Dangerous to Know (5 page)

With a slow sinking sensation, she wondered how many of those business trips David had taken with Meredith Ames. And just what their relationship was.

She glanced at the other woman now, cataloging her vitality, her glowing beauty. Paige's hurt became a dull, throbbing ache.

“What happened?” Meredith asked. “After you left the boutique?”

“A limousine pulled up,” Paige replied, with a small, defeated sigh. “No, not a limo. A Rolls-Royce. It was sent for
you, you know. The chauffeur called me Mademoiselle Ames several times.”

“That's what I was afraid of.”

“I tried to explain, but I was so surprised that my little bit of French deserted me.” She made a little grimace of distaste. “Besides, the driver was rather rude about it all.”

David's hand tightened on hers. “Rude?”

“Yes. He practically pushed me into the back seat. Then there was a glass partition between us, and I couldn't even talk to him until we pulled up at the marina.”

“What marina?”

“I don't know. One of the ones along the Croisette.”

“And then?”

“And then he gestured toward the boat. Since he didn't seem to understand me and I couldn't get through to him, I decided to explain the situation to whoever was on the boat. But when I tried to walk up the ramp in these shoes, I fell off.”

“What?”

“You did what?”

The simultaneous questions jumped at her from opposite directions.

The swift, startled look that passed between David and Meredith set Paige's teeth on edge. These two might not be lovers, but they certainly could communicate with an economy of words. A tiny, healthy anger began to nibble at the edges of her hurt.

She pulled her hand free of David's tight hold and wove her fingers together in her lap.

“I fell off the ramp,” she repeated through stiff lips. “The gangplank. When I was walking up it, onto the yacht.”

“What yacht?”

“I don't know. A big one. With white sides.”

“Did you see the name?” David asked.

“Or the registration number?” Meredith added.

“There were some numbers painted on the side of the boat. Three-six-one something.” Her forehead scrunched. “Maybe it
was six-one-three. Or three—” Embarrassed by the disability that had dogged her all her life, Paige clamped her lips shut.

“Never mind,” David replied. “We'll check all possible combinations. What happened after you fell off the gangplank? It's important. Tell us everything, exactly as it happened.”

Gripping her hands together in her lap, she recounted the details of her unexpected swim in the Mediterranean.

“The tide swept me under the dock. There were so many boats berthed at the marina that when I finally surfaced, I didn't know where I was. I could hear shouting some distance away. I thought I heard a splash or two, like oars hitting the water. But by that time, I'd started swimming for shore. I had to shrug out of my jacket, and I lost my purse, but I made it.”

David's brows drew into a dark slash, but he didn't interrupt.

“That's when Henri came along,” Paige finished. “On his scooter. He saw me wading through the water and helped me to shore. I…I remembered that Meredith had told the saleslady to send her packages to the Carlton, so I asked Henri to bring me here.”

With a challenging tilt to her chin, she met Meredith's eyes. “Other than David, you were the only person I knew in Cannes.”

David shifted beside her, drawing her attention back to him as he stared at her in some puzzlement. “Why didn't you just come to me? You knew I was staying in this hotel, as well.”

It was here, the moment Paige had dreaded and worried about and cried over for weeks. She wet suddenly dry lips, unable to speak.

“Why didn't you come to me, Paige?” A small frown etched across his forehead. “And you still haven't told me what happened to your ring.”

In the small silence that followed, Meredith uncurled her long legs and rose. “Why don't I go get dressed?”

Neither of the two people facing each other on the settee paid any attention to her as she moved across the wide, luxuriously furnished sitting room. The tall double bedroom doors closed behind her.

Paige ran her tongue along her lower lip, her whole being focused on the man beside her. She let her eyes drift over the strong planes of his face, storing up memories of the lines at the corners of his eyes, the slight bump in the bridge of his nose, the square chin.

“My emerald ring is in my purse, David,” she said slowly. “Which is resting somewhere at the bottom of the bay right now. I took it off before I arrived in Cannes.”

“Why?”

“Because I was going to give it back to you.”

He went completely still.

Her heart hammering, Paige searched his face. She thought she saw confusion, and hurt, and a sudden fierce denial, flicker in his intent eyes, but in typical David fashion, he didn't express any of that. Instead, he sought to understand the root cause of the problem.

“Why?” he asked again.

Paige groped for some way to explain the feelings that had haunted her for weeks. “Because we have different ideas of marriage. To me, it's a communion between two beings, an equal partnership, with nothing held back.” Her gaze flickered to the closed bedroom door. “To you, it's obviously something else.”

