Her Enemy Protector (3 page)

She shook her head and backed away from the mouthpiece.
What was she trying to do? Kill herself?

He closed in on her, wrapping an arm around her slender waist and shoving the mouthpiece back into her mouth. He kicked for the surface, dragging her up with him by force.

She fought, but she didn’t stand a chance against a trained commando like him. He just wrapped her up so tightly she couldn’t move. Their faces burst through to the cold air and he took a great sucking breath.

She spit out his mouthpiece, coughing. “Let me go!”

“Not a chance,” he growled. “I’m not going to let you die out here.”

“Dammit, does my father always have to win? Can’t you just leave me alone? Let me go.
Please.
No one will miss me. Just this once?” she pleaded, her voice laced with hysteria.

She was trying to die? She’d have succeeded if he hadn’t been there. What a piece of luck. Hell, this rescue mission was going to be a piece of cake. He’d just swim her down the beach to his staging area and Eduardo Ferrare would think his daughter had drowned. It was perfect.

“Carina, quit fighting and listen to me for a minute. I’m here to rescue you.”

She continued to sob hysterically and breathe in great gasping breaths of true panic.

He spoke forcefully. “Your sister, Julia, sent me to get you. You’re safe now. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

The slippery, struggling woman gradually stilled in his arms. The surf rocked them gently as they floated together, their bodies plastered against each other.

Better.

“Y-you d-don’t work for m-my f-father?”

Her teeth were chattering like castanets. Hypothermia was setting in. He had to get her out of this water, and soon. Not to mention that he thought he smelled blood on her. And if
he
could smell it, the sharks roaming these waters damn well could, too.

“No, I don’t work for your father. I’m here to get you away from him.”

“Did Tony send you?” Her voice broke on another sob.

He frowned.
Who the hell was Tony?
“No,” he began. “Your sister, Julia, sent me,” he repeated. Her mental processes were slowed, another sign of encroaching hypothermia.

Keeping one arm wrapped securely around her, he lifted his night-vision goggles to look at her directly. Her lips looked black in the moonlight. He swore under his breath. She was starting to shiver violently against him. Part cold, part shock, if he had to guess. Either way, he had to warm her up, pronto. He pulled her even tighter against him. Her body trembled violently against his. She’d never make it back to the op site in this state.

“Wh-what’s y-your n-n-name?” she got out between her rattling teeth.

“Joe.” Man, she was cold. She felt like an ice cube, even through his rubber suit. He treaded water with easy kicks of his legs, keeping them both afloat while he shared his body heat with her.

Abruptly, a half-dozen powerful spotlights exploded on the beach, flooding the sand with light and spilling their harsh glare over the surface of the ocean.

Cari lurched convulsively in his arms. “Oh, God,” she cried in terror. “They’re coming for me!”

Joe looked toward the shore. Sure enough, four men in full scuba gear were wading out into the water from the direction of the Ferrare estate. Wow, Eduardo’s people had responded fast to her flight.

The men were carrying underwater spotlights and motorized diving-propulsion devices that would pull them through the water at twice the speed he could swim on his own. Hauling Cari, who had no fins and was too cold to move, Joe would never manage to outdistance the men. He cursed foully to himself. There went his perfect getaway. He should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy.

Joe thought fast for a public place he’d seen Cari frequent that would suit his purposes. He asked her urgently, “Can you get to a club called The Last Tango sometime in the next few days?”

She frowned like she knew the place. “M-maybe. Although I d-doubt my father will l-let me out of the h-house after…” Her voice broke.

What in the
hell
had happened that had sent her out into the ocean in a complete panic? He cut off his curiosity. No time for that, now. He’d damn well find out later, though.

He talked fast as the spotlights drew closer. “I’ll be there every night between ten p.m. and two a.m. until you can come. I’ll sit at the bar upstairs. Ask around for a guy called Joe. Got it?”

“Joe,” she repeated.

“Your father’s divers are getting close and it’s about time for me to skedaddle. Don’t forget. The Last Tango. Joe. I’ll be waiting for you.”

