He sat alone at the bar, a darkly handsome man surrounded
by an aura of mystery, who seemed to make the very air
around him quiver with tension. Underdressed for the
trendy Seattle hotel club, he wore a pair of jeans and a
snug black T-shirt, but after one look at those eyes, not
a soul would have suggested he adhere to a dress code.
At least fifteen minutes had passed since the drink in
front of him had touched his lips. He paid no attention to
the lively atmosphere in the club. Ignored the bartender
when he spoke to him. Barely moved a muscle.
He only had eyes for her.
Sitting at a nearby table, she felt the power of his
presence like a knockout punch. No matter how many times
she looked away, when she looked back, still his gaze was
fixed on her, his eyes like daggers that could rip right
through the fabric of her dress and leave her stark naked.
The game continued between them for several more minutes.
Even when she looked away, still she felt him staring at
her so unrelentingly that her cheeks flushed and her skin
grew taut and prickly.
He wanted her. She knew it. They'd never exchanged a word,
yet still she knew it.
Then, inexplicably, he turned away. Rising from the bar,
he tossed down a bill and headed for the door of the club.
Disappointment surged through her. She told herself it was
for the best, that she had no business messing with a man
who exuded danger all over the place, but still the sexual
tension he radiated made fantasies spring to her mind that
she was dying to make come true.
But as he neared the door, he slowed down. Stopped.
Turning back, he met her eyes again.
And waited.
But even as he issued the invitation, his eyes flashed a
warning. He was telling her that if she gave in to
temptation, she did so at her own risk.
Some unfathomable force drove her to stand up. Saying
nothing to her friends, she sidestepped the table and
walked toward the doorway, the music pulsing in her ears,
as if an invisible thread was drawing her to him.
Even if she were having second thoughts, he didn't give
her the chance to reconsider. Without a word, he took her
by the hand and headed for the elevators, forcing her to
hurry to keep up with his long, purposeful strides. He led
her straight into an open elevator, and as the doors
closed, the tension between them reached a crescendo. He
backed her against the wall and kissed her, bringing those
fantasies to life in ways she never could have imagined.
And by the time they reached his room--
"Hey, lady! Watch where you're going!"
A hand clamped down on Alyssa's arm and pulled her
backward at the same time a car horn blared. She whipped
around to find that the hand on her arm belonged to an
older man who had just pulled her out of the path of an
oncoming car.
She stared at him dumbly, then glanced at the traffic
whizzing by. Good Lord. She'd stepped right off the curb
as if the light had been red. What was the matter with
her?
She blinked a little, bringing herself back to
reality. "Thank you," she told the man. "I...I don't know
what I was thinking."
He gave her a smile. "You must have been daydreaming."
"Yes," she said. "I guess I was."
"Better be more careful next time," he said as he
continued down the street.
Alyssa stood there for a moment, collecting her wits and
chastising herself for walking around in traffic like some
kind of loony romantic with her head in the clouds. She'd
spent a lot of time in the past six months thinking about
what had happened in Seattle, but this was the first time
that preoccupation had nearly gotten her killed. In every
other aspect of her life, she had her head on straight. So
why was it that the memory of that man could still make
her behave like an idiot?
Oh, hell. She knew why. Because the week she'd spent with
him had been the most incredible experience of her life,
and no man since had measured up. Not one of them had even
come close.
Particularly the man she'd met today.
She'd left the restaurant a few minutes ago, thankful
she'd agreed to meet him for an early lunch and not
dinner. Of course, for the right man, she could have
stretched her hour-long lunch into two, but this guy
hadn't even been worth a coffee break.
Not that he was unattractive. He was tall and blond with
surfer-boy good looks, and every woman in the place had
noticed him. Unfortunately, he turned out to be the most
smug, self-centered, self-important man she'd ever met.
The light turned red and the "walk" sign came on. Alyssa
had just stepped off the curb when she heard a voice
behind her.
"Alyssa! Wait!"
