Rules of Re-engagement Read online

  In his hand he now held the power to destroy her, just at a press of a button, just as her father held the power to destroy a nation.

  Killinger would understand this kind of logic. And he certainly knew the potential of this particular pathogen. It was fitting, thought Jacques, as he placed the detonator carefully back into the case, that the same biological bullet aimed at the heart of the country was now aimed right at his daughter.

  He closed the box, slipped it back into his pocket. How easy, he wondered, would it be to be walk the fine line between pretending to be Olivia’s lover and wanting to be?

  And just where did that line begin and end? Because it was already blurred to hell and gone in his head. He figured he’d crossed it once already.

  And when the crunch did come, how easy was it going to be for him to press that detonator?

  How far would Killinger go for absolute power? And how far would he go to stop him?

  He could not allow his desire for a woman to cause the downfall of the nation.

  Chapter 5

  04:59 Romeo. Olivia Killinger’s apartment.

  Manhattan. Wednesday, October 8.

  Olivia stepped out of the shower, wiped the steam from the mirror and stared at the silver bracelet. She yanked at it again, trying to force it over her wrist, but there was no way she could get it off, even with wet skin.

  In frustration she curled her fingers around the Saint Catherine’s pendant and angrily tore the thin gold chain from her neck, dropping it onto the edge of the basin. Damn Jack!

  She wrenched off the diamond ring Grayson had given her and plunked it on top of the chain. She didn’t belong to either of them.

  Wrapping herself in a robe, Olivia padded through her bedroom and listened at the door. Jack was still in her apartment and it sounded as though he was banging things around in her kitchen.

  She glanced at the phone next to her bed. No, using her cell would be better. He couldn’t pick up and listen in. She could call the FBI.

  But what if he really was telling the truth?

  Olivia sank down onto her bed, cell phone in hand, wet hair dripping, and started to shake all over again. Jack was back. He was alive.

  Her eyes burned.

  She lifted her face to the ceiling and sucked in a breath. God, how she wanted to believe he was innocent…that he really never meant to hurt or betray her.

  But believing in his innocence raised too many questions, things she was afraid to even think about, things that had been buried too deep for too long. But his return was forcing her to dig into her soul, to confront herself and the past she desperately wanted to forget.

  Olivia didn’t want to find out that she was responsible in some way for what had happened to him. The guilt would be unbearable.

  What if she hadn’t listened to the lawyers or the cops all those years ago? What if she’d refused the sedatives her father’s doctor had given her right after Elizabeth’s death? What if she’d kept her mind clear, hadn’t gone through hypnosis with that awful therapist? What if she’d defied them all and gone to find him instead, and asked him what had happened?

  What would Jack have done if the situation was reversed?

  He would have come to her. That’s the kind of guy he was.

  She’d let him down. She should have gone to him, heard his side of the story. Instead she’d trusted the voice of authority and the system rather than listen to the whispers of doubt in her heart.

  And then he was gone—dead—and it was too late.

  Why had she not admitted these things to herself before? Why had she not faced these questions before?

  If Jack was telling the truth it would mean her entire life had been a farce. It would mean her father had intentionally deceived her. It would mean Grayson had made love to her knowing he had killed her cousin, knowing he had destroyed her fiancé, taken the most precious thing from her life.

  She thought about her father’s odd phone call, about the gathering planned for the yacht on the thirteenth, about the strange timing of Grayson’s out-of-the-blue proposal, and nausea rode through her stomach.

  No. She had to stop this. She had to deal in facts, not crazy emotions. As a lawyer, she never made decisions until she had enough proof, so why should she do any different now?

  Why should she believe Jack off the bat? He hadn’t contacted her in sixteen years—why now? He was using her—he’d said so. And if he had reason to use her, he had motive to bend the truth.

  She’d be a complete fool to trust him.

  Olivia stood up pushed her damp hair back from her face. Facts. Clarity. That’s what she needed.