He gave her a quick smile, then shoved his mouthpiece in, yanked down his goggles and disappeared beneath the surface of the waves.

Chapter 2

T
he morning after Tony’s murder, every trace of the bloody event was gone. There wasn’t the slightest hint of a stain left in Carina’s bedroom when she returned to it, let alone a corpse for her to go to the police with. But the memory of it overpowered her every time she set foot in her obscenely white bedroom.

It took her a long time to convince her father that she was cowed enough not to try any more stunts. It had been a real feat of acting to suppress her rage and grief over Tony’s death, not to mention her terror at what his murder meant for her own safety. But desperation gave her strength.

And then there was the mysterious man who’d saved her life. Joe. Just thinking his name gave her a spark of hope. Enough to keep going. Enough to pretend to be a meek, obedient daughter for as long as it took to keep that date with him.

Finally, on a Saturday morning two weeks after the murder, her father agreed to let her out of the house under heavy guard for a night of dancing. Apparently, people were starting to ask questions. The maids smuggled the occasional Gavronese tabloid to her and rumors were circulating that her father was keeping her prisoner in his house. For once, she was truly grateful for her high-profile party-girl image. It might just save her life this time.

She couldn’t wait to get out of the house for a few hours. And, good Lord willing, there’d be more than dancing waiting for her at The Last Tango.

She had no idea who this Joe guy was. Whether or not she could believe his story and trust him was another unknown. But it wasn’t like she had any choice. Eduardo had
murdered
her only trustworthy friend in Gavarone.

She prayed a dozen times that day that Joe had waited for her. She didn’t know if she could take another big disappointment right now.

He had to be here. He
had
to.

Curbing her impatience as the limousine pulled to a stop in front of the upscale tango club, she waited while Freddie and Neddie went inside to scope out the place. She knew the routine. They would check for exits and put a man on each one so she couldn’t make an escape, and they would make sure the customers didn’t include any known enemies of her father’s.

By the time they finally came back to let her out of the car, she was a jangling bundle of nerves. “Gentlemen,” she asked the pair as politely as she could muster around the tightness in her throat, “may I
please
have a little privacy tonight to enjoy myself in peace?”

The two men exchanged a glance. Freddie growled grudgingly, “You can go upstairs. There’s a bar and a small dance floor up there and only the one staircase for access. We’ll stay downstairs.”

“Thank you, Alfredo,” she murmured gratefully.
Please be here, please be here, please be here…

A gaping Neddie lurched into motion as she practically ran past him. She stopped just inside the door. The place gave the impression of an old-fashioned ballroom, with abundant gilding, mirrors and crystal chandeliers. Thankfully, a high-tech lighting system, the modern bar and a stage for a band kept it from being an old-fogey joint. She looked around frantically and didn’t see anyone remotely resembling that shadowed face from the ocean. Her heart leaped into her throat. He
had
to be here!

She’d been to this club a few times, but she certainly wouldn’t call it one of her regular haunts. It was more mature—classier—than the places she usually chose. She gravitated toward clubs that were wild, easy and, truth be told, a little raunchy. They aggravated the living heck out of her father.

Freddie nodded toward the stairs and she flew up them like there were rockets on her feet. The bar was located at the far end of a wide mezzanine, on the far side of a long, narrow dance floor that ran the length of the balcony. True to the club’s name, about once an hour a set of tangos played, and one was in progress now. She dodged promenading couples and made her way over to the gleaming mahogany bar. She bellied up to it and leaned forward to talk to the bartender under cover of the tango playing behind her.

“I’m here to meet a guy named Joe. Have you seen him, by any chance?” She prayed the bartender didn’t ask her for more details because she hadn’t registered much about Joe that crazy night.

She needn’t have worried. The second she uttered his name, the bartender’s eyebrows shot up to somewhere in the vicinity of his hairline. He stared at her with open curiosity. “Over there,” he nodded with his chin and added, “I thought for sure you stood him up after all this time, but he kept saying you’d show.”

Joe was here.
He’d waited for her. Abject gratitude at this stranger’s perseverance flooded her, and she blinked away tears of relief.

