The Makeover Mission (23 page)

She ran the tip of her tongue across her lower lip and he thought
he'd have to beg.

"If I'm standing too close I can always move away."

Not in this lifetime. Not while his hand still rested on her lower
back, a position he knew they were both excruciatingly aware of.

"Just do your job and I'll do mine."

He could have sworn her eyes sparkled right before she turned to
greet another man who bent too low over her hand. Didn't these guys have wives
or mistresses to get home to? How was he going to survive if she decided to
dance with a few of them when he was ready to lunge for their jugulars as it
was?

It might have been less than an hour, though it felt like a
lifetime, when the last stragglers were greeted and charmed. By that time
Lucius felt like chewing glass. If he didn't know better, he could have sworn
Jane was purposely brushing against him, rubbing her sleeve against his arm,
stepping back so her foot tangled with his. Either that or she'd become
terribly clumsy.

Did the woman know how many eyes were watching her every move, his
every reaction? Even Tarkioff had given him a warning glance or two, which did
not bode well for diplomatic relations. As the receiving line broke up and
guests began to mingle freely in the minutes before dinner, Lucius knew he'd
have to make his move.

He waited for his opening, when Tarkioff was snared by the
Minister of Transportation and Jane had stepped away from his side. It was now
or never.

"Miss Rostov." He spoke the words loud enough to turn
several heads. Good, the last thing he wanted was the gossips to wag about
private assignations. "If you have a few minutes we could discuss that
earlier problem you had."

He watched her eyes widen, as if figuring out what game he was up
to, yet her voice was poised and cool as she replied, "Problem?"

"Yes, the one we discussed last night."

There were several if he recalled, but it was a better bluff then
none at all.

"Oh, that problem." She gave him a high-wattage smile
that did not bode well for his equilibrium. "You want to talk. Now?"

If the truth was known—no. What he wanted to do was drag her from
the hall, count the seconds before he could get that excuse for a dress off her
and bury himself deep inside her. But somehow he didn't think the assembled
guests needed to know that much.

"Now would be a good time." He saw the wariness in her
gaze increase. Good. He needed her wary.

"Fine, Major McConneghy. You lead and I'll follow."

That would be a first. "Right this way."

He placed his hand beneath her elbow, not trusting himself
further, keeping his gaze focused straight ahead and not on the curve of her
cheek in profile, and definitely not on the line separating black dress from
creamy white skin along her back.

It was the longest ten yards he ever walked.

Jane wondered how long they'd be able to keep up the facade of
polite acquaintances. Not long, she guessed by the look in Lucius's
silver-smoked eyes and the way her heart skipped from double time to triple
time. She'd thought the stories she'd read of lust and temptation had been just
that, stories. Now she knew otherwise.

They drew near a set of open French doors, the night air offering
a faint breeze, cool against her flushed skin.

"This is far enough," he said.

"What did you want to talk about?" She waited until they
were standing side by side but not one second more. Not when her nerves felt as
taut as they could.

"Whatever it is you think you're doing, stop it."

"You want me to stop greeting the king's guests?"

"Damn it, that's not what I meant and you know it."

So the always cool and collected major was getting a little testy.
Maybe the dress was a good idea after all.

"Maybe you'd better clarify what you mean." She
sugar-coated the words but they were far from sweet.

He gave her a look that would have withered an old shoe, but Jane
was finding herself much tougher than leather. "You know exactly what I
mean. Stop doing what you're doing."

"Meaning what, exactly?"

"Brushing up against me. Giving me those come-hither
looks."

"Come-hither looks?"

"The ones over your shoulder and when you cast your eyelashes
down."

Oh, that was good. She didn't even know she was doing that, but
now she could use it on purpose.

"You mean like this?" It must have worked because he I
looked downright thunderous. She'd hoped for tempted ' more than murderous, but
she still had a full evening ahead of her. She could work on it.

"That's exactly what I mean. Stop it before you have Tarkioff
and half his country calling for my blood."

"Is that what you're afraid of?"

She wondered why she'd never thought of gray as a hot color.

"It's what
you
should be afraid of. We're not playing
games. There's too much at stake, including your life."

"I thought we were discussing your life."

He suddenly looked weary. An unfair tactic—she knew she could
fight his anger, but not this.

"I'm more worried about your life." He took a deep
breath, one that exposed the gun in the holster he always wore. That brought
reality into crystal-clear focus for her. His reality.

She looked toward the crowded room, seeing only a swirl of color,
hearing only a wash of conversations.

"I mean it, Jane, tone down the sex thing."

"Sex thing?" Now she sounded like a harlot for hire.
She'd been after seduction, not sex. Well, maybe not till later.

"I don't think you want the king knocking on your door
tonight."

She wanted that about as much as she wanted to be having this
conversation, but she held her tongue. He was ruining everything.

"If you don't stop, that's what you're going to get."

"I thought you said you'd protect me?" She threw it in
his face, keeping her voice pitched low so no one would overhear, but loud
enough to make her point.

"Don't be an idiot. There are things even I can't protect
against. Why do you think I've kept you as far away from him as possible?"

Great, first she was a harlot, an inept one if all she managed was
anger for her effort, and now she was a fool. But, perhaps, that's exactly what
she'd been: a complete and total idiot. It was as plain as the pattern on the
parquet floor that the man she'd been trying to interest was about as
interested as a Great Dane was in a beagle.