“I see. You think that I—”

He broke off as the door flew open and Meredith burst into the sitting room.

“I just went to draw the curtains and saw Paige's little friend, Henri, on the sidewalk below. He's talking to someone who looks very much like the chauffeur of the Rolls.”

“Hell!” David surged to his feet. “Stay with Paige. And lock the door behind me.”

In a few swift strides, he was out the door and into the corridor.

Meredith turned the dead bolt behind him and hooked the old-fashioned chain into the guard for good measure. Without speaking, she crossed the wide expanse of carpeted floor and flattened her back against the wall beside the open balcony doors. She
peered out for long, tense moments, while Paige watched in growing confusion.

After a few seconds, Meredith shook her head in disgust. “I can't see anything from here. The palm trees block the sidewalk.”

She came back to the grouping of graceful carved rosewood furniture and dropped into the chair she'd vacated just moments before.

“What's going on?” Paige asked. “Why did David rush out like that?”

“We'd like to know who the chauffeur's working for.”

“You don't know? I thought…I thought the driver came to the boutique for you.”

“He did.”

“But you don't know who he's working for?”

Struggling to make sense of the confusing situation, Paige tucked a strand of limp white gold hair behind her ears. “Who are you?”

The tall, self-assured woman hesitated, then gave a small shrug. “I told you. I'm Meredith Ames.”

“How do you know David?”

“That's something he'll explain to you.”

Frowning, Paige stared at Meredith, then did a slow survey of the opulent suite.

“What do you do? For a living?”

Maggie stifled a groan. She hated having to perpetuate this deception on a woman she was coming to like, for herself as much as for the fact that she was Doc's fiancée. Had been Doc's fiancée. Whatever. But she had no choice, not if there was any chance at all that she could maintain her cover and salvage what was left of her mission.

She drew in a slow breath, suspecting that Paige wasn't going to appreciate the answer to her question.

“A
call girl?” Paige looked Meredith up and down, then shook her head emphatically. “I don't believe it.”

“You believed it, or something close to it, when you first walked in the door.”

“That was then,” she stated with irrefutable logic. “This is now.”

Meredith hesitated, then made a small gesture that encompassed the elegant suite. “Do you think your average American tourist can afford to stay at the Carlton or shop on the Croisette?”

Paige glanced around, taking in the opulent furnishings and the huge vases filled with freshly cut flowers that were scattered on every level surface. Her work as a technical librarian involved her more with research in engineering and the applied sciences than with general references, but she'd studied enough source-books in college to recognize a few of the priceless antiques that graced the sitting. A beautiful rosewood secretaire, its roll top inlaid with an intricate mother-of-pearl woodland scene, sat in one corner. The ornate, marble-topped table set against the op
posite wall was Italian, she guessed, as was the massive gilt mirror that hung above it.

No, she acknowledged heavily, your average American tourist couldn't afford this suite.

Still, Paige refused to accept that Meredith and David,
her
David, shared an illicit relationship. “You may be a…a call girl, but I don't believe David's one of your customers.”

An understanding smile tugged at the other woman's full lips. “No, he's not one of my customers.”

Paige stared at her for a long moment, and then her eyes widened in startled disbelief. “Good heavens, you're not trying to tell me he's your…your pimp?”

Half groaning, half laughing, Meredith shook her head. “Women at my level of the profession don't have pimps. Our clients are referred to us by reliable sources, and usually contact us over the phone, which is where the term came from in the first place.”

Paige chewed on her lower lip, thinking furiously. She might be naive, and a little timid on occasion, but she wasn't stupid.

“I don't believe it,” she said flatly. “There's something else going on here, something you won't tell me. Either of you.”

The other woman hesitated, then gave a small sigh. “Look, I'm not cleared to tell you anything. Obviously you realize you've stumbled into the middle of something Doc and I are working on together. All I can say is that it's dangerous. Very dangerous.”

Meredith threw a quick glance over her shoulder as a soft knock sounded on the door. She rose, her hand slipping into her pocket. Paige's eyes widened at the faint outline of a gun she saw in the lavender silk. Open-mouthed, she watched Meredith glide to the door on bare feet, not making a sound, then peer through the peephole.

Her shoulders lost their coiled tension, and she opened the door for David.

“We're okay,” he said quietly. “It cost me another fifty francs, but I verified that our pal Henri didn't disclose anything to the chauffeur other than the fact that he brought an American
woman back to this hotel. Apparently the driver still thinks it was Meredith Ames who went into the sea.”