She turned to see Kim hurrying down the sidewalk toward
her, moving clumsily in her too-tall heels, the breeze
swirling her hair into a copper cloud around her head. She
stopped in front of Alyssa, breathing hard.
Alyssa looked at her incredulously. "Kim? What are you
doing here?"
"I was sitting in the coffee house across the street from
the restaurant, waiting for you to come out. But you left
so quickly I had a hard time catching up." She swiped a
strand of windblown hair out of her face and flashed
Alyssa a big grin. "So? How was your date with Tom?"
Oh, Lord. That goofy smile again. Ever since Kim had
gotten engaged, she'd become The Stepford Sister, with her
mission to make Alyssa as ecstatically happy as she was.
Unfortunately, that meant setting her up with anyone she
could find who was male and had a pulse. Since Alyssa had
been transferred from Seattle several months ago, Kim had
talked her into four blind dates, and every one of them
had been a disaster. And this guy--a neighbor of Kim's
fiancé--had been the worst one yet.
"How was it?" Alyssa said. "Well, let's see...have you
ever listened to somebody talk about himself?"
"Sure."
"For an entire hour?"
Kim's buoyant smile sank into a frown. "Oh, come on. He
couldn't have been that bad."
"Do you know what he does for a living?"
"Yeah. He sells luxury cars. Jeff says he makes a lot of
money."
"Oh, yeah. He told me he made the big bucks last year, but-
-hush, hush--what the IRS doesn't know won't hurt them."
Kim winced. "Well, if he sells cars, he probably drives a
nice one, right?"
"Sure he does. It's very expensive and classy and
prestigious, you know, and he told me if I'm very, very
lucky, he might take me for a ride in it someday. Wouldn't
that be fun?"
Kim's expression grew progressively more pained. She
shrugged weakly. "Okay. But at least it sounds as if he
likes to talk. Beats the silent type."
"Only if we'd had an actual conversation. It was more like
pontification. I got to hear about The World According to
Tom. Religion, politics, sex, the stock market--I heard it
all. I'd be willing to bet he couldn't even tell you my
name."
"Come on, Alyssa. There must have been something good
about him."
"Kim," she said sharply, "the man could barely eat because
he was so busy patting himself on the back!"
Kim held up her palm. "Okay. I get the picture. I just
thought you two might get along, you know? After all, you
went to the same university."
"So did ten thousand other people."
"So you have nothing in common?"
"Yes. We do. We both have opposable thumbs and walk
upright. But I'm looking for a little more compatibility
than sharing a species."
"But opposites attract. Everyone knows that."
"No, they don't. That's a myth perpetuated by people who
screwed up and married somebody totally wrong for them and
now they're looking for a way to explain the dumb choice
they made."
"Okay, so this one didn't work out. But there's still that
other guy Jeff works with. The one who--"
Alyssa held up her palm. "No. No more blind dates. Just
let me make my own choices from now on, okay?"
"So the men you pick will be better?"
"Yes!"
"Like Mr. Wonderful in Seattle? The man who had an affair
with you for a week, lied to you about who he was, then
disappeared without a trace?"
Alyssa cringed. Whenever she thought about that time in
Seattle, she tried very hard to edit out the way it had
ended. The week they'd spent together had been incredible,
and not just because of the sex. He said he'd never been
to Seattle before, so she'd shown him the sights, taking
him to museums and parks and restaurants and enjoying his
company more with every moment that passed. She'd shared
more intimate details about her life with him than with
any man she'd ever known. She told him about her family,
her job, her volunteer work, and he'd listened with rapt
attention, as if she were the most fascinating women he'd
ever met. She knew she couldn't have been. Not even close.
She didn't consider herself to be an unattractive woman,
but fascinating she wasn't.
Still, in spite of her rational, reasonable nature that
told her how crazy it was, she'd begun to imagine what
forever with him might be like. Then she awoke one morning
to find him gone, with only a cursory note left behind:
It's been fun, but I have to go. Derek.