Words caught in her throat. She would not apologize, at least not
for trying to be something she was not. Instead she straightened her shoulders
and made sure her smile was firmly in place. "Not because you demand it,
but because it's what I choose to do, I will endeavor to behave myself."

He slanted her another of his blazing looks, one tinged with
something else. "It's not a joke here."

"Believe me, the last thing I feel like doing right now is
joking."

His expression became a little less glowering. "It's for your
own good."

How many times had she heard that growing up? It was the litany of
her childhood, right along with "don't cause any problems,"
"behave yourself" and "not now." She wondered if McConneghy
was a mind reader to so unerringly zero in on the phrases that poked like hot
needles in her memory.

Unclenching fingers wrapped so tightly around her beaded purse she
was afraid the beads would crack, she was pleased her voice remained calm.
"If you're done with your lecture I think I should get back to the king's
side."

Not that that's where she wanted to go. No, she wanted to run as
far and fast away from her debacle as seductress as possible. But like so many
other things she'd discovered since waking in a strange room less than a month
ago, she didn't have much choice in the matter.

"I'll be at your side the whole evening."

She wondered if he meant that to reassure or threaten.

"Right. You have your job to do and I have mine."

He laid his hand across her arm. Not a heavy hand, but the
lightest of touches, the type of touch she'd thought about in the long hours of
the night.

"For what it's worth." He paused, as if struggling to
find the right words. "You look very beautiful tonight."

Crumbs to the starving, she thought, sure if she didn't leave soon
her mouth would tremble.

"How kind of you." She moved away.

Lucius felt as if he'd kicked a small and helpless creature, but
for the life of him, he couldn't understand why. Minutes ago she was twisting
him and every man with blood in his veins around her little finger. Now she
looked just as seductive, just as enchanting, but with a fragile air at odds
with the way she moved through the crowds, in that in-your-face dress she wore
like a second skin.

He continued to watch her through what must have been the longest
dinner on record, and he'd sat through enough diplomatic meals to be a good
judge. She remained poised, nodding her head here and smiling there as if she
had been born to the role of a king's wife. In reality, she was doing a better
job than the real Elena Rostov, who would have looked bored or mutinous by now.
But Jane had retreated somewhere, behind a facade and damn if he didn't want to
break through it.

But wasn't she doing exactly what he'd asked of her? Had asked of
her since she'd found herself in an impossible situation with no way out? Never
once had she thrown a fit. No hysterics. No recriminations. And what had he
given her? Orders, which she tended to ignore, suggestions, which were about as
effective, and the possibility that at any moment a total stranger might kill
her.

She laughed at something Eustace Tarkioff was telling her and
Lucius felt the twist of jealousy in his gut. The king leaned toward her and
Lucius set the crystal goblet he was holding down, very, very carefully.

With a grim smile he wondered what his superiors would say if he
lurched across the table, hauled the king from his chair and planted a fist
smack in the middle of that orthodontically perfect grin? So much for putting
the mission first. Right then he didn't care a rat's tail about the mission,
or
about the strategic value of the country's relationship to the U.S.

Nothing mattered except getting Jane away from that crowd of
people and into his arms, finding a way to take that lost look from her eyes,
replacing it with a real smile reserved for him alone. That's when he knew he'd
lost all sense of perspective, all need for the distance a mission required.

He lifted his goblet and sipped, tasting nothing.

Jane knew if Tarkioff looked down the front of her dress one more
time, she was not going to be responsible for her actions. Red wine down the
front of his snowy-white uniform? The remnants of her uneaten meal in his lap?
Maybe a fork in an anatomically vulnerable spot?

The old Jane would never have dared, but then the old Jane never
had to ward off unwanted glances. She'd never had to ward off glances at all,
come to think of it. And the new Jane didn't want to do it now, not while her
emotions still felt ground into the dirt by Lucius McConneghy.

And then the man had the audacity to sit at the table and watch
her as if she was the only person in the room. Which was ridiculous when you
considered how crowded the place was. But every time she glanced his way, she
caught the gleam of those intense eyes impaling her, as if waiting for her to
screw up—again. Didn't he know she was only human? So she'd made a mistake with
the dress, with the whole seduction scene. That didn't mean he had to treat her
like an incompetent.

Didn't he understand her nerves were at the breaking point? Or was
that what he was waiting for? She closed her eyes with a silent sigh, reminding
herself that if she could sit through the yearly budget committee at the
library she could survive this dinner.

And then it was over. Blessedly over, as first the king rose to
his feet, extending his hand, which she had no choice but to accept, telling
herself it would be very inappropriate to cringe as his moist hand closed
around hers. She actually felt a real smile as he led her toward the larger
ballroom, with its glittering chandeliers and space, lots and lots of space.
Here, she thought she might be able to breathe a little, force a little
distance between herself and the man she supposedly would be marrying in less
than a week and a half.

But she'd forgotten about the dancing. The first strains of piano
and violins reached her just as the king pulled her into his arms, until she
thought she would choke on the scent of aftershave and hair unguent. Now she
worried about losing what dinner she had eaten all over his pristine uniform.
Another faux pas for sure, earning, no doubt, another "behave yourself'
lecture from McConneghy.

She almost grinned at that, sure if she didn't find some glimmer
of humor in the situation, she'd race screaming from the room in a matter of
seconds. Or less.