Falco: The Dark Guardian. Sandra Marton

after that, you’ll be in jail.”

      “You left out a step. The part where the cops show up.” He tightened his hold on her and hauled her to her toes, his head lowered so their faces were inches apart. “They’ll want to have a nice, long chat with you, baby. Are you up for that?”

      She stared at him. The color drained from her face and she became still.

      “What’s the matter, Ms. Bissette? Don’t you like that idea?” She didn’t answer and he flashed a smile as cold as a New York winter. “Maybe, if we’re really lucky, the paparazzi will come by along with the cops. Then you can talk to the whole world.”

      Whatever fight was left in her was gone. She went limp under his hands, her head drooped forward and all at once he thought, to hell with this! He had not flown 3,000 miles to play games. She found him disgusting? Her prerogative. She had a reason to keep the cops away? Her prerogative again. She was not his problem, none of this was. How he’d let himself be drawn into the mess was beyond him but no way was he going to get drawn in any deeper.

      The lady had said “no,” and “no” it was.

      “Relax,” he said, his tone flat as he let go of her and stepped back. “You don’t need to scream to get rid of me. Just move away from the door and I’m out of here.”

      She didn’t move. He rolled his eyes, shouldered past her and reached for the knob.

      “Wait a minute.”

      Falco looked over his shoulder. Elle Bissette swallowed; he saw the muscles move in her throat. Which color were here eyes? Amber or topaz? The thought was so completely inappropriate, it made him angry.

      “What now?” he growled.

      “Mr. Orsini.” She hesitated. “This is your—your line of work? You’re a bodyguard?”

      He smiled thinly. “I am any number of things, Ms. Bissette, but it’s a little late to ask for my CV.”

      “The thing is…I didn’t ask for a bodyguard.”

      “Here’s a news flash, baby. I didn’t ask for the job.”

      “But you said someone sent you.”

      “I said someone I know told me you had a problem and asked me to check it out.” His mouth twisted. “And here I am.”

      “Look, it’s not my fault you agreed to do a favor for a friend and—”

      “He isn’t a friend and I don’t do favors for anybody.” Falco heaved out a breath. Why get into any of that? How he’d come to be here didn’t matter, especially since he was about to leave. “It’s a long story and it doesn’t change the facts. I came here because I was under the impression you needed help.” Another thin smile. “I was wrong.”

      “You were wrong,” she said quickly. “You can see for yourself, I’m just fine.”

      He thought of the terror that had shone in her eyes a little while ago. Well, maybe it was true. Maybe she was fine. Maybe all that fear had been strictly of him.

      “Really, I’m fine. I’m just wondering why you…why someone would have thought otherwise.”

      Falco dug his hands into the pockets of his flannel trousers. “You posed for a magazine ad,” he said. “A provocative one.”

      Her chin rose again. He’d seen pro boxers with the same habit. It wasn’t a good one, not if you didn’t want to end up in trouble.

      “It was a lingerie ad, Mr. Orsini, not an ad for—for Hershey’s chocolate.”

      He grinned. “No argument there, Ms. Bissette.” His grin faded. “Fifty thousand lovesick idiots went out and bought their girlfriends whatever it is you were wearing in that ad, then wondered why it didn’t look on them the way it looked on you.”

      She stiffened. He could almost see the gears working. She was trying to figure out if what he’d said was a compliment or an insult.

      “For your information,” she said coldly, “statistics show that women are the target audience for lingerie ads.”

      “Great. So fifty thousand broads went out and bought that outfit, put it on, looked in the mirror and wondered what the hell had gone wrong.”

      For a fraction of a second, she looked as if she wanted to laugh. Then that chin rose again.

      “Is there a point to this, Mr. Orsini?”

      “Damned right. All those people looked at an ad and saw an ad.” His voice became chill. “One sicko saw something else and decided to—what’s today’s favorite psychobabble term? He decided to ‘share’ what he saw with you.”

      A flush rose in her cheeks. “You’ve seen what that—that person sent me.”

      Falco nodded. “Yes.”

      He expected a rant. Indignation, that Farinelli had sent the thing to someone. Instead, she shuddered.

      “It was—it was horrible,” she whispered.

      A fraction of his anger dissipated. She looked tired and vulnerable; she was frightened even though she was determined to claim she wasn’t, but she wasn’t going to do anything to protect herself. It made no sense.

      “It was worse than horrible.” He waited a beat. “Why won’t you go to the cops?”

      “You said it yourself. It was just the work of some—some crazy.”

      “Crazies can be dangerous,” Falco said. “He should be found.”

      She stared at him, her eyes suddenly filled with that same despair he’d seen in the photo of her on the beach.

      “That would mean publicity.”

      “Publicity’s better than turning up dead.”

      His blunt statement was deliberate. He’d hoped to shock her into telling him the real reason she didn’t want to go to the police—he’d have bet a thousand bucks there wasn’t an actor or actress on the planet who didn’t want publicity, good or bad—but he could see that wasn’t going to happen.

      “It’s just a prank,” she said, very calmly. “Stuff like that happens. I mean, this is Hollywood.”

      “Has he contacted you again?”

      “You already asked me that. I told you, he hasn’t.”

      She’d lied again. So what? So what if there was more to this than she was letting on? Fifteen minutes from now, he’d be on a plane heading back to New York.

      “Just that one thing?” he heard himself ask. “Nothing else?”

      “Isn’t that what I just said?” A smile as false as the one she wore in that lingerie ad curved her lips. “Look, I’m not worried. Really. There’s security on the set. I have an alarm system in my house.” Another smile. A toss of the head. Forget despair. What he saw in those topaz eyes now was dismissal. “At any rate, thank you for coming to see me.”

      Falco shrugged. “No problem.”

      She held out her hand. It was a queen’s gesture. She was discharging him, her subject.

      Something flickered inside him.

      Had that softening of her mouth under his, that barely perceptible sigh, really all been an act? Had she been diverting him so he wouldn’t expect that phony knife at his belly? Or had it been real? That sudden, sexy little sound she’d made. The way she’d parted her lips beneath his.

      One step forward. One tug on those slender fingers extended toward him. Then she’d be in his arms, her breasts soft against his hard chest, her thighs against his, her lips his for the taking. And he would take them, he’d kiss her again and again, taking each kiss deeper than the last until she moaned and rose