Behind Closed Doors

Chapter 2

Images from this morning's dream shimmered in Raine's mind as she maneuvered through early morning traffic. The dream images seemed far more vivid and substantial than the drab, lonely half-life she was living here in Seattle. She was good at analyzing dreams—God knows she'd had plenty of practice—but ponder as she might, she couldn't come up with a plausible meaning for this one.

She was tiny, swimming in a glass aquarium. Light rippled across the fake colored rocks that covered the floor. She swam slowly through little sprays of coral, over a miniature plastic castle and a sunken pirate ship. She was naked, and terribly conscious of her nakedness. She tried to wrap her long hair around herself, but it just kept floating back up around her face in a pale, swirling cloud. A black pirate flag waved languidly in the water. The skull and crossbones insignia on it was the last image she brought to waking consciousness as the alarm dragged her awake at 5:30 A.M. Just as the blaring horn of a Ford Explorer behind her jolted her into awareness that the light was green. She had to stay in the waking world and concentrate on the rain-slicked street in front of her.

She'd been having this dream often, as long as she had been staying hi the house that Lazar Import & Export had assigned to her. Staying, as opposed to living, because she couldn't get comfortable there, despite the fact that it was a beautiful place, already furnished and far too luxurious for a lowly executive assistant It made her nervous. She had enough problems without feeling ill at ease in her own living space. She meant to look for an apartment of her own as soon as she had a second to breathe, and to hell with the extra expense.

Dreaming of herself as naked, trapped and helpless was not confidence-inspiring. She wished that she could dream of herself as something bold and fearless for a change. A pirate queen, brandishing a cutlass and yelling out her battle cry. But she shouldn't complain. The aquarium dream was a hell of a lot less stressful than the bleeding tombstone dream. It didn't leave her gasping for air, hollow-eyed with terror, aching with grief for her lost father.

Still, the skull and crossbones bothered her. There was always an image of death in her recurrent dreams. Lucky girl, she thought, with grim amusement. Way to start the day off right, with a dripping dagger, a nest of snakes, or a mushroom cloud. That daily squirt of screaming adrenaline into the bloodstream was better than coffee.

Her stomach fluttered as she pulled into the underground garage of the building that housed the corporate offices. Jeremy, the flirtatious parking attendant, gave her a wink and a wave, and she barely managed a wan smile in return. She'd gotten her job at Lazar Import & Export under false pretenses, and every day the price she paid for that deceit got higher. She'd researched the huge, diversified company exhaustively, tailoring her resume to fit them, fabricating an employment history that she thought would appeal to them. She'd soothed her qualms by telling herself that she was justified, that it was for a noble cause. Still, Raine had never been good at lying. It made her stomach hurt. Breakfast would help, but there was no time, not even to grab a pastry.

God knows, Lazar Import & Export would be a stressful place to work even if she weren't lying through her teeth every day. It was the most vicious, spiteful, back-biting workplace she'd ever experienced. There wasn't a chance in hell of making friends with her co-workers. She stared critically at her reflection in the cloudy mirrored walls of the elevator. She'd lost weight. Her skirt was riding too low over her hips. But who had time to eat in Lazar's lair? She was lucky if she could find a moment to pee during the course of the day.

The elevator stopped and pinged on the ground floor as she was freshening her lipstick. The door slid open, a man stepped in, and the door rolled shut behind him. The elevator seemed suddenly very small. She shoved her lipstick into her purse, a light, tickling awareness rippling across the surface of her skin, like a breeze rustling long grass.

She was careful not to look at him directly, mindful of elevator etiquette, but she gathered considerable information out of the corner of her eye. Tall, maybe a little over six feet Lean. Darkly tanned skin, she noticed, sneaking a furtive glance at the big hands that emerged from the cuffs of his suit—his very elegant, very costly suit Probably Armani, she concluded, peeking at the cut of-his sleeves. A summer hanging out in Barcelona with that shameless clotheshorse Juan Carlos had taught her a lot about the subtle nuances of men's fashion.

