Just Like a Man (42 page)

"When were you going to tell me?" she asked. But before she even finished the question, she knew the answer. "You weren't going to tell me at all, were you? Because you weren't planning on this taking very long."

"Selby, it's not what you think."

She nodded. "Actually, I think it probably is."

"No, you don't understand."

"Yeah, actually, Thomas, I think I do."

But she didn't want to think about anything more than that. Not right now. Not with him looking at her. When she fell apart, she wanted to be alone.

"I have to go," she said.

"No, don't, Selby. You said you'd stay."

She did chuckle at that, a solitary, melancholy sound. "Yeah, well, you said a lot more than that that wasn't true."

"Selby…"

This time Thomas punctuated the plea by extending a hand toward her, but she took a step in retreat before he could reach her.

"I have to go," she said again.

As quickly as she could, she gathered up the rest of her clothing and put it on as gracefully as she could manage. Then she made her way back out to the dining room where she had left her other things. Thomas followed her through the house, saying her name again and again, trying to explain that which defied explanation. But Selby wasn't listening to him. She'd listened before, and that had only brought her to this point, and she really didn't want to be here. So she tuned him out, gathered her things, and left. He followed her to the elevator, but didn't get inside, his manner of dress—or lack thereof—evidently enough to keep him from going any farther. So Selby's last view of Thomas Brown was of the elevator doors closing over him, and him telling her a big, fat lie.

Because a man like him couldn't possibly love anyone.

Hannah had been inside the CompuPax Pavilion only once before, her visit confined to the main offices, when she'd come in the hopes of recruiting an executive of the company to sit on the board of directors of the Emerson Academy. That had been just six months ago, she recalled now, as she entered the main lobby at the side of the very executive she had ended up recruiting. But she felt as if she'd lived a lifetime since then, so much had her life changed. Adrian, whom she'd so innocently invited into her world, had turned it upside down and inside out. Because thanks to Adrian, Michael had stumbled into her world, too. And it was he, even more than Adrian, who had shattered everything she'd worked so hard for so long to build.

Even if, she'd been forced to admit, what she'd built had been constructed on a pretty flimsy foundation all along.

But that wasn't why she was thinking about Michael as she entered the cavernous glass-and-marble reception hall of the CompuPax Pavilion. She was thinking about him because she knew he was around here somewhere, listening in via the microphone in the pearls that encircled her throat. Although she had ended things with him—had it really only been a few days ago?—she hadn't been able to end things yet with OPUS. She had agreed to see this operation through to its conclusion, in spite of Michael's insistence to the contrary. And see it through to its conclusion, she would. She still thought that if there was even a small chance Adrian believed she was nothing more than Hannah Frost, overworked, overextended, overdressed, but egregiously underpaid-—not that she was bitter or anything—director of a tony private school in Indianapolis, then she was obligated to do whatever she could to aid in his capture. In spite of Michael's insistence to the contrary.

Not that she'd heard about Michael's insistence to the contrary from Michael in person, mind you, since she'd done her best to avoid him after that fateful evening at her house when she'd realized just how deeply his clandestine intrusion into her life had gone. Oh, he'd tried to call her, and once he'd stopped by the house, but she'd pretended not to be home on every occasion. After all, pretending was what she did best. Pretending had enabled her to survive in the world this long, by God, and it would damned well keep her surviving long after Michael was gone. And she'd avoided him quite well, thanks, in not answering her door that day.

Unfortunately, not answering the phone hadn't been nearly as effective. Because Michael had left a message every time he called, messages that started off with something along the lines of "Hannah, you can't do this, it's too dangerous," and ending, always, with the quietly uttered words, "I love you." In between were attempts to explain and apologies for his behavior, but Hannah did her best to tune them out. She didn't want to listen to explanations or apologies. Probably because his behavior had defied both. Those last words he always spoke, though… Well. Try as she might, she just hadn't been able to ignore those.

She closed her eyes reluctantly now when she remembered the soft, uncertain way he had spoken them, but the action did nothing to diminish their impact. So she opened her eyes again, and tried not to think about it. Instead, she remembered how Michael had been earlier today, when she'd had no choice but to open her door to him, because he'd come to the house to wire her for sound and prepare her for the evening ahead. And if his hands had lingered on her bare shoulders a bit longer than was necessary as he'd fastened the clasp on the pearls… if his warm breath on her neck had felt like a turbulent sirocco over parched sand… if she'd thought she'd heard him whisper, as he dropped his hands back to his sides, the same three words he'd used to end his messages…

Well, it was his job to say and do things that lulled her into a false sense of security, wasn't it?

