Tell Me No Lies (14 page)

"Persephone carried winter, too," said Catlin, remembering the old myth.

"Yes. Makes for a more interesting world, doesn't it?"

"Tell me that in a few months," he retorted. He looked at Lindsay's unflinching eyes for a moment longer before he removed his hand, releasing her. "So be it," he said bleakly.

Catlin closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again there was no emotion, neither passion nor compassion, anger nor encouragement. There was only predatory intelligence and an equally predatory control.

"Will any of your clients be at the dinner tonight?" asked Catlin.

Like his eyes, his voice was devoid of emotion, almost inhuman. Lindsay stared at him, hardly able to believe this was the same man who had knocked on her door just moments ago, taken one approving look at her and tried to talk her out of finding Emperor Qin's bronzes.

"Will they?" rapped Catlin.

"Y-yes," she said, stumbling over the word, off balance. "How do you do that?" she asked before Catlin could ask her another question.

"Do what?"

"Just – vanish. Emotionally."

"It's a trick you learn in hell," he said indifferently. "Which clients?" he asked, pursuing all that mattered now – Qin's bronzes and the other half of a mutilated coin.

"What?"

"Which clients will be there tonight?"

There was neither patience nor impatience in Catlin's controlled voice, simply a sense of vast stillness waiting to be filled by answers. Lindsay shook her head in silent disbelief.

"No wonder Chen Yi called you dragon," she whispered.

There was no answer.

"Sharen Kerry," said Lindsay. "Dave Goldstein. Mr. and Mrs. Tom Stoltz."

"In order of their honesty?"

Lindsay hesitated. "I – they're all honest with me."

"Cut the crap, Lindsay," he snapped. "You know what I mean. If you had a bronze of dubious provenance to unload, which one of the three would you go to first?"

Unconsciously Lindsay bit her lip. "Mr. Stoltz. He does a lot of buying from Jackie Merriman. She isn't dishonest," added Lindsay quickly, "just careless. If she likes a piece, she won't ask uncomfortable questions about where it came from, no matter how odd the papers accompanying it might look."

"Next."

"Dave. He's very competitive."

"That leaves Sharen Kerry."

"Forget it. She's teaching art at a private school in the suburbs. She would faint at the suggestion of a dubious bronze."

"And you won't?"

"No. I just won't buy it myself or recommend that a client buy it."

"How does Sharen get the money to collect?"

"Born with a platinum spoon between her perfect teeth," Lindsay said wryly.

"Will any dealers be there tonight?"

"Overwhelmingly.''

"Honest? Dishonest?"

"Yes," she said succinctly.

Catlin turned several ideas over in his mind, rejecting them one by one. He knew what he had to do. He just didn't like doing it.

"All right," he said abruptly. "Tonight you're going to give your best imitation of a woman being swept off her dainty little feet by a man. You'll conduct the normal amount of business, but you'll do it with me by your side. You will appear distracted. Not rude, simply absorbed in the man who is your new lover. Can you handle that much acting?"

Lindsay remembered watching Catlin over mah-jongg tiles and thinking that it would be good to lie in bed with him, to have his comfort and warmth and power wrapped around her. "No problem," she said honestly. "You're a very distracting kind of man."

Catlin's first reaction was to wonder if she meant it. His second was to realize that she did. She wasn't an actress. That was the problem. He smiled a bit grimly, surprised in spite of himself that she admitted an attraction to him. Again he regretted that she wasn't a different kind of woman. Having an affair with her would provide a high gloss of realism to her actions, the kind of realism that might just make the difference in an amateur undercover's performance.

Not to mention being a real pleasure for him.

But Catlin knew that Lindsay wasn't the kind of woman to take a lover for a night or a week, to put up with unwanted sex to create a fake atmosphere of intimacy. Her discrimination was written all over her file, all over her body, all over her life, revealing a pride, intelligence and integrity that simply refused to settle for casual screwing.

"And," continued Lindsay, "I believe you're very, very good at this kind of acting. I'll watch you for cues."

Catlin nodded, relaxing just a bit. At least she hadn't flinched at the idea of appearing to have an instant lover. For a woman like her, that was the first hurdle.

