“R.J., darling…there you are…” Celia swayed into him, gracefully holding a champagne flute aloft, cheeks dusted with golden mist and eyes sparkling. A prickling blanket of sexual awareness enveloped him, as impossible to deny or ignore as the compulsion to sneeze. “Come with me,” she murmured, warm and husky with muted excitement.

What could he do? In his experience, a beautiful woman with too much champagne in her was pretty much a force of nature; he knew arguing with her, even if he’d had a reason to, would be an exercise in futility.

With a wry smile and an indulgent shake of his head, he allowed her to sweep him from his quiet eddy and into the mainstream of the party. Caught up in her magnetism, bemused by the power of his attraction to her, he was barely aware of the path they followed, or whom they spoke to. Faces he’d seen on TV and movie screens floated close, smiling and making self-conscious conversation, then drifted away again. People he’d met casually during the past two weeks gave him air kisses, cheek hugs or handshakes. Through it all, Celia clung devotedly to his arm or dipped and swayed at his side like a rowboat on a choppy sea as she laughed musically and charmed with effortless grace.

Then suddenly, ungracefully, she tripped, lurched, uttered a decidedly unmusical squeak and threw out a hand to clutch for support-not from Roy, standing right next to her, but instead the purple-jacketed arm of a man with his back to her, engaged in conversation with someone else.

The man jerked around, reflexively reaching to steady her, and adrenaline squirted through Roy’s body and turned his nerves to electrical charges and his blood to ice water. Man, he thought, she’s good. Damn good…

“Oh-I’m so sorry,” Celia gasped-then, switching to a squeal of delight: “Abby…how lovely to see you!”

Prince Abdul al-Fayad’s liquid brown eyes widened and warmed in recognition. Keeping her hand possessively sandwiched between his, he drew her close and kissed her cheek. “Celia-my beautiful little Celia-how are you? We meet again!”

“You remember R.J.-you met him at Arthur’s party…”

“Yes, yes-I remember.” The prince reached past Celia to shake Roy’s hand, then, showing very white teeth, made the same finger-waggling motion toward his own throat he’d made before. “The throat-the voice-it is better, yes?”

Roy managed a lopsided smile as he replied in R. J. Cassidy’s sandy whisper, “Ah, well, they tell me this is ’bout as good as it’s gonna get.”

By this time, he’d located the quartet of bodyguards, standing in a cluster near a grove of potted palms, looking out of sorts and uncomfortable, wearing their uniform dark suits and holding plates filled with hors d’oeuvres.

At least, thank God, the adrenaline had blown away the sexual fog that had been clouding up his brain. He was back on track, nerves on edge, senses humming…but prickling still with a peculiar residual irritation, which, if it wasn’t so alien to his nature, he’d have said was jealousy. Watching Celia “work her wiles” on al-Fayad, he felt torn between admiration and the need to keep reminding himself to unclench his teeth.

“Abby, I’m so disappointed…” She was cooing to him now, swaying her body sinuously…almost but not quite brushing against al-Fayad’s. At the prince’s look of stark dismay, she put out her lower lip in a charming pout-subtle as a truck, Roy thought, but the prince seemed to be buying it all the way. “You know, you promised to show me your beautiful yacht. I’ve been waiting, but I haven’t heard a word from you. Please, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten…”

The prince’s mouth popped open, but before he could get a word out, Celia rushed enthusiastically on. “Actually, R.J. was saying he’d like to see it, too. He’s thinking of buying one-aren’t you, R.J.?”

Roy gave a harumph and a shrug of masculine modesty. “Ah…well, from what I hear, nothing near so big as what you’ve got.” And Lord, even playacting, it was amazing how hard it was to say those words. “Wouldn’t mind having a look, though. Maybe you can give me some ideas…advice…”

Abby, his face lit with smiles, burst in with, “Oh, but Celia…R.J., of course, you must come on my cruise!”

“Cruise?” said Celia breathlessly. Roy felt his heart begin to tap against the satin front of his waistcoat.

“Yes, yes-for the New Year holiday. We will cruise down the coast to Mexico and back again, and finish it off at Avalon-you know, on Catalina Island? We will have the greatest New Year’s Eve party ever-the party to end all parties. All my friends are coming-many you know…so many famous people. Of course you must come! Both of you-I will reserve a stateroom for you-the best one! Please say you will come…” His eyes implored, with a childlike enthusiasm that seemed completely innocent.

And yet… New Year’s Eve…a yacht filled with famous people…Avalon Harbor…the party to end all parties… A cold chill settled between Roy’s shoulder blades…a knot in his belly…a sickness at the back of his throat.

Dear God. This is it. It has to be. This time the “chatter” is real.

From a great distance he heard Celia exclaiming her delighted acceptance of the prince’s invitation. He heard his voice-R. J. Cassidy’s voice-seconding that and adding thanks. Words floated back and forth. More handshaking and cheek hugging, and then he and Celia were moving again, moving through the glittering crowd like water in a stream flowing past clusters of people standing motionless on the shore.

“I did it,” Celia said as they walked together side by side, when they had left the prince safely behind. She was looking straight ahead, her voice husky and low in her throat.

Roy swallowed, then answered the same way. “That you did.”

“Told you I would.” With a defiant little toss of her head, she snagged two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter and handed one to him.

He took it, clinked it gently against hers. “Done good.”

“Yes, I did.” She held his eyes while she said it, then tipped back her head and drank, nearly draining the glass in a few thirsty gulps. Afterward, her gaze slid away from his, as if she felt awkward with him, suddenly. He thought her face seemed pale, too. As if she was feeling ill…or scared.

