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Noah shrugged and called up his most innocent and open look. “I was pretty young when I became interested in your field. And I guess I age well.”
“You certainly do. How old are you?”
Noah had a lot of practice in sidestepping that question. “Old enough to know better,” he answered lightly.
Hemmings shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Well, it’s wonderful to finally meet you. Can I buy you a drink?”
Noah glanced toward the blonde. He’d come here to meet Hemmings, but at the moment, he would rather have a drink with her, which said something about the pull he was feeling. Still, he had no intention of being rude to a man he’d corresponded with for years.
“Of course,” he said, leading the way to a table in the corner of the room.
OLIVIA watched the man who had been standing in the doorway looking at her. He was tall like her, with dark hair and eyes and a trim athletic build. As she’d pretended not to study him, she’d fought off a zing of awareness. That attraction was unnerving, because she hadn’t planned on being interested in anyone here.
It wasn’t just a sexual pull, although that was certainly part of it. Strange as it might seem, when their eyes had briefly met, she’d thought maybe the guy was going to offer to help her.
Could he? Could anybody get her out of the mess that her brother had cooked up?
What if she went to the police? She sighed. They might believe her, but Pearson’s scheme was hardly a big deal in a place like Las Vegas. The cops weren’t going to protect her from him.
Her gaze flicked toward her brother, who was as far away from her as he could get in the room, watching the action.
For the hundredth time, she wondered what had turned him into the kind of man he was. They’d been raised by the same parents, yet somehow he hadn’t absorbed their middle-class values. Instead, he was completely selfish. Unfortunately, he also knew how to be charming, which fooled a lot of people, including Mom and Dad.
The only ray of hope in her present situation was that since his initial ultimatum, she’d been able to make him alter his plans slightly. When she’d pointed out that getting the escort service involved meant a written record of the men she was meeting, he’d seen the wisdom of working freelance.
So here she was, hating herself as she sat in the Calvanio Fountain Bar dangling herself like a tempting worm in front of a pool full of fish.
A sporty-looking man came in, spotted her and crossed the floor to her table, striking up a conversation.
She decided he didn’t appear to be rich enough for Pearson’s scheme. Or look like he had enough to lose by having his relationship with her exposed.
Maybe that was what she was going to tell her brother when he demanded to know why she hadn’t gotten “friendly” with anyone this evening.
When the guy started chatting her up, she told him she was waiting for someone else and sent him on his way.
As soon as his back was turned, her gaze flicked to the man who had attracted her. He was still talking to the tubby guy in the rumpled shirt. Her man was dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt.
As far as she could see, he wasn’t wearing a gold chain around his neck. Or an expensive watch. He didn’t seem like the type for jewelry. But something about the way he held himself gave the impression that he was well-off enough to fit in with Pearson’s plans.
NOAH struggled to focus on the conversation with Hemmings, when he really wanted to talk to the woman sitting half a dozen yards away.
“From what you’ve said, you’re not a trained researcher. What got you interested in longevity research in the first place?” the doctor asked.
Noah went into one of his long-standing explanations. “I was in love with a woman who died very young.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“It was a tragedy, but she got me wondering about why some people have long lives and others don’t. I thought if I got active in the field, that would be a kind of memorial to her.”
“Admirable.”
“How about you?”
Hemmings spread his hands. “I went to medical school, but I found out I didn’t really like working with patients. So I took a job at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. And I found out I did like research.” He tipped his head to the side. “So what do you do when you’re not increasing the life span of rats?”
Although Noah had no formal education in the field, he’d had the time to do a lot of reading and experimentation on his own. In a lab building on his estate, he had rats that had outlived their life expectancy by fifty percent. While the experiment was interesting, it had brought him no closer to any answers about what made him different from the rest of humanity.
“I’ve got a number of businesses scattered around the country. Nothing very interesting,” he said. “I’d much rather hear about what you’ve been doing lately.”
It wasn’t difficult to keep the researcher talking about himself and his work. Noah already knew most of it, but he sat and listened to Hemmings’s stories, anyway.
When the doctor occasionally asked questions about Noah’s background, he gave brief answers from the life story he’d written for himself.
According to his fictional biography, he’d lived in San Francisco with his parents who had both been killed in a boating accident. He’d inherited an estate from his uncle and had lived there for the past few years.
He’d situated himself so that he could keep an eye on the blonde. During the course of his conversation with the doctor, several men had come up to her, but she must have discouraged them because they ended up going away.
Noah could see that someone else was watching her, too. A man who’d been sitting along the far wall. He came over and spoke to her in a low tone, his face angry. What was that all about?
The doctor must have noticed he wasn’t commanding Noah’s rapt attention. Annoyance flashed across his face.
But he quickly recovered. Glancing at his watch, he said, “It’s late. I should let you go to bed.”
“Sorry,” Noah apologized. “I put in a long day in the lab before I came here and I’m a little wiped.”
They both stood. Hemmings reached out to shake his hand again. Noah automatically did the same, then felt a slight prick at the base of his thumb. “What was that?” he asked.