He was looking at her. She felt the weight and heat of his gaze against the side of her face. She would have to look straight at him to confirm it For once, her curiosity was stronger than her fear.

Maybe it was the skull and crossbones in her dream that suggested the image, but the thought blazed through her mind the moment she raised her eyes to his.

He had the face of a pirate.

He wasn't classically handsome. His features were too harsh and craggy, his nose bumpy and crooked. Midnight-black hair was cropped short. It stuck straight up, like a velvety black scrub brush. His broad cheekbones jutted out, with deep hollows beneath them. His eyebrows were thick, black slashes and his mouth was both grim and sensual. But it was his eyes that shocked her. They were black, heavy-lidded and exotic. They stared at her with searing intensity.

The eyes of a marauding buccaneer.

His gaze slid down over her body as if he saw through her prim gray suit, through her blouse, her underthings, right down to the shivering flesh beneath. His appraisal was bold and arrogant, as if he had every right to stare. The way a pirate captain might look at his helpless captive ... before he dragged her down to his cabin for sport.

Raine tore her eyes away. Her overactive imagination promptly went crazy with the pirate metaphor, erasing the Armani and dressing him in pirate's garb; flowing blouse, tight knee breeches that showcased his... his assets, a cutlass thrust into a crimson sash, a golden hoop in his ear. It was ridiculous, but she felt flushed, panicky. She had to get out of this elevator before the mirrors steamed up.

To her immense relief, the door pinged and opened on the 26th floor. She lunged to exit, stumbling into the man who was waiting to enter and murmured an incoherent apology as she ran for the stairs. Walking up would make her late, but she had to regain her composure.

Oh God, how pathetic, and how typical. A hot, sexy guy gave her the eye in an elevator, and she fell to pieces like a terrified virgin. She'd blown her once in a lifetime chance to be ravished by a pirate. No wonder her love life was a non-issue. She sabotaged it before it even got going. Every damn time.

The working day began inauspiciously. Harriet, the office manager, swept by as she was hanging up her coat, her thin face pinched with disapproval. “I expected you earlier,” she snapped.

Raine glanced down at her watch. It was 7:32. “But I—it's only—” “You know perfectly well that the updated OFAC compliance report has to be finished and Fedexed by noon! And we still haven't gotten an answer from the Banque Intercontinentale Arabe about those blocked funds for the wine shipment. It's already 4:30 in the afternoon in Paris, and our distributors are drumming their fingers. Somebody has to negotiate that order for Brazilian espresso beans, and you're the only one in me office right now with halfway decent Portugese. To say noming of the fact that the new pages of the website still aren't ready. I would appreciate it if you would take responsibility for your work, Raine. I cannot keep track of everything”

Raine muttered something apologetic, teeth clenched, and sat down, punching in the code that took her phone off voice mail.

“And another thing. Mr. Lazar wants you to serve the coffee, tea and pastries at the breakfast meeting,” Harriet went on.

A jolt of terror made Raine leap to her feet. “Me? “

Harriet's lips pursed. “I was not looking forward to telling him you were late.”

Raine's stomach fluttered with dread. “But he's never— but Stefania always—”

“He wants you,” Harriet cut in. “What he wants, he gets. The coffee is already brewing, no thanks to you, and the caterers have just delivered the food. It's in the kitchen. The china and silver are already laid out in the conference room.”

Stefania poked her face into Raine's cubicle. “Make sure to get the geisha girl choreography just right,” she advised. “With Lazar, it's got to be aesthetically perfect. One spilled drop of coffee, and you're toast.” She studied Raine with a critical eye. “And freshen up your makeup. Your left eye is smudged- Here, take my lip liner.”

Raine stared down at the lip liner pencil, speechless with dismay. This was the first time Victor Lazar had publicly acknowledged her existence. She'd seen him, of course; he was impossible to miss. He swept through the office like a storm wind, scattering people in front of him and dragging them in his wake. He was as dynamic and intimidating as she remembered from her childhood, though not as tall.