And he'd said a lot of things earlier today. But instead of making her feel secure, they'd put her on alert. Because everything he'd said today had been crisp, businesslike declarations of what Hannah should expect tonight at the reception. What she should expect, he had told her, was the worst, because Adrian Padgett was a time bomb waiting to go off. No one knew how far-reaching the damage would be until after the detonation. So they had to make sure they caught him before the explosion came.

Which was why Hannah would continue sticking to Adrian's side until OPUS threw a net over him. She could only hope now that tonight would be the night they snared him. A thrill of something vigilant and precarious skittered through her as she considered the enormity of what she was doing. Because Adrian, her escort, the man whose elbow she held with such feigned affection, might very well be planning to kill someone tonight.

Hannah could scarcely wrap her thoughts around the concept. He didn't seem like the kind of man who could commit a cold, premeditated murder. But then, she wasn't the best judge of character, was she? She tried to comfort herself by reminding herself that the CompuPax Pavilion was packed with people tonight. And as Michael had said, Adrian wasn't stupid. She was confident he wouldn't try to hurt her here. Probably.

She turned to look at him, noting how handsome and elegant he looked in his tuxedo, marveling that someone who claimed the looks of an angel could have such a cold, implacable heart. Of course, she thought further as she surveyed their surroundings, that did sort of fit in with the feel of the CompuPax Pavilion as a whole. She wasn't sure who had designed the place, and she supposed, for a high-end technological wonder like CompuPax, this was the perfect environment. But the towering glass room made Hannah feel as if she were trapped inside a giant ice cube. There was no warmth here, no affection for anything, as if the owner of the company had no familiarity with either emotion. Even the four wet bars that had been set up in each corner of the room were constructed of blocks of glass that looked like more ice. The floor was gleaming black marble, and at the far end of the room, another imposing slab of black marble acted as the backdrop for a waterfall of sorts. Someone had tried to ease the austerity of the room by placing lit topiaries throughout, but all in all, the effect was one of coldness and arrogance and imperviousness.

But then she'd heard that T. Paxton Brown, the reclusive monarch of the company, was much like that himself. Just like her escort for the evening, come to think of it.

"Have I told you yet how beautiful you look tonight?" Adrian asked, stirring Hannah from her wayward thoughts.

She ran an anxious hand down the front of the skimpier-than-she-usually-wore, redder-than-she-usually-wore formal, which she had donned in the hope that it might keep Adrian distracted. She inhaled a deep breath to steady her too-rapid heart rate and replied, "Yes, you did. Thank you."

He smiled and lifted a finger to the pearls around her throat. "And the pearls are lovely," he added. "Just the thing to go with the dress. Though you've been wearing a different strand lately—tonight and at the restaurant the other night? They're not the same as the ones I recall you wearing before."

Hannah knew a moment of panic as he voiced the question. She was amazed that he'd even noticed the difference in the two strands of pearls, as OPUS had made this one the same length and size as her other one, and to her view they seemed identical. For a moment she thought about telling Adrian that he was mistaken, of course they were the same pair. Somehow, though, she sensed he would know she was lying if she did. And lying had caused her rather a lot of trouble lately.

"They're not, actually," she agreed, smiling. "I'm surprised you noticed. The others were a gift from my great-aunt, and these belonged to my mother. Auntie had mine made to look like Mom's."

Okay, so she'd told the truth
and
lied. It had been a damned convincing lie, she congratulated herself. Maybe she wasn't such a bad spy after all.

"I notice more than most people realize," Adrian said, and she wasn't sure how to interpret that. "But you look quite fetching, no matter what you wear," he added. Then he dipped his head to hers, moving his mouth to within millimeters of her ear. "And I can't wait to see you wearing even less later," he said softly.

His breath was warm as it stirred a few tendrils of hair Hannah had pulled free of her chignon and curled to delicately frame her face, but his words sent a chill spiraling through her. Before she even realized what she was doing, she sent a silent petition to Michael, to please, please, please be close by, and to hear what Adrian had just said and to make sure she stayed safe for the rest of the evening. Maybe he wasn't her hero, she thought, but right now he was the next best thing.

In spite of the way things had ended between them, she hadn't been able to stop thinking about him in the days since she'd told him they were finished. About the way his mouth always hooked up higher on one side than the other when he smiled. About how unabashedly earnest he was in his affection for his son. About how skillfully and tenderly he had touched her that day at her house when they had made love.

About how he wasn't the only one who'd told lies.

But her reasons for doing so, Hannah reminded herself quickly, had been generated by the fact that she had cared so much for Michael. She'd lied because she hadn't wanted him to know the truth about her, because he might have misconstrued the truth and thought her a different sort of person than she really was. She'd lied because she'd wanted him to see her for who she was now, not who she used to be. She'd lied because she'd wanted him to think the best of her, not the worst. She'd lied because she'd wanted him to like her, the way she liked him. She'd lied because she'd found herself falling in love with him, and had wanted him to fall in love with her, too.