Game For Anything. Cara Summers
real name is.”
Pocketing the coin, she turned and headed toward her car. Let him chew on that while he followed her home.
WHAT IN HELL KIND OF GAME was she playing? The question had been plaguing him ever since the Princess had flipped that damn coin. Easing his foot off the gas, he allowed the car to drop back a little farther behind Sophie’s as they sped along the expressway that would take them into the District of Columbia. The last thing he was going to do was crowd her. She’d surprised him three times tonight. First of all, she’d kissed him. Then she’d dumped Landry. And now she’d invited Tracker into her apartment for a continuation of their game of twenty questions. He didn’t like surprises where the Princess was concerned, especially when the stakes were this high.
Since he couldn’t predict what kind of game she was playing, he’d make sure the odds were in his favor.
When she slowed and signaled a turn onto an off-ramp, he eased his foot from the gas.
He should never have kissed her on the dance floor. He hadn’t been able to resist her. And that one kiss had confirmed his worst suspicion: one was not going to be enough with Sophie Wainright. Not nearly. Whatever he’d imagined in his fantasies hadn’t come close to reality. One taste and his control had slipped. The pull between them was so elemental that before he’d found the strength to set her away, he’d lost something of himself.
He wanted her, and he was beginning to understand that he would have her. The need he had for her might not leave him with any choice. The thought chilled him even as it made every pulse in his body throb. But for now—tonight and the next few days—he had a job to do, and he would do it much better if he could maintain some distance.
Pressing his foot on the accelerator, he closed the distance between them. It was time for plan A. Uncapping the bottle he’d pulled from his pocket, he took a good swallow. It would take about five minutes for the contents to work its magic on his stomach.
He planned to spend the night in Sophie’s apartment, but not in her bed. Tonight, he wasn’t going to take any chances. He hadn’t kept watch over the Princess for two years without figuring out what her weaknesses were, and she was a sucker for strays and under-dogs.
When the first stomach cramp hit, he closed the distance between the cars and let his weave all the way onto the shoulder. Slamming on the brakes, he made sure the tires made plenty of noise on the gravel before he came to a complete stop. Then he stumbled out of the car and emptied his stomach on the grass verge.
If he knew the Princess, just pretending to be sick wasn’t going to work. She was going to need to see the evidence, and there it was. One of his foster mothers had introduced him to the curative powers of ipecac when he’d gotten into her medicine cabinet. He kept a bottle in the kit with his other “tools.”
Leaning against the fender, weaker than he’d thought he would be, he watched Sophie gun her car backward along the shoulder until she screeched to a halt about five feet in front of him. She was out of the car and running toward him so fast that watching her brought on another wave of nausea. He pressed a hand against his stomach.
“What happened? Are you all right?”
The concern in her eyes was everything he’d hoped for. Plan A was going to work just fine.
“It must have been something I ate.”
When she glanced past him at the grass, he tried to block her view after he was sure she’d seen the evidence.
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you drunk?”
He shook his head and felt another wave of nausea hit. This one had him doubling over, and his deposit just missed her opened-toed sandals. He was beginning to think he’d taken too big a dose.
“C’mon. I’ll drive. You’re in no condition to operate a vehicle. You can send one of your men to pick up your car later.”
“I didn’t drink too much. It was the food,” he protested as she opened the passenger door and settled him inside. Before she got the door shut, he leaned out and made another deposit on the grass.
Without a word, she closed the door, marched around to get in the driver’s side. Plan A might have a few minor bumps that had to be ironed out, but he figured he was halfway there when she started the car.
“Sorry about this. I think I just need some sleep,” he said as they pulled back onto the highway. It had been more than twenty years since his foster mom had dosed him, and he didn’t recall feeling this sleepy afterward. Nor had his head felt quite this heavy. He tried to clear his mind. “T.J.”
“What?” Sophie sent him a sideways glance.
“My name. It’s T.J. Next question’s mine.”
“Not on your life,” she said. “Initials don’t count. I want your real name, or a penalty. But let’s get you back on your feet first.”
It wouldn’t hurt to pretend to sleep, he decided. That should be enough to get the Princess to take him home with her.
THE NEXT THING Tracker knew, someone was nudging his shoulder.
“Time to wake up.”
“Hmm? Where are we?” Opening his eyes, he blinked against the lights.
“We’re at the hospital.”
He came fully awake and saw that Sophie had pulled the car into the well-lit entrance of a hospital emergency room. “I’m not going in there.”
“Afraid of hospitals, are we?”
“No. I just don’t need one.”
“Relax,” she said as she climbed out of the driver’s seat and walked around the front of the car. “Don’t worry about a thing.”
Damn, he’d underestimated her nurturing instinct. And she had him between a rock and a hard place. If he told her he wasn’t really sick, he’d ruin plan A. While he mulled over what to do, she opened the car door.
“I told you I was fine,” he said.
“C’mon, I’ll hold your hand while they examine you,” she assured him as she helped him out of the car.
Shit, he thought. By the time they released him, he’d sure as hell better come up with Plan B.
“REPORT,” the man said as he pressed the button on the speakerphone. Then he leaned forward to adjust the position of one of his knights on the chessboard.
“Everything is going according to plan.”
“Not quite,” said the man.
There was a beat of silence. He let it stretch to two beats and then three. “Your plan was to become her lover so that you would be intimate with her when the shipment arrived. She left the party with another man.”
“I’ll be at the shop when the coin arrives tomorrow.”
“But you’ll have company. He’s in her apartment right now, and perhaps in her bed, where you were supposed to be.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“You know the penalty if you don’t.”
Replacing the receiver, the man leaned back in his chair and studied the reaction of his companion.
“I can handle him. Just give me the word, and I’ll have him out of the way.”
“Such ruthlessness,” the man admonished. He would discourage it now, but it would come in handy later. He took a sip of his brandy. “Patience, my friend. This particular puppet may still be of some use. Besides, removing him now might draw too much attention to Ms. Wainwright’s shop, and we don’t have the coin yet.”
The man called the Puppet Master had other puppets in place. Any one of them could get the coin tomorrow, and his companion would be useful later. His long-term success