Private Lies Read online

  “Marina is a lovely name,” Clark Mettles said, smiling hesitantly in her direction. “Italian?”

  Roxanne shook off her claustrophobic sensations and nodded. “After my grandmother.” She did have an Italian grandmother, and Gage had told her to stick to the truth as much as possible when faced with personal questions, as they didn’t have the time or resources to create an entire dossier for her. Earlier, he’d confiscated all her credit cards and driver’s license, tucking them into a concealed compartment in his briefcase. She’d half expected “Q” to pop out from behind the hotel-room curtains with more James Bondish gadgets and instructions.

  “My parents visited Italy last summer. Beautiful country.”

  “So I’ve heard. Never had the chance to go myself.”

  “You should ask Mr. Angelini to take you. I understand he’s been many times.”

  A polite comment? Or a subtle warning that they were tracking Gage’s every move? Frankly, cute, but nerdy-looking Clark didn’t seem sophisticated enough to pull off a double-edged conversation, but he didn’t get his MIT degree by being anybody’s dummy either.

  “I’ll do that,” she said to him.

  Clark stared out the window for a few moments, then asked, “So how about your parents? Are they Italian, too?”

  Obviously, Clark had been assigned the task of chatting up the one unknown in this wild scenario. Her. Sweat rolled down her spine. “My mother was, but my father’s Irish.”

  “Was?”

  Her stomach fluttered, as it always did when she thought of the violent death of her gentle mother. “She passed away a number of years ago.”

  Gage, bless him, was apparently listening to her conversation as well as his own, since he patted her arm. “The precious-metals market is bound to make a comeback. Marina might even personally see to it.”

  Stephano roared with laughter.

  Roxanne flushed, but from that moment on, Stephano and Gage included her in their discussion, and Clark’s personal questions stopped. Throughout dinner, though, she was sandwiched in a black leather–covered booth between Gage and Stephano, each determined to outcharm her. Gage stroked her arm. Stephano laid his hand on her knee. Gage stared into her eyes. Stephano ogled. Gage suggested. Stephano implied.

  She felt like a meaty bone caught between two bloodhounds. Or maybe a shepherd and a rottweiler.

  Stephano ate a two-inch-thick steak and baked potato swimming in butter and sour cream with as much gusto as he downed scotch. Maybe the Treasury Department would get lucky and the guy would drop dead from a heart attack. Save the taxpayers a pile of money. By the time a thick slice of cheesecake appeared in front of each diner, Roxanne could actually feel her arteries hardening, and Gage’s jaw had become so rigid she wouldn’t have been surprised if it popped.

  Jealousy? she wondered.

  Ha! her conscience shot back. He’s just afraid you’ll sue the department for sexual harassment of a civilian.

  But his eyes were dark and his fingers gentle as they stroked the back of her hand. He seemed genuinely worried—

  Genuine? Just which part of “He’s lied every moment since you’ve met” don’t you understand?

  Oh, shut up.

  Just what she needed—a bossy conscience.

  Finally, finally, Stephano brought up the topic everyone had been quietly holding their breaths for. “So, Angelini, you’d like in on my little project?”

  Looking very much in his element, Gage leaned back. “I hear you could use new investors.”

  “Mmm. I had one fall out recently.”

  Fall out? Just exactly how—or from what—had he fallen out?

  She wanted to grab Gage’s hand and run from the restaurant. What was he doing in the middle of this? Somebody had to fight the bad guys, she supposed, but why did it have to be him?

  Why does it have to be you, Daddy? Why can’t you own a shoe store like Suzie Mancuso’s father?

  With effort, she jerked herself from the past and concentrated on Gage’s response.

  “I have some capital I need to shift. I like aspects of your project, but Mettles has been short on details.”

  Stephano tossed his napkin on the table. “Naturally. He understands my need for discretion. If you’re looking for a company mission statement, Angelini, you’re doomed to disappointment.”