If she was, he pretty much knew how she felt. He had a sudden impulse-a need-to draw her close and hold on to her-to gather close to everyone he cared about, the way primitive people once huddled together against the terrors of the night.

The limousine rolled through holiday traffic like a migrating whale, unhurried and unfazed. Inside, isolated and insulated behind tinted windows and an aura of privilege and mystery, Celia sat and watched Christmas lights and crowds of last-minute shoppers flash by in a kaleidoscope of gaudy color and frantic motion. And music. In her mind a song was playing over and over, one line in particular, from “Silver Bells”-the one about city sidewalks decked out in holiday style…

But where, she wondered, was the “feeling of Christmas” that was supposed to be in the air?

Her mind felt as disconnected from the emotions and sentiments of the season as her body was separated from the busyness and bustle of it by the limousine’s steel-and-glass shell. She had no room in her head for Christmas! Her thoughts, her whole being felt crowded, stuffed full, overfilled, like a balloon in danger of bursting, and all the more in chaos because so many of the thoughts and emotions filling it seemed to be in conflict with each other.

And her fertile and imaginative mind, being perhaps overly fond of allegories, reminded her that it was conflicting forces in nature that created tornadoes and hurricanes.

Her life forces were pounding inside her head and chest, loud, distracting, unsettling, like storm winds or heavy surf. Nerves pricked her skin like wind-driven rain. Her scalp tightened, as if warning of some unseen danger. Her breathing was shallow and her muscles tense, as if preparing her for imminent flight.

She felt exhilarated…and at the same time, in despair.

She wanted to run as fast as she could on a wide-open beach, put back her head and scream at the empty sky.

She’d never felt so alone, or wanted less to be.

Beside her, inches away, Roy sat in infuriating, and typically masculine, oblivion. How, she wondered, could he not be aware of the turmoil that was in her? How could he not understand what she must be feeling? How can he not know how much I want him?

Done good.

That much at least he must know-how much she’d wanted to do this thing…how much it meant to her to have succeeded. And then… “Done good,” he’d told her-like a grudging pat on the head.

That’s not enough, damn you! I want more! Though how much more, she couldn’t bear to say, even in the privacy of her mind.

Then, assailed by that actor’s familiar malady, insecurity, she decided if Roy somehow “didn’t get it,” it must be her fault. She was an actress, after all; it was her job to communicate thoughts, feelings and emotions to her audience. If her audience-Roy-didn’t understand, it was because she’d failed. She was a lousy actress.

No! Stomach flip-flopping, she quickly rejected that. She’d won Emmys, after all. She only had to try harder.

Sunk deep in ivory plush and the darkness of his own thoughts, Roy gave a start when Celia suddenly unbuckled her seat belt. “Hey, where y’goin’?” he asked, reaching for her.

She threw him an enigmatic smile over her shoulder. She murmured, “I know this limo must have some champagne…” as she opened the bar.

“I’d have thought you’d had enough of that stuff already,” he muttered, but she ignored that. Naturally.

She slid back into the seat beside him, triumphantly holding up two glasses and a champagne bottle. “I feel a need to celebrate,” she announced, smiling the way she sometimes did, with her teeth pressed down on her lower lip, like a little girl doing mischief.

Well, damn. He hated when she did that. Because no matter how much was on his mind, that look, so at odds with the elegant clothes and hairstyle she wore, her sultry beauty and probably a queen’s ransom in jewelry, made something twinge in the back of his jaws, as if he wanted to smile, too, and maybe do the same mischief right along with her.

Not trusting himself to come up with anything intelligent to say, he snorted and accepted the glasses she gave him to hold while she expertly opened the bottle. Naturally, she had to give a little squawk when the cork popped and laugh as she licked the spillage from the back of her hand.

Resigned, he offered the glasses, and she put her hand on his to steady them while she poured. She tucked the bottle into the corner of the seat behind her, then turned back and took one of the glasses from him. She held it up and faced him across it, the champagne’s liquid effervescence washing sparkling golden light over her smile.

“A toast,” she said.

Roy said, “Humph,” and added an unwilling, “Okay-what to?”

She opened her mouth, then paused, looking uncertain, and instead gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I don’t know-to us. To the mission. To success!” She clinked her glass half-defiantly against his and drank.

He felt a spurt of anger and tasted bitterness at the back of his throat at the thought of what might still lie ahead of him. He lowered the glass without drinking. “The job’s not done,” he said harshly.

She waved her glass, lips glistening with champagne. “My part is-” her eyes flew wide “-No-wait-I didn’t mean-”

“Well, I’m sure as hell glad to hear you say that,” he said, smiling darkly at her.

She leaned toward him, earnest and dismayed. “I didn’t mean that. It’s not done-just this part of it is. You still need me-you know you do. He invited both of us.”

Furious with her, he said, “Why do you insist on being in on this? You’re like a little kid trying to get into the big boys’ game. Dammit, Celia, this isn’t a game.”

“I know it’s not.” She burped softly and looked away. After a moment she brought her eyes back to him, and he saw in them something he’d seen before-he couldn’t remember, now, exactly when it had been. Pain and wariness, and maybe even fear.

She licked her lips, then said in a hard, quiet voice, “Have you ever killed anyone?”

He jerked and spilled champagne on his hand. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

“It’s a question. Have you?”

He took a drink of champagne, shifted his shoulders. “No. Of course not. I’m in the information-gathering business. We don’t kill people.”

Her gaze was dark and steady. “I have.”