Trusting a Stranger. Kerry Connor

that followed, Luke Hubbard’s eyes narrowed, shifting from Viktor to her and back again.

      “What exactly are you here for?”

      So be it, she thought. If anyone should make the request of this complete stranger it should be her. It was her life. She shouldn’t rely on anyone else to beg for it.

      “Viktor believes the best way for me to remain in this country is to marry a United States citizen.”

      She lifted her chin and met his cold stare.

      “We are here to ask you to marry me.”

      LUKE HAD YEARS OF EXPERIENCE at schooling his expression to reveal absolutely nothing, but the woman’s ridiculous statement nearly managed to crack his composure. It was sheer strength of will that kept him from flinching at her words.

      Marriage. Even the idea sent a jolt of pain through him, the heat of it searing his insides until it felt like he was being burned alive.

      Instantly, Melanie’s face rose in his mind, the same image that always did. The way she’d looked at her happiest, her head thrown back in laughter, her smile wide, her eyes fixed unerringly, so lovingly, on him and him alone.

      The way she’d looked just before she died.

      Another sharp pain, harder than the first, shafted through him. He swallowed slowly and blinked the image away, entirely too aware of the two people sitting across from him, watching him intently.

      There was only one woman he’d ever wanted to marry, and in the years since her death he’d never once considered taking that step with another. Hell, he’d never been tempted to do so much as let a woman leave a toothbrush in his home. If he had been tempted to take another walk down the aisle, it certainly wouldn’t have been with some woman he’d met less than five minutes earlier.

      She was pretty in a pale, delicate way. Chin-length black hair. Finely carved features, perhaps sharper than they should have been thanks to what he suspected was an unnatural thinness. Looking closely, he finally noticed the weariness in her eyes. She was young, most likely in her late twenties. Her voice carried a trace of an accent he would have pegged as Eastern European even had he not known where she was from, though her English was impeccable.

      “You’re proposing a marriage for green-card purposes?” he said coolly.

      “It is the best way to keep Karina in the country,” Viktor said.

      “Surely there are less drastic measures available.”

      “If there were, we would pursue them. As you said, we have no real evidence that Solokov is responsible for the deaths of Dmitri and my father. And even if we were to pursue other avenues, if we failed and then resorted to marriage it would look suspicious. Better to do it now.”

      “So you’re going straight to the nuclear option?”

      “As I said, it is the best way.”

      “I took an oath to uphold the law. What you’re suggesting is illegal.”

      “So is murder,” Viktor shot back. “And the crime is much greater. That is what will happen if Solokov captures her. Once he realizes she knows nothing, he will not hesitate to dispose of her. But that realization will only come after he’s done everything he can to learn what he believes she knows.”

      Even without the raw emotion in the man’s voice, there was no missing the implication.

      A slight motion at the edge of his vision drew Luke’s eye to the woman. She must have shuddered at Viktor’s words. Even now she clasped her hands in her lap, her grip so tight her knuckles were white, her head bowed slightly. He could still see her eyes, staring straight in front of her, looking slightly glassy.

      He would have liked to believe she’d feigned the reaction. He knew how to read people’s expressions well enough to know she had not. The woman was afraid.

      Fortunately he’d long since hardened himself against such displays of emotion, whether hers or Viktor’s. He turned his attention back to his supposed friend.

      Viktor continued, “Surely a little fraud is minor in comparison to what Solokov intends for her.”

      “I’m not certain the United States government will see it that way.”

      “There is no reason it has to know.”

      “They’ll likely want to investigate the validity of the marriage, especially if you’re right and someone is pushing to have her deported in the first place. Do you really think two people who’ve never met would be able to pull that off?”

      “You were always quick to learn and Karina is motivated. She cannot go back to Russia. There is no one left we can trust, not fully. There is no family, and Solokov has enough money to be able to buy anyone. At least here in the United States, there is a chance I can protect her.”

      “You mean I can protect her,” Luke said. “To make a marriage believable for immigration purposes, we would have to live together, she and I.” He turned to find Karina staring at him. If possible, she seemed to have gone even paler. “Are you comfortable with that idea?”

      She swallowed, a flicker of emotion he couldn’t quite read passing over her eyes. Nervousness? Fear?

      But she never blinked, never looked away from his gaze. “I don’t want to die.”

      The words were plain, simply stated. They carried more impact than if she’d accompanied them with tears or a choked sob. Such melodramatic embellishments would have been easily dismissed. But voiced without artifice or manipulation, the basic statement of an elemental human desire was harder to ignore.

      That didn’t mean he couldn’t try. He turned away from those wide, vulnerable eyes.

      “Why me?” he asked Viktor, more a demand than a question.

      “Because I trust you. There are few people I could say that about.”

      Luke said nothing, simply stared at the man he’d considered a friend and was no longer sure he should. Would a true friend make such an outlandish request knowing the great personal cost to him? Or was it the sign of a friend that the man would trust him to help this woman?

      As expected, it didn’t take Viktor long to rush in to fill the silence. “Obviously I know you aren’t married and I doubted you would be involved in any kind of relationship that would prevent you from agreeing to help us.” He raised his brows, as though prompting Luke to prove him wrong.

      Luke tipped his head in acknowledgment. It was hardly a secret he hadn’t been involved with anyone seriously since Melanie’s death.

      “I also knew you would not be able to stand by and watch an innocent woman die when there is something you can do to prevent it.”

      “Even if that were true, this hardly seems like a situation any sane person would get involved in. People who try to help her don’t seem to last long.”

      “I know we are asking a great deal—” the woman said.

      “Yes,” he returned coolly. “You are.”

      She flinched and clamped her mouth shut.

      “You’re asking me to commit an illegal act, place my entire life and career in jeopardy, and for what? What exactly am I supposed to get out of this?”

      Her face flushed to a bright red, and he belatedly realized how that might have sounded. Did she think he was demanding full marital rights if he agreed to be her husband? He almost wondered how she would respond if he were that kind of man. Then again, if he were, he doubted Viktor would have brought her here in the first place.

      Indeed, his purported friend hardly seemed to have noticed the possible implication. “You can help an old friend save what’s left of his family,” Viktor said fervently. “We may not share blood, but you know better than anyone that blood is not a requirement for family. My father