The first time he'd seen her, his piercing gray eyes had flicked over her with complete disregard, leaving her weak-kneed with relief. He evidently saw no connection between his newest executive assistant and his tiny, eleven-year-old niece with the white-blond braids that he hadn't seen in seventeen years. Thank God.

His sudden interest in her now seemed sinister.

“Go, quick, Raine! The meeting was scheduled for seven forty-five!”

Harriet's razor-sharp tone galvanized her. She scurried to the kitchen, heart thudding. This was no big deal, she told herself as she unwrapped the food. She was serving coffee, croissants, bagels, mini-muffins and fruit. She would smile, look pretty and gracefully withdraw, leaving Lazar and his clients to their business. This was not rocket science. It was not brain surgery.

Oh no, piped up the sarcastic little voice in her head. It was just her fathers murderer, up close and personal. No biggie.

She poured herself a cup of the strong, vicious brew that was always available in the staff kitchen and gulped it down so fast it scalded her mouth and throat. She had to get a backbone surgically implanted, if she really meant to go through with this. She should be pleased that Victor had noticed her. She had to get close to him if she wanted to investigate her father's death. That was why she had taken this nightmarish job, that was why she was living this surreal life. The tombstone dream had left her no other option.

For years she'd tried to unravel that hellish dream. She'd come up with dozens of logical explanations: she missed her father, had unconscious anger about his death, needed a scapegoat, et cetera. She'd studied dream psychology, gotten psychotherapy, tried creative visualization, hypnosis, yoga, every stress-reducing technique she could think of, but the dream persisted. It burned in her mind, weighing her down, derailing every effort she made to get her life on track.

A year ago she started having it every night. That was when the real desperation began. She grew dizzy, wild-eyed, terrified to go to sleep. She tried deadening herself with sleeping pills, but couldn't bear the headaches the next day. She was at her wit's end, watching her life grind to a halt— until 3 A.M. on her twenty-seventh birthday. She'd started upright in bed, chest heaving, and stared with wet, burning eyes into the pitch darkness, still feeling the cruel strength of Victor’s arm clamped around her shoulders. By the time dawn lightened the windows of her room from black to charcoal gray, she had finally surrendered. The dream demanded something of her, and she could no longer say no to it. It would break her in the end if she kept trying.

She had no proof, of course. The record of events was clear and conclusive. Her father had died in a sailboat accident. Victor had been out of the country on business, then Raine's mother maintained that she and Raine had been hi Italy at the time, refusing to discuss the matter further. Once, when she was sixteen, Raine had asked her mother if she believed that her first husband's death had been an accident Her mother had slapped her hard across the face and then burst into noisy tears, pulling her shaken, bewildered daughter into her arms and begging her forgiveness.

“Of course it was an accident, honey. Of course it was,” she repeated in broken tones. “Let it go. What’s past is past. I'm so sorry.”

Raine had never mentioned the forbidden topic again, but the silence that surrounded the past made her feel breathless and stifled. It left her so little to go on; years of running and hiding, an endless succession of false names and passports, the naked fear in her mother's voice whenever her uncle was mentioned. A lingering memory of panic and terror, tightly braided together with grief. And of course, the dream. The dream was relentless.

So here she was. In the three weeks she'd been here, she had learned exactly nothing, other than a dizzying slew of Office of Foreign Asset Control regulations, financial spreadsheet programs, container transport contract templates and website tools. She was a terrible liar and had never shown the least talent for subterfuge, but that was just too bad. She had to muddle on as best she could, fussing anxiously with her melon chunks and mini-muffins. What a fearless, audacious wild woman on the trail of truth and justice she was.

Another prickling rush of awareness raced over the surface of her skin as she was unwrapping the foil on the cream cheese. She spun around and dropped it. Cheese side down, of course.

The man she had seen in the elevator was standing in the kitchen doorway.

She swallowed, hard. She had coffee and mini-muffins to serve, she reminded herself. She did not have time to be ravished by a hungry-eyed pirate, no matter how sexy or compelling he might be. “Are you lost?” she asked politely. “Can I direct you somewhere?”

