“I didn’t enjoy lying to you, sweetheart. There was no choice.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “That’s what my mother’s ex-husbands said. But there’s always a choice.”

  His fingers tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “No, there isn’t. And sometimes when there is, it’s a choice between bad and worse.”

  She cut off the water and began to wash the plates, trying her hardest to ignore him. He couldn’t let her.

  “You saved me, Lauren. The little part of my soul that remained untouched, you saved.”

  Closing her eyes, she threw her head back. “Don’t do this to me,” she pleaded softly.

  He noticed she never used his name when she was talking to him. That oversight wasn’t an accident. She purposely avoided calling him Jon or Greg, no doubt trying to keep her emotional distance from him. He laid his hand on her shoulder, but she jerked away from his touch. “Don’t do what, Lauren?”

  “Call up feelings and memories from the past. I can’t deal with them. I’m not sure who you are, but I believe you’re working for our side. I’ll help you, but leave the past buried.”

  Her words were a challenge, and he wanted to push her into admitting he was Jon. But what he wanted most of all was to lay her down on the kitchen floor, strip the clothes from her shapely body and lose himself in her heat. From her defensive and closed stance, however, he knew it would be like spitting into the wind.

  “All right, swe—”

  She glared at the endearment.

  “Lauren, I’ll agree not to bring up the past.”

  Her body sagged in relief that he wouldn’t press her, which perversely angered him.

  “But be warned, when this is over and you’re safe again, I intend to pursue my claim to your heart.” With those last, ringing words, he left the kitchen.

  Lauren’s hands trembled as she wiped the last plate dry and placed it in the cabinet. The thing that had made her relationship to Jon so special was that beyond the heart-pounding, sizzling attraction they felt for each other, they shared ideas and thoughts. They talked of everything from Milton to politics to the best masa to use in tamales. They had shared everything—at least she thought they had shared everything. If he was Jon…Her mind shied away from going down that path. She couldn’t deal with wounded feelings now.

  Neatly folding the dish towel, she hung it on the rack above the sink. With a deep, fortifying breath, she straightened her shoulders and walked into the living room. A pillow and blanket sat on the couch.

  “I thought you could take the bedroom,” Jon informed her. “I’ll sleep on the couch. In the rush and excitement of the day, Lauren hadn’t considered their sleeping arrangements for the night. Naively she’d thought Jon would hide here and she’d go back to her flat. “I hadn’t planned on staying.”

  He stepped around the ugly plaid monstrosity and into her path. “I’m worried that if you return tonight without someone checking out your apartment or someone to stay with you, whoever arranged the accident with the Ford might try again.”

  The idea of someone lying in wait for her unnerved her. She considered what happened this afternoon simply an accident, but combined with the other things that had happened since Jon had reappeared in her life, his argument made sense.

  “Since you can’t accompany me, and you don’t trust anyone at the embassy, how do you plan on providing me protection?”

  “Once Diamond sends me the disk with the embassy files on it, I might be able to figure out what’s going on. If Tony was able to make that deduction, then I should be able to do it, too.”

  “And how long will that take?”

  He shrugged.

  “A day? Two? A week?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Jon, I can’t spend a week hiding. What will happen to the restaurant? I have obligations. Bills to pay. Employees to see about.” She glanced down at her dirty turquoise shirt and Indian print skirt. “And I don’t intend to spend a week in this outfit.”

  His hands cupped her shoulders, his thumbs caressing her collarbone. Their gazes met. It still disoriented her every time she looked into his eyes and saw brown instead of blue. “Lauren, I’m worried about your safety.”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “Have you been all right the last three days?”

  No, she hadn’t, but she wasn’t going to admit that to him.

  “Listen to me. If anything happened to you—” His expression turned dark and fierce. “All I can think about is that I’m responsible for what happened this afternoon.”

  She still couldn’t accept his words. “No, that can’t be possible. There has to be another explanation.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then if we don’t know, we need to err on the side of caution and assume you’re in danger.”

  She reached up and touched his chin to gain his attention. “How could the mole come to the conclusion that you were Jonathan Michaels when everyone, including the wife, thinks Jonathan Michaels is dead? And even if this person saw you leave my apartment, what would lead him to believe that Greg Williams had anything to do with Jonathan Michaels?”

  “My fingerprints may have let the mole know I was alive. Then, the driver of that Ford saw me drag you away to safety. You’ve been burned, as we’d say in the spy business.”

  “But—”

  His grip on her shoulders tightened. “Between the time I first contacted you and this afternoon, you’ve had three accidents. That isn’t coincidence.”

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  He shook his head. “No. In my business nothing is to be taken at face value.”

  The more he talked, the more he scared her. She tried to shrug out of his grip. He let her. “You know what the trouble is with all you spies?” she asked, trying to shake off the shadows falling across her heart.

  His fierce expression softened infinitesimally. “No, but I have the feeling you’re going to tell me.”

  “You’re right. You were all hit on the head with the same mallet.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “You could be right,” he answered. He laid his palm on her cheek. “I want you to stay here, at least for tonight. When I talk to Diamond again, I’ll ask him to send someone in to check out your apartment and see if it’s clean. He’ll also check to see if it’s being watched.”

