LITMIR.BIZ

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she donned a simple white sheath. The famous twisted curls glowed with flame, so the media said—better than the schoolkids’ taunts of “better dead than red”—pulled up in a clip, tumbling down to her waist. A gold rope pulled in the dress at her waist and showed off her breasts…and no one knew how much unflagging discipline it took to keep her glorious figure.

      Fat girl, fat girl!

      She plastered a smile on her face and headed for the limousine, smiling and waving, signing autographs. Wishing Gil was here to laugh at the absurdity of her life, to help her survive the predators—to hold her when she cried. For cool-as-ice, touch-me-not Verity West was a marshmallow inside. A shy girl living in the public eye. A stranger inside her own life.

      The heart of the girl who hid from the world was still beating within the slender, lovely shell. Still sickly sweet, trusting and vulnerable Mary-Anne Poole somewhere deep inside, seven years after becoming Verity West.

      She spent the evening encouraging hopeful singers, talking to kids who’d won contests to meet her and fending off men’s smug I-know-you-want-me advances with her trademark cool smile and quiet wit, counting the minutes until she could leave.

      Then a waiter passed her. Inconspicuous; there one moment, gone the next. Pressing a note into her hand.

      Change your key, songbird. In the shadows of the alley, a ghost from your past awaits.

      Escaping through the kitchen and service elevator of the exclusive hotel, she ran past the blinding glare of flashing bulbs in her face and slipped inside the leather-lined luxury of the darkened car. “Thank you,” she sighed. “What’s the deal?”

      Nick Anson, her secret boss, smiled at her. “Sorry, darlin’, but you’re getting a throat infection. You need a fortnight off.”

      She sighed with the intense relief she always knew when she had to drop work for a mission. “My agent and manager will have collective heart attacks. Could be fun. Where am I going?”

      “This is the most vital mission I’ve ever given you, Songbird.” Nick threw it at her, hard and blunt. “You’ll spend the first few days in Mekalong Island in the Torres Strait—and you know why, since you stole his file when my back was turned.”

      Her heart stalled, then kicked again. All she could think of was, What can I say to that—sorry, yes, it was me? But she didn’t think she could speak right now. God help her, even in shock her body was primed already, pounding with excitement. She had to fight to get one croaked word out. “And?”

      “And we need Irish back pronto. He’s refusing to answer my calls or messages. It’s up to you. Make him want to do it.”

      She jerked up in the seat. “Me? But…his wife—”

      “He’s been divorced for three years.” He slanted her an odd, probing look. “Wasn’t that in the file I let you steal?”

      She kept her mouth clamped shut. He knew damn well it wasn’t on file. Nick Anson was too much a rabid perfectionist to leave it off file—unless he’d had a damn good reason to do so.

      No point in drawing this out. “So you know about our past.” She drummed her fingers on her leg, the only visible sign of the internal explosion of her heart. “The tabloid stories, right?”

      “It’s how I came to recruit you in the first place. I saw the possibilities in case a mission like this ever came up—and so I sought you out.” Silence filled the car as she absorbed, then accepted, her ruthless boss’s reasons for first contacting her to join the Nighthawks. Then he went on in his smooth-as-molasses Southern drawl.

      “The future of the Nighthawks depends on this mission. No one else can possibly handle it, so the American office sent the request to me.” He hesitated. “Irish broke into the office several times to access your file, after you two ran into each other at headquarters that day. I believe you two have a mutual chemistry that, together in one place, would create an explosion big enough to rock the planet.”

      God help her, Nick was right, and she didn’t know if Earth was ready for the explosion. Nick Anson had to be the gruffest, most irascible and unwilling Cupid ever to plague man and woman. She’d thought she’d never want to see Tal again, nor he her, yet it seemed neither of them could forget…

      “Will you do it?” Nick asked quietly. “Will you work with him? This mission won’t be an easy one, on any level.”

      Was she shaking with excitement, or fear of what seeing Tal again would do to her? “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

      “You’re not Mary-Anne now. You’re Verity West, and aside from your phenomenal talent, you’re a brilliant, brave and beautiful woman whose skills have saved more than one operative in the past. I’m proud to have you on my team. I know you can do this.”

      “A penny looks pretty when you shine it up, but it’s still a penny.” She bit her lip, feeling rimmed by shadows of the past. Going to Tal would mean inflicting deeper cuts on old scars…and exposing her long-hidden heart—being Mary-Anne again. But Nick couldn’t know that: only Tal would ever know. She took a harsh breath, squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “All right.”

      He nodded, having expected no less. “This is going to be harder than you know.” He pulled a bundle of photos from a folder and passed them to her. “I kept more than his divorce out of that file I let you steal. I’ve kept a secret from you about Irish for the past fourteen months.”

      Mekalong Island, Torres Strait

      No time left! No time! The typhoon’s gonna knock them off the cliff shelf into the sea. There’s only one chance now! If I don’t get the kids into the bird in time—

      Tal woke with a start and a hard, guttural curse.

      Would he ever be able to put the memories behind him?

      Rolling jerkily off the lounge, he laid a towel over the sweaty plastic before he resumed his position, hat over his eyes to block out the violent sunlight. Not bad, the deal Anson made with him. For the hardship of hiding out under an assumed name—finally being the beach bum pilot his cover had always been—he got a massive payout and all operations paid for, past, present or future. Only two left to go to finish the muscle layering on his leg, and one to inject more collagen and massive doses of vitamins beneath the slow-fading scars on his face.

      After the last op, he’d be almost as good as new…ready to face Mum and Dad with his new look. He couldn’t go home yet. The folks had all been through enough with Kathy’s sickness and death. Sending a few postcards from nonexistent Navy ships in different “postings” was better than telling them the truth.

      The squeaking sound of feet shuffling over the hot, creamy-white sand gave him thirty seconds’ warning. Someone was here. Time again for the stares, the sidelong looks and whispers. “The poor thing, he must have been so handsome once…”

      To add another twist to the rack, the stranger had a CD player on—there was no radio station on this remote island—and of course, it was that song.

      “‘I never thought we’d break up, at least not for good. When it came to goodbye, I never thought we would. But I was wrong about you, you found someone new, and you were wrong about me, I found someone too…’”

      “Farewell Innocence.” Her song…perhaps their song. Would he ever know? The jackhammer hit his guts with the first wistful refrain. Words and voice, so strong and incredibly pure, woven together like the strands of harp and violin and transposed into human sound. Sheer perfection. There was no way in hell he’d ever forget that voice—or the girl who’d owned it.

      Had they made a new version of the song, without background music? Seemed even more haunting without harmony. She sounded so scared, so lost. As she had ten years before when—

      He couldn’t escape her, no matter where he went. Even without the constant dreams of her, with constant radio airplay of her nine worldwide hits from

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