The Prince's Secret Bride. Raye Morgan

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ was forearmed. He was going to be on his guard from now on.

      He waited for her to take a few bites of her omelet before trying to question her. Her color was better by then, and she’d lost most of that trapped look.

      “So,” he said, nursing his espresso in both hands. “Are you ready to tell me what happened?”

      She looked up at him, eyes wide. “You mean on the bridge?” she asked.

      He nodded.

      She looked down. “I…well, I think a man came up from behind and knocked me down.”

      His hand tightened on the slender cup. “Did you know him?”

      “I don’t think so. No,” she amended quickly. “No, I’m sure he was just a mugger or something. He grabbed my purse and then he threw my bag over the side of the bridge.” She gazed at him earnestly. “That’s why I was climbing up on the railing. I was trying to see where my bag had gone.”

      “And that was what you were looking for along the side of the river?”

      She nodded. “I know there’s not much hope in finding my purse, but if I could find my bag…”

      “It’s a suitcase?”

      She hesitated, looking uncertain. Then she nodded again.

      He frowned. There was something odd and off-kilter about all this. “When did it happen?”

      She hesitated, shrugged, then her eyes lit up as she remembered. “Just before I saw you the first time. I think maybe you scared him away.”

      The waitress brought them a huge slice of pie on a ceramic plate. A rounded mound of vanilla ice cream was melting on top. Marisa smiled again and he frowned to keep from letting it get to him.

      “So you’re here from out of town?” he noted as he handed her a fork. “Where are you from?”

      She looked down again. “I really can’t talk about that,” she said evasively.

      He shrugged. “Do you know anyone in town?” he asked.

      She didn’t answer but the look on her face said it all. What was he going to do with her? The realization came to him with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He was going to take her home. At this time of night, what else could he do?

      They rose to leave and he turned to let her go first, and as he did so, his gaze fell on an advertising poster on the wall behind where he’d been sitting. Marisa’s Flowers it said, along with an address and telephone number.

      Marisa’s Flowers. He turned slowly and watched as she walked ahead of him out of the café, and that feeling in the pit of his stomach got sicker.

      CHAPTER TWO

      MARISA.

      It wasn’t her name but it felt like a near fit. Close enough—for now. Her real name was there, right on the tip of her tongue, but every time she thought she had it, it slipped away again. But it would come. She had no doubt about that. She’d hit her head pretty hard and it had knocked her silly for a moment. Give her a little time and a bit of rest and it would all come back. If only she could find her suitcase….

      She glanced at the man walking beside her. He was near thirty, large and hard and there was something just a little bit dangerous about him. There was something appealing, too, despite his icy demeanor. But she needed to be careful. She’d been wrong about men before. Hadn’t she? She couldn’t think exactly how, but she knew it was true. She wasn’t thinking too clearly right now but she did know one thing: men were nothing but trouble. She’d best get away from this one as soon as possible.

      “Thanks for the late-night snack,” she said, keeping her tone light. “I’m sure you’ve got places to go and people to meet, so I’ll just say goodbye here.”

      She stuck out her hand. He took it but not for the handshake she’d expected.

      “Where are you going?” he said, looking down at her, his hand warm on hers.

      She tugged, but he wasn’t letting go. Looking up, she winced—partly at how tall he was, but mostly for the look of resolve in his silver-blue eyes. The man wasn’t going to go gently into the dark and foggy night, was he?

      She hesitated. What she really wanted to do was get back to looking for her suitcase. She needed that bag with an urgency she wasn’t really clear on—but she needed it badly. She wanted to comb both sides of the river until it turned up. But something told her he wasn’t going to go for that.

      “I know where I’m going,” she said quickly. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ve got…uh…someplace to stay.”

      He cocked one dark eyebrow, and it was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen a man do. She gaped at him, astonished at her own reaction. He was masculine magic—a gangster right out of a thirties film, a movie star dining at the Copa in the forties, a military commander from the fifties, a rock star from the sixties, Italian royalty from any decade at all. He had the presence common to all those icons, a sort of magnificent sense of command that took her breath away.

      And he didn’t believe a word she’d said, making her shiver with the sort of expectant chill she only got from a really good thriller.

      “Fine,” he was saying as she was pulling herself back down to earth. “I’ll go with you to make sure you get to your destination without any more bridge diversions.”

      She felt that under ordinary circumstances, she would have talked back and insisted on going her own way, but she was still getting over the shock his insolent eyebrow had given her, so she nodded and began to make her way along the riverfront sidewalk, her companion beside her, and not an idea in her head as to where she would go.

      She had to make up her mind soon. They couldn’t just wander around the city. She bit her lip and tried to think of some way to get into a doorway that would pass muster as her final objective.

      Meanwhile, they walked.

      It was late and the streets were deserted, but there was a man in the block ahead, leaning against the wall of a building, playing his guitar. As they got closer, she could see that he was standing near the entrance to a sort of nightclub. Music and laughter floated out, but the man was playing to his own muse, standing under a light. He wore dark glasses and there was a cup on the ground near his feet. Maybe he was blind.

      Maybe. But she shivered. Something about him…

      Maybe it was just the night. As her mother used to say, nothing good happens out there after midnight.

      Her mother? She tried to grab hold of that concept, tried to see a face, but it slipped away before she could focus. A feeling of loss filled her, but she tamped it down. Never mind, she would think of it soon enough.

      Turning to her companion as they reached the crosswalk, she put her hand on his arm. “Let’s go this way,” she said, nodding down a direction that would avoid the guitar player. “I think this is quicker.”

      He came along without comment and in a moment or two, she was breathing evenly again. Funny. She didn’t know СКАЧАТЬ