  She didn’t like the whole situation, but his request was reasonable. “One night.”

  “We’ll discuss it tomorrow.”

  If he thought he was going to tell her how to run her life and her business, he had a bigger hole in his memory than he knew.

  She held up her hand. “One thing.”

  “What?”

  “If Jimmy doesn’t have a clean, unused toothbrush, I’m going to make a trip to the corner grocer.”

  “Lauren—” he started to warn her.

  “No. There are some things I will not compromise on.” Her mother had this thing about her children brushing their teeth. Lauren had inherited her phobia.

  “Why don’t you check the bathroom before we have an argument that might not be necessary?”

  She flipped on the bathroom light and rummaged through the shelf above the sink, the cabinet under the sink and the towel cabinet. Nothing. When she walked back into the living room, Jon was holding up a boxed, new toothbrush.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “In the kitchen. I thought I remembered seeing one when we searched the cabinets earlier.” He placed it in her palm. His fingers caressed the back of her hand. The soft, provocative touch made her want to feel his fingers on her skin again.

  “When I was searching for this, I remembered the time on our honeymoon when you dropped your toothbrush in the toilet. There we were in the middle of the night, pounding on Mr. McGee’s door, begging him to open up his store.”

  Lauren’s hand convulsively closed around the toothbrush she held, crushing the box. How did he know about that incident? She hadn’t ever told anyone about that. The memory of what happened after she bought the toothbrush exploded in her brain.

  His intense gaze made her breathing shaky and her stomach tremble. This man wanted her. And she, in spite of these unbelievable circumstances straight out of a bad movie, wanted him. Right here, right now on the ugly plaid sofa.

  Suddenly she remembered Donald, to whom she was still engaged. No matter who the man standing before her was, she couldn’t make love to him while still engaged to another man. It was obvious to her that she had to tell Donald she couldn’t marry him.

  “If I stay here, you’ll have to have another bowl of blue cornmeal for breakfast tomorrow.”

  “I’d rather dodge bullets than eat that stuff again. But if eating it will keep you safe, I’ll eat it for the next three weeks, morning, noon and night.”

  Somehow the light exchange she intended turned poignant, almost beyond bearing. He leaned down and lightly kissed her.

  “Good night, sweetheart.”

  Lauren turned and hurried back into the bathroom before she broke into tears.

  Jon breathed a huge sigh of relief as the door to the bathroom closed. Lauren had scared him spitless when she’d stated she wanted to go back to her apartment tonight. No matter what she thought, what had happened this afternoon had been no accident. He felt it in his bones. Lauren’s accidents were part of a plan. What he needed to figure out was what was the plan and who was behind it.

  He heard the water of the shower come on and smiled to himself. Not only was it obvious Lauren had a fixation about brushing her teeth, but he’d guess she also had this thing about showering daily. He was lucky he’d run across that toothbrush incident in her diary the other day, refreshing his memory. Knowing about it undercut doubts she had about him.

  Quit thinking about the woman in the shower, he sternly told himself. Instead of wasting his time on farfetched fantasies, he needed to talk to Diamond. After dialing, he waited for his boss to pick up the phone. The answering machine clicked on.

  “Diamond, I need for you to pull someone and have them check Lauren’s apartment and see if it’s under surveillance or if someone is there waiting for her. Lauren has the idea she wants to go back home.” He relayed the accidents that had occurred to Lauren, then hung up.

  What was going on here and where was Diamond? he wondered with growing concern. He wiped his hand over his face. His beard felt rough under his palm, and as soon as Lauren vacated the bathroom, he would see if Jimmy had a razor. His beard had to go. If he was clean shaven, it might help disguise him when he ventured out of this apartment.

  He pulled his shirt out of his pants and began to unbutton it. The bathroom door opened, and his fingers froze over the last button. Lauren was wrapped in a towel that barely covered her from breasts to hips.

  “Uh…” She blushed. “Apparently Jimmy doesn’t own a robe, and I washed my shirt and underclothes.”

  He nodded, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the generous amount of bosom overflowing the top of the towel.

  “The bathroom is yours,” she said lamely, moving toward the bedroom. With each step she took, the edges of the towel parted, giving him a good view of her shapely hip.

  His body instantly responded to the sight. He wanted to moan with the pain of his arousal. Of course, why should he be surprised by his body’s reaction? The woman was beautiful. Any man with warm blood flowing in his veins would have the same reaction.

  When the door to the bedroom closed behind her, Jon’s head rolled forward with relief. He didn’t know how long he would be able to endure this torture of being so close to Lauren and not give in to the urge to make love to her.

  He stripped off his shirt, laid it on the back of the couch and walked into the bathroom. The first things he saw were her bra and panties hanging over the towel rack. He froze and swallowed hard. Unable to help himself, his fingers ran over the champagne-colored lace of her bra.

  “Don’t do this to yourself,” he muttered.