“We're close enough in appearance,” Meredith said. “Maybe we can still pull this operation off.”

“What operation?” Paige asked.

David walked to her side. “You aren't cleared to know. Tell me, did anyone besides this driver get a good look at you before you nose-dived into the bay? Anyone on board the yacht?”

“I don't know. There were some people—crewmen, I think—on the back deck. But I didn't see anyone else.”

“We'll just have to chance it,” Meredith said quietly to David. “We've taken greater risks before. Or we can take the chauffeur out for a little while.”

“Right.” He gave Paige's hands a little squeeze. “Come on, let's get you out of here. I'll take you back to your hotel so you can get your things.”

“My things?” she asked, startled.

“You're flying out of Cannes in forty-five minutes—sooner, if Meredith can arrange it.”

“Leaving? But what about my purse? My passport? I don't have any papers, or money.”

“You won't need any,” the other woman assured her, moving toward the bedroom with a confident stride. “I'll take care of everything.”

“Let's go,” David said, tugging her to her feet. “I'll write out your itinerary for you as soon as it's confirmed and make you a list of contacts at each stop, in case you need them.”

Her forehead creased as she rose, still wrapped in the soft wool of his suit coat. “How can you get me out of France with no papers?”

His mouth firmed in an effort to control his impatience as he tugged her to her feet. “I can't explain it to you. Not right now. But you don't have to worry. I'll make sure you're safe. Someone will be covering you every second until you walk in your front door. When I return,” he added firmly, “we'll work through this matter of our engagement.”

It was that firm, no-nonsense tone that did it.

At that moment, Paige decided she would not walk out of this hotel room like a chastened child, to be sent home to wait and wonder and worry. If there was any hope for her and David at all, if he was ever going to share this private part of his life with her, it had to be now.

Digging in her one bare and one shod heels, she resisted his efforts to escort her to the suite's door. “I'm not leaving.”

“I know this is confusing for you,” he said, in that even voice that made Paige's back teeth grind together. “I'll explain what I can when I get home.”

“I'm not leaving,” she repeated, folding her arms across her chest. “I want to know what's going on.”

His jaw squared a bit at that. “We don't have time for this.”

“Then we'll just have to make time.”

His blue eyes hardened for an instant, and he gave her slender form a quick, assessing look that suddenly made Paige just a little nervous. How ridiculous, she thought, dismissing the shivery sensation that darted down her spine as the product of overstretched nerves. David would never use his physical strength against her. He was always so careful with her, so solicitous of her comfort. The thought reassured her, yet somehow depressed her at the same time.

“You weren't listening before,” she told him, with a tilt to her chin. “I was trying to say that marriage has to be an equal partnership. All the strength can't be on one side, nor all the sharing.”

“What about all the trust?”

“I trust you. I trust you enough to believe you're not one of Meredith's customers.”

“Thank you for that much, at least.”

Paige's back stiffened at the hint of sarcasm in his voice. She tossed her damp hair over her shoulders in a gesture that held an uncharacteristic rebelliousness.

“Someone has mistaken me for Meredith, correct?”

“Correct. And we're getting you out of here before they discover that mistake.”

“What happens if they do discover Meredith isn't me? Or I'm not her?”

“That's not your concern.”

There it was again. The closed door. The sealed chamber. The locked part of himself that he refused to allow Paige into. Her mouth settling into mulish lines, she met his look.

“I'm not leaving, David.”

“It's not your choice,” he told her, his face hardening.

“Is that right? Just what are you going to do? Drug me and carry me unconscious aboard the plane?”

“If I have to.”

Paige's jaw dropped. Shock held her immobile for long, silent moments. Then the welter of emotions that had weighted her down for so many weeks exploded. Uncertainty, wrenching unhappiness, insecurity and a debilitating sense of inadequacy all erupted into searing anger.

Planting her hands on her hips, she glared at David. “Now you listen to me, Mr. Take-Charge-Stone-Face-Macho-Man! I don't know who you think you are or where you got the impression that I'm some kind of windup doll you can play with when it suits you, then set conveniently out of the way when you've got better things to do. But we're going to correct that impression right here and right now.”

“Calm down, Paige.”

“Don't ‘Paige' me. And do not,
do not ever,
use that patronizing tone of voice with me again. Assuming I allow you to speak to me at all, that is. I want to know what's going on here.”

They faced each other like two combatants, arms crossed and bodies tense. Neither one heard Meredith walk back into the room.

