Читать книгу Can You Forget? - Melissa James - Страница 13

“W-what?” The world shifted around her. She staggered and almost fell. Tal lifted a hand to steady her, but she moved a step back, hating the delicious, pulse-pounding sweetness that filled her whole body when he touched her. “W-what did you say?”

He shrugged, obviously seeing no need to repeat himself.

Marrying Tal. Was this a dream come true or a nightmare about to descend on her? From meeting him again to fake marriage to reality, in the space of three days—

“Are you all right with that?” he asked, his tone grim. “If it’s too much for you to go through—”

Disoriented, she blinked up at him. “T-too much…?”

“Marrying me, sweetness.” He touched his scarred cheek and then made another tiny sneering motion with his mouth. “I know it’s a big sacrifice for you—I realize that I’m a huge step down in standards for a star like you, Miss West—but I thought you cared about saving lives, and our families.”

“I do!” God in heaven, he was blind. How could he not see how much she wanted him? “If we get married, sweetness, I’ll try to make the sacrifice if you do,” she snapped. “You make yourself pretend you want me, and I’ll pretend you’re still the love of my life.” She used the same cynical, flippant curtness he used on her. Damn him! Why couldn’t he be happier about this situation? It wasn’t as though he had to put up with—

A caressing touch on her shoulder startled her. “Pretend I want you? You think I’m going to have to pretend?”

She stood speechless, unable to move or breathe, or think of anything but the sweet ache building in her, wanting, hoping…

“You think it will be an act?” he pressed her, his voice soft, dangerous.

She managed a shaky whisper. “Don’t lie to me, Tal. Lie to the world if you need to, but not to me.”

“All right—you want truth?” He took a step closer to her, his sudden grin half-savage, highlighting his scars. “I might not look so good these days, sweetness, but I’m still a man. Everything that needs to functions just fine, and the thought of kissing and touching you—for the mission, of course—isn’t a big hardship.” He moved on her, his face like a savage angel’s, tender and taunting. “I’ve forced myself to think about kissing you, touching you, and pretending to want you, oh, about two hundred and forty times since I saw you yesterday. Just in case I needed the scenario for a mission, of course. For the sake of the greater good.” He smiled at her, his eyes dark, unfathomable—his body way too close. “I must have been training for this mission for a long time, honey, because I’ve been pretending to want you ever since I was fifteen.”

She wasn’t just hurting now—she was in anguish. A few sultry words and she had to fight the urge to reach out and touch him, trail her fingers over the hard ridges of muscle, to pull his mouth down to hers for a long, scorching kiss…

Dear God, I’m still pathetic. I can’t walk away free if Tal can still keep me bound in the same old chains.

“Mary-Anne?”

The name was soft, husky. Sending flaming arrows of need and hope through her stupid dreamer’s heart. She turned away, blinking hard. “I’m Verity.” The words were shaking, wobbly in their flickering defiance—and a complete lie. She’d never been Verity, not even to herself. Even after seven years, she still felt a slight shock when anyone called her by her stage name. More often than not, she had to force herself to remember.

“Not to me.” The tenderness in his voice showed he saw what was going on beneath the would-be calm surface of her. “Just like I was never the town winner to you. Mary-Anne Poole was the best friend I ever had. I can’t call you Verity.”

She clenched her fists, willing the tears not to fall. “Okay. Call me Mary-Anne if you want—if it works for the job.” Still with her back to him, not daring to show her face, she shrugged. “We both know neither of us would have ever come to the other again, if it hadn’t been for this assignment.”

“Maybe you wouldn’t have come to me,” he replied, still quiet, restrained. “I’d have come to you if I’d thought you’d listen to me. I’ve wanted us to make peace for a long time.”

She swiveled back to him, with a glimmering smile of bravado. “Sure. No problem. Peace achieved. Friends again, just like always.” And she held out her hand to him.

