"You already agreed to that," she pointed out, hoping he wouldn't call her on having walked off earlier.
"--as a friend of mine."
That could carry more weight to help her convince Gwen to speak in private without using the hardball card Dr. Tatum had given her. "I'm game. Just who are you?"
His next breath ruffled fine hairs along her forehead. "Hunter."
"I heard your old nuisance call you that. No last name?"
"Is it really important?" He'd asked that as if the wrong answer would somehow judge her.
She couldn't think of a way to say, "Just how rich and important are you?" and he clearly didn't want to share more than he had about his identity.
She should have set some guidelines before agreeing so quickly.
He really thought they'd met before now?
As if she'd forget meeting a man who looked like him?
"If I knew your last name it might help..." She paused. A waste of time asking since he didn't respond. "But either way you still owe me for helping with this fiancee snooping."
He stopped staring over her head and lowered his gaze to meet hers, not acknowledging or denying her point. Just giving her a scorching look that brought her dormant hormones to life.
His lips were cut like a man's should be, not too smooth or too thin. A mouth that invited speculation.
If he rattled her that much with one long look, what would happen if he kissed her?
What was she doing even thinking something so ridiculous?
He gave all women that look. He probably couldn't turn off his sexiness without medical intervention.
His hand smoothed upward along her spine when he glanced away, as though keeping a connection to her even when something else held his gaze.
Her skin moved toward his hand. Don't shiver.
Where could she have possibly run into this guy? At a function she'd attended? "Been to any weddings in Chicago in the past couple years?"
He leaned back and raked her with a curious look, shaking his head. A lock of golden hair brushed his brow. His rugged chin fit with the relentless cut of his smooth jaw and cheeks. Professional grooming? No doubt.
Too perfect. Sort of like Harry the jeweler, that rotten low-life, cheating bastard. He'd screwed around on her the whole time she'd starved herself thin to drop two dress sizes and struggled with heating irons to straighten her hair.
She'd looked like his image of sexy, a total physical overhaul that never felt right.
No more starving or hair straightening.
All gone back to natural now.
Good thing. Six years ago, she'd stared into the mirror the day after catching Harry in the wrong sister's bed--Casey's.
Abbie hadn't spoken to Casey since then.
She'd made a life-altering decision that morning. The next man she got seriously involved with would have to take her the way God made her, with curly hair and a few extra pounds.
And she'd walk the minute she caught him in a lie.
"What kind of writing do you do?" Hunter asked, reminding her she was supposed to be figuring out where they might have met.
"Nonfiction." Abbie chewed on the inside of her lip, avoiding any discussion of how they met that might involve bringing up her employment with WCXB. "You do any volunteering with Greenpeace or the animal shelter?"
"No."
Another strike against this guy. Everyone should donate time to something.
An idea popped up. Her dad had collected antique farm equipment, storing treasures in his barns. She used to hunt for additions to his private museum during her travels. Before he died. "Do you own a farm of some sort?"
"A farm? Like a working farm?"
Why'd Hunter sound so incredulous? Some very influential people had grown up on farms and they were proud of their background. She was proud of hers. "Yes, a real live farm that produces things like crops, livestock, pigs, whatever."
"Pigs? No."
His insulted tone underlined how they were lifetimes apart in so many ways, the way they grew up only being one difference.
Keep that foremost in her thoughts to counteract any renegade tingling or stray hormones. She gave up. "You could help. How do you think we met?"
"No idea." He leaned back. His indolent gaze floated down to hers. "But I did meet you somewhere."
She couldn't be expected to figure this out with no reciprocal information. "What do you do?"
"I don't exactly have a job." He said that in a slow that-I-exist-should-be-enough voice.
She really hated men who did nothing. Harry thought selling diamonds was hard work.
Where were the real men in this country?
"We could get to know each other again," he said in a tone more suggestive than his words. "Might jog our memories."
Now that sounded like a line if she'd ever heard one.
Logic kicked in. Sure, he was hot, but underneath all that window dressing slept another lazy pretty boy who didn't lift a hand to do serious work and would never get involved with a woman like her. A woman who'd grown up with dirt under her nails and calluses on her hands.
Hunter used a finger to toy with an errant curl dangling above her eye.
All the logic in the world didn't stop the stampede inside her chest at his touch.
Did he know the effect he was having on her?
Of course he did. He was a man, one with lots of Lydias dying to climb into bed with him.
So why is he flirting with me? Because he considered her an easy target who would be thrilled over his attention?
She was pretty flattered, but not enough to feed an ego with an insatiable appetite.
Hadn't she learned anything six years ago?
All men were jerks.
Never, ever, forget that.
Within an instant, all playfulness vanished from his posture. His gaze flashed up and past her shoulder, alert, at something behind Abbie. The cheating female?
A rumble of excited voices vibrated the room.
She broke away from Hunter and swung around to find out what had everyone buzzing.
Gwen Wentworth had entered the main ballroom. Finally.
