The Borrowed Ring. GINA WILKINS

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СКАЧАТЬ large, very bald man in a shiny gray jacket, a pale blue shirt and sharply creased jeans growled, “Yes?”

      He didn't look like a butler. Nor a farmer, for that matter. He looked more like a bouncer in a low-rent strip joint. Not that she'd ever actually been in a place like that. Drawing herself to her full five feet three inches—still a foot shorter than this man—B.J. tried to speak confidently. “I'm looking for Daniel Andreas. Is he here?”

      The man's heavy eyebrows rose toward his shaved pate. “Daniel Andreas?”

      Never known as a particularly patient woman, B.J. swallowed a sigh. “That's what I said.”

      Comprehension seemed to light in his dull brown eyes. “Oh! You made it. I'm sure he'll be pleased. Come in.”

      She didn't have a clue what he was talking about. “I don't—”

      “Daniel!” the man bellowed, practically hauling her inside. He glanced toward the staircase. “Oh, there you are. Look who's here. Your missus.”

      B.J. glanced in the same direction, then simply stared. She had wondered how Daniel would look in person after thirteen years. Now she knew.

      He looked fantastic.

      For a moment he stared back at her, no expression at all on his incredibly handsome face. She doubted sincerely that he recognized her. It had been too long, and she was sure she had not made the impression on him back then that he had on her.

      Before she could speak, he was coming toward her with swift, graceful movements that were vaguely feline. Just a bit predatory. The smile that lit his face was blinding, but she had a moment to notice that his obsidian eyes were deadly serious before he grabbed her and yanked her toward him. “Darling! I'm so glad you could make it after all.”

      A moment later his mouth was on hers in a kiss hot enough to melt the soles of her leather sandals.

      When the kiss ended, he didn't give her a chance to speak—even if she had been able to, which certainly wasn't guaranteed just then. Gripping her shoulders hard enough to leave fingerprints, he looked at the bald man, who hovered nearby with an oddly sentimental smile on his broad face. “Bernard, would you give us a minute alone? We have some catching up to do.”

      Bernard? B.J. found herself mentally repeating. Was that really that man's name?

      The big man nodded. “You and the missus can use that little parlor just behind you. You won't be disturbed. I'll let you know when we have to go. In the meantime, I'll call the boss and tell him your wife will be joining us, after all.”

      “Oh, but—”

      Daniel's fingers dug more sharply into B.J.'s shoulders, causing her words to end in a gasp. “Yes, do that,” he said to the other man.

      Bernard was frowning at B.J. “Something wrong, Mrs. Andreas?”

      She glanced up at Daniel in bewilderment. The look he gave her in return had her turning back to Bernard with a strained smile. “I just need to talk to my, er, to Daniel in private for a moment.”

      The large man's face cleared, his somewhat scarylooking smile returning. “Right this way, ma'am.”

      He ushered them into an elegantly furnished little parlor and closed the door behind him to leave them alone.

      B.J. whirled immediately to face Daniel, making no effort now to hide her outrage. “What the hell was that?”

      “Please keep your voice down.” He had dropped the smile, and his face was an expressionless mask again as he studied her. “You have no idea how you've complicated everything.”

      Her jaw almost dropped. She had complicated everything? Had she just walked into an expensive madhouse?

      Because she needed a moment to collect herself or she would end up shrieking at him, she studied the man who stood in front of her, comparing him to the boy she had once briefly known. He had fascinated her when she was fourteen and he was sixteen. Even then he had been striking looking, with his thick black hair, classic features and lazy-lidded dark eyes.

      Some of her cousins had been a little afraid of his flash-point temper, but B.J. never had been. There had been something about him that had drawn her into girlish daydreams and amorous fantasies. He had been her first big crush, and she had never forgotten him.

      Now he was a man of almost thirty. Still handsome but seemingly more comfortable in his skin now. The jeans, T-shirt and boots of his youth had been traded for a dark jacket that must have cost a small fortune, worn over an open-necked white shirt, charcoal slacks and expensive-looking shoes.

      He looked rich, powerful and more than just a little dangerous. Still, she refused to let him see that she was at all intimidated.

      Lifting her chin, she placed her hands on her slim hips and spoke firmly. “Obviously there has been some mistake. I don't know who you and Bernard were expecting, but you have the wrong person. My name is—”

      “Brittany Samples,” he cut in coolly. “I recognized you as soon as you walked in.”

      For the second time since she arrived, he had rendered her speechless. How on earth had he identified her that quickly? It had been more than a dozen years, for crying out loud. The last time he had seen her, she had been a shy fourteen-year-old with braces and no figure at all.

      Well, okay, she still didn't have much of a figure. She had long ago given up on naturally growing big breasts or voluptuous hips. But still, she was a grown woman of twenty-seven now. She wore her brown hair layered in a choppy short cut that she'd been told was flattering to her lamentably gamine face and she had applied her makeup in a way that played up her blue eyes.

      The fact that she had recognized him so easily didn't lessen her surprise. After all, she had been expecting to find him. She had a fairly recent snapshot of him in her wallet. And she had carried a mental picture at the back of her mind for years. She doubted he could say the same about her.

      Finally recovering, she stammered slightly when she said, “I, um, really didn't expect you to know me. How did you—”

      He made a silencing movement with his right hand. “We don't have time for this now. We've got to figure out how to get you out of this mess you've created without putting either of us in any more danger.”

      “The mess I've created?” she repeated incredulously. And then the rest of his words registered. “Danger?”

      Daniel put a hand to the back of his neck and squeezed, his brow creased in concentration. “Maybe we should tell them…”

      “The truth?” she suggested when his words faded.

      “That's not going to work.”

      “Look—” She took a step toward him, bringing her close enough to jab a finger of her left hand into his chest. “I don't know what's going on here, but I've had enough. All I came here to do was—”

      He caught her hand in his, absently pulling it away from his chest but not releasing her. “Bernard thinks you're my wife. If he has any reason to suspect either of us is not who we've said, he'll kill us. And, by the way, he's not the only armed guard surrounding us. The house is crawling with them—and СКАЧАТЬ