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  Only two nights ago she’d flamed in his arms. He could still feel her body taut and straining under his, still hear her hoarse groan when she’d climaxed. He’d come within an ace of knocking on that door a half dozen times and trying his damndest to recover the ground he’d lost with her.

  He might have done it if she hadn’t been wrung dry by the incident in the woods yesterday morning, not to mention the grilling he’d put her through for most of the afternoon. After that exhausting session, she’d opted for a tray in her room and an evening on her own to try and sort through everything he’d dumped on her.

  The report Cutter had just received from Mike wasn’t going to help with the sorting. Slicking back hair still damp from his shower, he rapped on the connecting door.

  Mallory took her time answering. The dark smudges under her eyes suggested she hadn’t slept any better than he had. Bundled from neck to ankle in a plush terrycloth robe, she read the news on his face.

  “Your friends didn’t find anything on Dillon, did they?”

  “Not yet. They’re still digging, but at this point he looks squeaky clean.”

  Too clean, in Mike and Cutter’s collective judgment. Everyone had skeletons in their closet. Porter couldn’t have spent all those years at the center of power without acquiring one or two himself.

  “So we’re back to square one,” Mallory muttered wearily. “With me dangling at the end of your hook, bait for this Russian character.”

  “Let’s talk about that.”

  When she sank onto the edge of the rumpled bed, her robe parted at the knee. Not much. Only enough to give Cutter a glimpse of smooth, bare calf. Ruthlessly, he slammed the lid on the insidious thought that Ms. Dawes was halfway to naked. He’d done some hard thinking in the dark hours before dawn.

  “I think it’s time to switch gears. That incident yesterday morning scared the crap out of me.” Cutter wasn’t going to forget seeing her go down any time soon. “I don’t want you hurt, Mallory.”

  The admission elicited a small huff. “I’m not real thrilled at the prospect, either.”

  “If Remy Duchette’s attack was linked to an attempt to retrieve the disk, whoever wants the data is getting both frustrated and desperate. That makes him dangerous. We need to send him a signal, make it clear you don’t have the CD.”

  “How do you plan to accomplish that?”

  “We’ll use the media.”

  “Please tell me you’re kidding!”

  “I know, I know. They ate you alive at home. With a few words dropped in the right ears, they’ll do the same here.”

  Cutter hated the idea of feeding her to the sharks again but didn’t see any other option at this point.

  “We’ll put you in front of the cameras. Have you relate your sad tale of the riptide carrying off your rental. You’ll stress that you lost everything, including your suitcase and all its contents. Then I put you on a plane back to the States and hang around Mont St. Michel to see if someone tries to recover the disk.”

  Manfully, he kept his gaze on her face while she fiddled with the flap of her robe and mulled over his plan. He could see it didn’t thrill her.

  “I know you came to France to escape the media, Mallory. I don’t like asking you to put yourself out there again, but it’s the only way I could think of to throw any would-be predators off your scent.”

  “I can handle the media.”

  “What the problem, then?”

  Dammit, he wished she’d stop playing with the flap of her robe. The thick fabric bunched, was smoothed flat, bunched again. Cutter was starting to sweat when she finally voiced her objections to his plan.

  “I skipped lunch for almost a year to save for this trip. It started as a vacation, but morphed into my escape from the ugliness at home. I’m not ready to wade back into the mess yet.”

  “I understand. I do.”

  He’d watched her unfold during those hours in the sun, when they’d sipped Calvados and picnicked with Monsieur Villieu and his wife under the apple trees. Warm color had dusted her cheeks. Laughter had sparkled in her eyes. Now the shadows were back, and it ate at Cutter’s insides that he’d been the one to put them there.

  “You can’t just pick up your vacation where you left off,” he said quietly. “Not while whoever put that disk in your suitcase thinks you might still have it.”

  Chewing on her lower lip, she smoothed the terrycloth several more times.

