Bride of the Tiger by Heather Graham (best large ereader .txt) 📗

was more to her feelings than just the tremendous physical pull the man had on her senses. She liked him. She liked the way he smiled, the easy way in which he had swayed George, the charm that had brought her friends around him like moths drawn to the light.

He looked up from the menu, caught her tense scrutiny—and smiled. “Am I passing muster?”

Tara flushed, but she refused to be swayed. “If you know who I am, you obviously know something of my past.”

“Oh, yes. The mysterious past.”

“There was no mystery about it,” Tara said bitterly. “The papers had a field day.”

“And hence, Tara Hill disappeared.”

She shrugged. “I wasn’t so much afraid of the papers as…” She hesitated, then shrugged. “I needed to get away from everything for a while. I’d made some rather serious mistakes in judgment.”

He set down the menu and leaned back against the booth, smiling as he watched her. He picked up his glass, clinked it against hers where it sat upon the table, and sipped his wine. Tara didn’t pick up hers.

“What are you—twenty-five?” he asked her.

“Twenty-six.”

“Excuse me.” He laughed. “Still, rather young to give up on the world, don’t you think?”

“I didn’t give up on the world. I simply had a lot of experience shoved into very few years.”

“Oh.” Still smiling slightly, he looked back at the menu.

“Are you laughing at me?” she inquired sharply. “I don’t intend to be patronized.”

He didn’t answer, because their very French waiter had appeared. Rafe asked her if he should order for her, and she shrugged, not caring what she ate.

Rafe ordered in French. Not the high school or college French so many people liked to practice in French restaurants—the kind that caused waiters to grin scornfully as soon as their backs were turned. It was obvious that he spoke the language fluently.

When the waiter was gone, Rafe stretched a hand across the table. “I’m not patronizing you, and I’m not laughing at you. I believe you had a rough time of it. But you’re still very young, and to judge the entire world by one previous experience is a mistake. Is that why you’re afraid of me—your relationship with Tine Elliott?”

Tara stiffened. Of course he knew about her; she imagined that he sat down with The New York Times and coffee every morning. He’d study the headlines and move on to the stock exchange and the sports pages—she wasn’t sure in which order.

So, of course, he knew all about Tine Elliott. About the fact that she had been charged with murder, suspected of smuggling—and had her life recorded in boldface black on white.

It just hurt her somehow. It made her feel as if she had to defend herself.

As if she had to convince him that she wasn’t the woman they had portrayed in those pages.

“I didn’t do it,” she blurted out.

He leaned back, grinning an amused devil’s grin once again. “You didn’t do what?”

“Any of it.” She picked up her wineglass and sipped at it nervously.

He leaned closer to her, catching her eyes intently. “Tell me about it,” he told her.

She inhaled, not meeting his eyes. “It was a mess. I wanted to get away from Tine. I’d met a…friend. I was supposed to meet him, and I did. Then suddenly Tine was there with the woman who died. He wanted some mask—shooting started. And that was it. Tine and Jimmy disappeared; the woman was dead—and I spent the night in the police station.”

She didn’t mean to, but she shivered with the memory of fear. Fear of Tine. Of his threat. He had said that he would find her somehow, someday, somewhere.

And she was going back to Caracas. Back to the very place where Tine had disappeared.

She gazed up at Rafe quickly, then frowned at the tense, penetrating quality of his stare. It was as if she had said something that had touched him personally. She sipped her wine again, her throat dry.

But he leaned back, easy once again, darkly handsome and charming. “You’re still frightened,” he commented.

She shrugged, determined to talk no further. “It was a long time ago. Never mind—I think George was the only one who ever believed I didn’t know a damn thing about any mask. The police didn’t even want to believe that Jimmy existed. Do you believe me?” she inquired coolly.

He lifted his hands. “You said you were innocent. You’re innocent, then. Go on, tell me more.”

She shook her head vehemently, alarmed at the way she was feeling. Warmth flooded her veins, something secure that seemed to ease her shudders. Her thoughts of Tine had filled her with a reverberating fear; Rafe, so close, so sure, made her feel as if she had a buffer against that fear.

She didn’t like it. It was the physical thing. It was the fascination, the longing to touch, the fire that scorched her when he looked at her, when he touched her. Like something that would grow until the heat was too much—and had to be appeased. She couldn’t trust him; she didn’t dare. So she had to keep her distance.

And she was going to have to go to Caracas alone. No buffer zones. She didn’t think that she was looking for an answer to the past, but maybe she was.

She determined to change the subject. Picking up her wineglass, she challenged Rafe. “Where did you learn to speak French so fluently?”

“Ah, Miss Hill! You weren’t listening to Ashley and me the other day. I was in the navy for a while after college, then I worked aboard a French freighter.”

She shook her head. “I thought you went into your family business.”

“I only came back to it recently.”

“And that is…?”

“Various things. Shipping, jewels, trade.” He shrugged, as though it wasn’t important.

Their salads arrived, but even as she thanked the waiter and bent her head over hers, she thought that he was being purposely evasive. Why?

Or was she imagining things?

“What other languages do you speak?” she asked.

He seemed to hesitate, then shrugged again. “Spanish. A little