Roarke: The Adventurer Read online

  “I have no intention of sleeping with you.”

  About the Author

  Books by JoAnn Ross

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Copyright

  “I have no intention of sleeping with you.”

  Roarke had the audacity to smile at her statement. A roguish grin that slashed white in his dark face and made his eyes gleam like sapphires. “Well, if you insist on splitting hairs, I think this is where I admit that sleeping wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

  Sexual awareness hummed through her veins at his look, but Daria willed her voice to chipped ice. “Fine. Then let me be a bit more specific so you can understand. I’m not going to have sex with you.”

  Her voice might be cold, but Roarke could see something else in her eyes. Her words were what he’d been telling himself all morning while he’d been rattling around the kitchen, thinking of her lying upstairs in bed, all warm and soft. It was safer that way. Unfortunately, as he took in the sight of her wet and nearly naked body wrapped in a towel, he was struck with a sudden urge to lick those beads of moisture off the crest of her ivory breasts. Roarke had never been a really big fan of safe.

  The author of over fifty novels, JoAnn Ross wrote her first story—a romance about two star-crossed mallard ducks—when she was just seven years old. She sold her first romance novel in 1982 and now has over eight million copies of her books in print. Her novels have been published in twenty-seven countries, including Japan, Hungary, Czech Republic and Turkey. JoAnn married her high school sweetheart—twice—and makes her home near Phoenix, Arizona.

  Books by JoAnn Ross

  HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

  537—NEVER A BRIDE (Bachelor Arms)

  541—FOR RICHER OR POORER (Bachelor Arms)

  545—THREE GROOMS AND A WEDDING (Bachelor Arms)

  562—PRIVATE PASSIONS

  585—THE OUTLAW

  605—UNTAMED (Men of Whiskey River)

  609—WANTEDI (Men of Whiskey River)

  613—AMBUSHED (Men of Whiskey River)

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  ROARKE: THE ADVENTURER

  JoANN ROSS

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN

  MADRID • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  Prologue

  Moscow

  THERE WERE FEW pleasures as satisfying as spending a lazy rainy Sunday morning in bed with a gorgeous woman. Unfortunately, it seemed Roarke O’Malley was going to be deprived of such sensual delights this morning.

  “I don’t get it,” he complained, hitching himself up in bed and putting one of the down-filled pillows behind his head. “You never work on Sunday. Hell, you never go to the studio before noon.”

  And she must be tired. They had spent most of the night at the Casino Royale, Moscow’s most elegant casino, located in a palace once used by the czars whenever they came to the city for the horse races. Unlike the dark times under communist rule, these days Moscow’s night life rivaled that of New York or Paris; the nightclubs didn’t really start rocking until after midnight and didn’t stop until sunrise. It had been only three hours since they’d returned to his hotel from the casino, and very little of that time had been spent sleeping.

  “I told you, Anna called in with the flu,” Natasha Adropov called out from the adjoining bathroom.

  “Hell, she’s probably just spending the day in bed with one of the station’s cameramen.” He scowled as Natasha came out of the bathroom, enticingly clad in French lace underwear and smelling of the perfumed soap that was part of the five-star treatment at the Hotel Baltschug Kempinski Moskau. “Some women understand priorities.”

  She flashed him the smile that charmed Muscovites each evening on the national news. “Some women are content to stay weekend anchors.”

  Being ambitious himself, Roarke couldn’t complain that Natasha was, without a doubt, the most driven woman he’d ever met. It was, after all, one of the things that had attracted him to her in the first place.

  “Why don’t you come back after the newscast?” he suggested. “We’ll spend the afternoon driving each other crazy.”

  “That sounds lovely.” She took a silk blouse and her new Armani suit from the closet. “But I’m afraid I’ve made other plans.”

  “Oh?” He narrowed his eyes. There was something new in her tone. He suspected she was hiding something. “I suppose, if you were spending the day with your old boyfriend, you’d let me know. Considering we’re supposed to be collaborating on the story later, and all.”

  Natasha’s former lover was a reputed kingpin in the Russian mafia. Apparently they’d grown up together in the same small town outside Minsk, and although she didn’t seem to feel an intimate relationship between a news anchor and a mobster constituted a conflict of interests, whenever Roarke thought about it—which was increasingly often, given his own interest in the mafia wars currently taking place—he was decidedly uncomfortable with her slippery sense of morality.

  Then again, he reminded himself, Russia wasn’t America. The Puritans had never set foot in this country—and would undoubtedly be run out of Moscow if they showed up today—and given all she’d overcome in her life, he had no business judging her behavior. Especially since his relationship with Russia’s sexiest newslady was simply business. With some hot, uncommitted sex on the side.

  “Of course I’d tell you if I were meeting with Dimitri.”

  He wasn’t sure he believed her. And experience had taught Roarke not to trust her. Even so, as she sat down in a brocade-covered wing chair and pulled on her stockings, he felt an automatic tugof desire.

  “It’s really too bad they have you behind a desk,” he said, changing the subject. “Put you on a stool so viewers could get a look at those legs and your ratings would go through the roof.”

