Smoke and Mirrors (7 page)

There was an odd glint in Ms. Brothers’s unusually radiant eyes, and he prepared for her refusal.

She surprised him.

He watched as his housekeeper bustled off to dish up her latest delicacy. “After you.” He ushered Ms. Brothers out onto a portico that was the twin of his outdoor music room. The dining set flickered in the light of the gas fire. A moment later, behind the drifting aroma of hot platters, came la cameriera. He looked at Ms. Brothers, damned if he knew what to say having ditched her and London like a flicked cigarette. “I’m afraid I’ve had a lot to drink today.” He pulled out her chair and sat beside her.

A smile flitted in and around her ripe mouth. “A point I won’t argue.”

Trust her Italian to be pitch perfect.

“That’s unlike you,” he said, unsure why he couldn’t seem to hold his tongue where she was concerned.

She shrugged and he noticed the almond-shell brown of her skin extended well beneath the strap of her frock. The bloody woman would’ve turned those thousand ships right the hell around, leaving Sardinia with the same sorry fate as Troy.

He pulled his mind from the gutter in time to hear her say, “Don’t imagine you know the first thing about me.”

The words were curiously familiar as well as sarcastic. He tried to reconstruct their afternoon’s conversation.
Nothing.
Absently, he ran his knuckles over his freshly-bruised chin.
When did I box a round with my eyes closed?

She reached over unexpectedly and brushed his split lip. That caused his cock to sit up and take notice. He narrowed his eyes at her.

“You should take better care of yourself,” she added before sipping her wine.

He flattened his serviette over a most inconvenient reminder of his attraction to her. There was no way in hell he was continuing down that path. Better to stop things where they’d left them. One damnably dangerous kiss around the back of L’Osteria in London.

Then he caught sight of her black stiletto heel.

No stockings.

No slip.

Just a black thong and –

Holy fuck.

He was beginning to remember all right. Fragments of something he had never intended. Not since Sammy’s death had brought collateral damage to very real and frightening light.

Because Brad was going to make damn certain there were no innocent victims when the Grim Reaper finally caught up with him.

“I’ll try,” he lied, trying not to look at a random sparkle of glitter winking on and off at him each time her cleavage rose and fell.

“I’m glad to hear it.” She took another sip of the wine. A long swallow traveled her throat. He noted small markings there. Someone’s mouth and teeth had sampled Ms. Brothers’s wares, and he was fairly certain that someone was he.

Double fuck.

He made certain his voice was pitched too low for prying ears. “You shouldn’t be here.” That was patently clear. Whatever the hell SIS had planned, Ms. Brothers was not the right choice.

She surprised him once more by nodding. “I agree.” He felt a momentary lull in panic before she added, “I
should
be in Colombia with Alberto.”

“The fuck, you should,” he spat, shoving away his food and leaning in toward her remarkably composed form. “Alberto Sanchez is going to make your rapist seem like Prince Charming.”

To her credit, she threw the water at him instead of the wine.

I
was elbow deep in the bustling clinic for the next few days. Deep enough I didn’t have to think too much about what I’d do to the bastard when next I saw him.

My current patient, a sun-beaten fisherman whose hands had finally met a horseshoe-sized fishhook they couldn’t deal with, flexed his fingers and said, “Grazie, Dottoressa.”

I frowned at the lines of pain evident around his mouth. “Adesso stai meglio?”

He smiled through a grimace and held up the bandaged hand. “Sì!”

I had my doubts. “It would be better to rest. Try to take the afternoon off, yes?”

The door swung inward before he could answer, and De Torres filled the opening, sunglasses removed, leaving those too-sexy Italian eyes to bore twin holes chest high on me.

“Don’t you ever knock?” I said, leaving off the words ‘you chauvinistic bastard’ just in time.

But my patient, far from being annoyed by the interruption, shook De Torres’s hand. “She’s certainly a change from Mancini, no?”

De Torres laughed Brad’s deep chuckle. “Sì. È gatta selvatica.”

I rolled my eyes hoping my client didn’t switch to the Southern Sardinian dialect I found more difficult to understand. Still laughing, my former patient bowed, put on his weathered hat and exited the room with a, “She’s all yours, Signor.” And the door closed behind him with a puff of sultry air.