  “Okay,” she said after a moment, “here’s my plan. We orchestrate the media blitz as you suggest. I admit I lost everything. Let the world know my suitcase went to sea with my rental car. Then, after we’ve thrown whoever wants the disk off my scent, as you so delicately put it, I go my way and you go yours.”

  “No good.”

  The swift, uncompromising negative took her aback. “Why not?”

  “I can’t let you wander around the countryside on your own.”

  “Let?” she echoed, stiffening.

  “I’ll rephrase that. I don’t want you wandering around France on your own. There’s no guarantee this media ploy will work. Word that you don’t have the disk in your possession might not reach the right people. Or they may not believe it. You could still be a target, Mallory. I can’t … I don’t want to take that risk.”

  “If they think I still have the data, I wouldn’t be any safer at home than I am here.”

  Yes, she would. Cutter had requested 24/7 surveillance for Mallory and her apartment. She wouldn’t take a step without someone right there, behind or beside her.

  He couldn’t tell her about the tag, however. Not yet. He was convinced she hadn’t stolen the data but until he proved it, she’d remain under watchful eyes.

  “We don’t have to decide this right now,” he said with a shrug that suggested her imminent return to the States wasn’t a done deal. “Let me dangle the bait, see if we can gin up some media interest. You may be ready to go home after dealing with them.”

  “After they start feasting on my flesh again, you mean. You’re probably right.”

  Her shoulders slumped under the robe. He could almost hear her desperate hopes for obscurity crash down around her.

  “Okay,” she conceded after a long silence, “we’ll play it your way.”

  Knowing that his mission took precedence over her vacation plans didn’t stop Cutter from feeling like a total heel.

  “You’ll have other opportunities to wander through the countryside, Mallory. I promise.”

  Her chin lifted. A healthy anger leapt back into her eyes. “I don’t want your sympathy, Smith, and I sure as hell don’t trust your promises.”

  She pushed off the bed, dismissing him with an imperious, impatient flap of her hand.

  “Go do whatever you need to do. I’ll start pulling on my body armor. Again.”

  Cutter’s strategy worked exactly as planned.

  Ordinarily, a botched robbery and the death of a small-time local hood like Remy Duchette wouldn’t stir much interest outside the immediate vicinity. The fact that Duchette had attempted to rob a guest of a famous Paris designer upped the interest considerably. All it took was one call from Hawk to make sure the word leaked to the right ears.

  The local stations began calling the château soon after lunch. Following the agreed-on game plan, Mallory refused to grant any interviews. She knew all too well there was nothing like a reluctant subject to rouse the media’s hunting instincts.

  Sure enough, by the time the early-evening news hit the airwaves, reporters had linked Mallory to the woman who’d made so many headlines back in the States. A stringer for Reuters had also connected her to the police report filed by the gendarme at Mont St. Michel. The phone rang incessantly from then on.

  Every major network carried the story on the late-night news. Writhing inside, Mallory huddled in a corner of the sofa in the downstairs sitting room and watched replays of her exit from the Rayburn Congressional Office Building after the arbitrator’s ruling that there was insuf
ficient evidence to support her allegation of sexual harassment. Sunglasses shielded her eyes, but her rigid shoulders and tight jaw telegraphed her disgust at the decision. The networks followed her terse replies of “No comment” with excerpts of a news conference held by a smug, vindicated Ashton Kent.

  “Bastard,” Cutter muttered as the phone shrilled yet again.

  As instructed, Gilbért took names and numbers and advised that Mademoiselle Dawes would return the call should she decide to speak about her recent unfortunate experiences. When he delivered the message to the sitting room, Cutter hit the remote to mute the TV.

  “We’ve stirred the pot enough. Please call them back and tell them Ms. Dawes will speak to the press tomorrow at eleven.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “We’ll leave for Paris shortly after that. Ms. Dawes wishes to return to the States. I’m putting her on a plane tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Most understandable.” The butler’s glance shifted to Mallory. “I am so sorry, mademoiselle, that you will take home such unpleasant memories of your visit to Normandy.”

