No Ordinary Love

No Ordinary Love [Incognito Series Book 1] by Karen Wiesner

Whiskey Creek Press www.whiskeycreekpress.com

Copyright ©2006 by WHISKEY CREEK PRESS

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No Ordinary Love [Incognito Series Book 1] by Karen Wiesner

NO ORDINARY LOVE: Book 1 of the Incognito Series by Karen Wiesner WHISKEY CREEK PRESS www.whiskeycreekpress.com

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No Ordinary Love [Incognito Series Book 1] by Karen Wiesner

Published by WHISKEY CREEK PRESS Whiskey Creek Press PO Box 51052 Casper, WY 82605-1052 www.whiskeycreekpress.com Copyright © 2006 by Karen Wiesner Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. ISBN 1-59374-695-4 4

No Ordinary Love [Incognito Series Book 1] by Karen Wiesner

Credits Cover Artist: Karen Wiesner Editor: Dave Field Printed in the United States of America

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WHAT THEY ARE SAYING ABOUT NO ORDINARY LOVE "...This is the first book in the Incognito Series. I found it to be a very solid foundation for what could very well turn out to be one of the best romantic suspense novels of the year. It overflows in action and drama, with just the right amount of romance. Pre-order a copy if you can. Outstanding!" ~~Reviewed by Detra Fitch for Huntress Reviews: www.huntressreviews.com/erom.htm "...NO ORDINARY LOVE is no ordinary book. Vincent and Kira are transcendent characters, almost larger than life, yet very human in their flaws and frailties. Love burns bright between them, but for Kira it is tarnished with fear, and for Vincent intertwined with duty. Can they possibly escape this baggage and build a real relationship? This is a page turner, taut, nail-biting thriller interwoven with a poignant, powerful romance. It is truly a book I could not put down. There are some spicy love scenes, but emotions far outweigh lust. My need to learn who actually are the good guys and the bad drove me to turn page after page. Revelations came just often enough to keep me off balance until the end, which is happy in spite of all the angst to get there. My recommendation? Buy it. Read it. Soon!" ~~Coffee Time Romance www.coffeetimeromance.com/ "This first book of the Incognito Series has me hooked! I was completely engrossed with these characters from word one. Page after page, I felt more connected to the story-line 6

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and was extremely impressed by how Ms. Wiesner worked in the underground tunnels and "mole people" that inhabit them. What a wonderful piece of originality. Typically a book on secret organizations and espionage can be very predictable and flat, but there was never a time I felt that this book was lacking. Very nicely done!" ~Lighthouse Literary Reviews: www.lighthouseliteraryreviews.com/May2006Reviews.html #anchor133 "...Having read some other books written by Ms. Wiesner, I must say that I think she's really hit her stride as an author. This book was the best one of hers that I have read to date. I thought she did a wonderful job of building the blossoming romance as well as keeping us on our toes as Kira and Vincent try to stay one step ahead of those who would take them down. The story moves from the first page to the last and I never found myself wishing for story changes or for more/less action. I felt like Ms. Wiesner was anticipating my desires as a reader and was able to deliver the story I wanted. I will say you'd better hold onto your hats at the end. Wow! There are more twists, curves and hairpin turns than on a mountain road. I couldn't put it down and was surprised at how some of the things turned out. NO ORDINARY LOVE is a delightful blend of romance and action. Both segments mesh so well that it will entertain and delight both romance lovers and action/adventure lovers alike." ~Once Upon a Romance Review www.onceuponaromance.net/NoOrdinaryLoveReview.html

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No Ordinary Love [Incognito Series Book 1] by Karen Wiesner

Other Books by Author Available at Whiskey Creek Press: www.whiskeycreekpress.com Tales from the Treasure Trove, Volume I (An Anthology with Karen's traditional romance, "The Amethyst Angel") Small Gifts (An Anthology with Karen's inspirational romance, "A Home for Christmas") Treasures of the Heart (An Anthology with Karen's contemporary romance, "A Rose for Romeo")

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Dedication Thanks to John Gorman (author of King of the Romans, an EPPIE 2000 finalist in historical fiction) who sent me maps and answered my endless questions about New York and the subways. Finally, thanks to Shirley Cayer and Victoria Hinshaw for helping me with my Chicago research.

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Prologue Angelo's footsteps resounded through the stark corridor of the underground compound as he walked toward the white room where they were keeping the child. Drop the girl into an orphanage. That was what Oversight Committee wanted to do with the girl. Angelo grimaced. He rarely agreed with the powers that be, but in their covert organization he did what he was told. This time he knew he had no choice but to allow the lamb to go into the system. She knew far too much. At just ten years old, she'd seen too much as well. She'd been in hiding for so long, running from the threat stalking her family. Only a few hours ago, she'd seen her father gunned down. The girl's confusion since then had been total, making Angelo wonder if she'd really understood what happened on that dead end street. If she remembered... Angelo gritted his teeth. Someday the girl would remember. Someday she would figure it out. Angelo couldn't allow that. Not when he was so close to getting what he needed. The girl's memory would have to be erased. When he reached the door of the white room, he hesitated. Much as he wasn't looking forward to it, he'd have to tell Kyle what they planned to do to keep the organization secure. Better that Kyle hear it from him. From the first, Angelo had seen that Kyle wasn't an operative who performed his duty like a well-programmed machine, the way he'd been trained to. He did his job, but he did it his own way. He was an operative worth more than an 10

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entire team. But, when Kyle found the girl covered in her father's blood out there tonight, something had happened to him. The child had gone into his arms—into the arms of a stranger—and refused to accept anyone else's comfort. From that moment, Angelo understood his prize operative had lost his allegiance to the organization. His loyalty was to the girl. Probably because Kyle had been, for all intents and purposes, abandoned as a child himself. Kyle wouldn't agree with what they had to do to contain this leak, Angelo knew. But they had no choice. Focus on the mission. Right now, what mattered was that this girl had seen too much and she would have to be silenced. She would have to disappear. Permanently. It was the only way to maintain structural integrity. Taking a deep breath, Angelo pushed his card into the scanner and waited for the door to open. By the time Kyle found out, it would be too late for him to change anything. The white room was the shape of an octagon with flat, brilliant white walls untouched by decoration or places to hide. The bed they'd brought for the girl was empty save for a G.I. Joe action doll and an untouched sandwich. A full glass of milk had been spilled on the floor. The girl was gone. Swearing, Angelo turned back and flew down the hall before the doors had even hissed to a close behind him. God only knew what the girl's parents could have taught her about escape. If she'd somehow gotten out, an alert would have sounded instantly. Unless... 11

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The realization growing in Angelo's mind seemed impossible. Unthinkable. Even when he had the undeniable proof right in from of him, he couldn't get himself to believe it. Kyle had taken the girl. They'd trained him to disappear without a trace, to be a master of disguise and deception. He was one of the best operatives they had. Regardless, he and the girl would be hunted and they would be found. Kyle had taken her before they could wipe her memory. Sooner or later, those memories would return. The girl would be alone at some point, Angelo acknowledged while he unconsciously held the action doll in a strangling grip. And then Kyle wouldn't be able to protect her from her fate.

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Chapter 1 "You've been a tyrant today." Vincent Carson's gentle, unmistakable voice floated to her from the doorway of her office much later in the day than she'd expected him to appear. "Welcome back, love." Kira couldn't control her need to look at him, but she could control her rigid expression as she growled, "I leave for a little while, and everyone falls into slovenly habits." Vincent shook his head, not commenting on the state of her own cluttered office as he straightened from leaning against the door frame. Kira clenched her jaw to hold back the instinctive moan cramming itself into her throat and begging relentlessly for release. She'd been gone forever ... or may as well have been for how good it felt to see him. Her chest felt impossibly tight watching him enter the room in strides that seemed to eat up her resolve along with the distance between them. The casually sophisticated clothes he wore could have been nothing at all for the reaction she had to it. God, it wasn't even the clothes Vincent wore so much as the way they flowed against his body with animal-like grace. Though he worked out religiously every day and his muscles were hard as rock, she knew only too well how smooth his skin was. Like steel encased in velvet. "You've been gone three months, Kira." Somehow he made that sound even longer than it'd felt to her. 13

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I didn't even think of him. I told myself I didn't notice the time. The void I felt without him. I didn't let myself. "Everything we needed to get done was done. Profits were up this quarter, as usual," he said, reminding her what she well knew. The closer he came, the fiercer the pressure coiled in her chest. She could see him again, smell his spicy cologne, so familiar. At one time, his scent had comforted her. Now it heated her blood and made her heart pound painfully. She could feel him before he'd even touched her. The need to be in his arms hadn't lessened in the least during their separation. "Did you find what you were looking for in Rome?" he asked pointedly, and her eyes narrowed as she gazed at him. He knew. He knew she'd gone to Rome for the important business reason of searching out new fabrics for the upcoming summer line. Kira Gunn Industries always had the newest, the most innovative, the most exciting fashions. He also knew she'd stayed for no reason. No reason outside of her desire ... no, not her desire ... her need to escape him. He'd known the whole time, but he'd allowed her to go. He hadn't come after her. For the first time ever, he'd given her freedom from him. In the past, her any suggestion that meant their separation for even twenty-four hours had resulted in him seeking out and unfailingly finding a more efficient way of doing the task so they could be together. Yet he'd consented for them to be apart for three endless months. 14

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When Kira looked into his dark eyes as he stood in front of her desk, her shock turned to shame she didn't want to feel. She'd hurt him with her need to get away and stay away from him. These past few months had been as hard on him as they'd been on her. Why? Why had he let her go? Why hadn't he come after her? And why had he suffered without her? Why, dammit? Forcefully shoving away her guilt, Kira turned back to the mess of papers spread out across her desk. Nothing's changed. In three months of agony, trying to free myself from this man, I'm right back where I started. Even as she asked herself what she'd expected, she anticipated his understanding of her feelings now. Vincent was nothing if not empathetic when it came to her. He moved around the desk, put his gentle, tormenting hands on her shoulders, and her frustration mounted even while her willpower crumbled. Anything she wanted, anything she needed, he would give to her. He wouldn't think of himself for even a second. As her soul railed in aggravation at those same things, she could soak it all in. "You need to slow down, Kira," Vincent whispered, his mouth near her ear. Every nerve ending in her body screamed to vibrant life. Kira closed her eyes helplessly to the sound. She hadn't closed her eyes for more than a few hours a day for the past three months. Vincent hadn't been there to keep back the horrors awaiting her there. Instead of feeling more focused in 15

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his absence, she realized now that she felt weak, out of control—things she couldn't tolerate—and completely lost. "You're running your employees ragged. You're running yourself into the ground, and I won't let you do it. You should have taken the day off when your flight got in this morning instead of working all day." Kira made no effort to fight him nor to fight herself and the vow she'd made to loosen his hold on her life. A hold she'd welcomed for as long as she could remember. "When's the last time you slept? Ate?" One of his hands left her shoulder, and Kira heard rather than saw him picking up the wrappers from various junk foods strewn across her desk and the floor around the wastebasket from a long day at work. She didn't need to answer. For the past fifteen years—the only years of her life she remembered—Vincent had come to know her better than she knew herself. He seemed to understand exactly what she needed when she needed it ... before she understood the need herself. "I take care of you," he'd said more times than she could count. Kira squeezed her eyes tighter together when he whispered, "I missed you." She heard his pain and couldn't close herself off from it this time. She was so tired. Vincent would take care of her. She could just close her eyes, lean back and give in. "Let me call Perry. He can be in your kitchen before we arrive. And then I can watch over you while you sleep." She shook her head. "I can't sleep." "You have to. You will. I'll be there." 16

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Sighing, she turned her head to look up at him. He wouldn't relent unless she gave him no choice. And she didn't think she had it in her tonight. She nodded her assent only once.

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Chapter 2 "Have you had any episodes?" he asked gently in the limousine, on their way toward her Fifth Avenue penthouse. Kira looked away from him, out the window, mumbling stubbornly, "I told you I haven't every time we talked on the phone. I wasn't lying to you." She hadn't had one of her 'episodes' in nine years. She'd been meds-free in that time. After undergoing every possible medical test in existence to find out the cause of the seizures she'd had since she was ten years old and having those tests come out normal, inconclusive, Vincent had gone back to his original belief. The non-epileptic seizures that resulted in every muscle in her body, including those that allowed her to breathe, seizing up forcefully, were caused by emotional trauma. They both accepted the diagnosis, but neither could explain it. Vincent shifted closer, taking her hand in a wordless request for her to accept his comfort. She should reject him, but she couldn't do it. Not tonight. When he continued to wait for her, stroking her arm, she couldn't keep her distance for another second. He sighed as he put his arm around her and held her close, his hands going to her hair in a deep caress that sent shivers all through her. I didn't want to miss you. She was too filled with ecstasy at the feel of him again to care about her vows to herself, to prevent the thought emerging. To the world, Vincent Carson was her assistant—one industry rivals had tried multiple times to steal away from 18

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her. His loyalty to her was as well-known in the fashion world as her temperamental genius. She'd been eighteen when she'd started Kira Gunn Fashions. Under her aggressive leadership, the company had evolved in only seven years into Kira Gunn Industries, an influential, multi-billion-dollar corporation with a considerable number of branches around the world. Vincent had home-schooled her as a child, but in a very short time she began learning on her own. Her thirst for knowledge had been like an unquenchable sponge. Vincent denied her nothing as her interests took her every-whichway. The only thing she'd resisted was learning more than how to use the basic programs on a standard PC. That alone she'd shied away from, like the prospect was a scorching flame. In any case, her love of the arts had superceded all else. Her flare for colors and patterns, individual style, had been evident at a young age. She'd begun sketching anything and everything she saw. Even after Vincent insisted she learn how to use a design software program, she inevitably reverted to using paper and charcoal to flesh out the designs in her mind. She'd completed college at age seventeen, with highest marks. When she told Vincent what she wanted to do—start her own company—he'd simply said, "Then that's what you'll do." He'd been there every step of the way as her assistant. While they took the elevator to the top floor of her apartment building, Kira no longer berated herself for breaking the vows she'd made in Rome. Tomorrow she'd learn to live without him. Tomorrow she'd control everything 19

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about her life. She'd take care of herself then. She didn't have the energy to resist him tonight. Allowing him to open the door of her suite, where tantalizing scents made her stomach feel hollow with hunger, Kira took a shaky breath. She'd missed home. Instead of coming to her penthouse from the airport early this morning, she'd gone straight to the office and worked through her jetlag. Her dog, a gray and white male German Shepherd a few years old, greeted her enthusiastically. Vincent had gotten her a dog when they first moved to New York. King had died three years ago, devastating Kira. Though she hadn't been ready for a new pet so soon, Vincent had given her Ruff the day after King died. She'd resisted the puppy at first, naming him off the top of her head just to give him one, but the appeal of a desperately-seeking-love puppy had melted her in no time at all. "Ruff, boy, did you miss me?" She dropped her briefcase as the dog tackled her and they sank to the goza-matted floor for a playful wrestle. "I'll see how Perry's doing with dinner," Vincent said with a smile, once he'd closed the front door. Perry was a five-star chef with his own restaurant, made popular because Kira faithfully hired him whenever Kira Gunn Industries needed catering. Scratching behind Ruff's ears while he licked her face, Kira watched Vincent disappear into the kitchen with a thought that hadn't occurred to her for a long time. It was Friday night. Why didn't Vincent have anything better to do than see 20

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to it personally that she ate and slept and relaxed? Without inquiring, she knew he hadn't had dinner. Although she hadn't called ahead from Rome to say she was returning in the morning, he'd hoped to see her tonight. As soon as he'd found out she was back, he'd planned his night around her— she had no doubt whatsoever about that. Why would he do such a thing? Had he had plans before he learned she was returning? No, she knew he hadn't. Sitting up, Kira looked around her spotless apartment. As usual, Vincent had taken care of everything. She had no mail to attend to. No messes to clean up. Everything looked just as it had before she'd left. Shortly after cooking one of his famous gourmet meals, Perry departed, bowing to her repeatedly as he wished them good eating. Vincent served in the colorful, Japanese-styled living room, on the low kotatsu table she liked to eat and work on. They each sat on one of the many zabuton pillows decorating the room. For a long few minutes, Kira merely ate to salve the furious rumbling in her stomach, only noticing it was delicious as an afterthought. When the edge eased off, she tossed Ruff some meat, which the dog caught in his mouth. Surreptitiously, she glanced at Vincent across the table. He was young—thirty-one, undeniably attractive—but she'd always wondered if she was merely biased about that. When women looked at him, he rarely noticed it. Every woman's gaze went to Vincent, to her, then away. Vincent wasn't her lover. He wasn't a brother or father either. She knew most 21

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people believed they were lovers. And maybe that was why women looked at him, looked at her, and looked away. His midnight-obscure eyes met hers, and Kira had to force herself not to look away. While she knew he was never uncomfortable under her gaze, she couldn't help feeling exposed. Vincent made no overt efforts to be sexy, no efforts at all, considering the fact that he had no friends, no lovers, and he was generally considered ruthless by those who worked with him. Kira was the only one in the world who knew of his tenderness, his sweetness, the deep emotions he hid from everyone except her. He did it for her, to protect her, she knew. He cut himself off from relationships for her, too. He is good looking. It's not just my bias. Any woman would find him attractive. But I shouldn't ... should I? Kira swallowed again, tenaciously allowing herself to study him even though he was aware of her interest. His short black hair, while trimmed and well-cut, managed to maintain some sense of a rebel anyway. His face was made up of straight, chiseled lines. Many people found his expression hard, yet she knew him too well to ever see him that way. She saw his ink black, thickly fringed eyes, so tender whenever he looked at her. The unshavable roughness of his jaw that made her shiver whenever she was that close to him. His full, masculine lips. He was tall, muscular, yet as lean as a jaguar and seemingly always on watch. By all appearances, he never rested either. She remembered trying to watch him sleep when she was younger. Remembered wanting so desperately to catch him unaware, unguarded. Each time she was nearby, 22

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however, he woke instantly and asked her if she was all right or needed anything. Yet the vulnerability remained perpetually for her in his face. Just once, she wanted to prove he was fallible, but the fact remained that he did everything well. "Do you date?" she asked abruptly. Though she anticipated it, she was nonetheless surprised by his lack of shame or subterfuge at her probing question. He answered simply and honestly, as if he was an open book to her: "No." "Why not?" she demanded. He reached for his glass. Again his tone was brisk. "Why would I?" She couldn't help watching the oddly arousing movement of his Adam's apple when he drank. Her body heated more. Shaking herself mentally, her hand went in frustration to the messy ponytail she'd shoved her long, thick hair into that morning. "For companionship. Enjoyment. Sex." Vincent didn't blush. He didn't waver. He shook his head. "I don't need those things." He didn't say it, didn't need to, but she intuited with every cell inside her that he was thinking, 'I have you.' The frustration that had kept her away from him for three months flew to the surface as she accepted and then discarded what he'd said. Why was she enough for him? What enjoyment did he derive from her? What did she give him that a lover would? Nothing. How much worth was her companionship? She well understood she wasn't easy to live with. She was an insomniac who needed control of every 23

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fragment of her life. She drove herself every waking moment because it kept her from the nightmares. It gave her purpose and fulfillment. So why the hell was she so unsatisfied lately? And why the hell was Vincent so altruistic with her? So loyal? "Do you love me?" Kira spoke louder and sharper than she intended to. The sound of the words struck her as highly inappropriate. The vacuum of neediness inside her sucked all the air out of her chest as her question rang back accusingly in her ears. She'd never asked him. She'd never needed to ask when she was young. When she ached to know, she'd forced herself not to ask. She could have no more handled a yes than a no. He brushed too-long bangs out of her eyes, never looking away from her while digesting her words, examined her expression and searched out her intentions. When he spoke, his words were clear, without hesitation. "There is nothing else, Kira." Kira glanced away with her mind burning. What kind of an answer was that? How could there be nothing else? And yet she knew. Fifteen years ago, when she was approximately ten years old, a sixteen-year-old Vincent had found her. She remembered nothing before that moment. At that instant, he'd become her life. She'd become his. From the time her eyes met his, there had been nothing else. For her. For him. Vincent Carson was all she knew. All she remembered. It was that fact that had recently kept her away from him for so long.

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As she got up and went to her stereo to block out the fears raging in her head with music, she heard Vincent behind her, cleaning up. Before she'd found balance enough to face him again, he was there, offering what alarmed her almost as much as the singularity of her life did, "Let me massage you. You can sleep. I'll be here if the dreams come." "No," she whispered against what she wanted more than anything, against his magic hands already caressing her aching back and arms. "No. No, Vincent. You have to go." She wanted to lean back against his hard, masculine body. Take what he offered. Ask for what he would give her if only she said the words. "You need to relax and rest, Kira. I know you stopped sleeping nine years ago because the seizures come whenever you sleep ... dream, but you're not invincible. You have to take care of yourself. Let me take care of you, too. Please." "You need to go, Vincent." She slipped out of the shelter of his arms, feeling cold and utterly alone because of it. Wrapping her arms around herself, she stared into his narrowed eyes. She had to fight herself not to take back her words. "Have I done something to hurt you?" he asked. The vulnerability in his expression almost undid her. She couldn't hurt him without feeling like she was cutting him right to the bone. All I do is cause you pain. I take from you. I never give. Yet you don't care. You accept that. You don't want anything in return, even if I could give something to you. 25

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"No. But I want you to go anyway. Don't ask me why," she muttered harshly. The look on his face was transparent. Her request all but killed him, but he would deny her nothing. "If you need anything..." he started uncertainly. "I know," she cut him off. She couldn't watch him leave, so she staggered out of the room, through the Noren curtains, with Ruff on her heels. Inside her bathroom, she tore off her clothes as if the hounds of hell were on her tail and slammed the shower on. I can't listen to his footsteps. Can't let myself hear the door close. Or I'll call him back. I'll go after him. And I can't. I can't live my life like this anymore. It's destroying me. But imagining a life without Vincent...

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Chapter 3 Her mind focused on the swell of music coming from the living room. Ruff whined as though he'd been trained to distrust the effect Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Scheherazade, Suite symphonique' had on her. Kira smiled weakly at her own rebellion. Knowing Vincent, he'd somehow guess she was listening to this when they both realized she shouldn't. Sleep ... maybe I'm too damn tired to dream. Just sleep... As Vincent had pointed out, despite knowing how much she hated to talk about it, she had to sleep some time. When she was sixteen, she'd gone against everything the specialists—and Vincent—believed. Her seizures came the majority of the time while she was asleep. They came with the nightmares. She couldn't close her eyes for a full two hours and sleep without having a seizure. She'd been a gangly, weak invalid of a child for so long, letting doctors and Vincent decide everything about her life. The only thing she'd had going for her was Mensa-level intelligence and a stubborn streak. She stopped sleeping for longer than thirty minutes in any twelve-hour period. At first, she'd needed an alarm clock to wake her. Now her body was under her control. At that time, she'd also begun an intense exercise program to make her body strong. She hadn't had a seizure since. And she'd become muscular, healthy. She could do twice as much in a day. Vincent was strong, but so was she. She'd spent nine years wondering if he'd noticed the changes in her or if he just couldn't turn off his need to coddle her. 27

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She caught a glimpse of the time, just before she shut down in sleep in a way she rarely allowed herself, and then only for short periods. Cold. Wet. It'd rained not long ago. The bushes were wet. Voices ... A word she reached toward but couldn't call forth stuck in her throat. Let's go home, she thought. Let's go. It was too dark to see anything, but she leaned forward. Voices came closer. It was coming. She couldn't hide from it... Kira sat up, a scream bursting from her throat, her hands grabbing for something, anything to block out the sound that had slammed her back into consciousness. All the lights remained on in her bedroom, and Ruff whined again from the doorway. No surprise at all came to her when her phone rang, once, twice, then the answering machine in the living room picked it up. "Kira, are you all right?" Vincent's pause was long and she felt the anguish in his tone when he said, "Call me if you need me." Even then, he waited another minute or so to make sure she wasn't going to pick up. He always knew. Somehow he always knew exactly when she might need him. Wherever she was, he knew. Her emotional state seemed to be part of his clairvoyance no matter what she was doing. Seconds after she woke from a nightmare, the phone would ring. Sometimes Vincent would be at her door not ten minutes later, asking her if she was all right. Glancing at the clock, she saw with anger that she'd been asleep for a mere fifteen minutes. She pushed herself off the 28

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mattress and stalked into the living room to bang off the classical music which seemed to bring on the nightmares without fail. Despite that, she could never seem to rid herself of it. Can you dream about the same thing over and over if it's just a nightmare? She pondered the thought, rubbing her tight chest between her breasts and shivering despite the warmth of her apartment. Or do you only dream about things multiple times if they're memories? Switching to the radio, a rap channel that made Ruff cover his ears and whine pitifully, Kira went to the locked drawer of her desk. She forced herself to clear her mind completely as she removed her gun, took it out of the wooden case, made sure it was unloaded before she began to clean it methodically, just the way Vincent had taught her to when she was eleven. The sound that had woken her ... the sound that always woke her: Gunshots ripping through the air. It was because of this gun, the one Vincent had trained her to use, that she could identify the sounds in her dreams. Why would someone teach an eleven-year-old girl to clean, load and aim a gun? To defend herself? Against what? But then nothing about her life with Vincent had been normal. Not the way he gave of himself to her without thought to his own needs. Not the way he tried to shelter her, even as he encouraged her to go for whatever she wanted in life. And certainly not the way he stared at her sometimes, when he 29

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thought she didn't notice. He looked at her as if he wanted to crush himself into a little ball and put himself into her hand. But even that wouldn't be enough for him. Why, dammit?