The man's hot gaze was all over her, like strong, possessive hands. “No. I can find the conference room on my own.” His deep voice brushed tenderly across her nerve endings, like a slow, tingling caress.

“So you're, ah, here for the breakfast meeting,” she stammered.

“Yeah.” He glided into the kitchen with pantherish grace, bent down and retrieved the cream cheese. He rose up—and up, and up, towering over her five feet five inches. He took a napkin from the counter behind her, wiped off the lint that clung to the gooey wad of cheese and presented it to her. “No one will ever know,” he said softly. “It'll be our little secret.”

She took it, and waited for him to step back. He wasn't going to move, she realized, seconds later. On the contrary. She groped behind herself for the serving plate and somehow managed to deposit the glob of cheese without further mishap. Her heart thudded wildly. She could smile, she urged herself desperately. She could even flirt. She was a big girl. It was allowed. But he was so close, his eyes so hot and hungry. The intensity of his masculine energy paralyzed her. She was speechless, lungs locked, unable to inhale or exhale. A hopeless cream puff.

“I'm sorry if I made you nervous in the elevator.” His voice stroked her again, as soft as suede. “You took me by surprise. I forgot to be polite.”

She tried to sidle away alongside the counter. “You're still not being polite,” she said. “And I'm still nervous.”

“Yeah?” He put both hands on the counter, trapping her in a crackling force field of masculine heat. “Well, I'm still surprised.”

He leaned towards her. She wondered in a spasm of panic if he were going to kiss her, but he stopped scant inches from her hair and took a deep breath. “You smell wonderful,” he muttered.

She shrank back against the counter. The condiments drawer dug into her lower back. “I don't wear perfume,” she ventured bravely.

He inhaled again and sighed, his warm, fragrant breath fanning her throat. 'That's why I love it. Perfume covers up the good stuff. Your hair, your skin. Fresh and sweet and hot Like a flower in the sun.”

This couldn't be happening. Sometimes her dream world seemed more substantial than the waking world, and this unspeakably bold, gorgeous man belonged in one of her more improbable dreamscapes; along with unicorns and centaurs, demons and dragons. Unfathomable creatures, unbound by mortal laws and limitations, touched by wild enchantment Deadly dangerous.

She blinked. He was still there. Overwhelmingly so. The drawer handle still dug sharply into her back. He was very real, and not about to melt away into a puff of smoke. She had to deal with him.

“This is ... inappropriate,” she said in a soft, breathless voice. “I don't even know you. Please step back and give me some space.”

He retreated with obvious reluctance. “Sorry,” he said, sounding anything but apologetic. “I had to memorize it”

“Memorize what?”

“Your smell” he said, as if it were obvious.

Raine stared at him, openmouthed, acutely conscious of the way her nipples were rubbing against the fabric of her bra, the slide of the silk blouse against her skin as breath heaved in her lungs. Her face was hot, her lips felt swollen. Her legs shook. The look in his eyes pulled at something deep inside her; a verdant, hidden place that budded and bloomed under his gaze, aching with nameless longing.

No. This longing was not nameless. She was turned on, she realized, with a jolt of horrified embarrassment. Sexually aroused by a complete stranger, right here in the staff kitchen of Lazar Import & Export, and he hadn't even touched her. This was just a dandy time for her latent, wild woman sexuality to rear its head. Her timing had always sucked.

“Ah. Mr. Mackey, I presume.”

Raine spun around at the sound of Victor Lazar's cool, ironic voice. He was lounging in the kitchen doorway, taking in the scene with silver gray eyes that missed nothing.

The pirate gave him a courteous nod. “Mr. Lazar. Glad to meet you.” The words and tone were polite, but the caressing roughness that had characterized his voice was gone. It was as clear and hard as glass.

Victor's smile assessed him coolly. “You've met my assistant?”

“In the elevator,” the pirate said.

