The Soldier's Seduction

Chapter 2

As Steffi came slowly awake, she was conscious of two unexpected things. One was a sense of well-being, something she hadn’t felt for the last three long, fraught months. The second was the low murmur of the TV in the corner of the room. When she turned her head, she realized that Bryce was seated in a chair at the side of her bed. His head was turned away from her as he watched the screen. She took a moment to study his strong profile in the flickering light.

When she had arrived in Stillwater, her whole focus had been on survival. Finding somewhere to live had been her first priority. An undemanding job had been next. When she had been hired by Vincente, he had introduced her to his brother, her new boss. With everything that was going on in her life, the last thing Steffi had expected was to be blown away by a man. But that was what had happened the first time she had set eyes on Bryce Delaney. And the impact hadn’t gone away. It hit her every time she looked at him.

With his dark, wavy hair and deep-set brown eyes he was a striking man. High cheekbones, an aristocratic nose and a perfectly proportioned mouth, with slightly full lips, would have made him stand out in any crowd. Add in a muscular, athletic body, and Bryce Delaney came as close to the ideal image of masculine perfection as it was possible to get.

But it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen a good-looking man before. She had been around plenty of them day to day and never once experienced the sort of fizz of electricity Bryce Delaney induced in her. And to feel this now? Shouldn’t she be immune to anything but the way her life had recently been turned upside down in the most destructive way imaginable?

Bryce’s presence explained the noise from the TV. The feeling of well-being? She had no idea where that was coming from. All she knew was she felt safe. Which was ridiculous. She wasn’t safe and it would be madness to try to fool herself. If she allowed herself to slip into a mind-set where she stopped being watchful, she would make a mistake. She had been scrupulously careful; she wasn’t about to throw it away now just because, for some reason, she’d managed to snatch a few hours’ sleep. And that was another thing. After three months of insomnia, how come she was suddenly able to slumber peacefully?

Her thoughts caused her to stir restlessly. The movement brought Bryce out of his chair and to her side in an instant.

“Hey.” He switched on the lamp. “Let me get you a drink of water.”

Steffi managed to shuffle into a sitting position so she could accept the glass from him. It wasn’t dignified, but from the moment he had found her sprawled on the floor her self-respect had taken a nosedive. “Why are you still here?”

“Because you need someone to take care of you.”

Instead of firing up with anger at his high-handedness, Steffi felt sharp, unaccustomed tears sting her eyelids. Bryce couldn’t know what he did to her with those words. He had no idea what the last few months had been like. For the first time in forever, she had no razor-edged comeback. Everything slipped away. The role she played, the barriers she put up, they were all gone as she gazed up at him.

“Say something quick, Steffi, or I’ll think you’re dying.” There was a trace of amusement in Bryce’s voice.

“Go to hell.” The words had no bite and she sank back onto the pillows.

“That’s more like it.” He took the glass of water from her, scanning her face. She saw his eyes widen.

Damn. She was used to that look. It was the reaction she got whenever people first saw her eyes. Her unusual, beautiful eyes. In the early days, they had been her passport to success. Now they might just be her downfall.

“Is there something wrong?” She might as well call him on it.

Bryce collected himself with obvious difficulty. “No. Not unless you count the fact that Leon thinks you need to take better care of yourself.”

Steffi hunched a shoulder. “He had no right to tell you that.”

“He was concerned about you. I’m concerned about you.”

She watched his face. She preferred him snapping and snarling. In this mood, he was too breathtaking. And Steffi lived in a world where breathtaking men were commonplace. Used to live, she reminded herself. Those days are gone. Forever? I guess so...unless I can bring this nightmare to end. She had come to Stillwater with that aim in mind, but her quarry had remained stubbornly elusive. The man she had come here to confront seemed determined to stay away, although she didn’t flatter herself that her presence in Stillwater had anything to do with his absence. But, until she could meet him face-to-face, she had to avoid being found by his thugs. If they got to her, she was unsure whether their instructions would be to kill her or take her to their boss. Steffi wasn’t taking any chances. She had come here for answers, even if getting them meant putting herself in danger.

“I thought you stopped by here to fire me.”

His expression told her she’d hit a nerve. “That was the plan, but then I found out why you didn’t show up yesterday.”

“Yesterday? What time is it?” Steffi turned her head to look at the clock. “Seriously, Bryce, haven’t you got better places to be at two a.m.?”

She blushed slightly at the implication of her own words. Even in the short time she’d been in Stillwater, she’d picked up on Bryce Delaney’s reputation. He slept around. A different date, if not every night, at least every few days. The man was a walking shot of testosterone and it seemed the ladies of West County were only too happy to indulge his need to be the local stud.