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Chapter 4 "I can't tonight," Kira had said, reluctant to look at Vincent, unwilling to see that she'd hurt him again. "I have a date." Two hours later, she'd still been able to see the resigned acceptance in Vincent's nod before he'd asked the name of her date, then left her office. Ross was famous, a billionaire like herself, good looking. Yet she felt nothing except regret, listening to him talk about his recent travels. I could be with Vincent now. How was it possible that she'd spent only a few hours with this man, yet she felt she knew more about him in an evening than she knew about Vincent in an entire lifetime—the only lifetime she could remember? No mystery here. No danger. No mingling of terror and scream-out-loud excitement at the mere thought of him, as the two extremes built together to the ultimate frustration. She couldn't belong to Vincent completely. She couldn't belong to a man she didn't know. A man who was all she knew. It was a contradiction that had taken some of her sanity because, no matter how she tried, she couldn't reconcile the two. After three months vowing to give herself to someone else, because it was the only way to exorcise herself of Vincent, she was right back where she started. She needed answers. To the past. To her past and Vincent's. Answers that didn't exist. She didn't need to feel so damn much where he was concerned. 31

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The relief she felt when she was inside her building, away from her date, came over her like a wave. Vincent would be in her apartment—that she knew without a doubt. Maybe she should permit him to believe she'd made love with another man, but that wasn't something she could do. She wasn't even sure why. Seeing Vincent sitting against her door, waiting for her outside her suite instead of inside, surprised her so much she could only stare at him for a second. In that second, he got to his feet. She stared at him, relieved by his presence yet angry that he calmed her so easily on a visceral level. Clenching her teeth, she strode toward him. "Why didn't you go in?" she demanded more harshly than she needed to as she slipped her key into the door without looking at him. She felt him like a warm, soothing yet equally unsettling fire inside. "I thought you might need privacy." Kira couldn't keep herself from glancing at him to gauge his intentions. Once again, he seemed to know. He knew exactly what she'd planned for her date tonight. She could have made love with another man, given herself as if it didn't matter. Why did Vincent's expression tell her that when her own heart said the complete opposite? "Did he hurt you?" He touched his fingertips to her cheek, seeming to track tears she hadn't allowed herself to cry. When he caressed her lips, she could almost get herself to believe he wanted to kiss her as badly as she wanted him to. Kira's jaw tightened painfully. She needed to be enclosed in his embrace, to drag his mouth to hers, to make him know 32

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definitively that it was all for him. Her abstinence, her relentless need, her frustration because none of it could be. No, she couldn't give herself the kind of freedom Vincent did simply because there was nothing he wouldn't give her. He would give her exactly what she asked for, exactly what she needed. "I need a massage," she said and disappeared into her apartment, straight into her darkest desires.

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Chapter 5 She hadn't admitted to herself that she'd gone to Rome, stayed there as long as she had, to avoid this. The last time he'd massaged her, the night before she decided to go, she'd known without a single doubt that Vincent and Vincent alone held the power over her heart, her soul, her body, her very breath. "You need to sleep, Kira," Vincent said behind her, his strong hands closing over her shoulders as though he, too, knew how fiercely she'd ached the night before she'd gone to Rome. Maybe he had known. Did he think it was wrong that he possessed her in all ways? Had he wondered, as she had, if it would be a mortal sin for them to make love? How could it be wrong? How could it be right? Either answer could be equally true. "I don't need the screams," she said, closing her eyes, not against the nightmares she spoke of, but against her own craving to lean back toward him and feel the full length of his body. Give herself up to his magic hands. As though fulfilling her unvoiced wish, he closed the remaining distance between them, putting his arms around her waist with the solid wall of his chest against her back. Reassuringly, he murmured, "I'll sleep next to you. I'll watch over you, love. If they start, I'll wake you." Kira closed her eyes, swallowing pain that filled her throat like acid. Fissures of sensation erupted under her skin at his nearness. 34

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"Vincent, who are you?" she whispered, eyeing him surreptitiously. He didn't seem surprised or offended. Instead, he said, as if on automatic, "I'm the one who takes care of you." Easing herself around but not out of his embrace, she faced him. Dammit, she wanted to be furious at him for his reticence to answer her question. But she'd never been able to be angry at him for long. Somehow that felt like a cruel betrayal of his unfailing loyalty. "Who are you? Why are you here? Why are we together? Why didn't I have parents like other people do? Why did I have you?" She hurled the words at him like grenades, unable to stop until she saw the hurt he didn't want her to see in his eyes. "Why does it wound you for me to ask you this?" she demanded, her tone shaky with fury and underlying regret. "I have to ask! I have to have the answers." "I've spent my life giving you everything I have," he told her softly, his hands moving automatically to caress her arms. "Everything you need. I'm sorry if that's not enough." No sarcasm harbored in his words, yet Kira couldn't imagine a situation that more deserved it. He was genuinely sorry if he hadn't given her enough, despite the fact that he'd given her every last thing he had. He wasn't offended. He grieved at his failure. He'd created more questions again, rather than providing the answers she so desperately needed. But then she remembered Ross, looking at her mouth with the obvious desire to kiss her. All she wanted to do was put her arms 35

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around Vincent, kiss his face and beg him to forgive her for trying to give someone else what belonged to him—wrong or right. Lifting her hands, she cradled Vincent's face, watching his eyes close at her belated attempt to heal him. When he leaned his cheek against hers, she was so aware of his mouth a half-inch from hers, she couldn't stop herself from brushing her lips against his just for an instant. "Come to bed with me. Give me a massage so I'll fall asleep," she murmured, drawing back slightly. The intensity of his gaze when he opened his eyes, nodding to her, made her want to scream again. If she didn't walk away immediately, she wouldn't be as indifferent to his touch as she wanted to be. But she already knew she could never be impersonal to Vincent, the way she had been to the hired hands she'd brought in to massage her so she could avoid him. She moved into her bedroom and began undressing while Vincent turned down the lights and put Sade in the stereo. The sultry sound of saxophone and percussion filled the room, followed by singing that always sent shivers down her spine. The voice somehow belonged in another lifetime. Wrapped in a short silk robe, Kira drew in a breath. She could smell jasmine oil, hot and sensual like the music, and almost wished she could be the aggressive, unrelenting robot she had to be at work, here. Then she could ignore the curl of tension snaking through her body ... or she could give into it without remorse. 36

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She forced herself toward the comfortable massage table, toward Vincent, who waited with the kind of patience she'd never possessed. Easing the robe back, she watched his gaze slide over her nude body, but even that was too much for her to see. She quickly got on the table on her stomach, telling herself he felt nothing at seeing her naked. The pressure drained from her in a sigh only a few minutes after Vincent's hands touched her. He worked over her body from head to toe, thoroughly, deeply, methodically. As his fingers untangled the tiny knots in her hand, her palm, ones she hadn't realized were there until now, she wondered... What would his mouth feel like here? Her thought wasn't carnal, or even seductive, yet she grew painfully aroused at the image of Vincent pressing his mouth to her palm. Her fingers curled, and she knew without looking that he'd noticed her sudden unease. She couldn't stop herself from putting the image of his soft, firm lips on every place he massaged. The table suddenly felt sticky, overly warm as the leather soaked in the heat of her body. Her throat kept swallowing like she was parched. The depth of his caresses didn't fade, and yet she knew unequivocally he recognized the not-rigid, not-pliant tension beneath the surface of her skin. By this time, she was usually asleep. She squeezed her eyes closed tightly when he urged her onto her back and started working on her shoulders. "Where do you want me to massage, Kira?" She spoke thoughtlessly, from her heart, "Everywhere." 37

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She could bear it no longer—the word simply spilled out. Immediately, she felt cooler. And hotter. He hadn't moved, and she couldn't speak. She drew herself up to a sitting position, and his hands on her shoulders sent a shudder through her. All she wanted to do was take, mindlessly, take him as if she had no active part in deciding whether or not it should happen. She could allow the culmination of dark desires she'd never been able to call wrong or right to steal her breath. She could scream on the brink of eruption, but she didn't have the strength to let it go. For an endless heartbeat, she felt like she was falling through the sky. It was only when she landed, back where she started, that she realized her thoughts weren't reality. Only another dream, this one a fantasy instead of a nightmare. Somehow Vincent seemed to know what she struggled with when she whispered his name. She needed to be in his arms, but was that even more wrong than what she seemed to want every second of every hour of every damn day? She didn't know. "Tell me what you want," he whispered, holding her hand. Wild uncertainty filled her, almost making her laugh out loud. My life is so unstable. It's always been unstable. I've done everything in my power to try to make it stable. Nothing I've done changes anything. But this ... this would change everything. I want it anyway. 38

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"Would you give me anything I want, Vincent? Would you want to?" she asked over the sound of her heartbeat filling the room like the music. She imagined her expression must look like agony in her current state of mind. "I want to make you happy ... give you what you need." Kira sat up beside him, her hard nipples grazing his arm. "Would you kiss me, Vincent? Make love to me if I asked you to?" Amazingly, his expression didn't change though he couldn't be confused about her arousal or what her words implied. "Would it make you happy? Would it be what you need?" he asked, his tone thick with some emotion she desperately wanted to identify. If he said "I take care of you", she would shatter or kill him on the spot. Wordlessly, he stepped closer, his eyes locked with hers. He stroked her jawline. Then his mouth was on hers, and nothing mattered except the feel of his lips against hers. They parted, and his tongue flickered against her closed mouth. Kira opened to him mindlessly, intoxicated with the taste and scent and feel of him, at long last. His kiss was every bit as addictive as she'd always feared. He broke away first and pulled her head tightly against his chest. He offered comfort, yet Kira distinctly saw his erection straining against the front of his trousers. If Vincent has needs... She was terrified of finishing that sentence. Why did it seem crazier than the thought that he might not have any needs? 39

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"I want anything and everything you want, Kira," he murmured, showing her the clarity in his expression. It was as if she'd run ... or been shoved ... right into the brick wall she'd been trying to scale for as long as she could remember. She'd known Vincent forever, yet she knew nothing about him. He wanted her ... his body did anyway— why? Did he even acknowledge to himself his own physical desire? If he did, could she give her heart to a man she didn't know? Mind, heart, soul and body ... his. One last step, and she would belong to him completely. Wrong or right. While her body urged her to take, and damn morals or consequences, her last thread of sanity forced her to toe the line. He lifted and carried her to the black satin-draped bed. The anguished look on his face when he looked down at her only made her confusion worse. She knew he waited for her to make the decision of his next move. "I'm losing my mind," she whispered harshly, tears in her eyes, as their gazes held. "I was put here ... dropped here ... and I don't know who I am. Who you are. I need to find home. I can't go on until I do." Vincent reached for her, dragging her into his consoling arms. "Don't. Don't say that, love. Whatever you need, I'll get for you. I promise." A stranger who felt like the end of the earth pleaded with her to accept his comfort. She didn't want comfort. She wanted to be filled with his scent, his skin, his body, his arousal so close but still so far from her. 40

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"I want the truth. I want the answers. There have to be answers. I want to belong somewhere." "You belong with me," he said hoarsely, brushing back the chestnut curls that had fallen around her face. "Do I?" He inhaled shakily. "I belong to you, Kira. Everything I am, everything I have is yours. All you have to do is ask, and I'll give you whatever you want." But who are you? I'm asking that, and you can't tell me. Do you even know? It's not enough anymore, dammit! Staring at his mouth, wanting him to crush her softness beneath his hardness, she thought, It would be so easy. Take that last step. Reach for him. Feel his mouth and body against mine, open myself, bring him inside of me the way I've only dreamed. Complete the circle. Fulfill our destiny. Yet she couldn't do it, not when the answers would remain so far out of reach. Vincent, my beloved stranger. Not my father. Not my brother. Not my lover. The one who'll give me everything if only I ask ... everything except the one thing I want that he may or may not have to give me.

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Chapter 6 The coppery taste of blood filled her mouth, burned her skin. Voices ... some she recognized but couldn't place and those she feared ... shouting. Gunshots pierced the silence that followed, slamming into her consciousness hard and fast and without apparent end. She couldn't breathe, not even scream, as she fought against the heaviness covering her like she was being held under water. She came up suddenly, and her scream met her desire to let it out. Instead of darkness greeting her, soft light. Instead of wetness, the dry satin of the sheets. Vincent's calming voice, his arms holding her. For an instant, the scream halted in her throat as the dream came back. Eyes—a black shade that should have been hard and unrelenting, but instead were kind and soft—meeting hers in the cold, wetness of the bushes. Vincent's eyes. Vincent in the dream, in the nightmare, whispering "I'll take care of you. I'll take care of you." The dreams weren't real, were they? Weren't memories? Then why did she want to scream over Vincent's consolation? She turned away when he whispered her name. He tried to hold her for an instant, but let her go as soon as she shoved away from him. Before she closed the bathroom door, she saw him sitting at the edge of the bed, staring after her with a haunted look in his eyes. It was at that moment she realized with plummeting dread that Vincent had the answers she needed. He had them, yet would never willingly give them to her. 42

No Ordinary Love [Incognito Series Book 1] by Karen Wiesner

Chapter 7 Only when the shower went on did Kira permit herself to look toward her bedroom. Some of her tension eased at the sound. Vincent hadn't slept any more than she had last night. She knew he'd given her the privacy she wanted as she pushed herself through her exercise routine, then worked throughout the night, but it hadn't kept him from listening for her and tracking her movements through the spacious rooms in her penthouse. She couldn't ask him to leave, not after her nightmare, and he'd never go unless she asked him to. Each time she thought of the intensely real fantasy she'd had while Vincent massaged her and the addictive kiss that followed, her chest tightened with emotions she didn't want to untangle. Added to that confusion was the memory of his arousal while he held her. Ruff raised his head when Kira lifted the black coffee carafe from the table, found it empty, then got up to make another pot. In the shiny marble and oak enhanced kitchen, she forced herself to ignore her fatigue while she put together the coffee. What she wouldn't give just to go lie down, close her eyes and sleep for a few solid hours like a normal person. If that was possible, she could avoid the coming confrontation with Vincent. If she admitted her feelings to him, he wouldn't be embarrassed. She knew that. Any more than he'd been when he caught me watching him shower when I was eighteen. 43

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Her treacherous heart reminded her of the incident. He hadn't said a word. It was as if nothing had happened, and yet she'd never forgotten it. From that day to this, she'd become aware of him in a way from which there could be no turning back. She filled Ruff's water and food dishes, which brought the dog running, then opened the cupboards, searching for Twinkies. All the cupboards were full; the fridge was stuffed with her favorites. Vincent had gone shopping for her recently—how had he known she'd be back soon? The expiration date on the milk was two weeks from now. She hadn't told a soul she was returning. She'd decided on Friday morning, and it'd all been arranged in a matter of hours. Yet her cupboards and refrigerator were packed. "Why don't you let me make you an omelet?" Vincent said behind her when she'd found a box of Twinkies he probably hadn't wanted to purchase. "Why did you go shopping and fill my kitchen?" Her scowl had no affect on him. "Everyone needs to eat. Including you. Although I wish you were more healthy." He eyed the cream-filled cakes disapprovingly. "When did you do this?" For an instant, he merely stared at her with his unfathomable gaze, and her discomfort increased. He wore jeans with a tank top, and she couldn't help remembering ... God ... remembering what her breasts felt like last night against the steel wall of his chest. He'd been aroused when they kissed. 44

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"Why does it matter?" he asked softly. It mattered, damn her long-honed instincts of wanting to just ignore conflict again instead of confronting it. "Tell me." When he advanced toward her, she felt each step like a judgment. He took the box, set it on the counter and closed his hands around hers. "I monitor the flight schedules of your jet when you're using it, Kira. Any good assistant would. There's nothing underhanded about it. As soon as I heard you were on your way back, I got your apartment ready for you." Vincent always did this. The only difference in this particular case was that she hadn't let anyone know when she was returning from her extended trip. While she couldn't get herself to look at him, she couldn't get herself to pull away either. Why did he have to have such a smooth, muscular chest? Such wide shoulders? Why did his hair have to look so sexy when it was wet? Why did she have to notice? And why did looking at his mouth make her so damn needy? They hadn't done anything wrong. She hadn't. Vincent wasn't her father. He wasn't even old enough to be the father of a grown woman. And there was only a six-year age difference between them. She'd gnawed on all of those considerations for as long as she could remember. Nevertheless, there remained no way to reconcile them in her mind with her overwhelming craving for him. "There's nothing I wouldn't do for you, Kira. Anything between the two of us would be right. The only thing that could ever be wrong is if we're not together." 45

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He said it almost like he'd read her mind. Like he'd spoken to himself as well as to her. Why doesn't he suggest I need to see a psychiatrist? She was insane. Her entire life was insane, and not a damn thing made sense to her. No one understood her at work. She had no friends. All she had were employees who excelled at their jobs because she demanded nothing less than one hundred percent of them every day, and who avoided her as much as they possibly could. And she had Vincent, who—for God only knew the reason—seemed to understand her insanity. Maybe he doesn't suggest a shrink because he doesn't want me to find out why I'm the way I am? The unexpected thought carried with it a coldness that made her withdraw from his reassuring touch. She saw him flinch as she rounded the oversized black marble island, and wouldn't allow herself to consider it once she was on the opposite side from him. "I can take care of myself, Vincent. Go home." "I'd rather stay. We can go over—" "If you stay, you can tell me about the day we met. You found me when I was about ten. Where? Where did you find me? Where were my parents? Why were you there?" He swallowed with difficulty, his hand clutching the hard muscles of his abdomen as if it was churning and he wanted to calm it. He shook his head, just as he always had. "I don't know." "How can you not know? Didn't you go to the police? Couldn't they tell you anything?" 46

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"No." Is he lying? Why would he? She fired more questions at him. "I don't remember anything before you appeared. We didn't live in New York then though, did we? Where are we from?" He didn't want to tell her. She could see that plainly in his eyes as he sighed in exasperation, ducking his gaze from hers almost angrily. Then he responded, almost grudgingly. "It won't help you to know. I did everything I could to find out who you were, who your parents were. No one knew anything. The best thing you can do is forget and go on with your life." How could she forget it? She couldn't remember any of it, but she couldn't just forget. "You won't tell me then?" She almost couldn't bear the sadness in his face when he looked at her again. "If I did, you wouldn't know any more then than you do now. I don't want you to get hurt." "Why would I get hurt?" "Kira, you want answers when there are none. The further you dig it all up, the deeper your dissatisfaction. I can't protect you when you get too far down." "Maybe I could find something when you couldn't. Maybe it's worth a little pain if I could find something." "You can't," he said with conviction, his tone hard. "If I couldn't find anything, you won't." "You were sixteen years old, Vincent. Right? Isn't that what you told me? What makes you think the police would 47

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give a sixteen-year-old kid information like that? Where were your parents? Why did the authorities let you have me?" She remembered very little, but those first memories were of Vincent, re-locating with him every few weeks, until they came here. She hadn't asked for answers then, or for years afterward. The only place she'd felt safe was with him. He'd warned her that asking questions could mean someone might take her from him. That wasn't something she'd been willing to risk. If ever anyone wanted to escape a situation, it was obviously him. He shook his head, his fingers raking through his hair hard and ruthlessly. "No one knew I was only sixteen. I was on my own." "At sixteen?" "Yes, at sixteen." "How could that be?" He shrugged. "When you have parents who want you to disappear, they're too relieved when it happens to bother looking for you." Kira swallowed with difficulty as she digested this. He'd never spoken of his parents before. "What parent wouldn't want their own child?" "My parents divorced when I was too young to know what was happening. My old man got custody, even though it seemed like he blamed me for the divorce. Within a couple years, he remarried, to a woman who had her own sons. She didn't want me. I was in the way. So I left. Made it easy on all of them. They never came looking for me." 48

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Was he disturbed by the facts he set out so baldly? She couldn't tell. But when she went to him, put her arms around him and pressed her face against his back, he muttered, "I didn't care about them. I didn't belong there. I found out where I belonged when I found you. Nothing else matters to me." Kira couldn't help wondering how unusual it was for a troubled teenage boy to feel such protectiveness for a young girl. It was unusual, but then a part of her understood. She'd trusted Vincent the moment their eyes met. She'd spent a lifetime wanting only him, asking few if any questions, being content with the simple acknowledgement that Vincent would take care of her and be with her always. Why wasn't that enough anymore? She knew he wondered why it wasn't. No, Vincent wasn't her father, but he was the only father she'd ever known, young as he'd been. Turning her into his arms and lifting her face to his, he said softly, "If I could give you the answers, I would, love. But I don't have them. None that would make any sense. I don't need to know where you came from to know we belong together." A part of her wished she could be appeased by that. The desire to forget everything except how right it felt to be in his arms was stronger now that her awareness of him as a man had become honed. How could he look so sure they belonged together? How could she doubt it? She wanted to kiss him, and that wasn't a comfortable feeling. Not when his thumb traced the habitual pout of her lips and all the blood in her body went straight to every nerve 49

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ending. She was hypnotized by his intense expression as he traced his thumb across the seam of her lips and they opened to him helplessly. She held her breath when he bent and kissed her forehead and her eyebrows instead of her mouth. Just as he hadn't done anything when he caught her watching him shower, he wouldn't kiss her unless she asked him to. "I'll make breakfast," he said. "Then we can do whatever you want to do today." They would work. That would keep her from thinking. From wanting. From remembering sitting in this very kitchen seven years ago, drinking coffee, listening to the shower, and realizing she wanted to see Vincent in it. Seven years ago, she'd been a lot bolder than she was now. She'd wanted to, and so she had. Vincent had taught her to take what she wanted confidently. The bathroom door hadn't been closed, so she'd gone inside and saw him in the spacious, locker room-style shower stall—without any door or curtain to block her sight of him. Only a glass partition that hid nothing. Kira had grown up with very few children around her. She hadn't attended elementary or high schools. She knew nothing of rebellion, hormones, flirtation. Vincent led a sexless life. She only knew of sex what she'd read about it and what Vincent told her matter-of-factly when she asked. Going to college had been a whole new experience for her, not necessarily a good one either. She didn't understand her fellow students at all. Most of them were irresponsible, reckless, directionless, thoughtless and, in many cases, 50

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immoral. She learned more than she wanted to about the unfettered sexual indulgences of these people who were the same age as her, yet nothing like her. Adults—adults with careers, responsibilities, ambitions, very little trust in others ... these were the people she was drawn to and felt most comfortable with. As a young teenager, for Kira sexual exploration had been more about unsatisfied curiosity—what was this emotion that had so many people up in arms? What was love? Sexual love? Why was it in all the fiction books? Movies? What made people want to run wild and go from one lover to the next? For that matter, what made people want to stay with one person for the rest of their lives? It was what Kira had been wondering that moment, what had compelled her to get up and go look at Vincent, the only man she really cared to look at. Her always intellectual mind expected to be disappointed with her experiment, believing nothing at all would happen as a consequence. Embarrassment had never occurred to her. And during those first few moments of seeing a man who meant everything to her without his clothes, without anything except streams of hot water and soap sluicing over his flawless skin, she hadn't been embarrassed. She'd been enraptured. She'd watched his muscular arms as they'd gone about the mundane chore of soaping up. She'd watched the way his hard stomach muscles had contracted and tapered when his arms raised. He was put together in a way that the men in 51

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the movies she'd watched, the magazines she'd looked at and the textbooks she'd read weren't. With her breath suspended in her throat, she'd noticed how the cords in his neck met his collarbones, noticed his flat brown nipples, his tight, rounded buttocks above muscular legs, the line of hair that trailed down his stomach and met the more abundant hair of his pelvis, out of which his male organ—so, so different from the clinical photos she's seen— sprang, semi-erect and, shocking as it was, ... beautiful. No wonder women were so fascinated with the male body. No wonder women wanted to touch men. Astonished humiliation filled her when she realized she'd wanted to be touched as well. By the very body she'd viewed. She'd inferred in the silence following the shower turning off that Vincent had seen her watching him from the moment she stepped into the room. He'd offer no lurid invitation, not even a welcome. He wasn't that type. He'd simply accepted her presence. Her examination of him as a man. Even when he'd reached for a towel and pivoted to face her, she hadn't been able to move. The fact that he felt no inclination to cover himself, to look ashamed or horrified had told her in their wordless gaze there were no boundaries, taboos or inhibitions between the two of them. Everything had changed for Kira at that moment. For the first time in her life, she'd comprehended what all the hoopla over love, sex, desire, irresponsibility and immorality, consequences and monogamy was all about. And yet she hadn't been able to find the element within herself that insisted any of those things would be immoral between her 52

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and Vincent. She'd told herself they had to be wrong. He wasn't and didn't feel like her father or brother, and yet they'd been together forever. They weren't related, but they were bound to each other irrevocably. Didn't it have to be wrong? The dream she'd had that night, the one she'd woken from hot and aching in a way she'd never experienced before, had decided for her she had to leave. She couldn't stay in the apartment with Vincent now that things were different between them. Different for her, in any case. Vincent had surprised her about that, too. When she'd told him she was moving out, he shook his head, calmly explaining it made more sense for him to leave. She'd been so thrown by his compliance, she'd agreed to keep the penthouse while he looked for a new apartment. The separation hadn't made her life easier. If anything, things became more difficult. She'd been accustomed to talking to him about everything, at any time. She'd been used to him being there when the nightmares came, soothing her in tender ways that couldn't translate in a simple telephone call. He lived only blocks from her, on the Upper East Side, but it seemed like a galaxy at times. He came to her on invitation or with an excuse to do something for her. Never before had she dealt with loneliness that an educated mind couldn't will away because it was illogical to feel. Her only consolation was that when she worked, Vincent worked. There was comfort in his nearness. There had been anyway, until recently, when her mind again began to question him, her, them. 53

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"Are you going to work today?" he asked as they ate across from each other on the island. She nodded. "When's the last time you took a vacation?" he asked, well knowing. "I don't know what a vacation is." "Relaxation." She looked at him coyly. "I only know the dictionary definition of that word." He smiled a little, and her heart warmed at the sight. "What would we do?" She realized she'd said 'we' as if her mind couldn't conceive of doing anything alone. She'd vowed to learn to live by herself, take care of herself, make some normal friendships. Maybe even have a relationship with another man. Fall in love. Never mind that she couldn't imagine any of those things. "Take a walk, eat out. What do you want to do?" So normal. That was what normal people did. Normal people didn't go to work at four o'clock in the morning because they didn't want to sleep for fear of dreaming. Normal people didn't work until nine o'clock at night with very few breaks in-between. Normal people ate at specified times throughout the day instead of eating when they remembered because they were near collapse. They didn't plan every minute of every day for at least a year in advance. Normal people didn't work weekends. They relaxed on the weekends. Spent time with friends. They did things for themselves instead of merely filling the hours. "I want to take a walk, eat out." 54

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"I can set it up for you." Kira shook her head. "Vincent, I don't want to plan today. Let's just be together and see what happens." When he nodded and reached back to put his plate in the sink, she saw relief in his eyes. Telling herself she shouldn't do this, she nevertheless went to get ready for a day she was looking forward to, not knowing what was going to happen until it happened.

