Lilah felt a fresh stab of alarm. What if he had a concussion or a skull fracture? Or—she recalled the boot to the side he’d taken and shuddered—broken ribs or a fractured spleen? Heaven help them both, he could have internal bleeding and not even know it. Her throat dry, she swallowed. “Where does it hurt?”
“Where doesn’t it?” he muttered. “Still—” he lifted an admonishing finger “—I’ve survived worse, so don’t go getting your panties in a twist, okay?” With a resigned-sounding sigh, he opened his eyes, raised himself up on his elbow and reached out to lay one large, warm hand over hers where it clutched the bars. “Trust me. I’m all right. I just need a minute.”
Trust me. The words washed over her, an echo from their past. How many times had he said just that, after daring her to do something dangerous, forbidden, but oh so tantalizing? How many times had she gazed into those fabulous eyes and lost a battle with temptation?
How many times had his touch made her brain fog while her body had come alive with desire?
Enough to remember him forever.
He released her hand unexpectedly to roll onto his side, breaking her wild thoughts. Grimacing, he flexed his jaw and touched an exploratory fingertip to his cut lip. He scrubbed the blood away with the back of his hand. Then, in one lithe move, he climbed to his feet.
Frozen in place, fighting to appear calm, she watched him take stock. His big muscular body bunched and flexed as he swiveled his head, rolled his shoulders, bounced lightly to test thighs, calves and knees. He rubbed briefly at a spot above his left pectoral and then sent her a pleased look. “Good news, princess. I think I’m gonna live.”
Princess. The intimate nickname, uttered in that casual, coolly amused tone of voice, felt like a slap to the face. Suddenly aware that she was still kneeling at his feet like some obedient harem girl, she scrambled up.
Oblivious to her, he took a slow look around, making a complete revolution as he took note of the solitary barred window set high in the far wall, the worn, wafer-thin woven pads atop the concrete slab ledges that passed for beds, the grate-covered holes that comprised the Third World bathroom facilities.
He gave a soundless whistle. “Man. You really must’ve pissed off the wrong person. I’ve seen prisons more cheerful than this.” His gaze swung back to her. For a second, something almost dangerous gleamed in his eyes and then his teeth flashed white, destroying that impression. “Wait. My mistake. This is a prison.”
He was making a joke. A joke. Here she’d been terrified out of her wits, afraid he might be irreparably injured, utterly overcome at seeing him again—and he was poking fun at their surroundings.
She stiffened. Humiliation warred with indignation, and indignation won. Not that she intended to let on. No way would she risk what little dignity she still possessed by letting on that he could still get to her.
Besides, she had bigger fish to fry, since his little inventory of his working body parts, coupled with his critique of the accommodations, had given her time to think.
“Your being here isn’t a coincidence, is it?” she said, recalling his first words to her and his utter lack of surprise at her presence in a desolate jail cell in an obscure little island country a million miles from home. “As a matter of fact,” she went on, ignoring his penetrating eyes to glance pointedly at the bruise starting to darken one strong cheekbone and the lip still oozing blood, “you deliberately did something to get yourself thrown in here because you knew this was where I was being held.”
Silence. Then his battered mouth quirked. “Score one for the rich girl.”
For a second, she had a powerful urge to hit him. Not that she had a hope of reaching him, but still….
Horrified, she took a firm grip on the bars that separated them, reminding herself yet again that she was a Cantrell and as such she would not, could not, lose her temper. Especially not now, when there was so much she burned to know. “How did you find me? How did you even know I was here in the first place? Did my grandmother send you? And why would you come? Why would you put yourself at risk like this?”
Logic insisted his presence simply couldn’t be a coincidence, but she still couldn’t seem to make sense of it.
After all, even ignoring the astronomical odds against him and her grandmother connecting, it had been ten years since his and Lilah’s last encounter. Ten years since she’d told him he’d better go and he’d looked at her with the same sort of nonchalant expression that currently graced his face. Ten years since he’d crushed her heart with a careless shrug and the comment that it was “her loss” before stalking out of her life forever.
Even now, the memory hurt. It made the past seem not so very long ago. As did the infuriating way he was currently considering her, so unruffled, so superior, so—so male. “Explain what you’re doing here. Now.”
“Tell you what, Li.” As cool as a wolf in winter, he padded over, braced his big hands above hers on the bars and leaned forward, his sheer size and proximity making her stomach tumble. “Do us both a favor, sweetheart. Take a deep breath, shut your pretty mouth and I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Two
Denver, Colorado
Five days earlier
“Hey.” Dominic ducked his head into his older brother’s spacious office at Steele Security headquarters. “You got a minute?”
Gabriel, who was seated at his granite-topped desk, glanced up, then resumed sorting through a stack of paperwork. “Sure. Come on in.”
Dom strolled across the flagstone floor. Like all the offices in the ultramodern, low-slung building tucked away in the city’s warehouse district, this one boasted a wall of glass that looked out on an interior courtyard. Today, as befitted January in the Rockies, the outside world was a brilliant sea of white, courtesy of the foot of fresh snow that had fallen overnight. “Taggart says we’re turning down a case.” After Gabe, Taggart was number two in the Steele brothers birth order hierarchy.
“That’s right.” Gabe’s tone was matter-of-fact. “The client’s coming in at two. I’m going to recommend she contact Allied.”
He stopped, rocking back on the heels of his Italian leather boots. “Why?”
“We don’t have the manpower.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.” Gabe made a quick notation on a page and set it to one side. “Taggart thinks he may finally have a lead on the elusive Ms. Bowen. Josh is going to be tied up with the Romero trial in Seattle for at least two weeks, and everyone else is either hip deep in the Dallas industrial espionage case or working the economic summit in London. That leaves me, and as much as I wouldn’t mind some field work, I’m needed here at the moment.”
Dominic studied his brother. To an outsider, Gabe would no doubt appear calm and dispassionate, an image deliberately encouraged by his choice of attire—a starched white shirt, rep tie and severe charcoal suit that just happened to be polar opposites of Dom’s own laid-back black slacks and green linen shirt. Only someone who knew him well—like a brother—would be likely to notice the sudden tension lining his mouth and shadowing his eyes.
But then, both Gabe and Taggart were wound pretty tight; Dom had long ago concluded that his two older brothers had spent way too much time in the line of duty—no doubt at the old man’s command—and had missed out on hanging loose and living a little.
Not him. Dom had decided early on that life was too short to spend his time all stressed out worrying about things that might never