Brad and I hadn’t spoken since I’d chucked an ice water at him. Truth be told, a part of me had understood what he was trying to say – even knew why he had said it. It was the less mature side of me that wanted to use a scalpel on him without any anesthesia. Because I hadn’t told him about the rape, which meant C or Alasdair was right up there with him on my shit list.

“Alex,” he said, his voice a soft purr. “Would you please look at me?”

Unwilling to give him the satisfaction of my silence, I turned an artificially bland expression in his direction. “You’ll recall I was the one working,” I said, holding up another object sharp enough to jab him with.

“Vero.” He smiled and gestured for me to finish.

I began tidying up, annoyed my nerves were playing tag with the most sensitive parts of me. “I can listen at the same time, Giovanni, even if I am a woman.”

But it was Brad who spoke from the irascibly attractive features, ignoring my taunt. “I’m having a dinner party in two days, and I want you to come as my date. Alberto will be there.”

His seeming indifference and total change in attitude knocked me momentarily off kilter. I wasn’t certain which of his extreme reactions was more aggravating. “Go on.”

He filled me in on the basic plan, sounding for all the world like a librarian reading off a list of IBSN’s. Having finished disinfecting the last of my workplace, I met his neutral gaze once more. “Sounds simple enough.”

The sunglasses in his hand flickered, the only indication he might not agree. Then, as though he guessed my thoughts, Brad slid them over his unreadable eyes. “Exactly.”

So the op was finally beginning to shake out, and he was going to let it play as C wished. The thought should have energized me; instead I felt a peculiar sense of despair. Not wishing to explore the reasons behind that dead end, I added, “I’ll need to know some things first.”

“Can you take the afternoon off?”

“I wouldn’t think you needed that long.” My unintended double-entendre didn’t even carve a dent in his cheek.

“Simple doesn’t mean effortless.” He glanced at his watch, all business. “You should know that.”

His not so subtle reproach reminded me that there was more to our un-relationship than tempers and an as-yet-unspoken-of tryst. I eyed his loosely buttoned Hugo Boss shirt and pretended I wasn’t disappointed by his indifference. “Give me half-an-hour.”

•   •   •

Thirty minutes later, I had rebooked my caseload and changed into a more appropriate ensemble. Clothing which consisted of jeans and a gypsy-like off the shoulder blouse I had bought in a little shop in Cagliari. Just because he wasn’t looking, didn’t mean I was turning to curlers and a bathrobe.

De Torres, seated in his black Ferrari, glasses hiding his eyes, looked like Versace’s muse. He saw me exit the rear of the clinic and got out, coming round to open my door. Every window the length and breadth of the small wending street on which Dottore Mancini’s practice was situated had a figure in it. Curious eyes abounded from behind lace curtains. They were likely wondering the same thing I was – just what was De Torres up to today?

I pulled on my Gucci’s and took my frustration out on a stick of gum. “I take it you don’t date local women.”
Probably only models and socialites.

He forwent an answer, dropping the car into gear and directing it along the narrow street. I was surprised at how slow we were going given my driver’s infamous love of all things fast. However, once we hit the somewhat wider, paved road that ran south from Cagliari toward Carbonia, he brought the huge engine to life. The grin I had thought MIA, popped out. Brad flipped up his glasses and, noticing my smile, responded with the type I hadn’t seen since he’d first asked me out. Yelling above the snarl of the Ferrari and the howl of the wind, he said, “Hold on, Ms. Brothers.”

The terrain was surreal. Roads of thread-like dimension, weaving in and out of the mountains that made up the southern tip of Sardinia, dipped daringly toward the convergence of seas surrounding the whole of the island.

“What’s the fastest you’ve driven her?” I asked, leaning into him and accidentally brushing the hard surface of his thigh.

“200 kph on this road, but 300 kph on the flat section up by Sassari. Why?” he asked, the only sign I had touched him, a white flash of his tightened knuckles.

•   •   •

He was hard as fucking basalt despite the fact he was trying his damnedest to think of her as a fellow field agent. Her dark hair whipped out of its makeshift ponytail teasing his face. And her tanned shoulders, square above the low-cut blouse, kept rolling as she shifted, leaving him glimpses of her breasts.

