Blush(57)

She’d dried her hair into a sleek, sophisticated style and applied cosmetics to make her eyes look piercingly blue and mysterious. Dressed in white shorts and a blue-and-white-striped top, she looked cool and fresh and delectably sexy. “It’s an exercise pole.”

“As long as you exercise naked, I want a front-row seat.”

She took a glass from him. “Thanks.” Indicating the two upholstered chairs she’d dragged out onto the long balcony that ran across the back of the house, she stepped outside and sat down, cradling her wine.

Cruz flicked off the interior light so as not to attract insects, but also so they weren’t sitting ducks on the balcony. He followed her outside, pausing to look out over the dark trees and water. There was unseen danger out there. Animals, for sure. He didn’t sense human eyes, but he was alert to any unnatural sounds. The evening had cooled some—high seventies, he figured. Comfortable.

The sound of insects chirruping and clicking accompanied the occasional splash from the dark waters of the bayou. The damp air smelled delectably of tuberoses.

The reflection in the dark window beside her gave him an interesting front and side view. She had a patrician profile he hadn’t really noticed before. Caressing the bowl of her glass, she waited as he dropped into the other chair.

Whatever she was about to tell him, she was nervous. He wanted to lean forward and cover her fingers with his. To tell her whatever the hell it was she thought would piss him off, or scare him off, he’d heard and seen it all. She believed he’d killed his old man, and she was still sympathetic to the kid he’d been. What she hadn’t figured out was that he’d grown up at sonic speed. He didn’t need her sympathy.

He crossed one bare foot over his ankle as he leaned back. “I feel as though I’ve been called into the principal’s office.”

Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I bet that happened a lot.”

“You’d be surprised,” he said dryly. “I was a pretty good kid. At least for a while.”

“I wish . . .” She didn’t complete the thought. He could practically hear the gears and pulleys in her agile mind turning.

“You’ve never been anything but direct with me. What’s going on? What’s so important?”

She drew in a breath. Let it out slowly. “I haven’t been completely honest with you. I haven’t lied exactly, but I’ve kept something important from you, and I want you to know. . . . My real name is Amelia Wellington-Wentworth.”

He’d waited too long to kill her. Way too long. He knew her now. Killing her was off the table, and he knew it.

Her hands went up to her hair, as if she wanted to pull it away from her face. Something he imagined she’d done unthinkingly before cutting it. Her hands dropped to her lap. “I’m the CEO of Blush Cosmetics. I live in San Francisco, and I’ve been hiding out here for a few weeks because my security people think someone is trying to kill me.” She paused, presumably to give the information time to sink in. “They’re trying to figure out who and why.”

His pulse quickened when he heard that Amelia and her cohorts at Blush knew there was a hit on her. He’d been hired after she left for Europe. He’d looked for her there, followed her circuitous route back to the United States. Tracked her to Louisiana. She’d had five aliases in two months.

All he’d been paid to do was kill her. Why she was living in a decrepit plantation, trying out cookie recipes, dancing on a goddamn stripper pole, and fucking her handyman were tangential issues that hadn’t mattered to his end goal.

He drank his wine, wishing it was a single malt instead. “I imagine a CEO of such a large company has a lot of enemies.” Even a handyman would know the name of Blush Cosmetics. It was synonymous with cosmetics and health care products and was international. Only someone living on a deserted island would be oblivious.

“I didn’t think so, but apparently I was wrong.” She shrugged her slender shoulders and took a fortifying sip of wine, lowered her glass, then brought it back to her mouth for another sip. “At this level there are plenty of false friends and true enemies,” she said prosaically. “When you’re vulnerable, you can never let your guard down. And I let my guard down.”

She had cause to be cynical, but since he’d made no attempts on her life, he had to wonder who had. Perhaps he wasn’t his anonymous client’s first choice. Had his employers come to him after another contractor failed to take Mia out? Was that why his deadline had been set so precipitously, and his hiring so close to a fixed deadline?