She told herself to let it drop, to forget him, to pretend
the week had never happened, because it clearly hadn't
meant as much to him as it had to her. But she couldn't
stop herself from trying to find him. And that was when
she made the most painful discover of all: Every word out
of his mouth had been a lie.
Derek Stafford didn't exist. Not in Kansas City, anyway.
He'd never worked for Primus Engineering, because it
didn't exist, either. He hadn't attended the University of
Kansas, and Oak Park High School had never heard of him.
And slowly she realized that while she'd told him
everything about herself, he'd offered her almost nothing
in return aside of a few basic facts about his life, all
of which had turned out to be a lie.
She'd felt like a fool. How could she have fallen so hard
for a man who hadn't cared about her in the least? Of
course, she was acting like an even bigger fool now for
wasting time thinking about him at all.
Kim was right. Anything beat a man who was there one day,
gone the next, with no goodbye, not even a half-hearted
attempt at the old "it's not you, it's me." Just a note on
his pillow and a trail of lies to remember him by.
"He was probably married, you know," Kim said.
"I know."
"Or just a world-class jerk."
"I know."
"Or both."
Alyssa sighed. "I know."
"You need to stay away from guys like him. Go for ones
who'll offer you some kind of future."
"Who are also self-important snobs?"
"Okay, then. Tell me. If Tom was a dud, what are you
looking for in a man?"
She didn't know, exactly. It was so hard to describe the
man she saw in her head sometimes that it would sound
stupid to say it out loud. She wanted a man who was
interesting. A man who was exciting, who knew how to
excite her.
Her mystery man in Seattle.
He lied to you and left you, and you're still obsessing?
What's the matter with you?
Kim sighed. "Look. All I'm trying to say is that you may
be looking for something that's just not reality. If
you're still waiting for that dashing man to ride up on
his white horse and sweep you off your feet, you're going
to be alone for the rest of your life."
Intellectually, Alyssa knew her sister was right. Still,
something inside her said it was better to be alone from
now on than with a man who demanded everything and gave
nothing.
"After all," Kim went on, "you're pushing thirty. You need
to be thinking about settling down."
"I've got a good job. I don't need a man to take care of
me."
"You've got a job where you work twelve hours a day and
get paid for eight. Lawrence Teague is a gazillionaire,
but does he pay you what you're worth? If you didn't get
an apartment out of the deal, it'd be slave wages."
"I make enough. And I like my job."
"Right. Running in circles for a bunch of rich people.
Sounds like a real blast to me."
Kim just didn't get it. Yes, the people who lived at The
Waterford were wealthy. After all, it was arguably the
most prestigious apartment building in the city of Dallas,
one of seven identical buildings owned by Starlight
Properties in major metro areas across the country. It
climbed twenty three stories into the North Dallas
skyline, offering housekeeping services, a state-of-the-
art security system, an on-site spa and hair salon, as
well as a health club. In Alyssa's position as Tenant
Relations Manager, it was a challenging task to keep
everyone in the building happy and life running smoothly,
but she thrived on it. And the fact that those tenants
were wealthy really didn't make a bit of difference. They
were just like anyone else who wanted somebody to treat
them as if they were special.
"Speaking of Mr. Teague," Alyssa said, "he's flying from
Houston to Dallas early tomorrow morning. I'm picking him
up at the airport."
"Good. That'd be a great time to ask him for a raise."
Alyssa ignored her sister's remark, thinking instead about
her most important task whenever Mr. Teague came to town:
making sure he got star treatment. That meant picking him
up in a limousine, putting fresh flowers in his suite,
having his clothes cleaned and pressed if necessary,
making reservations wherever he chose to dine. He might
own the building, but she was the hostess there to welcome
him to his home away from home.
Alyssa's cell phone rang. She pulled it out and put it to
her ear, and as soon as she heard the panicked voice
speaking broken English interspersed with Spanish
expletives, she knew her problem-solving ability was about
to be put to the test.