Instead of taking it, he looked into her eyes for a moment—and she trembled without his even touching her. With a single look she was a stupid schoolgirl, the shy, chubby loser head over heels for the popular, handsome boy next door.

She tried to drop her hand…but he caught it and lifted it to his mouth, palm up, the kiss gentle yet intensely sensual: a slow, tender seduction. “Were we just friends, Mary-Anne? You told me you loved me. You wanted my baby.”

She froze, her eyes fixed on his, her body hot and weak and shaking with the neediness she couldn’t hide. “I was a silly girl,” she whispered. “And like all good fairy tales, the prince rode into the palace with the real princess.” She knew her hot, shivering reaction to him was giving her away. “I failed the princess test. I missed the pea under the mattress.”

Breathing against her skin, he moved his mouth with infinite tenderness to her wrist. “I guess I’m not your average prince. I liked Cinderella a lot better than Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. And I always preferred Mary Ann to Ginger.”

She shook even more, as shooting darts of heat burned up the flesh of her arm to her deepest core. “Y-you did?” Then, without warning, blinding reality hit her, broadsiding her with its careless cruelty. “Of course you did. Well-endowed redheads were never your thing, were they?”

He frowned, his mouth pausing between tiny kisses. “Who fed you that piece of propaganda—or do I even have to ask?”

Snatching her hand from his, she wheeled away. “Does it matter? It’s old news. I got over it years ago.”

“Obviously.” His voice was gentle. He moved closer to her, so close he must be able to feel her intense response to him…like the gullible fool she’d always been with him, her heart and body screamed, Touch me, Tal, oh, please, touch me…

Untamed magic surrounded him, an aura of dangerous chemistry ready to combust in her—a catalyst straight to a broken heart. And no Gil waited this time to save her. Don’t look. Don’t let him touch you. It’s the only way to survive. “We’ve made peace—we’ll do the mission. Let’s leave it at that,” she muttered, willing him to follow her lead.

“What if I can’t leave it like that, Mary-Anne?” he asked, husky, dark and aching. “What if I want to show you how good I can be at pretending to want you—right here, right now?”

Helpless, mesmerized, she turned her face to his…and she saw that look on his dangerous, beautiful face—the look he always wore before he’d kissed her on those pulsing-hot summer nights by the billabong, when she’d dared to believe the boy she adored really wanted her, really loved her. And her needing body performed a coup d’état on her will. “Oh, Tal,” she whispered, and swayed toward him.

Then she noticed a shadow flitting from a shrubbery to the trees beside the runway. Within the shadow of another bush, she could see the reflecting glint of a lens aimed their way.

He can’t see Tal’s scars.

Desperately she grabbed his shoulders, pulled him close and pressed her mouth to his, hoping Tal had enough acting skills to make his side of the kiss look passionate—

Yet before she’d even finished the thought her tongue was twined around Tal’s so tight it gave a whole new definition to tonsil hockey, her body splatted against his like paint on a wall, and she wriggled and whimpered like an excited puppy going walkies, begging for petting and stroking…and oh, he was petting and stroking, his hands hard on her bare skin beneath her top, sending jolts of heated need from skin to her most feminine core while she purred and moaned in helpless pleasure…

Verity West the Iceberg? An iceberg in the equator, maybe. She was so hot for him steam was curling around her ears. Even though warning bells in her brain screamed at her to back off, she couldn’t help it. Her hands found his bare skin and caressed him in ardent eagerness. Her mouth, with a will of its own, remained plastered on his, harder and hotter. She couldn’t stop it, couldn’t help the languid sexual heaviness of her body, urging her on, urgently demanding more, demanding it all.

Cupping that glorious male butt in her hands—oh, finally, this fantasy had come true—she moved against him, purring in delight at the hard male reaction she felt to the kiss. His kiss grew even harder. His hands were everywhere, caressing her bottom and breasts, sending hot shivers of need through every single nerve ending. The alarm on her lambent hormonal clock shrieked at her—five years, four months and eighteen days since she’d last been loved by a man…and oh, to love Tal, to finally have him touch her body, slowly strip off her clothes and bring her to completion, right here, right now…

“How’s the throat infection, Miss West?” A familiar voice: Gary Brooks, from a tabloid not known for its discriminating taste in stories—or their verification of what they printed as “fact.” “Did you feel like sharing germs with your lover?”