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Chapter 8 "Let's go see a movie," Kira suggested. "We haven't done that in such a long time." "Are you hungry?" They'd been shopping most of the morning, though neither of them had bought anything. She shook her head. "We can have a meal after it's over, then grab a cab, go back to my place and get Ruff so we can all take a walk." "Sounds like you're planning things," Vincent said, smiling again. Kira threaded her arm through his, and she felt more like she had when she was just a kid and Vincent was the sun and the moon and the stars to her. "Ah, but at least I'm planning fun things." It wasn't that Vincent was uptight or too serious. No, if anyone could qualify for that, it was her. When she was younger, he'd always been trying to get her to smile. His sense of humor infallibly saved her from fear, sadness, and depression. Things had changed since she'd worked so hard to prove to the both of them that she was a woman, especially after realizing he was a man, not simply male. He hadn't stopped trying to make her smile. She'd stopped allowing him the opportunities and ignoring the efforts he made. When she looked up at him while they walked out of the store, he met her gaze and she had no doubt they shared the same thought: I've missed your smile. 56

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Maybe this is what we needed, Kira thought after they decided on a romantic comedy proving both hilarious and sexy, Not for me to withdraw, but to try to get back what we used to have. But ... what's to stop me from wanting ... ? Her throat tightened on the all-encompassing word 'more. She couldn't decide which wrong was worse—for her to want more or for Vincent to give her more. Would he bestow it out of love or duty? Why would he even feel a duty toward her? Especially since he claimed he didn't know who her parents were or where she'd come from. Abruptly, she wondered if he'd told her about his parents that morning to distract her from asking him questions he didn't want to answer. The thought of someone treating him that way had made her too protective to pressure him into opening up further. While she couldn't imagine Vincent lying to her, she could imagine him sheltering her, even from herself. Surprising her, Vincent glanced down at her in the darkness as if he'd noticed her attention no longer focused on the movie. She felt guilty for being the one to spoil the fun they were having together. Concern filled his eyes in the flickering light of the movie screen. No, I won't spoil this day. If I have to withdraw ... I'll do it tomorrow. Kira snuggled into his arms, her head against his chest, and he relaxed. As she settled into the movie again, she became aware of his warmth, the way his laughter vibrated in his chest, the caressing motion of his fingers against her skin. He didn't seem to notice how close his hand was to her 57

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breast. The soft cotton of her top created friction as it shifted over her bare flesh beneath. One of the hook-and-eye closures moved back and forth over her nipple like a fingernail, gently rasping. Her breathing became ragged. What would it feel like to lie next to Vincent, feel his bare skin against hers? He'd slept in his clothes last night while she'd worn nothing except the sheet. She'd slept for probably a half an hour—thirty minutes she knew he'd remained awake in case she dreamed. Her body tightened with need at the irresistible curiosity of whether he'd noticed her nude body against his. How long had he been aroused? Getting an erection wasn't ... couldn't be ... something a man achieved out of a sense of duty, could it? It had to be genuine. He'd told her that nothing between them could be wrong, yet her mind kept insisting something had to be forbidden about it. She simply couldn't accept as easily as Vincent appeared to that it was perfectly natural for her to lust after a man who'd been her 'guardian' for fifteen years. What did she even know about relationships anyway? Very few of the people she knew were married. They were either divorced or heading for it. Commitment was a word that had fallen into extinction. She'd known people who were cheating on the people they were cheating with. Happiness in any relationship was short-lived. Love was temporary, sex could be selfish even when emotions were involved, and that was something that seemed to be mutually accepted by both parties. 58

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Maybe there wasn't a 'normal'. Maybe she was the only one creating roadblocks here where there shouldn't be any. They ate dinner at a quiet little cafe in Little Italy, talking thoughtfully about the past as well as the highlights of her trip to Rome while she sketched the people around them. As soon as the mention of actual work ahead of them became imminent, Vincent steered them away from it into a totally different direction. **** Ruff was eager to leave the apartment when they took a cab Uptown after dinner. The early spring weather was cool, but she refused Vincent's suggestion of a jacket. Ruff stood waiting for the elevator to open on the ground floor as though revving his engine for that 'Go' signal. He lurched out, dragging Kira behind at a sprint before she got control. He took them toward the park. As Ruff sniffed every garbage can they passed, Kira asked a question she guessed Vincent would try to sidestep: "You're a man, Vincent. Why don't you need a woman?" He stopped, and she did, just as abruptly. Ruff stretched out on his generous leash to find a place to do his business in the alley, and Kira wrapped both of her hands around the leather. Vincent leaned against the building on one side of the alley. "I need you. I don't need sex." Why did he need her? He was the giver in their relationship. "Can you shut it off?" she asked quietly. 59

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"Yes." Many men didn't seem capable of that. How could Vincent shut down his basic needs? Yet she didn't doubt him for an instant. If any man could, it was Vincent. "How do you shut it off?" she asked. His eyes were so mystifying in their candidness, she found she couldn't look away from him. "Discipline. I can want and not have." She understood that, in part. She'd spent what felt like a lifetime wanting things she could never have. "Why would you do that?" He didn't look anywhere except into her eyes. "Because the only thing that makes me happy is making sure you're happy. I don't need a single other thing." Who was she to have so much power over his life? What had she ever done to warrant it, deserve it, or even require it? "I don't want you to sacrifice for me, Vincent. I've never wanted that. I've never asked it of you." "You don't have to ask me. I do it voluntarily." "Why?" He didn't shake his head and avert his eyes in discomfort, the way most people would have. Maybe a part of her wanted him to do that. She didn't want him to know why he did it. Then it could be one of those senseless things people did without knowing why they did it. No, she didn't want to know Vincent sacrificed for her because he had a mission, a purpose, something that drove him to fulfill some basic requirement. 60

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She rebelled inwardly as his expression pleaded with her to accept his sacrifice freely. "Don't be afraid," he said softly, like he saw fear in her expression. She bristled at his words. He added some more. "I love you. That's all. From the moment I laid eyes on you, nothing else mattered. Don't be afraid of that. You're under no obligation," he assured her. He wanted her to just take it, as if he was some robot or someone she could give orders to, expect things from, but she never had to give anything in return. And that was what she'd done, wasn't it? Spent a lifetime receiving from him, never giving back. Who are you? she wanted to scream at him, not ask him in a whisper the way she had last night. How can it make sense that you're equally satisfied by something, nothing or everything? Maybe he was a robot. What else explained him? As they left the alleyway and walked ahead in the direction they'd been going before, two men stepped out of the shadows of the next alleyway. Kira saw the glint of silver in both of their hands, and Vincent shoved her forcefully behind him. Ruff, a puppy she'd considered the sweetest in the world, growled deep in his throat, surprising her. "Kira, run," Vincent ordered in a low voice. Even in the darkness, she could see the drugged eyes of the men and couldn't get herself to listen to Vincent. They were looking for a fix. One a night watchman cap waggled his fingers at them, demanding, "Give it up. Now. Hurry." 61

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They want money. We're being robbed! Kira comprehended in utter shock. They'd lived in New York for almost fourteen years. She'd never faced anything like this. But then she'd spent a lot of years going back and forth in a limousine. "Turn around and walk away from here." Vincent's words, Kira realized. Vincent had said that, in a menacing tone similar to the one coming in a rumble from her dog. Why wasn't Vincent getting out his wallet so they could walk away in one piece? The other thief sneered, his eyes narrowing. "Give it over. You wouldn't want this pretty thing to get hurt. Would ya?" His partner in the cap leered at Kira as though he wouldn't mind having his hand forced. What happened next couldn't have taken longer than thirty seconds. Kira didn't have time to scream or tell Vincent to give them his money. The capped guy was out cold and the other one was on the sidewalk with his arm twisted behind his back. Both of the knives were in Vincent's hand. How it happened, exactly what took place, Kira couldn't explain. She couldn't fail to notice their attackers were each at least a hundred pounds heavier than Vincent, respectively, yet it made no difference. Vincent had taken care of them as if they were weak children. He leaned closer to one of them to say, "Next time I won't be so polite." After throwing the weapons in the gutter, he put his arm around Kira, steering her back down the sidewalk toward her 62

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penthouse. She looked back over her shoulder once, wondering if their attackers would follow, but neither did. Vincent knew how to fight. He knew how to defend himself beyond being a crack-shot at the range. She knew he worked out, but she'd had no idea how strong he was. Or how fast. He'd taken on two large men at the same time and won. Easily. It wasn't until they'd stepped off the elevator and made their way to her door that Kira realized Vincent was upset. His face was hard, his breathing harsh. Once inside her penthouse, she was afraid to speak while she waited for him to say something. When he did, the words were sharp and bit off. "Do you remember?" "Remember what?" she asked, astonished—though maybe she shouldn't have been. They'd been held up at knife-point. They were entitled to be upset. "Remember ... make like a mole." All the air left her lungs. Blackness rushed at her like a live entity that dwelled in her past and waited impatiently to be resurrected. She wanted to forget, not remember. She never wanted to remember those words again, for as long as she lived.

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Chapter 9 "No." Kira shook her head, turning away from Vincent. She unhooked Ruff from his leash, and he went immediately to the kitchen for water. "That wasn't real." She wouldn't allow herself to believe it had been real. It was a nightmare from her childhood. A nightmare where she'd entered the subway tunnels below Grand Central Station and descended, going deeper and deeper into pure darkness. All around her had been the sounds of small animal feet scurrying, the smell of life. Death. The feeling that she hadn't been alone. She'd held her breath at first, but she'd realized getting there and coming back out would take too long for her to continue doing so. All she'd had to do was concentrate on following Vincent's voice. As implicitly as she'd trusted him, she couldn't help wondering, What if we can't get back out? What if we're lost under here? What if someone tries to hurt us? What if I have a seizure? She'd closed the small distance between her and Vincent whenever she'd thought that, and she'd understood each time that he'd wanted to reach for her, make sure she'd been there. Yet he hadn't... Not intending to, Kira closed her eyes and the darkness surrounded her again, suffocating in its heaviness. Not real. Dear God, please ... not real. Her chest was so tight, she couldn't draw in a breath. Vincent took hold of her shoulders firmly, whirling her around to him. "Kira, look at me." 64

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His voice was harsh, but she shook her head at him stubbornly. "It was a dream, dammit. A nightmare. I don't want to remember it, Vincent." "We have to have a plan. Some place we can hide if they try to take you away from me," he'd said so many times—the very words that would make her do anything he asked. Even the things which terrified her. "It wasn't a dream. You have to remember. Do you remember? Do you remember exactly what I told you? How to get there?" After suppressing it for so long, trying desperately to forget how many times Vincent had led her into the underground tunnels of the city when she was eleven years old, she remembered every single detail, despite herself. They hadn't gone blindly into the tunnels. Vincent had spent endless hours showing her rough maps, patiently going over everything until she'd memorized each turn, the number of steps, the distance with her eyes closed, as though in darkness. She'd walked it. She'd done it all by herself—once, the very last time he'd asked her to go. She'd gone, collapsed on the way back, but she'd somehow come back all by herself. What had taken only a few hours, she'd had nightmares about for weeks, whenever she allowed herself to close her eyes. Yet he'd insisted it was necessary to do it over and over ... until she told him about the seizure she'd had in the tunnels. She'd never forgiven herself for telling him of her weakness, but she'd been too relieved to have all of that over with to regret it. 65

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She nodded and instantly heard his sigh of relief. The agonizing need to scream, as wildly as she had when she finally emerged from the darkness to find him waiting exactly where he said he would be, came over her again. Just like then, Vincent held her so tightly, she'd realized he'd been as afraid as she'd been. "Kira," he said softly, his compelling voice leading her out of the darkness once more. She opened her eyes to find his expression that maddening cross between tormented and firm. "I'll never ask anything of you again—I promise—but I need you to do this one thing for me." For a moment, she marveled that the man who hadn't asked a single thing of her in thirteen years was now asking for the one thing she might not be able to give him. "What?" she asked in a hoarse whisper when she could speak. Vincent stroked her jaw gently, but she knew he did it to make sure she didn't try to look away from him. "When I say those words—when I say 'Make like a mole', promise me you'll do it. You'll go. I'll never say them until I absolutely have to. And I hope I never have to." Could she do it? Could she heed the Pavlovian response she seemed to have to those words? Could she ignore what the words compelled her to do? Both of his hands clutched her face as he waited impatiently for her answer. The desperation she saw in him rivaled that of when she'd come out of the tunnels alone. How could she refuse him the only thing he'd asked of her for so long? 66

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"Kira, please, promise me. Please." When I say those words—when I say 'Make like a mole', promise me you'll do it. You'll go. I'll never say them until I absolutely have to. And I hope I never have to. I'll never say them until I absolutely have to. Absolutely have to. Her mind kept hinging on the nonsensical things he said. If it wasn't a dream, then his words, 'We have to have a plan. Some place we can hide if they try to take you away from me', were real. He expected someone to try to take her away from him. After all these years, he still believed it might happen. When she couldn't take the questions battering through her mind, she shoved him away. "Why?" Her own anger surprised her. She kept her voice soft. "Why, Vincent? Why would we ever have to hide? No one could take me away from you. Not anymore. Why did you make me promise that now, when there's no danger at all?" Never before had she seen Vincent the way he looked now, even in the moments he'd found her, when she'd been taken away for a short time, but he'd returned for her. She'd always believed him to be capable of carrying the very weight of the world on his shoulders. Now he looked as though he'd done that for so long, he was terrified he might not be able to do it anymore. But that wasn't something he could accept from himself. He sat on the bamboo serenity bench, putting his head down. His fingers clutched at his scalp harshly. Had their runin with those guys who'd tried to rob them upset him so 67

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much? More than she'd thought? He'd reacted calmly. Ruthlessly. The failure she'd felt as a teenager ... the invalid girl with the strongest man in the world watching over her ... came back painfully. Oh, how she'd hated to be weak! More than anything, she'd wanted to be as strong as he was. "Answer me, Vincent," she demanded. "I don't know!" he barked through clenched teeth, astonishing her with his impatience with her. "What do you mean?" "I mean, I don't know if anybody would ever try to take you from me. I don't know if the ... that danger is past. I can't take the risk that it isn't. I have to be ready. Every second. I have to plan for it." She couldn't help it. She laughed and knew instantly she wasn't helping his tormented state of mind. She sat next to him on the bench. With her hand on his shoulder, she said with rational impatience, "Vincent, if anybody wanted to hurt me, they would have done it long ago. If you don't know where I came from, then you named me. I have a whole new identity. How could anybody ever know I'm that little kid? It would be impossible." "Maybe." It was all he would concede. "If anyone wanted to take me away from you, they couldn't. I'm a grown woman, not an invalid who can't care for herself anymore." He sat staring hard at the golden beige reed of the floor, but she knew he didn't see it. 68

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"You don't need to protect me from anything anymore, Vincent," she insisted, wishing he could understand how his need to protect her made her feel. He was strong—she could accept that; she admired it. But he didn't have to protect her. She was capable of protecting herself. He'd never given her the opportunity tonight. And, no, she wouldn't have handled the situation by taking on two drugged creeps at the same time the way he had, but she and Vincent would have come away alive. He faced her wearily. "Just keep your promise, Kira. That's all I'm asking." Whatever he thinks might happen will never happen. If my promise eases his mind, I'll give it to him. I know he's so used to protecting me and being on-guard he doesn't know any other way. "I could have handled it," she said quietly. "I know," he told her with reassurance in his tone. "Do you believe it?" "Yes." She needed his confidence and didn't pursue why he was so sure she'd have handled the problem. "How did ... I mean, those guys were both bigger than you and there were two of them." "Size doesn't make a bit of difference," he said automatically, as though he was teaching a lesson. "You have to understand your opponent. Sum him up in an instant. Find a weakness. They were both drugged. Their reaction times were decreased. Mine wasn't." "Where did you learn to do that?" 69

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He shook his head vaguely, glancing at her. "I'm sorry they spoiled our day." He didn't want to talk about it. Neither did she. "So am I." With one hand, he smoothed her hair. "You look tired." "So do you." He smiled faintly, drawing his face parallel to hers. She could smell perspiration mingling with his cologne. He was fallible. He had a weakness. She didn't know whether to be angry or excited that she was his one weakness. But when his lips brushed hers, her body felt too heavy to sort out the implications. Kiss me. Reach for me because you want to, she thought wildly when his mouth slid against hers once more. "Will you come to bed with me?" she asked, not caring what her gaze might be telling him. His tone sounded hoarse as he agreed without hesitation, "As long as you want." Something so familiar suddenly felt impossibly intimate as she went to her room while he locked up the apartment. Slipping out of her clothes and under the sheets, her body felt overly warm. Husbands and wives, lovers, do this every night. Sleep in the same bed. Vincent and I have done this so many times, for no other reason outside of my comfort. Everything's changed now. Helplessly, ignoring the alarm in her head, she watched him pull his shirt over his head. God, she wanted to touch him. How would the well-defined muscles in his stomach feel beneath her fingertips? Under her lips? 70

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Kira's breathing was ragged by the time he joined her under the sheet in just his jeans. She felt stupidly disappointed when he didn't take her request for him to come to bed with her as an invitation. An invitation to more than ease his body parallel to hers and draw her into arms so sweetly. "Thank you for today," he said, his mouth against her hair. Kira pressed her face to his chest to keep him from feeling the shudder rippling through her, wanting more than his words. For a long minute, she simply closed her eyes, feeling Vincent's heartbeat against her ear, wondering what it would be like to explore his magnificence unencumbered with inhibitions or uncertainties. "If you could have anything in the world, what would it be?" she asked. "And my happiness and safety doesn't count." "It's all that counts," he murmured, and she thought he would leave it at that. But he took a deep breath before continuing, "Sometimes I wish we could just leave here. Go some place nobody knows us—a deserted island ... or some frozen wasteland nobody ever visits." He chuckled, and Kira's heart squeezed in her chest at the rich sound. "Just the two of us. Just disappear. That's what I want more than anything." Of all the things she'd expected him to say, it wasn't this. Did he love her so much? Why? What had she'd done to deserve it? She made everything difficult for him, sometimes just because it was simpler for her than to complacently accept what he gave so freely. 71

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"I always intended that," he said, his gaze as soft as his tone. "But I knew you needed ... stability. Roots. As many as I could give you, even if it couldn't be enough. We could just leave now. Just go. Go anywhere in the world." "What about KGI?" she asked under her breath, stunned by the words that made no sense, yet made perfect sense. "It's autonomous now. The board of directors can run it. Megan could—you know she's been pushing things in that direction for years anyway. You'll still maintain your leadership ... and the profits. We'll just have a certain amount wired into an account every month." He was serious. As serious as she'd ever seen him. Would he answer the questions she had about their pasts if they went away together to some secluded place on the globe? Would he require some 'plan of safety' at this new place? Or would he finally relax his guard? What kind of love would possess a man to accept anything or nothing from the woman he wanted to disappear from the world with? No ordinary love, that was certain. And my love for him is the same—it's no ordinary love. In the silence that followed, she knew he wanted her to say something, respond to his words, but he would blame himself for failing her if she gave him the truth. She didn't want to hurt him. "Now you. If you could have anything in the world, what would it be?" She shook her head. "I don't know." "Yes you do," he urged. 72

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She'd found it easier to avoid honesty most of the time. Easier to lock everything up inside her, as if that could take away her needs, her desires, her perpetual frustration at not knowing the first thing about their origins. Lock up her love for this man. For a long moment, she stared up at him, reacting to his gentle caresses on her cheeks, jaw and chin. Then she spoke, each word painful. "A home. A place to belong. A place where I know ... I fit. It's where I have to be." Vincent surprised her again when he tucked his face against her, not letting her see his reaction to her words. She felt the tightness of his body, and then she accepted she'd hurt him just like she hadn't wanted to. He'd spent his life— fifteen years of it anyway—trying to give her a place to belong. A home. She'd just told him he'd failed to provide her with that which she wanted most of all. She knew he didn't want her to realize how much pain his 'failure' caused him. Kira couldn't bear the realization he must be crying, even if only inside. He held himself in so rigidly, and Vincent never allowed himself any release. How could she heal him? How could she undo her words when he couldn't doubt she'd spoken from her heart? Tell him you love him. That you want to be with him. In all ways. Any at all. And she did. She loved him more than she could accept. Wanted to be with him even if it was wrong. Still, she couldn't speak and give him what he needed. 73

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"I belong to you, Kira. Everything I am, everything I have is yours. All you have to do is ask and I'll give you whatever you want." Vincent had found where he belonged, something she'd yearned for desperately all her remembered life—something that made no sense whatsoever to her because she did know where she belonged, as surely as he did. She belonged with him, and that was what unnerved her more than anything else.

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Chapter 10 Her breathing was slow, but Vincent knew her sleep wasn't deep. At the moment, just having her in his arms was all he could ask for. Kira didn't like talking about the past—the things he'd had to set up and carry through to keep her safe—but she wanted answers. How much longer could he put her off? Kira had no idea what he'd gone through to give her whatever she wanted and needed in his single-minded pursuit to keep her safe. The two had become one thing in his mind. When she'd said she wanted to live separate from him, he'd given her what she wanted, but he'd arranged multiple ways for him to protect her from a distance. When she'd wanted to start a fashion business and made it a success in hardly any time at all, he'd been there every step of the way. She hadn't allowed him to talk her out of her trip to Rome, or into taking him with her, so he'd protected her the only way he could. Everything she wanted, she got, but not once had he compromised her security. For fifteen years, he'd forced himself to continue his daily workout, his marksmanship, his surveillance from every angle. He took every precaution when it came to Kira's safety, including having a multi-layered back-up plan if they had to disappear quickly. He'd also kept a close eye on their back trail to make sure no one was following their scent. All of the channels had been clear. Kira was right—no one had come for a decade and a half. And no sign whatsoever that the search for them had 75

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continued. Yet his instincts remained too honed to simply assume the two of them were completely out of mind just because they'd been out of sight for so long. He couldn't relax now. He would rather die than let anything happen to the only person in the world he could allow to matter to him.

