Читать книгу One Night In Texas - Jane Sullivan, Jane Sullivan - Страница 11

ALYSSA WASN’T too thrilled to be holding a gun on anyone, particularly this man, because even with a firearm she wasn’t completely sure she was the one in control. But she wasn’t about to let him see her apprehension. And after all, it was a dream scenario, wasn’t it? Getting the opportunity to hold a gun on him and demand answers to the questions that had been driving her crazy for the past six months?

“I thought you were crying,” Derek said.

She made a scoffing noise. “Over you? A man who used me, lied to me, then left me? Hardly.”

She hoped to see him at least wince at that, but his expression held steady. The only indication of any emotion was a narrowing of his eyes as he assessed the situation. The gun felt heavy in her hands and she shifted it a little to get a better grip.

He held up his palms. “Be careful with that gun, sweetheart. The trigger’s pretty touchy.”

“Stop patronizing me.”

“Ever fire a gun before?”

“No, but it can’t be all that hard. All I have to do is pull the trigger.”

He eyed her carefully. “You and I both know you won’t shoot me.”

“Maybe not. But I might take out that picture window over there. I’ll bet a little glass raining down twenty-three stories would draw a crowd.”

He flicked his gaze to the window, his brows pulling together as he seemed to consider the consequences of that. Slowly he looked back. “Okay, then. What do you want?”

“First of all, let’s see some ID.”

“It wouldn’t tell you a thing.”

“It would tell me your real name.”

“It would tell you what my name is today.”

“Which is not Derek.”

“Yes, it is. That part is the truth.”

“But the last name you told me was a lie.”

“So you tried to look me up?”

Suddenly she felt silly about that. Chasing after a man who clearly hadn’t cared about her in the least? What would she have done if she’d found him?

“Call it curiosity,” she said. “And I found out everything you told me was a lie.”

When Derek gave her nothing in return but cold silence, Alyssa felt a shot of irritation. “Never mind. I don’t care about all that. Just tell me why you broke into this apartment.”

He paused for a moment, as if deciding just how much to reveal. “I work for the government.”

“Since when do they employ burglars?”

“That’s not what I am.”

“You sure look like one to me.”

“I retrieve things that can’t be recovered in conventional ways.”

“Such as blackmail material on half a dozen U.S. congressmen?”

His gaze held steady. “So you heard.”

“I heard. And Gerald Owens is doing the blackmailing?”

He paused. “Yes.”

“Why does he want to blackmail congressmen?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“What’s on the DVDs you’re after?”

“I can’t tell you that, either.”

“Tell me about the Learjet hangared at Love Field.”

He was silent.

“Oh, I get it. You could tell me, but then you’d have to kill me?”

His jaw tightened with irritation. “You don’t have any idea what you’ve stepped into here. It’s not a good thing that you overheard what you did.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. Whenever there’s a breach of security, standard operating procedure is for me to report it to my superiors. But if I’d done that, you’d be in the company of federal agents right now, being persuaded that it’s in your best interest not to tell a soul what you know.”

“That’s kind of B-movie, isn’t it?” But a tremor of uneasiness crept up her spine.

“Even the most outlandish fiction has some basis in fact.”

“But if you really are the good guys—”

“The good guys sometimes do wrong things for the right reasons.”

“So if you’re one of those good guys, what stopped you? Why didn’t you just turn me in?”

He took a casual step toward her, but there was nothing casual about the expression on his face. It had shifted into the one he’d worn that first night she’d seen him in the hotel bar, full of the kind of sexual promise that had captured her attention at a single glance.

“Because,” he said, “I wanted to be the one doing the persuading.”

Involuntary shivers of excitement raced through her, filling her mind with images of their sweat-sheened bodies as they’d made love for hours on end…

Wait a minute. What was she thinking?

She jerked her mind out of the past and back to the present. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…

She stood straighter, tightening her fist on the grip of the gun. “Derek?”

“Yes?”

“You can take your sexual manipulation and shove it.”

