Protecting the Innocent. Cassie Miles

forever.”

      “That wasn’t even close to a pick-up line.”

      “And why not? We might be friends, but I’m still a single female. According to your reputation, you should be charming me off my feet.”

      “You’re not an ordinary female.” She was another man’s wife. Even now, with Jeremy dead, she was still married to his memory.

      From atop the horse, Charlie called out, “Mommy, look. I’m riding with no hands.”

      “Hold on to the pommel,” she said. “Or you’re getting off, mister.”

      “I want to go faster. Please.”

      “This is your first time on a horse,” she said. “Take it easy.”

      “Okay, Mom.”

      She returned her attention to Roman, picking up their conversation where it left off. “All right, Bachelor Number One, give me a real compliment. I need one.”

      For years, he’d tried not to think of Anya as an eligible woman. But she’d asked for it.

      His guard went down. The facade of civility slipped away. He allowed his unspoken desires to rise to the surface. These thoughts had been simmering at the back of his mind from the first day he met her.

      With smoldering eyes, he gazed into her heart-shaped face. His voice lowered to a seductive murmur, and he said, “When I see you here in the sunlight, with the wind in your hair and your lips as soft as rose petals, I know what miracles are. This vision of you is precious. I’ll carry it with me forever.”

      “Oh.” She gaped.

      He relished the effect he had upon her, and he pressed his advantage, tenderly grasping her hand and lifting it to his lips to blow a light kiss across her knuckles. “You touch my heart.”

      “Oh, my.”

      “Anya, please. Let me touch you.”

      “Wow! You’re good.” She grabbed her hand back from him and fanned her face with it. “No wonder you have thousands of babes swooning all over you.”

      He looked away from her and started walking again. Though this flirting was a game, he’d meant every word. He wanted to touch her, to kiss her mouth, to make love to her.

      They neared the stables where Anya’s mother and Fredrick Slater stood waiting. The sight of Slater had the effect of a cold shower on Roman. He sloughed off his sensuality, any sign of vulnerability. Instead, he visualized himself as forged steel.

      “There they are,” Anya said. “Claudette and Slater. They almost look like a couple, don’t they?”

      Well matched in ruthless intelligence and ambition, they could have been MacBeth and his lady. “Almost.”

      “Roman, with this contract, am I doing the right thing?”

      “It’ll all work out.” He wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her or to Charlie.

      At the stables, Slater wasted no time in pulling him to one side. “Did you handle the problem in Los Angeles?”

      “It was nothing,” Roman said. “A simple miscommunication.”

      “I suppose Anya told you that she and Charlie will be living here.”

      “Yes.” He slipped on a pair of dark glasses, concerned that his eyes might betray his hostility.

      “She seems a bit uncomfortable,” Slater said. “That’s not good for Charlie’s transition. He needs to feel that Legate is his home. It’s important for his mother to transmit that acceptance.”

      “According to whom?”

      “Dr. Neville, the psychiatrist.”

      “I have an urgent message to contact him,” Roman said.

      “Yes, I know.”

      Slater’s hands were clasped behind his back. In his tweed suit with his neat gray hair, he looked like the lord of the manor, out for a stroll on his magnificent grounds.

      Roman lengthened his stride. He was a good six inches taller and wanted to make Slater stretch to keep up with him.

      But the old man sensed what he was doing and halted. When he looked up, he probed with his gaze, taking Roman’s measure with quick, stabbing glances. Slater wanted something. “You have a bond with Charlie’s mother.”

      “I’ve known Anya for years.”

      “She’s done a good job raising the boy. Neville said it was important to leave Charlie with his mother until he was five and had established a healthy bond.”

      “Then what?”

      “Education, of course. Expanding the child’s frame of reference.”

      Slater’s analysis made it sound like he was talking about an experiment. Roman tried to match his detachment. “Exactly what are your goals with Charlie?”

      “To nurture and develop his intelligence. At the same time, he must be a well-rounded individual. Too many of our geniuses are antisocial. Charlie will be high-functioning on many levels—theoretical, creative, even political. He might even become President of the United States.”

      Did Slater really think he could build his own president? Throw together the proper genetics for intelligence, add training and stir? This plan sounded like the insane ravings of a twenty-first-century Frankenstein.

      “That boy,” Slater said, “will be my legacy.”

      His legacy? But Slater wasn’t the child’s father or grandfather.

      “I need your help, Roman.”

      “How?”

      “While Charlie is settling into the program, I want his mother to be happy. I want her to feel she made the right decision in coming here. See to it.”

      “Could you be more specific?”

      “She needs a man,” Slater said.

      Roman couldn’t believe his ears. This crafty old bastard was ordering him to do the very thing he had wanted for years. Slater wanted him to become Anya’s lover.

      Chapter Two

      At seven o’clock that evening Roman connected with Maureen, a slinky redhead. In her tight jeans and see-through blouse, she was hotter than wasabi on sushi. Not that her appearance mattered to him. Maureen wasn’t a date. She was his contact inside the CIA, a special ops agent.

      They met at a cheesy tavern in Oakland where the specialty of the house was tequila-fried perch, but they didn’t need a menu. After a quick hello, they went to her car at the back of the parking lot, far from the neon sign above the entrance.

      Maureen slid behind the steering wheel and turned on the radio. Instead of music, there was a whirring sound. “This interference noise disrupts any bugs or listening devices pointed in our direction.”

      “Nice tune,” he said.

      “You know how I love my secret-agent toys.”

      She’d been his contact for almost a year. When Roman learned that the think tank had manipulated federal regulations on offshore banking for an emerging Central American nation, he hooked up with a special branch of the CIA, and they assigned Maureen, an attractive woman who could easily pass as one of his dates. That was their cover.

      “What’s up?” she asked.

      “I’m concerned about two innocent people who are now living on the Legate grounds. Anya Bouchard Parrish and her son, Charlie.”

      “She’s the wife of your friend who was killed, right?”

      He nodded. “Slater talked her into signing a contract that