Kiss Me While I sleep (32 page)

“It would already have gone down by now. You’re what’s keeping it up. See, I
am
romantic.”

He was getting her back for her crack about the recording, but the slight shaking of his shoulders gave him away. She looked up into blue eyes that were sparkling with barely contained laughter, but since she was about to disgrace herself by giggling, she forgave him for it. She gave him a slap on the butt, then moved away to pick up the robe. “Get cracking, big boy. Are you hungry now, should I order room service?”

“I could definitely use some coffee, so you might as well order food at the same time.” He checked the clock. “It’s almost ten, anyway.”

That late! She marveled at how well she had slept, but it also reminded her that her mystery caller could call at any time. While Swain was in the bathroom, she checked her cell phone, which she’d put in the charger the night before. The phone was on, and the service line showed a nice strong signal, so she hadn’t inadvertently missed a call. She took the phone off the charger and slipped it into the pocket of the robe.

She called room service and put in an order for croissants and jam, with coffee and fresh orange juice. Swain hadn’t professed a preference for anything other than traditional French fare for breakfast, so she went with that. In food, too, he’d proven to be remarkably sophisticated and adaptable. There was a lot he hadn’t told her about his past, but then, she hadn’t told him everything about herself, either, and probably never would. He was healthy, he was heart-whole, and for the moment he was hers. That was enough.

He poked his head out of the bathroom. “Do you want that soak now while I wait for room service, or do you want to wait until afterward?”

“Afterward. I don’t want my soak interrupted by food.”

“I’ll shower now, then.” He disappeared back into the bathroom, and a moment later she heard the shower running.

He came out just ahead of the arrival of their food, looking spiffy in black trousers and a simple white collarless shirt with the cuffs rolled up over his muscular forearms. He signed the check, while Lily stood with her back to the room looking out the window, then he showed the waiter out. He had just turned back from the door when Lily’s cell phone rang.

She sucked in a deep breath and took the phone out of her pocket. A quick look at the window showed that the caller’s number had been blocked. “I think this is it,” she said, and flipped the phone open. “Yes, hello,” she said, switching to French.

“Have you reached your decision?”

On hearing the mechanically distorted voice, she signaled to Swain with a quick nod and he came over to put his head right next to hers. She lifted the phone the tiniest bit away from her ear, so he could hear, too.

“I have. I’ll do it, but on one condition. We must meet face-to-face.”

There was a pause.
“That is not possible.”

“It will have to be possible. You’re asking me to risk my life, but you aren’t risking anything.”

“You do not know me. I fail to see what a meeting would accomplish in the way of reassurance.”

He was right about that, but she was already reassured. If Rodrigo bad been the one making the call, he’d have jumped at her proposal for a meeting. Sending someone else to meet her, drawing her into the trap by using someone she didn’t recognize, would have been a simple matter. This man was not Rodrigo, and wasn’t working with Rodrigo.

She started to say that he was right, a meeting wasn’t necessary, but Swain made an urgent signal and mouthed, “Meeting,” then nodded his head. He wanted her to insist on the meeting.

She couldn’t think of any reason why, but she shrugged and went along with him. “I want to see your face. You know mine, don’t you?”

The caller hesitated, and she knew she’d guessed right.
“What does it matter if you know my face? I could tell you any name and you would not know the truth.”

That, too, was true, and she couldn’t think of any logical reason for continuing to insist, so she went with illogic. “That’s my condition,” she said abruptly. “Accept or decline.”

She heard him draw a deep, frustrated breath.
“I accept. I will be in front of the Jardin du Palais Royal tomorrow at two o’clock. Wear a red scarf and I will find you. Come alone.”

Swain shook his head, a determined expression on his face that told Lily he wouldn’t budge on this.

“No,” she said. “A friend will be with me. He insists. You are in no danger from me, monsieur, and he wants to be certain I am in no danger from
you.”

The man laughed, which was transformed by electronics into a harsh, barking sound.
“You are difficult. Very well, mademoiselle. Are there any other conditions?”

“Yes,” she said, just to be contrary. “You wear a red scarf, too.”

He laughed again and cut the connection. Lily closed the phone and blew out a breath. “It isn’t Rodrigo,” she said unnecessarily.

“Seems not. That’s good. We may actually be getting a break.”

“Why do you want to be there?”

“Because a man that reluctant to meet has something to hide, and I don’t trust him.” He picked up her coffee and handed it to her, then winked. “Guess what this means.”

Lily blinked, still so focused on the call and its implications that she was at sea. “What?” she asked, bewildered.

“It means we have today.” He clicked his coffee cup against hers in a salute. “And tonight”

With nothing to do but enjoy each other, he meant. A slow smile curved her lips. Moving to the window, she opened the curtains and looked out at the brightly sunny day. “If you get bored, we can make that trip to Disneyland,” she said. She thought she could do it now, and enjoy the memories of Zia rather than suffering from them.

“Can you go naked there?” he asked, sipping his coffee.

Knowing exactly where this conversation was going, she pursed her lips and said, “Not likely.”

“Then I’m not leaving this room.”

The next day, Saturday, was another cool, sunny day that brought the tourists out in droves. Swain had thought tourists would have been thin on the ground this time of year, but evidently not. A lot of them had evidently felt the need to see the Royal Palace gardens, or maybe there was some sort of festival going on. There had to be something to account for the crowds. Unfortunately, “in front of” the gardens turned out to be a rather vague instruction. The ornate garden park was large and bordered on three sides by shops, restaurants, and art galleries. One entered the park through a large courtyard dotted with striped stone columns, which he supposed was some artist’s idea of… something, but they looked jarringly modern and out of place among the architecture of the 1600s. There was a long line of taller, more stately columns, too, which further reduced lines of sight. Between the columns and the throngs of people, many of whom seemed to be wearing a red scarf, spotting any one person was more difficult than he’d expected.