Victor's eyes flicked from him to Raine, lingering for an endless three seconds on her hot face. “I see,” he murmured. “Very well. Since you're here ... shall we? The others are waiting.”

“Of course.”

Tension throbbed in the air. The two men regarded each

other, smiling identical bland, impenetrable smiles. People usually jumped at Lazar's lightest wish, but this dark stranger had his own gravitational field. He would move when it pleased him, and not before. Raine was suspended between them, afraid to move.

A faintly amused smile flitted across Victor's face. “This way, please, Mr. Mackey,” he said, as if humoring a small child. “Raine, bring in breakfast, please. We have a great deal to discuss.”

The pirate shot her one last, fiercely appreciative glance as he followed Lazar out of the kitchen.

No blushing or stammering allowed, she told herself sternly as she filled the silver pots with coffee and tea. No tripping over the carpet or running into doors. She had to learn to take encounters like this in stride. And while she hadn't factored a sizzling affair into her mission scenario, it wasn't necessarily such a bad idea.

That delicious, rebellious thought sent a flood of knee-wobbling panic through her. She stopped in the corridor and silently talked herself down, her arms trembling from the weight of the tray. Maybe with an act of such uncharacteristic boldness, she could prove to herself that she had the guts to act instead of being acted upon. Maybe it would be good, not just for her, but for her quest. To accomplish this impossible task, she needed to become a different person altogether. Bold, fearless, ruthless. What better place to start than her sex life? That certainly needed a massive overhaul.

She pasted a geisha girl smile onto her face and pushed open the door to the conference room with her foot. There were several people in the room besides Victor and the pirate. She smiled at each of them in turn as she poured the coffee and tea, but she was careful not to look at the pirate as she handed him his cup. Just a glimpse of his long, graceful brown fingers as he accepted it made her pulse flutter.

The conversation in the room was an indistinct wash of sound She forced herself to focus and follow the sense of it. Any information at all could prove useful to her quest The pirate was talking about transponders, radio frequency identification. Data collection. Smart labels and data locks and programming cycles. GPS tracking, data streaming, wireless modems. Cold, technical stuff, the type that had always flown right over her head.

But his voice was so deep and resonant and sexy. It made the back of her neck tingle, as if he were caressing it with his hands, with his lips, with his warm breath, ft was incredibly hard to concentrate. Her own name jerked her to attention, making the cup she held rattle in its saucer.

“... trust that will be convenient, Raine. Please let Harriet know,” Victor was saying.

Raine gulped and laid the cup and saucer carefully down at Victor's elbow. “Let her know, ah ... what?”

Impatience flashed across Victor's broad, handsome face. “Please pay attention. You will accompany Mr. Mackey and me on a tour of the Renton warehouses tomorrow. Be ready at three.”

His face was so like her father’s, at close range, but harder, more angular. His short hair was startlingly white against his olive skin.

Her father hadn't lived long enough for his hair to go white.

“Me?” she whispered.

“Is this going to be a problem?” Victor's voice was silky soft.

She shook her head quickly. “Ah, no. Of course not.”

Victor smiled, and a shudder of dread raced down her spine. “Excellent,” he murmured.

She murmured something acquiescent and fled, stumbling through the office cubicles until she reached the women's rest room. She hid in the farthest stall, pressed her hot face against her knees and hugged herself, trying to calm the violent trembling.

She saw her father's face as clearly as if it hadn't been seventeen years since his death. So gentle and soft-spoken. Reading her poetry, telling her stories. Showing her beautiful pictures in his monographs of Renaissance art. Teaching her to identify trees and wildflowers. He visited her in her dreams sometimes, and when he did, she woke up missing him so badly, it felt like her heart would shatter like glass under the pressure.

Get a grip already, she told herself furiously. She should be celebrating, not having a meltdown in the bathroom. This was the pirate queen's chance to strut her stuff.

But more and more, she felt like the helpless creature in her dream; swimming naked in trapped, restless circles around the limits of her transparent world. Blind to the larger implications, but still haunted by a shadow of approaching doom.