Rebecca Winters - Undercover Fiancee

Diana’s eyes filled with compassion. She reached out and patted her arm. “I didn’t realize.”

“It’s okay. It should be okay. I should have gotten over him a long time ago.”

“You mean the way Gerard should have gotten over Simone.”

Annabelle nodded.

“Apparently you both fell in love with people who were unforgettable.”

“I wish to heaven I’d never met him.”

“Annie? If you’re this broken up after twelve months’ separation, maybe you ought to contact him and find out if he feels the same way.”

Annabelle’s head flew back. “I know for a fact he’s involved with someone else. But even if he weren’t, I would never try to call or see him again. When we said goodbye, it was final.”

Diana’s brows lifted. “It doesn’t sound final to me.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She didn’t want to think about what it felt like to be entwined in his arms, but certain memories continued to flash through her mind without her permission. Memories that sent a wave of suffocating heat through her body.

“Annie?”

Annabelle’s face felt hot.

“Roman just buzzed me. You can go in. Since you found the Honda, maybe he’s already heard about it and is assigning you a new case.”

“Maybe.” But I’m working on one for Trina Martin right now. “Thanks, Diana.”

She headed for Roman’s inner sanctum. As she approached the doorway, she could hear another male voice talking. Her boss wasn’t alone.

“Roman?” She tapped on the door which was ajar. Through the opening she glimpsed the back of a tall, dark-haired man in a conservative blue suit who looked like the number one lineman for the Green Bay Packers.

Her eyelids fluttered closed because there was only one man in the universe who looked like that, who had broad shoulders and powerful thighs like that.

But it couldn’t be. He didn’t know where she worked, and he had no reason to be in Salt Lake.

“Come on in.”

She opened her eyes again, but she couldn’t do Roman’s bidding because the other man had turned around, freezing her in place with his brilliant blue gaze which was as familiar to her as her own face.

“Hello, Annabelle,” came the deep, vibrant voice she’d loved so well. “It’s been a long time.”

Dear God. It was Rand.

Her eyes darted back to Roman in absolute panic. He knew she’d once been engaged to Rand Dunbarton and how shattered she’d felt after the breakup. So how could her boss, how could Diana, be so cruel as to spring him on her like this without warning? She’d never known either of them to hurt anyone.

The shock was so great, Annabelle felt her body go from burning heat to icy cold. There was a strange buzzing in her ears. She wondered if she was going to faint even though she’d never passed out before in her entire life.

Rand must have seen the blood drain from her face because she heard an unintelligible epithet escape his lips before he was at her side, helping her into the nearest chair. His large hand slid to the back of her neck with the ease of long accustomed habit.

“Put your head down for a moment and keep it there till the dizziness passes.”

The voice of command. Rand had no idea how he came across to other people. He took charge without even thinking about it. For once she followed his suggestion because she was too weak and lethargic to do anything else.

With his fingers brushing intimately against her skin, his body so close she could feel his warmth, there was an air of unreality about the whole situation.

It didn’t seem possible that Rand was really here, or that he was touching her in an old familiar way, as if he had every right and was truly concerned.

The last time they’d been together, they’d said unforgivable things to each other and she’d given him back her engagement ring.

Rand had been so forbidding in his anger, she hadn’t known he could get like that. It had been a devastating experience, one she’d never been able to erase from her mind. Since then there’d been no contact Nothing.

Roman handed her a glass of water and told her to drink. “If you’re still feeling light-headed, you need to lie down. We can put this meeting off until another time.”

What meeting?

She drank thirstily and handed him back the glass. Rand’s palm was still molded to her neck.

“I’m all right.” She sat straight up so he would break the contact. “I—I went off without breakfast this morning and should have known better.”

For an infinitesimal moment her eyes met Rand’s. His said he knew why she’d almost fainted, but if it made her feel better to pretend otherwise in front of Roman, so be it.

Nothing got past him. He made a formidable adversary. That’s why he was the owner of Dunbarton Electronics, one of the top computer companies in the nation. Even more impressive, he’d been the cover man on the March issue of Today’s Fortune, the computer industry’s vaunted magazine.

It had taken Annabelle a week before she’d broken down enough to read the accompanying article. To her consternation she’d devoured every word, every photograph, hungry for any news of him after such a long time. The bio on him made mention of a special woman in his life who was destined to be his wife in the near future, but it didn’t give a name. The news couldn’t have wounded her more if she’d been stabbed in the heart.

“Annabelle?” Roman interjected. “Since no introduction is necessary, I’ll get straight to the point. Rand has come to us for help with a problem that is right up your alley.”

She sucked in her breath. “I moved back to Salt Lake from Phoenix a year ago...I can’t imagine what any of this has to do with me.”

Annabelle had never been rude to her boss. He was the greatest guy on earth, but he couldn’t possibly know what this unexpected meeting with Rand was costing her.

She didn’t honestly think Roman had engineered it. Which meant it was Rand’s doing. Why?

When they’d parted company a year ago, enough pain had been inflicted to last a lifetime. She’d had to pick up the pieces and start over again. When she returned home to Salt Lake and Roman took her on as one of his PI’s, a certain amount of healing had begun to take place. She’d been making progress.

How dare Rand trespass on her territory after all this time and destroy the world she’d been creating for herself without him!

“The Salt Lake customer service department of my company is in serious trouble.”

She folded her arms in the hope of looking more confident than she felt. “I’m sorry to hear it, but I still don’t know what your problems have to do with me.”

Rand’s jaw hardened perceptibly. For a fleeting moment she derived pleasure because he wasn’t as in control as she’d first assumed.

“It appears a hacker has broken in on the lines and is wreaking havoc with the clientele by giving them false information and causing their hard drives to crash.”

A hacker?

Just last week Trina Martin had called the agency because her eighteen-year-old boyfriend, Bryan Ludlow, a computer genius who didn’t get along with his family, had disappeared from his home and had been missing a week. The police assumed it was a kidnapping case and they were looking for him.

Trina believed he’d vanished on purpose. She wanted Annabelle to find him before he did something bad to embarrass his father, millionaire Daniel Ludlow, a prominent businessman who was going to run in Utah’s next race for the governor of the state. Bryan’s disappearance had made national headlines and now the FBI was involved.

When Annabelle asked what Trina meant about him embarrassing his father, the younger girl said that Bryan bragged a lot about being a hacker. Apparently he’d obtained the password to a major computer company in the Salt Lake area and had already done some things that would make his dad mad with rage if he were ever found out. He sounded too happy about it. That’s what worried Trina.