Risking It All: The Proposition / The Dare / The Favour / The P.I. / The Cop / The Defender. Cara Summers

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СКАЧАТЬ she was still wearing her Cat Woman costume. She checked the bathroom first, but it too was empty. After taking a moment to brush her teeth and run her fingers through her hair, she moved quickly to the door.

      But it was Tracker and not Chance that she saw sitting at a table, tapping at the keys of his laptop. He glanced up immediately. “Good morning. Want some coffee?”

      “Where’s Chance?” A funny little feeling had settled in the pit of her stomach the moment she’d seen that the airplane door stood open.

      Tracker handed her a mug of steaming coffee. “I was under orders to let you sleep.”

      “Where’s Chance?” Natalie repeated.

      Tracker shot her a smile. “Promise not to kill the messenger?”

      At any other time, she might have been charmed. Hell, she might even have been amused. But the funny little feeling was making her stomach roll and her throat tighten. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”

      Tracker sighed. “Yeah. I told him he should wake you, but he had to get the diamond back to the London office. He tried to get out of it, but there’s some red tape he has to take care of in person.”

      In some part of her mind, Natalie listened to Tracker’s explanation. It was logical, perfectly understandable. Chance’s part of the job wasn’t over. So he’d had to fly off to London to tie up loose ends. A sickening sense of déjà vu filled her.

      “Chance has to move quickly,” Tracker said. “He hoped you’d understand.”

      Natalie thought she understood very well. The adventure was over, and a man like Chance—a man so like her father—would want to be on to the next one as soon as possible.

      “Yes,” she said. She did understand. She’d signed on for the job, and now it was over. She felt the prick of tears behind her eyes, and she blinked—but it was too late. The first drop slid down her cheek.

      “Shit,” Tracker said as he pushed the laptop away and rose. “Natalie, don’t.” He drew her against him and held her. “I told him to wake you and explain it himself. But he—”

      Natalie held herself stiff. She had to stop crying. There was no sense to it. She never cried. She hadn’t, not once, since her father had left.

      “He’s coming back, Natalie. He told me to tell you—”

      Tracker broke off when suddenly she used all of her strength to push away.

      “What is it?” he asked.

      She scrubbed tears away with the heel of her hand. “You called me Natalie.”

      For a second a puzzled expression crossed his face. “Yes…oh, shit. Shit. Shit.”

      “If you know I’m not Rachel Cade, then—” As Tracker continued to swear, Natalie remembered the moment when she’d been trying to hear the last part of the combination to Carlo’s safe. Chance had used her father’s exact words. “You can do it, Nat.”

      He’d called her Nat. The sharp band of pain tightening around her heart had her rubbing her chest with her fist.

      “He’s known all along, hasn’t he? That I’m Natalie, not Rachel Cade?”

      “He…I….” It was pure panic that she saw on Tracker’s face now. Later, much later, she was going to remember that with some amusement. She promised herself that. But right now, there were too many other emotions spiking through her. One of them was anger, the cold, icy kind. That was the one she latched on to.

      He’d known who she was from the beginning. And he’d played along with her because he liked the game. It had all been a game.

      “He wanted to stay and explain—”

      Holding up a hand, she said, “Enough. You don’t have to explain. I get it.” Then she held out her hand palm up. “Since I had to leave the Brancotti estate without packing, I’ll require cab fare to my apartment.”

       16

      “OOH, DETECTIVE NATALIE! Your hair! What have you done?”

      The moment Rad had caught sight of her, he’d clapped two palms to his cheeks and stared. Now the majority of the people waiting for a table at the Blue Pepper was staring at her too.

      “You’ve cut it.” Rad pressed the back of one hand against his forehead and the palm of the other over his heart. “You’ve cut your lovely hair!”

      “Yes, I’ve cut my hair.” Natalie fluffed the ends with one hand. The color was back to normal. And so was she. That’s what she’d kept telling herself during the week she’d been back.

      “It will grow in.” Rad spoke in the hushed tone of voice one might use to express sympathy at a wake.

      Because she was pretty sure he was comforting himself and not her, Natalie found herself biting back a grin. “Hair has a tendency to do that.” Maybe her sisters had been right to insist that they get together for dinner. “Are my sisters here?”

      “Sure thing.” Rad’s face brightened. “I gave them a table on the patio. They’re already enjoying the appetizer sampler.”

      Natalie drew in a steadying breath as she followed Rad through the crowd and down the three steps. Being on the patio was a good thing. Better to face all your ghosts. Better to— Her heart nearly stopped as she stepped onto the dance floor. The salsa band was playing the same tune that she and Chance had danced to on the night that she’d taken him up on his first proposition.

      Memories of that night and others streamed into her mind—the way he’d touched her, held her, filled her. The memories and the sensations hadn’t dimmed any more than the ache in her heart had.

      But they would, she told herself firmly. And maybe she wouldn’t let her hair grow in. Maybe she could never be the same Natalie Gibbs she’d been before Chance Mitchell. So what?

      Lifting her chin, she followed Rad off the dance floor.

      “Here she is,” Rad announced as they reached the table.

      Any confidence Natalie might have built up faded the moment she looked at her sisters. She could tell by the expression on their faces that she wasn’t quite back to the old Natalie Gibbs yet. In fact, what she saw in their eyes was what she’d been denying every time she let herself look in the mirror.

      Rory had frozen in place with a stuffed mushroom halfway to her mouth. Rory never let anything interfere with her appetite.

      Sierra had her hands clasped tightly together in front of her, the way she always did when she was really nervous or worried.

      Hell. Natalie knew she looked like shit.

      “Her lovely hair will grow back,” Rad said.

      When silence continued to stretch at the table, Rad cleared his throat and said, “Well. How about I bring the drink of СКАЧАТЬ