Sweet Revenge

storm brewing. Then just as quickly they cleared with her smile. “I use my title only on formal occasions, or with idiots.”
    “I’m flattered.”
    “Don’t be. I’m still debating whether you’re an idiot or not.”
    “I’d like to give you the day to make up your mind.” He cut into his omelette. Spicy odors steamed out. He had an idea Adrianne was like that, smooth and elegant outside, and, once opened up, full of heat and surprises. “Since I’ve been busy watching you, I haven’t had much time to take advantage of the water or the sun.”
    “Pity!”
    “Exactly. The least you could do is take advantage of it with me.” He spread strawberry jam on a piece of toast and handed it to her. “Unless you’re afraid to spend time with me.”
    “Why should I be?”
    “Because you know I want to make love with you and you’re worried that you’d enjoy it.”
    She bit into the toast, making the effort to keep her eyes steady. “I’ve already told you, I’ve no intention of sleeping with you.”
    “Then a few hours in the sun won’t make any difference.” As if it were settled, he continued to eat. “Did you mean what you said last night?”
    The omelette was taking the edge off. As the sun baked away the last of the aches, she glanced over. “About what?”
    “About this being your last job.”
    She poked at her eggs with her fork. Rarely did she have a problem with lying, and didn’t care to discover it was difficult with him. “I said it was the last job of this phase of my career.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Just that.”
    “Adrianne.” This was a time, he thought, for patience and a firm hand. “I have an obligation to my superiors. I also have a need to help you.” He saw the wariness in her eyes, but she didn’t pull away when he laid a hand over hers. “If you’re honest with me, there might be a way I could accomplish both. If you’re not, I could be in as much trouble as you.”
    “You won’t be in trouble if you leave me to it. I can tell you it’s a private matter, Philip, and nothing to concern Interpol or you.”
    “It has to concern me.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I care for you.” He tightened his grip when her hand moved restlessly under his. “Very much.”
    She’d have preferred it if he’d used a line, one of the standard and easily ignored lines men doled out to women they were attracted to. This was too simple, too direct, and too sincere. “I’d rather you didn’t.”
    “So do I, but we’re both stuck with it.” He let her hand go, then went back, as calmly as he could, to his meal. “I’ll make it easy for you. Start by telling me why you got into second-story work.”
    “You won’t give me any peace until I do?”
    “No. More coffee?”
    She nodded. It hardly mattered now, she decided. Besides, they had this in common, they knew the same sensations, the same emotions, the same triumphs. “I told you my mother had been ill for some time.”
    “Yes.”
    “There were doctors and medicines and treatments, Often she had to be hospitalized for long periods.”
    He knew that, of course. Anyone who had read a magazine in the last decade knew the tragedy of Phoebe Spring. Still, he thought it best if he heard it in Adrianne’s words, and with her feelings. “What was wrong with her?”
    This was the hardest, she knew. If she said it quickly, it would be done. “She was diagnosed as a manic-depressive. There were times she would talk and talk and make outrageous plans. She wouldn’t be able to sit or sleep or eat because the energy, it was almost like a poison, was burningthrough her system. Then she’d swing down so low that she couldn’t talk at all. She’d just sit and stare. She wouldn’t know anyone, not even me.”
    She cleared her throat and deliberately took a sip of coffee. That was the most difficult memory of all—thinking back to the way it had felt to sit, holding her mother’s hand, talking to her, even pleading, and receiving only a blank stare. At those times Phoebe had been lost in the tunnel and tempted by the dark and the silence.
    “That must have been hell for you.”
    She didn’t look at him, couldn’t. Instead, she looked out to the water, calm and impossibly blue under a mirror sky. “It was hell for her. Over the years she developed a problem with alcohol and with drugs. That had begun in Jaquir—though God knows how she managed it—and had spiraled out of control when she tried to pick up the pieces in