  Gage accepted this warning with a mere angling of his head. The rakish angle, ponytail and all, made him look lean and dangerous, and she wondered what it would be like to make love to Gage in his disguise. Her heart leaped and something hot pulsed low and deep inside her.

  The man was a freaking iceberg. And ridiculously, Roxanne found herself admiring him.

  “I’ve begun the process. We’ll continue for three months. A quick hit is best for our resources as well as a way to avoid legal problems.”

  Just shows what you know, you creep. The law’s already on your tail, and we’re not letting—

  We? Get a grip, girl.

  “Mettles has the technical details worked out to perfection. My team and I will handle distribution. I have my own capital invested, naturally, but I prefer diversification, so your cash would be welcome.”

  Gage merely smiled—though not in the charming way she was used to. “How much?”

  The two men spent the next twenty minutes discussing money, procedures and information exchange. Roxanne’s head swam, then pounded, then went into a full holding pattern, especially when Clark launched into a discussion of the latest designer-shoe trends. If Mr. MIT-computer engineer thought he was going to distract her with swanky labels and the latest in jeweled sandals, he hadn’t glanced at her strictly local-mall-inspired-and-budgeted wardrobe lately.

  But as she listened to Gage and Stephano with one side of her brain, with the other side she recalled her role in this farce and fought to remember the latest excerpt from InStyle magazine.

  This undercover business was exhausting.

  And that was her last coherent thought as Gage’s hand slid from the top of her thigh to her crotch. Beneath the tablecloth, no one else could have had any idea of the position of his hand or his…talents in subversive arousal.

  Her stomach quivered. Her crotch went damp. She shifted uneasily on her seat and cut her gaze to Gage’s, silently warning him to take a big step back.

  Which, of course, he ignored.

  Instead, he used his index finger to stroke her through the stretchy fabric of her suit.

  She jumped on the seat, then surreptitiously jabbed Gage in the side, while still trying to maintain the trail of her and Mettles’s conversation. “So, uh…uh…”

  “Clark,” Gage provided.

  “Clark,” she said, glaring at Gage out of the corner of her eye. “Who’s your favorite designer?”

  Clark pursed his lips. “Well, you can’t beat the Italians…”

  Gage flicked his finger over Roxanne’s clitoris.

  “Ah…”

  “Oh, yes,” Clark continued, oblivious to the true meaning behind her sigh. “I agree. Ferragamo is a certified genius.”

  Gage deepened his caress, gliding his finger back and forth, slowly, then faster. Roxanne’s breath caught in her throat. Sweat slid down her spine.

  He was a dead man. If she ever go out of here—

  A gentle pinch.

  The coil of desire cinched tighter.

  “As for the current furor over Blahnik and Choo…” Clark droned on.

  The coil tightened. And tightened. Until Roxanne was so needy, so desperate, so dependent on Gage ending the torture, she was ready to scream with frustration and simultaneously beg for satisfaction.

  Beg? Hold it just a second, sister. She wasn’t begging that lying, deceitful Gage Dabon for anything.

  And how dare he work her into a frenzy in the middle of an important case? When their lives were in danger. When she was at the end of her emotional and physical rope.

  Then she realized Gage’s slickness went way beyond her expectations.
He knew exactly what he was doing, when and why. He wanted her vulnerable and beholden to him. To control her.

  She clamped her legs together.

  Gage actually flinched in surprise.

  Knees quaking, she stood. “I’m going to the ladies’ room.” Whether surprised by her tone or her abrupt movement, the men rose as she scooted past Gage out of the booth.

  In the rest room, with her eyes dilated and a golden-skinned stranger staring back at her, she reapplied her bright red lipstick, all the while breathing deeply, reminding herself she didn’t need men. Or sex. And certainly not sex from one particular man.

  Imagine, him thinking he could control her with her hormones. Ha! She rolled her shoulders back, then adjusted her padded bra.

  Her legs buckled. She caught herself against the black-marble countertop.

  Good grief, he was one hell of a man.

