If Rock noticed the scar, and he noticed everything, explaining the tummy tuck would be tricky. Back in the day, he’d hired her for her stripper’s body. How likely was he to believe she’d suddenly developed a belly bulge and saddlebags that needed immediate removal?
There were other changes to her body, too. Changes plastic surgery couldn’t hide—the wider spread of her hips, and breasts that weren’t quite as perky as they used to be. Rock knew her measurements down to the millimeter. He had to so he could fit her into the tiny hiding spaces of his illusions. Another man in another profession might not have noticed such subtle changes, but she feared Rock would. And that would be disastrous.
As for her precious baby, he was currently in the care of an NCS agent aptly code-named Nanny. Nanny was good with children and one of the Agency’s best bodyguards. Nanny had cared for the children of kings, potentates, spies, double agents, and informants. Nanny had a perfect record of keeping charges safe and kidnap-free.
But none of the other children had ever been quite as big a prize for RIOT. A son of a secret agent and a magician they had been courting for years was a plum the terrorist organization would go after with the full force of their evil to get to Rock. If RIOT ever realized her little boy existed. For that reason, Rock couldn’t be allowed to know that he had a son, either. Not unless, or until, RIOT no longer had a use for Rock or a need to make him do their bidding. In this situation, what Rock didn’t know could save him and the mission.
In any war, there are casualties and sacrifices. That’s what she told herself when she was rationalizing. It wasn’t much comfort.
Rock turned to Emmett. “Are you going to tell me what this mission is about?” His tone was impatient. He obviously wanted to be briefed and left alone with Lani as quickly as possible.
“Not here in the entryway. Someplace more comfortable, maybe?” Emmett said.
Rock nodded and led them to his living room with its floor-to-ceiling windows, grand piano in the corner, gas fireplace, built-in flat-screen TV, and groupings of dark-brown leather furniture and equally dark wood furniture. The only softness in the room was the large bouquet of fresh flowers on the oversized coffee table.
Rock pulled Lani to the deep, overstuffed, polished leather sofa and tugged her down next to him, situating her so she was practically in his lap. He kept staring at her as if she’d disappear again, as if he couldn’t believe his good fortune in getting her back. Lani had the feeling a pair of handcuffs would be less restrictive than his possessive optimism.
Emmett took a seat in a leather chair opposite them as Lani fought not to slide off the slippery leather couch. It was so deep she felt like a kid, her feet barely touching the floor, even with high-heeled boots on. She was five feet seven inches. No shrimp by any means. She hated feeling small. Fall off that thing onto the hardwood floors, even with the plush area rug beneath her, and she’d probably get a concussion.
She stared at Emmett and tried to ignore the intimate way Rock stared at her. “Sitting in here I feel as if we need the Rock Powers, Chief, and Lani silhouette shades.”
Emmett laughed, but her reference to Get Smart was lost on Rock. He’d never been in on her spy humor before. And why would he have been? Until tonight, he hadn’t known she was a secret agent. He gave her a quizzical look as if there was something about her he didn’t know and was still trying to figure out.
Oh, there was plenty about her he didn’t know. Despite their married status, he knew nothing about her really. Practically everything she’d told him had been a lie or a stretch of the truth. She wondered whether he would still love her if he knew the real her.
“We’ll be fine,” Emmett said. “I’ll bring them next time.”
Lani looked around. There were a million places to hide a bug inside and another million for a sniper to hide outside. “Are you sure this place is clean?”
“Our guys swept it while Rock was gambling earlier this evening. We’re good.”
Lani shrugged. The Agency boys were experts. Were they expert enough? She was jumpy these days. Jumpier than she’d been when she had only herself to worry about. Emmett had good reason not to want his agents to form attachments. She was living proof of that.
Emmett cleared his throat. “Is it just me, or has it gotten thirsty in here?”
Rock reluctantly let go of Lani’s hand and jumped up. “Where are my manners? Can I get you anything? I have a fully stocked bar.”
