Naked in His Arms
Sandra Marton

UNCUT

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

COMING NEXT MONTH

PROLOGUE

HE WAS a hard-bodied, six foot four inches of angry male.

His hair was midnight-black, his eyes deep-sea green. He had the high cheekbones of his half-Comanche mother; the firm jaw of his Texas father.

Tonight, the elegant savagery of his mother’s people ran hot in his blood.

He stood in a room where darkness was broken by ivory swaths of moonlight. Shadows lurked in the corners, lending an ominous chill to the air. The sighing of the wind through the trees outside the house added to the sense of disquiet.

The restless stirrings of the woman asleep in the big four-poster bed were a manifestation of it.

She was alone, this woman he’d thought he loved. This woman he knew. Knew, intimately.

The delicacy of her scent, a whisper of spring lilacs. The silky glide of her gold-streaked chestnut hair against his skin. The taste of her nipples, warm and sweet on his tongue.

His jaw tightened. Oh, yes. He knew her. At least, that was what he’d thought.

Long moments passed. The woman murmured in her sleep and tossed her head uneasily. Was she dreaming of him? Of what a fool she’d made of him?

All the more reason to have come here tonight.

Closure. The glib catchall of overpaid twenty-first-century shrinks who didn’t have the damnedest idea of what it really meant.

Alex did. And closure was what he’d have as he took the woman in this bed, one final time.

Took her, knowing what she was. Knowing that she had used him. That everything they’d shared had been a lie.

He would wake her from her dream. Strip her naked. Pin her hands high over her head and make sure she looked into his eyes as he took her so that she could see it meant nothing to him, that having sex with her was a physical release and nothing more.

There’d been dozens of women before her and there’d be dozens after her. Nothing about her, or what they’d done in each other’s arms, was memorable.

He understood that.

Now, he needed to be sure she did, too.

Alex bent over the bed. Grasped the edge of the duvet that covered her and drew it aside.

She was wearing a nightgown. Silk, probably. She liked silk. So did he. He liked the feel of it under his fingers, the way it had slid over her skin all those times he’d made love to her with his body, his hands, his mouth.

He looked down at her. She was beautiful; there was no denying that. She had a magnificent body. Long. Ripe. Made for sex.

He could see the shape of her breasts through the thin silk. Rounded like apples, tipped with pale pink nipples so responsive that he knew he had only to bend his head to her, let the tip of his tongue drift across the delicate flesh, breathe against it to draw a guttural moan of pleasure from her throat.

His gaze moved lower, to the shadow of her mons, a dark umbra visible through the silk gown. He remembered the softness of the curls there. The dark, honey-gold color. The little cries she’d made when he stroked her, parted her labia with the tips of his fingers, put his mouth against her, sought out the hidden bud that awaited him and licked it, drew it into his mouth as she arched toward him and sobbed his name.

Lies, all of it. No surprise. She was a woman who loved books and the fantasy world in them.

But he was a warrior, his very survival grounded in reality. How come he’d forgotten that?

How come his body was turning hard, just watching her? That he still wanted her enraged him.

He told himself it was normal. That it was simple biology. Part A fit into part B, and part A had a mind all its own.

Maybe. And maybe that was why he had to do this. One last encounter, especially in this bed. One last time to taste her. To bury himself deep between her silken thighs. Surely, that would burn the rage out of him.

Now, he thought, and he feathered his fingers lightly across her nipples.

“Cara.”

His voice was strained. She whimpered in her sleep but she didn’t awaken. He said her name again, touched her again, and her eyes flew open. He watched as they filled with terror.

Just before she could scream, he pulled off his black ski mask and let her see his face.

Her expression changed, went from terror to something he couldn’t identify.

“Alex?” she whispered.

“Uh-huh. The proverbial bad penny, baby.”

“But how…how did you get in?”

His smile was slow and chilling. “Did you really think a security system could keep me out?”

For the first time, she seemed to realize she was almost naked. Her face colored; she reached for the duvet but he shook his head.

“You’re not going to need that.”

“Alexander. I know you’re angry…”

“Is that what you think I am?” His lips curved in a smile that used to strike fear in the hearts of those he’d dealt with in what he thought of as his other life. “Take off that nightgown.”

“No! Alex, please! You can’t—”

He bent and put his mouth against hers, kissing her savagely even as she struggled against him. Then he grasped the neckline of the flimsy nightgown and ripped it from her.

