Kathleen Creighton - Undercover Mistress

“But as for the other…Celia was totally unprepared for it. She’d always had it easy, you know, as things go in this business. She was charming, beautiful, talented and of royal blood-as you Americans consider royalty. Success and adoration came almost as her due. To lose it all, so suddenly…”

“She seems to have recovered pretty well,” Roy said dryly.

Doc grunted as he pushed himself out of the chair. “Don’t let her fool you. The lady is more fragile than she appears. Picture her stamped with the warning-” on his feet, now, and towering above Roy, he waved the wineglass to paint his next words in the air “-Handle With Care.”

“Oh, I mean to do that,” Roy said, mostly to himself as he watched Doc weave his way across the deck and start down the stairs, holding the empty wineglass aloft in a farewell salute.

Of course, he was pretty sure the way he meant it wasn’t exactly what the doctor had had in mind…

“Oh-didn’t I just see Doc out here?”

The melodic, slightly husky voice sent a shock through him, making him jump and setting off seismic waves of pain in his chest and side. Folding one arm across his waist to hold himself together, he pushed himself to his feet and carefully turned. “He was. Just left.”

“Oh.” Celia’s lips formed a disappointed pout. “I was going to ask him to stay for dinner.” The pout dissolved into an impish grin.

Watching her…the mouth, the pout, the grin…the smoky eyes, Roy was thinking, Fragile? Would that be the same Celia I know?

As far as Roy could see, the only likely application for the word fragile where Celia was concerned would be the way he felt when he was around her.

No-the doc had to be way off on that diagnosis. But even if-just supposing-what he’d said about her were true, it seemed to Roy it was just all the more reason why he wouldn’t want the woman watching his back.

“Isn’t it getting kind of chilly out here?” Celia said after an awkward little pause, studying him with a concerned frown. “Wouldn’t you like to come inside, where it’s warm?” A smile flickered across her face with convincing uncertainty. “I’m sorry-I don’t mean to smother you. It’s just that I keep remembering how cold you were.”

“Yeah,” said Roy, smiling crookedly, “me, too.” In truth, what his mind was full of right then was a memory he hadn’t even known he had until then. It was a memory of himself, cold…cold as ice…shivering. And her warm, warm body pressed against his…arms and legs wrapped around him…naked…warm.

Funny-right now he didn’t feel the chill at all anymore.

He followed her into the house and made his way to one of the cream-colored suede sofas while she was drawing curtains across the expanse of dark glass.

“So,” Celia said, turning from the windows with a bright, hostess smile on her lips, “would you like something to drink? Some…coffee, maybe? Or broth?”

Broth. That kicked in another memory, new and hazy like the last one. His head pillowed against something soft…firm…warm…and a heartbeat knocking against his ear. Breasts. Celia’s breasts. Something hard pressed against his lips…salty liquid, warm on his tongue. A voice…Celia’s voice…cracked and breaking. It’s all right…you’re safe, now.

“Coffee’s fine,” he said, his own voice dry and gritty as the sand he remembered chafing and burning his skin. “Black.”

Then he put his head back against the sofa cushions and closed his eyes. Max, where in the hell are you? What are you doing to me, Max? You’ve gotta get me out of here.

“Are you okay?” She was back, standing beside him holding a steaming mug and looking concerned. “Shall I go get Doc?”

“Nah, I’m okay-just…tired, is all.” He sat up and took the mug from her, sipped, grimaced, then said, “What’s the story, there, anyway? You said the doc lost his license to practice medicine. So, what’d he do, exactly? I asked him, and he just said, ‘Bad choices.’” He paused to put the mug down on a glass-topped coffee table in front of him. “I kinda think I have a right to know, don’t you? I mean, if I’m putting my life in the hands of some quack who’s committed malpractice-”

“Oh, no-it’s nothing like that. Doc’s a good doctor-really.” She sat on the sofa that matched his, opposite him, the shaggy tumble of blond hair feathering around her face as she leaned forward. “It was…” she closed her eyes for a moment, then said it: “Drugs.”

“Drugs?” Roy stared at her. “You mean the guy’s a drug-”

“No, no-he didn’t take drugs. Just…dispensed them. A bit too generously, it turned out.” She let out a breath and sat back against the cushions, casually pulling one leg under her. “It was a few years ago. Doc had been prescribing painkillers for some very famous people who happened to be addicted to them. When those people went public with their addictions…” Her voice trailed off, and she shrugged. “What he did was wrong, but he’s paid a very high price.”