His lips quirked into a smile that told her he understood the reason for her blush. “As it happens, I don’t.” He frowned slightly, changing the subject abruptly. “When I broke in here, you were afraid of something. You said, ‘Don’t let them get me.’ What was that about?”

She shrugged, hoping the gloom disguised her blush. “Did I? Maybe I was delirious or something.”

It was a lame explanation, but, although he gave her a searching look, he didn’t push it. “Go back to sleep, Steffi. I’ll be here if you need me.”

She should probably challenge that. Get mad. Throw him out. But she was still so tired and, even if she only admitted it to herself, having him here was comforting. Snuggling back down into the bedclothes, she closed her eyes and listened to the voice of the newsreader. A train had derailed, causing major problems. There was an ongoing debate about the minimum wage. Steffi was just feeling sleep tug at the edge of her consciousness again when the focus switched from local issues to celebrity news.

“Police still have no further information on the whereabouts of actress Anya Moretti. Moretti, who has been missing since the murder of her boyfriend Greg Spence and an unknown woman three months ago, is best known for her roles in films such as...”

“Turn it off, please.” Steffi spoke more sharply than she had intended.

Bryce looked up in surprise. “Sorry, I didn’t know it was bothering you.” He flicked a switch on the remote control and the room was plunged into darkness and silence.

* * *

Sleep didn’t come easily to Bryce. When it did arrive it was brief and filled with nightmares from which he woke sweating, having relived every minute of the living hell of that roadside explosion. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why he never chased slumber, why he tended to find other—more interesting—things to do during the hours of darkness. Sleeping in the uncomfortable upright chair in Steffi’s bedroom was damn near impossible. After shifting his long limbs into various positions, Bryce gave up. He didn’t want to switch on the lamp and disturb Steffi, but he did want to check on her before he left the room.

Stepping into the narrow hall, he flicked on the light. Returning to the bedroom, he gazed down at her in the gloomy half-light flowing through the open door. She was sleeping peacefully, her short, chestnut curls clustered like a halo around her head. In sleep her features seemed less sharp than in wakefulness. Steffi was one of those women who would never be able to lay claim to classical beauty. Taking each feature in turn, there was a flaw. Her nose definitely turned up at the end in a defiant, go-to-hell gesture. Her mouth was way too wide for prettiness and the gap between her front teeth caught the eye almost as much as her full lips. Then there was that stubborn, determined chin. The one she tilted upward at him during their frequent arguments. Yet when you put those features together, they made an unforgettable face. It wasn’t beautiful. It was mesmerizing.

Because she kept them hidden behind her dark glasses, Bryce hadn’t seen Steffi’s eyes until just now. They had taken his breath away. The golden-brown irises had elongated downward notches that made them look like cat’s eyes. He had never seen eyes like them. What had Leon called the condition that caused it? Coloboma, that was it.

She was an enigma. Bryce didn’t care what she said; Steffi had been scared out of her wits when he broke in here, trying to hide under the bed and covering her head with her hands. His first guess had been that she was running from a bad relationship. Don’t let them get me? Them. Plural. That made it sound less like she was running from a vengeful ex. One thing was for sure; she clearly wasn’t ready to confide in him. Another thing was certain; Bryce wasn’t leaving her until he knew she was both well and safe. To hell with what his brothers might say about his knack for collecting waifs and strays. This was Steffi. She was different. He didn’t know why; it was just a conviction, solid and unshakable, sitting in the center of his chest.

Treading softly back out of the room, Bryce made his way into the den. There was a TV in here as well, but the walls were so thin he was afraid of waking Steffi. With a sigh of resignation, he picked up one of her celebrity magazines and began to flick through it. After twenty minutes of thumbing through the magazines and newspapers, he came to the conclusion that Steffi had a bit of an obsession with the very story she had interrupted when she asked him to turn the TV off so she could go to sleep. Either that, or it was a coincidence that all these journals she had stockpiled contained articles about the disappearance of Anya Moretti.

Bryce hadn’t paid much attention to the case. Celebrities didn’t interest him, and the sort of happily-ever-after romances in which Anya Moretti starred weren’t his style. He knew it was a sordid story, typical gossip column fodder. Greg Spence, Moretti’s boyfriend, had been found shot through the head. The story was that another woman had been with him at the time. She had been shot as well, also through the head. Although the woman had still not been identified, rumors were rife on social media about the compromising position in which the couple had been found. Anya Moretti had not been seen since the day of the murders. The inevitable conclusions had been drawn. Moretti, once Hollywood’s darling, had already been tried and convicted in the press as the woman who had killed her boyfriend and his lover in a jealous rage.

