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  “Don’t count on it,” he snapped. “I hope, Lisa, that you would never stoop so low as to try to trap me. I could never forgive a woman who manipulated me like that.”

  “I would never want to trap you,” she said in a small voice.

  His grip around her tightened. “I know. There’s a sweetness and honesty about you, in spite of this nonsense about where you do or don’t come from. I’d like to see more of you. A whole lot more.”

  “Of course,” Lisa responded automatically, but a painful pressure in her chest warned that it wouldn’t work. She might be able to defy her parents’ choice of a husband, but she couldn’t marry a man who refused to have children. Even if she were willing, the matter might already be out of her hands.

  And in truth, from the moment they met, she had been deceiving Ryder. Even if she wasn’t pregnant, sooner or later she would have to tell him the whole story. He couldn’t help but despise her for it.

  Tomorrow morning, early, she had to leave. If Ryder proved to be a heavy sleeper, she might take the coward’s way and sneak out, leaving a note. He would hate her forever, and she deserved it. She also deserved the broken heart she would carry for the rest of her days.

  What she didn’t deserve was a baby. But Lisa hoped for one, anyway. Not so much for her parents anymore, but because she would cherish being able to keep even that much of Ryder.

  *

  He awoke to clear mountain light and an itchy sense of something amiss. Ryder patted the bed beside him. Empty.

  “Lisa?” He heard no answering voice, no telltale creak of the floor, no running water in the shower.

  A wave of disbelief swept over him. If only he could roll over and go back to sleep, and awaken to find that this solitude had been a bad dream.

  The clock read 9:17. It was late enough that she might have risen earlier and gone out for a newspaper or croissant. Her absence might be only temporary.

  Ryder sat up, annoyed at his own anxiety. Just because he made love to a woman didn’t mean he had a right to keep her on a leash. Besides, she might not have heard him calling if she were in the kitchen.

  He rose, winced as his foot met the floor and hobbled on a short tour of the chalet. He called, “Lisa?” several times and listened with growing agitation to the silence that followed. She couldn’t have left him. Not when, for the first time in his life, he was beginning to care about someone.

  On the kitchen table, he saw a sheet of paper marked with feminine handwriting. Don’t, Ryder thought. Don’t do this to me, Lisa.

  He walked to the table and picked it up. The paper released a drift of perfume that mingled with the leftover scent of tomato soup and sent crystal-sharp memories needling into him. There were only two words written on the paper: “Sorry. Lisa.”

  Just two words. Not enough to tell him where she’d gone or if she’d be back. Ryder glanced into the wastebasket. Tiny pieces of torn paper littered the bottom. Too tiny to be worth piecing together on the off chance that he’d find out what she had tried to tell him before she gave up and left this stiletto thrust of a farewell.

  He crumpled the paper in his hand. Wadded, it took on substance, as if she had left him something, after all. Sure, she’d left him something: a deep, burning rage at being tricked and used.

  He still didn’t understand what her game was, and he hoped he wouldn’t to find out in some particularly unpleasant manner. Instinctively Ryder went to check his wallet in the bedroom. He didn’t recall leaving it in such an open position, but as far as he could tell, nothing had been taken. Although Lisa could have copied a credit card number, he doubted she’d had petty thievery in mind. He played and replayed in his mind the whole bizarre episode that had begun on the ski slope, but it didn’t fit any pattern that Ryder recognized.

  He had no more time to waste on Miss Switzerland, or wherever she really came from. On his way to the coffeepot, Ryder tossed the wadded paper into the trash. That, he told himself, was the last he would ever see or hear of Lisa Schmidt.

  Chapter Seven

  Lisa wasn’t sure how she managed to drive to Denver, return the car at the airport and fly to New York. She felt unnaturally heavy and wondered that the world didn’t groan beneath her weight.

  The flight was well under way before she allowed herself to think about the man she’d left. And the manner in which she’d left him.

  This morning at the chalet, she had tried twice to compose an explanation for Ryder, but it always emerged jumbled and, worse, self-justifying. Besides, she knew nothing would soften his anger.