  “They’re not all unpleasant.” She dredged up a smile. “I stayed in this beautiful château, had my first taste of Calvados and sampled Madame Picard’s veau de la Normandie. Those memories I’ll cherish.”

  There were others, ones she wasn’t so sure about. Like the memory of Gilbért crumpling to the ground and skinny, spike-haired Remy Duchette pointing his pistol at her middle. And Cutter …

  She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. She knew darn well her memories of him would remain as confused as the emotions he roused in her. Worse, she suspected the remembered feel of his mouth and hands and sleek, powerful body surging into hers would blot out her anger at his lies and deception. Eventually.

  But she wasn’t there yet. She wasn’t anywhere near there.

  “You must come again,” Gilbért pleaded. “Perhaps in the spring, when the apple and pear trees bloom. They shed their petals and cover the earth like snow.”

  “Perhaps I will.”

  When he departed the sitting room, Mallory decided to do the same.

  “I’m going upstairs. It’s been a long day.”

  Long and draining and filled with mounting dread over the ordeal she’d face tomorrow. She refused to link that hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach to the fact that she’d say goodbye to Cutter shortly after the news conference.

  He’d lied to her since day one, for pity’s sake! She should be overjoyed to put an ocean between them.

  “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Cutter nodded. Much as he ached to take her in his arms and kiss away her weariness, it was better this way. She’d be on her way home tomorrow, out of his reach until he wrapped up this op.

  Now if only he could get her out of his head.

  He stayed downstairs until well past midnight. No light showed under the connecting door when he let himself into his suite. Wavering between relief and regret, Cutter stripped down to his shorts, slid between the sheets, and locked his hands under his head.

  The sea murmured restlessly outside. Inside, the castle settled into sleepy semisilence. The wind whistled down stone chimneys. An occasional water pipe pinged. The clock on the mantel bonged the quarter hour, then the half.

  Cutter had resigned himself to another long night when one sound separated itself from the rest. His glance zinged to the connecting door. Not so much as a sliver of light showed under the sill.

  He picked up another soft creak. Two seconds later he was out of bed and dragging on his slacks. His head told him that it was probably Gilbért or his wife coming up the stairs with such a stealthy tread, trying not to disturb the guests. His gut said different. Sliding his Glock from its holder, he put his back to the wall and cracked the bedroom door.

  A shadow slid over the top step. Elongated. Danced along the darkened hallway.

  The shape was stretched and distorted. Cutter could see it belonged to neither Picard. Eyes narrowed, blood pumping, he thumbed the Glock’s safety but didn’t shove through the door until a loud clatter shattered the silence.

  Chapter 13

  “Dammit!”

  As if tripping over a creaking stair wasn’t bad enough, Mallory hit the oak railing on her way down and landed on her butt with a jarring thud.

  Her late-night snack flew off the plate she’d carried up with her. The cheese slices she’d cut from the towel-wrapped wheel Madame Picard had left out landed in her lap. The round-bladed knife she’d brought to spread it with scattered with a half dozen or so crackers. A ripe, juicy apple bounced down the stair, ponging noisily on each tread.

  Mallory managed to catch the pear before it suffered a similar fate, then lost her grip on it when a nasty snarl came out of the darkness behind her.

  “What the hell are you doing, creeping around at this time of night?”

  “Me!” Her heart pinging, she threw an indignant glance over her shoulder at the half-naked male who materialized out of the shadows. “You just took five years off my life … and no doubt bruised my pear!”

  “Was that what went airborne?” The taut set to his shoulders relaxed. “Hang loose, I’ll retrieve it for you.”

  First he detoured to the lacquered chest at the top of the stairs and deposited an object that gleamed dully in the faint light. Mallory’s pulse bumped when she realized he’d come into the hall armed.

  “There’s an apple down there somewhere, too.”

  He descended the stairs like a sleek jungle cat. His bare feet didn’t raise so much as a creak on the stairs that had protested her weight. The dim light made a moonscape of his back and shoulders and deepened the gap that appeared between his low-riding slacks and the small of his back when he stooped to retrieve the runaway fruit.

