Falco: The Dark Guardian. Sandra Marton

had agreed. She’d told herself the photo was a oneshot. Whoever had sent it would surely not contact her again.

      Wrong. A few days later, a note arrived in her mail. Its message was horrible. Filthy. Graphic. And it was signed. The signature stunned her but it had to be a hoax. She told herself she would not let it upset her. She was an actress, she could pull it off.

      Evidently, she was not as good an actress as she thought.

      Farinelli had taken to asking her if she was okay and though she always said yes, certainly, she was fine, she knew he didn’t believe it. He’d proved it two days ago when he stopped by her trailer during a break. Was she ill? No, she assured him. Was she upset about her part? No, no, she loved her part. Farinelli had nodded. Then he could only assume that the photo he had seen was still upsetting her because she was most assuredly not herself.

      Elle had tried telling him he was wrong. He silenced her with an imperious wave of one chubby hand. He had given the situation much thought. The photo had been of her but it had been meant for him. She had been in, what, two, three films? She was almost unknown. He, however, was famous. He was taking a big chance, starring her in Dangerous Games. Obviously, someone understood that and wished to ruin his film.

      But, by God, he would not permit it. He had millions of his own money tied up in this project and he was not going to let someone destroy him. He was going to contact the police and let them deal with the problem.

      Elle couldn’t let that happen. The police would poke and pry, ask endless questions, snoop into her past and find that the story of her life that she’d invented had nothing to do with reality.

      So she’d resorted to high drama. She pleaded. She wept. She became a diva. A risky gambit but she had not come as far as she had by playing things safe. No guts, no glory. Trite and clichéd, maybe, but true. Besides, really, what did she have to lose? A police investigation would destroy the burgeoning career she had worked so hard for. She was twentyseven, a little long in the tooth to go back to modeling…

      More to the point, she could not face her ugly, ugly past all over again.

      In the end, Farinelli had thrown up his hands. “Basta,” he’d said. “Enough! No police.”

      A disaster avoided. She’d forced herself to forget the ad, the note, to keep focused on the movie. And then that phone call at three this morning…

      “Okay, people” Farinelli said. “Let’s try it again.”

      Elle lay back. Chad leaned over her, waiting for the camera to roll. She felt his breath on her face…

      “Hey,” her co-star said softly. “You okay?”

      “I’m fine,” she said, with no conviction at all.

      Chad sat up and looked at Farinelli. “Tony? How ’bout we break for lunch?”

      The director sighed. “Why not? Okay, people. Lunch. Half an hour.”

      Chad stood up, held out his hand and helped Elle to her feet. One of Farinelli’s gofers rushed over and held out an oversized white terrycloth robe. Elle snugged into it and Chad squeezed her shoulder.

      “Sun’s a killer, kid,” he said softly. “Some shade, some water and you’ll be fine.”

      Her smile was real this time. He truly was a nice man, a rare species as far as she was concerned.

      “Thank you,” she said, and she knotted the belt of the robe, slid into the rubber thongs the gofer dropped at her feet and made her way quickly to the half-dozen Airstream trailers clustered like Conestoga wagons awaiting an Indian attack a couple of hundred yards away.

      Chad Scott was right, she thought as she went up the two steps to the door of her trailer. Cool air, cool water, some time alone and she’d be fine.

      “Absolutely fine,” she said as the door swung shut…

      A man was standing against the wall just beyond the closed door. Tall. Dark-haired. Wraparound sunglasses. Her brain took quick inventory…and then her heart leaped like a startled cat and she opened her mouth to scream.

      But the man was fast. He was on her, turning the locking bolt, one hand over her mouth before the scream erupted. He gripped her by the shoulder with his free hand, spun her around and hauled her back against him.

      She could feel every hard inch of his leanly muscled body.

      “Screaming isn’t going to help,” he said sharply.

      A waste of time.

      Falco could damned near feel the scream struggling to burst from her lips.

      To say this wasn’t exactly the reception he’d expected was an understatement. He’d spoken with the director, Farinelli, on his cell from the plane. He’d told him when he’d be arriving, more or less, and the director had said that was fine, it gave him lots of time to brief the Bissette woman and that it would be best if he, Falco, met with her in private because she’d probably want his presence on the set kept quiet, so—

      “Hey!”

      She had kicked him. Useless, as kicks went, because she was kicking backward and wearing ugly rubber beach thongs, but it told him what he needed to know about whether or not she’d calmed down.

      Okay. He’d try again.

      “Ms. Bissette. I’m sorry if I startled you but—”

      She grunted. Struggled. Her backside dug into his groin. It was a small, rounded backside and under different circumstances, he’d have enjoyed the feel of it—but not when the backside might as well have belonged to a wildcat.

      “Dammit,” Falco said. He swung her toward him, one hand still clasping her shoulder, the other still clamped over her mouth. “Pay attention, okay? I. Am. Not. Going. To. Hurt. You.”

      Mistake.

      She slugged him. Two quick blows, one to the chest, one to the jaw. He was damned if he knew what to do with her now. He had only two hands and she was already keeping both of them occupied.

      “Okay,” he said grimly. “You want to play rough? That’s fine.”

      He shoved her, hard. She stumbled back against the door and he went with her, pinned her there with his body. Her hands were trapped against his chest; her legs blocked by his. She was tall but he was a lot taller; her head was tilted back so that she was staring up at him with eyes even more tawny than they’d seemed in the defaced magazine ad.

      Eyes filled with terror. And with what he’d seen in the candid photo that had brought him out here.

      Defiance.

      Okay. Instead of saying to hell with this and walking out the door, he’d try and get through to her one last time.

      “Ms. Bissette. My name is Falco Orsini.”

      Nothing. Still the hot blend of fear and defiance shining in those eyes.

      “I’m here to help you.”

      Fear, defiance and now disbelief.

      “Trust me, lady. This isn’t my idea of a good time, either. I’m here as a favor. And if you don’t calm down and talk to me, I’m gonna walk straight out that door and leave you to handle this thing on your own.”

      She blinked and he saw confusion sweep across her face. Yeah, but she couldn’t be any more confused than he was, unless—unless—

      Oh, hell.

      “Didn’t Farinelli tell you I was coming?”

      Another blink. A delicate vertical furrow appeared between her dark eyebrows.

      “He said he would. He said you’d want to keep this private and that I should wait for you here, in your trailer.”

      Her eyes widened. “What?”

      It