“You’re wrong,” he said. “I can do anything tonight, Cara. And I promise you, I will.”

CHAPTER ONE

NOBODY had ever asked Alexander Knight if a man’s belly could really knot with anxiety but if someone had, he’d have laughed and said bellies couldn’t knot any more than pigs could fly.

Besides, why ask him?

Anxiety wasn’t a word in his vocabulary.

He knew what it meant to feel his nerves tense, his blood pound. Taut anticipation, after all, had been part of his life for a long time. You couldn’t put in years in Special Forces and then in covert ops without experiencing moments of stress, but that wasn’t the same thing.

Why would a man be anxious when he’d trained himself to face danger?

Alex pulled his BMW into a parking slot behind the building he hadn’t seen in three years. Hadn’t seen, hadn’t thought of….

Hell, that was a lie. There’d been too many dreams where he’d awakened, heart pounding, sheets tangled and sweaty.

The first thing he and his brothers had agreed on, even before they’d come up with the idea of starting a company called Risk Management Specialists, was that there wasn’t a way in hell they’d ever walk through these smoked-glass doors again.

“Not me,” Matt had said grimly.

“Or me,” Cam had added.

And Alex had said, Damned right. It would be a hot day in January before he so much as drove by the freaking place.

His jaw tightened.

So much for promises. It was November in D.C., the weather gray and cold, and he was going through those damned doors, walking across the tiled floor to the security desk.

The hell of it was, it all felt as familiar as if he’d never left. He even found himself reaching into his pocket for his ID card but, of course, there was no card in his pocket, there was only the letter that had brought him here today.

He gave his name to the guard, who checked it first against a list on his clipboard, then on his computer monitor.

“Move forward, please, Mr. Knight.”

Alex stepped into the seemingly benign embrace of the security gate.

Checkpoint one, he thought, as the electronic snoops did a preliminary scan. This was his last chance to turn and walk straight out the doors.

A second guard handed him a visitor’s ID badge.

“Elevators are straight ahead, sir.”

He knew where the damned elevators where. Knew, after he stepped inside and pressed the button, that it would take two seconds for the doors to slide shut, seven for the ride up to the sixteenth floor. Knew he’d step out into what looked like a corridor in any office building—except that the luminescent ceiling was filled with lasers and God only knew what else, all checking him from head to toe, and that the plain black door marked Authorized Entry Only would open after he touched his thumb to a keypad and looked straight ahead so that another laser could scan his retina and verify that he really was Alexander Knight, spook.

Ex-spook, Alex reminded himself. Still, he pressed his thumb to the pad, just to see what would happen. To his surprise, it activated the retinal scan and a couple of seconds later, the black door swung open exactly as it had years ago.

Nothing had changed, not even the woman wearing a dark gray suit seated behind the long desk facing the door. She rose to her feet as she had a hundred times in the past.

“The director’s expecting you, Mr. Knight.”

No “Hello.” No “How have you been?” Just the same brusque greeting she’d always offered when he’d had to stop here between assignments.

Alex followed her down a long hall to another closed door. This one, however, opened at the turn of a knob, revealing a large office with bulletproof glass windows overlooking the Beltway that circled Washington.

The man at the cherrywood desk looked up, smiled and rose from his chair. He was the only change in this place. The old director who Alex had worked for was gone. His assistant had replaced him, his name was Shaw, and Alex had never liked him.

“Alex,” Shaw said. “It’s good to see you again.”

“It’s good to see you, too,” Alex replied.

It was a lie, but lies were the lifeblood of the Agency.

“Sit down, please. Make yourself comfortable. Have you had breakfast? Would you like some coffee or tea?”

“Nothing, thank you.”

The director sat back in his leather swivel chair and folded his hands over his slight paunch.

“Well, Alex. I hear you’re doing quite well.”

Alex nodded.

“That company of yours—Risk Management Specialists, is that the name? I hear excellent things about the work you and your brothers do.” The director gave a just-between-us-boys chuckle. “Quite a compliment to us, I think. It’s nice to know the techniques you learned here haven’t gone to waste.”

Alex’s smile was tight. “Nothing we learned here has gone to waste. We’ll always remember all of it.”

“Will you?” the director said, and suddenly the phony smile was gone. He sat forward, folded his hands on his desk, his blue eyes boring into Alex’s. “I hope so. I hope you remember the pledge you took when you joined the Agency. To honor, defend and serve your nation.”