  The first thing she was going to do was check him out—everything he’d said. She was going to see if she could confirm his involvement with the FDS. She was going to find out what her UN connections knew about the organization…anything she could lay her hands on. And she was going to keep moving forward, gathering as many facts as she could. She’d think afterward, she’d decide how to feel later.

  He said they had six days.

  Olivia began to pace up and down her bedroom, adrenaline rising as she thought, plotted. She checked her clock. Pria wouldn’t be in the office this early. She’d have to wait.

  She lifted her wrist, examined the bracelet again. Could it be a hoax? Did it really have a GPS in it? She turned her wrist over. There was no sign of it. What did she know? She wouldn’t have a clue what such a device looked like anyway.

  She could test it. She could find a way to sneak out and see if he came running.

  She stilled.

  Yes, that’s what she had to do. She needed to go to Venturion Tower. She wanted to look into her father’s eyes, and ask him some careful questions about the past.

  She wanted to see his warm smile and know that he could not have anything to do with this alleged coup plot.

  She began to pace again. Damn Jack. He’d driven a razor’s edge of doubt right through her soul. He was making her question her own father. Well, she wasn’t going to, not without proof.

  Olivia yanked open her closet door, and found herself selecting a silk shirt in a color that had once been Jack’s favorite on her—a soft champagne. She held the fabric against her skin, a memory rustling softly through her mind—of a dress she’d once had in the same color. He’d said it offset her eyes, made them the color of liquid honey, that it had accentuated the copper highlights in her chestnut hair.

  She cursed softly, tossed the shirt on the bed, took another out. This one was a rich emerald-green silk, a solid, bold, strong color—one that exuded confidence. Because that’s how she was determined to feel—confident, in control, just like she was in the courtroom.

  She chose her pants carefully, going for cream, neatly tailored, with a small zipper in the back and a wide flare at the bottom that gave her movements an elegant fluidity when she walked. Olivia knew how to project image. It was part of what made her a success. She could look poised even when insecurity was eating her alive.

  She dressed, took stock in the mirror, and decided to wear her hair clipped back. She added a mere slick of pale gloss to her lips but lined her eyes carefully with dark kohl. The darkness offset the gold color, made them look lighter, almost predatory. She stood back and assessed her reflection. She didn’t look the victim anymore, even if Jack was trying to play her as one, even if she was his prisoner with this damn handcuff on her wrist.

  Satisfied, Olivia sucked in a breath and proceeded to unlock the door.

  Jack whipped eggs with all the controlled violence of a caged wild animal. He added pepper, salt, a dash of Tabasco and a splash of milk. It splattered right over the edge of the bowl and onto his pants. He muttered a curse, grabbed one of Olivia’s dishcloths and tucked it into his waistband.

  The espresso steamed from the coffee machine, and milk frothed. He’d already tossed a handful of button mushrooms into the frying pan where they hissed and popped.

  The shower had gone off ages ago, but Olivi
a was still in the bedroom. Was she going to hide in there all day?

  He opened her fridge and caught sight, again, of the photograph of her and Grayson, stuck to the door with a sunflower fridge magnet.

  He reached in and grabbed a tomato, too hard, sinking his finger into the soft innards. He swore, plopped his finger in his mouth, sucked the juice off as he turned and kicked the door shut with his heel.

  And there she was. Beautiful and poised in dark-emerald silk.

  He went stock-still, finger still in his mouth, a mutilated tomato in his fist, juice running down his wrist, suddenly feeling awkward at the compromising position he found himself in. He slid the finger slowly out of his mouth.

  She swallowed, watching his lips.

  He could see sexual interest in her eyes. She tried to control it, couldn’t. Wow. Those eyes looked like they belonged to a hungry lioness. And the effect was a punch to his gut.

  He caught his breath, pulled himself together, ripped his gaze away, set the mangled tomato on a board, picked up a knife.

  “Hungry?” he asked raising the knife.

