Express Male (12 page)

“What do you want?” she asked, surprised by the calmness of her voice when her insides were screaming in terror.

“I assume you gave the manuscript to OPUS,” he said.

“I did,” she assured him. “Which means there’s nothing here for you.”

The hand at her back moved in a way she could only describe as a fond caress. Ew. “Well, now, Lila, I wouldn’t say that,” he murmured.

Her stomach exploded with heat at the way he purred the words, with such eerie fondness and familiarity. “There’s nothing here that I will freely give you,” she amended. “You should leave. Now.”

He chuckled softly. “You know your hostessing skills could use some work. But that’s okay. I know you’ve been away from polite society for a while. In fact, I know you were never a part of polite society to begin with. It’s just one of the many things we have in common.”

“I don’t have the manuscript,” she said again, trying to steer his thoughts away from any kind of bizarre romantic intentions he might have for Lila. “Please leave.”

He sighed with something akin to disappointment. “I hope you realize that your turning over the manuscript could potentially create problems for both of us.
If
OPUS can decrypt it. And
if
it makes any sense when they do. Philosopher is nothing these days if not stark raving mad.”

Philosopher. A name Marnie recalled from that night. The little man’s code name, she deduced.

“Unfortunately, it isn’t just toys he has in his attic,” Adrian continued. “It’s government secrets. Should the poor man say the wrong thing in the wrong company…Well, one can hope, can’t one? No wonder OPUS wants him back as desperately as they wanted that manuscript. So since you’ve already given away the thing I want most,” he added, “then I’ll just have to settle for…” Without warning, he spun her around to face him, gripping both of her upper arms with strong fingers. “You,” he finished with a smile.

Strangely, it wasn’t a menacing smile. In fact, it was almost an…affectionate smile? Oh, surely not, Marnie told herself. No way could a man like him feel something like affection.

How unfair that such a demon could have the face of an angel, all sharp curves and soft angles, as if sculpted by the hands of a cozening god. His dark auburn hair was thick and silky, and his clear amber eyes reflected intelligence and, ironically, good humor. He was a good foot taller than Marnie’s five-two, with broad shoulders and large hands that could easily—she tried not to think about it—crush her. It would be foolish to fight him. But she cinched herself up to do it all the same.

“I’m not Lila Moreau,” she said, again surprised at the evenness of her voice. Would that her emotions disguised themselves as well. “My name is Marnie Lundy. I can prove it to you. Look at the personal papers I keep in the desk in my spare room. Look at my high-school yearbooks on the bookshelf by the fireplace.” Hey, they had convinced Noah. Adrian Padgett was the same sort of man, just operating on the other side of the law.

“I’ve already looked at them,” he said. “I went through your wallet and had a look at your calendar, too. And I did quite a thorough investigation of your computer.”

Her stomach recoiled at the realization that he had been in her home when she wasn’t there, going through her things so indiscriminately. “When?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“Tonight,” he said with a smile. “While you were in the bathtub, and then while you were in your bedroom reading.”

Her stomach pitched even more. He’d been in her home long enough to do all that without her knowing it? How could he be here moving around without her hearing him, or without giving her a creepy feeling? How had he gotten in? She was meticulous about keeping her house secure, even living in a safe neighborhood. A single woman living alone couldn’t afford not to be. She even dead-bolted her basement door after every use.

Then another thought struck her. If he’d already looked at all those things, then he knew she wasn’t who he was looking for. So why was he still here?

“Your computer, predictably, didn’t contain anything of interest,” Padgett said, “but its records and your personal papers and possessions are all excellent forgeries. I have to hand it to OPUS. They’re always so inventive when it comes to these things. I mean putting all the music downloads on your PC and creating all the phony purchases from musicwarehouse.com was genius. And the high-school yearbooks? So many signatures! They must have had everyone in their Credentials Department sign some bogus sentiment to class darling Marnie Lundy.”

Well, she wouldn’t exactly have called herself the class darling…

“What I can’t figure out,” he continued, “is why they’ve gone to so much trouble to create this boring, mousy suburban piano teacher persona—”

Hey! She wouldn’t call herself that, either.

“—for someone with your capabilities, Lila. How can you be effective on an assignment playing such a bland role? And what is the assignment, anyway? I thought it was getting the manuscript from Philosopher, but you’ve still been showing up for work at the department store this week. And you could have grabbed him Monday when you had the chance. He’d be a pushover for you. But you didn’t.”

