Authors: Darlene Gardner
“Bookmaking?” Gibbs gave a harsh laugh and rose. He paced the office. “Are you sure that’s all you saw?”
What the heck, Mitch thought. It was a shot in the dark, but he might as well give it a try. “I was in a hurry, but there might have been something in there about drugs.”
Gibbs stopped pacing. His expression turned to stone, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t like the sound of this,” he muttered, then looked up so quickly Mitch thought he heard his head snap. “I need you to take care of Carmichael.”
Take care of him?
Mitch’s heart pounded, a sound he hoped the tape recorder he’d concealed under his shirt didn’t pick up. If he could get Gibbs to say what he really meant, Cary was off the hook.
“I don’t know what you mean by that,” he said.
“Then you’re not too bright.” Gibbs fixed him with a glare, driving home to Mitch that a lack of intelligence wasn’t one of the man’s faults.
“Maybe not,” Mitch said, praying he wasn’t stretching his luck, “but I still need to know what you mean. Do you want me to break a leg? An arm? What?”
Gibbs walked across the room until he was less than a foot away. Mitch braced himself, expecting the other man to rip open his shirt and expose the taping device. Mitch could smell brandy on the other man’s breath when he moved his face close.
“Just take care of him,” he hissed.
Great
, Mitch thought sarcastically as he processed the order.
What more could possibly go wrong?
Three quick raps on the door sounded before it opened and Millie Bellini stuck her head inside the office.
“Sorry ’bout interrupting, boss, but I need Mitch. Some lady’s backstage upsetting the strippers.”
Gibbs didn’t bother to veil his irritation. “Then why don’t you get the bouncer?”
“He called in sick. Besides, Mitch’ll want to handle this.” She frowned like a child whose candy had been confiscated. “The lady says she’s his girlfriend.”
“I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE problem is.” Peyton stood in the dressing room with her hands on her hips, surveying the group of strippers in varying stages of dress. Make that
undress
. “All I want to know is which one of you is Debbie Darling.”
“We want to know why you’re askin’,” said a willowy redhead wearing the briefest tuxedo Peyton had ever seen. It consisted of a g-string, pasties, collar and cuffs. “We can’t be too careful.”
“Careful about what?” Peyton asked.
Nobody answered. One of the strippers took out a jar and applied shimmering gold glitter to her stomach and legs. Another fiddled with her flashing belly-button light. Finally, a voluptuous blonde in a leopard-print dress so sheer her breasts were visible took pity on her.
“Every so often, we get a crazy-jealous woman who comes looking for us,” the blonde said. “We gotta watch our backs.”
“I’m not a crazy-jealous woman,” Peyton denied. “I came here to prove my boyfriend didn’t sleep with one of you, not that he did.”
The blonde laughed. “Not bloody likely.”
“Who’s your boyfriend, honey?” The question came from the redhead in the tuxedo.
“Cary Mitchell, the bartender.”
The redhead’s smile faded. She pulled on a pair of strappy black sandals that added at least four inches to her height and strutted across the room without an ounce of self-consciousness. Then again, with a body like hers, why should she be self-conscious?
“You mean Cary Mitchell, the
snake
.” She gazed down at Peyton with what resembled pity. “I’d compare notes about how he is in bed, sugar, but the audience is out there clamoring to see Debbie’s darling new act.”
Debbie Darling pivoted with as much grace as a runway model and headed for the stage on her stiletto heels. Peyton’s hand went to her heart. It felt as though the stripper had stomped on it.
MITCH WRENCHED OPEN THE front door of Epidermis and headed for the parking lot, nearly felling a tree of a man on his way inside the club.
“What’s your problem, buster?” the man growled. Mitch wasn’t a small man, but this guy had biceps as big around as Mitch’s thighs and a snarl meaner than a junkyard dog’s.
This isn’t my night
, Mitch thought. First Gibbs had commanded him to put a hit on Peyton’s uncle, then one of the other strippers had told him Peyton knew about Cary hitting on Debbie Darling and now he had to deal with this behemoth.
Not to mention he’d done some fast talking to convince Gibbs that Peyton had showed up at Epidermis because Mitch was there and not because she knew Gibbs was.