  She watched the blade slice into the fruit, slid her eyes up to meet his. “No.”

  He held his breath again for an instant, trying to acclimate himself to the power of her eyes all made up like that, to the latent confidence that simmered in them. She had gone into the shower one woman, and she’d come out quite another. Granted, she’d taken her time, but he had to hand it to her.

  Or not.

  Careful, Jack, she could be playing you.

  He stilled suddenly. He’d just thought of himself as Jack! This was not good. He wanted to dig into the past but he’d had zero intention of delving that far back into his psyche. It was her—she was doing this to him.

  His heart raced softly, but outwardly he stayed nonchalant. “You need to eat,” he said. “I’ve made some breakfast.”

  Her eyes lowered to the dishcloth in his pants, and a hesitant lightness flickered over her lips.

  He held his hands out to his side, knife in one. “What? I look funny?”

  “It’s the sunflower print,” she said, a hint of mirth in her voice. “They look so…innocent.” She cleared her throat. “They don’t quite go with the gun you have tucked in the back of your pants.”

  The idea of a smile crossed his mind but didn’t quite make it to his lips. “You have a thing for sunflowers, don’t you?” He said, turning back to the tomato, thinking of the photo on the fridge. He smacked the knife down on the board. “Feel better in combat gear myself,” he said.

  She watched him scrape what was now tomato mush into the pan. “So you still like to cook, Jack?”

  A memory whispered through him, of cooking for Olivia, of making love in front of the fire. “No, not unless it’s on a campfire in the bush. Usually someone cooks for me.”

  “A woman?”

  She held his gaze, direct, challenging. She really had pulled herself together back there. This was the Olivia he could imagine in a courtroom.

  “There’s no woman in my life,” he said.

  She looked him over again, even more slowly this time. “No woman? You’re kidding me.”

  He hesitated. He didn’t want to go there, didn’t have to, but it came out anyway. “Hasn’t been a woman for…a long time.”

  “How long?”

  “Too long.”

  “You telling me you don’t have sex, Jack?”

  Surprise flickered through him. He studied her face, trying to read where she was going with this. Silence grew taut, just the sizzle of mushrooms and tomato in the pan. “I didn’t say that, now, did I?” he turned, picked up a fork, quickly sautéed the contents of the pan. He was conscious of her watching his hands—hands that were far more familiar around an AK-47 or machete than a kitchen paring knife.

  “So you sleep with them but don’t care about them, is that what you’re implying?”

  The muscles in his back tightened. He turned slowly to face her, and his eyes collided with hers again. “There was only one woman I cared about, Olivia. I learned the hard way what that kind of caring can do to a man. It’s not worth it. I don’t bother, not anymore.”

  She paled visibly. “So, you have superficial relationships, and that’s—”

  “That’s about it. Yeah. What is it with these questions? You going to continue down this road or what?”

  “You asked me if I loved Grayson.”

  His eyes flicked to her hand. She wasn’t wearing the ring. His pulse kicked up softly. Then he saw that she wasn’t wearing his pendant, either.

  She was making a statement. She wasn’t taking sides.

  Well, it was his job to make her do that. And cooking her breakfast, endearing himself to her, was part of the plan.

  He picked up the egg mixture, poured it into the pan.

  “You know,” she said, as she watched him folding the egg into the tomato and mushrooms. “I don’t get you, Jack.” She waved her hand around the kitchen. “I don’t get any of this. You walk back into my life after sixteen years, you ask me if I love the man who has just proposed to me, and then you inform me that he and my father are going to overthrow the U.S. Government.” Her voice hitched slightly, betraying her show of confidence. “And then you come in here, like…like some gladiator in a dishcloth and dress pants, and you make me breakfast?”

  Her eyes began to glisten, but she turned away quickly, trying to hide it from him.

  He reached out, touched her shoulder. “Livie—” he said softly.

  She stiffened under his hand.