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Chapter 11 "They're real estate agents. They sell islands." "Islands?" Vincent shook his head. "I just looked at some that were for sale. I didn't say I was buying one." The memory nagged at Kira all Monday morning. She'd thought she'd put it past her four years ago, when she'd argued firmly with herself that Vincent was entitled to his own life and his own secrets. This particular secret had dug at her incessantly during their trip to Miami, to set up the first branch of Kira Gunn Industries. Vincent had insisted on the location—Miami, Florida—saying it was an ideal place. Yet, during the trip to get things established, Vincent had disappeared repeatedly and without explanation. At times, he didn't return all night. At one point, she'd been unable to contact him via cell phone for most of a day, but he'd finally called her after her numerous voice mail messages. She met him at the airport, where he deboarded a plane with a young man and woman, followed by another woman who'd apparently been the pilot. He'd rushed to her immediately, demanding to know if everything was all right. Coldly, she'd told him, 'No', and headed back to the car. Everything inside of her had boiled in a strange mix of rage, unspecified betrayal and hurt. She'd wanted to beat on him until the truth tumbled out of him. That was when he'd told her about the islands and real estate agents, a story she hadn't believed at the time. The 77

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young man and woman who'd disembarked before him had been little more than high school-aged kids. But she'd asked herself why he would lie to her. At the same time, she'd wondered why he couldn't have told her the truth about what he was doing. She'd wondered if his explanation covered all the absences during that time. From then on he'd always made sure she could contact him if she needed to, and she'd forced herself to accept his story and let her uncertainty fade. Now it nagged her again. Just one more mystery on a long list of mysteries where Vincent Carson was concerned. Lately, her mind seemed intent on tallying her inventory of them. "Gorgeous," Megan Hague's voice made Kira drop out of her relentless thoughts. Megan had been the very first designer Kira hired, straight out of Parson's School of Design. As Megan touched and viewed the fabrics Kira had brought back with her from Rome, her crystal blue eyes filled with awe. "I'm already getting ideas for the summer line. This one: A soft purple negligee, bold in color yet gossamer as a spider web..." Kira watched her employee sift through the fabrics, slowly and lovingly. Normally, she would be barking orders, demanding extemporaneous ideas from Megan on the upcoming line, requiring a deadline for the first group of flats. Today, she felt something she'd never felt before—lazy. Depressed. Heavy. She didn't want to be here today. Anger and fear always seemed too close to the surface as her mind 78

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tried to put together a puzzle when a great many of the pieces were missing. She'd woken that morning after hours of trying not to, saw Vincent watching her, and heard him say, "You slept for an hour. You didn't dream and you didn't seize." While it'd happened before, it was rare, and she always felt she'd narrowly escaped something when it did. "Did you sleep?" "Enough," he'd said simply. "How do you feel?" She'd murmured something, then went to shower. The last thing she'd wanted to tell him was the truth. She felt confused. Angry. Vulnerable. Needy. Each time she saw Vincent today around the office, she felt all of those things. It didn't help that, during meetings, she'd caught Vincent staring at her wistfully. "I can see why you two were gone such a long time now," Megan said, and Kira dismissed the words until they rang back to her, forcing their way through her other thoughts. "Two?" Megan looked up from another table of gorgeous fabrics, destined to be the talk of the fashion world when the new line was released. "You and Vincent. What was it? Three months? Two to three weeks is usually what you're gone." Was Megan confused. Why did Megan think Vincent had been in Rome with her? He'd been here. Kira knew that for a fact. She'd talked to him countless times on the phone. "Vincent wasn't in Rome with me. He stayed in the city." 79

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Megan frowned, brushing long blond hair behind her ear as Kira rounded the table toward her. "Well, he might have been—" "Ms. Hague, your secretary is looking for you," Vincent said coldly from the doorway. Kira watched Megan leave the fabric room, wanting to call her back. She turned to Vincent. "What was she talking about? Why would she think you were in Rome with me?" "I don't know." Why didn't she believe him? At the same time, she couldn't believe Vincent would lie to her. What possible reason would he have for being anywhere but here, where she'd needed him to take care of things on this end? He'd never shirk that responsibility. Megan had to be confused. Yet it niggled at the back of her mind for the rest of the day, taking precedence over the Miami mystery her mind had been gnawing on that morning. How could she trust Vincent with her life, believe he truly wanted to shelter her, yet she was certain he was keeping secrets from her? How could she love him with everything inside her and, at the same time, be so afraid of letting go and allowing herself to have what she wanted—what maybe even Vincent wanted? How much longer could this possibly go on?

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Chapter 12 "Do you have the portfolio from the senior-year student attending Parsons?" Kira asked of Vincent when the daily financial meeting concluded and they were alone in her office the next morning. Frowning, he told her in a distracted way, "It's at my apartment. I can get it at lunch. Or we could go together and get it then." Across the hall, his phone rang. Relieved, Kira told him to get it and they would talk later. She called to have her limo meet her out front, then slipped out as soon as Vincent was distracted. As she rode the few blocks from Kira Gunn Industries' Madison Avenue office and retail, she realized she'd never been to Vincent's apartment without him. She had the keys, but the times she'd been there had been only long enough for him to grab something or to change his clothes. After telling her driver she'd call him when she was ready to leave, Kira went inside with her head buzzing. On his floor, she unlocked both the deadbolt and the regular lock with separate keys, then pushed inside. The darkness was almost total. She groped for the switch. While she couldn't imagine Vincent becoming angry about her being here without him, she couldn't escape the feeling she was invading his privacy. She located the portfolio almost immediately on the credenza in the living room, but looked away from it to really take in the personality of his apartment the way she never had before. 81

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The furnishings were utilitarian. Black sofa and chairs. Basic oak tables and bookshelves. The only thing that stood out was the over-sized armoire entirely covering the longest wall of the room. It was locked. His desk was very clean. No bills, but then she knew his penchant for paying things immediately. No paper trail. She stood, indecisive for a moment—then passed a milestone. Vincent couldn't remain an enigma. She needed to know more about him—much more. Kira began her search at his desk. She didn't find an address book of any kind. She found herself running her fingers over the books on his shelves, wondering what Vincent read. Nonfiction exclusively. Many of the titles were meaningless to her. They gave no clue to what the books were really about. Others were more obvious: self-defense, coping with phobias, trauma psychology, guns, seizures, dog training, various computer programming and repair guides, military tactics, even some memory loss and gaining confidence titles. Confused, she looked for a stereo and CDs, but found no music whatsoever. His computer equipment was state of the art with so many extras, she couldn't begin to guess the myriad of things he could use it for. He'd asked countless times if he could teach her about computer hacking, shell programming, telnet programs, port surfing, encryption, and gaining root. He'd set up the LAN Ethernet system at KGI himself. Kira had resisted anything related to computers and the Internet, outside of the basics. She couldn't explain her reluctance to learn more when her mind thirsted for 82

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knowledge of all kinds. Somehow her temptation had felt so much like getting too close to a pain that could destroy her. It was senseless, but she hadn't been able to tell Vincent the truth, especially since the truth made no sense to her either. Hesitantly, Kira pushed the button to boot one of the computers in what Vincent called his hacking lab. A screen that didn't look anything like her desktop came up. A small box implicitly demanded a password. Kira tried her name first and got another box, telling her she would be viewed as an intruder if she didn't get it right next time. She didn't guess right, and the screen went totally black. Frowning, she shut the computer off and moved over to the television. An allnews channel came up. His kitchen held no surprises at all. All was just as utilitarian as the living room, almost appearing unused for longer than the past few days he'd been staying at her apartment. With a feeling of yielding discomfort, she went through his medicine cabinet in the bathroom. His bedroom consisted of nothing more than a bed, a nightstand and lamp, a dresser and his clothes hanging in the closet. Save for the clothes, she could easily have believed no one actually used the room. Berating herself only lightly, she opened each drawer of the dresser, looking through everything. Then she opened the small drawer on the nightstand. Paper, pens, a gun—loaded, with the safety on. Unfathomable instinct had her feeling beneath the bottom of the drawer, where her fingers met with a small object, taped in place. When she pulled it loose and brought it out, she saw a key. 83

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She removed the tape from the key, running her index finger along the cut of it. The armoire. What could be in that huge armoire? What would he keep locked and out of sight of any guests he might have? What guests did Vincent have? She would be willing to bet she was the only other person who'd ever been in his apartment. So what would he keep locked and out of her sight? Steeling her resolve, she turned toward the doorway leading out to the living room. Opening that armoire wouldn't merely be walking through his apartment, sneaking a peek in his medicine cabinet. She would be invading his privacy in the worst way. Would he be angry at her if she opened it? She couldn't imagine that. Whatever she wanted to do, he encouraged. The key might not even fit. What was the harm in seeing if it did? She'd just look. She wouldn't touch anything. Quickly, before she could change her mind, she marched into the living room and shoved the key into the lock. It fit, turned easily, in fact. All she had to do was pull. Maybe he had a theater system, though she couldn't picture him providing such entertainment for himself. An immense stereo system, since that seemed to be lacking elsewhere in the room? What else could it be? In her hesitation, she noticed that the armoire was wider than it was tall. The doors were bi-folds, with hinged panels every three feet or so. Once she opened each side, they would fold up and she could push them back into the slots on 84

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either side. Then whatever was inside could be viewed without obstruction. Kira's heart beat so wildly, she almost felt silly. It'd probably be nothing. Something so ordinary, everyone had one and she just couldn't think at this moment what might fit in such a large cabinet. Removing the key, she put her fingers in the rectangular indention and eased the right door back. "Oh God," she muttered faintly, not even realizing she'd spoken out loud as she revealed guns. Many different kinds. Hand guns, semi-automatic and pump shotguns, rifles. There was even an illegal machine gun. Stacks of ammunition, both in steel boxes and smaller cardboard boxes, for each make and model, were stored below the guns on the floor of the armoire. Is he expecting a war, right here in this claustrophobically small apartment? Why? She knew Vincent liked guns. 'Like' wasn't really the word for it. He seemed to know a lot about them. He was comfortable around them, with them, as though he used them often. Maybe this was simply a collection. Her gaze moved across the rows of weapons, held in place on a cushioned liner at the back of the cabinet. Were there guns across the whole of the cabinet? But she saw the glint of something—glass?—in the shadowed darkness on the left. She put her fingers into the indention on that side and pushed back. The panels folded, then fit into the slot on the end when she shoved them back. Confusion filled her mind totally as she stared at the equipment before her. Screens, 85

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electronic equipment she couldn't begin to name, let alone guess the uses of, lined the shelves. For a few minutes, she merely stared at it all the way a person who had no aptitude for math might stare at a jumble of numbers when asked to come up with answers. If she'd been in someone's office or another person's apartment, she would have been mildly curious about what all this was for. But Vincent had put these things here. He used the system for something. As she stared, she realized there was something familiar about it all. She'd seen something like this elsewhere, but she couldn't place where at the moment. Her eyes began to focus on the actual components individually instead of as a whole, and she saw that some of the buttons, switches and screens had words on them. 'Kitchen-K2V', 'Bedroom1-K3V', 'Limousine-1A', 'Office-KGI-1K', etc. 'KGI' obviously meant Kira Gunn Industries. She couldn't guess what everything else meant. After she read each of the machines and screens, she saw some of them overlapped. There was more than one 'Bedroom1' tag, for instance. There were four different tags for 'Bedroom1', but each one had a different number and was followed either by an 'A' or a 'V'. Kira turned and went to the couch. She sat down, then began opening the drawers on the oak apothecary type table in front of the couch. In a moment, she'd found a series of remote controls. She stared at each of them for only moments before she made the connection between the letters and numbers on the buttons of the remotes corresponding 86

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with the letters and numbers tagged on the screens. Then she aimed the remote that had listings of 'KGI' at the screens, pressing the button labeled 'KGI-1K'. She aimed the remote from shelf to shelf until a screen popped on one. She looked upon her own desk in her downtown office. She could clearly see the half eaten Twinkie she'd opened a couple hours ago there—the financials from the meeting just before she'd left. This was a ... a security system of some sort. That was why she recognized it. Though she'd only been in it once or twice, her offices had an area with a similar security monitoring system, on a much larger scale. Guards sat in the equipment-stuffed room, checking video displays and audio systems to make sure everything was safe on the office levels and the retail store below, from the third floor down to street level. Cameras covered each hall, office and the store. Naturally, the only areas in the building that didn't have cameras were the bathrooms and dressing rooms. Kira pressed another button on the remote, and another screen came to life. The private bathroom in her office. Bathroom. There was a camera in her bathroom. One connected somehow to this security system. Why would anyone put a camera in the bathroom of her office? Why would Vincent? Why would he monitor her bathroom or her office when there were already security systems in place within the building? She set down the remote and picked up another, this one labeled 'K-A', aiming it aggressively. A red light glowed on one of the components, but nothing else seemed to happen. 87

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After a minute, she picked up another remote and saw the backseat of her limousine. There's a camera in my limousine. With another remote, another button, yet another screen flared to colorful life showing her bedroom in her penthouse. She pressed every button on the remote and a row of screens, showing rooms in her apartment at all possible angles, lit up. Wildly, she pushed all the buttons on all the remotes, then sat gaping in horror. Not merely seeing anymore, but hearing as well. She heard the click of Ruff's fingernails on the linoleum in her kitchen. She saw him and then heard him drinking from his dish. At the same time, she saw and heard her secretary come into her office and put a file on her desk. Vincent had ... he'd bugged—wasn't that what he'd done?—every part of her life. He could watch her, listen to her, whenever she was in her apartment, her office or the limousine. No wonder, she realized, feeling completely exposed and vulnerable and not liking the sensations at all. No wonder he always knows when I have a nightmare, when I'm upset or I need him. He's always knows when I cut my legs shaving or I'm lonely. God, no wonder! And no wonder he didn't want me to move out of the penthouse, if he's had something like this set up for some time, so he always knows where I am and what I'm doing. When the trill of a cell phone sounded, she didn't recognize it as coming from her until it continued for several long minutes. Then she fumbled to retrieve it from her purse. 88

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"Yes?" she said, her gaze still on the screens. "Kira, where are you?" Vincent asked, not frantically, but worry edged his tone. I'm out of his sight at this moment. He can't see or hear me, and it worries him. She couldn't speak as she wondered if she should tell him she was on her way. She would close up the armoire, pretend she'd never seen any of it ... or she could confront him. Then what? "I'm ... at your apartment," she said unemotionally. In the heartbeats of his pause, she wished he'd bugged his own damn office so she could see his expression. "Did you need the portfolio right away?" he asked warily, or what sounded that way. "Yes." "Did you find it? Are you coming back? Or should I come there?" Kira's mind raced. He couldn't refuse to answer, not this time. Not with all of this to force him to. He would have to give her some kind of explanation for the invasion of privacy he'd breached—so much worse than what she'd done when she came to his apartment today and looked through his things. To think she'd felt guilty about looking through his medicine cabinet and dresser drawers. "You should come here," she said, suddenly sure of herself. He paused again, as if noticing something in her tone. Then he said, "I'll be there in about ten minutes, barring traffic." 89

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Did he want to say 'Don't touch anything' before he hung up? She couldn't be certain. Once she replaced the phone in her purse, she didn't feel the slightest qualm about going through the other drawers in the table in front of her. Most of them were empty. Some had rolled magazines and newspapers. Some had ammunition for the gun she found in a drawer. Was he merely paranoid about her safety? Obsessed with her? What answer could fit all this? Fit his tenderness? Fit his ultimate desire of whisking them away to some deserted place to hide from the world? It all seemed horribly wrong now. The years of only needing and wanting desperately to be together, to stay together at all cost. What were they running from? If they were hiding, then why had he allowed her to start such a high-profile business? Why did he want to leave it all behind now? Was he just trying to convince her to need only him, to go away with him, away from the rest of the world and any danger? He must have sensed her withdrawing from him for months, just as he'd known she'd stayed in Rome for so long, hoping to get her head on straight concerning him. She was more confused than ever about him, herself ... about them now. She'd been right last night. This couldn't go on much longer.

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Chapter 13 She hadn't moved from the sofa when he came in. She didn't glance away from the monitors to look at him either, but she felt his shock nevertheless in the soft curse that drained from him like blood from a wound. "Are you going to tell me that this isn't what it looks like?" she asked coldly. She should have been furious, but the sense that her entire life was a lie, was built on mysteries that couldn't or wouldn't be explained by anyone but this man, kept her guarded. "You've been monitoring my life—every part of my life ... for how long?" Surprising her, he knelt in front of her, putting his head down on her lap. She saw the torment in his expression before he hid it from her. Seeing a shudder work through him, she swallowed at his pain but couldn't let this go. "I want to know why, Vincent." He looked up, his face crumpled with a grief she couldn't understand, no more than she understood anything he did. "You know why." What's his answer every single time? She didn't hesitate: "To keep me safe?" He nodded. No shadow of doubt entered her mind on the fact that he wished she would simply accept his motivation and go on as though it was nothing out of the ordinary. "What am I in danger of, Vincent?" He shook his head. "I don't know." 91

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"Then tell me what you suspect, dammit. I walk around in the dark all the time, assuming I'm safe from all sides. I have no idea what my attacker might look like. But you seem to believe there'll be an attacker. Tell me what you suspect of him. It." As if he couldn't tolerate any more, he reached for one of the remotes and switched everything in the cabinet off at once. When he turned, his arms went around of her thighs. Angering her further, she felt her body react to his proximity. "Don't tell me you don't know again!" she said sharply, thoroughly anticipating his plan to do just that. "You owe me something for this." She waved her hand angrily at the security system—such a misleading reference in this case. After a moment he seemed to believe she would stalk out and he might never see her again. He nodded. "You want an answer. All I have is ... pieces." "I want them." His jaw tightened, and he drew breath through flared nostrils. "The night I found you, you were in the bushes on a deadend street. There were some men there. One of them was killed." "The gunshots," she realized instantly, "in my dreams." He nodded. "Who?" "I don't know. All I know is you were there. There was no identification. No one seemed to know who you were. But someone was killed. If that someone was related to you, then 92

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whoever killed this person might know about you. They might come after you." Her chest felt painfully tight as she said carelessly, "It's been fifteen years." "And I covered our tracks well. But it wouldn't be impossible for someone to find us." "Why would anyone kill my father?" she asked without conscious thought. Vincent's eyes narrowed. "Why did you say your father? Do you remember something?" "No." But she felt it. Voices ... some she recognized but couldn't place and those she feared ... A word she reached toward but couldn't call forth stuck in her throat. Daddy. Daddy, let's go home. Let's go. "Kira?" "It was my father. I don't know how I know that, any more than how I always knew how old I was, but ... I know this." "Do you remember anything else?" Her dream came to her, but with no clearer interpretation than the countless times she'd seen, heard and felt the same things over and over. She shook her head when the images faded. "Does it help you to know anything more?" she asked. Something flickered in his eyes, yet he denied he knew anything more. "Why didn't you tell me any of this before?" she asked. He snorted, standing. At the hardening of his face, she barely recognized the warrior before her. 93

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"Because I don't know a goddamn thing. There's nothing to tell. But I can't relax for the same reason. Especially now. If it was your father who was killed, I was right all along. You're in danger. You could be if the person who killed your father knows about you." Kira withdrew at the anger in his tone, unsure whether it was directed at her. "Why were you there, Vincent?" He'd gone to the cabinet and closed the doors. "Wrong place at the wrong time," he muttered without looking at her. When he did face her, his tone was much softer and the tender man she knew was back. "But then I found you." "Does that make it worth this?" she asked. "Hiding all these years? Living in fear?" They'd moved around constantly for a year, never in the same place for longer than a few days, until Vincent had said they were staying in New York. Once his 'plans to keep them safe' were in place. "Yes." "Why?" "How can you ask me that, Kira?" How could she not ask? It made no sense that he was merely at the wrong place at the wrong time. A teenager who wasn't wanted by his family, stumbling across a kid and suddenly realizing his mission in life? Finally belonging? No. He claimed he knew nothing, yet he still kept secrets. She took a shaky breath. She couldn't be angry with him. Her anger would crush her own soul along with his. 94

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"Vincent, were you in Rome?" His jaw tensed as they stared at each other, both nervous, across the breadth of the room. "Yes." "The whole time?" He nodded, and she heard the lack of shame as he explained. Even after being caught, he continued to believe what he'd done was utterly necessary. "I flew back as soon as you called in your order to get the jet ready in two hours." "And you had a set-up like this..." she motioned toward the cabinet, "...there, too?" "More intricate, so you could call my office, apartment or satellite phone and always be patched through." "What about my apartment?" "What about it?" "What's hidden there? To keep me safe?" The touch of sarcasm in her voice went unnoticed by him. He swallowed, seeming to quickly add up the logic of telling her more. "Your dog," he said finally. "What?" "He's been trained to defend you, with a single command from me." Wild-eyed, Kira began, "How—" "There's a remote in his collar, if he's with you and I can't get to you first." Explaining why he'd immediately given her another dog after the death of her first. Explaining why Ruff had turned from sweet pup to a killer when they'd been threatened Sunday night. 95

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"Is that all?" she barely whispered. "Your apartment is fully stocked," he added briefly. "With a collection like this one?" she guessed, pointing to the right side of the cabinet, where the guns and ammo had been. He nodded. "Where?" "There's a panel behind the bookshelves. The button to open it is on the underside of the mantel." Kira's face flooded with heat, and she looked away from him. If the dreams I've avoided for years are real, then all of this isn't merely a nightmare. It's genuine. The seizures I was plagued with had to be caused by emotional trauma. But how genuine can the threat be? We've lived in peace for fifteen years. This man she loved, who she was unwilling to live without and couldn't imagine deceiving her, was a stranger. That fact was impossibly clearer than it'd ever been to her before. And if he was a stranger, how could she be sure he really was protecting her? For all she could remember, he might be the person who killed her father. Savior or devil in disguise? She stared at him, wondering. "Kira—" he began softly. "Will you get rid of all this?" she asked, stumbling to her feet, ignoring the pain she heard and saw emanating from him. In agony, he shook his head. "I can't. I can't risk it. If anything happened to you—" 96

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"What if something happened to me, Vincent? What would happen then?" "I would never forgive myself." She withdrew again on another wave of confusion. "I love you, Kira. I would die for you. You have to believe me." In one heartbeat, she did believe him. That, she'd always known. But in the next, she knew she had to get away from him. Get away from Vincent. Escape her beloved stranger. Somehow.

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Chapter 14 Vincent closed his eyes, not moving from his knees on the floor, where he'd sat before Kira until she walked out of his apartment. He'd spent so many years trying to keep her past from her. She didn't need to know, he'd told himself. What you don't know can't hurt you. But what she didn't know had been hurting her all along, and now his secrecy had left her feeling he'd betrayed her. For so long, she'd believed the nightmares that came when she closed her eyes weren't real. As much as he wanted her to remember so he might have the chance to discover who the enemy really was, he'd never been able to let her face those nightmares alone. Her memories of that night had come back in part, yet he still couldn't put a face to the enemy. Andy Sheppard, a loyal, stalwart operative for as long as Vincent had been in the organization, was Kira's father. How, when operatives weren't allowed to have relationships inside or outside? It wasn't simply marriage or children that were forbidden. Recreational sex was discouraged outside of a mission since even casual sex could lead to love or other loyalties. If Andy Sheppard was truly Kira's father, then who in God's name was her mother? Vincent couldn't fathom an operative continuing a relationship in secret outside the organization. Was the mother a civilian, someone Andy had known a long time, or someone he'd known for a brief time and never seen again after the act was done? 98

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As much as Vincent believed in the directives of the organization, he knew the lines were blurred between wrong and right. Operatives were effectively robots; they had to be. If the security of the Network was at stake, nothing else mattered. Anonymity presided over all else. Innocents might be 'neutralized' in order to preserve their invisibility and remove the threat of exposure. If Kira's mother had posed a threat to the Network, she would have been neutralized. Yet Kira's birth had somehow escaped their notice—how? Vincent's superiors had wanted to drop her in an orphanage after surgically removing her memories. Now he knew why. Because Vincent had taken her before they had a chance to remove those memories, the risk she'd remember something her father told her about the organization made her a security hazard. They would never stop hunting her. Vincent put his hands over his face, rubbing his eyes. She'd insisted that after fifteen years, there was no threat. She didn't know the enemy the way he did. He couldn't shut his most basic instincts off, even now, when there was a chance that Kira wouldn't want him in his life after seeing all the surveillance equipment he had on her. He had to be in her life though. What else was there for him?

