Dance with the Devil

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

M
IA
R
OSSI
paused in the doorway of her town house, a long-stemmed yellow rose in her hand. Narrowed-eyed, she looked down at the black limo purring at the curb, a plume of white exhaust billowing from it into the wintry night air.

Her blind date had correctly guessed her favorite color of rose, but apparently couldn't be bothered to walk the six steps to her front door. Instead, he'd dispatched his driver.

He was either working hard to flaunt the appearance of status or he was too lazy—or disinterested—to walk twenty feet. Either way, it didn't bode well for the evening.

The driver, who'd handed her the rose with a flourish and a self-conscious half smile, turned to look up as Mia hesitated to follow his down the stairs. “Ms. Rossi?”

The car just missed the pool of pale yellow light cast from a nearby streetlamp. The windows were tinted darkly enough to be impenetrable. Davis Sloan hadn't sounded either mysterious or sinister the half-dozen times Mia had spoken to him on the phone. He'd sounded sexy, straightforward and amusing. His French accent had been subtle, yet intriguing—enough so that Mia had agreed to yet another one of her mother's fix-ups. But now she wondered exactly what she'd gotten herself into.

Her mom, God help Mia, labored under the misconception that her only daughter desperately needed to work things out with Jack. And, as if to prove how right Jack Ryan had been for her, her mother provided a string of blind dates for comparison.

Sallye Rossi worked for the Federal Attorney's office here in DC, and tended to fix her up with men she met at work. And while Mia didn't have anything against attorneys per se, the idea of dating one still made her nervous. Not as nervous, say, as dating a cop, but nervous nevertheless. Attorneys had a way of asking questions she'd much rather not answer, although in her line of work—
ex
line of work—sleeping with a criminal attorney might just have its advantages.

Just in case a miracle occurred tonight, she'd shaved her legs, and put on her most seductive thong underwear and matching sheer black demi-bra underneath her little black dress. She'd never slept with a man on a first date in her life. But this was an emergency. She needed medicinal sex to get rid of the
memory
of Jack Ryan.

Mia shivered in the icy February night air. She refused to think about Jack. Not tonight. Not a breath of wind stirred, and the moon hid behind a thick cloud cover. She had high hopes for this blind date. The long-sleeved, bias-cut silk dress was conservative enough that if her instincts were wrong she wouldn't feel as though she was sending out any mixed signals.

She'd promised her mother, and herself, she'd accept these blind dates with an open mind. She'd been on a dozen or more blind dates in the eight months since she and Jack had broken up, and generally speaking, she'd been pretty fortunate. None of them had been run-screaming-into-the-hills atrocious. In fact, some had even been quite pleasant.
Pleasant
being the operative word.

Not one of them had that special…She reined in
that
thought. None of them had rung her chimes. Until Davis. She'd been intrigued by him over the course of the past two weeks. He'd been everything Jack was
not.
For one thing he'd been open about his past. Of course it had been late at night, and he'd sounded exhausted when he'd called and woken her. Mia had lain there in the dark, and listened as he'd talked with disarming candor about his childhood. It hadn't been pretty. But he was neither bitter nor did he dwell on it. He'd been raised in a series of foster homes. He'd grown up never knowing his parents and getting into more than his fair share of trouble. But he'd put himself through college and made something of the boy who hadn't had much of a future.

Mia admired him for that. Some of his stories had brought empathetic tears to her eyes. She hadn't wanted him to know she was crying for that lonely child, and had changed the subject happily when he'd moved on to something else.

He'd faced the odds and become the man he wanted to be with no one's help but his own. And he'd been open enough to share that part of his past with her. Jack had always said,
“Don't live in the past, darling. It's today that counts.”
Jack hadn't cared enough to let her in. Davis Sloan did. A pleasant change.

She was relieved to be out of the cloak-and-dagger business. Both professionally and socially.

Mia had known Jack for two years and the only information she had on him was his name and age. Jack Ryan. Thirty-four. Worked for the same alphabet soup acronym, government agency that she had. Big whoop. Jack had clearly taken a vow of silence long before they'd met. Too bad he hadn't taken a vow of celibacy as well. They'd been like smoke and lightning together. Like a pair of minks…
Damn it.
Mia shut off the memory with a mental steel door. Locked it. Barred it. And painted it with mental invisible ink. A girl liked to know a little more about her lover than just his name and age.

Jack Ryan was her past. Perhaps Davis Sloan was her future.

Too bad he had to get a demerit before the evening even began.

With a small niggle of misgiving, Mia closed the door and followed the driver down to the sidewalk. She touched the slight lump of the .22 in her purse. She'd never shot anyone in her life, but there was always a first time. A girl had to be prepared. It was odd, if not downright rude, for her date not to come to the front door himself. Of course there may be a perfectly good explanation—

“Did Mr. Sloan break a leg?” Lord, was he missing his legs? A paraplegic? Oh God. If he'd told her about his childhood, wouldn't he have mentioned if he were disabled?

Mia felt a flush ride her cheeks. That was something that hadn't occurred to her. Davis Sloan had sounded so…vital on the phone. Not that it would make any difference if he was handicapped, but it would've been a good thing to know up front.

The driver, bundled in a heavy wool overcoat, paused as he reached for the handle of the rear door. He frowned as he answered, “He's fighting fit as far as I can tell.” He opened the door for her.

If Mia hadn't been pondering another possible excuse for his rudeness, she would've noticed the absence of the interior light as she slid into the back seat. The door snicked closed behind her.

The supple leather felt warm under her, indicating Davis had been sitting on her side of the car. Had he watched her come down the stairs from her apartment? Had he liked what he'd seen?

