Unauthorized Passion

This wasn’t serving anybody but himself and some rich geek who couldn’t get a woman on his own merits. So he’d stooped to this level and so had Jack. He’d allowed his financial and professional setbacks to cloud his judgment. He’d used his desperation to catch a killer as an excuse to trade in his ethics.

And in the process, he’d become someone he didn’t much like or respect.

Well, it stopped now, he decided as he picked up the trash bag from Celeste’s room and slung it back into the Dumpster. As he turned away in self-loathing, he heard something rattle in the alley.

He froze. For the longest moment, he listened to the darkness, but when he heard nothing else, he figured it must have been his imagination or a rat scurrying through the trash.

Then he heard a bumping sound, and leaving the Dumpsters, he flattened himself against the wall of the hotel and peered down the alley. He saw nothing at first, but then farther down, near the street, something moved underneath a third-floor balcony.

Hugging the wall, Jack slipped silently into the alley. As he drew closer, he recognized the sound he’d heard earlier. A grappling hook had been thrown over the balcony railing of Celeste’s suite, and a slender figure clad in black was now shimmying up the rope.

Drawing his weapon, Jack sprinted from the shadows. “Police! Halt!”

The suspect spun, saw him, then doubling his efforts, scurried the rest of the way up before Jack could reach him. Climbing over the railing, the intruder pulled the rope up behind him, then turned and tried the French doors.

Jack took aim as he raced toward the balcony. “Freeze!”

The suspect—his face covered by a ski mask—glanced back at Jack, then slung the grappling hook all the way to the roof. It caught on a drainpipe, and as nimble as an acrobat, he scampered up.

A dozen scenarios flashed through Jack’s head, none of them good. If he fired his weapon, there would be hell to pay. Impersonating a police office carried a stiff sentence, and considering the animosity he’d left behind at police headquarters and city hall, he couldn’t imagine anyone coming down on his side.

Still, it wasn’t hard to figure that a guy wearing a ski mask and wielding a grappling hook in the middle of the night was up to no good. It was obvious he’d meant to get in Celeste’s suite, but for what purpose, Jack could only imagine.

The intruder had almost made it to the roof by this time. Grasping the edge, he hitched himself over, then scrambled to his feet. Pausing for a moment, he gazed over the edge.

Jack had him in his sights. He could have easily taken him out, but he didn’t. Instead he slowly lowered his weapon.

There was something familiar about him…her…

Something that sent a shiver up Jack’s spine as their gazes met in the darkness.

Then, with a mocking salute, the intruder turned and disappeared over the slope of the roof.

* * *

JACK RANG THE BELL, then banged loudly on Max Tripp’s door until a light came on in the town house. A few minutes later, his ex-partner drew back the door.

Max looked shocked when he saw the bandage wrapped around Jack’s hand. “What happened to you?”

Jack brushed past him. “We need to talk.”

“So you said on the phone.” Max closed the door and turned. He looked as if he’d dressed in a hurry and in the dark. He wore a pair of sweatpants and an old HPD T-shirt that might have served double duty as a cleaning rag. His disheveled appearance was a far cry from the slick image he presented at his posh offices on South Post Oak, and for a moment, Jack was relieved to see the man he’d known years ago. Maybe this Max would be willing to listen to reason.

But his next words didn’t instill much hope. “This had better be good.” Reluctantly, he gestured toward the living room.

“It is,” Jack said grimly as they both took seats. “She’s in danger, Max.”

“Who’s in danger?”

“Celeste Fortune.” Jack ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not the only one tailing her. I’ve been getting a strange vibe ever since I started the surveillance, but tonight I actually saw someone try to break into her suite. You know what this means, don’t you?”

Max’s frowned deepened. “What?”

Restless, Jack got up and began to pace. “We have to warn her.”

“Now hold on a minute.” Max’s gaze tracked him to and fro. “Let’s not make any hasty decisions here. Just calm down and tell me exactly what you saw.”

“It started when I followed her to a restaurant on Montrose tonight.” Quickly, Jack explained about the flash of light on the building across the street.