  She laughed at that “My rating points are high enough to receive an offer from CNN, thank you.”

  “Really?” That was news to him. “When did that happen?”

  “After I broke my story about the CIA operatives working on the Moscow Times editorial staff.”

  This was not Roarke’s favorite subject. He folded his arms across his bare chest “As I recall, that was originally my story.”

  This time her smile was professionally smooth and failed to reach her eyes. Dark eyes that had gone suddenly hard. “You weren’t using it,” she said reasonably.

  “I was out confirming my sources.”

  She sighed, stood with a smooth, lithe movement and approached the bed on a feline glide that had attracted the attention of more than one male in the casino last night.

  “Please, darling—” she ran her long, manicured fingers through his dark hair “—let’s not rehash this old argument. After all, I’ve already apologized for the little misunderstanding.” Her lips brushed lightly against his.

  Misunderstanding, hell. She’d stolen his story right out from under him; a mere six hours after he’d foolishly shared it with her, she’d broken it on the air. By the next morning her broadcast had been pic
ked up by networks around the globe, including his own.

  Reminding himself that it was his own fault for not keeping his work closer to the chest, Roarke tamped down his renewed irritation and dived into the kiss, pulling her onto the bed with him.

  “Roarke!” She wiggled, trying to escape his tight hold. “You’re going to wrinkle my blouse.”

  “So, take it off.”

  “You know I can’t.” Once again her expression—and her tone—didn’t match the look in her slanted brown eyes. Looking up at her, Roarke thought he detected an anxiety that went beyond a wrinkled silk blouse.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Of course. It’s just that if I don’t leave now, I’m going to be late.” She sat up and pressed her hand against his chest. “Perhaps I’ll postpone my afternoon appointment. If I get back in time, we can go out to the champagne brunch at the Aerostar Hotel.”

  The hotel’s wildly popular brunch was additional proof that Russia was not what it used to be. She could have been suggesting a typical Sunday at the Court of the Two Sisters back in Roarke’s hometown of New Orleans.

  “I’d rather just order room service. And eat it in bed.”

  “Whatever you want, darling.” She kissed him again—a long kiss with promises of more to come—then stood and put on her coat.

  “How do I look?”

  He studied her, from the top of her sleek blond hair, down her lush ankle-length sable, to her buttery smooth Italian-leather pumps. “Like an advertisement for the glories of capitalism.”

  “Good. Because I want to impress ABC with today’s broadcast.”

  “They made you an offer, too?” When you’re hot, you’re hot, Roarke thought.

  “Don’t tell a soul, but they’re looking for a new backup for Ted Koppel.”

  “They offered you ‘Nightline’?”

  This time her smile reached her eyes, reminding him of a cat who’d just caught sight of a succulent bowl of cream. “Not yet,” she admitted as she scooped up her suede Chanel handbag. “But confidential sources tell me that I’m at the top of a very short list.”

  She blew him a kiss and left the hotel room. Deciding to think about her riding to the American networks on his story later, Roarke closed his eyes and immediately fell asleep.

  Less than five minutes later, she was back. “My car won’t start. And the concierge told me there’s a twenty-minute wait for a taxi.”

  Roarke found that news mildly amusing. At least some things about Moscow hadn’t changed. “Take my car. The keys are on the dresser.”

  “Are you certain? What if you want to go out?”

  “I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to stay right here in bed and get some sleep to build up my strength for when you get back.” He’d also decided that lifting some weights in the fitness center and swimming a few laps in the indoor pool would work out the hangover threatening behind his eyes.

  “If you’re sure—”

  “Natasha, sweetheart, I’m sure. Take the damn car. After I get some sleep I’ll call a mechanic to come look at yours.”

  “You are such a good man.”

  Her naturally husky voice wavered. And, amazingly, Roarke thought he viewed a glimmer of moisture in her eyes, then decided it must be a trick of the light. Natasha was, without a doubt, one of the toughest women—hell, the toughest person—he’d ever encountered.

  He couldn’t imagine her crying if someone ran over her pet dog. Not that she had one. That would entail some sort of personal commitment, and from what he’d seen, the lady was only committed to her career.

  “That’s me. Mr. Wonderful.” He gave her another long masculine perusal and decided she was going to wow them at “Nightline.” “Now, if you insist on working on a weekend, you’d better get going before I decide to drag you back to bed and show you just how good I can be.”

  She laughed at that. Only later would he realize that there was a hint of a choked-back sob in the sound, as well.

  “Prashchaytye,” she said softly. Since her English was as good as his—perhaps even better, since it lacked his Southern softening of consonants—he was momentarily surprised by her slipping back into her native Russian.

  But before he could comment, she was gone again.

  “Prashchaytye,” he murmured, finding it even odder that she’d chosen such a final farewell rather than Do svidanya, the Russian equivalent of “See you later.”

  “Aw, hell, what if she’s going off to get herself involved in something dangerous?”