Abbie had played "how did we meet" long enough. The way the crowd was flooding in around Gwen, she doubted Hunter could even see his friend's fiancee any longer. Gwen would disappear into a gulf of humans in the next minute. Gaining her ear for more than ten seconds would be tough at this point.
Hunter owed Abbie an introduction for allowing him to use her as cover. That whole bit about knowing her had probably been a big fat lie just to keep her talking.
Her conscience argued that she'd had a moment of deja vu, too, when she'd first seen Hunter outside.
Didn't matter.
She wasn't asking for much in return and Gwen would be out of reach quickly. "That's who I want to meet."
When she didn't hear a reply, Abbie swung around.
Hunter was gone.
Chapter Seven
Hunter passed through a sea of faces more intent on being recognized by a Wentworth than noticing his retreat from Abbie. When he made it to the next salon, he whipped around the opposite side of a replica of an Elgin marble statue to observe the excited guests.
And one disappointed Abbie.
Dammit.
She would want to meet Gwen. An innocent enough request any other time, but not tonight.
At least his suspicion of Abbie had abated. If she had some ulterior motive for attending beyond stargazing and rubbing elbows with celebrities she'd have dressed to blend in with the other women and wouldn't have played along so easily with him.
"Regretting your decision to come alone?" Rae had approached quiet as a thought.
"No." Hunter kept watch so that no one--Abbie in particular--walked up on his conversation. But the entire room had migrated toward Gwenyth, who shimmered in gold and white like a billion-dollar magnet.
Rae offered him the humble smile of a staff member that he wouldn't trust right no
w to turn his back on. "I'm okay with you coming solo, too."
He sent her a look that said he knew better.
"I'm serious." Rae's smile took on life in a sly way. "If I'd been assigned to accompany you I wouldn't have had the pleasure of watching her walk away from you earlier. Must be a new experience for you to get shot down by a mere mortal."
"I needed a cover to observe someone. Don't make it out to be more than it was."
"That's right." Rae handed him a napkin and a flute of champagne. "She couldn't possibly meet your high standards."
He didn't want to discuss anything specific to the mission so he ended the conversation by refusing to engage further. Rae knew nothing about him. Bloodline and family ranking were rock-bottom on his give-a-shit list.
Rae started to move away, paused, then swung around and asked, "Excuse me? What did you need?"
He caught the signal. Something she had to share with him was being transmitted between agents. "Couple napkins. Sloshed my drink."
"Absolutely." With perfunctory motions, Rae sat her tray on the nearest available surface and strode back to him with a handful of napkins she used to dab at his untouched tuxedo lapel. She spoke softly. "Your new friend just shoved up close to Gwen, made some comment, then stepped away. Gwen looked shocked, then recovered and excused herself. She walked away but told one of her security something he relayed to the woman you were standing with. Who is she?"
Damned if he knew. "Don't know. That's what I was trying to figure out."
"Head of catering's walking this way," Rae whispered, then backed up and spoke louder. "Think that got it. Please, excuse me." She took a couple strides, grabbed her tray, and hurried over to where a gray-haired man in a black suit spoke to several of the staff. Immediate head-bobbing indicated they understood his instructions before the servers dispersed.
Hunter turned back to search for Abbie in the crowd Gwen had abandoned.
Maybe he'd dismissed her too quickly.
His gaze climbed the grand staircase to the upper landing, where the three men Gwen had been meeting with earlier now stood talking. The Italian-looking woman with the wavy shoulder-length black hair wore a demure royal-blue dress with a jacket and stood a step behind the men again. She moved forward and spoke to the man Hunter thought might be Vestavia, who nodded before she descended the staircase on the far side and blended into the crowd.
Could those men be the three Fratelli Linette had indicated would attend?
What of the Italian woman's identity? Linette?
Hunter couldn't go up the stairs to investigate until he had the damned package. The signal would be given on the main floor. He had plenty to keep him busy down here until Linette made the drop and sent the signal.
Like finding out why Gwen had disappeared after talking to Abbie.
Abbie clearly hadn't come to rub elbows with celebrities.
That niggling worry about tonight's mission crawled up his neck again. He discarded his champagne flute and headed for the throng of people ebbing back into private fissures within the mansion now that Gwen had vanished.
He and Abbie were going to have another chat. One wrong answer and she'd finish the conversation in shackles. He'd taken three steps when someone on the Wentworth serving staff politely inquired, "Have you seen an emerald-and-diamond earring? A guest is missing one of hers."
Talk about suck timing.
That was Linette's signal to retrieve the USB memory stick.
Abbie's heart raced ahead of her feet. She turned sideways, sliding like a flexible knife through the humans cluttering the Wentworth mansion.
Please don't let her be rushing into a security ambush that would hand her over to law enforcement.
When she reached the far end of the ballroom only a few people littered the hallway. None noticed her. At the next corner, she slowed to move through a hall broken up by four white doors trimmed with intricate gold designs.
One door opened. Abbie's blood pressure skyrocketed.
The young woman exiting the powder room wore a deep blue knee-length dress better suited to a boardroom than a party.
As they met, Abbie glanced over to take in the exotic female with lush black hair that fell to her shoulders and a petite face that resembled some Italian actress Abbie couldn't identify. But the curiosity wasn't returned.
