h.e.l.l, what was he going to do now?

He couldn't risk Mirabella's life. She was Topaz's mother, for G.o.d's sake. But if he told Topaz the truth, he would also have to admit what he'd been doing, and he doubted she would ever believe that he had never truly put Reaper at risk, much less that he'd been working for information that would help her in her quest, rather than for money.

He supposed there was really only one option. He had to find Mirabella before the agents did.

And come what may, he was going to have to talk to Reaper.

He intended to do that the minute he got back. But he felt a ripple of emotion that turned into a wave as soon as he got within range of the bungalow. Topaz. Something was wrong.

Jack surged inside, then up the stairs, following his sense of her all the way. It was coming from his room, not her own. He flung the door open, then stopped and just stared.

She was sitting on the bed, her eyes red and wet, her entire body shaking. His duffel bag was in front of her, the stacks of bills all around her. As he stared at her, searching for words, she lifted her head and met his eyes.

"I can't believe I was starting to trust you again."

"Topaz-"

"I don't understand, Jack. I don't understand. Why carry it around with you like this? Why didn't you spend it or put it into a bank or a safe or-"

"Because I was going to give it back."

She closed her eyes, and her head fell forward. Her pain was so intense, and he felt it so keenly that it made his stomach churn.

"Please don't lie to me anymore," she whispered.

"I've had it all along, Topaz." He came the rest of the way into the room, but he didn't touch her or get too close. "My original intention was to give you back half, convince you Gregor still had the other half, and keep it for myself. I admit that. I know it was a lousy plan, and I'm an a.s.shole for ever having concocted it. But the fact is, Topaz, I couldn't go through with it."

"Why not?" She didn't look at him.

He couldn't believe she was actually listening to him. But she seemed to be. She wasn't yelling or arguing or accusing. Just listening.

"To tell you the truth, I've been going nuts trying to figure that out myself. I only knew I wanted you to trust me again. I wanted to make up for the pain I've caused you. And if I admitted I'd had the money the whole time, I was sure you would never trust me, and never give me the chance to make things right. I've been trying to figure out a way to give it back without admitting I'd had it all along. Maybe that's cowardly of me. But that's the truth, Topaz. That's why I haven't spent a nickel of it or put it away. h.e.l.l, I've never spent a cent of your money, ever since I took it from you. I think maybe, deep down, I knew all along I couldn't do that to you. I think I knew from the day I left you that I had to give it back."

Again her question was simple. "Why?"

He sat on the edge of the bed, reached out to touch her face, to tip it up so he could look into her eyes. "Because I love you."

She blinked. Tears flooded her eyes, and she closed them against the pain. The hope. "Don't say that unless you-" "You know I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it. I've never said it before. That was the one thing I could never bring myself to lie about, Topaz. But as it turns out, it wouldn't have been a lie. I've loved you all along. This isn't a con, and it's not a game, and it's not some kind of penance I'm trying to pay. I love you. I didn't realize it until I walked in here and saw you with that money, and thought I'd finally lost you for good."

She opened her eyes again. She was still crying.

"Do you believe me?"

"I want to," she whispered. "G.o.d, I want to."

"Then why don't you?"

"Because if I believe that and then you take it away from me again...I don't think I'll survive. You're asking me to reach into a bear trap, to grab the bait and trust that it won't snap my hand off. No, it's worse. It's way worse than that. Do you know how long I've dreamed of hearing you say those words to me? Do you understand that there's nothing I've ever wanted more, not in my entire life?"

He just held her eyes. Her questions didn't require answers.

"It's too late, anyway," she said.

"Too late?" he asked.

"For me, I mean." She got up from the bed and moved closer to him. "If you're lying to me, Jack Heart, I'm done for."

And then, to Jack's utter astonishment, she flung her arms around his neck, and kissed him. Hungrily, desperately, pa.s.sionately kissed him, and he could taste her tears on her lips. She shoved the duffel and the money off the bed, pushing him back and climbing on top of him, wrestling with his clothes and her own. Jack was overwhelmed with the power of her desire and of his. It was a thunderstorm of emotion and release, of yearning and denial, of pain and relief. Their lips never broke contact as their clothes tore and flew, and then they were flesh against flesh, straining and pressing to get closer, then closer still, kissing as if they were starving for the taste of each other, as if they would never stop.