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Chapter 15 For Kira, walking into her apartment that night was like walking into a stranger's home. Vincent had asked to come home with her after work, and she'd shaken her head only once, unable to look at him. Whether or not he felt guilty for spying on her the way he had been so long, she couldn't doubt he did believe through-and-through that it was crucial. He wouldn't stop either, regardless of the fact that she would now be aware he watched her. As she closed the front door behind her and locked it, she wanted to turn and run. He would find her if she did. There wasn't a place on the earth he wouldn't find her. She wasn't safe from his eyes either. Was he watching her now? Ruff greeted her enthusiastically, and she bent to him as usual. After an instant, the clear memory of Vincent's words— Ruff's purpose—made her withdraw even as she told herself it shouldn't change anything. Like Vincent, her dog just wanted to protect her. And yet she felt exposed and vulnerable to both of them. The trust she'd had, blindly, was shattered. Is he watching me? Her anger fired at the thought, especially when she realized she was also aroused by the same thought. He'd made her helpless to him. Made her a prisoner. In her home. Her office. Her limousine, for Pete's sake! Stalking through the foyer, she dropped her briefcase on the kotatsu table, then went to the mantle of the fireplace. Groping with her hand, she found the button so easily, she had to question how she'd never noticed it before. A whirring 100

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noise came from the left row of bookshelves, and an entire panel moved out, shifting to the side and opening a cavern she'd never realized was in the apartment. Had Vincent created it or had it been there all along? She didn't remember him doing any carpentry when he decided they were going to stay in New York, but then she probably wouldn't have noticed. He could easily distract her with new books or educational toys so she barely looked up for days. Knowing he probably watched her at this moment, tensed about it, she moved into the cavern. Ruff barked at her, as if he was warning her of danger or worried about her. The darkness only gave Kira glimpses of the gray walls. She felt along the edges of the walls, searching for a light, then felt a string in her hair. Reaching up, she tugged at the string and the single bulb overhead came on. The cavern was deep, big enough for four or five people— even with the stacks of ammunition and the guns, all makes and models, semi-automatic, pump and automatic, completely enclosed except for the 'door'. She searched and found supplies in two of the large steel ammunition boxes— imperishables, flashlights, water, an unbelievably small laptop, sat phone, and some other electronics she couldn't name, as well as a fully-stocked first aid kit. There was even a modem hookup. Standing, she noticed the gray material covering the walls again. It was hard, yet almost spongy—bullet proof? Even with her extensive knowledge of fabrics and materials, she couldn't guess what it was made of. 101

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Ruff whined from the living room. Kira turned and saw two switches on the side wall. When she flipped the first one, the panel of the bookshelf slid back into place. Her dog sent up a racket of barking as she was closed into the space. The back of that panel was made of the same hard, spongy material. Even if someone—an enemy—knew about this, she had the feeling Vincent had made the cavern both bullet-proof and impenetrable. When she flipped the second switch, she heard a set of loud, heavy clicks, almost as if something was released. When she pressed it again, she heard them retract. Then she understood. If someone on the outside pressed the button under the mantle, they wouldn't be able to enter because of the 'locks' Vincent had put in place. Kira also recognized that this was a temporary hiding place or a last-ditch defense. Though an enemy couldn't get in, all they had to do was wait. There were a limited amount of supplies in here. Sooner or later, the occupant would starve, die of thirst or have to come out. Can he see me in here? Vincent would have no reason to put a camera here, would he? Her visual and manual search came up with nothing. She was only beginning to acknowledge that Vincent had expertise most people didn't possess and couldn't fathom. If she'd never noticed the cameras or audio systems in place throughout her apartment, it had to be because they were so tiny or so camouflaged, even if she came across one she wouldn't have figured out what it was. 102

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She flipped the first switch again, the panel slid back open, and Ruff rushed to her. Is Vincent breathing a sigh of relief? She emerged, going to the mantel and pressing the button to close the panel once more. Then she knelt down by Ruff, calming him with her strokes, even as she searched for the clasp of his collar. The bejeweled leather didn't look any different from any other dog collar. But after running her fingers over the diamonds, she felt the difference in one. It looked like a diamond, but the surface was scratchier. Was this the device through which Vincent could say the word that would turn her dog into a killer intent on protecting her? Swallowing, she closed her eyes and clearly remembered the direction each of the screens in Vincent's apartment had seemed to be pointing. They weren't moving cameras. They were fixed, which meant there had to be places where he might not be able to see her—a hall, a corner, closets—even though he could hear her. Laying aside the collar, she stood and went in the direction one of the screens had seemed to cover. Ruff whined his distress at her strangeness tonight. First, she took down the Ensozen print on the wall. The irony of the print near where the camera had to be wasn't lost on Kira. 'Circle of Infinity, Circle of Simplicity, Circle of Beginnings, Circle of Endings, Emptiness with Fullness. All things visible. All things unseen. To end and to begin—circle of life'. Her life, connected to Vincent's—a man she didn't know at all. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary on the print, not even a small indication. She set it aside, and removed two Buddha masks, followed by the hanging plant. Again, nothing she 103

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could detect. She ran her hands over every inch of the wall at the height the screen had projected into her living room. Her index finger advanced once over a minute bump the same color as the wall, and she back-tracked to it. The bump was oval shaped. Could a camera really be this small? And produce such clarity as the screens offered? It had to be a camera, impossible as it seemed. Now that she knew what to look for, she went in search of more and found them one by one, as many as the number of monitors he'd had for her apartment. Each blended so well, it was no surprise she hadn't noticed them. When she tugged at the last one gently, she found a fine wire connected to the back of it. The audio and video systems were under the walls of her apartment. She didn't have to think about it for longer than a minute to remember when Vincent had put her up in a hotel for two days after she'd agreed she'd stay in the penthouse while he found another place. He'd insisted on having the walls freshly painted and the carpets taken out and replaced in the Japanese style she'd admired at a celebrity acquaintance's home. Apparently he'd also had the walls torn out first for the security systems. She'd never had a clue it'd all been for her safety. Vincent had also been the one to point out the logic of buying her own limousine and hiring full-time drivers instead of using a service. The company jet was no doubt just as bugged as everything else.

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After pushing the camera wire back into the wall, she wandered back to the living room, her chest heavy with oppression. Was anything safe? Was there a single way she could escape his eyes and ears? If she went to a restaurant, could he track her there? Her gaze fell on her briefcase, and in another minute, she'd emptied it on the table. She found a strange, tiny device in the lining, then she dumped her purse out. Inside her wallet, she found another device. She would always have her wallet with her. No matter what she did, where she went, he would be able to find her. Did he have her body bugged, too? While her first instinct was to tear from room to room, ripping out every one of the cameras; rip out the very walls, she knew Vincent would be here in a few minutes and he would insist it all be put back. Somehow he would convince her it was utterly necessary. Besides, she knew her anger stemmed mostly from the feeling that he'd put her in a helpless position. Kira heard her dog in the kitchen, nosing his empty food and water dishes around the floor, and she forced herself to get up and feed him. If Vincent was trying to protect her, then should she want to escape? But how could she live like this? Surrounded, trapped, unable to make a move he couldn't track? God, she was tired. She wanted to sink down on a sofa, but her living room was filled with only cushions and benches and the sensuous matting—a design she'd always thought fit 105

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her need for informality. Right now, the thought of lying down on her bed, where he could watch her, was too unnerving. In the end, she switched off the shoji lamps and lay on the living room floor with her head on a pillow. She closed her eyes, yet she still felt out of control. The worst part of it was the hum flowing through her body when she thought of him watching her ... watching her sleep, shower, eat, pleasure herself when she was lonely and wanted him. How could it make her feel both humiliated and aroused? Ruff came and settled next to her, though she knew he wanted to run around and play. Vincent had a teenager walk the dog during the day and most evenings. Piper—that was her name. Piper had taken Ruff just before she got home, Kira knew. Where had Ruff been while she—and apparently Vincent—was in Rome? She'd assumed Vincent took care of him on his own. Her hunger and fatigue got the better of her, even with the discomforting thought of being watched. She dreamed only after a hard sleep, like the hard sleep she'd taken the night before, when Vincent had been with her. The dream was the same as always, no pieces fit together, but Vincent was there. He was there suddenly, in the wet, cold bushes. She'd trusted him immediately because of his eyes. The gentleness of his eyes, when everything else was dark and confusing. He'd assuaged her horror when no one else could have. But the dream moved past that point. Vincent, holding her in his arms. A man approaching—did she recognize him? She couldn't be sure. He had short, blond hair and was extremely tall. Vincent had argued with this man, consoling Kira the 106

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entire while with a soothing caress on her back. And then the man had taken her away, and Vincent promised her he'd come to get her later. She'd screamed as Vincent handed her over to this man, reached for him, and saw the torment and anger in his eyes. Kira woke to hear her phone ringing. Her body was covered in cold sweat and her heart beat painfully in her chest. She instinctively tried to go through her calming techniques to ward off the possibility of a seizure, but couldn't clear her mind enough to remember the steps. Vincent. He knows. Knows I dreamed. Does he want me to dream? Or is he afraid my memory will come back? Why have I never questioned that before? Why do I wonder now? With an effort she sat up, and she remembered his interest when she'd told him the man who'd been killed was her father. Why hadn't she dreamed more about that? Was it because her body was so used to sleeping only in short snatches, she hadn't given herself the time to dream more? Would the truth come back to her in dreams? "Kira? Are you ... are you all right?" Vincent's voice filled her apartment from the answering machine. "Do you want me to come over? Hell, why would you? You're not having a seizure—it passed, didn't it? Don't shut me out. I'm sorry it has to be this way. Trust me. Please don't torment yourself. Let me be there so you won't be alone if you remember something." He paused, as though waiting and wanting her to pick up. "You know where I am if you need me," he added softly before he hung up. 107

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Her instincts all told her to trust him, but maybe those instincts had been trained, just as her dog had been, to do Vincent's bidding. Vincent wasn't who she'd always believed him to be, and there was a chance he was the enemy. He wanted to keep her from remembering the hard, cold facts about him. He wanted to be with her when she remembered in case... She couldn't finish the thought. Didn't want to imagine Vincent could want to destroy her. But what did she really know? Until she was able to remember, she had to assume she couldn't trust him. Her only memories seemed to come in dreams. She needed to sleep, long enough to allow the memories to come. But if she did, the seizures might come back. Sleeping pills. When she was fifteen, in an attempt to stop the seizures that had claimed her every night, Vincent had given her sleeping pills. His thinking was logical—if the seizures were caused by emotional trauma, nightmares, then if she slept too hard to dream, she wouldn't seize. What neither of them expected was that she'd slept so hard she'd begun screaming uncontrollably and he hadn't been able to wake her for over five minutes. She hadn't seized though, but Vincent had been too terrified to try it again. Switching on lights as she went, she dove through the apartment until she yanked open her medicine cabinet. The prescription bottle was still there, hidden by cotton swabs and floss. It wasn't until she'd pried open the top of the bottle, ran 108

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water into a cup and started shaking the pills out that she realized Vincent was probably watching her. Her gaze went to the camera no doubt fixed on her now. He would come if she pulled it out of the wall. He would come if he saw her take these pills. Kira put the tranquilizers back in the bottle again, capped it, then slid it into her pocket. Were there cameras in the hall outside her apartment? Yes, she remembered a screen. She could take them in the 'bunker'. There was no camera there. If on some off-chance he hadn't seen her come in here and get the bottle, he wouldn't know she'd taken these in order to sleep. If he realized something was wrong while she was under the influence of the pills, maybe by then she would know whether or not she could trust him. But he would wonder why she was in the bunker. He would see her go in. What other choice did she have, though? Unless she went to the ground floor of the building or out on the street. Took Ruff out, though Piper had taken him not long ago. If she put his collar back on, maybe Vincent would assume she wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary. Just taking the dog for a quick walk. Not trying to escape his prying eyes and ears for one moment. "Ruff, let's go for a walk, boy," she called, trying to sound normal as she emerged from the bathroom. She put on a jacket, then ducked into the kitchen to get a bottle of water and Ruff's leash. The pills would work quickly, Kira realized as she left the building with Ruff, who was excited to be out again. Her stomach felt empty. She would suffer for this, but she had to 109

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do it. She wouldn't sleep again tonight without the help of these pills, which she took as soon as she could shake some out of the bottle. Three wouldn't hurt her any more than two, she figured. She would feel terrible tomorrow, but she had to know the truth. After swallowing the pills, she only risked going around the block, allowing Ruff to do his business, before she went back inside and upstairs. Overly conscious she wasn't completely alone, she started undressing. That was when she heard keys in her locks. Oh dammit, Vincent was here. He knew or guessed. She couldn't hide the anger she felt when he burst in, his face revealing nothing short of utter chaos. He'd run all the way here, she realized. He flew past her. She heard him rip open her medicine cabinet, rummage around, then he came back with a bottle. "Come into the bathroom and drink this," he demanded in a tone she knew meant he wouldn't take no for an answer. He held emetic out to her. "Why?" "If you don't drink it yourself, Kira, I'll make you do it. Don't make me hurt you. Please." She couldn't help remembering how he'd taken down the two addicts who'd tried to rob them on the street. "For God's sake, Vincent, they're just sleeping pills—" she started. "Drink it now!" As he stared at her, she knew she had no choice. He wouldn't allow her to sleep heavily, to dream and possibly find out the truth about him. Angry and resigned, she went back into the bathroom and drank the emetic. 110

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Vincent held her tenderly as her stomach immediately gave back the pills and everything else that wasn't attached. "Is that all?" he asked, seeming surprised by only three bright pills in the toilet after five minutes of intense vomiting. Furiously, she nodded, wanting to lie down. Was it that he didn't want her to dream? Or that he thought she'd been trying to kill herself? After he flushed the toilet, he knelt beside her, flinching when she pushed away from his support. "You're never going to trust me again, are you?" he asked softly. She couldn't speak. Her throat hurt too much. Dragging herself to her feet on her own strength, she rinsed her mouth before collapsing on her bed and closing her eyes to the emotions she didn't have the energy to consider. Tenderly enough to make her scream, he covered her with the sheet. Trapped. Like a hapless fly in a spider's web. How could she ever escape him?

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Chapter 16 Disentangling herself from Vincent—without him knowing it—was as impossible as she'd known it would be from the start. Besides the way he watched her like a hawk at work and no doubt in her apartment and the limo, Kira discovered the next day just how neatly and thoroughly he'd infiltrated her business since she'd asked him to be her assistant. How it'd come about, she couldn't say, but all of her accounts—business and personal—were in both of their names. Each contract stipulated that any withdrawals above $1000 a day were to be reported to Vincent immediately. His connections seemed to be everywhere. She inquired of those in charge of the company jet about whether or not Vincent would be informed of all flights, and they told her he was to be contacted without delay when any plans at all were made. When she tried to book a flight on a regular airline, Vincent came into her office not five minutes later and asked her about it. She promptly canceled it, certain that any means of transportation she tried to secure would alert him. She considered how she might go about getting a fake ID or a passport, but knew that would be outside her means. When she'd asked him casually at lunch how he'd gotten them new identities, he'd told her exactly what she expected him to: "It wasn't easy. You have to know what you're doing." "And you knew?" He'd nodded. "How?" 112

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"Before I left my old man and step-family, I was in trouble a lot. I got pretty good at breaking the law and getting away with it." She'd seen the suspicion lurking in his eyes, even as he'd revealed this, and vowed she wouldn't alert him again. If Vincent knew how to make the two of them disappear the way they had years ago, he would also know how to find someone anywhere they went. She didn't have a chance against him. Her acceptance of that came easier than she wanted it to. A large part of her didn't want to escape him. A part of her couldn't forget all he'd given her—love, security, happiness. She couldn't forget how much she felt for him. She wanted to see him as a monster, someone who'd ruthlessly pillaged her privacy, taken her life from her while he used her for his own secret purposes. But every time she caught him looking at her, she'd have had to be blind not to see that he was silently begging her to forgive him. To trust that everything he did was to protect her. If he didn't love her, he was a damn good actor. The finest. On the most basic level, she missed him. Not merely his presence, because he'd bugged her home and watched and listened to her every second, making her feel like he was there. No, she missed his touch. His arms. His smile. She even missed the trust she was uncertain about giving to him now. Foolish as it was, she wished she'd never found the surveillance system in his apartment. Even after she'd accepted she couldn't escape Vincent, she knew she had to. The fact was, finding the security system 113

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was the best thing that could have happened. What else would have motivated her to question his loyalty to her? She would have continued on with their unusual relationship. Perhaps they would have made love eventually. It was better that she faced he could be her enemy now, while there was still something she could do about it, despite her lingering ache for him. She hadn't been able to sleep after he gave her the emetic last night. Alone in her bed, she'd pieced together some things. Not memories. She knew the man gunned down had been her father, somehow she knew that, yet she had no idea what he might have looked like or what he did for a living. She couldn't be sure of their relationship, but she felt they must have been close. Why were the two of them in that place on that night? She'd come to the conclusion that the trauma of seeing her father gunned down had led to her seizures and her memory loss. She remembered being taken from Vincent, crying, being put in some white room that felt like a basement in hell, with just a bed. Someone had brought her food and milk. She remembered asking for him—she hadn't known Vincent's name then. Realizing that there'd been a time she hadn't known his name stunned her into acknowledging Vincent Carson couldn't be his real name. He would never have taken the chance of using his real name when he got them new identities. She'd slept in that white room. Hours later, lights still blazing in the room, he'd appeared, silent as a ghost, and put his finger to his lips. In a whisper, he'd asked her if she 114

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wanted to be with him, to stay with him, and she'd said with the innocence only a child could manage, 'Forever'. He'd known exactly what he was doing when they disappeared into the night. She could never hope to do the same. Unless... Could she think like Vincent? Kira glanced across the hall from her office to Vincent's. She'd located all the cameras in her office and private bathroom today. He'd even caught her doing it, but hadn't said a word. His office door was open, but she didn't think he was in the room. If Vincent was in her position now, needing to disappear just long enough to discover the truth inside his own head, how would he do it? He would find money, and do it without alerting anyone. All of her accounts were in his name as well as her own. If she withdrew a lot of money, even over a period of weeks, he would probably be notified of it. But his accounts... Kira rose from her desk, went to her door and looked out into the hall. It was empty, as was his office. She crossed the space. Would he see her? Every office had cameras—it was part of the security system. Wasn't it? Quickly, she looked around his office for cameras. She didn't find even one. Vincent's office wasn't bugged, she concluded. Not like hers. She wondered if he had a bunker here somewhere, but she didn't need to know that. 115

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She slipped behind his desk and started going through his drawers with the keys she, as owner of the company, had to it. She found several bank account books, personal and private. With rising hope, she found her name also on all of them. That made sense. If she was in danger, he would set it up so they could retrieve money—not from her accounts, but elsewhere, places where her enemy might not look. After ducking into the hall to make sure he wasn't in sight, she went into his files and searched for his contracts for each account. None of them had a caveat that he had to be alerted if large amounts were withdrawn. With her heart pounding in her chest, she wrote down all of the account numbers, then returned to her office. She wouldn't have much time. As soon as she withdrew the money, she would have to flee. She could buy a used car from an ad in the newspaper, using cash. She didn't need to go far. She just needed to disappear long enough to dream ... dream until hopefully her memory came back. Then she would know whether or not she could trust him. On her lunch break, she bought a new purse. She put the new purse into a locked drawer along with her gun from home, the music that seemed to bring her dreams, and the bottle of sleeping pills. Tomorrow, she would run a legitimate errand that wouldn't raise Vincent's interest in protecting her. She would go to the bank, withdraw as much money as she dared from his accounts, dump her old purse and get the used car. Then she would just go. Unless Vincent was on to her from the first, she'd have several hours before he noticed she hadn't returned from her errand. It wasn't much, but it 116

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might be enough for her to find a place to hide for as long as possible before he found her. By that time, she prayed she'd know whether she could trust him. Or whether she'd have to use the gun.

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Chapter 17 Just the night before, she'd walked into her penthouse and felt she was in some stranger's home. This night, Kira walked inside and felt roots. This place had become her home. For fourteen years, she'd come here and felt comfortable, relaxed. Even after Vincent moved out, this had been theirs, and not simply because he spent more time here than in his own apartment. She associated her home with the two of them and safety. Would she lose this? Would she lose Vincent? He would find her, no question. Wherever she ended up, he would find her, and quickly. But would everything have changed between them then? Would she fear him? Want to escape him? Both were unimaginable concepts. Tomorrow she would go, but as she drifted through her apartment, she wondered if it wouldn't be better to wait. Let Vincent's suspicions that she was considering escape fade. You'll talk yourself out of going if you wait. Maybe that's what you want. Or he'll talk you out of it somehow. As she fed Ruff, she wondered if the dog would be all right. Who would feed him? Walk him? Should she put him in a kennel? No, that would tip Vincent off. She couldn't allow herself to worry. The teenager, Piper, would take care of Ruff as usual. Leaving tomorrow was the only chance she might ever have to discover the truth. She went into her bedroom and slowly pulled off her work clothes, realizing there was no way she could turn that would block out Vincent seeing her through the cameras. What did it 118

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matter anyway? He'd seen everything. There was nothing left to hide. She'd stayed in this bed last night, unable to sleep after he'd forced her to get rid of her only hope of drifting off again. He'd remained in the living room, watching over her. For some reason, he hadn't taken away the bottle of sleeping pills. He seemed to have forgotten about them—was he that distressed? It was hard to imagine Vincent losing his rationale for a single moment. No, she couldn't sleep in this bed again. She couldn't be decisive about what she was planning tomorrow if she came so close to the memories of how good he could be to her— even if there was an inconceivable chance he'd used her all these years. Despite the hunger making her stomach feel hollow, she turned out the lights and lay on the matting in the living room. She would try to sleep. Vincent had always insisted she do that in the past, promising to wake her if the nightmares started. He wouldn't prevent her from sleeping now, would he? She'd only just closed her eyes when she heard one of the multitude of locks on her door retracting, then another. Vincent, she realized instantly, her heart thudding at the realization he wasn't knocking. He was just coming in. Did he think she wouldn't let him in? Sitting up made her head dizzy. I don't want to feel this. I don't want to feel glad he's here. I'll see him again. So why do I feel like I might not, ever? 119

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A thought struck her at the exact moment the last lock slid back. Did Vincent know about her plan to leave tomorrow? There was no way he could. She hadn't booked a flight or bought a ticket. She hadn't withdrawn any money. Every bit of preparation she'd done had been in her mind. Until she set the wheels in motion tomorrow—from the first step to the last—he couldn't know. Unless he was psychic where she was concerned. That wasn't as laughable as she wanted it to be. "Kira?" he called softly, just before the rice paper lamps came on. She blinked, seeing he held bags of food from Perry's restaurant in Little Italy. "What are you doing here?" she demanded, trying and failing to sound cold. "I knew you wouldn't feed yourself." "You thought I was going to drug myself in order to sleep?" He stared at her mutely for an instant, his jaw unyielding. "I couldn't find those pills when I looked for them this morning." Kira turned away. Had he looked for them in her desk at the office? She'd locked the new purse, with her gun and the pills, in the left side drawer of her desk. As far as she knew, she had the only key to it. But then Vincent had probably worked out a way to get the keys to every single locked box in her life. If he'd found the purse and the pills, she'd have to delay her plans for tomorrow. "Did you go on an all-out search for them?" she asked, her voice a little harder now, the way she wanted it to be. 120

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He shook his head. "Why not?" "Because it gives me an excuse to watch you like a hawk," he said honestly. There was no cruelty in his tone. Her chin raised a notch when he set the bags of food on the low table in front of her. "Am I a prisoner? Your prisoner?" His tone was soft with hurt. "Is that how you see this?" Kira looked away at the indication of his pain. Why was he so confusing? Anyone would see the way he'd wrapped her life in his fences—satin though they were—as a prison. So why would it cause him distress to hear the standard viewpoint on the subject? "I'm not hungry," she said tightly. "Perry cooked it especially for you." A tumult of emotions rose in her chest, her throat, and she clenched her teeth against them as she shook her head. She couldn't control her feelings, dammit. She closed her eyes, averting her face through each counter-movement he made coming around the table and then, surprising her, sitting behind her. She should flee, shut him out completely, but she couldn't do anything as his warm, firm body encased her—his chest to her back, his thighs around her thighs, his arms around her waist like a band of ribbon. He held her not loose and not tight. Why did it feel like a lifetime since she'd been near him? Her mind scrambled to figure out when the last time was as if 121