Tal’s whole body jerked. She emulated the movement, not needing to pretend to make it look real, she’d forgotten all about the damn reporter. She gasped and turned away. Oh, no, what had he seen—and photographed? “Tal, close the door!”

“Too late, sweetness,” he whispered dryly. “As was your intention, I think, when you grabbed me.” With a cynical twist to his smile, he turned toward the eager photojournalist, still snapping off picture after picture.

“No,” she whispered urgently, pushing him back. “Don’t let him see the scarred side of your face!”

His face cooled with instant comprehension and complete self-control. With a pang, she knew her chance of making a connection to him was gone. He shrugged and moved into the shadows. “Sure. I don’t particularly want to be scrutinized as the walking freak show fiancé or husband of the beautiful Verity West. Just as well, I haven’t seen my parents since before the accident, and nobody outside the Nighthawks knows about it.”

She closed her eyes. She’d foreseen this, but it slammed into her soul—the guilt of a woman who knew too well how it felt to need to hide from ridicule. And she’d done it to him, she’d made him feel not good enough for the person she was now.

Damn you, Nick—you opened the door, then gave him the ammunition to slam it right back in my face.

With all her will, she turned to Gary Brooks, mustering up the haughty, imperious look that had first given her the Iceberg tag, but Tal spoke first from within the shadows, his graveled voice strong and confident. “We’ll do you a deal, mate. Take off for now—hold those shots, and we’ll give you the announcement of your life, complete with exclusive photos.”

Mary-Anne gasped. He’d not only grasped Nick’s take, he’d taken full control of the mission in three sentences. Yes, a perfect take on what Nick would want. He and Nick were alike, all right, and in more than just looks.

“Just one photo of you both first, face-on,” the man pleaded, who’d obviously already caught on: he wasn’t arguing.

“Tomorrow, in Sydney.” She jumped in, before Tal could speak. When the journo looked mutinous, she added, “Do you know who this is, Gary? It’s the man all the stories were about three years ago. You’re going to have the scoop of your life in twenty-four hours. I’m willing to put that in writing, if you go away now. We’ll meet you at the Grand Hotel, tomorrow at four.”

Gary Brooks’s eyes lit with a mingled kind of ecstatic wariness. “I’ll release every damn picture by tomorrow if I don’t get that contract,” he threatened, and left.

“Well, you sure know how to take charge of a situation, don’t you, sweetness?” Tal spoke from the superheated half darkness of the wall. “He must have taken about twenty-seven shots of us eating each other alive. Anson will be happy with our progress. We’d better call him to get a real marriage certificate.” He shrugged. “We can stay together a year or two, make our families happy, go home for visits, right? I’m not going to risk hurting Mum and Dad, or Aunt Miranda and Uncle Ed—not for any of Anson’s save-the-world principles.” His eyes glittered with sardonic humor. “And Greg was my best mate for twelve years—we still call each other now and then. I won’t dump his little sister, sweetness. You’ll have to dump me.”

Not knowing what to say, she nodded. Everything he said was right, with the mission and their families in mind—but considering their mind-blowing kiss and its degrading, tacky aftermath, his self-control chilled her soul. “I don’t want to get married in Cowinda,” she said quietly. The one thing she couldn’t face. A real-yet-sham wedding with Tal was bad enough, but she’d never survive the hype and happiness of everyone in Cowinda. She’d break down for sure.

He gave a short laugh, without humor. “Fair enough—it’s too personal for us both. We’ll do the whole thing in Sydney. We can call our parents when we get there and tell them what’s going down. What’s the condensed version—that we met again by accident and fell madly in love?”