She was straddling him when she took him inside her, and she tipped her head back, closed her eyes. "Say it again, Jack."

"I love you," he told her, driving into her and feeling almost too much pleasure to bear. "I love you, dammit. I love you."

Topaz lay in his arms, spent and sated and feeling as if she'd been lifted from the pits of h.e.l.l to the heights of heaven, all on the wings of those three words.

And at the same time she felt the dizzying fear that she was going to fall further than ever before, and that it would surely be fatal this time. She loved him. She loved him with everything in her, but she didn't trust him. She wanted to believe he loved her, but the best she could manage was to believe he might think he did, for the moment, but that it wouldn't last. And it wasn't so much that she was willing to take the inevitable pain just for the bliss of having him back, even for a little while. It wasn't that she was willing at all. It was that she had no choice. She'd been trying to get over him for almost a year and hadn't managed to even come close.

So let it kill her this time. It would be better if it did.

"Much as I'd like to lie here, holding you until sunrise," he said, "we have things to do. We need to be looking for your mother."

She nodded, her cheek rubbing against his chest. "I know." "Have you thought about what you'll say to her when we find her?"

"Endlessly. But I still don't know. I suppose I'll just look into her eyes and see what words come tumbling out of me." She bit her lower lip. "If she even wants to see me."

"She will."

Lifting her head, Topaz looked into his eyes. "How can you be so sure?"

"I just am. Trust me."

Those two words were like a blade twisting in her heart. She looked away quickly, then got out of the bed and began to dress.

Jack got up, too, threw his clothes on, and then gathered up the bundles of money that were scattered across the floor like the bricks of a fallen building and put them into the plastic bag that had held them. He set the bag on the bed. "You should put this somewhere safe, until you can get it home."

She looked at the money. "I don't want it." And then she looked at him. "I didn't want the other half, either. I never did. All I ever wanted was your love, Jack. Money doesn't mean s.h.i.t to me. You do."

He smiled a little, came closer and ran a hand through her hair. "Well, now you've got both." Then he smacked her on the bottom.

"Go on, go put it someplace for now, and we'll get moving."

"All right." She took the bag and left the room, tucked the money deep into her own bedroom closet and locked the bungalow when they stepped outside. The others were gathered on the back porch of their own cabin, which faced the ocean.

"It really is beautiful here," Topaz said softly.

"We were beginning to wonder about you two," Reaper said, rising from his chair.

"I wasn't." Roxy sent Topaz a knowing wink, followed by a puzzled frown. And no wonder, Topaz thought. If her expression matched what was going on inside her head, then she must look more frightened and resigned to a cruel fate than sated and well loved.

"Do you have any sort of a plan?" Reaper asked, and Topaz realized that Jack must have communicated mentally with the gang leader to enlist everyone's help in the search.

Jack nodded. "There are two places within a fifty-mile radius that vampires tend to frequent. I think we should split up into teams, check out both of them, and question every vampire we come across. Moreover, we elicit their help, if they seem trustworthy and willing. Have them ask all their contacts, too."

"Sounds like a good plan," Reaper said. "Briar, you can come with me. Seth and Vixen-"

"I'm not going," Briar said.

Reaper shot her a look-more disappointed than surprised. "Why the h.e.l.l not?"

"It's not my problem. And I think all this is a waste of time. We should be looking for Gregor. That is what you're getting paid to do, isn't it, Reaper?"

"I'm not on anyone's time clock."

She nodded. "You might want to at least sniff the air for him while you're out hunting for Topaz's long-lost mommy. Maybe even ask around. If you find out anything, you can let me know."

"Are you really so eager to get back to the man who tortured you?" Reaper shook his head sadly, then just sighed as Briar stalked into the bungalow and let the screen door slam behind her.

"Reaper, I'd like you to ride with me tonight," Jack said.