"What about other men?" he asked. Her file hadn't said anything about a current lover, but then, her file hadn't noted her mother's recent death, either.

Bronze strands swirled as Lindsay shook her head. "There's no one I owe explanations to, if that's what you mean."

"Good," he said bluntly, "because you wouldn't be allowed to make any that didn't agree with the image of a woman thrown headlong into a flaming affair."

Lindsay's unexpected smile made every one of Catlin's mate instincts come to full alert. Then her smile faded, leaving the honesty that was such an intriguing, dangerous aspect of her personality.

"I've never had one of those," she murmured, smiling at Catlin even as her eyes approved of the male planes of his face, lingering on the clean shape of his lips. "You'll have to tell me how to act."

"Do you want one?" he asked bluntly.

"What?"

"A flaming affair."

Lindsay's eyes widened in surprise.

"Then don't tease me," finished Catlin, his voice cold.

She flinched as though she had been slapped. Heightened color appeared above the blouse and swept up to her hairline. There was a long silence, because Catlin waited until the blush faded before he spoke.

"Listen to me, Lindsay. Listen to me as though your sanity depended on it. Because it does."

Beneath the resonance of his voice, she sensed anger and irritation, compassion and control. Control most of all.

"Look at me," Catlin demanded.

Lindsay made a small gesture with her hand, as though she lay restlessly in her bed, warding off attacks born of nightmares. The gesture went through Catlin like a knife, telling him that he had hurt her. He hadn't wanted that, but once she had accepted the job, he had known that hurting her would be inevitable. He could keep her body reasonably safe, but her mind was beyond his ability to protect. She had to do that herself, and he had to tell her how.

"One of the hardest parts of being undercover is keeping the public lies separate from the private truths," Catlin said, watching Lindsay's downturned face with brooding eyes. "You can flirt with me all you like in public – in fact, it's required for the sake of appearances. But you be damn sure that you keep the act separate in your mind from the reality."

"There should be no conflict," Lindsay said, her voice neutral, her face still turned away from Catlin. "I don't flirt in public."

Her body language said that she didn't plan on beginning with him tonight, either. Or any other night in the foreseeable future. As far as she was concerned, he had just hit the bottom of the list of the world's desirable males.

Catlin's hand traced the slanting line of Lindsay's high cheekbone, smoothed over her hair, teased the sensitive curve of her ear. He tested the softness of her lips with the pad of his thumb as he bent down to her.

Then he spoke, and his voice was like a whip. "Quitting?"

Lindsay shivered and jerked away from his sensual touch. "What do you want from me?" she whispered, looking at him with wide, dark eyes.

"An act. That's all. Just an act."

"But-"

"I know. You're a terrible actress. So get out while you can, Lindsay Danner. Get out now."

Color rose in her face again, but this time its source was anger rather than embarrassment. "Go to hell, Catlin! I said I would do it and I will!"

He looked at the wash of heat and the intensity of her indigo eyes, the flash of emotion heightening every aspect of her beauty. He could not help wondering what it would be like to call that response out of her with passion rather than fury. The thought brought a hot shaft of desire that he ignored, Mei had taught him the deadly folly of being ruled by his own sexuality. It was a lesson he would never forget.

Catlin glanced down at his watch. They would be more than fashionably late if they didn't leave soon. Yet it was very clear that Lindsay wasn't ready to do a convincing performance of a woman enjoying an evening with her latest lover. Deliberately he reached for her, sliding his hand around to the back of her head, burying his fingers in the silky coolness of ha hair. As he had expected, she pulled back.

"Not good enough," he said in a clipped voice. "When I open that door, you're going to have to convince the world we're either already lovers or soon will be. Kiss me, Lindsay, Act like a woman humming with desire."

"The door is not open," she said, biting off each word. Catlin's hand shot out and opened the door. He stood there, waiting.

Lindsay took a deep breath and stared up at him, her eyes nearly black against her pale skin. Then she smiled, but the curve of her mouth owed much more to anger than to sensual anticipation. She put her arms around Catlin's neck, stretched up on tiptoe and threaded her fingers deeply into his black hair. Her hands tightened, pulling his hair as her teeth closed less than delicately on his earlobe.