“To honor and defend,” Alex said coldly. To hell with phony pleasantries. It was time to get down to basics. “Yes. I remember. Perhaps you remember that the Agency’s interpretation of that pledge was the primary reason my brothers and I resigned.”

“An attack of schoolboy conscience,” the director said, just as coldly. “Misguided and misplaced.”

“I heard this lecture before. You’ll understand why I’m not interested in hearing it again. If that’s why you asked me to come—”

“I asked you to come because I need you to serve your country again.”

“No,” Alex said, and rose to his feet.

“Damn it, Knight…” The director took a deep breath. “Sit down. At least listen to what I have to say.”

Alex looked at the man who had been second-in-command here for more than two decades. After a moment, his face expressionless, he took his seat again.

“Thank you,” the director said. Alex wondered how much it had cost him to say the two simple words. “We have a problem.”

“You have a problem.”

That garnered a sound that was almost a laugh.

“Please. Let’s not play word games. Let me speak my piece in my own fashion.”

Alex shrugged. He had nothing to lose because no matter what the director said, he’d be walking out the door and away from this place in another few minutes.

Shaw leaned forward. “The FBI’s come to me because of a, uh, a delicate situation.”

Alex’s dark eyebrows rose. The FBI and the Agency didn’t even acknowledge each other’s existence. Not in public, not in Congress, not anywhere it mattered.

“The new head of the FBI is an old acquaintance and…well, as I say, a situation has arisen.”

Silence. Alex swore to himself he wouldn’t be the one to break it but curiosity got the best of him and curiosity, after all, didn’t mean he’d get involved in whatever was happening here.

“What situation?”

The director cleared his throat. “The oath of secrecy you took when you joined us is still binding.”

Alex’s mouth twisted. “I’m aware of that.”

“I hope so.”

“Suggesting I’m not is an insult to my honor. Sir,” Alex added, his tone making a mockery of the honorific.

“Damn it, Knight, let’s drop the nonsense. You were one of our best operatives. Now, we need your help again.”

“I already told you, I’m not interested.”

“Have you heard of the Gennaro family?”

“Yes.”

Everyone in law enforcement had. The Gennaro family was deep into drugs, prostitution and illegal gambling.

“And you know about the indictment against Anthony Gennaro?”

Alex nodded. A couple of months before, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan had announced the indictment of the head of the family on charges that ranged from murder to leaving the toilet seat up. If convicted, Tony Gennaro would live out his life in prison, and the family’s power would be ended.

“The feds tell me they have an excellent case. Wiretaps. Computer files.” The director paused. “But their ace in the hole is a witness.”

“I don’t see what this has to do with me.”

“The witness has not been cooperative. After initially agreeing to help, the witness balked. Now the Justice Department is uncertain as to what will happen next. The witness has finally agreed to come forward—”

“Under pressure,” Alex said, with a tight smile.

“The witness has agreed to come forward,” the director said calmly, “but—”

“But, the Gennaros might get him first.”

“Yes. Or the witness might decide against testifying.”

“Again.”

The director nodded. “Exactly.”

“I still don’t see—”

“The attorney general and I go back a long way, Alex. A very long way.” The director hesitated. Alex had never seen him do that before; it made the hair on the back of his neck rise in anticipation of what would come next. “He feels that the usual methods of witness protection won’t work in this particular situation. I agree.”

“You mean, he’s not eager to put this witness in a cheap hotel room in Manhattan, hit up his budget for a one-man guard detail 24/7, count on the hotel staff not to talk about their star guest or sell the info to the highest bidder?” Alex smiled thinly. “Maybe they’ve learned something while I’ve been away.”

“What they need—what we need—is an experienced operative. A man who’s been in the line of fire, who knows better than to trust anyone, who isn’t afraid to do whatever it takes—whatever it takes—to keep this witness safe.”

Alex stood up.

“You’re right. That’s exactly the kind of man you need, but it isn’t going to be me.”

The director rose, too. “I’ve given this a great deal of consideration. You’re the right man, the only man, for this assignment.”

“No.”

“Damn it, Knight, you pledged your loyalty to your country!”

“What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand, Shaw?” Nobody ever used the director’s name. It hung in the air between them, a deliberate reminder of Alex’s removal from the life he’d once led. “I’d say it was nice seeing you again,” he said, reaching for the door, “but hell, why lie about it?”

“They’ll never get a conviction without your help!”

Alex opened the door.

“They’ll kill the witness! Do you want that on your conscience?”