Invisibility had its perks.
As Abbie reached the bathroom entrance, she paused just long enough to check behind her to ensure the Italian beauty had disappeared. She scampered ahead, following the directions Gwen's security guard had issued in the harsh tone of an order.
Probably because Gwen hadn't been happy when she'd spoken to him, which would be Abbie's fault for shocking the color from Gwen's face.
Two more turns and Abbie located the thick double doors crafted of varnished hickory she'd been told were not locked.
She placed her shaking fingers on a cool bronze handle and pressed her thumb on the lever, which moved smoothly.
Please don't let an alarm go off.
A small snick sounded then, hallelujah, the door opened.
Gwen hadn't tricked her. Yet.
A little too late to worry about being arrested for trespassing in a secured area of the mansion.
Still following instructions, Abbie crossed a paneled library that smelled of history and ink, then passed through a set of open glass doors into a sunroom twenty by forty feet. She kept walking across hand-painted tiles and through another set of open doors to a pool and patio area enclosed by a vine-covered stone wall that was chest high and appeared to be more an architectural decoration than a security measure. The fortress-looking wall a hundred feet away and partially hidden by trees should intimidate most of the population out of trespassing.
Armed security took care of the rest.
When Abbie stepped farther onto the patio, heat wafting from the walls warmed her, balancing the chilly evening temperature to a tolerable one. She watched for any sign of alarm or men with radios charging forward.
Nothing moved, not even the tiny candles hung on a stained glass screen. The tea lights offered just enough visibility for her to move around without falling into the pool, the surface of which lay still as a sheet of glass illuminated from below. Burgundy and yellow wicker furniture with bloated cushions covered in a sunflower pattern sat around the pool as if posed for a magazine shoot.
"You arrrived here faster than I expected."
Abbie whirled, hand on her chest. "You scared me to death."
Gwen stood in a shadowed corner. "Seems only fair since you weren't exactly subtle in the ballroom."
"I don't have time to be subtle."
"So you say." Gwen continued in a rich voice Abbie recognized as cultivated to sound both exquisitely feminine and professional. Her creamy skin and smooth cheeks were taut with stress lines, her eyes searching everywhere.
Abbie waited in silence.
Gwen had to make the next move, before Abbie said another incriminating word.
When the heiress lowered herself to a wicker chair next to a glass table, Abbie took the chair that faced Gwen and the grounds beyond the patio. She drew a breath, preparing to gamble her future and very likely her freedom.
Gwen held up a finger. "First, I want the truth about why you're here."
"I told you. I found out the real reason my mother has been going to the Kore Women's Center every year and about the experiments going on there." Abbie's heart pounded loud as an angry fist on a door.
Dr. Tatum had warned her not to speak to Gwen inside the house where her conversation might be caught by electronic listening devices. She had to make Gwen believe they had to meet somewhere private outside.
Gwen sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. "Any facility like Kore has a research division."
"Not like Kore's. I know about what happened to women like my mother. Fertile women with rare blood."
Gwen didn't say anything for several seconds. "What do you think you know?"
"I know about the scam," Abbie started. "The Kore Women's Center convinces unsuspecting women to come in for free tests and lab work, then they use that information to vet potential candidates to be blackmailed into their secret program."
Gwen's eyes widened with each word. Her skin rivaled her white dress for lack of color. She visibly struggled for control, then regained it quickly. "You do realize how absurd that sounds."
"You think I'd be stupid enough to come here without evidence?" Abbie had bluffed her way into a lot of situations, such as getting her first chance in the news business, but the line of hooey she'd just handed Gwen took the prize. She didn't have anything more than a belief in the doctor who had cared for all the women in her family for over twenty years. Time to start negotiations. "If you help me, I won't incriminate you in any way. But if you don't help me, I'm going to expose everything I have on the Kore Women's Center--and the Wentworths--to the world and let the chips fall where they will."
Gwen sat so still she seemed mummified, then she shook her head, speaking in a whisper. "You can't do that."
"I can and will do that. My mother was perfectly healthy until she entered your clinic ten days ago. Now she's dying. You help me or I'll find a way to shut down the clinic. I don't care how much propaganda you put out about helping other women."
"We do help women. We--"
"Save it for someone who believes you." Abbie figured she had very little time before someone came hunting for Gwen and ended her meeting. "I have years of documentation for her visits and blood donations. My mother's doctor may have believed the bogus medical records Kore sent in response to his inquiries, but I now have proof of what you're hiding and I'll use it if that's the only way to find out what happened to my mother."
"You don't have any idea of the repercussions of what you're threatening."
True, but that had never stopped Abbie before once she had her mind made up.
Dr. Tatum had shared everything he knew, but he didn't know what had compelled Abbie's mother to make annual trips to give blood at the Kore clinic for the past thirty-two years--starting two years before Abbie was born. She planned to find out. Her mother's rare H-1 blood had to be part of the reason, but whatever test--or treatment--they did during the last visit had caused her mother's spleen to fail.