“Whiskey, neat.” Emmett smiled at Rock.
“Lani?”
“Bottled water will be fine.” She needed to keep her head about her and she didn’t trust Rock not to lace her drink with the stuff he’d used on their wedding night. The stuff that made her cast aside her convictions, inhibitions, and good sense and marry him. She was definitely going to check the cap and seal on the water when he handed it to her, even though, deep down, she had the feeling it was the strength of his love that had drugged her.
“Neat and water, I can do,” Rock said as he poured Emmett and himself a drink and opened the minifridge for a bottle of water. “Peach or lemon flavor?” he asked Lani.
She should have been touched he still stocked the water she loved and remembered her two favorite flavors. Instead, he was just making it tougher on them. “Peach.”
“The help’s out tonight,” Rock said as he handed Emmett his whiskey.
“I know,” Emmett said.
Lani was sure he did. For all she knew, he’d given them the night off. If the help was out, she’d be left all alone with Rock. Not good. Not that having the help around had inhibited them in the past, either. But this was too convenient. And she still wasn’t comfortable with his apparent calm. Last thing she wanted was to have to stun-gun him.
She thought about drugging him, but Rock would probably notice in the morning. The man held his alcohol like he was born in a distillery.
Rock handed her the water. “Would you like a glass?”
She shook her head. No use giving him easy access to her beverage.
Rock sat down beside her as she screwed the cap off her bottle. “So, this nefarious mission?”
CHAPTER THREE
Think what the two spies with him would, Rock was no idiot. He was acting calm and unsuspecting, the eager husband, for his own reasons. Not that he wasn’t dying to get Lani into bed. Sexual tension practically crackled in the air between them. Whatever kind of woman the real Lani the spy was, she hadn’t faked, and wasn’t now faking, their chemistry. Rock had been fantasizing about their reunion for the last two years. He wasn’t going to blow things now, even if that meant he had to wait a few days for his fantasies to become reality.
Rock wasn’t a great illusionist and good mentalist for nothing. He read people for fun, and sometimes profit, and always for the upper hand. Which right now Rock needed if he was going to win his wife back. If she was indeed the woman she’d pretended to be when she married him and not some coldhearted femme fatale or Mata Hari.
As for Lani, the signals he was getting meant that beneath the surface of her breathtakingly beautiful and tantalizing exotic exterior, an inner conflict and emotional war roiled. She was holding something back from him. He felt her desire, the old desire he knew so well. But she was reining it in subtly. He felt the restraint in the slightly tepid way she held his hand. Or maybe he was simply fooling himself. She’s a spy, idiot. Did she ever really love me?
Yes, he answered himself. He couldn’t have been wrong about that. She may have been on a mission, but she’d fallen in love with him, even if she hadn’t intended to. He knew she had. But now, after two years? He couldn’t say for sure whether she still loved him.
If she was the woman he thought she was, he could woo her back. Make her feel the force of his love again. Convince her he was the man for her. He would.
But he had to proceed carefully. He couldn’t let this chance to get Lani back slip away. He put on his best poker face.
Being unofficially in NCS’s emp
loy had to mean something dangerous and risky. Something like he’d take the fall if the operation went south. Something like if he ever found himself in deep shit, they wouldn’t be bailing him out. Was finding out if he really wanted this Lani back worth the risk?
He knew the answer to that question, too. Yes.
Two years ago Lani had bailed on him in the middle of a performance to save her life and his career, so NCS claimed. Rock understood self-preservation as well as the next guy. But in the intervening years she’d never found time to drop him a text, send him a coded message, maybe call him on a secure line to let him know she was alive? She’d never thought to mention to him during their affair and almost laughingly short marriage that she was a spy? As if he, of all people, couldn’t keep a secret. Now that stung.
He had the feeling that if it weren’t for this mission, she would have let him dangle for the rest of his life. And yet, despite the danger, she had come back. She sent mixed messages. What did the real Lani want with him?
