His stomach muscles tightened and he clenched his fists as an unaccustomed wave of apprehension rolled over him. He didn’t take his eyes off her. Had she told anyone what she’d found? Had she called the police? And most importantly, had what she found turned her against him?
He hardened his resolve and shut out the apprehension. This was no time for foolish Earthly emotion or wavering commitments. What had to be done, had to be done.
He strode across the room, his gaze never leaving her for a second. He took in the golden hair, unusually messy this morning, the paler than usual face, the pinched lips. With each new sign of her turmoil, the invisible clamp imprisoning his heart twisted tighter still.
Halfway to his goal, he saw her reach for her coffee mug. At the same time, she looked up, her gaze catching him square on.
She blanched. Her hand jerked. She knocked the cup over, spilling coffee on her desk and the floor.
The screws on Erik’s heart twisted once more, with pain unlike anything he had ever experienced. He hadn’t been prepared for Allie’s reaction to him—the fear and panic that had flashed across her face, freezing her features in an expression he recognized all too well. The expression of terror in the face of a prey cornered by the enemy.
Before he reached her desk, Allie had jumped up, grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on her desk, and begun mopping up the coffee. When he stopped, she continued mopping, not looking at him, and mumbled, “Clumsy, aren’t I?”
Silently he let her finish cleaning up the spilled coffee. Then she sat down. She looked in his general direction, but her eyes did not meet his. “Well, that’s that. I drink too much coffee anyway. That machine coffee is horrible too. But at least it didn’t get on my notes or my keyboard. Or my clothes either. Nothing worse than sitting around with coffee stains on your clothes.
Especially when—”
“Why did you leave?” Erik interrupted her nervous chatter. By the stars, he didn’t care about the spilled coffee. He cared only what she was thinking. About him. About them. He was too worried to focus enough to find out telepathically.
Allie stopped. She bit her lip. Her fingers worked in her lap, and tension radiated from her slim shoulders. Finally she looked at him. The clear green eyes he loved were clouded now, with pain, with doubt, and with a terrifying question.
It was the terror he saw there that hurt the most. The one thing he didn’t want, ever, was for Allie to be afraid of him.
He gentled his voice. He didn’t want to frighten her any more than he already had. If she bolted again, it would be worse for both of them. “I know what you found,” he said quietly. “I know how it looks. But it isn’t what you think.”
Allie stared at him. For a long time she said nothing. Finally she swallowed, and pointed to the chair. “Then perhaps you’d better sit down and tell me what it
is
all about.”
Erik sat down. He nodded. “That’s what I want to do. But not here. Some place quiet where we won’t be interrupted. I thought one of the dark rooms.”
“No!”
Her vehemence startled her and stung him. He watched silently as she struggled to rein in her fear. Her fear of him.
He twisted his lips, then concentrated all his efforts on projecting his love and reassurance.
“Allie,” he said quietly. “You know I would never hurt you. Never.”
She met his words with a mute, cloaked stare.
He waited, his tension unbearable.
Don’t you
know that? Don’t you know that I love you? Don’t you
know that I would never hurt you? Except, perhaps,
in the matter of destiny. For there I have no choice.
Finally she exhaled slowly. She raised her head, and looked at him, her gaze sharp but calmer than it had been seconds before. “Do I? Do I know that? Or is everything you’ve told me, everything you’ve said, just another lie?”
“Lie?” Erik froze. He had a terrible premonition of what was coming.
“Yes, lie.” Allie’s expression turned bleak. “I phoned the
Sydney Examiner
today, something I should have done a long time ago.” Her eyes filled with tears that reproached him more than the angriest of words. “I know you’re not Erik Berenger. He died a year ago in a sailing accident.”
“You’re right,” he admitted. If ever there was a time for the truth, and nothing but the truth, it was now. “I’m not Erik Berenger. But that doesn’t change anything else. It doesn’t change the fact that I love you. And that I wouldn’t harm you, or anyone close to you.”
Allie regarded him. Across her beautiful, expressive face, a battle waged. On one side was her love for him and what she wanted to believe.
On the other was her frightening suspicions and the even more terrifying fear they might actually be true.