It took all her self-control to keep the tears in. If he knew how she’d dreamed of that since they’d passed each other in the hall at headquarters in Canberra three years ago. How she’d wished she wasn’t urgently needed in Nick’s office just as he was leaving on assignment… “That’s about the size of it.”

“Okay, done. We’ll say problems with your schedule kept us from coming home for the wedding. They’ll understand that, and be too busy to think about being hurt, I hope.”

“I think we’d be better off giving it a day or two. We need to orchestrate our romance a bit.”

His mouth twisted. “Wining and dining, sizzling slow dances, a few kisses. Yeah, a whirlwind society courtship sounds like the perfect end to our decade-old torrid billabong affair. Being in Sydney should maximize the impact. If we hide my face, that is. How does Anson plan to do that, by the way? And why?”

There was no easy way to say it. She took a breath and blurted it out. “Burstall might not know your real name, but he knows you survived the blast. He knows you’re Australian, and he also knows you’re a doctor because of the kit you left at the village.” She heard her own voice, full of quiet despair. “He knows the extent of your injuries, too—there were several unauthorized hits on your hospital records at the database. You were admitted under a fake name, but we can’t take risks. You’re relatively safe to go to Amalza if he sees no sign of your injuries or scars, but if we go to the Embassy and you show up with your face as it is now, along with your limp, and being an Australian doctor—all the world knows your profession, thanks to Ginny—it will only take seconds for Burstall to put two and two together, and he’ll kill us both.”

The deadly cold look on his face said it all: he already knew what she was going to say before he asked. “What’s the plan?”

Her fists clenched at her sides, knowing that her secret hope of making their “passionate affair” real, was fading with every word she said. “For you to look as much like your old self as possible. Nick had a special set of inserts made to put inside about five different pairs of shoes, to minimize the limp—and you have to wear special cover-up makeup over your scars, so your face looks the way it used to.”

The silence was sickening. “Makeup. Like a bloody girl.” He stared at her as if she’d grown another head. “I’m supposed to put makeup on my face. That goop you girls used to wear for school shows that made you look like you’d shoveled dirt on your faces. I’ll look like a bloody cross-dresser.”

A typical Outback boy’s opinion of any kind of makeup. She sighed. “If it helps, this isn’t that thick pancake stuff—it’s makeup that won’t look fake at all. It doesn’t look like goop. It will be specially made to suit your skin color, and there’s a polysynthetic cover to make it look and feel like skin, so it won’t smudge or come off easily. The cream also has vitamins and collagen to actually help lessen the redness. I’ve used it to soften my freckles. It works. And it’s for your protection.”

“I don’t give a damn if it works. I’m not a bloody actress, and I won’t make myself look pretty for anyone—not even you.” His face was controlled, his fists clenched hard. “I’m not putting any crap on my face. Take me as I am or leave it.”

She moved into the shadows beside him. “I can’t. If Burstall sees the scars, he’ll kill us both. It’s not just you taking a risk by going as you are. You’ll put me in danger, too, and every operative on the island. I can’t marry anyone else without it looking like a setup. Without you, we’ll have to send another team in without the cover of being my personal bodyguards or journos covering our honeymoon. Burstall and Falcone will have them killed within an hour of their arrival on the island.”

He invoked the name of his savior, but Mary-Anne didn’t think he was asking for help. What could she say or do to make this easier? “Tal, I didn’t want to do this. Nick ordered it. If it weren’t imperative for the mission—and to save your life—”

“I know.” He didn’t jerk away from her, didn’t whiten or show any signs of fury. He simply crossed to the roller door and shut it. “Fine. I might even get to like it, huh? If I learn how to use it right, I can keep it on hand for all social events in the future.” He grinned at her, but she could see the gritted teeth, the bleak look of self-hate in his eyes. “That was one hell of a kiss, by the way—but you always were a bloody good actress. Your iceberg rep just got flushed down the toilet. Good work.”