Alex looked at the older man. “My conscience won’t even notice,” he said tonelessly. “You should know that better than any man alive.”

“Knight! Knight, come back here—”

Alex slammed the door behind him and walked away.

He drove the BMW back to the airport, dropped it at the rental place and bought a seat on the shuttle to New York.

Anything was better than another few hours spent breathing the air in a town where politicians kissed babies while the agencies they funded dealt in death plots hatched by cold-eyed men who lived in the shadows.

He knew it was the same in every other government across the planet, but that didn’t make it easier to accept.

He had almost a full hour to kill, so he settled into the first-class lounge. The attendant poured him a double bourbon; the brunette sitting across from him looked up from reading Vanity Fair, looked back down, then did a double-take and looked up again.

Her smile would have made her dentist proud.

Somehow, the already short skirt of her Armani suit slid up another couple of inches. That was fine with Alex.

The lady had great legs.

Come to think of it, she had great everything. When she smiled a second time, he picked up his drink, crossed the room and took the chair beside hers.

A little while later, he knew a lot about her. Actually he knew all a man needed to know, including the fact that she lived in Austin. Not too far from Dallas.

And she was definitely interested.

But even though he kept smiling, Alex suddenly realized that he wasn’t.

Maybe it was that session with the director. Maybe it was being back in D.C. It had stirred up a lot of memories, most of them unwanted, including what a young innocent he’d been when he’d taken the Agency oath.

Nobody had told him that words like “serve” and “honor” could be perverted into something that stole a man’s soul.

His obligation to the Agency had ended the day he’d resigned. Besides, from what Shaw had said, this didn’t have a damned thing to do with defending and serving his country.

It had to do with a crime family and a witness.

A witness whose life was in danger.

The brunette leaned closer, said something and smiled. Alex didn’t hear a word of it, but he smiled back.

Shaw wasn’t given to hyperbole. He used words like those only when he meant them.

Damn it, he should have listened to Matt and Cam. They’d had dinner together at their father’s home. Things had changed in their relationship with the old man. It wasn’t perfect but it was a lot better than when they’d been growing up. All it had taken to accomplish that, Alex thought wryly, was Cam almost dying and Matt involved in a shoot-out.

His sisters-in-law had bustled off to the kitchen to get coffee and dessert. He and his brothers had joked around for a while, even the old man joining in, and then Alex had casually mentioned that the director had asked to see him.

“He wants me to fly down tomorrow.”

Matt laughed. “He must be nuts, thinking you’d come.”

“You told him what he could do with his request, right?” Cam said.

Alex hesitated. “I have to admit, I’m curious.”

“To hell with curiosity,” Matt said bluntly. “Whatever Shaw wants, you can bet your ass it isn’t good.”

Later, his father had drawn him aside. He’d been quiet through the conversation, so quiet Alex had almost forgotten he was there.

“You never talk about your time in the Agency,” Avery said quietly, “which makes me suspect it wasn’t all pleasant. But you must have believed in it once, son, or you’d never have taken the oath that made you part of it.”

It was true. He had believed. In the oath to serve and respect his nation, its people…

Damn it. A pledge was a pledge.

He was on his feet before he remembered the brunette. Hell. He’d completely tuned her out. The fixed smile on her face made him wince.

“Sorry,” he said, and cleared his throat. “I, ah, I’ve changed my plans. I’ll be staying in D.C. Business, you know?”

She looked surprised but she made a quick recovery, dug in her purse and handed him a small vellum card.

“Well, call me,” she said brightly. “When you have the chance.”

He smiled, said all the right things. But he knew he wouldn’t call and, he was sure, so did she.

He parked in the same lot. Went through the same smoked-glass doors, through the same security gate. Rode up in the same elevator. Pressed his thumb against the same keypad, had his eye scanned by the same impersonal machine.

If Shaw’s secretary was surprised to see him, she didn’t show it.

“Take a seat, Mr. Knight,” she said, and scurried down the hall.

Seconds later, Alex stood inside the director’s office. Shaw rose from behind his desk, smiling broadly, and held out his hand. Alex pointedly looked at it, then ignored it.

“Let’s get something straight,” he said coldly. “I do this one thing, you never contact me again.”

Shaw nodded.

“I work alone.”

“I know you’d prefer that, but—”

“I work alone,” Alex said sharply, “or I don’t work at all.”

Shaw’s mouth thinned but he didn’t protest.