He bowed his head with frustration, then looked back up. “Alyssa—”

“I have control of this situation, and you don’t like that. So you don’t mind manipulating me however you think you need to so I won’t talk. You seduced me in Seattle, then lied to me, and you’re not above doing it again.”

“I haven’t lied to you. I told you why I’m here.”

“You’ve admitted only what you know I overheard.”

He was silent.

Alyssa’s anger escalated. “I want the whole story. I want to know why you left me before and exactly what you’re doing here now, or I swear to God I’ll blast a hole right through that window.”

Derek said nothing.

“Damn it, after what you did to me, you owe me the truth!”

“I can’t tell you the truth!”

“Fine. Then I’ll just let the authorities deal with you.” She swung the gun around and pointed it at the window.

“Alyssa, don’t!”

Derek dove at her, wrapping his arms around her waist. The moment their bodies collided, she inadvertently tightened her finger on the trigger.

A shot exploded.

As Derek’s momentum knocked them both to the ground, whatever glass wasn’t on its way to the pavement twenty-three stories below clattered to the bedroom floor. Alyssa lay beneath Derek, feeling totally disoriented and flabbergasted beyond words, because she hadn’t actually intended to pull the trigger. She’d just been so angry, and threatening him had felt so incredibly satisfying.

Derek yanked the gun from her hand and stuffed it into the back of his jeans. Slapping his palms on the floor, he levered himself to his feet, then hauled her up beside him. He pulled her over to the bed, grabbed his backpack and her jacket, and dragged her out of the bedroom.

“Derek!” she said. “What are you doing?”

“Security’s going to be up here any minute. And the cops won’t be far behind.”

“No! I’m not going anywhere with you!”

He continued to pull her along, though, giving her no choice. She saw the elevator ahead and he hauled her inside, then hit the button. The doors closed and the elevator descended.

Alyssa felt a glimmer of fear. After all, she didn’t know this man. He’d danced around his true identity the entire week they’d spent together in Seattle, so she’d never known who he really was. Even if he was telling her the truth now, that he worked for the government…

Sometimes they do the wrong things for the right reasons.

Maybe he did, too.

They reached the first floor and the doors opened. The lobby was empty. Derek strode out of the elevator and tried to open the door leading to the parking garage.

It was locked.

He rattled the door, then turned back. “What’s going on?”

For a moment Alyssa wasn’t sure. Then she remembered. “Security has probably overridden the main system with the emergency circuit that locks down the building. Nobody can get in or out.”

“Will the guards come to check out the back elevator?”

“If they don’t, they’re not doing their jobs.”

Derek spit out a curse. Alyssa couldn’t help feeling a glimmer of satisfaction. “Looks like you’ve got a problem, doesn’t it?”

He spun around. “Damn it, Alyssa! Don’t you get this?” He strode back to her. “My team operates under the radar. If I’m caught, nobody in Washington is going to admit I exist. That means that if I’m arrested, they won’t do a thing to help me. I swear to God, I’m one of the good guys, but if you blow the whistle on me when the security guards show up, I’ll likely be convicted and do jail time. Now, is that what you really want?”

Alyssa swallowed hard. Could he be telling her the truth?

The pieces fit. Everything she’d overheard pointed to him being exactly who he said he was—a government operative with orders to retrieve blackmail information on congressmen. If all that was true, if he really was one of the good guys, then if she turned him in…

“Alyssa?” he said. “Can you get me out of here?”

The soft plea she heard in his voice gave her the feeling that his life really was in her hands. She pictured him in a jail cell, lost to the world for years, all because he’d followed government orders. Her resolve began to disintegrate.

Trust him.

Even though there was no logical reason for her to act on those words, they sounded inside her head until they screamed so loudly she couldn’t ignore them.

She let out a breath of resignation. “Yes. I can get you out of here.”

“How?”

“My key card will override the lockdown mechanism. It’s in the pocket of my jacket.”

He pulled out the card, tossed her jacket to her, then turned to look at the door. “There’s no reader on the inside.”