скачать книгу бесплатно
Private Lies
Wendy Etherington
All Roxanne Lewis wants is a normal life with her perfectly ordinary, perfectly sexy fiancé, Gage Dabon. With her family full of cops, she has no desire for a husband who risks his neck every day.But when she discovers Gage is a Secret Service agent and not the subdued, buttoned-down banker she fell in love with, she's furious– and determined to show him that two can play at that game.…Donning a sexpot disguise of her own, Roxanne confronts Gage on the job but unwittingly becomes involved in his major counterfeit sting operation. Now she has to play Gage's hot-to-trot lover–or risk blowing his cover. Although it isn't long before she sees the benefits of all the undercover work!
“He’s not here.”
Roxanne studied each customer in turn. Though the bar boasted several dark-haired men in conservative suits, none of them was Gage. None had his stark masculinity, his sexy—Whoa. What’s this? She focused on two men at one end of the bar.
“He’s there,” Roxanne whispered. Her body grew numb and her heart sank as her gaze locked on the familiar sculpted cheekbones and jaw.
Her friend Toni followed her gaze. “I was kind of expecting him to be with a svelte blond lover. Wait, he’s got a ponytail! And he’s smoking!”
Roxanne had noticed that, too. The sophisticated surface she saw every day had been wiped away, as if the charming man she lived with was an act and a dangerous stranger had taken his place.
He’d lied to her. What the hell was going on? In that moment of watching her fiancé acting like someone else…something inside her shifted.
Snapped.
Gage may think he’s got me fooled, she thought furiously as she rose from her chair, but this is where it ends….
Dear Reader,
Ah, bad boys. Aren’t they just sigh-inducingly wonderful?
Though this story opens with Roxanne, to me it will always be Gage’s book. This is why the book begins where it does—not with him meeting the woman of his dreams and falling in love, but after he’s already popped the question.
“This is a romance, right?” you ask.
You betcha. Just an unconventional one. Because things are not what they seem with Gage. He’s got secrets. (Psst… one really big one.)
I hope you enjoy reading about Gage and his past, his motivations and dreams. And I think you’ll find Roxanne grows into his perfect match. But in the meantime he’s got a whole lot of explaining to do….
I’d love to hear from you via my Web site: www.wendyetherington.com. Or my mailing address: P.O. Box 3016, Irmo, SC 29063.
Hope much love and laughter comes your way,
Wendy Etherington
Private Lies
Wendy Etherington
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To my sisters, Catherine Word and Laura Gurner, for their constant love and support.
Contents
Chapter 1 (#u9f9541a2-39f3-57d9-a52e-a93bd7bdf138)
Chapter 2 (#uc8ee9f50-5571-519a-a167-5f9f52fbcdc3)
Chapter 3 (#u68843cf6-e656-5c23-93ea-89aec35f9b18)
Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
1
ROXANNE LEWIS’S HEART lurched. “It can’t be.”
Antoinette St. Clair—Toni to all who intended to stay on her good side—lifted her gaze from her plate of salmon. Her eyes filled with regret. “I’m sorry, Rox, but Gage was in the Quarter last night.”
“He’s supposed to be in Chicago.”
“He’s not.”
Tucked in the corner booth of her favorite French Quarter restaurant, away from the curious eyes of the other diners, Roxanne pushed away her nearly untouched crab Louis salad. No one ever accused Toni of being flighty—without acquiring bruises anyway. If she said she saw Gage in New Orleans, she did.
Roxanne fought against the panic fluttering in her stomach, recalling last Saturday night, when she and Gage had eaten a late dinner, when he’d slid his hand along her thigh during dessert…
“Doing what?” she asked quickly, banishing the erotic thoughts.
“Leaning against the wall outside a bar.”
Maybe he’d just come back a day early. Maybe he’d had a late business meeting. He’d had a lot of those lately. “Was he with anyone?”
“No, but he studied the crowd a lot and kept glancing at his watch.” Toni gestured with her fork. “Like he was waiting for someone.”
Someone. Not her. How many times had she wondered what he saw in her? He’d chosen her. He’d proposed to her. And, yet, insecurity lingered. There were parts of Gage he didn’t share with her. She’d tried to tell herself it didn’t matter. He showered her with affection, devotion…loyalty. Just because he was sexy as hell, smart and rich didn’t mean every woman in New Orleans was chasing him.
Only the ones between twenty and sixty.
Roxanne sipped her water and tried to pretend a lump wasn’t blocking her throat. “Do you think he could have been meeting a woman?”
“Maybe. God knows I’ve been tempted.”
Roxanne’s gaze jumped to Toni’s. “To cheat?”
Her friend grinned. “No, to jump Gage Dabon’s bones.”
“Be serious.”
The smile wiped from her face, Toni angled her head. “I am. I’m seriously pissed. Why aren’t you?”
“I am.” No, you’re not, Roxanne. You’re scared. Bone-deep scared. You knew you’d never hold him.
“Stop.” Toni tugged a strand of Roxanne’s long, corkscrew-curly red hair. “You’re quite a catch yourself, Foxy Roxy.”
Roxanne didn’t bother to deny Toni had guessed the direction of her thoughts. They’d been friends too long. “He’d be better off with someone like you,” Roxanne said. “Someone more outgoing.”
“Hell, Rox, we haven’t had near enough wine for a pity party.” She frowned at her water glass. “We haven’t had any wine.” Shrugging, Toni polished off the last bite of her salmon, then handed her plate to a passing waiter. “And, no offense, but Gage’s too tame for me. Hunky, yes. But banks, blue suits and dark ties? No, thanks.”
