Dating for Keeps (6 page)

Tessa decided that she needed to do something. She didn't know where Lucas was, but Michael's boasting statements only reaffirmed the fear she had just realized that Michael had lied to her and he was a fraud. Getting down on her hands and knees, she began to crawl gingerly on the floor, taking great care not to bump into anything. She didn't exactly have a plan, but she wanted to get behind Michael. She knew there were some fairly large and heavy items on the other side of the store, and she had the crazy idea that maybe she could sneak behind him and hit him on the head, knocking him out cold. The adrenaline she felt combined with the fear at what might happen if she failed was enough to propel her forward on her mission.

Unbeknownst to her, Lucas wasn't far from where Tessa was located. He spotted her as she crawled out from the bathroom hallway and he could see the wheels turn as she decided what to do. As soon as he saw her heading towards the heavy objects, he was terrified. The last thing he wanted was for Tessa to be in danger. Suddenly to his horror, Tessa bumped into a shelf, causing some books to fall on the floor. The noise aroused Michael who immediately turned his sights to Tessa's direction.

"I hear you," he sneered. "You think you can hide from me? Not likely."

Realizing that he had to do something to save Tessa, Lucas immediately sprang from his hiding spot.

"I'll admit it Michael, I never thought it would come to this day," he said calmly, walking out the dark shadow he had been hiding in with his hands in the air.

At the sight of Lucas, Michael stopped walking towards Tessa and immediately turned his attention towards his desired prize.

"Lucas, Lucas, I don't know why you thought that. I knew I would get you in the end."

Tessa, still frozen on the floor from the distress she had felt when the books fell, listened intently to their conversation. She immediately noticed that Lucas was speaking without an English accent. She gathered there was a lot more to the whole story than she had been led to believe.

As Michael advanced towards Lucas, he kept his gun drawn but his manner was much more relaxed. He seemed to forget that Tessa was somewhere in the building, or at least he didn't feel threatened by her. Tessa looked at Lucas, who caught her eye at that moment. With a slight nod of his head she could tell that he knew what she was trying to do, and he wanted her to continue on her path. It was their only hope.

In an effort to buy them time and keep Michael diverted, Lucas encouraged him in more conversation.

"I'm still confused Michael. How did you manage to pull this one off?"

Michael scoffed, "It was easy. You know we tracked the violin to this shop, so all I had to do was explain to your little girlfriend here what was going on. She was more than happy to help me."

"Oh?" Lucas appeared surprised, and the tone in his voice encouraged Michael to continue talking.

"Well of course I had to twist things around a little bit. I simply told her that I was the FBI agent and you were the drug smuggling criminal. She's a simple girl, it didn't really take much to convince her. It was very helpful that you never reveled your status as an FBI agent to her. She doesn't love you anyway, you know. She was only dating you because of a bet."

This news seemed to take Lucas by surprise. "A bet?" he said stunned.

"Oh, you mean she didn't mention that to you? How funny," Michael sneered.

Lucas was perturbed but determined not to let his emotions get in the way of what was important. "I have to ask you, Michael," Lucas prodded. "Why not take the violin when you had the chance? Why set up here at all?"

"Because, I knew you were following me, and I've been dying for a chance to get my hands on you. My operations would be running so much smoother if you weren't always screwing things up for us."

"It's not just me, you know. The whole FBI is after you. Get rid of me and they'll just have someone else on your trail."

"Not likely," Michael mused. "I've been doing this a long time and I've never met an agent quite as smart as you, I'll hand you that. I have men on the inside, and it's been made quite clear to me that you are the top investigator on the case. If something happens to you, we'll be free to continue our operations as we intend. No, you're the only one who's been able to slow us down, and I fully intend to make sure you never slow us down again."

By this time Tessa had successfully snuck across the entire showroom floor until she was positioned right behind Michael. As he continued to talk she glanced around and spotted a large porcelain vase standing a few feet away. She grimaced a little as her mind thought of the worth of the object, but she immediately determined that that was nothing compared to the worth of their lives.

Getting up into a crouch she snuck over and picked up the vase. It was extremely heavy and normally would have been difficult for her to carry even in a standing position, but the adrenaline she felt gave her the strength to carry the item in her hunched position.

Realizing that she had only one shot and that time was of the essence, Tessa determined to act swiftly. In one swoop, she stood quickly upright and lurching forward, swung the vase as hard as she could, smacking Michael directly in the back of the head. At the same moment Lucas ducked down in case Michael's gun went off accidentally. The move was unnecessary, because Tessa was successful in her attempt. With a unnerving grunt, he fell over and his body smacked the cold concrete floor. He lay motionless, completely unconscious from the effect of Tessa's blow.

As soon as he saw this, Lucas ran over to Michael and quickly slapped some handcuffs on him.

"Are you okay?" he asked, rushing to Tessa.

Still shaking from the effect of everything that had taken place, all Tessa could manage was a nod of the head.

"I'm so, so sorry Lucas. This is all my fault," she finally managed.

"No," he said, "It's not, and I don't want you to think that. All that matters now is that you are safe, and I have apprehended Michael. Do you have the violin?"

"Yes, I do, but I saw him take the diamond out of it. He put it in his pocket."

Lucas ran over to Michael with alarm and began checking his pockets. He immediately breathed a sigh of relief when he pulled out the small pouch containing the diamond.

"Looks like he got a little too eager, and it cost him in the end."

"Lucas, I have a lot of questions," Tessa said.

