fists clenched at her sides, knowing that her secret hope of making their “passionate affair” real, was fading with every word she said. “For you to look as much like your old self as possible. Nick had a special set of inserts made to put inside about five different pairs of shoes, to minimize the limp—and you have to wear special cover-up makeup over your scars, so your face looks the way it used to.”
The silence was sickening. “Makeup. Like a bloody girl.” He stared at her as if she’d grown another head. “I’m supposed to put makeup on my face. That goop you girls used to wear for school shows that made you look like you’d shoveled dirt on your faces. I’ll look like a bloody cross-dresser.”
A typical Outback boy’s opinion of any kind of makeup. She sighed. “If it helps, this isn’t that thick pancake stuff—it’s makeup that won’t look fake at all. It doesn’t look like goop. It will be specially made to suit your skin color, and there’s a polysynthetic cover to make it look and feel like skin, so it won’t smudge or come off easily. The cream also has vitamins and collagen to actually help lessen the redness. I’ve used it to soften my freckles. It works. And it’s for your protection.”
“I don’t give a damn if it works. I’m not a bloody actress, and I won’t make myself look pretty for anyone—not even you.” His face was controlled, his fists clenched hard. “I’m not putting any crap on my face. Take me as I am or leave it.”
She moved into the shadows beside him. “I can’t. If Burstall sees the scars, he’ll kill us both. It’s not just you taking a risk by going as you are. You’ll put me in danger, too, and every operative on the island. I can’t marry anyone else without it looking like a setup. Without you, we’ll have to send another team in without the cover of being my personal bodyguards or journos covering our honeymoon. Burstall and Falcone will have them killed within an hour of their arrival on the island.”
He invoked the name of his savior, but Mary-Anne didn’t think he was asking for help. What could she say or do to make this easier? “Tal, I didn’t want to do this. Nick ordered it. If it weren’t imperative for the mission—and to save your life—”
“I know.” He didn’t jerk away from her, didn’t whiten or show any signs of fury. He simply crossed to the roller door and shut it. “Fine. I might even get to like it, huh? If I learn how to use it right, I can keep it on hand for all social events in the future.” He grinned at her, but she could see the gritted teeth, the bleak look of self-hate in his eyes. “That was one hell of a kiss, by the way—but you always were a bloody good actress. Your iceberg rep just got flushed down the toilet. Good work.”
She moved farther into the shadows, to cover the shock that drained all the blood from her face.
So despite the obvious signs of male arousal, and the hard passion in his mouth and hands, had Tal only been pretending to want her, just as he’d said? Had he been acting, maybe turned on a bit but not enough, while she’d floated three feet above the ground in some love-starved, ecstatic-cloud cuckoo land?
The same old irony. The only man who could tempt her out of her iceberg reputation—who suddenly made her feel as though her fame, success and life with the Nighthawks was some kind of tundra-filled wasteland—was the only one who didn’t want her.
His voice, quiet and unemotional, broke into her despair. “What’s next, then? What do we do?”
Helpless, not knowing what to say, she shrugged.
He rolled his eyes. “Come on, Mary-Anne. Our cover depends on what you’d do if this were above and beyond the job. What would you do if we were normal lovers? Imagine you’d come here as a tourist, saw me for the first time in ten years and fell for me again so fast you were caught here almost doing the deed with me,” he finished with the dark, sardonic smile she’d never seen on his face when they were kids. “What would you do now?”
The cover, the cover! How can he be so clinical? She’d given him the idea of revenge, but he’d taken the bait and swum right into the ocean with it. How could he still be so thoroughly on the mission when all she wanted was another hot, glorious kiss—dragging him inside that plane and…ooooh, yeah…
“Take off in the plane and find somewhere private for us to finish making love for the next day or three,” she answered his question, still half locked inside her gorgeous dream.
Tal burst out laughing, hard-edged, ironic, stabbing her heart with its icy control. “Sounds like a good plan to me. Okay then, Miss West—” he added with a swift, mocking bow. “So we go to your place? Sydney’s probably the best place to do it.”
She blinked up at him. “Um, what?”
His grin twisted. “To start our assignment. Don’t worry, Miss West. You can safely get in the plane. I’ll keep my distance.”
Too stunned to do anything else, she obeyed him, climbing up into the cockpit without a word. She sat frozen while he opened the hangar, checked to be sure the journo had gone, limped to the plane, climbed in and prepared for takeoff. She was silent right through takeoff, her mind busy reliving his words.
So Tal was where she’d been ten years ago. Impossible to believe she wanted him. Sure that his accident, and her life now, changed the way she’d once wanted him…
When you lose someone you love so much you want to die, too, you know how they feel—and you’d do anything to stop it.
She closed her eyes, wanting to smack her own forehead for her unthinking stupidity. She should have known, should have realized how Tal would take that—just as she’d have taken it if she hadn’t met Gil. Verity West, beautiful, curvaceous man-magnet, never needed to hide from the world…but, like Tal, Mary-Anne Poole-West still wanted to.
This assignment would be the hardest of her life—in many more ways than one.
“Where are we heading?” she yelled over the noise of the engine, frowning straight ahead.
He shrugged and handed her a headset similar to his own so that they could speak normally. “Your place would be the most logical place to hide out. We’ll tell Anson to meet us there with our kit. I assume you brought backup to the island to bring our stuff to us, and contact that journo?”
He wasn’t just with her on the mission, he was light-years ahead of her. She nodded and waited for the rest.
“Good. Then we might as well get going straightaway, and gain some ground on selling the romance of the year. Today’s as good as any other day to start. No point in mucking around.”
After a moment’s stunned silence, she blinked and started laughing—laughing so hard her body jerked and tears streamed down her cheeks.
He turned to her, frowning. “What?”
“You sure know how to shatter a twenty-year dream, Tal.” She wiped her face with her hands. “I used to imagine you asking me on a date, or romancing me, or proposing to me almost every day—and my fantasies never included ‘no point in mucking around.’”
He gave a slow, reluctant grin. “Sorry about that.” He turned back to his controls. “But then, your romantic proposal probably didn’t include a few other things it’s got, like a banged-up face and leg. I bet I wasn’t a has-been, washed-out beach bum, either. I seem to be good at destroying your dreams, Mary-Anne.”
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