After determining the gist of the problem, Alyssa hung up
and turned to Kim. "One of the housekeepers accidentally
broke a vase in the penthouse apartment."
"Oops. Better hope it's something cheap."
"Up there, nothing's cheap." Alyssa shoved the cell phone
back in her purse. "Gotta go."
"I'm sorry your date sucked," Kim said. "I'll try to do
better next time."
"Kim? Didn't I tell you there isn't going to be a next
time?"
Kim just flashed one of her "that's what you think"
smiles. Alyssa wanted to scream with frustration. But
instead of fighting it, she merely said goodbye, sent her
sister on her way, and double-timed it up the street to
The Waterford. Right now the problem in the penthouse was
more pressing than her problem with her sister's
matchmaking.
Okay. A broken vase. That was only a minor crisis, one she
could deal with long before Mr. Teague arrived tomorrow
morning. By the time he got here, he'd see nothing but the
smooth operation of the building and four hundred happy
tenants.
* * *
As Derek Stone strode through the parking garage of The
Waterford, he felt that familiar rush of adrenaline that
drew every nerve taut and heightened all his senses. Even
though his intelligence on this situation was reliable and
the job had been scripted right down to the last footstep,
still those few percentage points of uncertainty kept his
head up and his body on full alert.
He passed one late-model luxury vehicle after another,
testimonies to the wealth of the people who lived in this
building. If Gerald Owens occupied the penthouse, his
business of gathering blackmail information on U.S.
government officials had to be pretty lucrative. Maybe
even as lucrative as Derek's business, which today just
happened to involve retrieving blackmail information
before it could cause a government incident.
Derek adjusted his earpiece to make sure the communication
was loud and clear between him and the surveillance van
parked across the street, then pulled his backpack more
securely over his shoulder. When he reached the door that
went from the parking garage to the private elevator
lobby, he glanced over his shoulder and saw no one else in
the vicinity.
"I'm at the door," he said softly.
Through his earpiece, Derek heard the soft clacking of
Kevin's fingers on his computer keyboard. A moment later,
the door lock clicked open. Derek entered the lobby and
headed for the private elevator that led directly to the
penthouse suite.
"I'm in," he said.
Derek listened to a few more seconds of Kevin's keyboard
clacking, and then the lock clicked behind him.
Perfect.
Derek loved tightly integrated high-tech security systems
like this one, because it made his job so much easier.
Once they were breached, all it took was a few keystrokes
to open doors all over the place. Not that the average
hacker could penetrate a sophisticated system like the one
at The Waterford, but the men on Derek's team left average
in the dust.
"Okay," Derek said. "I'm at the elevator."
"I've bypassed the circuit that reads the key card," Kevin
said in his ear. "Just punch in the code. It's sixty-eight
fifty-four. That's six-eight-five-four."
Derek entered the numbers and the elevator doors opened.
"You're a genius, Kevin."
"Uh huh. Can we talk about that raise now?"
"Don't get cocky."
As the elevator ascended, Kevin said, "The doors will open
into the apartment itself. You can head to the safe right
away."
Fortunately for Owens, Derek's contact in Washington
didn't want him arrested or charged. He merely wanted the
blackmail material Owens had gathered on Congressman
Galloway to be retrieved and destroyed. Owens was only the
hired help, anyway--Derek's contact didn't know who had
ordered the man to gather the blackmail material, and he
didn't care. Making arrests in this case would only bring
out into the open what needed to stay firmly under the rug-
-namely, that Galloway had a fondness for dressing in
women's clothing. If Derek didn't retrieve the DVD that
showed the congressmen's fetish in action, one of two
things was going to happen on Monday morning. Either
Galloway would change his vote on the trade bill coming to
the House floor, or Owens would release the DVD to the
press, revealing that Galloway was one of those men who
knew Victoria's secret. Once his redneck, gun-toting
constituency from east Texas got wind of that, his chances
for reelection were just about zero.