All in all, he considered this a piss-poor way to make contact, but it was somewhat reassuring. A professional would have picked a better way, which meant the guy they were dealing with was a rank amateur, possibly someone who worked at the Nervi laboratory and was alarmed by what was happening there. They would have a definite advantage over him.

Lily stood beside Swain, looking around. She was wearing sunglasses to disguise her eyes, as well as brown contacts in case she needed to remove the glasses, and the same cloche she usually wore to cover her hair. Swain looked down at her and caught her hand, pulling her closer to his side.

He thought of himself as an uncomplicated man in his wants and needs, his likes and dislikes, but there was nothing uncomplicated about this situation with Lily or the way she made him feel. He was caught in a hell of a dilemma, and he knew it. The best he could do was take care of one thing at a time, in order of importance, and hope to hell everything worked out. It couldn’t work out with Lily, of course, and he felt a fist squeeze his heart every time he thought of what he had to do.

If only he could talk to Frank. Frank was alive, conscious, but heavily sedated, and still in ICU. In Swain’s opinion “conscious” didn’t exactly describe his condition, because according to Frank’s assistant he could respond to such requests as “squeeze my hand” and occasionally mouth the word “water.” To Swain, conscious meant you were holding conversations and having a rational thought process. Frank was a long way from there. He was in no shape for a phone call even if his cubicle had a telephone, which it didn’t

There had to be some other solution for Lily. He wanted to talk to her: sit her down, hold her hands, and tell her exactly what was going on. Things didn’t have to go down the way Frank had decreed.

He didn’t because he knew beyond a doubt how she would react. At best, she would walk away from him and disappear. At worst, she would try to kill him. Given her past and how wary and untrusting she was in general, he’d bet on the worst-case option. If she hadn’t already been betrayed by a lover who had tried to kill her… maybe he’d have had a chance. He’d almost groaned aloud when she told him about that episode, because he knew it had set a terrible precedent in her mind. After barely escaping with her life that time, she wouldn’t be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt and talk before shooting.

Her emotions were on a hair trigger, and he knew it. She had been battered by loss and betrayal to the point that she had almost totally withdrawn, because she couldn’t bear another blow. He knew very well that only circumstance had forced her to him, though he’d been quick to take advantage of the situation. She’d been starved for human contact even while she shunned it, her life totally devoid of laughter, fun, enjoyment. At least he could give her that, for a little while, and as he’d told her, he was one lucky son of a bitch because that was exactly what she could least resist.

The way she’d bloomed in the last few days broke his heart. He didn’t flatter himself that the cause was his superior love-making technique or even his winning personality; it was the simple human touch that had done it, drawn her out of her shell, let her laugh and tease and accept affection as well as give it. But there was no way a few days could offset months, years of conditioning; she was still so delicately balanced that the least hint of betrayal would undo the trust he’d been building between them.

He was in a hell of a mess, because he was as caught as she was. If he’d touched her, she had also touched him. These past two nights, making love to her, had been… hell, they’d been the best time of his life. Losing her was going to rip his guts out, and he’d let things progress to the point that he’d lose her no matter what he did, because if he told her what he was and that he’d tracked her down, all she’d see would be betrayal. Son of a
bitch.
He’d thought he could handle it, have a good time and show her a good time for a little while, but he hadn’t allowed for how important she would become to him. Nor had he known how emotionally battered she’d been, which would pretty much dictate her response if he spilled his guts to her now. He’d been stupid and arrogant, thinking with his little brain instead of his big one, and now he and Lily were both going to pay.

Okay,
he
deserved to pay, but Lily didn’t. If anything, she was the good guy in this situation. So she’d killed a CIA asset; the son of a bitch had deserved to die, especially in light of what he’d been planning with the flu bug. Not that she’d known about that at the time, her motive had been pure revenge, but to Swain that was splitting hairs. What it came down to was, Lily hadn’t quit. She just kept on throwing herself into the breach, willing to sacrifice herself to do what she thought was right. Not many people had that sort of moral fortitude, or plain stubbornness, whatever you wanted to call it.

The bottom of his stomach dropped out, and his heart started pounding as he realized exactly what had happened, how he’d been blindsided. “Jesus God,” he said aloud. Despite the cool day, he broke out in a sweat.

Lily looked up at him, puzzled. “What?”

“I’m in love with you.” He said it starkly, in shock at the realization of what he was feeling and the disaster looming in front of him. He ground his teeth together, his jaw locked as he fought to keep from blurting out everything. What he’d just said was enough to make him feel as if he’d leaped off a cliff.

Because of the sunglasses, he couldn’t see her eyes very well, but he could tell she was blinking rapidly, and her mouth fell open a little. “What?” she repeated, but this time the word was very faint

Her cell phone rang.

A fierce scowl twisted her face. “I’m
so
tired of these damn phone calls!” she muttered as she fished the phone out of her pocket.

Frustrated by the interruption, he grabbed the phone. “I know what you mean,” he growled as he glanced at the little view window. He paused, staring at the number. He knew that number; it was one he’d called just a few days ago. What in hell-? “We have a number this time,” he said to cover his pause; then he flipped the phone open and snapped, “Yeah, what is it?”

“Ah… perhaps I have the wrong number.”

“I don’t think so,” Swain said, thinking furiously as the quiet voice confirmed his suspicion. “You were calling about a meeting?”

Perhaps the caller caught his voice, too, because there was a long moment of silence, so long that Swain began to wonder if he’d cut the connection. Finally the caller said,
“Oui.”