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the knowledge could save her from himself. Already, her nipples hardened against the oversized T-shirt she wore. After an instant, he lowered his head so his lips were against her bare shoulder, where the shirt had slipped down her arm. "What can I do?" he whispered hoarsely, on a sigh, as if he'd missed touching her just as much as she had. "Tell me. How can I satisfy you without compromising your security? What can I do to convince you I love you above all else? I'd never hurt you. I never wanted to. I never meant to. I just ... What else could I do, Kira?" Her gasp for air was a cross between an exhale and inhale that ended on a groan. He held her tighter. Touch me. Kiss me. Make everything worth it somehow. How could she distrust him? Go against him—her own heart? How could she leave him? Was there a chance his security could be compromised by her plans tomorrow? All this time she'd concluded a dangerous enemy was after her. Vincent had gone out of his way to make her believe that. But what if that wasn't the case? What if he was the one running from someone, and she'd gotten in the way by being on the dead end street that night, God only knew the reason? Maybe he'd never intended to have to protect anyone but himself, but once he'd found her he'd had no choice than to keep her safe as well as himself. That would explain the agony she'd seen and felt in him. Guilt. Some kind of guilt for dragging an innocent kid into a dangerous situation he could neither eliminate or escape. 122

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Her own spun scenario caused her to twist her entire body to see his face. "Tell me ... Vincent, tell me what trouble you were in before you left your family." His gaze slid down to her erect nipples, but he didn't acknowledge her arousal. Their eyes met and held while he struggled with his own demons. Then he nodded, giving her this. "I told you my old man blamed me when my mom left. I don't know why. But it turned me, knowing he believed that. Knowing he didn't want me, but couldn't somehow magically wish me out of his life. I didn't care about myself or anybody else. I hated everyone, and all I wanted to do was destroy myself and anybody who got in my way. The drugs I took made all that worse. Harder—that edge inside me, sharper. I took 'em, sold 'em. Stole what I had to for my next fix. I was angry all the time. It was like ... like an armor ... around me. And armor always has one weak area. "You were that weak area for me. You knew exactly how to pierce my armor like no one and nothing else ever had or could. You were so..." His hand cradled her jaw, thumb stroking over her chin. "I know you're not now, but back then you were ... helpless. I knew what it was like to be all alone in the world, with not a single person to care for you. I looked into your eyes and knew in an instant I'd never be the same. You made me care. You made me feel love, made me belong somewhere." Everything inside of Kira urged her to put her arms around him and comfort the horror that still lived within him in the 123

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dark corners of his heart. But if she touched him at this moment, she would give away her plan to leave him. When she held herself stiffly against her own need to heal this man, he eased forward, leaning his forehead against hers. "Forgive me. Understand, Kira. And don't hate me. Please. Stay with me. I know you want me to let you go, but I can't. It's the one thing I can't do." Her confusion dissolved against her inability to turn away from the need to feel his lips on hers again, feel him touching him and making the world splinter all around her from the inside out. She lifted her face to his and kissed his mouth— not like a child would. Not even like a friend would. She kissed him like a lover. But he didn't pull away. Instead, the way she'd only dreamed, he cradled her face in his hands, crushed her against him and groaned when her lips parted beneath his. He kissed her hard and deep, sweeping away any lofty ideas she'd about making it right, even for just a moment. She clung to him as he seemed to grow hungrier for her. Did he feel the way she did? Excited and scared of what was happening and what could happen if they let it. I'm dying. I'm living ... Vincent, only you. I love you. I want to be with you forever. But what does that mean? What's right? What's wrong? If you loved me ... I know you do. I don't know why, but I know it. But you love me and you won't explain the things I need explaining. If I accept this, what I want, what you have to want, too, I'm accepting 124

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that I can't have those answers. Is this worth never knowing? Never understanding who I am, where I belong, why I'm here? For an instant, she withdrew to look into his damp eyes. He closed them tightly and brought her mouth back to his as he dragged her forward. Her thighs opened at his urging for her to straddle him. The feel of his erection, massive and insistent against her pelvis, made her insane with need for him. Her fingers eagerly traced the hard muscles in his back beneath his shirt, the tapered line of his waist. Every texture filled her with ravenous awe, and she quickly unbuttoned the shirt and pushed it back off his shoulders. She drew her mouth over his jaw, licking the rough hair, nibbling the sharp jut of his chin. "I've worshipped you," she whispered. Like a wolf going into the first bite, she assaulted his nipples with her lips and her tongue and her teeth. They rose, hard and tight, against her tongue, and he groaned, his hands on her throat as she blew gently on the diamond points. Then she traced the full width of her tongue over them. His eyes were drugged, she noticed in supreme satisfaction, as her fingers traced the hard ripples in his stomach. Vincent. Tender and giving, at once everything and everyone she needed in her life. You would die for me. 125

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The thought floated like nectar through her mind when he dragged her mouth back up to his, his hands brushing her sides. His thumbs were so close to her nipples, she stopped breathing. He could have asked or demanded from her her promise to stay with him at that moment, but he didn't and somehow that made her love him more. He's desperate and scared, and he feels me pulling away from him the way he'd feel a thousand knives to the heart. This couldn't be just an act. Whatever had happened to her and her father, whatever Vincent's role in it or his reason for being there that night, he did love her. He couldn't hurt her because his selfless love would restrain his hand. Even if she couldn't allow herself to trust him implicitly anymore, she couldn't doubt his sincerity. His groan was both harsh and unbearably sweet when he crossed his arms over her back, crushing her to him. "You're everything to me, Kira. The air. The sky. The ground." He eased back, his face less than an inch from hers. Through tears in his eyes, he added, "Flowers. Laughter. Peace." Wrong or right, Vincent was everything to her the way she was everything to him. Tomorrow she would go. Tomorrow she could discover if she'd been betrayed by him—or if she'd betrayed him.

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Chapter 18 Vincent let his eyes drift shut. Kira wasn't asleep in his arms. She simply lay with him peacefully. He had a hunch she didn't understand what he was doing anymore than she seemed to understand her own actions lately. He couldn't deny how badly he wanted to demand she tell him she loved him, promise him she'd stay with him forever. He'd spent the past decade and a half in single-minded devotion to Kira. Realizing he was attracted to her when she was twenty had jolted him out of his senses. He'd fought his attraction and buried it because he had to keep his mind on track in protecting her. He'd buried it successfully until he'd recognized Kira's sexual desire for him. He'd watched her from her apartment with the numerous, one-time dates—ones he'd checked out thoroughly beforehand—she brought home with her with the intention of using, but always sending them away unsatisfied before the deed was done. He'd realized what she was feeling as he administered long massages to help her relax and sleep after she'd turned twenty. Her body had all the signs of arousal. Years of locking away his own physical needs had slowed his discernment but not dissolved it. He'd suggested other masseuses to alleviate them both, but she always came back to him and he'd been forced to acknowledge his own satisfaction in that. He wanted to be the only one who could soothe her and fulfill her every desire. He wanted to complete her. 127

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Disciplined as he was, the clinical observation he'd wanted to feel toward the growing situation couldn't account for the fact that he wanted the same things for himself. He wanted her. Her trip to Rome had presented him with relief and conflict. Her return did the same, tenfold. He still wanted her, and his need to justify it, to find a way to make it right, had come to him easily. In order to give her everything she wanted and needed, the end always justified the means. He'd had to plan for the possibility that Kira might ask him to make love with her. Ultimately, he'd accepted that he wanted to be with her in any and all ways. Being together was right for them. They had no reason to be ashamed. As long as they were together, nothing else mattered. But he knew she wasn't thinking about being with him sexually anymore. She wasn't focusing on the love they could and should share. She was planning to leave him, somehow. And he couldn't sleep for fear that she'd get away from him. She raised her head, and his eyes jerked open. He calmed when he discerned what looked like guilt in her eyes. What was she thinking? Why couldn't he read her mind, dammit? Vincent arms tightened around her. "What is it, love?" The peace they'd had for these minutes was no longer so firm, and he felt the shadow of its departure like an icy blast that settled between them yet couldn't separate them. He almost felt her holding her breath as she watched him wordlessly, waiting for something to happen. He couldn't take 128

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the realization that she might have plans right now to escape him. Sitting up, he dragged the bags of food over to them. As Vincent fed her and himself, he saw and sensed the change in her mood again. These—the emotions, the attraction between them—were what held her here for the moment. If he had to convince her to stay with him using her feelings for him as the anchor, what other choice was there? He couldn't let her go. Better to sever a limb than allow that. After he fed her a bite, she took his fingers in her mouth and his immediate arousal as her tongue licked and sucked at his fingertips made him aware of the dangerous game he was playing. His gaze lowered to her breasts when her oversized shirt fell off her shoulder again and her nipple was exposed to the air and his ravenous stare. He was hungry, hell yes, and she made no move to cover herself. He'd never taken from her without an express invitation before, but this time he dragged her forward and kissed her the way he wanted to. His control was slipping too quickly. His let his mouth fell away, muttering thickly, "You are so exquisite. So beautiful." He traced the fine blue veins on the surface of her chest, following them down to her exposed nipple. Kira arched her back when his head lowered to the hardened tip. Gasping, moaning, her hands clutched his hair to keep him against her, she urged his lips to brush the sensitive nub with a butterfly kiss. He ran the seam of his closed mouth against her, and her nipple hardened even more, elongating eagerly. Continuing to stroke the fullness of 129

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her breast, he opened his lips against her and took her inside his mouth. "Vincent, oh Vincent," she cried. He licked, he sucked, just as she had on his fingers and his nipples earlier. The memory made his erection more painful. He closed both hands over her full breasts, stroking her clothcovered nipple with his fingers while his mouth worked against the other. Recognizing the orgasm pulling at her forcefully—he knew her body so well by now—he encouraged it. Hell, he needed to be inside her. She seemed to realize it, too, when her hips straddled his desperately. She rubbed herself against him, losing herself completely when his hands focused her motion. Slipping his hands beneath her panties, he cradled her bare bottom, fingers stroking while he pressed the center of her pleasure to his arousal. Without touching her core, without entering her the way he wanted to more than he wanted his next dozen breaths, he brought her to a climax that made her sob and made him hate himself. She was trembling violently in his arms. Laying her back on the floor, he kissed her tenderly. Stay with me, he wanted to beg as he looked down at her and saw the sparkle of tears in her eyes. Never leave me. Never make me have to chase you and hold you a prisoner against your will. Emptiness with fullness. To end and to begin. Circle of life.

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Chapter 19 "I have that meeting at Il Morello with the Parsons' student." Kira spoke the words casually, as casually as her agonizingly wild beating heart would allow. She glanced up from her daily planner to her secretary. Vincent sat in a chair in her office listening, no doubt having memorized her schedule for the day long ago. He wouldn't wonder about this; he knew she liked to control every aspect of the business, right down to handpicking designers to join the Kira Gunn team. "That'll take about an hour or so. I might do some 'competitor shopping' after. Back here by four or five for the conference call with the Los Angeles branch at five-thirty. Oh, Megan's supposed to have some preliminary flats for me this afternoon. Just leave them on my desk." "Do you need me to go with you?" Vincent asked. Kira dismissed her secretary after telling her to call down to have the limousine brought to the front. She didn't look at Vincent when she murmured, "No." "You don't have to work fourteen-hour days. You could even put Megan in charge so you don't have to work at all." His voice was soft, and she couldn't help wondering if he wanted her to take off time in order to spend all her time with him. Explore each other deeper than a few kisses, a onesided orgasm and a lack of total fulfillment on both of their parts that had kept her awake long after she reluctantly asked him to leave. She'd asked herself at least a million 131

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times why she hadn't begged him to make love to her the way she had no doubt he'd wanted her to last night. Surprised by his suggestion, she said lightly, "I need to work. What would I do with all the hours of the day?" As he rose, first closing the door then coming toward her and putting himself between her and her desk, she stopped breathing as she watched the lion-like sensuality of his body rippling under the clothes he wore. Could she resist him? Could she keep her secrets? Betray him and kiss him at the same time? The brush of his hand against her cheek overwhelmed her. She closed hers eyes against the guilt and arousal. She had no choices here. He'd given her none. She had to remember that. "If nothing else, we could take a vacation." "I just got back from a vacation," she reminded him hoarsely. "That wasn't a vacation. You worked constantly. Let's go somewhere. Without bringing work. Just you and me—" She came like a slave when he drew her up to him. His mouth was only inches from hers as he looked at her. God, he was aroused, she realized. They hadn't even kissed yet, and his erection was massive against her pelvis. He could have taken her so easily last night. Why hadn't he? She'd never wanted anything more than him then ... now. But how could she ... ? Kiss me. I'll give you everything, Vincent. If the buzz from her phone hadn't sounded insistently, his mouth would have covered hers again, both driven and 132

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helpless with need. She ached for it, even as she told herself again it couldn't happen, the way it hadn't last night. "That's my limo." He nodded, his jaw tight. "I can clear your schedule from six-thirty on tonight." Teeth clenched at wondering if they would make love tonight—no wonder; they would—if she didn't leave, she agreed. She moved away, picking up the briefcase and purse she'd packed that morning. They were much heavier than usual today, like her heart was as Vincent walked her downstairs and out to her limo. "I'll see you later," she managed hoarsely, and he nodded, tracing his thumb longingly over her mouth instead of taking the kiss they both wanted fiercely. Kiss me until I shatter in a million pieces and I can give up what I know I have to do. Her driver took her to her 'meeting', which she'd secretly re-scheduled with the student that morning for another time. She ducked out a back entrance of the restaurant and walked the few blocks to her bank. Trying to act like it wasn't unusual for her to visit the bank to make a withdrawal instead of doing it over the phone or having Vincent or her secretary do it for her, she stood in line until she was able to push a paper with Vincent's account numbers with her identification to the teller. "Please withdraw $1500 from each of these accounts." The teller frowned. "Cash?" 133

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Kira glared. "Yes. And hurry. I have an appointment in twenty minutes." In less than five minutes, the clerk returned, apologizing profusely, calling her 'Miss Gunn' with kowtowing respect. The stack of bills disappeared into her purse along with her identification. She followed the signs to the restroom, where she ducked into a stall, placed some of the money in her new purse and changed into the jeans and T-shirt from her briefcase. Then she pulled on the fashionable leather jacket she'd worn previously over a blouse and skirt. A baseball cap and sunglasses followed. She stuffed the rest of the money, the gun, sleeping pills and CD into the various pockets of the jacket. As soon as she was sure the restroom was empty, she opened the stall door and stepped quickly to the trash. She stuffed her briefcase, her old purse and discarded clothes as far beneath the waste as she could get them. She walked out of the bank as calmly as she could and hailed a cab. Surprising her because she had little experience doing so on her own, she got one almost immediately. She gave the address where she was to pick up the used car she'd read about in a newspaper ad and called about the previous night, after Vincent had left her apartment. A half an hour later and a few hundred dollars lighter, she'd bought a car that wasn't pretty, but would get her where she needed to go. Surprising her again, traffic wasn't as bad as she expected and, though she rarely drove, she made record time leaving the city. 134

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Since the car had a full tank of gas, she kept going as long as she dared before she found a hotel, paid in cash and left a fake name at the desk. Her nose wrinkled instinctively upon entering the room, but she barely looked at the furnishings after she locked the door, with the 'Do Not Disturb' sign hung out, and went to sit on the bed. It was almost six o'clock. Vincent had to know by now. Maybe at first he'd believe she was merely late. Her cell phone would go off frantically in the bank restroom. Was there a way he could trace the bug in her purse or briefcase to there? As soon as he found those, he'd know what she'd done. For an instant, Kira imagined herself racing around this afternoon, cloak and dagger, and she started laughing. Then she imagined Vincent, frantic at the knowledge that she'd run from him—after last night's kisses, the unselfish way he'd brought her pleasure beyond her most intense fantasies of him. Just as wild as her laughter, her pain came. She didn't have time to think about regrets. Taking the bottle of pills from her pocket, she forced herself to breathe deeply and concentrate on what she'd escaped to do. After swallowing two of the pills on a ragingly empty stomach, she pushed a chair under the doorknob for added security. Once she'd pulled off her jacket, she took her gun from her pocket. She checked the clip, then put it beside her on the bed. There was a chance Vincent might find her before she awoke. She had to sleep. She had to dream. Clearing her mind to allow that wasn't easy, but the pills worked quickly, 135

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considering her lack of sleep the night before. Memories of Vincent kissing her, wanting her, his eyes staring into hers, his sweet, confusing words this morning, filled her dreams. She woke in utter darkness and heartbreak. She hadn't dreamed about the dead end street or the gunshots. Exhaustion claimed her again, and, when she woke, it was day. No memories came of the hours she'd spent sleeping. Had she dreamed? She hadn't had a seizure—for that she had to be grateful. It was after ten in the morning. Vincent hadn't found her. But she had to move. She had to blur the trail in case he got close. Her head filled with cotton, she re-packed and left the room. She asked one of the maids if she knew of any fast food restaurants nearby, then headed in the direction she'd been pointed. Kira picked up something to eat, then drove off. Two hours later, she stopped, gulping sleeping pills as soon as she got into another dank hotel room, where she locked the door, jammed a chair under the knob and put her gun next to her in the bed. In moments, she was asleep. When she awoke again in the middle of the night, she realized she'd dreamed about the dead end street, the gunshots, Vincent's appearance—but it was the same as it'd always been. Instead of going back to sleep—her head felt too clear and she didn't want to take more pills—she got up and drove. She stopped an hour later, filled the car with gas and loaded up on food from the gas station. Then she drove for another three hours. The names of the towns meant nothing to her, but she 136

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knew she was far from her Fifth Avenue penthouse. Vincent hadn't found her. She needed to sleep, as much as she possibly could, and the best way to do that was to stay somewhere—somewhere she could hide the car and hole up for as long as possible. She found what she was looking for in a small town that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. There were cabins for rent by the lake, each with a car port. Her financial state was good enough that she paid for a week in advance. Then she went to a small town version of a department store, where she bought some food and water, and an inexpensive, portable CD player. When she got back to the cabin, she realized how tired she was. The lingering effects of the sleeping pills, emotional turmoil, and the fatigue of driving for hours without stopping to stretch made her believe she could sleep without taking more pills. She locked up the cabin, then set up the CD player. Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Scheherazade, Suite symphonique' began as she drew her gun from her pocket, checked it and then lay back with it on her chest. Somehow she'd outsmarted Vincent. She'd gotten away with escaping him for days. Unbelievable. He would be furious when he found her. She couldn't help believing she'd be relieved to see him even if she found out he was her enemy.

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Chapter 20 The gunshots woke her, and for an instant Kira thought they were real. She sat up with her gun held tightly in her hand, pointing it at nothing but shadows. The dreams had come again—with a little coaxing—but they were the same. Nothing new, nothing to help her understand where she'd come from, who or what Vincent Carson was. Kira dropped the gun on the bedspread, putting her hand over her eyes. She was covered in sweat. The little cabin had a few useless fans, but no air conditioning. The bed smelled like perspiration; the sheets were damp with it. She was so hungry her stomach hurt. She thought about going out to get something more substantial than Twinkies, cheese and crackers, even showered in anticipation, but then she accepted Vincent would find her soon. The little time she had left had to be spent sleeping. Feeling little hope in that prospect, she went to the kitchen completely naked after her shower and hand-washing her only clothes. She gulped down cheese and crackers with bottled water, trying to visualize it as Perry's filet mignon and a nice glass of burgundy. She followed the unsatisfying meal with two packs of Twinkies, which somehow made her hungrier than she'd been before she ate. With something in her stomach, the pills she swallowed would require more time to work. After pulling the smelly sheets off the bed, she searched the cupboards and found fresh linen. Lying down didn't appeal to her at all, not after days of it. She went to each window 138

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and peered out, wondering how her dog was, if the business was falling into ruin without her and Vincent there. Where was he now? If anyone knew how to locate another person, even someone who'd seemingly disappeared without a trace, he did. Even if she felt like she'd done well to thwart his efforts, she felt sure she'd left a trail for him regardless. Following her couldn't be that hard for him. Yet it'd been four days. How had he learned to track? To handle every type of gun and never miss his mark when he shot? How had he learned how to disappear without a trace? It wasn't something you could teach yourself out of books. Vincent had known exactly what he was doing when he took her out of that white room and they blended like shadows into the night and the wide world. He'd had identification for both of them—fake, but seemingly as authentic as the real thing. He'd had enough money for them to live without work for years. No one had questioned them. No one had ever questioned them. Fifteen years later, and the events of that night had remained in the past. He'd kept them safe. Even when she'd started her business and became internationally famous, no one had come for them. Despite the radical change in their appearances, he kept out of the public eye as much as possible. While people knew about them, there'd never been a picture printed of either of them. Vincent understood that she preferred anonymous success, and she'd always thought it was his reason for keeping them out of the public eye. In the eyes of the media, she was the faceless head of a successful corporate who never attended 139

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her own shows—allowing instead her designers to get the glory—and who never gave an interview. She'd never questioned any of it before. Vincent could do everything and anything. A sixteen-year-old boy had known how to do all that. How? Who taught him, especially since he claimed he'd been on his own, a drug addict and criminal, before he met her? Did it mean anything that Vincent seemed to be able to do everything well? Much the way she did, whatever he set his mind to do, he did. That wasn't the mark of a high-school dropout, unloved by his family, angry at the world and taking his pain out on himself and all those around him. Her thoughts made her feel tired again, but even as she got back into bed, her hand resting on the gun next to her, she couldn't stop considering the many faces of Vincent Carson. He'd kissed her, touched her, as if she meant everything to him. As if he'd been aching for her the same way she had for him since she was eighteen. Never before had he given any clue he responded to her as a sexual female. He'd never made a questionable move on her. Could their intimacy have been just part of an act to get her to stay in line? No one was that good of an actor. But Vincent ... Vincent did everything well. Why couldn't he kiss a woman he cared nothing for and make her believe she was all he wanted and cared about in the world? Imagining the calculation something like that would require of a person made her stomach feel queasy. He'd made her love him, even as she feared trusting him completely. 140

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What if he was a criminal? What if he'd kept her with him all these years for collateral or leverage? What if he'd been the one who killed her father? What if the people after them were cops—or FBI or some other law enforcement agency? If they found Vincent, he could use her to get away again, since they probably wouldn't allow an innocent bystander to be killed in order to catch a criminal. From the beginning, he'd made her trust him. He'd made her loyal to him. After a while, he'd even given her freedom so she'd have no clue she really was his prisoner. It would explain why he didn't want her to regain her memory, why he'd asked her to stay with him to be safe, why he'd told her next to nothing about himself. Conveniently, nothing he'd revealed could be proved or disproved. The scenario she painted in her mind covered everything, explained it all. Vincent didn't love her. The tenderness he'd shown her for the only lifetime she could remember had all been an act. His anonymity and safety were paramount in his mind. He wouldn't let her go. He would hunt her down anywhere she went. And then what? Would he kill her? Threaten her? Would he force her to flee with him and hold her prisoner? The fear wrapped in questions was buffeted only by the fatigue stealing through her mind, finally claiming her and pulling her back into the dreams mingling with memories of the night before she'd left. She woke to utter blackness and silence. The music wasn't on. She'd set it to play over and over. Groping, she found only empty bed sheets next to her. Her gun was gone. 141

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Chapter 21 She was awake. Not hopelessly drugged after all. From the chair he sat in across from the bed, Vincent heard her breath catch in the darkness as she groped for something missing. He spoke—softly, hoarsely. "I took it. I flushed the sleeping pills down the goddamn toilet. I didn't go through all of this just to have you kill yourself. Or to take chances on your own." His chest was as tight as a heart attack. God, he wanted to see her. See her eyes. See if every awful thing he'd imagined for the past few hours was true. Because he'd believed she might never wake from the coma she'd put herself into with those damn pills. "Why did you do it?" he demanded in a strangled tone that was all that kept the flood of fear and fury behind the dam. The shape of her in the darkness as she rose in the bed made him tense. Very slowly, she reached for the lamp, seeming to realize as well as he did that they would both be blinded until their eyes adjusted, and neither would be able to react as quickly as they needed to. Being closest to the lamp, she blinked against the light, but he was still in shadows on his side of the room. When her eyes adjusted, she saw her gun and the small plastic card lying in his lap. Her eyes narrowed in confusion. "Why, dammit?" he muttered what he knew had to be her own thought. He hadn't slept in days. He still wore the clothes he'd had on the day she left. He'd been in this room for hours, moving 142

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around her to take her gun out of her hand, flush the pills, turn off the CD, while he waited frantically for her to wake. "I can't accept your half-revelations anymore. I can't accept the secrets you keep. I need answers to my questions, and since you won't give them to me—" "You thought killing yourself would bring them?" He choked on his words. The past few hours were still too close for him to forget. Kira withdrew once more in confusion. She didn't seem to know what to believe about him. He could only guess she feared him now, maybe more than she'd cared for him. "I wasn't trying to kill myself. I thought if I slept, dreamed, the answers might come to me. I knew I couldn't use the pills to sleep after you made me throw them up last time. This was the only way. I knew you'd find me." His brain felt gritty from stress and lack of sleep. He couldn't comprehend her words fully. "You did this ... You made me think you were leaving me ... just for answers?" "Yes." He straightened in the chair, leaning forward to snarl out his words. "There are no answers! Why couldn't you believe me? The only way to get the answers, to even look for them, is to expose you, and there's no goddamn way I would ever do that." "Because it would expose you?" she asked softly. "Yes." 143

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She hesitated only for a moment. "Are you...?" Her face hardened, clearly on the thought that he was her enemy. "Are you going to kill me, Vincent?" The betrayal he felt at her question burned like a vigil fire in his heart. She and her words hurt him more than anyone or anything else ever could. "No, Kira. I'm going to give you what you think you want so badly." With that, he threw the card and her gun, the clip half out, to the floor between them.