“I’m not Lila Moreau,” Marnie told him. Again. “Look, you think you know so much, how come you don’t know what OPUS does about me and Lila?”

His expression turned brutal, and the fingers on her arms tightened enough to hurt. “OPUS knows nothing about you that I don’t already know,” he assured her.

So. There was something that could ruffle the man, after all. The suggestion that OPUS was better at what they did than he was.

Marnie didn’t so much as flinch at his implied threat. On the contrary, something inside her bulked up and dug in deeper. She was tired of being the victim. Tired of retreating. Tired of people bringing disorder and insecurity into the life she tried to keep so orderly and secure. Enough was enough.

“OPUS knows I’m Marnie Lundy and that Lila Moreau is my twin sister. They know that we were separated at birth and grew up in different parts of the country unaware of each other’s existence. They know we are
not
the same people and that I can’t help them. And
they
won’t be bothering me again.”

Padgett started laughing before she even finished talking. “Twins separated at birth? Are you serious? That’s what they told you to say? Leave it to OPUS to turn someone like Lila Moreau into a tragic cliché.”

“What will it take to convince you I’m not the woman you’re looking for?” she asked.

“There’s nothing that will convince me of that,” he said.

“I know you, Lila. I’ve been intimate with you in more ways than one. You revealed things about yourself when you were with me that you probably didn’t even realize you were revealing. I
know
you, sweetheart,” he said again, more adamantly. “Don’t even try to make me think you’re someone else.”

Several things clicked into place for Marnie in that moment. One, that Adrian Padgett had truly convinced himself she was Lila, and no amount of denying it would dissuade him. Two, he wasn’t going to leave her alone until she gave him what he wanted—whatever that was. Three, he’d been able to find her at Lauderdale’s and at home, and he had no trouble violating the safety of either environment. Four, she had no one but herself to rely on for protection. Five, considering points three and four, she was in a heap of trouble where Adrian Padgett was concerned.

“Fine,” she said, injecting a coolness into her voice she was nowhere close to feeling, and hoping she wasn’t making a terrible mistake in doing what she was about to do. “You know who I am. My cover is blown. I should have known better than to try and fool someone who is so much like me.”

A flicker of wariness shadowed his eyes for the briefest of moments, then was gone. “Yes,” he said, his voice edged with caution, “you should have known better.”

“And you’re right,” she told him, praying to every available god that she could bluff her way out of this before the quivering-goo thing started up in her head again. “I gave Philosopher’s manuscript to OPUS. So you can’t have it. But you can’t have me, either,” she added forcefully. “So I ask you again. What do you want?”

He studied her in silence for a long time, his grip on her arms neither loosening nor tightening. Finally, slowly, he released her. “Maybe I’d just like to open another bottle of wine and chat with you for a little while.” He lifted one hand to her face, and Marnie managed to not recoil when he stroked his fingertip lightly along her cheekbone. “I’ve missed you, Lila,” he said softly, sounding almost wistful. “I still think about you, even after all this time. There was something there with you that I haven’t experienced with other women. I’d like to experience it again.”

Marnie closed her eyes, hoping he would interpret it as something other than the mind-numbing terror it actually was. “I never think about you,” she said, slipping into what she hoped was a convincing Lila persona. “I experienced nothing with you that I haven’t experienced with a dozen other men.”

What a laugh. She wasn’t sure she’d even
dated
a dozen men. She opened her eyes and met his gaze levelly. “I don’t want to see you anymore. You’re not welcome here. Ever. Now leave.”

To her astonishment, he dropped both hands to his side and took a few steps in retreat. “For such a successful undercover operative, Lila, you’re a terrible liar.”

Which, Marnie thought, should have gone a long way toward convincing him she wasn’t who he kept thinking she was. Men. They only saw what they wanted to see.

“Or maybe it’s just that you’re a terrible liar when it comes to me. Because you adore me,” he added with complete conviction. “The same way I adore you.”

“I want you out of my house,” she reiterated. “And I never want to see you in it again.”

He smiled. “You are not the owner of this house, Lila. It’s an artfully created fantasy complete with bogus mortgage to go along with the bogus will of the bogus father who bogusly left it to you after his bogus death two bogus years ago.”

