Harriet's razor-sharp tone galvanized her. She scurried to the kitchen, heart thudding. This was no big deal, she told herself as she unwrapped the food. She was serving coffee, croissants, bagels, mini-muffins and fruit. She would smile, look pretty and gracefully withdraw, leaving Lazar and his clients to their business. This was not rocket science. It was not brain surgery.
Oh no, piped up the sarcastic little voice in her head. It was just her fathers murderer, up close and personal. No biggie.
She poured herself a cup of the strong, vicious brew that was always available in the staff kitchen and gulped it down so fast it scalded her mouth and throat. She had to get a backbone surgically implanted, if she really meant to go through with this. She should be pleased that Victor had noticed her. She had to get close to him if she wanted to investigate her father's death. That was why she had taken this nightmarish job, that was why she was living this surreal life. The tombstone dream had left her no other option.
For years she'd tried to unravel that hellish dream. She'd come up with dozens of logical explanations: she missed her father, had unconscious anger about his death, needed a scapegoat, et cetera. She'd studied dream psychology, gotten psychotherapy, tried creative visualization, hypnosis, yoga, every stress-reducing technique she could think of, but the dream persisted. It burned in her mind, weighing her down, derailing every effort she made to get her life on track.
A year ago she started having it every night. That was when the real desperation began. She grew dizzy, wild-eyed, terrified to go to sleep. She tried deadening herself with sleeping pills, but couldn't bear the headaches the next day. She was at her wit's end, watching her life grind to a halt— until 3 A.M. on her twenty-seventh birthday. She'd started upright in bed, chest heaving, and stared with wet, burning eyes into the pitch darkness, still feeling the cruel strength of Victor’s arm clamped around her shoulders. By the time dawn lightened the windows of her room from black to charcoal gray, she had finally surrendered. The dream demanded something of her, and she could no longer say no to it. It would break her in the end if she kept trying.
She had no proof, of course. The record of events was clear and conclusive. Her father had died in a sailboat accident. Victor had been out of the country on business, then Raine's mother maintained that she and Raine had been hi Italy at the time, refusing to discuss the matter further. Once, when she was sixteen, Raine had asked her mother if she believed that her first husband's death had been an accident Her mother had slapped her hard across the face and then burst into noisy tears, pulling her shaken, bewildered daughter into her arms and begging her forgiveness.
“Of course it was an accident, honey. Of course it was,” she repeated in broken tones. “Let it go. What’s past is past. I'm so sorry.”
Raine had never mentioned the forbidden topic again, but the silence that surrounded the past made her feel breathless and stifled. It left her so little to go on; years of running and hiding, an endless succession of false names and passports, the naked fear in her mother's voice whenever her uncle was mentioned. A lingering memory of panic and terror, tightly braided together with grief. And of course, the dream. The dream was relentless.
So here she was. In the three weeks she'd been here, she had learned exactly nothing, other than a dizzying slew of Office of Foreign Asset Control regulations, financial spreadsheet programs, container transport contract templates and website tools. She was a terrible liar and had never shown the least talent for subterfuge, but that was just too bad. She had to muddle on as best she could, fussing anxiously with her melon chunks and mini-muffins. What a fearless, audacious wild woman on the trail of truth and justice she was.
Another prickling rush of awareness raced over the surface of her skin as she was unwrapping the foil on the cream cheese. She spun around and dropped it. Cheese side down, of course.
The man she had seen in the elevator was standing in the kitchen doorway.
She swallowed, hard. She had coffee and mini-muffins to serve, she reminded herself. She did not have time to be ravished by a hungry-eyed pirate, no matter how sexy or compelling he might be. “Are you lost?” she asked politely. “Can I direct you somewhere?”
The man's hot gaze was all over her, like strong, possessive hands. “No. I can find the conference room on my own.” His deep voice brushed tenderly across her nerve endings, like a slow, tingling caress.
“So you're, ah, here for the breakfast meeting,” she stammered.
“Yeah.” He glided into the kitchen with pantherish grace, bent down and retrieved the cream cheese. He rose up—and up, and up, towering over her five feet five inches. He took a napkin from the counter behind her, wiped off the lint that clung to the gooey wad of cheese and presented it to her. “No one will ever know,” he said softly. “It'll be our little secret.”
She took it, and waited for him to step back. He wasn't going to move, she realized, seconds later. On the contrary. She groped behind herself for the serving plate and somehow managed to deposit the glob of cheese without further mishap. Her heart thudded wildly. She could smile, she urged herself desperately. She could even flirt. She was a big girl. It was allowed. But he was so close, his eyes so hot and hungry. The intensity of his masculine energy paralyzed her. She was speechless, lungs locked, unable to inhale or exhale. A hopeless cream puff.
“I'm sorry if I made you nervous in the elevator.” His voice stroked her again, as soft as suede. “You took me by surprise. I forgot to be polite.”
She tried to sidle away alongside the counter. “You're still not being polite,” she said. “And I'm still nervous.”
“Yeah?” He put both hands on the counter, trapping her in a crackling force field of masculine heat. “Well, I'm still surprised.”
He leaned towards her. She wondered in a spasm of panic if he were going to kiss her, but he stopped scant inches from her hair and took a deep breath. “You smell wonderful,” he muttered.
She shrank back against the counter. The condiments drawer dug into her lower back. “I don't wear perfume,” she ventured bravely.
He inhaled again and sighed, his warm, fragrant breath fanning her throat. 'That's why I love it. Perfume covers up the good stuff. Your hair, your skin. Fresh and sweet and hot Like a flower in the sun.”
This couldn't be happening. Sometimes her dream world seemed more substantial than the waking world, and this unspeakably bold, gorgeous man belonged in one of her more improbable dreamscapes; along with unicorns and centaurs, demons and dragons. Unfathomable creatures, unbound by mortal laws and limitations, touched by wild enchantment Deadly dangerous.
She blinked. He was still there. Overwhelmingly so. The drawer handle still dug sharply into her back. He was very real, and not about to melt away into a puff of smoke. She had to deal with him.
“This is ... inappropriate,” she said in a soft, breathless voice. “I don't even know you. Please step back and give me some space.”
He retreated with obvious reluctance. “Sorry,” he said, sounding anything but apologetic. “I had to memorize it”
“Memorize what?”
“Your smell” he said, as if it were obvious.
Raine stared at him, openmouthed, acutely conscious of the way her nipples were rubbing against the fabric of her bra, the slide of the silk blouse against her skin as breath heaved in her lungs. Her face was hot, her lips felt swollen. Her legs shook. The look in his eyes pulled at something deep inside her; a verdant, hidden place that budded and bloomed under his gaze, aching with nameless longing.
No. This longing was not nameless. She was turned on, she realized, with a jolt of horrified embarrassment. Sexually aroused by a complete stranger, right here in the staff kitchen of Lazar Import & Export, and he hadn't even touched her. This was just a dandy time for her latent, wild woman sexuality to rear its head. Her timing had always sucked.