"I know sweetheart, I know. We'll talk about everything and I explain, I promise. Right now we just need to get out of here." He went over and kissed her on the forehead, and then pulled out his cell phone.

"What's going to happen with Michael?" she asked him.

"I'm calling a colleague about that right now. They'll come down here and have him arrested."

"Is he going to be ok?" Tessa asked.

Lucas went over and took Michael's pulse.

"Yes, he's fine. Just a concussion. They'll probably bring him down to the hospital to get checked out."

The pair waited for about several minutes for the authorities to come, and then Lucas led Tessa out of the building.

"Want to get a bite to eat?" he asked her.

"Will you explain to me what just happened?" she asked with a laugh.

"Yes, I promise." He led her to a red sedan parked a little ways down the road.

"Who's car is this?" she asked when he stopped in front of it.

"Mine. It's a rental." he said.

"And your driver...?"

"Like I said," he said smiling as he opened the door for her. "I've got a lot of explaining to do."

Chapter 11

"Well," Lucas began, looking down at the hamburger on his plate as if it could help him. "I know you've probably got a lot of questions and you certainly deserve a lot of answers, but before I go any further I first need to tell you that I'm sorry. I had no idea that you were in that building this evening; if I had I most certainly wouldn't have ventured in there. It was incredibly dangerous Tessa, what were you thinking?"

"Well, I wasn't thinking that Michael was the bad guy, obviously," Tessa said a little stung at Lucas's stern reprimand. She saw the pain on his face and then softened her tone. "I'm so sorry Lucas. I believed him when he told me he was an FBI agent and that he needed my help to apprehend you. It was only later that I began to doubt him and it was too late. Honestly, this whole day has been so confusing that I didn't know what to think. I thought that if I was there then maybe some of my questions would be answered. Which it seems that they are, so in fact I don't regret my decision one bit."

"Well, I guess I just have to be thankful that you are safe and sound. And this all does give me an excuse to fill you in, which really takes a load off of my mind. I didn't know how I was going to handle things."

"What do you mean?"

Lucas hesitated. "Let me start at the beginning. As you have probably guessed, I'm not a British businessman."

"Um, yes, I've gathered that," Tessa smiled.

Lucas went on. "I work for the FBI. Lucas Griswold is my real name. For months I have been tracking Michael Levy, head of a notorious crime web. Recently it was discovered that a violin used to smuggle a very expensive diamond on his network went missing. The smuggler didn't know that the violin contained the diamond and he sold the instrument for some quick cash."

"Yes," Tessa frowned, "Michael told me as much. Except he reversed the roles that you and he play in real life."

"Yeah, Michael may have been the ringleader, but that doesn't mean he didn't have a very active interest in all levels of the organization. He knew me as well as I knew him; the only problem was I never had enough evidence to arrest him. He knew that. I suspect he also realized that the missing violin would be my key to nab him if I was able."

"I don't quite follow," Tessa said.

Lucas hesitated. "This is where my story gets a little difficult to say, but I want you to please hear me out. The violin had a tracking chip that few people knew about. I was one of those people. I knew that it would be headed for your shop and would get here either this week or next. My one goal was to reach the violin before Michael did."

"So what are you saying?" Tessa felt her heart sink. "That you were using me to get to the violin? Was this whole week simply part of your ruse?"

Lucas stared out the window, unable to look Tessa in the eye. "It started that way, yes. I had planned on just spending a few days with you in order to get the violin, but I wasn't prepared for what happened."

"Meaning?"

"I fell in love with you Tessa. I feel terrible about what I did to you and the circumstances, but I love you so much and I wouldn't change that fact for the world."

Tessa tried hard to wrap her brain around what he was telling her. "But if you love me, why didn't you just tell me who you really were? I still don't know anything about you. How will I be able to trust what you say?"

"I know, I wish I could have told you the truth, but I couldn't. Doing so would have meant risking the entire operation. What if you decided you didn't want to help me? It was too much of a gamble. I never dreamed that Michael was onto my game and that he would get to you. I was literally shocked to find you in the shop this evening, after you told me you were at home."

Tessa hung her head in shame, "Yes, I'm so sorry. I screwed up big time."

"Don't be. How were you supposed to know? Like I said, I really couldn't tell you the truth as much as I wanted to. Especially after I helped you move last Saturday."

"What do you mean?"

"That wasn't really part of the protocol. My job was simply to take you to dinner a few times and get you to like me enough that you would promise to let me know when you received the violin. The fancy suits, expensive dinners, personal driver, and my charming British accent were all part of the act," he said with a wink. "Once I realized I loved you, it was hard for me to separate my real feelings from my professional feelings. I was thrilled to help you out with moving, but it was hard for me to be out of my acting element. I really slipped up when I spoke without my British accent." He cleared his throat, "Also, kissing you was definitely not part of the original game plan. I could have gotten in big trouble if my supervisor found out. That's why I waited for so long to make a move, but that day at your apartment I just got caught up in the moment and couldn't help myself. You know, before I took this assignment I had no idea how charming and beautiful you would be. It certainly complicated things for me," he said smiling.

Tessa hesitated, not quite sure what to say.

"I have something to ask you now," Lucas went on.

"Yes? What is it?"

"In the room Michael said something about you dating me for a bet. What did he mean by that?"

"Oh," Tessa managed an uncomfortable chuckle. "Well, I've never been very good at dating. I guess I've always had very high standards when it comes to men. I seldom go on more than one date with a guy, so Becky made a bet that I wouldn't be able to last a month with the next guy we met at the restaurant that night." She looked down ashamed. "You were that guy."