“I asked you what the problem was,” the man barked, louder this time. He took hold of Mitch’s shirt collar and growled low in his throat, like thunder from a stormy sky.
Mitch sighed. What the heck. He might as well tell the truth.
“My girl’s pissed because she thinks I made it with a stripper,” he said. “I’m trying to catch up with her before she drives away.”
The giant’s menacing expression disappeared like a stripper’s clothes. He released Mitch’s collar and patted him on the back with a beefy hand.
“I hear ya, man,” he said. “The same thing happened to me last week.”
“Oh, yeah. What happened?”
“First I apologized, then I begged, man,” the big guy said. “I begged.”
“Thanks, buddy.” Mitch moved past the sympathetic behemoth. He scanned the parking lot with desperate eyes, finally spotting the back of Peyton’s blonde head ducking into the car. He heard the slamming of the door.
He took off for the car at a dead run, reaching the passenger door as she was switching on the ignition. He gripped the door handle and bent at the waist to look into the window. She went for the automatic door lock.
He was quicker than her, pulling open the door and jumping into the car before she could lock him out. He closed the door, shutting both of them inside.
“Get out of the car, Mitch.” She was staring straight ahead, her hands gripping the steering wheel. Her posture was rigid, her voice sounded hard.
“Not until you let me explain.”
“There’s nothing to explain.” She took a ragged breath, hinting she wasn’t as composed as she seemed. “I didn’t want to believe my mother when she told me you’d had an affair with that stripper but now I have to.”
He gritted his teeth. He’d known something like this was inevitable the instant he discovered her uncle was following him. He’d distracted Peyton from talking to her mother by taking her to bed, but he couldn’t very well have kept her there. Even though he’d wanted to.
“I said get out, Mitch,” Peyton said.
He angled his body toward hers but still she kept staring out the window into the darkness. “Please let me explain.”
“Debbie Darling already did that.”
“But you don’t know the whole story.” He let out a sigh. “Would you at least look at me, Peyton?”
Her head didn’t move. “Why should I make anything easy on you?”
“Believe me, you’re not.”
“Good.” She did turn then, but it was too dark inside the car to read her expression.
“Debbie Darling doesn’t mean anything to me,” he began.
She didn’t let him get any further. “Are you saying you didn’t sleep with her?”
He faltered, wanting to tell her Cary had been the one who’d slept with Debbie. But then she’d demand an explanation and that would plunge her into danger from Gibbs.
“I’m saying the only woman I want to make love with is you.” He stopped himself before adding he’d felt that way since he’d gotten his first look at her. As much as he loved his brother, he hadn’t been able to stop wanting her.
“Was that supposed to pacify me?” Peyton’s voice spiked. “That right now, at this moment in time, I happen to be your flavor of the day?”
“You’ll always be my flavor,” he said softly. “You’re the only woman I’ll ever want.”
“Oh, come on, Mitch. How stupid do you think I am? You can do better than that. You obviously didn’t feel this way three weeks ago.”
“That was before. . .” His voice trailed off.
“Before what?”
Before I switched places with my brother
, he thought.
Before I saw you standing there on Cary’s doorstep, yelling at me. Before I fell in love with you.
“Before I changed,” he said aloud, knowing he couldn’t tell her he loved her until she knew exactly who he was. She probably wouldn’t listen to him once she did know.
“Changed?” The word seemed to take her aback, to squeeze some of the anger from her voice. “What do you mean?”
He swallowed, wondering how much he could tell her. Even though he was masquerading as his twin, he couldn’t have played the role very well. He and Cary might look identical, but they were as different as Millie Bellini and Peyton.
“Knowing you has changed me,” he said and took a chance. He reached out and smoothed some of her short, blonde hairs back from her face. Although she didn’t shy away from his touch, she didn’t lean into it, either. “In the past week, I’ve been a different man.”
He took his thumb and ran it over her trembling lower lip. He didn’t realize she was crying until he felt the splash of her tears. He pressed his advantage, hating himself for doing it, aware he didn’t deserve her any more than his cheating brother did.