  Before leaving, she’d tiptoed into the bedroom to gaze at the man as he slept. She didn’t need to memorize the rugged strength of his body or the gentleness in his mouth; they were engraved on her heart. She just longed to be near him, one last time.

  On impulse, she’d flipped open his wallet and taken a business card. It was silly, since she could get the same information from his website, but having the card was like keeping a little piece of him.

  He’d been so adamant about not having children! Yet wasn’t there a chance, if she told him all the facts, that he might change his mind?

  Lisa shuddered. She couldn’t bear to register his disgusted expression as he turned his back on her. That was why she’d fled. I never knew I was such a coward.

  Straightening her seat as they prepared for landing in New York, Lisa took a cold, hard look at herself. She’d never deliberately used or hurt anyone until now. Since adolescence, she had maintained a balancing act between pacifying her parents and enjoying a pleasant—if circumscribed—world that included friends, books, theater and occasional travel in the company of her mother. Without much thought, Lisa had assumed she could go on that way indefinitely.

  When the obnoxious Boris Grissofsky came into the picture, Ryder Kelly had seemed like the perfect solution. Convenient and disposable. A daddy with no questions asked. She’d never expected wild passion, or love so intense she ached.

  Ryder felt the same way she did, Lisa believed. It was doubly wrong to run out, wrong to leave him in the dark and wrong to dodge the consequences of her actions. He deserved the truth. Then if he chose to kick her out, well, that would be up to him.

  A quiver of relief ran through her. Despite her fear at the prospect of returning to him, it had to be done.

  The plane rumbled as the landing gear lowered. Once she deplaned, she would have to arrange for a ticket back to Colorado. Would Ryder still be there? He had no reason to stick around. In fact, he would almost certainly be gone.

  Since she had his office address, she could fly to Los Angeles instead. Or simply call him and arrange...no! She couldn’t explain herself at a distance.

  Frustrated, Lisa faced the other half of her obligation, to come clean with her parents and break off with Boris. She should do that before she was free to confront Ryder and, possibly, consider a future with him.

  What if she burned her bridges and then he couldn’t forgive her, especially if she were pregnant? It didn’t change anything, Lisa decided. She’d never be able to live in her old skin, in her old world.

  From this day forward, she would stop drifting and take control of her life. She’d leave home and get a job on her own. Hadn’t she discovered during her stint in the Amsterdam office that she enjoyed business? Well, her father had started from scratch, and so could she.

  The plane jolted onto the runway. The engines roared as they reversed. The future was rushing to meet her, full of uncertainty and painful reckonings. But the world in which she’d been a pampered princess in a castle had ended the moment she fell in love with Ryder Kelly.

  That Annalisa Maria Von Schmidt De La Pena was dead. Long live the new one! she thought, and collected her purse from beneath the seat.

  *

  Lothaire had been his usual efficient self. He had procured a limousine-style cab, with enough space for Boris to hide under a tarp in the rear. As soon as Annalisa slid into the cab, it would be Boris’s job to leap up and cla
p an ether-infused cloth over her face. Lothaire would whisk them to a private runway, where a private jet waited to carry them to the Caribbean.

  Sweltering under the canvas as planes roared to a landing nearby, Boris had time to consider that this plan might not be as foolproof as he had imagined. Lisa might step out of the airport and hail a random cab just as it cruised by—no, Lothaire would manage to snare her, no doubt.

  But was it possible he’d fallen into a trap himself? Here he crouched in the dark, at the mercy of his associate. Not that Boris suspected Lothaire of planning to abduct him, but he was placing tremendous trust in a man who had worked for him less than two years.

  Lothaire earned a modest salary and knew the precarious state of Boris’s finances, yet he was breaking numerous laws by helping abduct Annalisa. What did the young man expect to gain? Boris hoped he wasn’t taking bribes from one or another gangster organization.

  Hiring the young man had been a rare break in a streak of bad luck dating back several years. Several major deals had gone sour, due to the dishonesty and incompetence of others. Now Boris owed a hundred thousand dollars to the Yakuza, which paled in comparison to what he’d already lost to the Russian mob.