Erik waited, unaware he was holding his breath. Her decision, for or against him, would dictate his next move.
Finally she stood up. She didn’t look at him.
“All right,” she said dully. We’ll go to the dark room.”
Erik exhaled with relief. Despite everything, she was still willing to listen to him, if not trust him. He stood up, and shoved the chair aside.
Allie’s gaze, now shuttered and closed, settled on his face. “But first I’m telling Kate where I’m going. And to come and get me in fifteen minutes.”
Allie jumped when she heard the click of the door lock. She shot Erik a questioning look, but didn’t say anything.
Don’t be afraid,
she told herself.
This is the man who loves you. The man
who saved your life. It will be all right
. But her hollow reassurances did little to soothe her shakiness.
Erik leaned against the door. In the dim darkroom lighting, he appeared once again the cool, impassive stranger she’d first met, his jaw square, his broad cheekbones and slightly slanted eyes making him appear more foreign than ever.
Despite herself, she shivered.
“It’s only so we won’t be interrupted,” Erik said, his tone apologetic. He gestured to a chair. “Why don’t you sit down? This will take a while.”
Gingerly, Allie sat down. For a moment Erik just looked at her, his gray eyes unreadable, his face grim. Was this the man who had made love to her as no one ever had before? she wondered. The man who had made her laugh with his awkwardness, and who had touched her heart with his kindness and with the loneliness she had seen deep inside? Or once again, had she seen only what she wanted to see?
Erik started to pace across the small room.
Back and forth. Back and forth. As if he were winding himself up to tell his tale. Or worse, stalling to concoct something she would believe.
Finally he halted. Once again he leaned against the wall. He fixed her with a piercing gaze. She forced herself to meet it without flinching.
“I guess you want to know why I took Erik Berenger’s name. And about the keys. Yes, they are Cody’s. I won’t insult you by denying that.”
Allie’s heart plunged. Had she secretly harbored a hope that he would deny the keys were Cody’s? That somehow he might own an identical set?
“Go on,” she said.
Erik nodded. He fixed his gaze on the wall. “It will be hard for you to believe what I’m telling you.
All I ask is that you listen to everything I have to say before you reach a conclusion. But first I need to ask you one question.”
His gaze shifted to her face. The quiet desperation she saw there shocked her. She nodded mutely.
The seconds ticked by. “Do you believe me when I say I love you?” he finally blurted out.
Allie started. This was the last thing she’d expected him to ask. Yesterday she wouldn’t have thought twice about the answer. But today? Today, when she no longer knew who he was, or what he was capable of? Today when her trust in her own judgment—and in Erik—had been shaken to the core?
She looked at him again. The bleak, implacable eyes, the stiffly-held body that radiated a tension she didn’t yet understand. Was this the man she’d laughed with, loved with? Was this the man who’d seemed bent on protecting her from hurt, on helping her whenever she’d needed it? Even from across the room, she could sense his loneliness, a hurt deep inside that he shielded from other’s view. Did she believe this man? Did she trust him? Did she love him?
She stared at him a moment longer. A bone-deep weariness overtook her and she shut her eyes. “I don’t know what to think any more,” she said slowly. “I-I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. Maybe this—you— maybe you’re just another one. I don’t know.”
When she opened her eyes, he was still watching her, his face a mask of sorrow.
“I guess I can’t expect anything else,” he said, his voice raw. “So many things have happened. I never expected to fall in love with you—or for you to mean so much to me. I didn’t think loving you would change how I thought about so many things. About what was important and worthwhile.”
The gray of his eyes softened. “No matter what, I want you to remember that I love you. And that I don’t want to hurt you. Promise me you will remember.”
Allie nodded. His tormented words pierced her heart, but she forced herself to confront the unsavory questions she didn’t want to ask. With a mouth that felt dry and scratchy, she choked out,
“The keys. Cody’s keys. Tell me why you had them.
Tell me who you really are.”
For a moment Erik stood very still. Before her eyes, he seemed to grow cooler, more distant, in ways she could never have put into words. “Cody is fine,” he said quietly.
“That’s good. But where is he? And why do you have his car keys?”