He squeezed Lani’s hand and smiled at her encouragingly. The art of misdirection, he thought.
Sitting across from Rock, Emmett Nelson smiled and set his whiskey on the coffee table. “From now on, you’re sworn to absolute secrecy. I won’t tell you more than you need to know, but if you spill a word of it, we will take you out. We have a license to kill.” He grinned. “Understand?”
“License to kill, like Bond. Got it.” He thought Nelson was being a touch overdramatic. Citizens still had rights.
Emmett nodded. “We have an enemy of the state, of the world, really, that citizens of this country and the rest of the planet are totally unaware of. As I mentioned in the car, they call themselves RIOT, an acronym for Revolutionary International Organization of Terrorists.
“RIOT is headed by genius megalomaniac Archibald Random. His goal is to take over the world.”
Rock had to fight to hide a smirk. “You do know how melodramatic that sounds?”
Nelson sighed, looking unsurprised by Rock’s reaction. “Yeah, we get that a lot. Which is why we’ve kept his ambitions a secret from the American public and the rest of the world. Their reaction would be the same. The public, if they know of him at all, recognize him only as a fierce businessman who’d just as soon make his money off a bear market as a bull one. He likes to see others suffer.
“People may think he’s a crackpot. But he’s terrifically wealthy, well funded, and dangerous. His goal is to bring down the world’s governments, starting with the United States and the rest of the economic world leaders.
“The list of his terrorist plots we’ve thwarted is long and classified.”
“What does this have to do with Lani and me?” Rock wanted to goad him into revealing as much as possible.
Nelson leaned forward and spoke in a solemn tone. “As I alluded to earlier, it was his men who tried to kill Lani two years ago. RIOT had a plan to blow up Hoover Dam, take out the Western power grid, and cause mayhem and panic.
“Lani gathered vital intel that allowed us to stop RIOT before they could act and innocent lives were lost. And fortunately for Lani, and us, she got away and we took out any RIOT operatives who could identify her.
“Whether you believe me or not, she was incredibly brave to step out onto that stage with you at all, given that it made her a sitting duck for a sniper’s bullet.” Nelson smiled, speaking as pleasantly as if he were talking about a recent family hike in the desert rather than a group of maniacal madmen.
A shiver ran down Rock’s spine at the reality of Lani crumpled on stage, dying before his eyes. He turned his attention to her, shaken by the actuality of what she’d done. She was a hero, no doubt about it.
A jumbled maelstrom of emotions played through him. She’d betrayed him to save others. Very admirable. And hell on a relationship. Could he live with the thought that he’d never be first in her life?
He squeezed her hand again, reassuring himself as much as her.
She shrugged, looking at him as if what she’d done, and what she’d sacrificed, were no big deal. That cut Rock, too. Had he misread her feelings for him?
Rock felt Emmett’s gaze on him. “RIOT is back in Vegas,” Emmett said. “This time they’re targeting the magic community.”
Rock raised a brow. This was getting more interesting by the minute. “Really? What do they want with us? The secret to making the Strip disappear? I’ve done that before. On television, anyway.” He was being lighthearted, but that TV special had been a ratings phenom and the illusion a huge success.
Nelson remained serious. “Close. They’re planning to penetrate Area 51 and steal a piece of top-secret technology we’re developing.”
Rock shook his head. This was ludicrous. He didn’t see how he fit in. “That’s your ball of wax. I can’t create a magic force field to keep them out, if that’s what you’re hoping. Besides, I thought Dreamland was impregnable. In fact, hell, I thought it didn’t even officially exist.”
Nelson smiled. “You speak too soon, about that force field, anyway. You haven’t heard their plan. Or our counterplan.”
“A force field?” Rock may as well leave his brow cocked for the duration of this conversation. It just got more and more bizarre. “Intriguing. All right, I’ll bite. What’s the plan?”
If believing in illusionary force fields was the state of the world’s best intelligence agency, the free world was in deep trouble.