“And I have carte blanche. I’ll do whatever it takes to safeguard this witness without interference or second-guessing from you or anybody else.”

Shaw nodded again. “Done.”

“Tell me the basics.”

“The witness lives in New York City.”

“Married? Single? How old is he?”

“Single. Mid-twenties. And it’s a ‘she,’ not a ‘he.’”

A woman. That only complicated things. Women were invariably more difficult to handle. They were emotional, hormonal…

“The witness’s connection to the Gennaros?”

Shaw’s lips curved in a cold smile. “She was Anthony Gennaro’s mistress.”

No wonder she was important to the feds. And hostile. This particular lady would know a lot, including just how vicious Tony Gennaro could be.

The director handed Alex a large manila envelope. “That’s everything we have.”

Alex opened the folder and took out a photo. Gennaro had good taste in women. Excellent taste.

“Her name is Cara Prescott,” Shaw said. “She lived with Gennaro until recently.” He smiled coldly. “She worked for him.”

Alex turned the photo over. All the details were there. Name, DOB, last known address. Hair: brown. Eyes: brown. And yet, the photo told him the words were meaningless.

Cara Prescott’s hair would be the color of ripe chestnuts; her eyes would be flecked with gold, and her mouth would be a tender pink.

She had a look that could only be called delicate, even fragile. He knew it was only that, a look, but scum like Gennaro would have been drawn to it like the proverbial moth to the flame.

He looked up. Shaw was watching him with a little smile on his thin lips.

“Beautiful woman, don’t you think?”

“You said she was Gennaro’s mistress,” Alex said, ignoring the question. “Now you say she worked for him. Which is it?”

“Both.” The little smile twisted. “Then Gennaro took a more personal interest in her.”

“And now she’s going to testify against him?” Alex glanced at the photo again. “Why?”

“Because it’s her civic duty.”

“Can the crap, Shaw. Why has she agreed to testify?”

The director plucked a bit of lint from his dark gray suit coat. “Perhaps the thought of prison doesn’t appeal to the lady.”

“Federal prison isn’t a day in the park but it’s a hell of a lot safer than turning against the Gennaro family.”

Shaw was still smiling, but his eyes were icy. “Perhaps someone told her she might not go to a federal prison. That New York might charge her with a felony, unless she cooperates.”

“Did she commit a felony?”

“Anything is possible, Alex. Surely you know that.”

Yes. Oh, yes. He did. And, the truth was, it didn’t matter. In the dark world of the Agency, the end always justified the means.

“What else?”

For the first time, the director looked uncomfortable. “I may have understated her hostility.”

“Meaning?”

“She’s not just a hostile witness, she’s hostile to accepting the government’s protection. She may, ah, she may object.”

Alex narrowed his eyes. “And if she does?”

“If she does, your job is to change her mind. Any way you see fit. Do you understand?”

Now Alex knew why the Agency had been called in. The feds wouldn’t do anything that smacked of subterfuge or, even worse, coercion.

The Agency would. He would. Even now, doing things that danced on the edge of the law was Risk Management Specialists’ bread and butter.

“Well,” Shaw said briskly, “now to the details. You’re flying the noon shuttle to New York. There’ll be a car waiting in your name at Hertz, and a reservation at the Marriott on—”

“Tell your secretary I won’t be needing any of that.”

“I don’t think you understand, Knight. This is our operation.”

“I don’t think you understand, Shaw.” Alex took a step forward, until the men were only inches apart. “I’ll run this my way. I don’t want anything from you or this office, not until and if I ask for it. You got that?”

There was a long silence. Then the director nodded.

“Yes,” he said stiffly. “I understand perfectly.”

For the first time, Alex smiled. “Good.”

Then he turned on his heel and walked out.

CHAPTER TWO

BY THE time the shuttle landed at LaGuardia, Alex had come up with a plan.

Before he made any kind of move on Cara Prescott, he wanted to check her out. The drab bureaucratese of the file Shaw had handed him didn’t give him a feel for the woman.

He wanted to see Tony G’s former mistress with his own eyes. Find out how she spent her time. Walk around in her space.

Then, only then, he’d decide what to do next.

Until recently, the lady had lived in Gennaro’s sprawling mansion on Long Island’s North Shore.

Now, she lived in a loft in lower Manhattan, one of those neighborhoods identified not by a name but by an acronym nobody understood. Shaw said the feds had found her without any sweat. They’d been surveilling her, he said, but he’d seen to it they were pulled off.