Max shrugged after he’d heard him out. “So? You said yourself you didn’t find anything. More than likely what you saw was light reflecting off a window in the building.”

“No, I’m positive it came from the roof. And then when I went back to the hotel a little while later, I saw someone climb up to her balcony. He tried to get into her room, but the door was locked. If I hadn’t been there to scare him off, he probably would have broken the glass. God only knows what he meant to do once inside.” The images swirling around in Jack’s head made him feel sick. If he hadn’t been there— “The point is, she’s obviously in danger and we have to warn her.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that.”

Jack stopped pacing and glared down at Max. “What do you mean we can’t do that? If anything happens to her, it’ll be on our conscience.”

Max shrugged again. “Then that’s a chance we’ll have to take. If we go to her now, it’ll blow the whole operation. We can’t do it. Our loyalty is to the client.”

“Like hell it is,” Jack said angrily. “We’re cops, for God’s sake.”

“Were cops. That’s the operative word,” Max reminded him. His expression hardened. “Look, I know you always took that ‘to serve and protect’ stuff to heart, but you’re not on the force anymore. You work for me now, and I thought we had an understanding.”

Jack couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “A woman’s life is at stake. That supercedes any agreement we had.”

Max calmly folded his arms across his chest. “You don’t know that her life is in danger. You’re jumping to conclusions. The guy you saw tonight was probably a run-of-the-mill burglar or a two-bit jewel thief after that huge rock Fleming bought her. Now that you’ve scared him off, I doubt he’ll be back.”

Jack wasn’t so sure about that. The guy knew what he was doing. By the time Jack had found a way up to the roof, the suspect had disappeared without a trace. He couldn’t have escaped so easily unless he knew his way around that hotel backward and forward.

Jack hadn’t so much as caught a glimpse of him. All he’d gotten for his trouble was a bad scrape on a rusty nail. And just his luck, he didn’t remember when he’d had his last tetanus shot.

“If you’re not going to do anything about this, then I’ll take care of it myself,” he said. “I’ve still got a few favors I can call in downtown.”

Max gave him a shrewd appraisal. “And just what are you going to tell them? That the woman you’ve been stalking is being stalked by someone else? The way I hear it, you’ve already been making a nuisance of yourself downtown trying to get information about that homicide in Montrose. Next thing you know, you’ll be trying to convince them that Celeste Fortune is being stalked by Casanova.”

Anger shot through Jack at the man’s cold assessment. Something had happened to Max since he’d left the police department. Something that Jack didn’t want to see when he looked at himself in the mirror every morning. “I’ll tell them whatever I have to,” he warned.

“Meaning?”

“I’ll tell them I work for you.”

Max stood. “You seemed to have forgotten that little thing called a confidentiality agreement that you signed the other day. You go shooting off your mouth about our business arrangement, and I’ll deny ever having had this conversation with you. I’ll say I threw a few odd jobs your way because I felt sorry for you. What you did with Celeste Fortune you did on your own. I’ve never even heard of her. Who do you think they’re going to believe, Jack? Unlike you, I still have friends in high places.”

Jack clenched his fists. “What the hell are you doing, Max? We were partners once.”

“And we could be again, but you’ve got to forget about being a cop. That part of your life is over. I’m giving you a chance to make something of yourself, but the first thing you have to learn about our business is that protecting our client’s interests comes first.”

Jack glanced at his ex-partner in disgust. “Sounds to me like covering your ass comes first.”

Max walked over to the window and stared out for a moment, then turned. “Let me ask you something. Do you really think you were kicked off the force for ruffling too many feathers at city hall? Hell, you’d been doing that for years. But the brass put up with it because you were a good cop. They didn’t want to lose you. So what changed?”

“You seem to have all the answers,” Jack said coldly. “You tell me.”

“They got rid of you because you scared them. You became so obsessed with the Casanova case that even guys who’d known you for years began to worry about your stability. An unbalanced cop is a dangerous entity, as we both know. You go down there now with a cockamamy story about some actress being stalked, what do you think they’re going to do? Who do you think they’re going to put under surveillance? It won’t be Celeste Fortune.”

“We’ll see about that.” Jack whirled and strode toward the door.

