Superb and Sexy (Sky High Air #3)(44)

As there had been ten years ago, there was a dock with a wide, white beach sprawling out for several hundred yards before vanishing beneath heavy jungle growth. Straight back from the dock lay a road, obviously tended to but empty.

No sign of another soul, and certainly, no Leena.

Not good. Maddie hesitated, then got off the boat to look around.

“Maddie—”

“Hang on. I’m looking for—” Fresh tire tracks. But before she could say so, she heard an engine.

“Maddie.” Clearly hearing it too, Brody jumped off the boat as well, just as a Jeep came down the road toward them.

Recognizing trouble when she saw it, Maddie grabbed Brody’s hand and whirled back to the boat but skidded to a halt at a very unwelcome sight—the charter speeding off back toward open sea.

Maddie could only stand there and stare at it, feeling the bottom drop out of her stomach. “He wasn’t supposed to do that.”

“No,” Brody said, calm. “He wasn’t.”

Calm was good. She felt his hand at the small of her back. “Breathe,” he murmured in her ear. “You’re not breathing.”

No, she wasn’t.

The Jeep parked, and the driver got out.

Standing at her side, gaze on the Jeep’s driver, Brody kept his hand on Maddie’s back. “Let’s get this over with and get back to the fun stuff,” he murmured for her ears alone.

“What’s that?”

“Anything to do with getting wet and naked.”

“Leena,” Man In Black said.

Maddie blinked and glanced at Brody. Leena?

“You’re late. You know Rick hates late.” He looked at Brody. “Who’s this, the husband?”

Maddie swallowed. “Uh—”

Man In Black raised a brow, waiting.

“Could—” Maddie licked her suddenly dry lips. “Could we have a moment?” She waggled a finger between her and Brody.

Man In Black nodded curtly and leaned back on the Jeep, arms over his massive chest, face impassive.

Maddie pulled Brody a few feet away for some dubious privacy. “He thinks I’m Leena,” she hissed.

“Actually…” Brody glanced at the guy. “I’m not sure he thinks at all. You see the size of his neck? It’s got to be ten times the size of his brain.”

“Leena didn’t come,” she whispered, both relieved and terrified.

“Yeah.” Brody cut his gaze to the empty dock. “But we did.”

“Yeah.”

“And the charter’s gone.”

Which really sucked. “Which leaves us at their mercy.”

“Okay, I really hate the sound of that.”

She did, too. “I have to be Leena.” She looked at him. “It’s the only way.”

“What? No.”

“Well, I can’t be me!” she whispered harshly. “Don’t you see? If I’m Leena, all Rick wants from me is some work, and then I’m free to leave again, assuming I convince him I’m not running away.”

“Jesus. This is suicidal. You know that.”

“What choice do we have? The boat’s gone. If I’m Maddie, well…I think that might be a bit of a health hazard for me.”

He swore beneath his breath. “Your life is too complicated.”

“I told you!”

Brody looked over at MIB again. “Christ, I’m crazy for agreeing to let you do this.”

They had no choice. None at all. Brody wore tan khakis and a white shirt. His eyes were a cool, give-away-nothing gray, and his wind-tousled hair fell carelessly across his forehead. Did he look like a husband? Her husband? She hoped so, because holy mother of God, he was who he was and didn’t do pretense for anyone.

“I’m not going to screw anything up,” he said, obviously reading her mind. “I know what we have to do.”

Well, she was glad someone did, because she didn’t. She was putting him directly in danger, and the thought wasn’t an easy one. If anything happened to him, if anything at all went wrong, she’d never forgive herself.

Never. “Remember,” she hissed. “I’m—”

“Yeah, yeah. You Leena. Me ball and chain. Got it.”

“No.” She was doggedly determined to make sure he had everything straight. “She’s different than me. I’ll be different. I’ll be quiet. Demure.”

“Your virtual opposite, you mean?” He put his hands on her arms and looked into her eyes. “I get it.”

“Do you? Because Leena wouldn’t marry a scowling badass. You need to act…beta.”

“Beta?”

“Yeah. Easygoing. Laid-back…”

“That’ll be new,” he admitted.

“Can you try for…refined?”

He let out a low laugh. “I’ve never been refined, not from the day I was born in the gutter or the day I crawled out of it.”

She stared at him as he put his sunglasses on his nose and said nothing else. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t—”

“Hey, no use fighting the truth, right? We both know what I am and what I’m not. Let’s just do this.”