  “Livie, look at me.”

  “Don’t—” she said, her back still to him. “Do not call me that again.”

  “Okay, I won’t, but—” The toast caught, and acrid smoke burned into the air. He swore, lurched over the counter, flicked the toaster switch up and knocked an egg off the counter in the process. It smashed to the floor.

  He cursed again, took the frying pan off the heat, reached for a cloth, dropped to his haunches and started mopping up the slippery mess. She just stood there watching him. What was it about kitchens and beautiful women that could make a man feel so inadequate?

  “It does that,” she said.

  He glanced up from his position on the floor. “Does what?”

  “The toaster. You have to put it on a lower heat than usual.”

  “Next time.”

  She leaned over him, grabbed two more slices of bread, adjusted the toaster thermostat and shunted the lever down. “There won’t be a next time.”

  He got to his feet, cornering her between himself and the exit. “Sure there’ll be a next time.”

  She swallowed, her eyes suddenly nervous.

  “We’re going to be spending a good deal of time together these next few days, Olivia. You better get used to it.”

  He reached across her, catching her fragrance as he did. He grabbed the pan, slid the omelet onto a plate on the counter, and pushed it toward her. “Eat. Then join me in your study.”

  “Why?”

  “I need your computer. I have to show you something. And you’re not going to want to eat after you see it.”

  Olivia stepped out of the kitchen and into the hallway. He was busy in her study, off the end of the living room. She was out of his line of sight. She could leave, right now, just walk out that door. She stared at her own front door, fingers clenching and unclenching at her sides, a prickle of perspiration forming on her upper lip. She really should go. Now. And it could all be over.

  But she couldn’t. She’d be deluding herself. Something was going on and she was now committed to finding out what it was. She needed the truth. She wasn’t going to stick her head in the sand again. Ever.

  Facts, Olivia, get the facts. Keep yourself emotionally zipped up until you have them all. Then act. Control yourself. You can do this….

  She made herself move across the living room, and she cautiously pushed open the study door.

  His back was to her. H
e was bent over some kind of PDA, busy connecting it to her system, his shoulder muscles moving smoothly under his white shirt. She figured he must have had the shirt tailored to fit his extra powerful frame, because the fit was exquisite.

  “You eat?”

  The question startled her.

  He glanced up, the morning light catching his eyes. Her stomach tightened. God, he was gorgeous. Grim, but gorgeous.

  “Well, did you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Food okay?”

  It was damn good, but she wasn’t about to tell him that.

  “Forget the small talk, Jack. How come you’re letting me walk around like this if you’re so worried about this coup threat? I could have gone right out my door. I could have left—”

  “I know where you are with that bracelet. I told you, it has a GPS. Sit. You need to see this.”

  Damn him, he could be frustrating.

  “I’ve linked a satellite feed to your system.” He tapped some keys, and the monitor sprung to life.

  She seated herself, keeping as much space as she could between them. His energy was just too consuming to get too close. But he yanked her chair up against his, forcing her arm to brush against his where he’d rolled up his sleeves. A frisson of heat shivered over her skin. She swallowed. “What have you got?”

  His eyes flicked quickly down her cleavage and back to her face, something wicked dancing in them for all of a nanosecond. Then he turned back to the computer, hit a key, then leaned back in his chair and watched her watch.

  An image filled her screen. It was some kind of military field hospital in a jungle clearing. Patients were lining up, getting injections. She couldn’t see any faces, just arms, hands, latex gloves, snatches of camouflage gear. Her interest piqued instantly, and she leaned forward to get a better look.

  It looked like some kind of army vaccine program. Somewhere in central Africa, judging by the equatorial vegetation and the blood-red soil.

  Her screen filled with another image—patients sitting on cots, emaciated, bleeding from the nose and mouth. Her heart quickened. Then there was another shot, different time sequence, of the same patients thrashing wildly, attacking each other, tearing flesh, biting, drawing blood, salivating.