What had she purred when he asked why?

“Because I want a turn.”

“I’ll pull over,” he growled.

They switched places at a scenic pullout less than a mile from the tip of Sardinia. Only, she didn’t bother to get out, simply threw a leg over his torso and fed his eyes with another glimpse of her curves.

She was deliberately taunting him. Trying to find out if he’d changed his mind after being a total jackass or if he really didn’t give a fuck about her.

He kept his hands perfectly still so she didn’t know how much he wanted her. How much he’d give to keep her safe in London and the hell away from psychos like Sanchez.

In the end, he managed to climb over the stick shift into the passenger seat.

He’d barely fastened his belt when she took off, driving like she’d been born to win Monte Carlo.

He couldn’t remember the last time he enjoyed himself more.

“There, to your left. Just in front of that range.”

Brad watched as she took her eyes from the road and glanced up at the remains of the seventh century B.C. temple. The once-temple stood atop a rocky acropolis, now parted with the tender shoots of a multitude of wild flowers. It was backed by the Ligurian Sea’s tempestuous surface and further still by the purple haze of mountains. Its four massive columns reached out like stone fingers to grasp at their past glory. Today they reminded him of only one thing.

“Oh, my God.” She pulled the car over, wonder lighting her already radiant face.

He pointed up the hill. “Go left up there. We can park and walk to the top.”

She did as he asked and stepped from the vehicle. “Why isn’t anyone else here?”

He went around to the boot and got the hamper. “It’s only open to pre-arranged tour busses. But I know the owner, and no one’s scheduled for today.”

“Business or pleasure?” She eyed him over the top of her sunglasses.

I’m not going there,
he thought.
Not
ever again
. His hand would have to do the job. That way collateral damage wouldn’t extend beyond a short family tree and a catheter.

Unperturbed, her eyes moved on to the basket. “What’s in there?”

He headed up the white-pebbled path, pushing aside a momentary desire to grab her hand. “You’ll have to wait and see.”

They reached the summit just as the sun was beginning to set behind Corsica’s southern shores. He dropped the hamper and walked to the cliff’s end.

“You can see dolphins from here.”

She wasn’t buying it. He sucked a breath of sea air.
What the hell did you think would happen, bringing her up here with all this unsettled friction between us?

“Why are we really here?” Her low voice was unintentionally erotic.

He met her eyes, realizing he simply didn’t understand his response to her. Why wasn’t De Torres’s boorishness effective armor against a woman as smart and savvy as Ms. Brothers? A woman like her shouldn’t want a man like him, whoever the hell he was. “To talk about Alberto.” He stepped back, willing the heat out of his aching balls. “Hungry?”

She didn’t bother with a rejoinder, just raised her brow and sauntered over to the hamper, knowing very well her hip-hugging Hudson jeans would do the sassing for her.

“Talk,” she said, once he’d joined her on the green Burberry blanket.

Sometimes there was no way to scrape the London out of him, he realized before beginning with, “What was it like working in Boston?”

“We’ve talked about that before.” She licked the sticky jam of a spilled condiment jar from her thumb. There wasn’t a lick of paint along those square nails.

He felt an invisible blow to his gut.

Sammy had loved nail lacquer. He’d bought her Butter London’s
Aston
and painted her toes with the subtly sexy color.

Not that he harbored any regrets about the end of their relationship. After all, when she’d called it quits, he’d happily introduced her to his best friend.

But until now, he hadn’t realized that bittersweet memory was so close to his heart. And the pain of her loss was at once jagged and miserable.

So he concentrated on the shapely contours of the feet nearest him. Painting Ms. Brothers’s toes would be an altogether different experience. One he wasn’t certain either of them could survive.

•   •   •

“You believe Alberto will hire me?” I asked, hoping to wipe the stark strip of something, not unlike pain, from his demeanor.

“You’re a perfect match for Francesca.”

Francesca Sanchez. The daughter of Alberto Sanchez by his one time wife, Isabella Lauretti, an Italian model.

He toyed with the yellow flower that had found its way onto our blanket.