  Soon after Lothaire was hired, the young man had suggested the marriage to Annalisa as a solution. Boris had rejected the idea at first. He was, after all, distantly related to the Hohnersteins, and the girl was nothing but the spoiled child of an upstart Dutch secondhand dealer. Schuyler Schmidt had added the “von” for effect, and adopted his wife’s aristocratic Spanish name after they married.

  Boris had only agreed when it was pointed out that the daughter had noble blood on her mother’s side, and that her dowry alone would bail out his debts, while her eventual inheritance should set him up for life.

  He hadn’t counted on having to sink to such depths to snare her. How infuriating that a brilliant entrepreneur like Boris should be forced to act like a street thug! He quivered with outrage. How dare this girl humiliate him? After they were married, she would pay the price.

  Someone rattled the door handle. Boris jerked. The cab sat at the curb, and now he realized a customer was demanding a ride. “Out of service!” shouted Lothaire from the front seat.

  “Your sign is lit!” a man’s voice replied. “Open up!”

  “The cab’s taken.”

  A pounding on the window made the fillings jump in Boris’s teeth. “I’m in a hurry! Unlock the damn door!”

  “Go away!” From the growl in Lothaire’s voice, Boris feared his aide might pull a gun. Thank goodness his employee was never hotheaded.

  “I’ll file a complaint with the authorities. Now let me in!” The man yanked the door so hard the cab rocked.

  Boris had had enough. Flinging off the hated tarp, he bared his teeth and leaped toward the window. A little round-faced man leaped back so fast his glasses flew to the sidewalk.

  “I told you it was taken,” called Lothaire, and pulled away from the curb.

  His blood still racing, Boris couldn’t bring himself to hide again. “I feel like an idiot.”

  “Some things are unavoidable,” said Lothaire. “Aha! There she is!”

  “Where?” Peering ahead, Boris glimpsed a tall, smartly dressed woman striding along the sidewalk towing a suitcase on wheels. Her long black hair floated in the spring air and her eyes glowed like emeralds. His prize. His treasure. She was waving for a taxi.

  “Get down!” Lothaire rasped.

  As he started to duck, Boris glimpsed another cab cutting in front of them. No doubt the driver had also seen this well-heeled target.

  A string of exotic curses escaped Lothaire’s lips as he jockeyed for position. Frozen by horrified fascination, Boris remained in a squat, staring as the object of his machinations signaled the cab ahead of them and stepped from the curb.

  “Get her!” he shouted. “Go!”

  Lothaire stomped on the gas pedal. They shot forward so abruptly that Boris fell against the rear seat. The car bucked and squealed to a halt amid the shattering of glass and the scream of a bystander. Boris flew forward, bounced, and landed on the floor.

  The motor died. As Boris slowly raised himself, he glimpsed Lothaire’s hands making futile fists against the steering wheel. “What happened?” gasped Boris.

  “We hit her.”

  “Who?”

  “Get out.” Lothaire ripped off his seat belt. “Hurry!”

  Reaching shakily for his door handle, Boris spotted a cluster of people in the roadway ahead of them. Between their legs, he could see a black-haired woman lying on the ground. They had hit Annalisa. Rotten luck. But all might not be lost. “Let’s scoop her up and get out of here.”

  “What if she’s dead?” His associate kicked open the driver’s door. “And if we don’t pull a disappearing act, we might as well be, too.”

  Dead? Annalisa, his last hope? Boris would still have voted in favor of snatching her, but Lothaire was elbowing his way through the crowd, fleeing toward a distant taxi stand. He was the only one who knew how to find their chartered plane.

  After exiting the cab on the traffic side, Boris sneaked around to the sidewalk. Everyone was too busy fussing over Annalisa or gesturing at the escaping cabbie to notice him.

  Desperately, he elbowed his way toward the center of the confusion. Annalisa lay like a rag doll, her suitcase beside her. Her purse had burst open, scattering its contents to hell and gone.

  Her chest heaved and she stirred. Relief crackled through him. She was alive!

