LITMIR.BIZ

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skin off her bones. Could she do it? Could she lie with this stranger?

      Hell yes, if it would keep her father safe. She frowned. “Well? Will you go away if I sleep with you?”

      “I’m afraid not, Amelia.” He drew out her name. Ah-mee-lee-yah. His eyes glittered in the darkness. “No matter how much fun you and I might have—it’s your dad I’m after.”

      Chapter Three

      Amelia’s eyes grew huge and round. “No, please,” she whispered. “What can you possibly want with my father? He’s never hurt anyone in his life.”

      “That’s true. He hasn’t,” Cole said, hardening his heart when he saw her shoulders slump in relief. “But that’s not the issue.”

      Tears welled in her eyes. She blinked, and one spilled down her cheek. “Then what is?” she cried. “Tell me something. If I knew what you wanted, I could give it to you.”

      “You will. Now open the door.”

      She hesitated, then reached for the knob.

      “Hold it.” He wrapped his fingers around her upper arm. “Turn off the alarm.”

      She tried not to react, but her body language gave her away, and he could tell that she knew it.

      “Don’t waste my time, Amelia. We both know the alarm is on.”

      Two more tears slipped down her cheeks as she pressed on a rock to the left of the door. The “rock” slid aside, revealing a keypad.

      Cole caught her hand. “If you do anything to alert anyone, I promise you it will be a deadly mistake. Do you understand?”

      Her throat moved, and then she nodded.

      It pained him to see her so defeated. Someday, once all this was over, he hoped he could tell her how brave she’d been today.

      But right now, all of his concentration, all his strength, needed to be on the job at hand. It was his bad luck that the yacht-builder’s daughter was so damned attractive. And her bad luck that both their lives depended on him playing his part to perfection.

      As she pressed a sequence of numbers, he committed the code to memory. An almost silent click sounded and she reached for the doorknob again.

      He put his hand over hers and felt the fine trembling that told him she was barely holding herself together. “Who’s here?”

      “My father. Our housekeeper, Mrs. Winston. That’s it.”

      He squeezed her hand. “Who else?”

      “S-sometimes a few of the guys will come up and play poker with Dad. But he’s been—under the weather the past couple of days.”

      “His heart.”

      “Please…no one knows about his heart condition. Not even Mrs. Winston. My father is a very proud man. He’s always been strong and smart. Always been able to do anything he set his mind to.”

      “I’m afraid that’s about to change.”

      She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her knuckles against her mouth. After a few seconds she spoke. “Are you going to kill us?”

      “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

      “If I’m going to die, don’t I deserve to know what I’m dying for?”

      “You’ll know soon enough.” He let go of her hand. “Now, put on a happy face and go inside. Don’t forget I’m right behind you.”

      As she turned the knob, she muttered a rude but apt description of him under her breath.

      He agreed totally.

      As she opened the door, he thought of something that had been niggling at the edge of his brain. “Wait a second. Is your dad’s heart condition affecting his work? Is that why this season’s yachts are throwbacks to past years?”

      She turned, her expression carefully blank. “Why would you say that?”

      “Because for the past three years I’ve been studying your dad’s designs. It’s pretty obvious.” He let his gaze drift down her body and back up. When he met her gaze, she looked away.

      “It’s why you did that sexy photo shoot for this year’s calendar, isn’t it? To draw attention away from the yachts?”

      Two spots of red in her cheeks told him he was right. “I don’t get it. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to underplay the calendar rather than make it the flashiest one in years?”

      She lifted her chin. “Hopkins Yachts are never down-played. That would have given it away.”

      They stepped into a stone foyer. Beyond, Cole saw a vast stretch of glass wall that looked out over Raven’s Cliff’s small harbor. In the center of the wall was a set of unsightly steel doors. The elevator.

      That made sense now, too. Hopkins needed it to get up and down the cliff. It had been added after his heart attack.

      Voices from the opposite side of the room stopped Cole. He slid his hand into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around his SIG-Sauer, hoping like hell he wouldn’t have to use it.

      He took Amelia’s arm and pressed the barrel of the gun into her side. Startled, she jerked.

      “Who’s that?” he whispered in her ear. “And where are they?”

      “That’s Dad, but I don’t know who’s with him. His desk is to your right.”

      “Okay. Follow my lead. If you lose your cool, it’s your dad who’ll pay.” He nudged her with the gun again.

      She nodded and took a deep breath. With the gun barrel pressed against her side, he nudged her forward.

      “Dad?”

      “Amelia? Come here.”

      Amelia frowned. Her father sounded worried. “Dad? Is something wrong?”

      Reginald Hopkins was sitting behind his desk in his pajamas and a maroon lounging robe. On the other side of the desk, in a yellow leather chair, sat Ross Fancher, assembly manager for Hopkins Boatworks.

      Oh, no. Ross had the notion that he and she were dating. She’d been out to dinner with him a couple of times, but she’d carefully kept their friendship from moving to the next level.

      Still, she’d rather not announce in front of him that she was taking a stranger to her suite for the night.

      “Amelia—” Ross started, glaring at the man with her.

      “Dad,” she said quickly, hoping to cover the questions she was sure Ross was about to ask. “What are you doing up? Ross, I thought you’d know better than to keep Dad up so late. He’s had that flu bug. What’s going on?”

      She shifted. Tension radiated from the stranger. She felt it across the distance that separated them. He’d taken the gun barrel away from her side, but she knew the weapon was in his pocket—and she knew he was capable of using it.

      Ross stood. “Amelia—”

      Amelia looked past him to her father. She put all the innocent pleading she could muster into her gaze. Her dad had always been a sucker for her big brown eyes. She prayed he’d understand her silent plea to get rid of Ross.

      After a sharp look at her and the stranger, Reginald Hopkins cleared his throat. “Ross, why don’t you run along? I am tired. I’ll fill Amelia in on what’s happening.”

      Ross glared over her head at the stranger. “Amelia, what’s going on here. Who in h—”

      “Ross!”

      Amelia knew that tone. Her dad wasn’t about to let Ross say another word.

      Ross

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