A new set of jitters attacked her as she turned in the direction the bartender had indicated. Over there. In a booth tucked into the darkest corner of the room. What would he look like, her mysterious savior? She’d been pretty freaked out that night, but she did recall that he was incredibly strong, and his eyes had looked black in the moonlight. His voice had been gravelly, but that might’ve been from the cold water and the dry oxygen in his scuba tank.

Julia had sent him, he’d said. How had he known she would come racing out into the ocean like she had? Was he some sort of mind reader?

She approached Joe from an oblique angle, taking a moment to study him before he did the same to her. The first thing she noticed was his thick, dark hair. Its silky, sable waves begged a girl to run her fingers through them. And he had a face worthy of Michelangelo. A plastic surgeon would kill to create a nose that straight or a jaw that firm. His age was hard to peg. Maybe in his mid-thirties. But his tanned skin was so smooth and taut that she could easily be wrong by five years in either direction.

He glanced over toward her just then, his eyes not showing the faintest recognition. Startled, she watched as his gaze slid past her cautiously, and only when he saw she was alone did his eyes return to her. He smiled.
Oh, Lord, he was so gorgeous it almost hurt to look at him.

He slipped smoothly out of the booth and stood up, waiting for her. Tall. Six foot two, maybe. Lean. But muscular. Fit. Really fit. Wow. Just wow.

She walked toward him, hyper-aware of her body, of how she tingled everywhere his gaze touched her. His smoky gaze slid downward slowly and thoroughly, approval registering as he lifted his eyes once more. She was completely mesmerized by the way his dark eyes looked straight into her soul. He all but consumed her with that intense look.
Get a grip, girlfriend! He’s only a guy.
The little voice at the back of her head whispered,
Yeah, but what a guy.

He wore competence like a cloak enfolding him, but it did nothing to hide the sex appeal rolling off him in waves. She could seriously see herself devouring him whole, which was completely unlike her. Although she was a flirt and openly generous with her affections when she was out, she cultivated an image among the party crowd of being the unattainable prize and, as such, pretty much never threw herself at any man, or let any man actually get too close to her.

But this guy was to die for!

The thought jolted her. She wasn’t about to die for him, and she darn well had no intention of letting him die for her.

One of his hands came up to grasp her elbow and guide her to a seat in the booth. He slid in across from her and smiled again.
Handsome
didn’t even come close to describing him.
Hypnotic
was more like it.

“Miss Ferrare, my name’s Joe Smith.” His voice was like melted chocolate, rich and dark and warm.

Somehow, she managed to refrain from fanning herself with the nearest thing at hand. “Uh, nice to meet you. I’m Carina Ferrare. But you already know that, don’t you? My friends call me Cari, but I bet you know that, too…” She cut off her babbling abruptly. Good grief, she sounded like some teenaged airhead.

“Like I said before,” he continued easily, “your sister sent me to rescue you from your father.”

Alarm shot through her. The very fact that he’d just uttered those words made him a target of her father’s wrath. She couldn’t help but glance nervously over her shoulder at the stairs. No sign of Freddie and Neddie. “How do you know my sister?” she asked cautiously.

“She’s engaged to a friend of mine. And she’s very worried about your safety.”

“Julia’s engaged? To whom? When did that happen? Why didn’t she tell me?” It was so implausible to imagine her sister meeting some guy and falling for him in a few weeks’ time that she almost laughed. If this guy was lying, he’d have to come up with something a whole lot more believable than that.

The man called Joe smiled again. “Julia’s going to marry a guy named Jim. He’s a friend of mine. A good man. As for when, I don’t think they’ve set a date yet. Things happened pretty fast between them.”

“How did she do it?”

Joe frowned. “How did she fall in love? Who knows? These things just happen.”

Carina laughed. “No, no. How did Julia get away?”

Chagrin flashed across Joe’s features, lowering his guard for a moment and drawing her to him even more potently than his physical beauty.

“Ah. As I understand it, she contacted some people in the U.S. government who helped her hide from your father.”