"You're a genuine bastard, Catlin," she whispered huskily.

"My parents will be surprised to hear that," he whispered in return, closing his arms around her in a grip that reminded her that two could play the punishment game. He turned his head suddenly, capturing her mouth.

Lindsay stiffened, expecting an angry male invasion. She was wrong. As always, Catlin managed to catch her off balance. He nuzzled her lips softly, gentling her. His hands moved slowly down the length of her back, stroking all the responsive points, caressing her with a sensitivity that she had never known from a man before. Without realizing it, she softened against him, seeking greater contact, not less.

There was a heady flow of warmth over her silk-clad body as he lifted her until her mouth was on a level with his. Her breath sighed out and she turned her head to follow the teasing, tantalizing lips that refused to hold still for the kiss she suddenly wanted. If he had tried to force her mouth to open for him, she could have resisted. But there was no force in his embrace, no punishing aggression, nothing but the skillful teasing of his tongue following the shape of her lips.

"Catlin," she said, torn between anger and sensual response, not knowing what to feel, what to do, how to act, how to-

And then her questions vanished as he moved his head again, taking her mouth with the same delicacy that he had used to seduce her lips. The taste of him swept over her senses, transforming anger into an entirely different response. Her hands loosened their too-tight grip on his hair. She savored the crisp thickness of it between her fingers even as she shivered at the hot touch of his tongue sliding over hers. She forgot her anger, her uneasiness, the front door open for all the world to see. She forgot everything but the heat and strength of the kiss that was consuming her.

It was a long time before Catlin lifted his head. "That should do it," he said very softly, measuring her flushed, slightly swollen lips and dilated eyes. "You look the part now."

Reality returned in a rush, making Lindsay feel as though she had been dropped into icewater. "Why are you doing this to me?" she whispered.

"You're doing it to yourself. You volunteered, remember?" He let her slide down his body until her feet touched the floor again. "No," he said quickly, covering her mouth with his own when she would have said more. "We'll argue about it later," he murmured, nuzzling against her ear like a lover even as his fingers closed just short of pain on her arms. "Don't ever forget the act when the door is open."

Lindsay looked up at the intent, saturnine face and comfortless amber eyes. She shook her head as though disoriented. The soft heat that had been unfolding deep within her body curled back on itself, leaving her empty, shaken. For a moment she closed her eyes, appalled at what a gullible fool she had been to let her own attraction to Catlin convince her that he was attracted to her, too.

Even as the thought came, she realized that there was no time for recriminations, no time for anger, not even time to regain her balance. The door was open, so the show must go on.

I’ll get better at this, she promised herself fiercely, silently. I have to!

"How – how do I introduce you to people?" she asked numbly, hating the betraying catch in her voice.

"Catlin, Jacob MacArthur, Genuine Bastard," he suggested coolly, his voice low, reminding her that other people could appear at any moment.

"No disagreement there," Lindsay said in a voice as understated as his, "but what do you do for a living?"

"Didn't Stone brief you?" murmured Catlin against her hair. He took her keys because her hands were shaking too much for her to lock the door easily. He hoped that anyone watching would assume that desire rather than anger was the cause.

"Stone said you'd tell me whatever I needed to know," she muttered, holding out her hand for her keys as Catlin finished locking up. She put them in the tiny crystal-encrusted purse she carried. "I'm supposed to call him tomorrow."

A hard smile tightened the line of Catlin's mouth. He knew that Stone would be eager to talk to Lindsay. The FBI agent would pump her for every bit of information he could, hoping that Catlin had gotten careless and told her more than he had told Stone.

"I'm part owner and one of the resident experts at the Pacific Rim Institute," Catlin said, taking Lindsay's arm, "That's a think tank on Asian affairs," he added, assuming that the name was unfamiliar to her.

There was a shocked silence while Lindsay realized that Catlin's name had seemed familiar to her not because he had collected bronzes in the past, but because he had earned a reputation for the kind of intelligence and insight into Asian affairs that made his advice de rigueur for Washington's legions of foreign affairs specialists.