Her fingers curled into fists at hearing him so casually dismiss her father’s life and death, but she kept her hands firmly at her sides.

“But it is late. And you’re clearly not in the same mood you were the last time I saw you. Put it down to working too many jobs at once.”

Naturally. Because it could have nothing to do with the fact that he was such a staggering lunatic, could it?

“Overwork can kill anyone’s libido,” he said. “But I know you have a weekend off. And you only have that odious little Merriweather miscreant to contend with for lessons tomorrow afternoon. Of course, he won’t do anything to improve your mood, will he?”

How could he possibly know all that? Marnie wondered, feeling sick all over again. Just how easy was it to delve into someone’s life these days?

“Still,” he continued, “by Saturday evening, you should be feeling rested and relaxed and ready for…oh, just about anything, if I recall. You were even more insatiable than I was that night. So I’ll just come back Saturday. How will that be?”

“Fine,” Marnie forced herself to say. “Saturday evening. I’ll be expecting you. Bring a good pinot noir when you come, will you?” she added, dipping her head toward the mess on her kitchen floor. “You owe me one.”

He grinned. “Now that’s the Lila I know and love. Saturday evening. Pinot noir. I’ll see you then.”

With that, he spun around, strode to the back door and through it, and disappeared into the night beyond. Marnie picked her way through the broken glass and puddles of wine and followed far enough to lock the door behind him. For all the good it would do. Then she collapsed onto the floor as if every bone in her body had completely dissolved.

She wanted to throw up, pass out, cry, scream and throw something. Instead, she crawled to the other side of the room, gripped the countertop to pull herself up, and fumbled with the telephone receiver until she could hold it in a reasonably steady hand.

Adrian Padgett was convinced she was Lila Moreau. He had said he was coming back. Marnie wasn’t sure she believed him on either count. But there was one thing of which she was absolutely certain.

She wasn’t going to face him a second time alone.

B
RIGHT AND EARLY
Thursday morning, Ellie Chandler made herself comfortable in the records room of ChemiTech, Inc. and went to work on her bogus government auditing job. She looked anything but bogus, however, in her carefully chosen attire of plum-colored suit that was just a
tad
too snug, the skirt of which was just a
tad
too short and the jacket of which was just a
tad
too plunging. With it, she wore smoky stockings and three-inch black patent heels and a jet-beaded choker that was only a little tarty. Her hair she’d left unbound, mostly, pulling only the front sections back into a black barrette, to reveal her triple-pierced ears, each of which sported a trio of black hoops in varying sizes.

Well, she didn’t want to give accountants a bad name, did she? Not to mention she figured the boys in the science club might be more likely to talk to the new girl if she was a little on the naughty side without being too slutty. Ellie didn’t want to give any of them heart attacks. But she did want them to give her information. And judging by some of the looks she’d seen thrown her way as she’d been directed to the records room, that wasn’t going to be a problem at all.

In spite of its scientifically and technologically advanced work, the company still had a considerable chunk of its records on paper, so Ellie had to pull some of the files on which she was allegedly working the old-fashioned way. Every now and then, she returned to her desk to bend over it, jotting down notes on her yellow legal pad, in case anyone who came in was actually looking at what she was doing instead of at her ass. She couldn’t afford to have any suspicious eyes falling upon her while she was completing her assignment. Unless, you know, they were falling on her ass.

She figured she’d need two days to implant herself convincingly into the ChemiTech landscape, then she could start nosing around in the more private areas of the company. Naturally, she intended to use Daniel to further her credibility, and had already arranged to meet him for lunch that day, just so everyone would see them together and realize she was legit.

Or, at least, that she
seemed
legit.

OPUS hadn’t given her a specific deadline for when they needed her final report, but she intended to be the fastest, most thorough, most brilliant trainee the program had ever spawned, so she didn’t want to waste a single moment. Therefore, even her lunch breaks would count toward cementing her assignment.

At noon on the dot, just as he had promised, Daniel arrived in the records room to escort her to the company cafeteria. He looked adorable, she couldn’t help thinking as he threaded his way through the files toward her desk. His dark hair was rumpled, as if he’d spent much of the morning running his fingers through it in frustration, and his white mad scientist coat was flapping open over blue jeans, black hightop sneakers and a T-shirt that read “I Take No Guff From These Swine.”

