“Okay, okay.” Laughing, finally, Max held up his hands in surrender. “Just as well you’re not interested. Should make it easier to keep your mind on the job. Speaking of which,” he said, casually shifting gears, “any progress on that front?”

He didn’t add the obvious-that the holidays were fast approaching, which meant they were running out of time.

The intelligence “chatter” had been growing more ominous by the day. Something big was being planned for around the holidays-just no specific word, yet, on what…or where.

The terror alert hadn’t been elevated, but it would be soon-most likely the week before Christmas. The thinking was if the alert was raised too soon or too often, it would lose its effectiveness-like the boy who cried wolf.

Roy shifted and straightened up as Celia approached the bottom of the stairs, flashed them a smile and a wave, then paused to do some cooling-down stretches. Without taking his eyes off of her, he said to Max in a low voice, “She’s got some party we’re supposed to go to tomorrow night. It’s at some producer’s house up in Bel Air. Seems to think there’s a good chance al-Fayad’ll be there…”

The truth was only part of his mind was engaged with renegade Arab princes, luxury megayachts and international terrorists right then. The rest was thinking about the long, slender body doing toe touches and waist swivels down at the foot of the stairs, covered from neck to ankles in sweats, tank top and zippered warm-up jacket. Thinking, too, about the scar he’d glimpsed in the slit of her robe, and wondering if she was hiding it from herself, the world or just him.

He didn’t know why, but more than her beauty or fame or personal history or anything else he’d learned about Celia Cross in the short time since he’d met her, more than how much he wanted her body-and any red-blooded male in his right mind would-that scar intrigued him. Which should have been a warning to him, right there.

“It’s around the next bend,” Celia said. She could hear the strain and tension in her own voice-small wonder, since her whole body felt as if she’d been encased in concrete, and her jaws as if they’d been wired together. She concentrated on taking slow, deep breaths and mentally reciting a yoga mantra she remembered. “The gate should be open-you’ll see it on the right. Just drive on in-there’ll be a parking valet…”

Roy nodded, his expression grim in the Land Rover’s dashboard lights. He didn’t say anything or glance her way, for which she supposed she should be grateful. She would hate for him to guess how nervous she was. No-not nervous. Terrified.

It’s only a party, she told herself, for the umpteenth time. These people are your friends.

Friends? Even as she formed the word in her mind, she wondered if it was true. In her world friendships, like love affairs, tended to be transitory. Like treasures from the sea, she thought. They usually vanished with the changing tide.

They were pulling up in front of the huge Spanish-style, wrought-iron gated entry, and a valet was opening her door. She gave him her hand and a dazzling smile.

Roy came around the front of the Land Rover, and she thought, No, not Roy. I must remember to call him R.J.! As she watched him, she felt an alarming upside-down sensation in her chest. Switching to her painted-on smile, she inquired brightly under her breath, “Ready for your debut, R.J.?”

He gave a noncommittal grunt and touched her elbow, guiding her up the walkway in a proprietary way. It felt astonishingly good, him doing that, and her heart began to thump and her skin felt hot, as if she’d stayed too long in the sun.

“I feel like a damn performing gorilla,” he muttered, leaning his head close to hers.

She laughed and whispered back, “Welcome to my world.”

The thought came to her: This is opening night. You’ve always wanted to do live theatre, right? Well, it’s curtain time. So, you’ve got a few butterflies? It’s not as though you’ve never had them before.

“It’s a private party-I’m still supposed to tip the guy, right?” Roy whispered, bending closer.

Celia gave a little hiccup of laughter and wondered whether the delight she felt was because his naiveté amused her, charmed her or, in some indefinable way, touched her soul. “To tell you the truth, I have no idea.”

“Well, I did, anyway,” he growled, now that they were inside the mansion’s courtyard entry and for the moment, at least, alone. “Figured I couldn’t go wrong-might even have made his day.” He paused in straightening his shoulders and resettling his jacket to give her a suspicious frown. “What?”

“What? Nothing.” She gulped the denial, embarrassed by the fact that she’d been caught flat-out staring at him, practically mesmerized by his unconscious grace. Girl, you’ve got it bad. If just looking at the guy makes you go weak in the knees…

“Just checking,” she said archly, looking away.

“You sure I’m dressed right for this? I mean, the jacket’s okay, but I still think-I mean, come on. Jeans?”

She looked back at him warily, knowing how dangerous it was. Sure enough, the endearing uncertainty in his frown made her heart flutter in a maddeningly adolescent way. “I told you,” she said crisply, “this is Hollywood. In this town, jeans will take you anywhere-except maybe the Academy Awards.” She turned to face him and, after a moment’s inner struggle against the urge to hurl herself at his chest and weave her fingers through the gleaming silver hair at his temples, stepped closer and reached up to brush at his lapels. “Trust me-you look…perfect.”

His blue contact lenses glittered oddly in the torchlight as he stared down at her. “I must’ve gone undercover in a dozen different situations,” he said in a low, rumbling voice. “Never felt like I didn’t know what the hell I’m doing before. Hell, I don’t know if I’m gonna blend in, or-”

“You don’t have to blend in, darling,” Celia said softly, touching the fake scar on the side of his jaw, surprised at the ache of secret pleasure that simple action awakened. “You’re Canadian, remember? Just don’t forget to whisper.”

She heard a faint intake of breath-or was it only wishful thinking? Imagination? And did she also imagine the moment stretching…and a kind of building suspense, with breaths held, humming under the skin and a far-off thumping of pulse beats? She did see his lips move-no imagination there. And she was mesmerized by his mouth. The memory of how wonderful it had felt…tasted…made her throat ache and her eyes smart with unexpected tears of longing.