  When sirens wailed toward them, Boris headed away through the throng as if he had a flight to catch. How seriously she might be injured, and how he would manage to snatch her, remained uncertain. It didn’t matter. Now that he knew she lived, he was going to get Annalisa, one way or another.

  *

  Through layers of mist, she felt a huge throb of pain. It pulsed and skittered, shrank and grew, until at last she pinpointed its location. My head hurts. She tried to speak the words aloud, but her mouth refused to obey.

  She was being wheeled on a gurney. The smells of disinfectant and medicine, along with a disembodied voice calling a Dr. Huang to the emergency room, confirmed that she was in a hospital.

  They rounded a corner. Every rattle and bump made her head ache. She wanted someone to hold her hand. Someone specific, except she couldn’t put a face to the feeling. Mother? Husband? No idea.

  The gurney swung around a corner and slowed, then stopped.

  “You take her shoulders,” said a man’s voice. Arms gripped Lisa, and she flew through the air, landing on a bed not much softer than the gurney. “Is she awake?” a man said briskly.

  “Her eyelids are fluttering,” replied a woman who must be the nurse. “Officer, she’s suffered a serious head injury. I doubt she’s in any shape to answer questions.”

  “It’s important we talk to her,” the male voice responded. “As soon as possible.”

  Why couldn’t she pry her eyelids apart? She wanted to ask what had happened. Mostly, she longed for someone at her side who loved her, but she couldn’t remember who that might be.

  “I don’t see any medical alert jewelry on her. Has someone notified her next of kin?” asked the nurse as she worked on Lisa. From nearby drifted the sounds of machine beeps and voices. Was she in the emergency room? Intensive care?

  “That’s the problem,” said the officer. “She has what appears to be a fake Swiss driver’s license in the name of Lisa Schmidt. If there’s a passport or a cell phone, we can’t find it.”

  “What about a plane ticket or one of those locator numbers?”

  “No sign of either one.”

  “You think she’s illegal?” the nurse asked.

  An illegal what? Lisa wondered vaguely.

  “It’s possible. Here’s the really strange part,” said the policeman. “The limo that struck her had a phony license. The driver fled before we got there.”

  “You think he hit her on purpose?” asked th
e nurse.

  “We won’t know until we talk to her,” said the policeman. “Could be a hit-and-run or an attempted homicide.”

  “Oh, good. Here’s the doctor,” the nurse said.

  Lisa tried to speak, to let them know she was awake, but darkness whirled around her. Just before she lost consciousness, she discovered that she had no clue why she had a fake driver’s license. She wasn’t sure whether the name Lisa Schmidt was actually hers. In fact, she remembered nothing about herself at all.

  *

  The lady who owned the takeout Chinese restaurant next to Ryder’s office was painting out the overnight graffiti from an exterior wall as he drove up. On the far side, the pawnshop manager was rolling up his protective grill for the day.

  Ryder parked his aging car between two buckled piles of asphalt. As he exited, the mingled smells of fresh paint and exhaust fumes made him grimace. For one disgusted moment, he wished he had stayed in the mountains of Colorado.

  It wasn’t so much the fresh air he missed, though. In spite of a well-cultivated ability to put disappointments behind him, Ryder couldn’t stop thinking about the woman he’d lost. She had haunted him on the plane ride to L.A. and slept with him in his dreams these past few nights. Once, he’d awakened almost certain that he could hear her breathing.

  Walking toward his office brought Ryder back to reality. A reality of cracked pavement and gutters full of gum and candy-bar wrappers.

  The Chinese lady smiled at him. “It is good to see you. I feel safer when you are here. That’s a nice suit, too.”

  “Thanks.” Ryder appreciated the value of projecting the right image, which was why he kept his hair short and wore a dark suit. That was also why, three years ago, he’d taken out a five-year lease on an office in this shabby mini-mall west of downtown.

  For the same money, he could have rented a larger place in any of a dozen nicer communities. But, rinky-dink as it might be, this strip had a Los Angeles address. That meant something to the people all over the world who read his website. Los Angeles. The city’s name conjured up images of movie stars and noir thrillers.