Rogue Alpha (Alpha 7) (3 page)

Diana looked down at her hands tightly gripping the whisky glass rather than at Seth Armstrong. Because he made her feel…uncomfortable. Not in a bad way, but a total awareness of everything about him, and it seemed to be intensifying the longer she spent in his company.

A feeling not helped by the fact that, once they reached his house, he’d taken off his jacket and tie, unfastened the top button of his shirt, and turned back the sleeves to beneath his elbows, revealing strong and muscular forearms.

Maybe in an effort to put her at her ease?

If so, it had the opposite effect.

He looked like a dark-eyed and lazy feline as he relaxed back in his chair. Not the fat-tabby type of feline, but one that was sleek and powerful, ready to pounce at a second’s notice.

Which he probably was.

She shrugged out of her own jacket in the increasing warmth of the room. “I spent a couple of days in hospital, then a week or so more at the embassy, recuperating. After that I—I flew back to England with—with Jeremy’s body. We had the funeral in Wales where my parents live, because Jeremy doesn’t—didn’t, have any family of his own. I stayed on with my parents for several months, then two months ago, I applied for and then was offered a job at a museum in Paris. I’ve been there for the past month.”

“Explain to me again why you thought your apartment in Paris had been broken into?”

She looked pained. “I… Things had been moved. A hairbrush on my dressing table not quite in the place I left it. The papers on my desk not in the same order. One of the books on my bedside table was lying on the floor. I have a tree. For Christmas. The presents under it weren’t in the order I put them in, and a couple of them looked as if they had been opened.” She made a dismissive movement of her shoulders. “Silly little things that on their own could have meant nothing, but when put together… I assure you, I’m not imagining any of this, Mr. Armstrong.” Diana looked across at him, silently willing him to believe her.

“Seth,” he answered distractedly.

Having once looked across at him, Diana now found it impossible to look away again. “How did you get that scar?” Her cheeks flushed hotly as she realized she had blurted out the question that had been intriguing her since the moment she saw this man again.

It was such a lethal-looking scar. A clean cut, probably caused by the slice of a knife or some other sharp instrument.

“Sorry.” She grimaced as the silence stretched uncomfortably between them. “That was unforgivably rude of me. I only— Never mind.” He obviously wasn’t about to answer such a personal question.

And why should he?

He didn’t know her, probably didn’t want to know her either, after she came on to him in the bar and had since regaled him with what he obviously considered to be the imaginings of a hysterical woman.

But she wasn’t about to admit defeat that easily. After all, he was still listening to her, and he had brought her back to his home with him too.

A house totally devoid of any Christmas decorations, she had noticed as they walked through the hallways to his study. Not that it was unusual for a man living alone not to bother with a tree or decorations, but she hadn’t seen so much as a Christmas card on show either. Surely Seth received Christmas cards? A lot of people sent e-cards nowadays, but there was still a few people who—

“Now tell me about being followed?”

She grimaced. “I was supersensitive after the things were moved in my apartment, and then I saw the same man a couple of times, in completely unrelated places. I thought I saw him at the airport earlier today too.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand why anyone would want to follow me.”

Seth would like to know the why of this situation too. If indeed someone had been in her apartment and was now following her.

Which was still in question.

What could this woman possibly have that someone else wanted so desperately they had gone to these lengths already in order to find it?

Diana said she worked in a museum, and presumably there would be valuable, possibly priceless, items on show and stored there. Maybe her “feelings” had something to do with that?

But that still didn’t explain why anyone would need to break into her apartment.

As for her curiosity about his scar…

His fingers went instinctively to that vicious slash down his cheek and throat. It had been there for so long, he rarely gave it a thought anymore, although he appreciated it probably scared the hell out of a woman like Diana Moore.

It was a visual—very visual—sign of the differences between the two of them.

She was elegant, very much the lady even in her distress, whereas he was the product of a tough childhood, years in the army, and several more years working for Grayson Security. His scar was an indication of the raw savagery he had faced so often in his life.

He smiled inwardly as that word made him think of his friend and work colleague Jonas. Jonas really was a savage. Jonas Grayfeather, so obviously Native American, from the top of his six-foot-six-inches-tall head to his battered size-fourteen boots.

A meeting between Jonas and Diana might be entertaining to watch.

Most women found Jonas’s blue-black hair and bronzed flesh intriguing as hell.

And that one kiss in the bar was enough to tell Seth he didn’t want Diana to be intrigued by any other man but him.

Enough to also tell him he wanted to kiss her again.

Did that mean he was going to help her? Go back to Paris with her?
Take her to bed if the opportunity arose?

He shifted uncomfortably as his cock began to swell with approval of that idea. “You’re a beautiful woman. Maybe the guy following you wants to get to know you better?”

Her cheeks flushed at the compliment. “He’s swarthy and slightly bald, with a paunch.”

“All the more reason,” Seth drawled.

She grimaced. “I sense anger in his interest, not attraction.”

Seth wondered self-derisively if she could sense his attraction to her, too
.
An attraction that definitely wasn’t fueled by anger.

He threw the contents of his glass to the back of his throat before standing up to place it back on the silver tray next to the cut-glass crystal decanter. He might have grown up poor, but he had made up for that during the last fifteen years. The army hadn’t paid that well, but his work since for Grayson Security was lucrative, and he had also developed an instinct for playing the stock market. “Do you have a return flight to Paris?”