  ON THE DRIVE BACK to the hotel, Gage thought of his father.

  Maybe he just didn’t want to dwell on his failure to distract Roxanne. He’d wanted to remind her how he could make her feel, how great things had been between them, how she couldn’t just throw all that away.

  So, instead, sunk into the plush leather seats of Stephano’s limo, he considered dear ol’ dad.

  His boss. Their odd connection and relationship. The relationship as compared to Roxanne and her father. He and his father were so much the same. Yet complete opposites.

  Each trying to impress, fighting for attention and justice. His challenge for his own father’s respect was more forward and apparent. They were in the same business. Boss and subordinate. Father and son.

  Roxanne’s situation was more subversive but no less obvious. She wanted her dad to understand what she did and why she did it, as much as she tried not to understand what he did and why he did it. She was a concerned citizen. Paid her taxes, valiantly pulled her car over to the right for the police and their sirens and lights, sympathized with their fight for justice, for the rights of victims. Even as she despised every case her father fought for.

  As she mourned her mother.

  As she hated her father for the life that brought her both love and pain.

  This conflict of feelings fascinated him, drew him to her from the first. As punishment for his own choices, or as solace?

  His mother had left, too, though not in the same tragic, uncontrollable way as Roxanne’s. His mother had left of her own accord. Refusing to accept any longer a husband with single-minded dedication to justice. Or the son she’d birthed. She’d tried for ten years, but couldn’t deal with the life of waiting by the phone, for the call of death or disappearance to come, and the boy could hardly blame her. His father could be cold and ruthless. Not the kind of man for a tender, suburban-loving wife. But as he’d always had his father’s eyes, his father’s attention to detail and quiet observance, his mother hadn’t been willing to try with him either.

  So, she’d left.

  And he—as a boy and a man—had been alone.

  His father wasn’t much company. Oh, he’d seen to his son’s schoolwork, made sure Gage steered clear of drugs and alcohol, drove him to football and baseball practice, allowed him friends and entertainment. But Gage had never really known the man, never really sensed an emotional or even intellectual connection.

  Until the moment, at age fifteen, he’d caught his father in the bathroom, donning bright blue contacts.

  The truth of his work had come out. The depth of his father’s trust at such a young age still astounded him. These days, Gage would never be so trusting. But, in giving his young son his secret of undercover police work, Colin MacDonald had also created a legacy. Unmatched to this day and with a success rate other agents and agent teams only dreamed about.

  Only in recent months, since Roxanne had entered his life, had Gage begun to question that legacy. His father had his only son’s last name legally changed to hide their connection to the outside world. He’d taught him to lie, to become someone he wasn’t. Just who had his father served? And why?

  He and Roxanne had so much in common. And, yet, nothing at all. His reconciliation of that, or not, he sensed, would cost him his life.

  5

  ROXANNE SLAMMED the hotel-room door. “I’ve just about had it up to here—”

  Gage clamped his hand over her mouth.

  “Mmmf!” That arrogant, overbearing man had really gone too far this time.

  “Bugs,” he whispered in her ear.

  There better be one helluva cockroach in the bathroom—

  “Stephano can hear us.”

  Talk about a giant cockroach.

  She simply nodded, and Gage moved his hand.

  She stood, arms crossed, watching as Gage pulled a small device from his briefcase. He roamed the room, ostensibly searching for bugs.

  Still angry with him for touching her in the restaurant, and even angrier at herself for her response, she fumed in silence. She’d really wanted to call him on the carpet the moment they were alone, and now her simmering fury had to bubble even longer. The delay didn’t bode well for her undercover lover.

  He found three in all—two in the living area and one in the bedroom. He balanced the tiny, round objects in his palm and held his hand out to her. “It’s safe to talk now.”

  She glanced at the bugs and suppressed a shiver. Frankly, she’d rather have the cockroach. “Won’t they be suspicious their bugs aren’t working?”

  Gage closed his palm. “They’ll know I’m not stupid.”

