Tal bit out a gritty epithet. “Then what the hell do we do? I won’t sacrifice our families, but I can’t risk innocent lives for them, either.”
She bit her lip and held on to the too warm wall, feeling the discomfort vaguely as she took on possibilities and discarded them. “I don’t know.”
“There’s only one thing to do.” The note in his voice made her heart hammer. He tipped up her chin, and looked deep into her eyes. “We sacrifice our feelings, and get married for real.”
Chapter 4
“W-what?” The world shifted around her. She staggered and almost fell. Tal lifted a hand to steady her, but she moved a step back, hating the delicious, pulse-pounding sweetness that filled her whole body when he touched her. “W-what did you say?”
He shrugged, obviously seeing no need to repeat himself.
Marrying Tal. Was this a dream come true or a nightmare about to descend on her? From meeting him again to fake marriage to reality, in the space of three days—
“Are you all right with that?” he asked, his tone grim. “If it’s too much for you to go through—”
Disoriented, she blinked up at him. “T-too much…?”
“Marrying me, sweetness.” He touched his scarred cheek and then made another tiny sneering motion with his mouth. “I know it’s a big sacrifice for you—I realize that I’m a huge step down in standards for a star like you, Miss West—but I thought you cared about saving lives, and our families.”
“I do!” God in heaven, he was blind. How could he not see how much she wanted him? “If we get married, sweetness, I’ll try to make the sacrifice if you do,” she snapped. “You make yourself pretend you want me, and I’ll pretend you’re still the love of my life.” She used the same cynical, flippant curtness he used on her. Damn him! Why couldn’t he be happier about this situation? It wasn’t as though he had to put up with—
A caressing touch on her shoulder startled her. “Pretend I want you? You think I’m going to have to pretend?”
She stood speechless, unable to move or breathe, or think of anything but the sweet ache building in her, wanting, hoping…
“You think it will be an act?” he pressed her, his voice soft, dangerous.
She managed a shaky whisper. “Don’t lie to me, Tal. Lie to the world if you need to, but not to me.”
“All right—you want truth?” He took a step closer to her, his sudden grin half-savage, highlighting his scars. “I might not look so good these days, sweetness, but I’m still a man. Everything that needs to functions just fine, and the thought of kissing and touching you—for the mission, of course—isn’t a big hardship.” He moved on her, his face like a savage angel’s, tender and taunting. “I’ve forced myself to think about kissing you, touching you, and pretending to want you, oh, about two hundred and forty times since I saw you yesterday. Just in case I needed the scenario for a mission, of course. For the sake of the greater good.” He smiled at her, his eyes dark, unfathomable—his body way too close. “I must have been training for this mission for a long time, honey, because I’ve been pretending to want you ever since I was fifteen.”
She wasn’t just hurting now—she was in anguish. A few sultry words and she had to fight the urge to reach out and touch him, trail her fingers over the hard ridges of muscle, to pull his mouth down to hers for a long, scorching kiss…
Dear God, I’m still pathetic. I can’t walk away free if Tal can still keep me bound in the same old chains.
“Mary-Anne?”
The name was soft, husky. Sending flaming arrows of need and hope through her stupid dreamer’s heart. She turned away, blinking hard. “I’m Verity.” The words were shaking, wobbly in their flickering defiance—and a complete lie. She’d never been Verity, not even to herself. Even after seven years, she still felt a slight shock when anyone called her by her stage name. More often than not, she had to force herself to remember.
“Not to me.” The tenderness in his voice showed he saw what was going on beneath the would-be calm surface of her. “Just like I was never the town winner to you. Mary-Anne Poole was the best friend I ever had. I can’t call you Verity.”
She clenched her fists, willing the tears not to fall. “Okay. Call me Mary-Anne if you want—if it works for the job.” Still with her back to him, not daring to show her face, she shrugged. “We both know neither of us would have ever come to the other again, if it hadn’t been for this assignment.”
“Maybe you wouldn’t have come to me,” he replied, still quiet, restrained. “I’d have come to you if I’d thought you’d listen to me. I’ve wanted us to make peace for a long time.”
She swiveled back to him, with a glimmering smile of bravado. “Sure. No problem. Peace achieved. Friends again, just like always.” And she held out her hand to him.
Instead of taking it, he looked into her eyes for a moment—and she trembled without his even touching her. With a single look she was a stupid schoolgirl, the shy, chubby loser head over heels for the popular, handsome boy next door.
She tried to drop her hand…but he caught it and lifted it to his mouth, palm up, the kiss gentle yet intensely sensual: a slow, tender seduction. “Were we just friends, Mary-Anne? You told me you loved me. You wanted my baby.”
She froze, her eyes fixed on his, her body hot and weak and shaking with the neediness she couldn’t hide. “I was a silly girl,” she whispered. “And like all good fairy tales, the prince rode into the palace with the real princess.” She knew her hot, shivering reaction to him was giving her away. “I failed the princess test. I missed the pea under the mattress.”
Breathing against her skin, he moved his mouth with infinite tenderness to her wrist. “I guess I’m not your average prince. I liked Cinderella a lot better than Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. And I always preferred Mary Ann to Ginger.”
She shook even more, as shooting darts of heat burned up the flesh of her arm to her deepest core. “Y-you did?” Then, without warning, blinding reality hit her, broadsiding her with its careless cruelty. “Of course you did. Well-endowed redheads were never your thing, were they?”
He frowned, his mouth pausing between tiny kisses. “Who fed you that piece of propaganda—or do I even have to ask?”
Snatching her hand from his, she wheeled away. “Does it matter? It’s old news. I got over it years ago.”
“Obviously.” His voice was gentle. He moved closer to her, so close he must be able to feel her intense response to him…like the gullible fool she’d always been with him, her heart and body screamed, Touch me, Tal, oh, please, touch me…
Untamed magic surrounded him, an aura of dangerous chemistry ready to combust in her—a catalyst straight to a broken heart. And no Gil waited this time to save her. Don’t look. Don’t let him touch you. It’s the only way to survive. “We’ve made peace—we’ll do the mission. Let’s leave it at that,” she muttered, willing him to follow her lead.
“What if I can’t leave it like that, Mary-Anne?” he asked, husky, dark and aching. “What if I want to show you how good I can be at pretending to want you—right here, right now?”
Helpless, mesmerized,