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Chapter 22 Kira stared at him for a suspended minute, half-expecting him to regret giving her a weapon against him, but he made no move at all when she slid nude, off the end of the bed to the floor, and grabbed the gun. A simple action released the clip entirely, revealing that it was fully loaded. Without taking her eyes off him, she groped around with her free hand until she had the other object he'd offered her. By touch alone, she found that it was a hard piece of plastic, like a driver's license. "What's this?" she asked, still not looking away from him even an instant. She remembered with more clarity than she wanted how quickly he'd disarmed and disabled the two thieves near her apartment. Since there was no way she could outsmart or out-maneuver him, her only chance was to stay with him every step of the way. "Are you sure you want to know, Kira? Once you know, there's no turning back. I won't be able to protect either of us anymore. Be sure you make your decision with that in mind." "I'm not certain I'm any safer not knowing anything. I can't fight an enemy blindly ... or are you my enemy?" He didn't try to disguise the cut her words caused him this time either, yet he said unequivocally, "If I'm your enemy, then you really don't have a prayer in the world." More mystery. More coded messages she couldn't decipher. In frustration, she shouted, "Tell me, dammit! I have to know. Tell me everything. Neither of us will leave here until I know." 145

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"I'll tell you everything I know." Kira shook her head. "No. Don't you dare do that again. You've said that before, and I know there's more." "I've told you everything I know about you—that's what you've asked for. I've told you everything personal I can about myself. Everything I could, without endangering you further." Because she had to risk it, she glanced down at the card, verified that Vincent had stayed in the chair, then looked down again. A standard identification card. The man on it was Vincent ... but not Vincent. He had shoulder-length blond hair in the photo, and in a plummeting rush, Kira remembered he'd had blond hair when their gazes met on that dead-end street. When he'd come for her in the white room, he'd had close-cropped black hair. She hadn't recognized him until she'd looked into his eyes. The name on the card was Kyle Vincent. When Kira looked at him again, she felt as though she'd never seen him before in her life. "Who are you?" An expression of pain, acceptance, firm resolve claimed his expression again. "I'm a stupid kid who was angry at his old man and the world. Screwing up and striking out anywhere he could land a blow. I'm someone who had no idea where he belonged until I was asked if I wanted to do something with my life; if I wanted to die in order to really live. I'm someone who agreed to die to leave everyone and everything he knew in order to be resurrected as a new person." 146

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He wasn't making any sense. Kira shook her head at him, raising the gun in warning that she didn't want any more riddles. "I was twelve years old, on the streets on my own. Hadn't been home for over six months and nobody'd bothered looking for me. Snorting drugs, selling drugs, stealing for my next fix. I had no respect for anyone, least of all myself. And then one day, a man I'd never met before bailed me out of the hole. He told me I'd end up back there before long, and I said I didn't care. He asked me if I wanted to do something with my life. If I wanted to die to live again. "He walked away from me, but two weeks later I was back, right where he said I'd be, and he came to me again and asked me for an answer. I didn't know who he was or what he could do to me. For me. I just answered the questions. I said 'Yes' to everything. "There was an accident. Jason Anderson was killed out on the streets he'd helped to menace. There was a funeral. I was dead to the world. To the family who didn't want me. To the so-called friends I hung with. I became Kyle Vincent. For two years, where every day was exactly the same—I got up at four a.m. and trained until midnight, I had no thoughts about where I was and what I was doing there. All I knew was that I was a recruit, and I had the drive to be the best. Nothing else mattered to me." "Why?" Kira whispered, unaware she'd spoken out loud until he continued. "Angelo. My mentor. The only real father I'd ever known. The only person who'd ever cared about me. Made me feel 147

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like I belonged somewhere. There was nothing I wouldn't have done for him. So I worked. I learned. I became the best. I knew how to fight. How to kill. How to disappear without a trace and to find anyone, anywhere. I mastered every piece of technology in existence and those the real world had no concept existed. I was trained in how to improvise in any situation, to fill any role I might be required to fill. I was tested for my psychological stability. Recruits have to become experts in every area—combat, survival, weapons, strategy, languages, animal training, technology, aviation, mechanics, manners and etiquette ... the art of seduction." She stopped breathing at his softly spoken words. "The hardest part of the training was torture. We were taught to endure pain, cold, heat, hunger, sleep deprival. You name it. Over half of my class didn't make it past even the simulation." "You...? How could they..." Vincent shook his head at her. "You don't want to know about that, Kira. I don't want to remember it either, but I got through it and I could survive if the sim became reality. I graduated top of my class. I moved up until, for the first time in so many years, I was allowed to leave. I was given a driver's license, identification, credit cards, an apartment and a cover job. I went out on my first field work, assignments, and I..." He turned away as he said, "I was good at what I did. Too good. I enjoyed it the way some people enjoy sports or sex. I got a natural high every time I stepped out of the airlock, into the transport. I felt like I was invincible." 148

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His eyes had narrowed when he faced her again. "I was a robot. A machine, programmed to succeed. I did what I was told, I advanced and nothing was ever enough." "Who did you work for?" "It doesn't have a name. It can't have a name because we work incognito. But operatives and recruits call it 'the Network'. The most covert organization in the world. Branches all over the globe. Invisible—the way the FBI, CIA, DEA and other law enforcement agencies can never be. Those agencies are subject to the opinion of the American people they serve. The world doesn't watch over the Network. They don't monitor and control our every move. The Network can do more than just deal with terrorists and criminals. We can disable them. We can destroy them. And the world couldn't survive the way it does without us." Kira stared at him. This can't be real! Vincent seemed to read her mind, "Everything in our world trains you to believe in justice that isn't really justice. You don't want to believe criminals get away with their crimes every day. You want to believe terrorists are human beings, just like us, and they have families and loved ones. You believe evil doesn't have a face, and justice is never swift. You believe in deliberation and fair trials. "Criminals almost never act out of righteous indignation, Kira. They terrorize and kill because they can. Not for some cause or higher mission. Money can take a fair trial and put the power in the hands of the criminals. How many judges and police officers and politicians are corrupt? More than 149

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you'll ever allow yourself to believe. True justice has to take over where regular law enforcement leaves off. That's why the Network was created and why it functions successfully." "You still believe in it. In 'The Network'," Kira realized. "I believe in its mission. Uphold justice for all, at any price. If you don't want the world overrun with evil, there have to be absolutes. An eye for an eye." "Were you brainwashed?" His expression didn't falter. "No, but that's not something an outsider can understand. The bottom line is that no one leaves the Network. You're re-born there, you die there. It's not a country club and nobody has a mid-life crisis. Focus on the mission—there is nothing else." "I thought they let you go free after your training?" "I was free ... but there is no life outside the Network. Relationships. Friendships. Marriages. Monogamy." Vincent shook his head grimly. "We're married to the Network. It's our first responsibility, our strongest commitment. The only family we have are other operatives." Kira swallowed, resisting that any of this could be reality. "How ... how could something like this exist without anyone knowing?" "It's sanctioned by the American government, but only the highest officials know about it." "The President?" He nodded. "And a select committee in the White House, called 'Oversight'. It was all set up a long time ago. But if anything ever happened to expose us, our government would deny any knowledge of us—collectively and individually. We 150

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would cease to exist. We're funded by a major technology corporation with branches all over the world designing innovative equipment both for public use—computers, cell and satellite phones, software and the like—and things that only the Network has access to. The corporation functions exactly like a real business, but all the employees work for the Network." Kira glanced at the ID card again. "So what happened?" she asked, not sure if she wanted to know but certain she had to. "I was a Level 4 operative, succeeding on every mission. I moved up through the ranks quickly. Seven, six, five. Four is one of the hardest to achieve. It was all I lived for. One night, I was pumped for action, but nothing was happening. I saw Angelo leave the compound, and I followed him, hoping to get in on something, even though I hadn't been in on the profile. I figured I knew the drill enough by now. Something was different this time though. Angelo was alone, and he was careful, but I convinced myself he didn't realize I was trailing him until we almost got to the dead end street. I was so damn proud of that." His eyes filled with anguish, even as he smiled like he hated himself. Kira lowered the gun because she could see he wasn't thinking about anything except the night that changed both of their lives forever. "Angelo was furious with me. Maybe any other time, he would have told me he was proud of me, too, for almost besting him for once. But he told me to sweep the area and stay in the shadows. I was cocky as hell. I had dreams of 151

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grandeur about this night. I'd trailed Angelo, one of the—if not the—best operatives in the Network, without him catching me immediately. What else could I do this night that would earn me another gold star? I figured the place was crawling with operatives anyway—why sweep when I knew they were there? I saw Andy Sheppard at the end of the street with Angelo. I'd worked missions with Andy in the past and I thought this wouldn't be any different. Angelo and Andy talked in low whispers, and I was ready for anything because this wasn't like the missions I'd been on before. Somehow that made it more exciting to me. "I didn't expect what happened next. One minute Angelo and Andy were talking, arguing—it looked like; the next, the place was blazing with gunfire. Andy went down in a blood bath. And that's when I found you. "Here I was, thinking I'd be awarded some goddamn medal for my heroic deeds, and I didn't even know there was a kid not twenty-five feet from me, hidden in the bushes. When I got to you, you were covered with blood, telling me you couldn't breathe. That's how close you were to Andy when it happened. It's a miracle you weren't killed yourself. You passed out, and when you came to, you started to seize. I don't know if that was the first time it'd happened to you, but I didn't know what to do. So I held you. I stroked you. I tried to calm you with my voice. It worked." Just as it has every time since... "The man ... the one who took me?" Kira demanded. "Angelo. He found us and we got away. Back to headquarters ... the compound." 152

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"They put me in a white room?" Vincent nodded. "They wanted to cover it up. Nobody knew who you were. They wanted to erase your memories, then drop you on the doorstep of an orphanage, like some stray, in order to 'maintain structural integrity'. You saw a man gunned down, you were drowning in his blood, and they wanted to pretend you weren't affected by the whole thing. You had a seizure, for Pete's sake! They didn't want to worry about the damage it'd caused you. "I couldn't do that to you. But I knew if I did something, I had to do it immediately, before they could make a plan. I made my own plans. I withdrew as much money as I could from my credit cards. I stole black money, taken from criminals, from within the compound, so we had a huge amount of money to live on for years. I changed my appearance. Then I went in and took you out. I set up new identities for us, valid birth certificates—untraceable, and we moved around constantly for the first year. "We disappeared in the sight of the world, from the allseeing vision of the Network. I never expected you to become famous years later, but when they didn't come for us even then I knew I'd truly erased the existence of that little girl and a Network operative. I'd done what no other operative had ever done, maybe even wanted to do. I'd escaped and was re-born a third time. But that doesn't make us any safer. If they find us ... if they find out you know about them ... they'll kill you, Kira. They'll kill me for breaking the code by exposing them." 153

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That was what he'd meant when he said no turning back, she realized now. Being unable to protect either of them once he told her the truth. "Was Andy Sheppard my father? How could he be if operatives aren't allowed to marry or have relationships?" Vincent shook his head. "I don't know. I don't know any of that, Kira, and I didn't have a chance to find out anything before I got us away from there. I can't go back, not without endangering you. And it's not possible to look for anything except from the inside. Even there—it's a death sentence even attempting it." Feeling defeated, Kira glanced down. "I had a doll. A G.I. Joe action doll. He had black hair. The real fuzzy stuff. A scar on his cheek. I had him in the white room. I must have left him there," she was amazed at the unbidden memory. Joe was tough, a fighter, the way she'd always wanted to be. Like her parents. Vincent said nothing. "What is this for?" she asked, letting the gun fall into her palm and holding it out to him. He made no move to take it, simply gazed into her eyes. "For you. You owe me one. If Andy Sheppard was your father, I let him die. I didn't sweep the area before to make sure it was clear. I took him away from you. Nothing I've done or ever could do can make up for that. You can make it look like a suicide or ask me to do it myself. I'll do anything you want." He was inviting her to kill him in order to console herself. Avenge her father for the life he believed he stole from her. Slowly, she closed her fingers around the butt of the gun again, lifted it and aimed it at his heart. 154

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Vincent didn't even flinch.

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Chapter 23 "How can I find out who my parents were?" she demanded of him. Vincent shook his head. "You can't. There's no way. Even if I trained you, it would take years before you were good enough to go in by yourself. I wouldn't let you risk it because it would take more than that. You need an understanding about what the Network's like and you just don't have that without having experienced it firsthand. And you know damn well you've refused to learn how to hack with a computer. All their ports are closed; they're behind impenetrable firewalls. You can't find it with a ping, probe, scanner or trace-route. It denies all UDP and e-mail. You can't send a program, like a Trojan, to give you a back door. Only an uberhacker could get into the Network's system and snoop around without getting caught immediately. No one has ever gained root who wasn't authorized to." "You can do it. You can do anything." He didn't even smile at her confidence in him. "Thanks for the vote. Believe me, I've tried. I've tried it from the inside, and it was impossible even there. Their intrusion detection programs trace an encroacher in a matter of minutes. It's a seriously locked-down box. You have no idea what you're dealing with, Kira. I do, and I'm telling you it can't be done." He glanced down, a blush creeping into his face. "And you've already proved to me that I'm sorely out of practice." "What do you mean?" 156

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Still angry with himself, Vincent shook his head in selfdisgust. "I mean, you got away from me. It took me four days to find you—you, someone who hasn't had a goddamn bit of training in how to disappear." He saw the surge of satisfaction in her expression at his words. She lowered the gun again. "How did you find me?" "It should have been easy," he said on a snort. "Your driver called me. You didn't come out from the meeting at the time you were supposed to. I told him to go in to the restaurant. He was told you'd canceled and re-scheduled the meeting that morning, and that they hadn't seen you. I tracked you to the bank immediately, but all your driver found of you was your briefcase, purse and clothes in the trash. I knew you had to be in the city, but I thought for sure you'd head for the airlines since you'd want to get far away as fast as possible. I wasted time checking there, the trains, the buses. I figured you'd go out of your way to avoid a car. It'd be the first place I'd normally look. You have a driver's license, but you only got it to maintain your independence from me, didn't you? You're not supposed to drive because of your seizures. You had a five-hour head-start before I found the guy who sold you a used car. You didn't do anything I expected you to do. I figured, even if you had chosen a car to make your escape, you'd still head for the nearest airline after you tried to make those reservations on Tuesday, then you'd ditch the car somewhere along the way. So I wasted more time." 157

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"I wasn't thinking like myself. I was trying to think like you." He nodded, impressed despite himself. She had been listening all those years he'd tried to train her to protect herself. "I know. I finally figured that out." "And then it was simple?" "No." The anguish of the past four days closed over him again, making him rub his temples to ease the swamp of tension rising there once more. "Because I thought you were either trying to get away from me for good ... or you were going to kill yourself. I knew you were planning one of those before you ever left, but I never figured you'd use my accounts. With all the criminals I've brought down, I've always been able to get into their heads. Understand their next move before they could make it. But you..." He shook his head. He couldn't control the fear that felt too close to allow him to relax. Leaning forward suddenly, he put his head in his hands. His whole body convulsed with the force of the shudders that went through him. "I didn't think I was going to find you in time. When I got here and found you not moving, barely breathing, I thought I was too late. If you didn't wake up when you did—nothing else matters." He would have killed himself. Without Kira, he didn't have anything worth living for. She was all he knew, all he wanted, all he loved. 158

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Surprising him, she tossed the gun away from her and his head snapped up. Her expression told him she wanted more than anything to beat on him until she didn't feel the frustration inside her anymore. "How can you say you love me?" she shouted. "How can you say it? This isn't love! Hiding from the world. Living like we're on the run, like anything could happen to send us fleeing. Keeping secrets. It's all unbelievable." And yet he knew she'd believed him despite her instinctive resistance to doing so. "You think you're protecting me and ... I don't want to be protected. I'm a grown woman, Vincent. I want to know why my father was killed. Who my mother was. Who killed them. Why was I there that day? How do you expect me to just go on with my life as if I don't need to find out the truth? I have to know. You've given me everything." She drew in a harsh breath that, by all appearances, didn't relieve her one iota. "But it's not enough, Vincent. If you won't help me—" He moved with a swiftness that made her gasp when he came down to her, grabbed her shoulders and shoved his face up close to hers. "Help you kill yourself? That's what you want me to do? 'Cuz the answers you want are your death sentence. You know that? You understand? The day you find out the truth is the day you die. And you want me to help you do that? You ask too much." She saw the tears covering his face, and they stilled her. His grip loosened. 159

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"What I've given you, what I feel, Kira, may not be enough, but it was all I had to give. You can't ask me to let you kill yourself. You couldn't kill me when I gave you the chance either." His voice was soft. He wanted to believe that, whether she had the lack of conscience to kill anyone, the things she felt for him, wrong or right, had restrained her hand. "What do you want me to do?" she demanded wearily. "You know." Go away with him. Disappear again. Just the two of them. Accept the situation. Ignore her need for truth, the knowledge of where she'd come from and where she belonged. He wanted all of those things. He now knew he had one last chance to convince her to stay with him. "Don't leave me. Love me enough that nothing else matters," he murmured. "Love me the way I love you, Kira. You're all that matters to me. You're all I want in life. Give yourself to me. I'll give you anything and everything you want ... unless it puts you in danger." She closed away the pain in her eyes so he couldn't see it even when her entire expression was filled with it. She shook her head. "I can't think about anything now, Vincent. I want to sleep and forget." Vincent let her go, and she pushed herself back, turned away and crawled into bed. By the time he stood over her, she'd closed her eyes again and tears flooded down her cheeks. He couldn't do what he wanted. All he could do was watch her with a fear beyond anything he'd ever known. 160

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**** Her dreams were frantic, and she tossed and turned, gasping breathlessly the way she had when he found her drowning in her father's blood. After awhile, Vincent couldn't stop his instinctive, overpowering need to take care of her the way he always had. Just like in the beginning, she quieted only in his arms.

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Chapter 24 "I don't want to be here, Daddy. Let's go." In the darkness that was almost total, all she could see were her father's eyes, and then she felt his arms around her. He knelt on the wet ground with her. "It's all right, Hollyhocks. Uncle Angelo will be here soon and then we can go." "Home?" Her father's silence brought the weight of dread into her chest again. They'd never stop running. She'd lost count of the times they'd moved from one place to another. She'd lost count of the days. She saw the look in her father's eyes every time his satellite phone chirped. They weren't safe there. They'd never be safe again. "No, baby. We can't go home." In the darkness, she saw the sparkle in his eyes. He was thinking of Mama. Don't cry, Daddy. I can't take it when you cry. She threw her arms around her father and closed her eyes against the darkness. "We'll be all right, Hollyhocks. Someday. I promise, someday we won't have to run ever again." Her father stiffened against her suddenly, and she knew without asking that Uncle Angelo was there. When her father pulled back from her, his face was shadowed and she was afraid when he whispered, "Stay here, Hollyhocks. Stay in the shrubs and don't move or make a sound. Hold Joe tight if you get scared. I'll be back in a minute." 162

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As her father slipped out from the overgrowth of shrubs, she crept forward, huddling into the wet leaves and shivered as she listened. Her father was close by, but far enough away that she only heard parts of what he said. If the other man talking was her Uncle Angelo, she didn't recognize his voice. Uncle Angelo was usually jovial, smiling, bringing her some toy or book. The voice she heard along with her father's was harsh with urgency. "We have to get you out—" "There has to be some way—" "No, Andy. He's on to you ... car, money in the glove box ... tonight. Don't go back for anything." "I'll never get justice ... avenge ... if I go!" Her father's voice rose, followed by an angry one: "There is no justice, goddammit! Not with you dead. Or your little girl. If you don't go tonight, you'll both be dead by morning. Let me take care of things on this end." "I can't let you do that, Angelo—" "Shhh." Soft clicks ushered a silence that made her hold her breath. Something was wrong. Footsteps came toward her, and she shrank back into the brush, clutching her G.I. Joe action doll. "Daddy's footsteps, Joe," she told her doll when she realized, turning back toward the footsteps. The first gunshot exploded through the hushed night, not toward her, but the footsteps quickened nevertheless. "Daddy," she whispered, despite his warning not to make a sound. "Let's go. Let's go now!" 163

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She covered her ears as the shots came, hard and fast, from every direction. She heard her father calling frantically, and whirled toward him at his approach. "Eliz—" The world exploded and rained down all around her. She couldn't scream, couldn't breath, as if she was held down by some force. Daddy's not coming. Blackness beckoned her as she gasped desperately, afraid now both to scream or to breath. She went into it gratefully, but when she opened her eyes, the blackness was still there, all around her in the silence. Someone held her tenderly and her gaze locked with gentle eyes filled with fear. She tasted blood in her mouth, sharp and wet, and an unknown terror came upon her until he whispered, "I'll take care of you" over and over. Did she know him? She wasn't sure, yet she trusted him instinctively. Especially when the seizure took her ruthlessly in its clutches. Only his soft, desperate caresses and crooning loosened the grip of it. "Oh God," another voice came, and the scream rose to the top of her throat at the sound. "Is she—?" The boy who held her shook his head without averting his face from hers. "She might have epilepsy." "What?" said the other voice in surprise. "It's out of my hands now. We have to go back." The boy looked up, and she heard the soft anger in his voice when he said, "She's scared. She just had a seizure. How do we know whether this was the first time?" 164

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"We have to go now. Trust me. The Network will take care of this." As they stood with the tall man, she clutched the boy's hand, afraid he wouldn't take care of her the way he'd promised. She had to be with him. She was so afraid, all she knew was that she had to be with him. He nodded, turning back to her. "I'll take care of you," he whispered again, as much a promise as before he'd talked to the other man. Like she weighed nothing, he lifted her. She needed an answer. "Who are you?" His mouth came close to her ear when he whispered, "The one who takes care of you. The one who never leaves you." **** "Vincent..." "Wake up, Kira. I'm here." Tender hands stroked her face, and she opened her eyes. Vincent. Quickly, she wiped her hand over her face, expecting to see blood there when she looked at her fingers. Tears. She was crying. Vincent was here, just like he had been then, until they took her away from him and put her in the white room. "Did you dream? Did you remember anything?" She nodded, casting her gaze past his head. "Tell me." 165

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"He was my father. Andy. I know that. Uncle Angelo had called again, and we went there. He had that look on his face ... My father had that look when the phone rang—that dread, but it was Uncle Angelo. He was relieved, but still seemed to dread hearing from him. We went to him. And my dad was thinking of my mom. She died. He used to cry about it, when he thought I was asleep. That night, I hid in the bushes and he told me to stay there and not say anything. Then he went to talk to Uncle Angelo, who said we had to go again. We were always running. This time, he had a car for us and money in the glove box. Daddy said he couldn't leave. There would be no justice if he left, but Uncle Angelo said he'd take care of that. And then ... the gunshots. He was killed. My father was running to me when it happened. He called "Eliz—" ... and then ... I didn't lose my memory. I don't think I lost my memory when it happened. I think I was afraid to let myself remember. I repressed it, and when it tried to come back, it came in nightmares, and..." "You had a seizure," Vincent finished. Kira couldn't control the horror blinding her to everything except the realization that her father had been killed and his blood had rained down on her. She'd felt like she was suffocating when it happened, and she'd blacked out, only to wake and find Vincent holding her. Like a newborn baby bird did as soon as it emerged from its shell, she'd trusted the first person she saw. Was that right or wrong? Vincent had come for her when she was in the white room. He'd promised he would take care of her and he had. 166

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Was he really to blame for her father's death? He'd disobeyed Angelo when he told him to make sure he and her father were alone at the end of the street. If he'd done that, maybe her father would be alive now. She wanted to blame him, but he'd spent the last fifteen years trying to make up for that. He had no life outside of fulfilling her needs. "Do you love me?" she asked on another wave of rising horror. "Do you really love me, Vincent? Not as duty. Not as penance. Can you really separate what you feel obligated to do with what you genuinely feel?" His eyes sparkled like diamonds as he stared at her. "I don't know. I don't know if I can separate it. But I know I've never been as scared in my life as when I realized you were gone and I couldn't find you. Every minute until I found you was murder. I know I don't want anything else in the world except to be safe with you. To disappear." It wasn't enough. The agony mounting inside her spread too quickly for her to contain. He must have seen it, too, because his grip on her tightened. "I know what I feel, Kira. When we kissed the night before you left, you touched me, I touched you. I knew I'd never need a single thing more. I've never wanted a woman the way I want you. I realized you were attracted to me the first time I caught you watching me in the shower. I didn't want to face it—I had to keep my head clear, focus on the mission of protecting you, so I buried it. But when I realized I felt the same about you ... it's been eating me up..." 167

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His jaw clenched tight enough to break. "But you're right— I can't separate it from what I've known I had to do the minute I laid eyes on you. I wish I could give you that, if you need it, but I don't know if it's enough to convince you my love is genuine." His honesty didn't make it any easier for her to accept. When she turned away, he let her go. "Can you honestly separate our history from your own feelings, Kira—any more than I can?" he asked quietly. "Or maybe you don't feel for me what I feel for you. Maybe knowing I could have prevented your father's death..." He was right. She couldn't separate everything they'd gone through from the new dimension their relationship had taken on when they kissed. She couldn't separate the elements, but she couldn't accept the possibility of love given out of duty or obligation any more than she could sort out her feelings about her father's death. That seemed like a lifetime ago, and, truthfully, it didn't feel like her memories. Her quest for the truth was stronger than it had been before, but her complex feelings for Vincent were more immediate. "Make love with me," he said softly, and Kira couldn't imagine the courage it'd taken for him to suggest it, knowing she couldn't believe in what he offered her. "The truth will be there. We can find it if we try. Give me what you've never given any other man, Kira." Tears filled her eyes. He knew she'd kept her virginity intact. She'd saved it for him. When she remembered the tangle of emotions she'd been faced with after merely kissing him ... No, there were no 168

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answers there. Only more confusion. She loved a man she was terrified to love. How could she take the risk again that it might not be real? If even he couldn't separate his obligation from his true feelings, how could she ever hope to? She slipped from the bed, wishing she could close her ears to his desperate plea. "Don't leave me, Kira." But her heart wanted to heal him now, just as it always had. She wanted to give to him the way he'd never asked or allowed before. This could be her last chance to be with him. Tonight she would think with her heart and soul instead of her head and fears. When he came to her and turned her to face him, she didn't move to escape. The desperate touch of his lips against hers wasn't something she could remain impartial to for long though. She had to have him. She wanted to be with him, the man, not simply the caretaker who'd sheltered the weak invalid for as long as she could remember. When he grasped her face in his hands, their kiss both sweet and savage, the strength drained from her legs. He lowered them to the floor on their knees, their mouths devouring each others' as if they'd waited a lifetime. As if they might never kiss again. "Let me love you," he barely broke away to plead. She didn't want his altruism. Not tonight. She drew further back. "Let me love you, Vincent."