  “What did you do?” he asked, dropping down to sit knee-to-knee with her on the step. “Raid the fridge?”

  “The kitchen table. Madame Picard left a platter of goodies out.”

  “I’m going to miss that woman.” Cutter eyed the recovered stash hopefully. “Got enough for two?”

  “If you don’t mind broken crackers and slightly dented fruit.”

  “Feed me, woman.”

  So much had happened since Mallory boarded the plane to Paris that she would have sworn she was beyond being surprised by anything. Yet here she was, huddled on the stairs of a centuries-old château in a borrowed bathrobe with a man who’d lied to her from their first meeting. What surprised her even more was that she was in no hurry to end their late night tête-à-tête.

  Frowning, she tried to rekindle her earlier anger. She was still seriously ticked at Cutter. Not to mention hurt that he’d used her as a pawn in his dangerous game. So why was she spreading cheese flavored with crunchy hickory nuts for him?

  Because she was leaving tomorrow, the nasty voice of reality mocked. Leaving France. Leaving Yvette d’Marchand’s château. Leaving him. Her dream-vacation-that-never-quite-was would be over. All she had left of it was a few more hours and this temporary, fragile truce with Cutter.

  Refusing to dwell on the grim reality of going home to hunt for a job and an employer who’d hire someone who’d made allegations against her previous boss, she spread a cracker with the soft, creamy cheese.

  “Here.”

  Cutter popped the cracker into his mouth. While he crunched down, Mallory cut and peeled a slice of pear with the blunt-tipped knife. The fruit was firm and succulent. Juice dribbled onto her palm with each cut.

  She gave Cutter the first bite and nibbled on the second. He munched contentedly, his elbows resting on the stair behind him. Mallory licked the juice from her fingers and let her glance slide along his outstretched length.

  Shadows played across his flat belly and sculpted the planes of his chest. The air in the drafty hall was cool enough to make her grateful for the fluffy robe, but Cutter seemed impervious to the chill.

  “I’ve arranged to have someone meet you at the airport in D.C.,”
he told her, breaking the stillness.

  “Why?”

  “I thought you might need a friend.”

  “A friend? Or a watchdog?”

  “Both,” he admitted without a trace of apology. “His name is Mike Callahan. He’ll keep you safe until I wrap things up over here.”

  She didn’t particularly care for the idea that she had to be “kept” by anyone, but the incident in the woods had shaken her more than she was ready to admit.

  “What happens when you wrap things up?” she asked. “You resume watchdog duties yourself?”

  “If we haven’t nailed whoever slipped that disk into your suitcase.”

  “And if you have?”

  “Then I’m hoping you might still want a friend.”

  She didn’t have many of those left, Mallory acknowledged silently. Yet the idea of being Cutter’s pal turned the sweet taste of pear sour and left an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  She was still trying to deal with the hollow sensation when he levered upright. His shoulder nudging hers, he angled around and removed the knife from her sticky hands.

  “Just a precaution,” he said when she raised a brow. “The thing is, I’d like to be more than friends. And I really want to kiss you right now.”

  “We both know that’s not a good idea.”

  “Granted. That doesn’t make the want go away.”

  He cupped her cheek. His palm was warm against her skin, his breath a soft wash that mingled with hers. Mere inches separated them. Tomorrow, it would be an ocean. After that, who knew?

  Maybe that was why Mallory didn’t pull back when he leaned in, why her head tilted and her lids drifted down. Tomorrow, she decided as his lips brushed hers, would just have to take care of itself.

  His mouth moved over hers, tasting, tempting. Heat stirred in her veins. The muscles low in her belly clenched. Then Cutter slid his palm from her cheek to her nape, anchoring her head, and molded his mouth to hers.

  The half-eaten pear rolled off Mallory’s lap and thumped down the stairs again. The broken crackers scattered. She had no idea where the cheese slices went and didn’t care. Her body eager, her hands greedy, she matched him move for move.