“You’ve noticed the changes, Peyton. I know you have. You’ve got to believe me when I say you’re the only woman for me.”
“I want to believe you,” she said, her voice cracking.
“Then do,” he said and opened his arms. She hesitated for a gut-wrenching moment, but then gave a little sigh and went into his embrace. Mitch cradled her head against his heart, which she already occupied.
“God help me, Cary, but I don’t know whether trusting you is a mistake,” she whispered.
His heart fell like a cement block in his chest because he was about to give her the answer.
“Mitch,” he corrected like a man who couldn’t be trusted. “I like to be called Mitch.”
Lizabeth Drinkmiller sat huddled in a chair in her darkened hotel room, her legs tucked under her. The sun had risen fifteen minutes ago but she hadn’t opened the draperies.
It was more appropriate that she be in the dark, which is where she’d remained since Cary Mitchell told her he was his twin brother Grant that first night on Duval Street.
If she let in the light, she’d be forced to acknowledge that she was far removed from the confident, flamboyant creature who dressed in the latest fashions and had gotten a dynamic man to fall for her.
She’d have to admit she was an embarrassingly naive research librarian who had been played for a fool by an impostor who wanted nothing from her but sex.
She’d been thinking about Cary’s masquerade all through the sleepless night and hadn’t been able to come up with another reason for it.
Why else would Cary have pretended he was Grant if not to take advantage of the mortifying crush she had on his brother?
It must have been painfully obvious that the torch she carried for Grant still shone so bright that it wouldn’t take much effort to get her into bed.
She wiped at a tear that had fallen down her cheek. What kind of man did something like that?
A man who loaded crates into his SUV in the dead of night so he could smuggle their contents to Miami.
No wonder money seemed to flow from his pockets. She sniffed. To think she believed she had fallen in love with a man like that.
A knock on the door made her jump. She sniffed again and brushed away her tears with the back of her hand, automatically getting out of the chair and heading for the door.
She had her hand on the doorknob before she gathered her wits enough to wonder why somebody would be knocking on the door to her hotel room at seven-thirty in the morning.
She peered out the peephole only to see the handsome, dark-haired, blue-eyed man who had kept her awake all night.
Her traitorous knees went weak at the sight of him and she staggered backward. Again, the knock sounded.
She stood stock still, with only the width of the door separating her from the man she’d so foolishly believed she loved.
If she ignored him, he’d probably go away. But he’d return because he didn’t yet know she was on to him. Without detaching the key chain, she opened the door, and prepared to get rid of him once and for all.
“Leeza, I need to talk to you,” he said through the crack before she could speak. He looked terrible. His eyes were bloodshot, he needed a shave and his hair was mussed.
Probably, Lizabeth thought, because he’d spent the night making the round trip to Miami and back with those suspicious crates.
“Do you know what time it is?” she asked, making her voice testy.
“Seven-thirty,” he answered and sighed. “I know it’s early but I couldn’t wait any longer. Will you let me in? Please?”
She steeled herself against his pleading tone and the sorrowful look in his blue eyes. All she had to do was tell him she knew he was Cary, say she never wanted to see him again and slam the door in his face.
Instead, she unhooked the key chain, opened the door and let the traitor in.
He was wearing the clothes he’d had on the night before when she’d seen him with Captain Turk: dark pants and a dark short-sleeved shirt, the better to blend into the night. They were as rumpled as he was.
She doubted she looked any better than he did. Instead of her fancy Leeza lingerie, she was wearing the single item of clothing she’d packed that reflected the real Lizabeth. It was a well-worn, knee-length Winnie the Pooh nightshirt. Her feet were bare, her hair a tangled mess. For once, she didn’t care.
“I’m sorry I woke you.” He rubbed a hand over the stubble of his lower jaw, appearing more uncomfortable than she’d ever seen him.
She didn’t bother to correct his misconception but went to the drapes and drew them back, letting in the blazing tropical sunshine. It was time she was out of the dark.
“I’ll get right to the point.” He hesitated, something else that struck her as uncharacteristic. But what did she really know about him?
“It’s like this,” he said and hesitated again. She sat on the edge of her unmade bed, where they’d made love just days before, and waited for him to confess his deception.