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The fierce desire in his eyes only increased, glowing brighter and hotter when he brought her back to him. "God, yes," he whispered Kira reached for the clothes he wore, peeling them away as he simply stared at her without inhibitions, the way she'd wanted him to for so long. Stared at her throat, her high, ample breasts already diamond-hard with desire, the dip of her stomach, and the narrow strip of hair between her legs. She wanted ... wanted everything that could be had with him immediately. Now. Without delay. Yet he couldn't seem to do anything except worship her in a paralyzed glance. Until she reached for his hand and brought it to her breast, she hadn't realized he was waiting for permission. She would have chuckled at the ridiculousness of the old-fashioned inhibition if she'd been able to react to anything but the feel of his palm cradling her breast. Need seemed to unlock him, and he raised his left hand to cover her other breast. "Vincent," she whispered, tortured, pleasured, released when he stroked her. He closed in on the wide centers with thumbs and forefingers, coaxing her nipples out even further with his caress. Her breathing grew ragged; she wanted him wild, too. Gathering her breasts together, he lowered his head and lashed at both of her nipples at the same time. Arching her back, she offered herself to him fully. On a whimper, she pushed her hips wantonly against his. When he lifted his gaze, he found her watching him hotly, and she couldn't feel anything but a sense of destiny. The 170

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confidence, the certainty of what they were doing, didn't waver in his expression as he sucked on her nipples. Murmuring in sweet agony, she speared her fingers into his hair while he worked over her body, kissing, licking and nipping his way slowly down to her bellybutton. Her moan when he drove his tongue into the suddenly erotic indention had her dropping to her knees and putting her arms around him as he stood over her, waiting for her cue. Her hands cupped the satin steel of his buttocks firmly, her fingers caressing as her face brushed his arousal. A growl bled from him. Invigorated, she pressed kisses against muscles that jolted beneath the surface. Straining slightly, she raised herself higher to run her tongue over the hard lines of his stomach, into his bellybutton, and he held her head loosely to him, his legs gluing themselves in place even as he bent his knees slightly to give her easier access. She felt the thrill of her own power when she pleasured his hard flesh with her cheeks, her nose, her moist, closed lips. He muttered her name, telling her she should stop yet remaining wordlessly rooted to the spot, waiting to see what she would do. I've waited a lifetime for this moment. Saved myself for this moment. Saved up all my love for him. Kira raised her head to look at him, and his hands cradled her face in a tender gesture that didn't refute the shudder that ran through the length of his body when she shed her final inhibitions. The ease and greed she felt doing things she'd only imagined in half-asleep fantasies she told herself she wasn't responsible for, filled her with triumph. 171

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His legs trembled, but she didn't stop even when he crumpled to the floor on his knees. She dropped with him and came after him again. He let out a long groan, holding her head while his body danced uncontrollably to her rhythm for a moment before he lowered them both back to the floor. Then he raised his thigh, slipping it between her legs and rubbed his knee slowly against her. Without barrier, he had to feel how aroused she was. When she climaxed, shuddering and panting, Kira nevertheless didn't allow anything to penetrate her concentration as she drove him to do the same. She took all of him, too, hanging on tenaciously. His body shuddered and he strangled on a groan. As he gulped in air, his legs fell back, bent, to the sides. He dragged her into his arms. "Let me make love to you, Kira. I want to be inside you," he muttered thickly. At this moment, she wanted nothing else more than to simply blank out anything but her love for this man. Not for the memories that could give her answers to her whole life. She didn't even care about the answers to her past, a place to belong outside of here. Vincent was all that mattered. Vincent eased her back to the floor, came over her long enough to make her breath slam into her throat and hold there as he kissed her lips, her throat, the straining tips of her breasts, and finally, he eased himself lower to press his mouth to her most secret place. When her hands instinctively clutched him, he pushed them up to her breasts, guiding, while he worked against her flesh, making her utter half-sobs. How could she doubt they were meant for this moment? Meant to be together? It was as though they'd come together 172

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before, forever, as he rose over her trembling body. His arousal touched her damp flesh, and then he was pushing inside of her, strong and sure. She took him without the slightest resistance. Her breath left her throughout that ascent, her head thrashing back and forth as she gave herself up to what would fill and complete her. God, I love you, Vincent. I love you, I want you. I don't care about anything in the world but this, with you. You're made for me. I'm made for you. She couldn't believe anything but that he was thinking the same thing when she wrapped her arms around his neck and stared into his eyes with tears in her own. She could have stayed there for all time, clinging to the perfection of a moment she'd never forget as long as she lived. But she closed her eyes against the tears, found his mouth with hers, and they began to move in a friction that built quickly toward a full-blown flame. Vincent drove into her again and again, tethering her to reality only by the harsh satisfaction of their breathing, his groans co-mingling with hers and then their pleasure breaking over the same shore to collapse together. Together. Forever. Destiny fulfilled. So lost was she in the intensity of the world they'd created together, she didn't realize it was over for long minutes. His kisses on her face roused her. His whispers of love that he was at last complete awakened her fully.

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"I want you," he whispered, brushing the hair from her face tenderly. "Just you. Just this. Nothing else matters to me." She understood. She was so weak from their lovemaking, yet she wanted to kiss him again. She wanted to start all over again and never stop. If they stopped ... life intruded. Other considerations began to matter. She wanted him, wanted to spend the rest of her life in this moment with him. He belonged to her, heart, soul and body. As much as she wanted that, as glorious as knowing she belonged to him just as certainly, she shivered anyway.

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Chapter 25 "Where's Ruff?" she asked quietly, not moving from the position she'd crumpled in a heap in after they'd crawled into bed together and made love again in slow, perfect motion. "Your apartment. Piper said she'd make sure he's taken care of." He lay on his front, facing her. She was on her side, his arm cradling her breasts. His eyes never left her face as he stroked her back in small circles. "Will you help me, Vincent?" she asked weakly. "Help you do what?" he asked, but she had no doubt he knew what she wanted. "Help me find out who I am and where I come from." He closed his eyes in anguish for a moment, yet he said firmly, in a tone she well understood meant he was unmoving in this area, "No. Don't ask me to." "I have to." Making love with him had, strangely, made her mind clearer about what she had to do about her life. What to do about Vincent ... this new relationship ... that she wasn't at all clear on. "You can't. You don't know—" "I do know. You told me everything you know, didn't you? There has to be a way. We can do it together." His eyes filled with anger, yet he kept his voice gentle. "You really don't believe what I've told you. If you did, you'd realize going back for either of us is a death sentence." His fingers stopped their motion. "Look, if someone dies and the 175

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body isn't found or even if it is, the family of the victim can't let it go. That happens. Nothing they do can change the fact that this person is dead. Knowing the truth of what happened won't change the fact of death either." Stubbornly, she demanded, "What does that have to do with me?" "Knowing the truth won't set you free in this case, Kira. In this case, it'll make you dead. Listen to me. Give up any idea of going after the truth." Maybe he was right. A part of her didn't believe the things he'd told her. They were unbelievable, fantastic. How could she believe it? It couldn't change the fact that she had to know the truth. "Nothing you said can be proved, Vincent, especially considering that we've lived in peace for fifteen years. If there was any danger, if this Network is as thorough as you say they are, they would have come for us long ago. We're safe. They think we're dead or something. They're not looking." "I can't take that chance." "I can." While he wouldn't accept it, from her point of view, she had absolutely nothing to lose by trying. And, if he wouldn't help her, she would do it on her own. "I can't allow you to do that." She'd known he'd say that. Drawing away from him, she said in both frustration and anger, "I'm not your obligation." Surprisingly, he allowed her to go as she sat up. He watched her with haunted eyes. "What are you saying?" 176

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"If you love me, you'll help me." "I do love you. That's why I can't." She shook her head. "You've spent so many years expecting something bad to happen, you can't imagine that it won't! You can't see the obvious. It's over. Whatever it is." He didn't speak, just stared at her unflinchingly, unmoved by her pleas yet anguished nonetheless, until she had to look away. At any other time, she would have walked away stubbornly, temporarily, instead of feeling helpless to the idea of being without him for good. Maybe after finally getting the rest she needed, she could think clearly and stand on her own for once. Maybe Vincent's continued presence in her life was what had kept her from being independent for so long. If he wasn't willing to help her get the one thing she wanted more than anything else, then how could anything they'd shared be true? She was nothing but a prisoner if he wanted to keep her from finding out who she was and where she'd come from. She couldn't think about their lovemaking. She couldn't consider the love she felt for him, deep enough to drown her. Getting up from the bed, she took a breath and said in a trembling voice, "You have to stay away from me, Vincent. You have to stay away from Kira Gunn Industries. Get rid of all that equipment in your apartment. I'll get rid of it in mine and within the company. If I have to, if you force me to, I'll get a restraining order against you." His pain filled his expression like a dam on the edge of breaking. He sat up as though he could barely get his limbs to work. Swallowing, his jaw tightened. "If I don't help you find out about your past..." He looked away, looked back at the 177

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bed, the floor where they'd first made love. His voice was so soft, she found herself straining to hear him. She was afraid to hear his words, afraid she wouldn't be able to stand strong in the face of his pain, but she had to listen. "...none of this, nothing we've ever shared, means anything to you? Do you hate me that much, Kira?" She shut her eyes tight against what she couldn't allow to matter right now. She couldn't hide ever again, and that was all Vincent was offering her. Love in the shadows. Questions without answers. Life in death. "I love you. Our life together, every part of it, means everything to me, Vincent. But I can't believe in your love if you don't care how empty and helpless I feel with no past. How can I ever be strong enough to feel like a whole person if I don't even know who I am? Who my parents were and what my life was like with them?" "I want you to heal," he said helplessly. "I've spent my lifetime trying to help you do that. But there's nothing you can do to convince me to risk your life, even if it means you live the rest of your life feeling weak and helpless. I'm sorry. I'm sorry the life I'm offering you isn't enough." A man who'd spent fifteen years making sure she had everything she wanted and needed, her every heart's desire, was willing to let her spend the rest of her life miserable when it was within his power to give her the answers if they just went looking for them. No, he couldn't love her. Not the way she needed him to. She dressed in still damp clothes, and he watched her with his fists clenched ruthlessly in his hair. When she moved 178

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toward the bedroom door, he whispered, "Don't go, Kira. Stay with me. Please." Facing him ... God, she wanted to heal him, as always. She knew now that it'd never been in her power to do that for him. She couldn't stay, but she couldn't leave him feeling this way. "Find a life, Vincent," she said without turning to him. She couldn't look at him or this room, where she'd had everything she thought she ever wanted happen to her. "Find out who you are. You have that opportunity now." "No." She knew if she looked at him, his face would be devastated and angry, unwilling to give himself the freedom she wanted him to have. As she fled the cabin, she remembered him saying, "If you didn't wake up when you did—there would have been nothing left for me. No purpose." Vincent wasn't the type of person to commit suicide. Not as long as she was alive. He was a survivor. He'd survived by himself without a family. He'd survived training, torture, being cut off from the rest of the world, putting the needs of all people above his own. They would both have to learn how to survive alone. They would have to find something else that mattered, even if it meant risking everything to get it.

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Chapter 26 Don't let her go! Every instinct inside of Vincent told him to go after her, follow her, make sure she was safe. His fingernails dug into one of the posts on the porch as he held himself back, watching instead with his jaw clenched tight enough to break bone. Kira didn't look back as she got into the car he'd come in and drove away. Even when he couldn't see the tail lights anymore, he continued to stare in the direction she'd gone. His anger rose, retaliation of the helplessness she'd left him mired in. He'd been trained to use his mind like a computer. Every option open to him had gone through that computer to be analyzed for feasibility. Every option that appealed to him in this situation had been rejected. She'd backed him into a corner he couldn't escape. Not without endangering her further. If he followed her openly, she'd have him arrested and a restraining order would follow—one that would pose no more than irritation for him. Nevertheless, he didn't want to be Kira's enemy. If he followed her secretly ... Hell, she'd already proven with her ease of escape, the trail he'd picked up too late on every count, her vanishing act for four days, just how rusty he was at his job. Would she do anything stupid? He couldn't say for sure. Kira was emotional, but there was logic in her actions that many people outside the Network didn't possess. She was 180

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stubborn but generally level-headed. She wouldn't act rashly and thoughtlessly to get back at him. Ah dammit, you never would have figured she'd run like that either ... and succeed. Vincent gritted his teeth again on the reminder of his failure. He'd believed if he let her know his feelings, allowed himself to take what the both of them wanted ... Hell, he'd been foolish enough to believe love could be enough. Despite the genius-level intelligence she'd displayed at an early age—inherited from her father, he now knew—Kira had an innocence he'd never seen before in another human being. Nevertheless, her quest for truth wasn't smart, considering the danger involved. Like most Americans, she couldn't conceive of people purposely setting out to do harm against innocents. Believing that those same people enjoyed their evil was beyond the realm of probability to the naive. If she continued her quest... What if I can't protect her? What if she won't let me? I can't risk that. But what can I do? No, he hadn't given her any information that could lead her to the Network, to 'Uncle Angelo". She had no way of going forward, but if she hired a private investigator, it wouldn't be long until the Network found her. The organization spent 24/7 making sure the country was safe ... and that their anonymity remained intact. If he had no other choice, Vincent would have to eliminate anyone she hired to make inquiries. It was the only way to keep her safe.

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Forcibly, he tamped down the anger telling him to tear this porch apart with his bare hands. At one point in his life, he would have done it, too. When he hadn't known discipline. He turned and went back in the cabin. For an hour, he worked to erase all traces of Kira's time here. All traces of the love they'd shared. The memories tightened his body even as he grieved at them. Whether he believed there was any danger to her or not, he did it because he couldn't ignore the possibility, however slight. She hadn't left the keys to the ancient jalopy she'd brought here, but he hot-wired the thing within minutes anyway. He would go back to the city. That was all he knew for the moment. Return to his apartment. Figure out what he could do. With that mission in mind, he cleared out, stopping only to get food he ate behind the wheel and fill the gas-guzzling car with fuel to get it into New York City, where he returned it to the previous owner without asking to be reimbursed for what Kira had paid him for it. He walked to her apartment building, staring up at her penthouse windows. She was there. Her lights were on. The relief he felt gnawed as harshly at him as the loss of her did. He felt no surprise whatsoever when he entered his apartment and found all his surveillance equipment gone. She'd left the guns though—for what reason? Did she really believe in the threat against them and didn't want to leave him defenseless? Sinking onto the sofa, he tried to think, but he hadn't slept since ... since the night she'd kissed him. He'd known she 182

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wanted to escape, so he didn't allow himself to sleep. He'd been trained to function at top performance on next to no sleep, no food and little water, but he was past the point of exhaustion. 'Find out who you are,' she'd told him. Who was he without Kira? How could he function when she was always his first thought as well as his last? How could he shut off his most basic instincts? She didn't want him in her life anymore. What options did he have? Vincent closed his eyes. Even his mind wouldn't be closed for a few moments of rest. Kira knew what he knew. She knew what he'd tried so hard to shelter her from. "He was thinking of my mom. She died. He used to cry about it when he thought I was asleep." According to Kira's memories, there'd been feelings between Andy and the woman who bore him a son. And the mother had died, possibly been killed, if Andy's need to gain justice had been about her death. Would what Kira now knew of her enemy make her cautious? Is the Network the enemy? Did Angelo terminate Andy because he compromised security? Until Kira had insisted the man killed was her father, Vincent had concluded the enemy had to be outside the Network. That Andy had been killed on a mission he and Angelo had teamed up for. That Kira had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and God only knew what she was doing out there by herself. In the years he'd been a part of the Network, he'd been told contradictorily that they were his only family, yet 183

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relationships—any relationships at all, even friendships—were discouraged. It made sense only because operatives were killed in the line of duty; loyalty had to be to the mission, not the team members. If an operative went down, friendship could become more important than making sure the mission succeeded. Dangerous risks might be taken to rescue another operative who was a friend. And an operative who grieved was one whose loyalties were divided. As hard as they were trained to be like robots who did what they had to do and didn't think about anything else, didn't get emotional, Vincent had seen friendships among operatives. The relationship between mentor and recruit was the only one encouraged, supposedly to prepare for the possibility of an operative turning against the Network. An uncertain operative needed the approval of their mentor to keep them on track and loyal. Until Kira had entered the picture, Vincent's loyalty to the Network had never wavered for an instant. Somehow they'd known from the first exactly what Vincent needed. Angelo Pluzetti had been a mentor and a father figure to him. Vincent had spent fifteen agonizing years wondering if the man who had become his father had betrayed the Network. Betrayed Kira. Betrayed him. 'Were you brainwashed?' Kira had asked, the way he'd expected her to. Never before had Vincent viewed his training as a form of brainwashing. He believed in the purpose of the Network, even if it did mean that sometimes lambs were slaughtered simply because they were in the way or had seen something they shouldn't have. As much as possible, that had 184

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been avoided—something he'd always been convinced Angelo saw to personally. Yet it did happen occasionally and he hadn't allowed himself to dwell on it. To save the world, losing a small percentage of the population was an acceptable risk. Could Angelo have killed Andy—someone Vincent would have said was a close friend to him? Angelo would never betray the Network—of that Vincent would have staked his life. Yet it was just as unthinkable to him that Angelo would kill a colleague in cold blood, not even in the pursuit of security. Was it possible that the reason he and Kira were still 'at large' was because Angelo had somehow erased the trail following their disappearance? While he couldn't get himself to view the Network as the enemy, he had to proceed in that direction whenever he considered what they would do to Kira if they found out she knew about them. The buzzer near his door went off, and Vincent sat staring at it warily. He rose, not permitting himself the hope that Kira had come to him. With one hand on his gun, he pushed the intercom button. "Yeah?" "I have a delivery from a Kira Gunn, KGI. Can I bring it up?" Vincent's instincts were too honed to agree to that. "Leave it with the doorman." "All right." A minute later, Vincent called downstairs. "Did someone just leave something for me?" "Yes, sir. It's an envelope." 185

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Vincent noted immediately that it was the voice of the doorman who'd been on duty when he got here. "How big?" "Standard number ten." "Is it thin?" "Yes, sir. Should I bring it up?" "No. I'll come down." His caution was unwarranted, he believed, when he retrieved the envelope. The envelope had the Kira Gunn Industries logo and held only a single piece of paper—official letterhead for the company. It was a letter of dismissal that stated without emotion that his employment had been terminated, his connection with all parts of the corporation had been severed, but a large amount of money had been deposited in one of his accounts. Vincent did the math in seconds—Kira had given him his final paycheck along with the amount of his initial investment in Kira Gunn Fashions, interest included. The extra, he assumed, was payment for his fifteen years of 'service' to her. She'd done a lot in the short amount of time she'd been back in the City, he conceded. It wouldn't be long before all her private affairs—phone numbers, door locks, accounts— were altered to bar him. He could have all the new information in no time at all. Did she know that? Or did she believe he would heed her final request? Could he consent to be extricated from her life? Following her like an unseen shadow was an option he had in his power to carry out. The only thing that had changed in all the years he'd protected her without thought to himself were the stakes. Before, he could go against her wishes because they got in 186

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the way of his self-imposed duty. Hell, he'd lost her anyway ... but she'd left claiming she loved him. He'd told himself he was prepared for anything with Kira, anything she wanted. The only thing he hadn't prepared himself for was feeling what he did for her from the first time she kissed him until they'd finally made love. Being with her eclipsed his duty, his former concern for her well-being. He'd known lust. Temporary gratification. He'd used women for his own purposes—both personally and professionally. What he'd shared with Kira and felt for her now was all-encompassing. Nothing else seemed to matter to him. He wanted to see her, kiss her. Touch her until she became his again, for all time, just as he was hers. He wanted to protect her, too, but his desire to disappear from the world with her was as much selfish as it was altruistic. He was in love for the first time in his life. Without Kira ... his world stopped there.

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Chapter 27 The curvy but well-honed red-head walked right by Vincent, halting only when he called, "Piper." The sixteenyear-old turned, saw him and immediately dispatched the group of friends around her. Vincent pushed himself off the chain-link fence and started walking in the opposite direction. A minute later, Piper Laslow fell into step beside him. They didn't look at each other. "What's goin' down, Vinnie?" "Not much. My world," he said softly. "I hear ya." With Piper's words, Vincent knew Kira had taken care of his presence in every single part of her life. "She told me she's payin' me now, Vin. She asked me to stay away from you." Vincent glanced at her, nodding. He'd chosen Piper for just this reason. If something happened to him, he wanted Kira to befriend Piper. Kira couldn't know how Vincent had trained Piper. If Kira felt protective toward the girl, it would only make her more cautious with herself. Sympathy glowed in Piper's cat-like eyes before she once more faced the sidewalk they traveled together. "How's the dog?" Vincent asked. "Little lighter." Kira had taken the collar from Ruff, but then he'd never doubted she would. Piper had been walking Kira's dogs since she was six years old. It was one of the many things Kira had let Vincent take 188

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care of without getting involved in the who-does-what-andgets-how-much aspects. They came to a crosswalk, but instead of continuing forward, Piper halted, turning to him. "She cut you loose. Never thought I'd see the day. How bad does it gotta get for that?" Vincent nodded, offering only, "Bad." "You two got money. Can't be that bad." Piper's life revolved around money simply because it was what she needed and never seemed to have. Her old man had walked out on them early and her mama worked two jobs that didn't give them enough to live outside a rough neighborhood where her daughter might have been laying down the hustle in her single digit years ... or worse. Instead, she'd been coming home with a pocket full of cash—easy money—since she was six, telling her mother she was walking some rich lady's dog. No doubt her mother associated walking the dog with something illegal; she didn't ask questions. Money was money. Mama loved her baby, she worried about her, but she held the same realistic viewpoint her neighbors did: What they had was the best they could expect out of life. More than once, Vincent had regretted bringing Piper and her beloved mother into the danger anyone who knew him and Kira faced just by association. Unfortunately, he'd considered it an acceptable risk in keeping Kira safe. "I still pay you," Vincent said, easing Piper closer to the fence. "Huh?" "I still pay you." 189

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Piper understood, but she looked distressed in any case. She raised a muscular arm to adjust the skull-and-crossbones imprinted handke