His black glasses had slipped low on his nose, giving him an air of absentminded professorishness that Ellie found strangely appealing, but when he caught sight of her he stopped dead in his tracks and straightened them. Then he studied her body, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes and back again, in a way that made her feel like he’d run his long middle finger up and down the length of her instead. When he started walking again, his pace was much slower, as if he weren’t quite sure he knew how to greet her.

That made two of them, since Ellie never knew whether to keep pretending he had no effect on her, or say to hell with it, throw herself into his arms and shove her tongue down his throat.

Decisions, decisions…

“Hi,” he said when he finally came to a stop in front of her. He did that up-and-down thing again and said, “You look…um, different. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in that suit before. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen your legs before.”

She did her best to ignore the shudder of heat that rocketed through her when he looked at her the way he did. Unfortunately, it shot straight to a place that in no way needed heating. Not in a building full of geekboys, anyway.

“They were in my Wheaties this morning,” she said. “I was supposed to get a poster of Mia Hamm. Imagine my surprise.”

He said nothing for a moment, just continued to stare at her face, until finally something shook him out of his preoccupation. Or whatever it was.

“No,” he said. “I mean, yes. I mean…What was the question?”

Okay, so maybe he was still a little preoccupied. Or whatever it was. Ellie chuckled, hoping she didn’t sound as nervous as she suddenly felt. Something had shifted between them in the past couple of minutes, but for the life of her, she couldn’t say what. Daniel was just looking at her…differently. Like the other guys at ChemiTech had looked at her today. As if they wanted to get to know her—and her legs—better.
Much
better.

“Come on,” she said, assuring herself she was only imagining the sudden breathless quality her voice seemed to have adopted. She was never breathless around men. Not even Daniel. She was too sure of herself for such inanity.

“You’re buying me lunch, remember? This place better be good,” she added as she slipped her arm through his. “I’m tied into it for lunch for the next two weeks. What’s with the Nobody-leaves-the-premises-during-the-day rule, anyway? I mean, what’s so bad about sneaking off to Sonic for a coconut-cream pie shake or something?”

“It’s hell on the cholesterol levels,” Daniel said as he led her to the door. “And we can’t have scientists dropping dead from heart attacks right and left. Training for our people is massively expensive. Even one coconut-cream pie shake could cost the taxpayers millions.”

“Mmm.”

“It’s a security precaution, Ellie,” he said patiently.

“Which you should already know, since you’re auditing us on Uncle Sam’s dime.”

“Yeah, but only to make sure you guys aren’t ripping Uncle off. I’m not running a security check,” she told him, mentally crossing her fingers to negate the lie.

This time he was the one to chuckle. “Yeah, I can just see that. Ellie Chandler, CPA, suddenly becomes Pamela Anderson in
VIP.
That’s a good one.”

Ellie bristled at the comment. Not only was her job light years ahead of Pamela Anderson’s TV gig, but Ellie did hers for real. Who did Daniel think he was to overlook her potential for ass-kicking? For all he knew, CPA stood for Can Punt Ass. Yeah, she’d punt his ass to Abu Dhabi and back if he kept this up.

“What? You don’t think I’d look good packing a piece?” she asked. It was a rhetorical question, naturally. She
was
packing a piece. And she looked
fabulous.

He smiled. “I can’t see you getting within a hundred feet of a gun. You’d shoot your eye out.”

“Mmm.” What she wouldn’t give to be able to tell him she could shoot the eye out of the pyramid on the back of a dollar bill from fifty feet away.

It occurred to Ellie then that this assignment might be tougher than she thought. Not because she didn’t think she could complete it without a hitch, because she could. And not because she was investigating Daniel, either, since after much consideration, she’d concluded OPUS was wrong about him, and her job now was to find the real culprit. There
was,
however, going to be a problem she hadn’t anticipated.

She’d prepared herself for the possibility that seeing so much more of him than usual might make it more difficult to battle her feelings for him. She’d prepared herself for the possibility that it might even distract her from her task. What she hadn’t expected was that there might be something else she had to fight that was even more powerful than her feelings for him. Something heinous and overpowering, and completely beyond her control.

Her pride.

She already knew Daniel didn’t view her as a sexy thang. But now he was telling her she’d never be the very thing she was. And that kind of pissed her off.