Nelson didn’t crack even the slightest of smiles. “They’re going to stage an alien attack.”
Rock sat back and studied Nelson. He’s dead serious. “What?”
“It’ll be an illusion, of course. The kind of thing the U.S. did in World War Two. Ever hear of the Twenty-third Headquarters Special Troops?”
Rock shook his head. Great, he heard a history lesson coming. “No.”
“No, most people haven’t,” Nelson said. “During the war even most of the regular troops didn’t know they existed. They were actors, sound engineers, special-effects specialists from the movie industry, writers, designers, camoufleurs, and engineers. Deception and secrecy were their stock in trade. They never wore their own insignia. Instead, they impersonated other battalions and other troops, sometimes even the enemy.
“They reported directly to General Omar Bradley, the ground commander in Europe. Their mission was to feed the enemy false intelligence and lead them away from where the Allies were planning to attack. To get the enemy to amass their troops in the wrong locations, leaving the gate open for our campaigns.
“The actor Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. was instrumental in leading them and designing some of their campaigns. They were brilliant, using inflatable tanks and dummies to stage what appeared to the enemy as our troop movements. They created chatter, sonic illusions they called them, that fed the Germans false information and also simulated the sound of large companies of men moving through the countryside.
“They were mostly unarmed, exceptionally brave men who helped win the war with deception.” Nelson cracked the slightest of smiles. “I can see you’re starting to get the idea that we have need of a deception specialist and a little countermagic.
“RIOT is going to stage an alien attack, using the tactics of illusion, sometime during the upcoming National UFO, or NUFO, convention. Their goal is to send a panicked crowd streaming into Dreamland past the gates, overwhelming the camo dudes and security. Dreamland isn’t even gated.
“RIOT’s counting on us not bombing or shooting into a crowd of our own civilians.
“We can, of course, use tear gas and other riot-control techniques. But with a large enough crowd in the open-air environment?” Nelson shrugged. “How effective will it be to stop the chaos?
“RIOT will have agents in the crowd, egging them on, and ready to sneak into the secure area during the mayhem.” Emmett clenched his fist. “I will not allow RIOT to breach our facility on my watch.”
Rock’s mouth went dry and his pulse raced as he thought of the possibilities. He had
an ominous feeling that he knew where this was headed. “They’d need an accomplished magician to plan, orchestrate, and pull something like that off. Who…”
Emmett didn’t reply, just smiled knowingly, looking as if Rock would eventually figure it out on his own.
“Shit!” Rock pounded the arm of the sofa and squeezed Lani’s hand so tightly she grimaced. “Sol Blackledge?”
As Rock eased up on his death grip of Lani’s hand, he cursed Sol. He and that ass went way back to magic training at the Magic Castle in Los Angeles.
To think they’d actually been friends then. Until Sol stole the plans for one of Rock’s most creative illusions, performed it, and passed it off as his own before Rock could perform it. Since that defining moment, he and Sol had competed for everything. Including Lani.
Lani gave Rock’s arm a reassuring squeeze. Or maybe she was simply trying to calm him down.
Emmett nodded. “They’ve been backing Sol financially for years. Who do you think financed that illusion Sol stole from you, the one that made his career?”
Rock went cold as realization dawned on him and a memory from a decade ago came back to him. “That group of financial backers approached me first. I turned them down because I didn’t want to sell out and give up my creative control. They were terrorists?”
“Yes. RIOT,” Emmett said.
Lani sat silently beside Rock, letting Emmett deliver all the bad news.
Rock shook his head, trying to grasp the situation. “Sol doesn’t have the creativity, the talent, or the skill to develop an illusion that complex. Especially not on the fly,” Rock said. “A trick like that takes years of planning.”
“Yes, it does.” Emmett looked Rock in the eye.
Beside Rock, Lani tensed. Rock got a very bad feeling.
Emmett paused and then spoke slowly. “Does the name Outlandish Marauders mean anything to you?”