Undercover Mistress

that brought to mind images of fairy-tale princes.

“You sure this thing’s okay?” he asked, tugging at his neck-wear in a potentially destructive way. The white silk cravat was a compromise; he’d absolutely refused to wear a bow tie.

She slapped at his hand. “Leave it alone. You’ll probably set a trend.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a mock-serious frown, staring over her head like a soldier at inspection. Then his gaze flicked downward and his features relaxed. “You look nice, too,” he said softly.

“Thank you.” She smiled as she looked into his eyes, remembering he’d said those same words the night of Art Milos’s party, the first they’d attended together. And when he smiled back, she knew he was thinking of that night, too. His teeth gleamed in the lights that cast a daytime brilliance over the theater’s entrance and the crowd of celebrity watchers gathered there, and though the silvered hair and blue contact lenses softened his pirate looks somewhat, her heart gave a queer little bump just the same.

His smile slipped, became crooked. “So,” he growled under his breath, “we gonna do this, or what?”

She drew a meager breath. “Ready when you are, R.J.”

He offered his arm. Celia tucked her hand into the bend of his elbow and when his hand came to cover hers, felt a shiver ripple through her. Behind them, the limousine purred quietly away, and they stepped together onto the red carpet. She felt the cool tickle of her mother’s favorite diamond-and-topaz earrings on her neck as she lifted her head to smile at the waving, cheering crowd.

It was something she’d done-oh, many times before, the first when she was all of five years old, decked out like a princess and clinging proudly to her father’s hand. But how, she wondered, must Roy be taking all of this? Surely, the glitz, glamour and celebrity must be a little overwhelming to someone from…where was it? Oglethorpe County, Georgia?

She glanced nervously at him. He said something out of the side of his mouth, something she couldn’t hear, and she whispered, “What?” and leaned closer.

“I said, this reminds me of my senior prom,” he growled, showing his teeth like a ventriloquist.

She gave a laugh, half surprise and half…something else. Envy, perhaps? “I’ve never been to a prom,” she whispered, gazing at him as new layers of awe, of emotions unnamed, wrapped themselves around her heart.

“I’ve never been to a premiere. Guess we’re even.”

She felt heavy inside…half-suffocated. She thought, This is terrible. What am I going to do? I adore this man…

Then they were inside the theater, making their way through a vast, crowded lobby decorated in the plush- carpeted, gold-painted opulence of recreated “Old” Hollywood and, of course, some larger-than-life statues of the movie’s major characters. Ushers came to show them to their seats. The theater darkened, the audience grew quiet and the movie began.

Roy hoped nobody asked him what he thought of the movie, because the truth was, he didn’t remember one thing about it.

Maybe it had something to do with what he’d said to Celia about the whole thing reminding him of his senior prom. For some reason, sitting there beside her in that dark theater, it was as if he were back there again, in high school, sweating through a Friday night movie date, and his mind more on what he might manage to convince the girl to let him do with her later on than anything up on the screen. There’d been a lot of girls…

His prom date-what was her name? Jennifer…something. Jen…Jennie Dooley-that was it. He recalled they’d done some fooling around that night-not as much as he’d have liked, probably more than she’d intended-and he’d taken her out a few times after graduation. But evidently she’d been saving herself for somebody with more to offer her than some sultry summer nights, because she’d gone off to college in the fall unsullied-at least by him. Last he’d heard, she was married to a state senator in Atlanta and had three or four kids.

He thought about the girls he’d known, where they were now…what they were doing. Sitting there in the dark theater, remembering them the way they’d been, it didn’t seem all that long ago. When had he got to be thirty- five?

It hit him then-if it hadn’t been for the woman sitting next to him, his life would have ended right there, at thirty-five years old. And what had he got to show for it?

A tiny frisson of…something…rippled through him-loneliness, maybe? Regret?

Not regret-I made my decisions, chose my path with my eyes wide-open. I’ve done good things… made some difference, maybe. And maybe I’m gonna make some more. So, no-no regrets. But loneliness? Okay, maybe. But hey-that’s life. Right? Sometimes you have to make sacrifices.

He shifted restlessly and glanced over at Celia. He wondered what she’d think if he were to put his arm across the back of her seat…then let it sort of slide…forward…onto her shoulders…take her hand and pull it over onto his thigh, the way he used to do back in high school.

Yeah, right. Smiling to himself in the darkness, he faced the giant movie screen again.

Chapter 12

After the movie, an endless line of limos moved in to whisk everybody off to the party, which was being held in some swank hotel in Beverly Hills, in a huge ballroom fixed up like a set from the movie, with pillars and palm trees, ferns and fountains, and a whole lot of fancy food and champagne. It was loud with music and congratulatory chatter, bright with dazzlingly beautiful people and bathed in a rich golden light.

In the midst of the splendor, Roy stood like one beleaguered, with his back to a pillar that looked like marble but he was pretty sure was actually made of something lightweight, like Fiberglas or maybe plastic foam. He was sipping champagne-which he’d never liked, much-and supposedly keeping an eagle eye out for the prince and his retinue.

Instead, at the moment, he was watching Celia. Small wonder. Even in the company of beautiful people, she caught the eye…ensnared it…commanded it.

Taken piece by piece, he supposed, she wasn’t that much more striking than any of the dozens of gorgeous women there. Her dress was slinky and all but backless, but elegant rather than sexy, her hair upswept…elegant… leaving her long neck bare. Her hair and her dress were both the exact color of the champagne in his glass, come to think of it, and shimmered like it, too, and the jewelry she wore…diamonds and some kind of deep golden stones- topazes, maybe?-caught the light and threw it back like sparks. Her body, of course, was perfection in his opinion, all long slender lines and dizzying curves.

All those things taken together…bright…beautiful…rich… elegant… She was, he thought, like a shaft of golden sunlight slashing across a landscape of muted purples and grays.

He pushed the fantastic thought away. To help it stay there, he drained his champagne glass in one angry gulp and went back to scanning the ballroom for Prince Abdul Abbas al-Fayad. That was what he needed-to keep his mind on his job. Just let me find him, he thought…let Celia work her magic-or, as Doc puts it, her wiles-get us invited on board the damned yacht, then we can go home.

At least he no longer felt so much like a fish out of water, paralyzed with worry about somebody recognizing him from his former life. Actually, except for the fact that, at the moment, his feet were killing him, he’d grown fairly comfortable in his new role. It happened like that in undercover work. If he stayed in a situation long enough, sometimes the lines between his undercover life and his real one got blurred, his old identity slipped further and further away. Sometimes it even got misplaced temporarily, shoved into the back cupboards of his memory. Until he happened to stumble across it again, the way he had tonight. Those were the danger times, when the memories, voices, people he loved from his past life nagged at him, distracted him, made him feel restless and off balance. Maybe guilty, too, for letting himself get sucked too far into the new life. For forgetting who he was…what was real and what was not.

“R.J., darling…there you are…” Celia swayed into him, gracefully holding a champagne flute aloft, cheeks dusted with golden mist and eyes sparkling. A prickling blanket of sexual awareness enveloped him, as impossible to deny or ignore as the compulsion to sneeze. “Come with me,” she murmured, warm and husky with muted excitement.