Topaz was surprised, and judging by the look on his face, Reaper was suspicious.

"Fine by me," he said. "Topaz, you can team up with Seth and Vixen tonight."

"How about Ilyana and me?" Roxy asked. "As mortals, even though we're Chosen, we can't very well go poking around known vampire haunts asking nosy questions."

"No, that probably wouldn't go over too well," Jack said.

"I was thinking you could work online tonight," Reaper said. "Find any references to Mirabella sightings that have appeared in the tabloids in the past six months or so, cross-reference them with Mexico, and see what comes up."

"h.e.l.l, Reaper," Roxy said. "The only thing that could possibly give me more search results would be if I were looking for Elvis."

He smiled. "I know. It's a big job, but there just might a grain of truth in one of them, and it could help."

She nodded. "I brought my laptop. I'll go up to the main hotel and see what they have to offer by way of an Internet connection.

G.o.d, please don't let it be dial-up."

Jack snagged a notepad from his pocket, jotted down an address and handed it to Topaz. "You guys can check out this one.

Reaper and I will take the other. Call Reaper's cell if you find anything, and if not, we'll meet back here as soon as we've finished, all right?"

She nodded.

"All right. I'll see you in a few hours, then."

She waited for him to wrap his arms around her and kiss her goodbye, but he didn't make any move to do so. She could feel his uncertainty. G.o.d, was he regretting his impulsive words already? Was he already changing his mind?

He gave her a small, secret smile, then hurried to his car.

"Come on, Tope. The car's in the parking lot," Seth said.

"What are you driving?" she asked him.

He just met her eyes and smiled. "What do you think?"

11.

Jack got into the pa.s.senger seat of his own Porsche, too distracted to drive. Reaper looked at him oddly for a moment, then, without a word, took the driver's seat. He didn't speak, and Jack was glad. He had to go through what had just happened between him and Topaz, and try to figure it out.

He'd told Topaz that he loved her.

Those were words he'd been certain he would never say to any woman, because he knew they would be a lie. He didn't believe in love, didn't think it existed. And women, they craved it, hungered for it like nothing else. Especially Topaz.

And he knew, dammit, he knew it was the one thing she wanted from him, the one thing that could get to her when all else failed, and he'd vowed never to use it against her like a sweet, seductive weapon. Or like a drug that would convince her to do whatever he needed her to do.

Those words were as effective on Topaz as Reaper's trigger words were on him. Just as overwhelming. Just as impossible to resist. Just as dangerous to her. h.e.l.l, to both of them.

Right now, for some insane reason, logical or not, Jack was compelled to make Topaz trust him. So for one brief, insane, desperate moment, he'd lost his mind and said the words he knew would win him that trust.

He'd told her that he loved her. He'd told her that he felt something he didn't even believe himself capable of feeling, much less living up to. And he hated himself for it. What's more, he couldn't undo it now that it was done. And when things went to h.e.l.l between them, as they ultimately would, she would be even more crushed and broken than she had been the first time he'd stupidly betrayed her.

d.a.m.n. There was no solution to this. None.

He didn't know why the h.e.l.l he'd said what he had. When he'd seen her with that money all around her, when he'd seen the tears on her face, he'd somehow been driven to say and do anything to take her pain away, to remove the distrust from her eyes. The words had come tumbling out of him before he'd given them any forethought, much less had the chance to bite them back.

And they had worked. They were magic words, those three monosyllabic bits. They were magic words. I love you.

And they were a lie. Which sooner or later she was going to figure out. And it would do her in this time. She'd said so, and he didn't doubt it for a minute.

He was guilty of a crime of the heart, and he was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and he deserved to burn in h.e.l.l for it.

"You're unusually quiet," Reaper said.

Jack dragged his attention away from the cyclone going on in his gut and glanced sideways at the Grim One as he drove. "A lot on my mind."

"I can see that. Is it Topaz, or does it have to do with me?"

"You?" Jack frowned.

"I a.s.sumed you wanted to talk to me about something. Otherwise you'd be with her right now. Or am I guessing wrong?"