“Tomorrow evening.”

He frowned his irritation. “That doesn’t give me a lot of time.”

“To do what?”

“Check into the situation.”

Her smile lacked humor. “See if I’m imagining things, you mean?”

There was that, Seth admitted ruefully. Although the longer he spent in her company, the less convinced he became that Diana Moore was either delusional or hysterical. There was a resilience to her that told him she was normally practical and levelheaded. She would have to be all those things in order to have survived all that happened to her this past year.

The senseless and seemingly random murder of Jeremy Moore was only one of the things Seth intended
checking into
before he made any decision in regard to whether or not to help this woman.

Moore’s wife had been kidnapped and then returned to him, and then a week later the man himself had been murdered. It seemed to Seth, on the outside looking in, those were the defining factors that began the strange events in Diana’s life.

She shrugged. “I’ve been working at the museum for such a short time, I didn’t like to ask for any more time off than a couple of days.”

That made sense. “Do you have family in London you can spend the night with?”

“I only have my parents.”

“The artist Stephen Baxter and the poet Stella Baxter.” Seth only knew of the couple because Stephen Baxter had been the one to employ the help of Grayson Security in retrieving his daughter, as well as providing the million pounds demanded from the Colombian bandits for her release. Along with many other countries, it was the policy of the British government not to pay ransom money to kidnappers or terrorists. Which was the reason Stephen Baxter had gone to Grayson Security, a company that specialized—discreetly—in the retrieval of kidnap victims. That discretion was also the reason Seth hadn’t “officially” been in Bogotá.

He had never met Stephen Baxter or his wife Stella. Lijah had been in charge at Grayson Security at the time, and Seth had been away on another job until days before flying out to Colombia.

Diana nodded. “I told you, they live in Wales. And I really don’t want to worry them again after—well, after what happened earlier this year.”

Also understandable. “Friends, then?”

“I’d rather not put any of them in danger by involving them.”

“But you didn’t feel the same need where I’m concerned?” He eyed her knowingly.

“No.” Diana had good reason to know this man was more than capable of taking care of himself, and anyone else who needed it. He knew it too. “I booked into a hotel earlier, left my overnight bag in my room there before coming to Grayson Security.”

“I’m not sure staying at a hotel is a good idea.”

Her eyes widened. “Why not?”

He shrugged wide shoulders. “Because if you are being followed, then a hotel could be a very vulnerable place for you to be.”

“I didn’t think of that…” She gave a shudder as the fear she had felt for so long once again threatened to become overwhelming.

“You could stay here.”

Diana tensed as she looked at him warily. “Here…?”

“Why not?”

“With you?

He gave a hard smile. “It would seem to defeat the object if I moved out to a hotel and left you here on your own. It’s a big house,” he snapped at her continued silence. “With half a dozen bedrooms. You can take your pick as to which one you want to sleep in.”

Including his
?

It was utterly ridiculous, given the circumstances, but Diana couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to go to bed with a man like Seth Armstrong. An experienced and totally self-confident man, at least ten years older than her, who would probably bring those qualities to bed with him. His kiss earlier had been both provocative and intimately arousing—

What on earth am I doing?

She didn’t want to go to bed with Seth. She didn’t want to become involved or go to bed with any man after her short but disastrous marriage to Jeremy. It would be complete madness when she had this uncertainty and turmoil going on in her life.

But I do want to feel safe, and Seth Armstrong makes me feel safe.

From everyone but himself…

This man was too cynical, more experienced than her too, and not only in years. There was a wealth of knowledge in those hard, onyx eyes. Eyes that had seen things, as this man had done things, she couldn’t even begin to imagine.

He may even have shot and killed one or several of my kidnappers eight months ago.

Diana was aware of all those things. At the same time as the thought of staying here with him was so much more appealing than being alone in a hotel room.

No, she wouldn’t be
with
Seth, merely sleeping in the same house as him.

There was the added benefit he couldn’t just forget about her, and her problem, if she stayed here. “Fine” She nodded. “Thank you,” she added belatedly.

His smile was mocking now. As if he knew exactly how nervous the thought of staying the night here with him made her feel. “What sort of food do you prefer?”

“Sorry?”

“I haven’t eaten yet, thought we could order dinner in.”

Diana hadn’t given a thought to eating dinner. She hadn’t given a lot of thought to food at all since the break-in at her apartment. She had felt too unsettled. As if her space, her life, had been invaded. Violated. Again.

How could something so awful be happening to her for a second time in a matter of months?

More to the point,
why
was it happening to her?

Her stomach churned. “I’m really not hungry.”

“I am,” Seth decided decisively. “Do you eat Chinese food?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then Chinese it is.”

This man’s manner bordered on arrogance— Who was she kidding? This man was arrogant as hell. It was possible he might even define the word. Which was part of the reason she had come to him for help in the first place. Seth Armstrong wasn’t only arrogant, he also didn’t recognize the word failure. If he decided to help her, then she knew he wouldn’t stop until he had solved the mystery of what was going on in her life.

If
he decided to help her.

“Where are you going?” Diana frowned as he headed toward the door. And then cursed herself for sounding needy. She
hated
sounding or feeling that way.

He paused in the doorway. “The food menu is in the kitchen next to the phone. Do you need to get your bag from the hotel, or can you manage for one night? I’m sure I can rustle you up a new toothbrush, if that helps.”