“Yeah,” Roy said, “he told me.”

“Anyway,” Celia said, “he’s a good doctor, and a good man. I don’t know what I’d have done without him. Well-obviously, I’d have had to call somebody else for help-like the paramedics, for instance. And you’d be in a hospital right now, and the story would be in all the newspapers-Man Found Near Death On Malibu-”

“All right, all right, I get it.” He held up a hand to stop the tumble of words. “I’m grateful, okay? I am. I swear.”

She gazed at him, the fierce expression turning slowly to a smile. “His main concern was that he couldn’t give you antibiotics,” she said softly. “He was so afraid of infection. And when you turned feverish…”

“I did?” He felt feverish now.

She nodded, gazing into his eyes. “Yes. And Doc said if you weren’t better by morning, we’d have to take you to a hospital. So I sat up all night and put cold towels on you.”

“You did that?”

She nodded solemnly.

“Well…thanks.” His tongue felt thick, his lips were tingling. He felt light-headed.

“You’re welcome,” she whispered.

And then there was stillness. Not silence, because he could hear his nerves humming and his heart beating and the waves thumping the beach outside. But everything seemed muffled and far away, as if he’d been closed up in a box…a box filled with soft golden light, cream-colored suede…and Celia. And it didn’t matter that there were a couple of yards of space separating him from her, because a part of him-the essential part-seemed to have lifted out of his body and was floating across that space to where she was. He could feel her breath on his face…the soft caress of her skin…smell her light, sweet scent. He could see her eyes widen, her breath catch and her lips part. And in his mind-that essential part of him-he was kissing her, and she was kissing him back, her mouth opening under his, hot and hungry…

The doorbell rang.

Roy felt himself blow apart, then reassemble, all the essential pieces settling back into their customary places. Except he felt as if someone had set off a firecracker two feet from his head.

Celia said, “Maybe that’s Max,” and got up to answer the door.

Roy picked up the coffee mug, grimacing involuntarily as he took a sip of what had to be the worst coffee he’d ever tasted, and tried to figure out what in the hell had just happened to him.

He was a plain, down-home Southern boy. He wasn’t a fantasy kind of guy. Or he never had been, before now.

Behind him, somewhere not far off, he heard an unfamiliar voice say, “I’m Doctor Chan. Max sent me.”

And Celia’s voice replying, inviting him in-ordinary words…everyday words that in her voice sounded like musical notes from some exotic instrument-a wooden flute, maybe.

It had to be her, dammit. Celia. Something about her wild imagination, and the make-believe world she lived in. If he wasn’t careful, with all that beauty and charisma, the sheer power of her personality, she could very well suck him right into that world with her.

Celia couldn’t sleep.

Not that there was anything unusual about that-she almost always had trouble sleeping lately. Which, after all, was why she’d been out walking the beach at three in the morning the night she’d found Roy. Insomnia was insomnia. So, what was different about this night?

Well, for starters, she wasn’t alone-which was not to say she wasn’t lonely. There was a man-a stranger, and yet, somehow not a stranger-sleeping in the downstairs bedroom. The room that had been hers for almost a year. The room that held her past…her memories…her childhood. She’d been too busy to think about it, but now she realized because of the stranger’s presence in that room, with all it meant to her, she felt exiled. As if she’d been shut out of her own place…her own past.

And it occurred to her that maybe that was part of what was different about this sleeplessness. Because normally it was the past that haunted her, and tonight it wasn’t. It was the future.

Except, haunted wasn’t the right word. Preoccupied, perhaps. Excited. Galvanized. Yes-all of those!

There was so much to do. Her mind was a jumble of plans…ideas. She couldn’t wait for the new day to begin so she could get started-as soon as Max gave the go-ahead, which he would, she was sure of it.

Roy, of course, was another matter.

Her thoughts darkened, and some of the old, more familiar nighttime loneliness crept around her like a chilly draft when she recalled the way he’d looked when she’d made her proposal. Angry, of course. And…betrayed?

He’d called her devious.

He’d accused her of having an ulterior motive for kissing him. Implying he wouldn’t care to kiss her if she did. The thought that Roy might not want to kiss her again made her feel unexpectedly bad. Hollow. Empty and lonely and cold.