She moved farther into the shadows, to cover the shock that drained all the blood from her face.

So despite the obvious signs of male arousal, and the hard passion in his mouth and hands, had Tal only been pretending to want her, just as he’d said? Had he been acting, maybe turned on a bit but not enough, while she’d floated three feet above the ground in some love-starved, ecstatic-cloud cuckoo land?

The same old irony. The only man who could tempt her out of her iceberg reputation—who suddenly made her feel as though her fame, success and life with the Nighthawks was some kind of tundra-filled wasteland—was the only one who didn’t want her.

His voice, quiet and unemotional, broke into her despair. “What’s next, then? What do we do?”

Helpless, not knowing what to say, she shrugged.

He rolled his eyes. “Come on, Mary-Anne. Our cover depends on what you’d do if this were above and beyond the job. What would you do if we were normal lovers? Imagine you’d come here as a tourist, saw me for the first time in ten years and fell for me again so fast you were caught here almost doing the deed with me,” he finished with the dark, sardonic smile she’d never seen on his face when they were kids. “What would you do now?”

The cover, the cover! How can he be so clinical? She’d given him the idea of revenge, but he’d taken the bait and swum right into the ocean with it. How could he still be so thoroughly on the mission when all she wanted was another hot, glorious kiss—dragging him inside that plane and…ooooh, yeah…

“Take off in the plane and find somewhere private for us to finish making love for the next day or three,” she answered his question, still half locked inside her gorgeous dream.

Tal burst out laughing, hard-edged, ironic, stabbing her heart with its icy control. “Sounds like a good plan to me. Okay then, Miss West—” he added with a swift, mocking bow. “So we go to your place? Sydney’s probably the best place to do it.”

She blinked up at him. “Um, what?”

His grin twisted. “To start our assignment. Don’t worry, Miss West. You can safely get in the plane. I’ll keep my distance.”

Too stunned to do anything else, she obeyed him, climbing up into the cockpit without a word. She sat frozen while he opened the hangar, checked to be sure the journo had gone, limped to the plane, climbed in and prepared for takeoff. She was silent right through takeoff, her mind busy reliving his words.

So Tal was where she’d been ten years ago. Impossible to believe she wanted him. Sure that his accident, and her life now, changed the way she’d once wanted him…

When you lose someone you love so much you want to die, too, you know how they feel—and you’d do anything to stop it.

She closed her eyes, wanting to smack her own forehead for her unthinking stupidity. She should have known, should have realized how Tal would take that—just as she’d have taken it if she hadn’t met Gil. Verity West, beautiful, curvaceous man-magnet, never needed to hide from the world…but, like Tal, Mary-Anne Poole-West still wanted to.

This assignment would be the hardest of her life—in many more ways than one.

“Where are we heading?” she yelled over the noise of the engine, frowning straight ahead.

He shrugged and handed her a headset similar to his own so that they could speak normally. “Your place would be the most logical place to hide out. We’ll tell Anson to meet us there with our kit. I assume you brought backup to the island to bring our stuff to us, and contact that journo?”

He wasn’t just with her on the mission, he was light-years ahead of her. She nodded and waited for the rest.

“Good. Then we might as well get going straightaway, and gain some ground on selling the romance of the year. Today’s as good as any other day to start. No point in mucking around.”

After a moment’s stunned silence, she blinked and started laughing—laughing so hard her body jerked and tears streamed down her cheeks.

He turned to her, frowning. “What?”

“You sure know how to shatter a twenty-year dream, Tal.” She wiped her face with her hands. “I used to imagine you asking me on a date, or romancing me, or proposing to me almost every day—and my fantasies never included ‘no point in mucking around.’”

He gave a slow, reluctant grin. “Sorry about that.” He turned back to his controls. “But then, your romantic proposal probably didn’t include a few other things it’s got, like a banged-up face and leg. I bet I wasn’t a has-been, washed-out beach bum, either. I seem to be good at destroying your dreams, Mary-Anne.”