  As he crossed to his briefcase and stored the bugs and device thingy he’d detected them with, Roxanne drew a deep breath. She held on to her anger like a shield. “Just what the hell did you think you were doing at the restaurant?”

  He flopped onto the sofa. “Making a deal with Stephano.”

  She stormed across the room, stopping next to him, glaring down at his relaxed position. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

  He shrugged. “I figured you were nervous, so I tried to distract you, relax you.”

  “There was absolutely nothing remotely relaxing about—”

  “There would have been if you’d given me two more minutes,” he pointed out, then had the nerve to smile.

  She didn’t, couldn’t say anything for several long moments. “You really are an arrogant son of a bitch, aren’t you?”

  He closed his eyes. “You ought to get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” She grabbed his hand, jerking him to a sitting position. “We’re having this out right—”

  In a heartbeat, she was on her back, her arms pinned over her head and Gage straddling her. His eyes blazed into hers. His breath rushed out in hot gasps. As if she’d wakened a sleeping panther.

  “You really don’t want to push me just now, Roxanne.”

  Her heart thudded, but, strangely, she wasn’t scared. She was aroused. Again.

  “I’ve spent the last several hours watching those two revolting idiots drool over you, put their hands on you and continually suggest activities with you that I’d like to kill them for simply thinking much less voicing.”

  Gage is jealous. As dire as their situation was, and as angry as she was, and as over as their relationship was, she couldn’t help the feminine thrill that raced through her body.

  “And all the while,” he continued, “you’re playing your part by fawning over me, teasing me, touching me.” He drew a deep breath. “All I have to do is smell you to get hard, and you’ve been two inches from me for hours. So, I’m just about at my breaking point. You’d be wise to just leave me the hell alone.”

  Pulse racing, she looked up at him, at the fierce, almost tortured expression on his face. And the gentle part inside her—the part of her heart she feared Gage would always own—sighed.

  She wriggled her hand free, then slowly, tentatively, she drew her palm down his cheek. “I’m so sorry. I—”

  “Don’t,” he said through clenched teeth
, recapturing her hand.

  Touch him, she assumed. She’d like to have pointed out that there was very little of their bodies that weren’t touching at the moment, but somehow she sensed Gage wasn’t in the mood for logic.

  Especially since having his hard arousal pressed against her stomach was so pleasurable. She sensed she trembled on the edge of tapping into that dark, troubled, dangerous side of Gage Dabon, the side she craved yet dreaded.

  Pushing aside her cautious nature, she arched her back slightly, pressing her hips against his crotch.

  His hands, wrapped around her wrists, clenched. His gaze bored into hers. “Don’t push me,” he said very quietly.

  Her eyes challenging, she licked her lips.

  Though she’d half expected the move, she gasped when his lips crushed down on hers. His spicy scent filled her head, his taste filled her mouth. The sophisticated tenderness she’d always associated with Gage was gone. In his place was a hungry, angry male, determined to reassert his control and domination over her.

  And the very idea that she had him—all of him—aroused her beyond anything she believed possible. She’d always considered lovemaking a pleasurable extension of her feelings for Gage. He was a wonderful, considerate, gentle lover. She was a controlled person, a Southern lady who didn’t run wild and loose. But whatever part of him she’d uncovered tonight seemed to exist in her as well.

  Fever for him invaded her blood. She wrenched her hands free of his hard grip and grasped the front of his shirt, kneading it against her palms. The tangle of their tongues seemed to echo the battle of wills they’d started.

  He cupped her breast, and she cried out.

  He ripped apart the front of her cat suit, and she sighed.

  Every erogenous zone in her body quivered. Her breasts ached for the scrape of his fingers, the moisture of his tongue. Her stomach needed the warmth of his skin, the sweat rolling off his abs and onto hers. Wet heat had flooded her sex, and she wanted him to fill her more than she wanted to draw her next breath. Desire had coiled so deeply inside her, she feared she’d never find relief.