“She’s been through with me for a long time, Rachel. And vice versa.”
“But you were lovers once.”
“Yes, we were. So were we. And it wasn’t so long ago, either.”
“Don’t change the subject,” she snapped.
“I’m not. I’m actually getting to the subject. I came here to talk about you and me, not about my past.”
Rachel took a step closer to him, her gaze darting between the walls on either side of her, as if they might close in at any moment. He sidestepped and she squeezed past him with such haste, he felt a cold wave of wind.
“Do you have a past?” she asked rapidly.
“A varied one,” he replied, knowing he’d be breaking contracts, agreements and regulations up to his ears if he told her one single detail. And yet, he was willing to share some of what led him here-what led him to Rachel.
“Can you tell me about any of it?”
Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest and her lips were frozen in a lethal line.
“Does it matter?” He winced. His reply had been automatic, practiced, grilled and ingrained into him. Could he ever revert to the man he used to be? Honest? Forthright? Real?
“Stop it!” she said, stamping her foot in such a way that she didn’t look the least like a petulant child, but a woman on the edge of losing control. “Answer the question! Stop hiding behind the persona some phantom agency cooked up for you. They’re not here now. It’s just me. Me and, please, for the love of God, the truth. I want to know who you are, Roman. But if you can’t tell me that, I at least deserve to know who you were, once, before you turned your life over to people who probably don’t give a damn if you live or die. I made love to you, Roman. Not once, not twice, but more times than I can count. So many times that my body still reacts to the air you breathe.”
He could hear her voice shaking, could see the force of need in her eyes, and he wondered how he’d gotten in so deep, so fast. And yet, his own passions matched Rachel’s point for point. What had started as sex, somehow, despite all the lies and omissions, had turned into something more.
He gestured toward the love seat in the center of the room. She sat, her hands tense on her knees, her shoulders tight. He dug into his pockets and decided not to sit beside her. He couldn’t possibly be that close and not take her into his arms.
“I work for a division of Homeland Security.”
Her eyes widened. “The terrorist people?”
With a nod, he started to pace. “Smoking out terrorist threats is our main directive. I was recruited to a joint FBI and CIA task force specifically investigating reports that a certain, deadly terrorist network has been using televised images in order to send messages to sleeper cells here in the States.”
Rachel sat back in the love seat, her stare disengaged from his. He knew this was a lot for her to process, but he’d decided to go for broke. Since he’d been shot at, he knew his position on the task force had been severely compromised. His cover had been blown. He suspected that the next time he reported to headquarters, he’d be taken off the case he’d worked since the first report came to his desk. But right now, there was no real harm in him letting an average citizen know that the government was actively pursuing potential killers.
Too bad Rachel wasn’t the least bit average or he wouldn’t be in this mess.
“What kind of messages?”
He stepped forward. This part, she’d understand. “Messages imbedded in the graphics.”
The whites of her eyes suddenly contrasted starkly with the dark, hypnotic green. “Graphics…where?”
“In the opening credits of certain productions.”
“Like documentaries? Like the one I was working on when we met?”
He nodded.
She took a few moments to process what he’d said, then skewered him with a quizzical glare. “But there are hundreds if not thousands of graphic designers working in television in this city. Why’d you pick me?”
“I didn’t pick you, the Agency did.”
She drew a quivering hand to her stomach. “Why? How did I come to the attention of the government?”
He closed his eyes, then rattled off the name of the documentary that had aired on Animal Planet, the one the task force had intercepted.
“I designed the opening and closing credits.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Tell me there wasn’t a hidden message in there.”
He pressed his lips together tightly.
She jumped to her feet. “Oh, God! Roman, please, I swear, I didn’t put any message for anyone in my graphics. I would never-”
With no reason not to, Roman reached out and took her by the elbows of her outstretched arms. “We know, Rachel. Someone else imbedded the message after you turned in your work. We found your original files, untouched. But those that aired were a different story. We’re still checking into who had access to your work, but first we had to investigate you. It was the first logical step.”
Despite how soft her skin felt against his palms, when she tugged to be free, he let her go.
“So that’s why you were at the network. Ours wasn’t a chance meeting.”
“No.”
“Were you sent to seduce me? To find out the truth over pillow talk?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. The scenario sounded like something out of a spy flick or romantic suspense novel, but the truth wasn’t anything so dark and glamorous. He and all the other male operatives at the Agency only dreamed of such choice assignments.
“We don’t work that way, Rachel. I was only supposed to get to know you, check out your apartment, your friends, your computer. How I accomplished that task was entirely up to me.”
She jammed her fists on her hips. “You could have pretended to be anyone. A friend. A gay friend,” she offered, her voice lilting upward as if the idea sounded promising. “You didn’t have to sneak into my bed.”
Roman’s lips quirked into a grin. “Our first time wasn’t in a bed and, Rachel, I didn’t have to sneak.”
Yes, he’d been dishonest with her about who he was and why he’d sought her out-but he’d never uttered one mistruth about wanting her so much that his skin seared with need when she so much as glanced in his direction. The desire he’d felt for her had been instantaneous, incendiary and instinctive. The choices he’d made had been based on the primal part of him that had never been awakened-not to that degree-before Rachel.
He figured at first it was intense chemistry. Pheromones gone wild. But the more time he spent with her, the more times he heard her laughter pealing through her apartment or watched her chew her bottom lip as she furiously manipulated the graphic images on her computer screen, the deeper he fell. Every word out of his mouth had been a lie-except when he told her how much he wanted her-just as powerfully then as he wanted her right now.
And the sheepishly sexy grin on her face didn’t deter him one bit. “I guess I was pretty hot for you.”
He allowed a smile to lighten the mood even further, and he couldn’t help but tug at the insides of his pockets to lessen the tightening of material across his groin. “The feeling was mutual.”
“Is that why you stuck around, kept in touch with me, even after I left that job?”
He nodded. “I’ve been at two networks since then, investigating various design departments and independent contractors. My attention should have been one hundred percent on the case, but I couldn’t seem to get you out of my head.”
She stepped aside, clearly uncomfortable with the turn in their conversation.
“You checked out my friends?”
“Mario, Iris, your ever-absent roommate, your mother, your sisters and all the men they’ve dated, which is a rather impressive list.”
She smirked. “They’ll be thrilled to know you approve.”
“They can’t know anything, Rachel. Everything I’ve told you has to be in complete confidence. My job is already on the line because my cover has been blown. That shooting the other morning was the work of the terrorist group who wants to make sure the cell they’ve implanted in the U.S. gets the messages they’re sending.”