Let it go,
she told herself. If he thought she couldn’t be what she was, then it meant she was exceptionally good at being what she was. She was
supposed
to be Ellie Chandler, CPA—Can’t Punt Anything. As far as he was concerned, she didn’t think she could be Pamela Anderson, either.

“Okay, so I’m no threat to security specialists around the world,” she said. “There is, I’m sure, at least one piece of pie in that cafeteria that should be terrified of me right now.”

Daniel laughed. “Now that I believe. But you’re buying.”

“I am not.”

“You are so.”

“Am not.”

“Are so.”

Ellie sighed. It was going to be a long assignment. “Am not…”

A
FTER RECORDING
the last of his findings on the day’s research, Daniel launched himself into a full-body stretch and made his way to his locker, where he secured everything good and tight. He remembered as he spun the combination on his locker one last time that he had checked out some files that morning before Ellie arrived at work, and he needed to return them before going home. So he gathered them up and headed that way, knowing Ellie would, by now, be gone.

Not that he was avoiding her. No way. The only reason he hadn’t seen her since lunch the day before was because he’d had to work so much. Yeah, that was it. It had nothing to do with the fact that he hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her during lunch. To the point where he’d wanted to make her his lunch. It wasn’t because Ellie had suddenly turned into such a…such a…such a…

Well, whatever she had turned into, she was
not
a babe, luscious or otherwise. From the day Daniel had moved in next door to the girl, he’d thought of her as, well, the girl next door. Literally and figuratively. She was just too cute and too nice and too sweet to be anything else. And way too smart and easy to talk to to be a babe.

At least, she had been until yesterday. When he’d seen her in the records room, standing with her weight shifted onto one foot, her hip thrust outward, her legs encased in black stockings, wearing those mile-high heels…At first he hadn’t even realized it was her. He’d thought—hoped—ChemiTech had hired a new file babe…uh, file clerk…that he’d have to check out immediately. His hopes, among other things, had risen when his gaze had drifted upward, over the
excellent
curve of her ass in that tight skirt, and the even more
excellent
curve of her breasts pushing against the tight jacket. The long fall of silky hair had only made his hopes, among other things, lift higher still.

Then she’d glanced up, and Daniel had realized the babe was in fact the girl next door, and he’d had trouble jibing the two together. What was really weird was that even after realizing it was Ellie he was ogling, not someone with bedable potential, his hopes, among other things, hadn’t diminished any. In fact, one thing in particular had sort of gotten even more enthusiastic.

Not that that was why he’d suddenly had to work through lunch instead of spending it with Ellie. Hell, no. He’d just been busier than usual today, that was all. It wasn’t because the entire time they’d been having lunch yesterday, he’d felt really weird.

The elevator pinged its arrival on the third floor, and Daniel sorted through some of the files as he approached the records room. Automatically—and not thinking about Ellie’s ass
at all,
honest—he punched the proper series of numbers on the security keypad and pushed the door open, reaching for the light switch inside. He halted before flipping it on, however, because something in the dark room, in the farthermost corner, caught his eye. He looked in that direction and saw nothing but darkness. Still, he’d been certain there was something there when he first opened the door. A faint light where there shouldn’t be one. Not unless the records room was being haunted by a ghost.

Or not unless security was being breached by an intruder.

Nah, he immediately told himself, laughing silently at his own stupidity. No way could security be breached in this building. It was tougher to get into than Fort Knox because some of the projects they were developing were worth a hell of a lot more than government gold. If someone was skulking around in the dark in the records room, it was someone who’d stayed late at work to rig up a prank set to go off the next morning.

The scientists at ChemiTech were big on the practical jokes. Not a week went by that some poor sucker didn’t fall for a prank set up by someone else. Research chemists were a competitive bunch, each trying to be the first to make the big breakthrough that would change A) healthcare as we know it, B) warfare as we know it, or C) women’s wear as we know it, since those were the big three industries in this country. As a result, there was more than a little professional jealousy involved. Playing jokes on each other was a safe way to take out one’s aggression toward or allay one’s envy for another person. By besting another scientist in making him or her fall for a joke, it was a way of saying,
Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah. I’m smarter than you are. Sucker.

He wondered who this week’s target was and who was setting up the poor sap. Hell, it hadn’t been that long ago that Pulaski over in R & D had tripped up Daniel for an entire afternoon by putting the boron where the sulfur should have been. Funny guy. Even Daniel had had to laugh when he realized why the protozoans kept dying.