  The Stasi, the East German secret police, couldn’t have invented a more exquisite torment than him seeing these things and imagining himself taking them off of the owner.

  He turned and saw the safety razor on the shelf above the sink. A box of new blades was beside the razor. After changing the blade, he went into the living room to look for a pair of scissors. He found them in the kitchen, then returned to the bathroom to cut his beard close enough that he could shave.

  With his beard and mustache, it had been relatively easy to fool the people at the embassy into believing he was Greg Williams. The cover story put out was that he’d been hurt in a car accident a few miles away from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, which explained his need of a cane. But Lauren was another story. Could he make her believe he was Jon when he tried so hard to make everyone else believe he was Greg?

  He set the scissors aside and began to lather his face. Lauren was one smart lady. Sometimes he didn’t feel he would ever convince her he was Jon. But he was going to try his damnedest.

  His gaze drifted to Lauren’s underthings hanging on the towel rack. His attention distracted, he cut his cheek. Cursing, he pressed his finger to the bleeding wound. Well, why was he surprised? Lauren had been a distraction for him since the moment he’d met her. And that probably would be his downfall.

  Chapter 6

  She couldn’t sleep—not with a thousand conflicting emotions clogging her head like cars in rush-hour traffic. She flipped onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Jimmy’s appearance tonight had forced her to face some rather uncomfortable realities. She trusted the man asleep in the other room who claimed to be her husband. The more time she spent with him, the more confident she became that her trust in him was justified. The memories that spilled from his mouth, the manner in which he talked with her, the way his eyes focused on some imaginary point when he was thinking were all pieces to a puzzle that was slowly filling in before her eyes.

  If he truly was Jon—no, she wouldn’t let herself even consider that. And yet how had. he known about the intimate details of their lovemaking? How did he know about the toothbrush?

  Her quivering insides refused to calm down. There was something odd or slightly off in this whole situation. Rather like a yankee from Brooklyn telling you how to cook collard greens and grits—the pieces didn’t fit.

  It had taken three years of hard work to put her life back together again. She’d been devastated by Jon’s death. They’d been married a little less than a year when the news came of his car accident in France. She had locked herself in her apartment and had not come out for six weeks.

  At first she couldn’t stand to be at work. The place was filled with memories of Jon—of how he’d come into the restaurant for lunch for three weeks straight before he asked her out. How he’d proposed in the kitchen over a plate of refried beans and rice. How they stole time in her little office to be together.

  Every day had been a battle. Some days she couldn’t work the entire day. Others, she went home in tears. Then one day about six months after Jon’s reported death Jimmy showed up and pulled his “let’s leave without paying” routine. He kept her thoughts off her sorrow and on teaching him to cook. About the same time, she met Donald at a restaurant convention in Liverpool. She liked him, and he had eased the loneliness eating away at her heart. They talked the ins and outs of the restaurant business with ease. So when Donald proposed, Lauren had accepted without questioning her feelings too closely.

  Now, unfortunately, she had to pull back the protective layer she’d wrapped herself in and take a hard look at what she felt for Donald.

  What kind of a woman would run off with a stranger who claimed to be her dead husband and leave her per fectly healthy fiancé waiting to pick out their weddings rings? What kind of woman would be attracted to said stranger more than to her fiancé? And what kind of woman would be stirred more by a stranger’s touch than her fiancé’s?

  A woman who is not in love with her fiancé, her conscience whispered.

  As if punched in the stomach, she bolted into a sitting position. Sometimes true revelation was the pits. Kind of like finding out the cat that ran under your car was a skunk.

  She wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees.

  Friendship is a good basis for a marriage, she sternly told herself.

  Oh, yeah, a little voice answered. You can play chess in friendly silence while you shrivel up inside and resemble a prune like your old Aunt Mildred.

  Lauren shivered. Her aunt was a legend in her family. It was said she made her husband come to dinner in a coat and tie and called him Mr. Atwood until the day he died. Attila the Hun had a lighter touch than Aunt Milly. All the children in her family were threatened with time at Aunt Milly’s house if they misbehaved at family gatherings.

  Did she want to end up like Aunt Milly? A sob caught in her throat.

  The bedroom door flew open. Jon stood there, and in the soft moonlight that filled the room she could see the blade of his cane in his left hand. “Lauren? Are you all right?”

  Startled, she sat up straight, causing the sheet to fall to her waist. She felt Jon’s gaze narrow to her chest. Snatching the sheet back, she tucked it under her arms.

  “Yes,” she choked. “I couldn’t sleep. I’m sorry I woke you.”

  He replaced the blade into his cane, then took a step forward, bringing his face into the stream of moonlight.

  Lauren stared at his naked cheeks and jaw. “You shaved.”

  His hand skimmed over his smooth chin. “Yeah. Now I’m not as easily recognized.”

  She nodded.

  “You want some tea?” he asked.

  Lauren was well aware of her nakedness beneath the sheet. “Uh…”

  He disappeared, then reappeared with his shirt and handed it to her. “Here, wear this.”

  She peeked at his bare chest lightly covered with hair. Aunt Milly would never approve.