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Remembering.
Then
It had been almost a week before Mary Isobel Curwen fell in love with a man who called himself Killian. She’d fought it, of course. After all, the man had a girlfriend, a French fashion model, no less, and even if Mary Isobel were the type to poach other women’s boyfriends, she was hardly going to prove any competition. For one thing, she had a crazy mane of curly red hair, the bane of her existence. Plus she was curved rather than wraith-thin. Her last boyfriend had told her she looked better naked than with clothes on, but that was the kind of thing a single-minded boyfriend would say.
A French fashionista would have nothing but contempt for an American free spirit in gypsy layers.
And one thing Mary had known for certain: Killian was one of the good guys. He wouldn’t simply take what was available. He wouldn’t betray his girlfriend. He would provide the casual friendship and ride that he offered, and nothing more.
It wasn’t his fault she’d fallen in love with him somewhere between Brittany and the Loire. Maybe it was because he’d been so easy to talk to, his slow, deep voice sliding into her bones like liquid silk. Maybe it was because he was abso-fucking-lutely gorgeous. She wasn’t used to beautiful men, and she hadn’t realized until seeing him in the bright light of day, halfway across the water on their way to France, just how good-looking he was. Gorgeous men made her nervous, but somehow Killian managed to dispel that. Despite his green eyes and his beautiful mouth, despite his tall, rangy body that moved with an unconscious grace, he still seemed easier to be around than ordinary men, and she did her best not to stare at him when he wasn’t looking. Why wouldn’t a French fashion model have an equally gorgeous lover?
He treated Mary like a kid sister, and it made her feel safe, comfortable and deeply miserable. The one saving grace was that he had absolutely no idea how she felt. He was a good man, and he would never suspect that she was suffering the most ridiculously adolescent pangs of unrequited love she’d felt in her entire life. At least her dignity was safe.
He figured he’d fuck her when they got to Marseille. She was more than ready—he’d played her like the expert he was, and by the time he got her on her back she’d be begging, miserably guilty and totally vulnerable. The way he needed her to be, if she was going to provide the cover he required.
She was almost too easy. He’d only stepped into that alleyway in Plymouth on a whim—in general he didn’t interfere with the local wildlife and their idea of sport, and whoever they’d set upon deserved what they got for being so fucking stupid.
It was a shame. If he’d been a different man, in a different world, he might have liked her. She was funny and smart, and had the most amazing freckles across her cheekbones and dusted above the rise of her very nice breasts. He was going to enjoy finding all the other places those freckles lurked when he got her on her back. Never let it be said he couldn’t appreciate the more pleasant aspects of his line of work.
She was totally besotted already. He knew that beneath her colorful layers and free spirit she was imagining a safe little life with babies and a man who came home every night. A man w
ho looked like him. She had no idea what she was dealing with.
In the end, he was probably doing her a favor. A bit of a walk on the wild side, though if he carried it off perfectly she’d have no idea she was only a few steps removed from a world of death and violence, danger most normal people couldn’t even imagine. If he played his cards right she’d have a passionate fling with a man who would then, with a great show of reluctance, leave her to go back to his fictional French mistress. She’d go on to the Cordon Bleu in Paris, never realizing the assassination of General Matanga, head of the Coalition Armies trying to liberate a small country in West Africa, had been carried on right under her nose. And that Killian had washed his hands clean of the blood and then put them on her.
In a way it was a shame. Matanga was a decent enough man, the Coalition Armies were filled with citizens, not mercenaries, and ethnic cleansing was frowned upon. But Killian’s employers had other plans for that war-torn area of Africa, and Matanga was counter to it, so he had to die. And it was Killian’s job to do it. Plus tie it to a group of heroin smugglers in Marseille, destroying Matanga’s reputation as well as his life.
Killian had everything planned, with a reasonable margin for error, because he was a man ready for the unexpected. Mary Isobel Curwen was unexpected, something he was using to excellent advantage. Word had gone out that he was coming into France, though no one knew what he looked like, what name he went by or what his current mission was. He was in so deep that he’d be hard to make, but with a hapless young woman beside him it would be almost impossible. They would have expected him to come from the south, but instead he’d crossed the Channel on a ferry, then driven his battered Citroën with the engine of a race car down the Loire Valley, the girl by his side, when everyone knew Killian only worked alone.
They’d make Marseille in a few days, their last stop before heading north to Paris. Maybe he wouldn’t wait that long. He’d slept with his arms around her one night on the beach; the youth hostels with their cloistered dormitories, the ones that had provided such excellent cover, had been full so they’d camped. He’d been the perfect gentleman, the brotherly type, offering her warmth and a shoulder to rest on. And while he’d kept the greater part of his brain busy going over the details of his upcoming job, he’d allowed one small part to savor the smell of her skin at the nape of her neck. She used rose-scented soap, something delicate and sweetly, wildly erotic.
No, maybe he shouldn’t wait for Marseille. The sooner he nailed her the blinder she’d be, and she’d never notice when he disappeared into the night. She’d believe his easy answers. All he had to do was make her come, and she wouldn’t think at all. He was good at that.
He glanced over at her. They’d left the outskirts of Montpellier several hours ago, and they were heading for the Camargue, the ridiculously Texas-like section of France, full of horses and cowboys and dry landscape. There was a youth hostel in the tiny town Les Armes, and they could spend another cloistered night. Or he could make his move now, and they could end up at some cozy little inn, in a cozy little bed, with him inside her.
She was curled up in the seat beside him, her head against the window, staring out at the passing landscape. In fact, she’d been a good traveling companion. She had an open mind, a willingness to try anything, a sensual delight in the wonders of France. If she brought all that to bed with her it might be better if he left her alone. It could prove a distraction.
No, that was bullshit. Nothing distracted him when he was on a job, not even the sweetest piece of tail in the world. And she wouldn’t be that good—her sexual experience was limited. They’d talked a lot, about anything and everything, and right now he knew almost as much about Mary Isobel Curwen as she did herself. Out of place in her father’s new family, at loose ends, she’d come to Europe to discover the world and discover herself, and during the two weeks they’d been together she hadn’t called or written anyone. His kind of woman—isolated, vulnerable.
And she knew all about Killian, the graduate student from Indiana, with three sisters, a widowed mother, a small-town doctor for a father, a French girlfriend and a lifelong interest in botany. She knew nothing at all about the Killian who’d grown up on the streets of L.A., with a junkie for a mother and no father at all.
No, sweet, innocent Mary Isobel wouldn’t know what a monster she was taking into her bed. With luck she’d never find out.
They’d reached a village about twenty miles inland, and he pulled over next to a pay phone. “Shit,” he said.
She turned to look at him with those blue eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“I forgot to call Marie-Claire.” It had been a twist of black humor on his part; his contact was a mercenary with the unlikely name of Clarence. “She sounded strange last time I talked with her.”
“Strange?”
He managed the perfect hint of a sigh. Too much would be out of character. “I think she might have found someone else,” he said glumly. “She spent the last three weeks on a photo shoot in Germany, and she was going to meet up with me in Marseille. But when I talked to her last night she said she couldn’t make it, and I got pissed off and hung up on her, which is not a smart thing to do with a Frenchwoman. They’re far better at being pissed off than I am.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sure it’s nothing.” Mary Isobel anxious, bless her heart. Worried about him, when the removal of the fictional Marie-Claire would clear the way for her.
“Maybe,” he said, sliding out of the car and heading for the pay phone. Tonight. Two days before his rendezvous in Marseille. Two days to enjoy her and cement his cover. Before he turned her world upside down.
Now
