Dangerous to Know Read Free Page B

on the kitchen table.”
    His lips curved. “On the nightstand, actually. I’ve laid out her agenda from the hour she leaves L.A. to the minute she arrives in Cannes.”
    Maggie couldn’t help wondering what kind of woman would live her life to one of Doc’s precise schedules. “I’m looking forward to meeting her,” she said honestly.
    â€œYou’ll like her. She doesn’t have your confidence and exuberance, perhaps, and she’s a little timid at times, but she’s…she’s…”
    Maggie waited in surprised anticipation. If the articulate, precise Doc had to fumble for an adjective to describe this woman, he must have it bad. A tiny pang of envy curled through her. Carefully she avoided looking at Adam.
    â€œShe’s sweet,” Doc finished.
    With a final nod to Adam, he picked up his trench coat and folded it over his arm. His eyes held a gleam that only two people who have shared dangerous, desperate hours could understand.
    â€œSee you on the Riviera, Chameleon.”
    â€œSee you, Doc.”
    Maggie’s soft sigh floated on the air for a moment after Doc left to catch his plane. She turned to find Adam’s inquiring gaze on her.
    â€œI wish I could manage my life as well as Doc does,” she said with a small shrug. “I have enough trouble just working in the care and feeding of one small house pet, let alone a fiancé or even a significant other.”
    â€œPerhaps if you got rid of that repulsive reptile you call a pet,” Adam suggested dryly, “you might find it easier to acquire a fiancé or a significant other.”
    Maggie refused to rise to the bait. She and Adam had agreed to disagree about the relative merits of a large iguana as a companion.
    â€œSomething tells me I won’t have too much trouble ‘acquiring’ male companionship in this little outfit,” she responded, with a seductive toss of her shining white gold hair.
    To her absolute delight, Adam’s jaw squared a fraction. Maggie couldn’t have pinpointed exactly when ruffling his formidable equilibrium had become such a personal challenge to her. In the three years they’d worked together, he’d never given any indication of anything other than a professional interest in her well-being. And she would’ve died before admitting how much the media shots of the dashing special envoy out for an evening on the town with any one of his several elegant and very eligible companions disturbed her.
    Yet there was no denying the intensity of the awareness that arced between them. Or the way her heart seemed to flip-flop in her chest whenever they were alone together. Or how much it secretly delighted her when Adam raked her face with those steel blue eyes, as he did now.
    â€œI have no doubt any number of men will try to purchase your services during this mission,” he said after a moment.
    Flashing him a mischievous grin over one shoulder, Maggie headed for the door. “I just hope they can afford my price.”
    For long moments after she left, Adam stood still and silent, one hand in the pocket of his tailored gray suit. Without realizing he was doing so, he fingered a gold money clip that held a fold of hundred-dollar bills.

Chapter 2
    P aige could sense the Mediterranean before she saw it. As her tiny rental car putt-putted up steep hills, then coasted down winding inclines, the air took on a softer, balmier feel. Even the scent from thousands of acres of roses and jasmine and mimosa and wild lavender around the mountain town of Grasse, the perfume capital of France, couldn’t disguise the tang of the sea only a few more miles ahead.
    Double-clutching to downshift around a hairpin curve, Paige winced when the gears growled a protest. After three days of driving through the French Alps, she still hadn’t quite mastered either the winding roads or the art of changing gears or an incline. Sending the gearshift an