At least, that was what he claimed.

Another reason to take his time and check things out, Alex thought as he headed for a car-rental counter. He’d said he wanted no interference on this job and he meant it.

When he was ready, not before, he’d introduce himself to the Prescott woman.

“Introducing himself” was probably a nice way of putting it, he thought as he handed the rental clerk his charge card. Assuming the lady was as hostile as Shaw said, it wouldn’t be a very polite meeting, but he’d worry about that when the time came.

He drove away from LaGuardia in a nondescript black minivan. Stopped at a mall and bought a black leather jacket, a black T-shirt, black sneakers and black jeans. He already had his cell phone with him. Then he went into a camping-goods store and added a gym bag, a flashlight, a thermos, binoculars, a nightscope and a palm-sized digital camera.

You never knew when gadgets like those would come in handy.

He checked into a big, impersonal hotel, put on the black clothes, packed the gear in the gym bag and made a phone call.

Within the hour, an old friend who asked no questions provided him with a loaded 9mm pistol and an extra clip. He shoved the pistol into the small of his back and the full clip into his sock.

He was as ready as he’d ever be.

By midnight, he was parked across from Prescott’s apartment building. It was on a street Manhattan realtors loved, a commercial slum just waiting to turn into a yuppie haven.

No self-respecting New Yorker was going to pay attention to a black minivan, or to him.

He watched the building all night. Nobody went in or out. At five in the morning, he set his internal alarm for half an hour’s sleep. A week spent with his mother’s elderly uncle, a guy Anglos erroneously referred to as a medicine man, had taught him how to go deep inside himself to gain needed rest for his mind and his body.

At five-thirty, he awoke refreshed and finished the coffee in his thermos.

At eight, Cara Prescott came down the steps.

She wore a long black raincoat that flapped around her ankles, a newsboy cap that covered her hair and oversized dark glasses despite the grayness of the morning. Jeans and sneakers peeped from under the coat’s hem.

Along with the phony name on the mailbox in the lobby—C. Smith—and an unlisted phone number it had taken him all of an hour to get, he figured this was her attempt at a disguise.

Anybody determined to locate her would see through it in a New York minute.

Either she believed in hiding in plain sight, or she believed in luck.

Alex watched her walk up the street. He gave her a head start. Then he got out of the van and fell in half a block behind her.

She made a stop at the Korean deli on the corner, came out with a foam cup of what he figured was coffee in one hand and a small paper bag in the other. When she headed back toward him, he melted into a doorway, waited until she went by, then fell in behind her again.

She went into her apartment building. He got into the van.

The hours crawled by. What the hell was she doing up there? If she spent her time locked away like that, wouldn’t she go stir-crazy?

At four-thirty, he had his answer.

Cara Prescott came down the steps again, wearing the same long raincoat, the cap, the dark glasses even though, by now, the sky was charcoal. But no jeans peeped out from the coat’s hem and the sneakers had given way to low-heeled black shoes. She walked briskly toward the corner, checked the traffic light, crossed the street and kept going.

Alex followed.

Twenty minutes later, she opened the door to a bookshop. A stooped-shouldered old guy with white hair greeted her. She smiled, took off the coat and hat and dark glasses…

Alex caught his breath.

She was demurely dressed. Dark sweater, dark skirt with an unexciting hem length, those practical shoes.

He already knew the lady had the face of a Madonna. Now, he knew she had the body of a courtesan. Not even drab colors could conceal her high, full breasts; her slender waist and gently rounded hips. She had long legs that he could almost feel wrapping around his waist. Her hair, a mass of gold-tipped chestnut curls clipped into submission at the nape of her neck, was sinful temptation all by itself.

A man could undo that clip, plunge his hands into those curls as he lifted that perfect face to his.

Alex’s body responded in a heartbeat.

Tony G might be a stone-cold killer, but the son of a bitch had excellent taste when it came to women.

The old guy said something to Cara Prescott. She nodded, went to the cash register and opened it. That sight was almost as startling as the sight of all those feminine curves.

Gennaro’s former mistress worked in a bookstore?

Either she was desperate for a job, or she had more brains than he’d credited her for. Her former lover would never think to look for his woman in a place like this.

Alex checked his watch. It was a little after five. The store’s hours were on the door. It was open until nine in the evening. Excellent. It gave him a four-hour window, more than enough to get into her apartment.

