leaving Mary-Anne alone, even for the sake of her safety. He should have kept asking about her. He should have found her, gone to her…made things right. Now it was too late.
I’m sorry, Mary-Anne. I’m sorry for everything.
When he landed on the ground, he was already out.
Chapter 1
Queen Victoria Theatre, Sydney
Fourteen months later
She took the massive bunch of dark red roses with a gracious smile, to the beat of thunderous cheers. Turning to her backup singers and the dancers, she handed each a rose and took her bows with them, knowing they’d resent the hell out of her for the audience’s enthusiastic response to her generosity.
Oh, Verity West is so magnanimous…
They’d all kill to have her life.
And all she wanted was to kick off the heels making her feet ache, go home, make a hot chocolate, curl up with her faithful dog Charlie Brown and sleep. Invite the family to stay. No hellish workouts or starving herself. No long hours in rehearsals and with stylists and couturiers. No adulation, groveling or saccharine-sweet impertinence from agents or producers, reporters, wannabe socialites or begging visits, letters, emails or tapes from singer-songwriters in her mould.
And best of all, no men showering her with compliments and gifts, all hoping to be the one to brag that they’d broken the Iceberg’s famous cold shell and gotten her in the sack.
Final night of the Sydney tour. Here we go. Party time…
Backstage, she donned a simple white sheath. The famous twisted curls glowed with flame, so the media said—better than the schoolkids’ taunts of “better dead than red”—pulled up in a clip, tumbling down to her waist. A gold rope pulled in the dress at her waist and showed off her breasts…and no one knew how much unflagging discipline it took to keep her glorious figure.
Fat girl, fat girl!
She plastered a smile on her face and headed for the limousine, smiling and waving, signing autographs. Wishing Gil was here to laugh at the absurdity of her life, to help her survive the predators—to hold her when she cried. For cool-as-ice, touch-me-not Verity West was a marshmallow inside. A shy girl living in the public eye. A stranger inside her own life.
The heart of the girl who hid from the world was still beating within the slender, lovely shell. Still sickly sweet, trusting and vulnerable Mary-Anne Poole somewhere deep inside, seven years after becoming Verity West.
She spent the evening encouraging hopeful singers, talking to kids who’d won contests to meet her and fending off men’s smug I-know-you-want-me advances with her trademark cool smile and quiet wit, counting the minutes until she could leave.
Then a waiter passed her. Inconspicuous; there one moment, gone the next. Pressing a note into her hand.
Change your key, songbird. In the shadows of the alley, a ghost from your past awaits.
Escaping through the kitchen and service elevator of the exclusive hotel, she ran past the blinding glare of flashing bulbs in her face and slipped inside the leather-lined luxury of the darkened car. “Thank you,” she sighed. “What’s the deal?”
Nick Anson, her secret boss, smiled at her. “Sorry, darlin’, but you’re getting a throat infection. You need a fortnight off.”
She sighed with the intense relief she always knew when she had to drop work for a mission. “My agent and manager will have collective heart attacks. Could be fun. Where am I going?”
“This is the most vital mission I’ve ever given you, Songbird.” Nick threw it at her, hard and blunt. “You’ll spend the first few days in Mekalong Island in the Torres Strait—and you know why, since you stole his file when my back was turned.”
Her heart stalled, then kicked again. All she could think of was, What can I say to that—sorry, yes, it was me? But she didn’t think she could speak right now. God help her, even in shock her body was primed already, pounding with excitement. She had to fight to get one croaked word out. “And?”
“And we need Irish back pronto. He’s refusing to answer my calls or messages. It’s up to you. Make him want to do it.”
She jerked up in the seat. “Me? But…his wife—”
“He’s been divorced for three years.” He slanted her an odd, probing look. “Wasn’t that in the file I let you steal?”
She kept her mouth clamped shut. He knew damn well it wasn’t on file. Nick Anson was too much a rabid perfectionist to leave it off file—unless he’d had a damn good reason to do so.
No point in drawing this out. “So you know about our past.” She drummed her fingers on her leg, the only visible sign of the internal explosion of her heart. “The tabloid stories, right?”
“It’s how I came to recruit you in the first place. I saw the possibilities in case a mission like this ever came up—and so I sought you out.” Silence filled the car as she absorbed, then accepted, her ruthless boss’s reasons for first contacting her to join the Nighthawks. Then he went on in his smooth-as-molasses Southern drawl.
“The future of the Nighthawks depends on this mission. No one else can possibly handle it, so the American office sent the request to me.” He hesitated. “Irish broke into the office several times to access your file, after you two ran into each other at headquarters that day. I believe you two have a mutual chemistry that, together in one place, would create an explosion big enough to rock the planet.”
God help her, Nick was right, and she didn’t know if Earth was ready for the explosion. Nick Anson had to be the gruffest, most irascible and unwilling Cupid ever to plague man and woman. She’d thought she’d never want to see Tal again, nor he her, yet it seemed neither of them could forget…
“Will you do it?” Nick asked quietly. “Will you work with him? This mission won’t be an easy one, on any level.”
Was she shaking with excitement, or fear of what seeing Tal again would do to her? “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“You’re not Mary-Anne now. You’re Verity West, and aside from your phenomenal talent, you’re a brilliant, brave and beautiful woman whose skills have saved more than one operative in the past. I’m proud to have you on my team. I know you can do this.”
“A penny looks pretty when you shine it up, but it’s still a penny.” She bit her lip, feeling rimmed by shadows of the past. Going to Tal would mean inflicting deeper cuts on old scars…and exposing her long-hidden heart—being Mary-Anne again. But Nick couldn’t know that: only Tal would ever know. She took a harsh breath, squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “All right.”
He nodded, having expected no less. “This is going to be harder than you know.” He pulled a bundle of photos from a folder and passed them to her. “I kept more than his divorce out of that file I let you steal. I’ve kept a secret from you about Irish for the past fourteen months.”
Mekalong Island, Torres Strait
No time left! No time! The typhoon’s gonna knock them off