Maggie could see at a glance that the course of true love hadn't run smooth during her brief absence. David and Paige stood toe-to-toe, looking for all the world like a sleek, well-muscled California brown bear squared off against a delicate gazelle. He towered over Paige, his face set in hard, unyielding lines. Chin lifted, eyes flashing with a surprising bravado, she
glowered up at him. The gazelle wasn't giving an inch, Maggie realized with a start of surprise.

“It's all set,” she announced, drawing their reluctant attention. “A helicopter will pick Paige up at the heliport atop the Carlton in thirty minutes. She'll fly to the U.S. air base at Ramstein, in Germany, then take a transport to the States.”

“I'm not going.”

Her eyes widening in surprise, Maggie glanced from Paige's set face to David's thunderous one, then back again.

“Someone thinks I'm you,” the younger woman said belligerently. “Or rather that I'm the person you're obviously pretending to be.”

“What makes you think I'm pretending?” Maggie asked sharply.

Paige waved an impatient hand. “I admit I don't know anything about call girls or pimps or this particular line of work. But I do know David. He may be overbearing and obnoxious and entirely too arrogant in his own quiet way,” she said acidly, “but he's not the kind of man to become involved with…with prostitution.”

Doc didn't look particularly pleased with her somewhat backhanded vote of confidence.

“Besides,” Paige added, with a cool look in her forest green eyes, “a call girl doesn't just whisk a person out of a foreign country aboard military transports. Who do you work for? Military intelligence? The CIA?”

Maggie and Doc exchanged silent looks.

“If you two do that one more time,” Paige stated through clenched teeth, “I'm going to throw something.”

Her mind racing, Maggie assessed the situation. Obviously, there was more to Paige Lawrence than the shy, somewhat timid young woman she'd met in the boutique this morning. She was intelligent, too intelligent for her own good. She'd guessed enough to put herself in danger if those on the yacht managed to connect her with this operation. OMEGA would have to send her to a safe haven for the duration of the mission.

Assuming the mission wasn't already hopelessly compro
mised, Maggie thought with bitter honesty. She and Paige were close enough in appearance to be mistaken for each other at first glance, but not close enough to carry off the deception if the driver, or anyone else, had gotten a clear look at either of them.

Which was why, when Paige suggested a few moments later that she stay in Cannes and meet with whomever had sent the Rolls, Maggie didn't object immediately.

David, however, did.

“Absolutely not.”

Paige ignored him, addressing herself to Maggie. “The driver thinks I'm Meredith Ames. I never managed to correct that impression before I fell into the bay. Those people aboard the yacht may have seen me. Whoever was waiting on that boat now expect me, not you.”

“True.”

“Why were you going there? Other than the obvious reason?” She stared at Maggie, her eyes thoughtful. “You must be delivering something. A message. Or information. Or money.”

This woman was definitely too intelligent for her own good.

“That's enough,” David interjected. “You've just run out of time to gather your things, Paige. I'll have them sent to you. Come with me.”

“No.”

“Dammit, you have no idea what's going down here.”

“No, I don't. So tell me.”

“You don't need to know. I'm not going to allow you to—”

She interrupted him in a soft, dangerous voice. “David, if you harbor even the faintest hope that we might marry someday, which I'll admit appears very unlikely at this moment, you won't finish that sentence.”

His jaw tight, Doc refrained from finishing his sentence.

While he scowled down at her, Paige fired the final shot. “I love you, David. I think I've loved you since the moment I walked into your office and you helped me sort out the mix-up on that rather expensive publication I ordered for you. I…I know you love me, too.” She held up a quick hand when he moved towards her. “Let me finish!”

“You've just said all that matters.”

“No. No, I haven't.” She drew in a deep breath. “I see now that we don't really know each other. You think I need to be coddled and protected and cherished all my life, and…”

She slid Maggie a quick, sideways glance. “And I think you need a more adventuresome partner, a woman who stirs more than just your protective instincts. I want the chance to prove I'm that woman. I need to do this. For you. For me. For us.”

Maggie held her breath, feeling much like a voyeur watching a riveting, compelling personal drama. She probably should've gone back into the bedroom some time ago, she told herself ruefully. But there wasn't any way she was going to miss the ending to this particular scene.

“Whatever you're doing must have some desperate consequences,” Paige added softly. “For you, or for our country. I can help. I have a right to help.”

When he didn't respond, she drew in a deep breath. “I'm not leaving, David. Not willingly. I'm going to deliver whatever it is that Meredith's supposed to deliver. When this is over, we'll decide who we really are and where we go from here.”