LITMIR.BIZ

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wanted to seduce one of the glittering women who were hired for their looks and talent.

      The woman would stay in Vegas, and they’d come home feeling like a conquering hero.

      This was different. This man didn’t see her as a trophy. His focus on her was very personal. She knew it from the delicate way his hands stroked her hips and from the way his mouth moved over hers.

      As her insides turned liquid, she pictured the two of them naked on the bed in the next room. Him on top of her, their bodies intimately joined in the age-old dance of love.

      The explicit image shocked her. She had met this man less than an hour earlier, yet she was ready to make love with him.

      Breaking the kiss, she looked at him, seeing the dazed look in his eyes, and knowing he was affected as deeply as she was herself.

      The knowledge should have been reassuring. Instead, to her utter horror, she burst into tears.

      Olivia felt Noah stiffen. Leaning back, he stared down at her.

      “Sorry. I’m so sorry,” she managed to get out between sobs.

      She wasn’t any kind of delicate little doll a man could easily pick up, but he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the sofa, where he sat down, still cradling her against him.

      “I thought…”

      “My fault,” she said between sobs.

      Cradling her tenderly in his arms, he let her cry.

      

      JARRED Bainbridge had learned to trust his hunches. Still, the first report on Noah Fielding startled him.

      As far as he could tell, the man didn’t exist.

      Well, he’d been on that experimental sub. A whole bunch of people had seen him, interacted with him. He’d financed the expedition, and he’d been staying at a bed-and-breakfast in George Town.

      But within hours of being pulled from the sub, he’d left the island on a small, private jet. The plane had refueled in Chicago, then gone on to L.A. And that was the last anyone knew of Noah Fielding.

      He’d vanished into thin air.

      Had he gotten off in Chicago? Or had he gone on to the West Coast? Nobody knew.

      Which meant the man had gone to considerable trouble to hide his whereabouts in a day and age when most people’s movements were a matter of record.

      If Fielding had his methods, so did Jarred Bainbridge. He picked up the phone and made a call to the security service he used. “I want to know where to find Noah Fielding. And I want to know it now.”

      

      NOAH cradled Olivia in his arms, rocking her gently. He’d been right; she was in some kind of trouble. He could tell she’d been holding herself together by strength of will. But she’d been through too much tonight to maintain her composure. That encounter with Carlson had scared her spitless. And her roiling emotions had sent her crashing into Noah’s arms.

      Well, maybe that wasn’t fair. He had felt the powerful attraction between them right from the first, and he’d worried that he was taking advantage of her after the attack. Then he’d let his pleasure of holding her and kissing her take over.

      The taste of her had been sweet and heady. So had her response to him. That was the most powerful aphrodisiac of all. He’d thought they were headed for a very stimulating session in the bedroom, until her emotions had taken another wild swing.

      He bent to stroke his lips against her beautiful golden hair. He’d been intimate with thousands of women, yet this one stirred him as few of them had.

      Once again he thought of how much she reminded him of Ramona, although the two of them looked nothing alike. But there was some innate facet of her personality that was the perfect foil for his own dark view of life. She might be in trouble now, but she would always try to find the good in every situation and every person.

      He and Olivia Stapler could mean something important to each other—if he dared to let it happen. And if they did, he would lose her and it would take him years to recover from the loss. That was the risk he faced at this moment.

       ’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

      Alfred Lord Tennyson had said that in 1850, in a poem called “In Memoriam.” Noah wasn’t sure it was true. Tennyson had lived a normal life span. How many times had the poet known the pain of lost love?

      

      OLIVIA struggled to conquer the flood of emotions that had swooped down on her without warning. Finally she was able to stifle the tears.

      Noah shifted her weight so that he could reach into his pocket and bring out a handkerchief, which he handed to her.

      She stared at the folded square of white linen. “What kind of man carries a handkerchief?”

      He laughed softly. “It’s an old habit.”

      She blew her nose. “I guess chivalry isn’t dead.”

      He shook his head. “One man can’t keep it alive.”

      “But you try.”

      “It’s too much of a responsibility.” The way he said it made her wonder if he wasn’t half serious. Before she could work her way through that, he asked, “Better?”

      “Yes. Thanks.”

      She tipped her head to the side, studying him. “You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

      “Is that good or bad?”

      “You know it’s good.”

      He shrugged. “Few people have the insight to see the impact they make on others.”

      She laughed. “I did. When I was working as a dancer. I was talented, but it was pretty obvious men saw me as a sex object.”

      “They didn’t look very far. There’s a hell of a lot more to you than a pretty face and a great body.”

      “Thanks. But how do you know?”

      “I’m a good judge of people. Where did you dance?”

      “At one of the big hotels on the Strip.”

      “Why did you stop dancing? Did you get caught in the economic downturn?”

      “No. I was on the fast track for a big featured role. Then a drunk driver in the parking lot ended my career.”

      “Ouch.”

      “In more ways than one.”

      “Did they catch him?”

      She shook her head.

      Noah gave her a considering look. “How do you know he was drunk?”

      The question took her by surprise. “I just assumed…you know.”

      “I’ve learned not to make assumptions,” he said, the words hard-edged.

      The way he said it sent a little chill skittering over her skin. Could somebody have hit her on purpose?

      But who? And why?

      Who would gain from that?

      Her brother’s smirking face leaped into her mind. But she simply couldn’t deal with thoughts of him deliberately setting her up. She shook them away and focused on Noah. “I’m finally back on my feet, but I won’t be dancing professionally again. It’s just too much strain for someone who injured a leg.”

      “You got workers’ compensation?”

      She shrugged one shoulder. “Yes. But it’s run out.”

      He kept his gaze on her. “Before we were so rudely interrupted in the garden, you were going to tell me what’s bothering

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