Behind him, Max said, “Did it ever occur to you that the best way to protect her is to keep doing what you’re doing?” When Jack turned, Max continued grimly, “You’ve got a job to do, Jack. If someone wants to harm Celeste Fortune, it’s in our client’s best interest to find out who that person is.”

* * *

FROM HIS POSITION across the street, Jack could see the southeast corner of the hotel, including Celeste’s balcony. The lights were off inside her suite so he assumed the earlier incident hadn’t awakened her.

He hated to think of her up there sleeping peacefully in her bed with no inkling of the danger that could be lurking nearby.

And Jack couldn’t tell her.

Max was right about that. I know someone is stalking you because I’ve been stalking you myself. Yeah, that’d go over big—with her and the police. He couldn’t tell Celeste she was in danger any more than he could alert the cops because he’d be the one put under a microscope. So what the hell was he supposed to do?

After he left Max’s place, Jack had toyed briefly with the idea of placing an anonymous call to the police, but he knew only too well how much good that would do. At the most, they’d send a patrol car to check out the alley and when they found nothing, the whole thing would be forgotten.

So it was up to Jack to protect her. Max was right about that, too. Jack had to keep doing what he was doing in order to watch out for her, but would that be enough? He couldn’t spend twenty-four hours a day on surveillance. He couldn’t shadow her every move.

Or…could he?

An idea came to him suddenly, and yanking his wallet from his pocket, he pulled out the check Max had given him a few days ago. An advance, he’d said, to get some nice clothes and a decent haircut.

Well, he had the haircut. And he knew that Cher, queen of resale shopping, could help him out with his wardrobe. Now all he had to do was book himself into the Mirabelle and strike up a friendship with Celeste. With any luck, he’d be able to catch her stalker in the act before his money ran out.

Settling in for the night, Jack slid down in the car seat, folded his arms, and began to plan a “coincidental” meeting with the gorgeous actress.

CHAPTER SIX

CASSIE LAY ATOP the padded sundeck of a thirty-five-foot cabin cruiser and hoped this second outing Celeste had arranged for her would go more smoothly than the first.

So far everything had gone according to schedule. The rental car had arrived at the hotel that morning promptly at nine o’clock, and less than an hour later, Cassie had crossed the causeway on I-45 into Galveston.

She’d spent another half hour looking for Ethan Gold’s house on Jamaica Beach, but she hadn’t minded the search. From her very first glimpse of the Gulf, the tension had steadily melted away.

Now Cassie felt positively decadent, lying topless in the sun on her own boat. Well, okay, her own borrowed boat. The distinction didn’t bother her one bit because she had two whole days to loll about in the sun and surf and pretend that this life really did belong to her.

Soon enough she’d have to come back to earth and start the old job search, but for now, this had to be one of her cousin’s better ideas, she decided lazily.

According to Celeste, Ethan Gold, her old drama professor at the University of Houston, had insisted that she have the use of his beach house while she was in town. “There’s a boat and everything,” Celeste had told her. “I know how much you love to be out on the water.”

Cassie had forgotten just how much she did love the fresh air and open sea. When she and Celeste were kids, their fathers had owned a fishing boat together, and on weekends and summers, the cousins had practically lived on the Gulf. They’d become expert swimmers early on—their fathers had seen to that—and had even learned to handle a boat by the ripe old age of eleven.

They’d become so proficient, in fact, that by the time they hit adolescence, they were taking the boat out alone, sometimes with permission and sometimes without.

The two had been as close as sisters back then, and those days were some of the happiest and most carefree of Cassie’s life.

Then everything had changed. Celeste’s family moved away, and Cassie’s parents divorced. Her father relocated to Florida, and Cassie seldom heard from him. A few years later, her mother was diagnosed with emphysema and later, lung cancer. For almost a decade, it had been one trauma after another, and somewhere along the way, the carefree, adventurous Cassie had gotten lost in the harsh realities of life.

In her most vulnerable moments, she sometimes wondered how differently things might have turned out if her parents had stayed together. Would her mother still have gotten sick? Would Cassie, free of responsibilities, have had the nerve to pursue her dreams the way her cousin had?