Once he’d done that, he’d have a better handle on Cara Prescott. All he knew now was that she was hot looking, smart enough to try to lose herself in the city but stupid enough, greedy enough, to have gotten into bed with a man who ordered people killed without compunction.

He had to know more if he was going to come up with an approach that might land him her cooperation or, failing that, her compliance.

Getting into her apartment was child’s play. A credit card slipped between the jamb and the lock did the job.

His estimation of the Prescott woman’s street-smarts went down a notch, then zoomed up again when bells went off over his head.

Literally.

She’d tacked a strip of them right over the door.

Alex grabbed the bells, silenced them and waited. Nothing happened. Evidently, whoever else occupied the building had learned the primary New York rule of survival.

If something went bump in the night and you weren’t the one being bumped, you ignored it.

He shut the door carefully. The lady might have other booby traps around. He waited again, until his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Then he took out his flashlight, turned it on and swept the area with its narrow beam.

The apartment was one enormous room. No walls, just yawning space filled with shadows. There was a minuscule kitchen and bathroom at one end, a stack of cardboard boxes at the other. Whatever else he’d expected of a woman who slept with a killer—gilt, fringe, cherubs—wasn’t there.

So much for that stereotype.

There was no furniture to speak of, either, just a narrow bed, a chest, a couple of small tables and chairs that might have come from the Salvation Army.

He made his way through the place slowly, opening drawers and carefully poking inside without disturbing the contents. He found only the stuff most women had: sweaters, jeans, lingerie.

Lace lingerie. Bras that would cup her breasts like an offering. Panties that would ride high on her long legs and dip low enough so they barely covered what he knew would be gold-tipped, feminine curls.

Alex shifted his weight. He had an instant erection, one that strained at the taut denim of his jeans. He hadn’t been with a woman for a while. Was he that desperate that handling this one’s lingerie, thinking about how it would look on her, was enough to give him a hard-on?

Any man with enough money could have Cara Prescott. A woman had the right to do what she wanted with her body but if she chose to auction it to the highest bidder, she wasn’t a woman he’d want in his bed.

He wandered into the bathroom. The sink was chipped and stained; an equally battered shelf above it held small vials and bottles. He opened one at random and brought it to his nose. Lilacs? He wasn’t up on flowers or on perfume: he liked a woman to smell like a woman, especially when she was aroused and eager for his possession, but as perfumes went, this wasn’t bad.

A narrow closet was crammed between the bathroom and the kitchen. He opened it, poked through a sparse lineup of drab skirts, sweaters and dresses. Half a dozen pairs of shoes were stacked neatly on the floor: this morning’s sneakers, sensible heels. Not a pair of stilettos in sight.

Too bad.

The lady’s endless legs would look sexy as hell in strappy sandals with heels high enough to give a nosebleed to the lucky man she wore them for. Heels, one of those lace bras, a pair of the matching panties, and her chestnut hair wild and curling over her shoulders would—would—

Alex scowled as he shut the closet door. This was pathetic. Who gave a damn what she’d look like dressed in next to nothing? Nobody but her lover, her ex-lover, and whatever attracted Tony G would never attract—

Click.

Alex froze.

Someone had just turned a key in the front-door lock.

He switched off the flashlight and looked around for a place to hide. The closet was it. It was deep, even if it was narrow as a coffin. Besides, he didn’t have a hell of a lot of choice.

Quickly, he stepped inside, pulled the door toward him but didn’t quite shut it. He slipped the gun from the small of his back and held it down against his thigh.

The front door swung open; the jingle of Cara Prescott’s improvised security alarm told him he had company.

The lady of the house was at work. The feds had been called off. There were only two possibilities.

His guest was either a very unlucky burglar…

Or a killer on Tony Gennaro’s payroll.

Each time Cara opened the door lock, she thought what a pitiful excuse for a lock it was.

She’d asked the super to change it and he’d scratched his head and nodded and said uh-huh, sure, yeah, he would.

So far, nothing had happened.

Okay. She’d deal with it herself. Tomorrow, first thing. Tomorrow was her day off. Too bad it was too late to call a locksmith now, when she had unexpected time on her hands.

Half an hour ago, Mr. Levine got a phone call. His sister was ill; he had to go to New Jersey. Cara had offered to keep the shop open but he’d said no, he appreciated it but she was too new, she didn’t know enough about his system.

Cara smiled wryly as she locked the door from the inside.

She knew enough to know the old man didn’t have a system. Not that she’d told him that. He’d been kind to her, hiring her despite her admitting she’d never sold anything in her life.