You haven’t seen that body without the suits. Then the implication of Toni’s words sunk in. “I like tame. There’s nothing wrong with tame.”
“That’s because you grew up with excitement, not Miss Manners lessons twenty-four hours a day.”
Roxanne didn’t want to go anywhere near the subject of Toni’s intimidating, uptight mother. Talk about scary.
Thankfully, Toni tucked a strand of her shaggy blond hair behind her ear and rolled on. “And, speaking of annoying relatives, you have to remember the way Gage stood up under your family’s scrutiny. Any man who’d do that has to want you pretty badly.”
“True.” Roxanne’s father, brother and sister were all cops. Nobel, brave and strong. They stood for the weak and defenseless; they worked tirelessly so other families could be spared the kind of tragedy that Roxanne’s had suffered—her mother dying at the hands of a paroled murderer, who’d sought to punish Roxanne’s father for sending him to prison.
Roxanne had felt abandoned without her mother and had no desire to run into the kind of people who had killed her. Accounting, not law enforcement was her calling. Numbers didn’t lie, numbers made sense…numbers didn’t die.
Wimpy, her sister had once accused. Practical, Roxanne had argued back. Of course, practicality was obviously missing from every Lewis’s genetic makeup except hers.
“So, what’s the plan?” Toni asked, leaning forward, her blue eyes twinkling with anticipation.
“What plan? I’ll ask him what he was doing in the Quarter last night and why he didn’t bother to call me. Or come home.”
Toni tapped her long, acrylic nails—currently painted hot pink with green palm trees and bright yellow suns on each one in anticipation of the busy summer-tourist season—against the table. “Uh-huh. You? Miss Nonconfrontation. You’re going to ask Gage why he lied, who he was meeting.”
“Yes.” She banged her fist against the table, knowing she needed this pep talk to urge her on. “Do you think I should act angry and demand an answer, or be sly and attempt to catch him lying?”
“You’ve already caught him in a lie, and I think you should be angry.”
“I am.”
“Then why are your hands shaking?”
Sighing, Roxanne immediately linked her fingers. “I can’t help it. I won’t know what to say.”
“Where the hell were you last night, you lying bastard? works for me.”
“Be reasonable, Toni.”
“Why?”
Roxanne rubbed her temples, unable to come up with a reasonable argument at the moment. She’d no doubt think of something hours from now, but the impact would be lost. How did people train themselves to think on their feet? After a lifetime of friendship with Toni, shouldn’t some of her sass have rubbed off?
“Since you don’t have a plan, mine is perfect.”
Roxanne instinctively shook her head. Oh, no. Toni’s past plans had included everything from giving the dog the keys to her mother’s brand-new Mercedes—which he’d promptly buried in the backyard—to sawing off the legs of Sister Margaretta’s desk in the seventh grade, to disguising the two of them in black wigs and red lipstick to sneak into fraternity parties at Tulane.
As usual, Toni ignored Roxanne’s protest. “I think we should follow him.”
“No.” If Toni was surprised by her direct, one-word refusal, she didn’t show it. And, dang it, she’d been practicing.
“You have a right to know what’s going on,” Toni continued.
“I will. I’ll ask.”
“And if he denies it?”
“I’ll—” She stopped, breaking her friend’s direct glare. Gage was smooth, sometimes almost too smooth. Roxanne had no doubt the man could say he’d been called into New Orleans for an hour, then directed back to Mars, and somehow effectively convince her that was the absolute and complete truth.
“Come on, Rox. We’ll disguise ourselves. It’ll be just like college. I’ve got the perfect disguise picked out at the shop already.”
The shop—aka the Tacky Diva. When she’d attended the splashy opening of Toni’s store, Roxanne was sure Toni had used her trust fund to open the lingerie, costume and party-clothes store just to piss off her conservative family. But her friend’s shop had survived for nearly ten years and was now courted by the trust-fund babies for ammunition in catching the perfect husband, then those same women shopped for their wedding trousseaux.
Roxanne often wondered how many seasoned trust-fund lawyers blanched at the Visa charges from the Tacky Diva, instead of Saks.
“No disguises,” she said firmly—she’d been practicing that tone. “No following. No videotaping. No tracking devices. No bugs.”
“Why the hell not? You have a right to the truth.”
“A sentiment undoubtedly not shared by Sister Katherine after you bugged her office phone, then told our tenth-grade English class she’d been dialing 1–900–HUNKMAN in her spare time.”
“I can get a bug so small it’ll slide alongside the battery of his cell phone.”
Roxanne’s stomach rolled. This morning she’d been blissfully happy, planning her wedding, and now she was contemplating bugging her fiancé’s cell phone? “No. And isn’t bugging someone’s property without their knowledge, or a court order, illegal?”
“Why in the world would you bug someone with their knowledge?”
“I—” That girl was nearly as slick as Gage. Roxanne fought hard against the urge to run back to her office and hide under the desk until this whole storm passed. She didn’t want to spy on her lover. She didn’t want to confront him. She wanted…
To be a fool.
“Just think about my idea,” Toni said, her usually animated face dead serious. “Remember, with my plan you can avoid confronting him for the moment. You can find out the truth.” She squeezed Roxanne’s hand in a gesture of complete fidelity and understanding. “You deserve the truth.”
“I know, but—”
“Speak of the devil.” Toni leaned back against the red, leather-covered booth. Her face relaxed, but her eyes narrowed at a spot over Roxanne’s shoulder.