She liked to think so, but she’d learned a long time ago that there was no profit in looking back. Besides, she had the rest of her life to work on those dreams, to try and recapture that old carefree Cassie, and now she had nothing to hold her back. No job. No fiancé. No responsibilities except to herself.

That was why she’d been so eager to accept Celeste’s proposal. It wasn’t just the money or the new clothes or the luxurious accommodations that had attracted her to the scheme. It was the scheme itself. The promise of adventure for which Cassie had been yearning a long, long time.

And so here she was. Footloose and fancy-free.

Well, almost.

There was the little matter of that threatening voice on the phone the other night.

“Did I scare you?”

Yes, as a matter of fact.

Every time Cassie thought about that anonymous call, shivers stole up and down her spine. The person on the other end hadn’t actually threatened her, but if the call had been nothing more than a prank, why had the caller gone to the trouble of electronically disguising his voice?

And afterward, Lyle Lester had shown up at Cassie’s door.

True enough, he’d left a flashlight and candles outside her room, but his arrival had been extremely fortuitous. Could he have called her from the hallway on a cell phone? Cassie wondered. She’d received a couple of hang up calls since then, too. Was Lyle responsible for those as well?

He’d said the other night that he was an admirer, but just how big a fan was he? Had his appreciation crossed the line into psychotic obsession?

And speaking of psychotic…

Cassie frowned as an image of the stranger she’d seen at Metro materialized in her head. The more she thought about him—and she’d thought about him a lot—the more bizarre his behavior seemed. Everyone on the patio had reacted as though they’d heard a gunshot when the truck backfired. But rather than taking cover, the stranger had lunged straight for Cassie. Why? Why had he been so willing to put himself between her and a bullet? And, even more disturbing, why had he assumed she was the target?

In retrospect, Cassie had to admit that her own behavior that night had been a little on the bizarre side as well. Coming on to a complete stranger was so totally unlike her.

But…was it really?

How did she know what she might be capable of? It had been a long time since she’d had the opportunity to explore the real Cassie. For the past ten years, she’d been a caregiver, a fiancée, and a schoolteacher, but none of those things had satisfied her deepest yearnings, her darkest fantasies.

Somehow, the blue-eyed stranger had tapped into her hidden desires, and for a fleeting moment, he’d unleashed something wild inside of her. Something at once familiar and strange.

He could give her adventure. She knew that instinctively.

He wasn’t like any man she’d ever known. Certainly not like Danny. Her ex-fiancé could be an enthusiastic and ardent lover when the mood struck him, but hardly an imaginative one.

Oh, he knew how to turn a woman on. He could do that just by walking into a room. His bronzed, perfectly proportioned body had reduced stronger women than Cassie to quivering masses of hormones. But how quickly the charm faded once he opened his mouth.

The stranger at Metro…he was hardly in Danny’s league looks-wise. He wasn’t as tall or nearly as good-looking, and his body had appeared leaner and more sinewy rather than muscle-bound. But there had been something about him…something sensuous and mysterious…

He had an air of having seen and done things that Cassie could only imagine. But she wanted to do more than imagine. She wanted to experience those things for herself.

After all, there had to be more to life than the missionary position, didn’t there?

Resting her chin on her arms, she gazed around. It was a hot, still day. The water was unusually calm, which was why she’d decided to drop anchor and relax for a bit in the sun.

“You’ll pay for that when you’re forty,” she could hear her mother scold her. Her mother hadn’t so much as set foot outside without slathering on sunscreen, and even at the beach, she’d always worn a hat and long sleeves. But with all her precautions, Felicity Boudreaux had still died young, without ever having seen much of the world. Cassie didn’t want that to be her fate.

She sighed, feeling melancholy, as she always did when she thought of her mother.

Glancing at her watch, she was surprised to find how long she’d already been out. She would need to head in soon, but for now it felt so good to be on the water after being cooped up in that hotel for over a week. Poor Mr. Bogart. She’d left him all alone at the beach house. To make up for it, she would take him for a nice, long walk on the beach after dinner. Maybe then he’d stop pining for Chablis.