As the elevator neared the top floor of the building,
Derek pulled a ski mask from his pocket and put it on. If
something went wrong inside the apartment, the last thing
he wanted was for somebody to give his description to the
police, which would lead to an artist's rendering of his
face being splashed all over the evening news. His team
was an independent one working contract to contract,
sanctioned by the federal government but with no traceable
ties to it. Translation: If something goes wrong, you're
on your own.
Derek mentally reviewed the floor plan of the apartment. A
study of the architectural drawings of the building had
told him where the safe was and the most direct route to
it. He couldn't say for sure that the blackmail material
would be there--nothing was one hundred percent certain--
but the intelligence reports he'd received had all pointed
to this man, this building, and this safe. A pair of
Derek's men were tailing Owens right now, insuring that he
stayed on the golf course long enough for Derek to break
in. The housekeeping staff maintained a rigid schedule,
which meant that the maid had already come and gone, and
with Kevin downstairs opening doors and keeping watch,
this job was going to go off without a hitch.
And, most importantly, his team's perfect record would
stay intact.
* * *
As Alyssa tossed the last piece of broken vase into a
trash bag, she reluctantly upgraded the crisis from minor
to major. The magnitude of the mess and the size of the
empty pedestal beside it told her that the vase had to
have been at least four feet tall. And judging from the
quality of the rest of the art in the apartment, it had
undoubtedly been worth thousands of dollars.
The moment she'd arrived back at the building, she'd taken
the lobby elevator to the penthouse floor to find the
housekeeper in the master bedroom in tears. The woman told
Alyssa that she usually cleaned the penthouse in the
morning, but she'd had a doctor's appointment, which meant
she'd been late getting to work. Then, because she was
running behind, she'd been in a hurry when she was dusting
the hardwood floor and accidentally bumped the pedestal,
sending the vase crashing to the floor.
Alyssa assured the poor woman that of course it had been
an accident and of course they had insurance to cover such
things, but she was so freaked out that Alyssa had sent
her to work on another floor. Then she'd taken off her
jacket, tossed it onto the bed, and cleaned up the mess
herself.
In her mind, she was already formulating a plan to phone
the decorator Owens had used to get the name of the
gallery that had sold him the piece to see if they had a
similar one to replace it. With luck, she could have it in
place before Owens returned home from his golf outing and
discovered the empty pedestal. A similar piece of art
couldn't replace the one-of-a-kind vase that had been
broken, but at least it would let Owens know that she'd
made an effort to rectify the mistake in the most
expedient and effective way possible. Since he'd only
lived in the building a short time, she was especially
motivated to solve the problem to his complete
satisfaction.
Then, as she was twist-tying the trash bag, she heard a
soft whirring noise. The rear elevator?
She froze. It couldn't be. Mr. Owens wasn't due back for
two hours. The man never cut short his golf game. Never.
Sensing that something wasn't right, Alyssa stood
motionless, the strangest chill skating across the back of
her neck. She peeked out of the bedroom into the living
room. A man came into view, and her heart jolted hard. It
wasn't Gerald Owens.
It was a man in a ski mask.
Suppressing a gasp, Alyssa backed away. A burglar? How had
he gotten through the security system?
Her jacket was lying on the bed across the room, her phone
in the pocket. All she had to do was dial 911. She started
in that direction, only to hear footsteps and realize he
was coming toward the bedroom.
With no time to grab her phone, she shifted her gaze
wildly around the room, looking for a place to hide. She
hurried to the closet and slipped inside, closing the door
silently behind her. The light was on. But just as she
reached up to turn it off, she heard his footsteps. She
pulled her hand away from the switch. If he saw the light
go off, he'd know someone was in the closet.
With every step he took, her heart rate escalated. She
clasped her hands together to stop them from trembling,
sure he could hear the slightest move she made.
Then she heard nothing. She felt a shot of relief, only to
realize that the disappearing sound of footsteps indicated
that he'd reached the rug.
Which meant he was right outside the closet door.