Hemmings looked embarrassed. “Sorry. This damn ring of mine has a rough edge. It must have slipped around to the inside. Did I hurt you?”
“It’s fine,” Noah said, looking down at his hand where it was slightly scraped.
Of course, it would be good as new in the next few hours.
“Sorry,” the doctor apologized again, then excused himself and hurried out of the bar. Noah stayed in the room, watching the woman still sitting at the table. Before he could stop himself, he picked up his sparkling water and walked across the room.
OLIVIA’S breath caught as the man she’d been watching walked over to her table. This was it, and she wished she knew what “it” was.
“I’ve noticed you sitting here,” he said.
“I was waiting for a friend, but I guess he stood me up,” she lied.
The guy looked like he didn’t buy it, and she thought he was going to walk away.
Instead, he said, “May I join you?”
“Yes.”
“My name’s Noah Fielding.”
“Olivia…” She hesitated for a moment before adding, “Stapler.” She knew he caught the hesitation.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked as he sat down.
Up close he was very handsome and younger than she’d thought. He carried himself with a confidence that usually came from maturity, but his face was unlined and there wasn’t any gray in his dark hair. She doubted that a man like him would go to the trouble of dyeing it, although one never knew how much a guy was stuck on himself.
A man like him? She wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. When she realized she was waiting a long time to answer his question, she said, “You’re drinking soda water?”
He looked at his glass and back at her before nodding.
“That sounds good.”
“You don’t want champagne?” he asked.
“It’s not worth what they charge by the glass here.”
He grinned. “I guess you know the ropes better than I do.”
“Did you come here to gamble?”
“Everybody comes here to gamble. It’s the standard vice. But my excuse is a medical convention in town.”
“You’re a doctor?” she asked.
“Just a hanger-on.”
She tipped her head to the side. “What does that mean?”
“I’m an independent researcher. I like to keep up with the field.”
Maybe he was also independently wealthy. She canceled that thought immediately. It didn’t matter if he made big bucks, because she wasn’t going to play Pearson’s game.
“Which field?”
“Longevity.”
“Oh,” she answered, thinking how easy it would be to fall into the trap Pearson had laid for her and this man.
Suddenly, she felt like the room was closing in around her. “I need some air,” she blurted.
“The hotel has a very nice garden out back.”
She’d been thinking that she’d go outside alone and incur her brother’s wrath later. But when she stood, Noah Fielding did, too, and she didn’t protest as he walked beside her toward the back of the hotel.
Outside, the air was hot and dry, and the night sky was filled with a million stars. But no casino relied on nature for outdoor effects. The hedges and flower beds were illuminated by cunningly placed floodlights.
The garden was designed to please the senses. Annual and perennial flowers filled well-tended beds that bordered stone paths. Each plot held a pleasing mix of colors and textures, many of the blooms perfuming the air.
She inhaled deeply, glad to be out of the stale casino atmosphere. Trying to come up with something to say, she murmured, “I love the way they laid out the garden in a pattern. I guess they hired a fancy landscape architect.”
“Maybe. But whoever did the design copied it from Versailles.”
She tipped her head toward him. “Have you been there?”
“Several times.”
No one else was outside, she noticed. The garden apparently wasn’t as much of an attraction as the casino.
When she pressed her hands against her sides, he said, “What’s bothering you?”
The direct question startled her. In her experience, guys didn’t care about an attractive woman’s personal problems.
“How do you know something is bothering me?”
“The way you hold your shoulders.”
“Really?”
“Maybe I can help.”
Could he?
Before she could reply, a man rushed from the shadows. He was holding a gun, which he pointed directly at Noah Fielding.
“I finally found you, you bastard,” he growled. “Hold it right there.”
Chapter Three (#ulink_63c32169-bab0-5e7a-b903-03e9efebaef4)
Noah cursed under his breath, and Olivia thought she heard him mumble, “Not again.”
At the same time, he thrust her behind himself, putting his body squarely between her and the gunman.
“Move,” the attacker said. “Both of you.”
“Leave the lady out of this,” Noah replied, his voice low and even.
In the part of her mind that still functioned rationally, she marveled at his calm. She had to stiffen her legs to keep from falling over.
“I’m giving the orders,” the gunman said. “Hands up. Move to your right.”
Somehow, she did what he demanded, but as she raised her hands, she was thinking there must be guards out here and security cameras. If guards came running, though, would they just get her and Noah shot?
“Take it easy,” Noah said.
He was talking to the gunman, but his calm, even voice helped steady her as she moved to her right, into a rectangular space formed by a hedge and a wall that enclosed one of the luxury villas for the high rollers.
Noah tried to keep his body between her and the gunman as they stood facing each other in the little courtyard, but the man maneuvered them so that she was terribly exposed.
She glanced sideways at Noah. He wasn’t even breaking a sweat. The other man was breathing heavily. Maybe he’d have a heart attack and drop the gun so they could escape.