Cassie had tried to break it to him gently that the immaculately groomed Maltese was about as far out of his league as the guy at Metro was hers. But Mr. Bogart wouldn’t listen. Evidently, Hollywood had gone to his little doggie head. Cassie could understand that. The good life suited her just fine, too.

As she watched the activity on the water, she noticed that another boat had anchored several hundred yards to the starboard side while she’d been daydreaming. Far enough away not to intrude on her privacy, but near enough that she felt a vague sense of unease. When she lifted her hand to shield her eyes, she saw someone fishing off the deck.

She reached behind her back to refasten her swimsuit straps, but as she lifted herself from the deck, an unexpected gust of wind caught the top and swept it away. It drifted on an air current for one brief moment before taking a header into the water.

Cassie stared at the bobbing fabric in dismay. Luckily, the extra padding kept it afloat.

* * *

“HO…LY…” JACK’S MUTTERING segued into a low whistle. He’d picked up his binoculars at precisely the right moment to catch a glimpse of a topless Celeste Fortune before she jumped into the water.

Stunned by the flash of skin, he quickly lowered the binoculars, warning himself that he was fast becoming little better than a Peeping Tom. But, pervert or not, he was also a red-blooded male with a half-naked woman in view. How the hell was he supposed to react to that? Ignore her? Look the other way?

He did what came naturally.

Adjusting his cap to keep the sun out of his eyes, he lifted the binoculars again and watched her strike out toward something blue that floated in the water several yards from her boat. Since he’d caught a glimpse of the same color before she hit the water, he assumed that it was her swimsuit top now drifting away on a current.

Man, could that girl swim.

For anyone else, that top would have been halfway to Mexico by now, but Celeste reached it easily. As she turned back to the boat, a wave caught and lifted her, and Jack was given another fortuitous peek before she struggled into her top.

Not bad.

Smaller than he would have thought from her pictures, but not bad at all. In fact, he’d say the view was pretty damn spectacular.

He would wait until she got back in the boat, then he’d make his move. He had it all planned. Every little detail. He would hail her, pretending to have engine trouble, and then when she offered him a ride—

A flare of bright light, followed by a loud boom, caught him off guard, and then the force of the blast knocked him back a step or two.

As Jack watched in horror, Celeste’s boat exploded in flames, and a moment later, the swell of water beneath the hull of his own boat pitched him forward. He had to grab on to the rail to keep from going overboard.

Bracing himself, he lifted the binoculars and stared at the spot in the water where he’d last seen her. He could find nothing now but bits of burning debris floating on the waves.

Sliding behind the wheel, he started the engine and turned the boat sharply, opening up the throttle as he headed for the flaming vessel. Circling the wreckage, he scanned the water, his heart like a drumbeat inside his chest. On his second pass around, he spotted her. She’d surfaced about fifty yards away, and when she saw him, she began to frantically hail him.

Easing back on the throttle, Jack brought the boat alongside her, then leaned over the edge to give her a hand up. She came slithering over the side like a frightened mermaid, all wet and slinky and golden.

If her breasts were smaller than he’d imagined, the rest of her was curvier. Not as lean and toned as in her movies, but sexy, nonetheless.

She wasn’t as drop-dead gorgeous, either, without the makeup and subtle lighting. The harsh glare of sunlight revealed a smattering of freckles across her nose and highlighted an unsightly bruise on her upper thigh. She wasn’t flawless by any stretch of the imagination.

Was he disappointed? Jack wasn’t sure. In some ways, it was a relief to know that she wasn’t quite as perfect as the image he’d seen on the big screen. Because nobody could live up to that.

He knelt beside her. “Are you all right?”

“I…think so. I don’t know what happened…” She lay in the bottom of the boat, not gracefully posed but with arms and legs sprawled all over the place.

Her breasts were barely hidden by her skimpy swimsuit top, and Jack tried to glance away. Honest. He did. But they were right there. Practically in his face. And he’d seen them, in all their glory, just moments ago.

Even though his sunglasses hid his eyes, she must have sensed the direction of his gaze because she quickly covered herself.