Angel of the Dark

Matt took her face in his hands. “You look so troubled. Is it Inspector Liu?”

“Yes,” she lied. “He’s out to get me.”

“Well, he won’t succeed,” Matt assured her. “Not while I’m around. Listen, Lisa, I know it’s not really the time. And I know last night was unexpected, for both of us. But I have to tell you. I’ve never felt like this before. I—”

Lisa put a finger to his lips. “Not here. Liu and his men will probably coming scuttling out of that door any moment.”

She was right. A busy street outside of a police station was no place to declare his undying love. Matt stretched out his arm. A cab stopped instantly.

“The Peninsula.”

Lisa raised an eyebrow. The Peninsula was the grandest hotel in Hong Kong. They could afford it, now that the authorities had unfrozen Miles’s accounts and allowed Lisa access to his money. But it was hardly

lying low.

“I figured if we’re going to be kept here under virtual house arrest, we might as well make our cage a gilded one,” said Matt. “I want you to be happy.”

Lisa knew all about gilded cages. “I’ll be happy anywhere,” she told him truthfully, “as long as I’m with you.”

If only I could stay with him forever.

If only I could tell him the truth.

But she knew she never would.

THEIR SUITE WAS GENEROUS. THERE WAS a small, exquisitely furnished living room and two full-size marble baths adjoining a grand double bedroom with spectacular harbor views. After a hot shower and a room-service club sandwich, Lisa felt revived enough to talk to Matt about her interview with Inspector Liu.

“He had new information. He must have spoken to Joyce Chan. Frightened her into speaking out.”

“Who’s Joyce Chan?”

“Our housekeeper at Prospect Road. She’s the only one who could have put the idea into Liu’s head that I was having an affair.”

So that’s where the rumor started, thought Matt, remembering his heated conversation with Danny McGuire. Malicious servant’s gossip.

“Spiteful bitch.”

“Oh no!” Lisa looked horrified. “No, no, Mrs. Chan’s lovely. She would never knowingly try to hurt me.”

“Then why on earth would she say such a thing?”

“Because she was frightened,” said Lisa. “And because it’s true.”

“I HAVEN’T BEEN FULLY HONEST WITH you.”

It was twenty minutes later and the two of them were in bed. Naked, wrapped in each other’s arms…it felt like the right time to share confidences.

“I wanted to. But I didn’t know where to start.”

“That’s okay.” Matt stroked her hair soothingly. The truth was, he hadn’t been fully honest with Lisa either. She still knew nothing about his connection with Interpol and Danny McGuire. All this time she’d been sharing her home, and now her bed, with a police mole. If that wasn’t a betrayal, he didn’t know what was.

Nervously, stumbling over her words, Lisa told Matt about the affair. There had only been one lover, not a string of them, as McGuire had implied. She’d denied the relationship to the police in order to protect the young man involved. She had never loved him, nor he her, but he’d helped alleviate the loneliness of her marriage to Miles.

“When Miles and I dated, we were intimate. It wasn’t the most passionate relationship in the world—Miles was a lot older—but we did make love. But after we married, things changed. Miles was kind to me and affectionate. But he put me on a pedestal in his mind. As if I were this pure, untouchable thing. Relations between us were…rare.”

For a second, Matt felt an affinity with Miles Baring. Lisa was incredibly desirable. Yet at the same time she was so perfect, so good, he understood the urge to cast her as a Madonna, something to be worshipped rather than defiled.

“It was a sex thing, then. Between you and this man?”