Even now, worried about his sister, he’d taken the time to assure her that he wouldn’t hold back her pay.

“It’s not your fault you won’t put in a full evening, Ms. Smith,” he’d said. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”

For one awful second, she’d almost said, “Who?” She still wasn’t accustomed to being Carol Smith. Hair clipped back, no makeup, just a young woman on her own in the Big Apple.

Truth was, she’d never even known anyone named Smith. She had the feeling Mr. Levine suspected that. He’d asked for her social security card, she’d promised to bring it in but she hadn’t, and he’d never mentioned it again.

“I have a daughter just about your age,” he’d said when he’d hired her. “She lives in England and I like to think people look out for her there.”

In other words, he was an old man, lonely for his daughter, and she was capitalizing on it.

But she wasn’t going to think about that. She was doing what she had to do, to survive.

Anthony Gennaro wanted her to come back to him. The FBI wanted her to go into protective custody.

All Cara wanted was for her life to return to normal.

That meant never seeing Gennaro again and not testifying against him, either. No matter what he was, he hadn’t done her any harm. Not the kind of harm that counted, anyway.

Besides, as she’d told the agents who’d interviewed her right after she’d moved out of his mansion, she didn’t know anything.

You do, they’d said, you’re just not aware of what it is. That’s why we want to take you into custody. We can keep you safe while we help you remember.

When she’d refused, they’d gotten angry. Told her Gennaro would never stop searching for her. Made threats about sending her to prison.

That was when she’d decided to disappear from the Long Island motel where she’d spent a couple of nights. And how better to disappear than to move to Manhattan, where you could lose yourself in the crush of humanity?

She found a job and a place to live and until she exhausted the money she’d saved during the months she’d spent cataloging the library in the Gennaro mansion, she was safe.

More or less.

Cara carried one of the kitchen chairs to the door and propped it beneath the knob. That and the old sleigh bells she’d found in an antique shop on Ninth Avenue weren’t much of an alarm system but right now, they were all she had. She’d get the lock changed tomorrow but there’d still be the skylight….

She didn’t want to think what it might cost to alarm the skylight.

“Look up there, Ms. Smith,” the rental agent had bubbled. “See? You have a real skylight.”

What she had was a way for somebody to get in from the roof, but there was no point in being paranoid. The FBI wanted her to believe Anthony Gennaro would hurt her, but she knew better.

He wanted her back alive, not dead.

Besides, skylight or no skylight, the rent was right. So she’d said yes, she’d take the big, ugly loft.

And here she was.

As for the skylight…she’d ask the locksmith for suggestions. He could gate it off. Make it impenetrable. Yes, and turn this big, empty space into a prison.

Good practice, considering that she’d probably end up there anyway, according to those two FBI agents.

Cara swallowed hard.

“Stop it,” she said in a no-nonsense voice.

She wasn’t going to give in to self-pity. What she was going to do was take a long, hot shower, heat a can of soup and read a book until she was too tired to do anything besides tumble into bed and sleep.

Briskly, she slid out of her raincoat. Took off the newsboy cap and the dark glasses. Her sweater and skirt. Then she toed off her shoes and padded toward the far end of the loft, pausing in front of the closet, hand curved around the knob before she remembered her robe was on the hook behind the bathroom door.

The bathroom was small and badly lit. Its saving grace was a glass shower stall with top and side sprays and an abundance of deliciously hot water.

Cara switched on the light, took the clip from her hair, then opened the stall door and turned the shower on. Steam began rising, clouding the pebbled glass as she undressed and placed her clothes neatly on the closed—

What was that?

Her heart banged into her throat. Something was moving. She could hear it. A scuffling sound. Feet?

Was somebody breaking in? Was the FBI right? Would Gennaro send his men after her?

A little gray mouse darted from under the sink, shot across the floor and disappeared out the door.

Cara gave a weak laugh. A mouse. A mouse! Her imagination had turned it into a monster. She was letting fear dominate every aspect of her life.

No more.

Still…she felt a chill shrivel her flesh. For a moment, for a heartbeat, she’d been certain someone was here.

Watching. Waiting…

Ridiculous!

Cara stepped into the shower stall and shut the door, lifting her face to the spray. The water and the steam would do their magic and ease away her fear.

She hadn’t come this far to fall apart. Survival was all that mattered now.

Resolutely, she took a tube of shampoo from the shower ledge, squeezed some into her palm and began washing her hair.

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