Erik hesitated. His eyes seemed to grow cooler still, like the sea in a winter storm, then hotter, blazing into silver molten metal that brought back vague, uncomfortable associations.
“Cody is fine,” he repeated. “Right now he’s in a state of suspended animation in a spaceship orbiting Earth behind the moon.”
Allie blinked. She shook her head. She looked at Erik. He stood there looking as ordinary as if he’d just commented on the weather.
Allie shook her head again. She couldn’t have heard what she thought she heard. She couldn’t have.
“Pardon?”
Erik cleared his throat. “I said Cody is fine.
Right now he’s in a spaceship orbiting the Earth behind the moon.”
“Oohhh.” A groan of frustration escaped Allie.
Nerves already strained to the limit, she wasn’t in the mood for stupid jokes. “Quit it Erik. I know you don’t have much of a sense of humor, but this isn’t funny, believe me. I want the truth, and I want it now. You owe me the truth.”
Allie’s anger flared. She started to stand up.
“Sit down.” The cold command in his voice and in his eyes was unmistakable. “You promised to listen. At least hear me out. The whole story.”
With a shiver of apprehension, Allie sat down.
“All right, but no more of this spaceship crap,” she said with all the bravado she could muster. “I’ve had enough of psychics, spaceships and little green men.”
For a second Allie thought she saw a look of hopelessness flash across Erik’s face.
“I’m not going to talk about little green men.
But I am going to talk about me. And Cody. And you. And you have to promise to listen until I’m finished.”
He sighed, then pinned her with his hard gaze.
“You are right. My name is not Erik Berenger. I assumed that identity solely to achieve my purpose. My real name is Barak of Zura. Zura is a planet in the Oridian star system, and obscured from Earth’s field of vision by the Milky Way.
“When I was a boy of twelve, the seers foretold my destiny. The first part predicted I would be a commander in the Zalian forces, and that has unfolded as it should. The second part was that I would marry an Earthling, one Alina Kazimiera Stanislawski, and bring her back to Zura as my mate.
“That is why I have come to Earth: To find you and claim you as my mate. Zalian research had indicated Cody Walker was a potential obstacle to my destiny, and so I had him removed until I completed my mission.”
With each word Erik spoke, Allie’s anger grew.
Why was Erik doing this? Did he actually think she’d believe this stupid story? Did he—
Her angry thoughts came to an abrupt halt. She stared at Erik in horror.
Oh, no. It can’t be!
This wasn’t Erik the photographer. What he was saying was too much like the words of the lunatic stranger who’d shown up at her door just a few weeks ago. Could this be the same man?
Renewed fear raced up her spine. She swallowed, and stared numbly at Erik. What should she do? Should she humor him? Should she make a break for it? Was he going to hurt her?
“Aaahhh, you don’t really mean that, do you?”
she asked cautiously.
Erik sighed. “Yes, I do. And I’m not crazy, Allie.
Though I know right now you think I am. But yes, I am the Barak of Zura who came to your door six weeks ago to claim you.”
“Aaahhh, yes.”
On shaky legs, Allie rose from the chair. She backed against the sinks, and then started to edge along them. However sane Eric appeared to be most of the time, he suffered from one dreadful delusion: that he was an alien from outer space.
And she still didn’t know why he had Cody’s keys!
She swallowed again. “You—you don’t really expect me to believe that Cody was abducted by aliens. I mean that’s pretty far—”
“Fetched?” Erik supplied, his voice laced with bitterness. He paced to the other side of the room. “I guess I’ve been a fool all along to think I might convince you. Perhaps they were right in Zalia that Earthlings are incapable of facing the truth.”
Allie winced at the bitterness in Erik’s voice, and the depth of his delusion. Whatever he might have done, whoever he really was, it appeared he truly believed he was an alien.
But that didn’t make what he was saying any truer. What it did mean was that the sooner she got out of this room and found him the help he needed, the better. Not taking her eyes off him, she continued to inch along the counter to the door.
“So, ah, how’d you get Cody up to your spaceship? Did you beam him up,
a la Star Trek?
Erik grimaced. “Stop it, Allie. You don’t believe a word I’m saying. So I have no choice but to show you.”