  She was so damn cocky, it would be just like her to think she could pry more secrets out of the murderous crime boss without his suspecting anything. Clever, Natasha might admittedly be. But Dimitri Davidov hadn’t gotten to the top of the former Soviet Union’s organized-crime syndicate by being easily fooled. He was smart as a whip. He was also ruthless. And deadly.

  Growing more uneasy, Roarke got out of bed and went over to the window. Through the rain-streaked glass he had a spectacular view of the heart of Moscow: the Muskva River, its banks dusted in a light winter-white coat of the season’s first snow; the famed colorful onion domes of Saint Basil’s Cathedral; Red Square, where a Christmas tree had actually been erected; and the crenelated walls and magnificent palaces of the Kremlin.

  He saw her exit the hotel, viewed the doorman watching with undisguised admiration as she walked with that enticing, long-legged glide across Red Square to where he’d left his car this morning after discovering the gates to the parking garage were chained.

  She looked up at the window, as if knowing she would find him standing there, and waved.

  Deciding he was overreacting, Roarke waved back. “You’ve gotten so suspicious you probably wouldn’t trust your own mother,” he muttered to himself as he watched her put the key in the door lock.

  The explosion rocked the nine-story hotel, rattling the window glass.

  “No!” Roarke shouted as he stared at the blinding orange fireball where his Mercedes had been parked only seconds before.

  1

  Two months later

  IT WAS MARDI GRAS in the Big Easy, the last gasp of high frivolity before the austerity of Lent. Since it seemed as if the entire city of New Orleans was taking part in the public party, a dead man was the last thing Daria Shea had expected to find in her hotel room.

  At first, she didn’t realize that he was, indeed, dead.

  “You’re late,” she scolded the man slouched in the wing chair by the window overlooking the inner courtyard. She tossed her purse and the bag of muffulettas and drinks onto the table. “I figured we should work through dinner, so I got us some sandwiches.”

  Taking his silence for the disapproval she’d come to expect, she responded with the defensiveness he always provoked. “It’s a madhouse out there. Even if we were fortunate enough to find a vacant table anywhere in town, we’d never have any privacy.”

  Still, nothing. He continued to stare at her, as mute as one of the hand-painted coconuts tossed to the crowds by riders on the Zulu krewe float Surely he wasn’t angry because she hadn’t been sitting around waiting for him to arrive from Washington? After all, he was the one who was late. Frustrated, she took two bottles from the brown paper bag. Mineral water for her, a Dixie beer in a long-necked bottle for him.

  “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that sulking was unattractive?”

  When she still received no response, Daria felt a stirring of unease. “Martin?” She moved toward him. “This isn’t funny.” Her blood chilled, her heart began to beat faster. “Dammit, Martin—”

  She reached out to shake his shoulder, but the moment she touched him, U.S. Federal Attorney Martin Fletcher’s lifeless body slumped forward and fell onto the pale green carpeting.

  Covering her mouth to hold back her scream, Daria grabbed her purse and fled the room.

  ROARKE DECIDED THAT the Blue Bayou Lounge, just off the lobby of New Orleans’s Whitfield Palace Hotel, resembled the bar scene from Star Wars. A nearly s
even-foot-tall Marie Antoinette—sporting a towering powdered wig and suspicious Adam’s apple—was engaged in spirited conversation with a man dressed as an oversize condom and a voluptuous redhead whose black leather bra, matching short shorts, thighhigh boots and whip were enough to make any S&M devotee swoon.

  A man clad in a silver-lamé body stocking, oversize feather-covered wings and a jeweled halo danced with a nun to an earsplitting rendition of “Long Tall Sally.” At the edge of the postage-stamp-size dance floor, a trio of buffed-up musclemen made up to resemble the cop, the Indian, and the cowboy of Village People fame compared pecs and biceps.

  “I just love Mardi Gras, don’t you?” a female voice inquired.

  Reminding himself that if he’d been searching for solitude, he never should have returned home to New Orleans during Mardi Gras, Roarke reluctantly turned toward the newcomer who’d latched on to the just-abandoned barstool beside him.

  “Nothing like it,” he agreed.

  The blonde was wearing what appeared to be a dress of gold chain-mail. The only thing she had on beneath the see-through minidress was a silver G-string. When the sight of her wondrous, obviously surgically enhanced breasts stirred not a single responsive chord inside him, Roarke reluctantly wondered whether his network bureau chief might have had a point when he’d accused him of being dangerously burned-out.

  He hadn’t hurt Dimitri Davidov that badly, Roarke thought. A few broken bones, some cracked ribs. Okay, there had been that little matter of a knife wound that had punctured a lung, but he’d been acting in self-defense at the time, so that shouldn’t even have been considered.

  “Excuse me?” he asked when he realized the golden girl with the south-of-the-Mason-Dixon-line drawl was talking to him again.

  “I asked if you were from New Orleans.”

  Before Roarke could answer that he wasn’t really from anywhere, anymore, a brunette wearing a clinging black cat-suit and a jet mask covering the top half of her face suddenly rushed up to him, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. Smack on the mouth.