In the thick darkness, Mia jumped at the unexpected touch of his hand on hers. A bolt of white-hot lightning shot up her arm and sent a buzz zinging through her. Hot damn! A good start after all.

The limo slid away from the curb and picked up speed. “You look stunning,” a husky voice said out of the darkness.

That voice.

Oh no, oh no, oh freaking
no!
“Damn it to hell, Jack!” Tethered to him or not, Mia threw the rose at him and lunged for the door.

Damn. Damn. Damn! She'd recognize Jack Ryan if she were blindfolded in a pitch-dark room.

Something cool and hard brushed the wrist he was holding. She tugged harder. “What the hell do you…” A metallic click cut her off midrant.

Handcuffs?

The bastard.

She remembered then that Jack had eyes like a cat. She could practically
feel
his gaze on her exposed skin. Nerve endings she'd almost forgotten she had prickled back to life with a vengeance. “You son of a bitch. Unlock these things this instant.”

“Hear me out, Mia. Just give me five.” There was a faint threat of menace in his tone despite the conciliatory words.

Mia bristled. “I already wasted five
months
of my time. Thanks, but no thanks.” With her right hand, she fumbled in her small clutch beside her, searching for her cell phone. Or the .22. At the moment, she didn't care which she found first. The fact that she'd automatically packed the .22 for this particular blind date should've given her a clue. A psychic premonition?

“Darling, you're not going to call the cops.” Jack's warm hand brushed hers as he shifted his long legs more comfortably in his seat. He was too close. Too familiar. Too damn annoying for Mia to even glance his way. Not that it would've helped. The inside of the limo was as dark as a crypt. She could feel him though. Hot. His body had always been like a furnace. He was sitting too close. Much too close.

She grabbed the phone, lucky for him, and hit number two speed dial on her phone. There was no number one anymore. Jack damn-him-to-hell-for-breaking-her-heart Ryan had filled that slot, and she'd erased him finally. Once and for all.

“Worse,” she snapped. She didn't bother trying to tug her hand free. The s.o.b. had her left wrist handcuffed to his right, both hands resting in
her
lap. His palm felt hot on her thigh, but she refused to give in to the immediate chemical reaction of once again being touched by him. She pretended, to both of them, that she didn't notice.

“I'm calling your partner in crime—Sallye? No, you're no longer
Mom
to me. You are so busted. How could you?” Mia glared at Jack in a darkness that even the faint streetlights flashing barely penetrated.

She tugged uselessly at her shackled wrist. “My blind date has me handcuffed to his wrist, you traitor.” Mia rolled her eyes. “No, Mother, that is
not
sweet, nor is it romantic. Yes, I know how you feel about J—No, I don't want to listen to why he—If you'd stop interrupting, I
would
make sense.”

Beside her, Jack was stupid enough to chuckle. Mia yanked at the cuffs, the chain jangled and he shut up.

Oh Lord, she didn't stand a chance between Steamroller Sallye Rossi and Jack The Pitbull Ryan. “No, I will not tell him that.” Mia snorted when her mother yelled, “Tell Jack I still love him.”

“Love you too, Sallye,” Jack yelled back.

Mia jerked at the cuffs on her wrist again and cut her mother off in the middle of the love fest. It was hell on wheels having her mother and the man she'd dumped still like each other. Where was the motherly concern? Where was the loyalty? Where was the key to these silver bracelets?

“You low-down, no good, lying, son of a—” she said bitterly. “Stop the car this instant.”

She sensed his feral smile. “Not a chance.”

Mia yanked hard at their cuffed wrists, wincing as the clasp dug into the tender skin of her inner wrist. “I'm not kidding, Jack. Have your driver turn around. Right. Now.”

“Here.” Jack pressed something small and round into her hand.

“What's this?” Mia demanded, her fingers automatically closing around the pill. “Planning on drugging me into submission?”

“Nothing's that strong,” Jack said under his breath, then more audibly, “Antacid.”

“I don't need it.” Her stomach burned like the fiery depths of hell. Jack Ryan hell.

“Suit yourself.”

“Thank you. Don't mind if I do.” Mia glanced out the window, squinting to see better, and slipped the antacid into her mouth to let it melt on her tongue. If he didn't always give her indigestion, he wouldn't have to carry around the remedy.

“Are we really going to the South African ambassador's party, or was that also a lie?”

“I didn't lie to you.”

“Right. When was it you changed your name from Jack Ryan to Davis Sloan?”

“Okay,” he conceded with a half shrug. “One small lie. Otherwise you never would've talked to me.”

“Damn straight. So instead you made up a whole person?”

“I didn't lie.”

“You didn't grow up in foster care, Jack,” Mia said, tiredly leaning her head back against the plush seat. Jack had always enjoyed the finer things in life. He had a magnificent condo overlooking the city, hot and cold running domestic help and several very nice cars.

Even in something as important as money they'd been opposites. He spent it like water, she hoarded and invested it.

“You grew up in Beverly Hills,” she said, her voice flat. “Remember Gloria and Samuel Ryan, your loving, wealthy parents? I got a card from them last Christmas. Won't they be hurt to know you're dismissing them out of hand just so you can make points with a woman?”

“All fabrication. There aren't any parents, Mia. Loving or otherwise.”

“Oh, Jack.”

“I'm telling you the truth.”

“Who sent me that sweet Christmas card? And the flowers for my birthday last year?”

“I did.”

Mia stomach knotted when she realized that once again he was all smoke and mirrors. Everyone knew of or about Jack Ryan. If nothing else the fact that his name was that of a fictional action hero was enough to have people talking. Some people jokingly called him
Harrison.
His status as one of DC's eligible bachelors, his wealth, his old money background…all of it was public record. Countless articles had been written about him. He'd even been
People Magazine
's Bachelor of the Year two years in a row.