Somewhere nearby, a door opened, leaking sounds of voices and music and laughter into the courtyard.

Close to her fingertips, Roy’s lips formed a smile. He dutifully whispered, “Yeah, Canadian. Right.”

She snatched her hand away from his face and they turned together to walk on through the courtyard, Celia feeling light-headed and fluttery in her stomach, wishing he’d take her arm again. Wondering if she should take his…

Just as they reached the door, he looked down at her and said gruffly, “You look nice, too.”

Such an innocuous thing to say. But he said it with a kind of innocence and sincerity that was rare in her world. She caught a shaken breath, once again unprepared for the ache that clutched at her throat, the sting in back of her eyes.

But there was no time to reply. For Celia, time had begun to stand still. She took a deep breath, drew herself up. I’ll get through this, she thought. I will.

Then, she was standing with Roy in a great tiled entryway, looking down into a huge sunken living room filled with people. Faces turned toward them. There was a break in the hum of sound, then a ripple, as if a breeze stirred through the crowd. She could hear individual voices. It took all the strength she possessed just to lift her head high.

“Look-isn’t that…”

“My God, it’s Celia Cross.”

“Didn’t she-”

“I thought she was in rehab!”

“She looks-”

“…amazing-you’d never know she almost-”

“Who’s that she’s with? You don’t suppose…”

“Who knows? Never seen him before…”

“…think maybe he’s her therapist?”

Roy felt those hackles he wasn’t sure he was supposed to have rising again. He couldn’t believe the things he was hearing. Who the hell did these people think they were? Far as he could see, there wasn’t one of ’em who could hold a candle to Celia Cross when it came to looks, style, elegance, class.

As if to confirm what he already knew to be true, he glanced over at her, and it shocked him to see, instead of her usual cool, calm, breathtaking beauty, that her blue eyes were shimmering deep in smudgy sockets, that her face had gone deathly pale.

He didn’t know how or why, but in that moment his own nerves and uncertainty vanished, swept away in a wave of protective fervor.

Without knowing he was going to, he put his hand on her back and gave her waist a reassuring squeeze. And he got his second shock of the evening when he felt her tremble.

But before he could begin to process that phenomenon, a short bald guy with a reddish-gray goatee came sweeping toward them, crowing, “Celia, my darling-you look incredible! I can’t tell you how delighted I am to see you.”

With a trill of laughter and a light and musical, “Hello, Arthur, I’m glad to see you, too,” she floated away from Roy’s supporting hand and moved forward to meet the bald guy. They exchanged air kisses, and then Celia turned to Roy. “Darling, I want you to meet Art Milos. This is his house. And his party. Art, this is my friend, R. J. Cassidy. He’s Canadian.”

She said it all with a smile so playful and eyes so serene, Roy felt confused and a little bit foolish-sure, now, that he must have been mistaken about the trembling.

He shook his host’s hand and-remembering to whisper-produced some apparently adequate answers in response to the man’s standard questions: Canadian, huh? What part? What business are you in? Where did you two meet? At least he hoped he did. If anybody’d asked him, he’d have been hard-pressed to remember one word of what he said. His eyes and most of his mind had wandered off with Celia as she moved into the crush of people, pausing to speak to someone, then moving farther afield to take two wineglasses from a tray borne by a passing waiter.

“What is it?” he asked in a growly undertone when she returned to hold out one of the glasses to him.

She was already gulping from the other like a thirsty child. She considered, licking her lips. “Chardonnay, I think.”

“You don’t suppose they’d have any beer?” Though he said it in a whisper, Milos, who was already moving on to the next arrival, evidently heard him anyway, and turned back long enough to point toward a wall of arches that opened onto a stunning view of the L.A. lights.

“Foreign, domestic and weasel piss-otherwise known as lite beer. Bar’s outside on the patio.” And he was gone-swallowed up in the crowd.

“That’s for me,” Roy muttered. Celia, having drained the first glass of wine, smiled at him gaily, shrugged and took a sip from the other. “Back in a minute,” he said under his breath, and as he began to make his way toward the arches, he was thinking, I’m here five minutes and I already feel like I’m making a prison break.

Outside, he found the bar with no trouble and selected a bottle of Mexican beer. While he waited for Celia to join him, he strolled across the tiled patio, carrying his bottle of beer in his usual way, close to his chest. One of those aluminum and canvas affairs had been set up to keep out the rain, and there were several tall aluminum outdoor heaters holding off the December chill. Between them, people stood around in small groups, laughing and talking in the mellow light of torches…drinking…a few eating-nobody smoking, though, he noticed. In Hollywood, evidently, healthy living was In.

Some of the people gave him curious looks as he passed; a few nodded and smiled, just in case he was somebody important. Most ignored him.

He saw some people he recognized, and some others he thought he probably ought to have recognized, if he’d been more up on the latest goings-on in the world of entertainment. But it wasn’t his world. Truth was, he felt more out of place in it, more conspicuous and exposed, than he ever had mingling with street thugs, underworld bosses and international arms dealers.

Wondering what was keeping Celia but reluctant to go back inside where the bulk of the noise and the crowd were to find out, he wandered to the edge of the patio, to the point where it dropped away in an impressive series of Spanish-tiled terraces, hot tubs, pools and fountains toward a carpet of city lights. Tonight, the distant spangles seemed to blur and shimmer in the lightly falling rain, and Roy found himself thinking about another night not so long ago, a warm, clear night, when he’d stood on a hill above Los Angeles Harbor with Max, talking of boats, and unthinkable acts of terror.