Bryce thought again how he just hadn’t seen Steffi as the type to enjoy this sort of trashy reporting. He started to cast aside the magazine he had been thumbing without reading the story, when one of the pictures caught his eye. Most of the articles had gone with the same photographs. Moretti in the role that had brought her into the public eye as an accident-prone speedway rider, shaking loose her waist-length curls as she sat astride a bike and removed her helmet. Or on the podium when she received her Oscar, her arm held high as she raised the statuette above her head in a celebratory gesture. One had gone with a red carpet picture of her smiling into Spence’s eyes as they held hands. He was a tall, handsome man with dark brown hair drawn back into a ponytail. The caption beneath the picture stated that they hadn’t been together long, but there was already talk of an engagement. Most articles included pictures of the crime scene outside Spence’s luxury apartment on the morning the bodies were found. Emergency vehicles converged on the building, and shocked onlookers waited behind a makeshift barrier.

This picture Bryce studied now was different. This article included a photograph of a younger Anya Moretti. Her chestnut curls were drawn back in a ponytail and there was a wistful smile on her face as she turned to look at the photographer. She wasn’t exactly pretty, but you could tell she had that special something that would always draw the camera to her. It was her eyes that held Bryce’s attention. Her golden-brown eyes with their unusual downward notches. They were cat’s eyes. They were Steffi’s eyes.

* * *

It was fully light when Steffi woke again and she lay still, blinking slightly as she recalled the events of the previous day. Turning her head, she confirmed that Bryce was in the chair where he had been when she fell asleep. But something in his demeanor had changed. The concerned look had gone. He was watching her, but there was a frown in his eyes. She didn’t need to ask why. It was obvious. He knew. Somehow, between her falling asleep and waking, Bryce had discovered the secret of her identity.

“How did you find out?” It didn’t occur to her to try to deny it. Subterfuge wasn’t Steffi’s style. It almost felt like a relief that, at last, someone knew who she was.

“There was a picture in one of your magazines. It showed a close-up of your eyes.”

Steffi sighed, pushing herself into an upright position. Although she still felt weak, the stomach cramps were a thing of the past. “I knew my eyes would give me away. I usually wear contact lenses so I don’t draw attention to them. In the early days, when I made my first films, it didn’t bother me too much. Then the comments started to get intrusive and I decided I’d rather have normal eyes. But I’d been out jogging that day and I didn’t have time to pick my contact lenses up...” Her voice trailed off as the memory of that awful morning came back to her. Swallowing hard, she focused on Bryce. “What will you do now?”

“I guess that depends on you.” His eyes never left her face. “Did you kill them?”

“No, but I don’t know how I can prove that to you.”

Although she had known Bryce Delaney for only three months, Steffi had gotten to know enough about him in that time. He was fiercely moral and totally honest. If he thought she was the person who killed Greg and the woman he was with, Bryce would hand her over to the police without hesitation. He wouldn’t accept anything less than the truth from her. But how could she convince him about her version of events, particularly when everything she had told him since her arrival in Stillwater had been a lie?

He seemed to be following her thought process. “How about you tell me all of it and let me judge for myself?”

“Can I get a shower first?” She tried out a smile, but it went wrong somewhere in the middle and ended up with her lower lip wobbling pitifully.

She saw Bryce’s dark brown eyes soften slightly. “I’ll make coffee and toast while you get ready. Then we’ll talk.”

Standing under the lukewarm water, Steffi tried not to let the flashbacks get to her. It was useless. Ever since that day, she had lived with a constant series of images playing inside her head. Bright sunlight patterning the sidewalk as she jogged up to the entrance of Greg’s apartment building on that lazy Sunday morning. The man who exited the elevator as she stepped in. The strange feeling that had hit her in that instant. She tried to conjure up his image. His shades and the cap tilted low had disguised his looks. All she could recall was the tattoo on the back of his right hand where he gripped the gym bag he carried. The tattoo was an eye. A perfect, blue, bloodshot eye, gazing up at her from the back of his hand. An eye she had last seen when she was five years old.

It was the same sign the men who had killed her parents had on the back of their right hands. It wasn’t similar, or an imitation. It was the same tattoo. There was no way Steffi could be mistaken. Not when that symbol had featured in her nightmares for all these years. Not when, as a child, she had obsessively drawn that bloodshot orb over and over. Not when she could count the number of hours she had spent hunched over her laptop, searching the internet for gangs who used that mark.

The men who killed her parents had never been found, and the only information she had discovered about the tattoo was in connection with a Russian crime organization called the Sglaz, or Evil Eye, which had operated around the time of her parents’ death. Since the gang had disappeared from public record around the same time, Steffi had been unable to find out any more about them.

Exiting the elevator in a rush, she had fumbled her way into Greg’s apartment, calling out his name. Even then, she had known something was very wrong. When she walked into the den Greg had been seated in his favorite chair. He was naked and his legs were splayed. A girl knelt between them. A girl whose hair was a mass of brilliant gold corkscrew curls.