual side of him, thought he was more suited to it than to the suits she'd initially seen him wearing.

And the more she'd seen of him, the more she'd realized how much she liked him, in spite of his having misled her, in spite of her having misjudged him. Yes, he was different from other men she had known, and yes, he was more ruthless than she cared to admit. But that was probably why he had such a potent effect on her. She just didn't know yet if it was so potent she'd never recover from it.

He didn't say hello as he stepped over the threshold, didn't ask about her dinner with Adrian. Instead, he strode to the center of the kitchen and turned around. And he said, very softly, "Are you okay?"

Hannah pushed the back door closed and crossed her arms over her midsection, telling herself it was to ward off the chill of the night air that had scurried in behind him, and not because she suddenly felt so vulnerable. She nodded in response to his question, even though she felt anything but okay. She hadn't thought it would be difficult to insinuate herself into Adrian's life. After all, she'd already been a part of his life, in a way. She hadn't thought it would feel much different. Now, though, she realized she hadn't been thinking at all. She'd been so shell-shocked that afternoon by everything Michael had told her that she hadn't been capable of coherent thought. She'd reacted, that was all. And if she was starting to regret that reaction, well… that was just too bad. She was in it. She would finish it. That was all there was to it.

"You sure you're okay?" Michael asked her again.

She nodded once more, but knew it was with less conviction this time. "I'm fine," she said, the words coming out more quietly than she intended. So she tried again, saying more loudly, "I'm fine. Really."

"You don't look fine."

"Well, I am fine."

"Hannah…"

"Just drop it, Michael, okay? Please?" But even she thought she sounded pretty pathetic the way she said it.

She thought he would let it go, but he expelled a sound of unmistakable irritation.

"What?" she said, suddenly feeling defensive.

He shrugged, but there was nothing casual in the gesture. "Nothing," he said, his voice clipped.

"No, you want to say something," Hannah said. "What is it?"

He eyed her levelly for a minute, as if he were deciding whether or not he should say what he obviously wanted to say.

"Come on," she cajoled. "What is it?"

He blew out another one of those exasperated breaths, and said, "Okay, fine. It's just that this part of the assignment to-night was nothing, but you look like you've been through a war zone. I'm worried you're not going to be able to hold your own for the rest of the operation."

"Nothing?" she echoed incredulously. "You think what I did tonight was
nothing!"

"Oh, please," he said. "You had a three-hour dinner at a five-star restaurant, and you didn't even have to pay for it. Oysters, caviar, champagne, salmon." He removed his hands from his pockets to tick off each course on his fingers. "Good God, Hannah, we've had operatives go for weeks in isolated areas with nothing but powdered rations and water to drink. You wouldn't last five minutes in a situation like that."