“I’m not a whore,” she blurted out.
She’d spoken in English, and she noticed his eyes widen slightly, then narrow as he studied her. His gaze swept over her sweat-soaked sundress, resting on her bare legs and strappy brown sandals, then gliding up to her cleavage, which he assessed for an exasperatingly long time. She supposed she couldn’t fault him for thinking she was a prostitute. In this heat, skimpy clothing was really one’s only option.
“Who are you, then?” he demanded, switching to English. “And what do you want?”
She took a steadying breath. “Are you Tate?”
The room went silent, same way it had out in the bar. The two men with shaved heads exchanged a wary look, while the chubby one began to fidget with his hands. All three avoided glancing in the dark-haired man’s direction.
“Who wants to know?” he finally asked.
“Me,” she stammered. “I have something extremely urgent to discuss with Mr. Tate.”
He slanted his head, a pensive glimmer entering those incredible green eyes.
To her shock, Eva’s heart did a tiny little flip as he once again slid his sultry gaze over her. She hadn’t expected him to be so good-looking. Her uncle had told her that Tate was rumored to be a deadly warrior, and granted, he sure did look the part, but the sexual magnetism rolling off his big body was something she hadn’t counted on.
“Look,” she went on, “my name is—”
He held up a hand to silence her. “Let us play out this hand.” With the raise of his dark eyebrows, the man she’d traveled so far to see thoroughly dismissed her and turned to the fat man. “I call, amigo.”
There was a beat of anticipation as both men prepared to reveal their cards. Tate went first, tossing a pair of aces directly on the pile of cash in the center of the table. With a resounding expletive, the Mexican threw down his cards and scraped back his chair.
“Tomorrow night, same time,” the little man spat out.
Tate seemed to be fighting a grin. “Sure thing, Diego.”
Eva resisted the urge to tap her foot as she watched Tate reach for the money he’d just liberated from his fellow card players. To her sheer impatience, he counted it. Then smoothed out each bill—one at a time.
Just as she was about to voice her frustration, he shoved the cash in his pocket, glanced at the other men and nodded at the door. At the unspoken demand, the trio shuffled out of their chairs and practically scurried out of the room.
Eva was unable to hide her amusement. “They’re terrified of you, you know,” she remarked.
The corners of his mouth lifted. “As they should be.”
She suspected the warning had been aimed to unnerve her, but she received a strange sense of comfort from those four lethal words. Oh, yes. This man was exactly what she needed. Her uncle had been right about him. Then again, she really shouldn’t have doubted Uncle Miguel. When a San Marquez army general warned you that you’d be getting tangled up with a ruthless warrior, he probably wasn’t bluffing.
“So you are Tate, then,” she said bluntly.
He nodded and gestured to one of the unoccupied chairs. “I am. Now why don’t you have a seat and tell me what the hell it is you want from me.”
Unfazed by his short tone, she sat down, crossed her ankles together and met his stormy gaze head-on. “I have a proposition for you.”
He cut her off with a low rumble of a laugh. “Proposition, huh? Well, like I said, I’m not into whores. But—” he cocked his head “—maybe I’ll make an exception for you. How much, sweetheart?”
Her skin prickled with offense. “I’m not a prostitute! My name is Eva. Eva Dolce. And I traveled a long way to find you, so please, quit calling me a whore.”
Those green eyes twinkled for a second, then hardened into stone. “How did you find me, Eva? I’m not exactly listed in any phone books.”
“I heard rumors about you.” She rested her suddenly shaky hands on her knees. “Someone told me you might be able to help me, so I decided to track you down. I’m … Well, let’s just say I’m very skilled when it comes to computers. I studied Computer Science at Columbia and—”
“You’re from New York?”
“Yes. Well, I wasn’t born there. My parents decided to move to the States when I was a baby. I was raised in Manhattan, we lived on the Upper East Side and—” She halted, realizing she was babbling. She hadn’t come here to tell this man her life story, damn it. “Look, none of this is important. All that matters is that I found you.”
“Yes, using your trusty computer,” he said mockingly.
She bristled. “I’m good at what I do. I started the search at the military base in North Carolina.”
His jaw tensed.
“You’re good, too,” she added with grudging appreciation. “You left so many false trails it made me dizzy. But you slipped up in Costa Rica. You used the same identity twice, and it led me here.”
Tate let out a soft whistle. “I’m impressed. Very impressed, actually.” He made a tsking sound. “You went to a lot of trouble to find me. Maybe it’s time you tell me why.”
“I told you—I need your help.”
He raised one large hand and rubbed the razor-sharp stubble coating his strong chin.
A tiny thrill shot through her as she watched the oddly seductive gesture and imagined how it would feel to have those callused fingers stroking her own skin, but that thrill promptly fizzled when she realized her thoughts had drifted off course again. What was it about this man that made her so darn aware of his masculinity?
She shook her head, hoping to clear her foggy brain, and met Tate’s expectant expression. “Your help,” she repeated.
“Oh, really?” he drawled. “My help to do what?”
Her throat tightened. God, could she do this? How did one even begin to approach something like—
“For Chrissake, sweetheart, spit it out. I don’t have all night.”
She swallowed. Twice.
He started to push back his chair. “Screw it. I don’t have time for—”
“I want you to kill Hector Cruz,” she blurted out.
Chapter 2
He was normally quite skilled at reading people, but for the life of him, Tate couldn’t decide if the woman sitting across from him was for real. He also couldn’t stop the blood in his veins from turning into pure ice the second she uttered those three pesky little syllables.
Hector Cruz.
Tate didn’t bother interpreting the “I want you to kill” part. All it took was the sound of Cruz’s name and a dose of bloodlust flooded his body, making him want to reach for the gun in his waistband and start shooting.
Before he could stop them, a barrage of grisly images burned a path across his brain. The charred woman in the brown dress. The heat of the fire. Dead rebels strewn on the ground. Cruz’s coal-black glare. Will’s eyes rolling to the back of his head.
Bad call.
Tate’s hands curled into fists as rage consumed his body like poison. He’d been agonizing about the botched mission for eight months now. He dreamed it. Breathed it. Fed off it. The one thing that kept him going was the thought of slashing a blade across Hector Cruz’s throat and watching the bastard die.
And