But as he stood there staring at the Eve lying just beyond his arm’s reach in her hospital bed, he couldn’t keep himself from seeing instead all the other Eves he’d met over the course of the last twenty-four hours, the Eves from which he hadn’t managed to keep that critical distance.

The battered bride, reeking of garbage and tanked on vintage champagne, taking him by surprise in his van and then turning to him with terror and pleading in her eyes…

The sleeping beauty he’d had no choice but to undress… and it had been like Pandora opening her box, revealing every adolescent male’s fantasy… Lush femininity wrapped in creamy skin and all tied up in garters and lace… Long, smooth legs in silky white stockings that he could feel wrapped around him-hoo boy, and how was he supposed to put that mischief back in the box? Tell himself he hadn’t seen it? Order himself not to remember?

Oh, and for God’s sake, don’t remember the brave but doomed princess who’d stood with her head trustingly bowed, like Anne Boleyn baring her neck to the headsman, while he relieved her of her jewelry. And why was it he could still feel that mouth-watering sensation he’d gotten when he’d thought-just for an instant-of putting his mouth on the little red mark the clasp had made on her skin?

Why was it he could still feel the weight of her body in his arms, the warm, moist pool of her breath against his shoulder as he’d carried her into the hospital? The shivers of suppressed laughter-mostly nerves, he knew, but dangerously contagious nonetheless-that had made him think of tumbling her into something soft and near and romping with her there with the mindless abandon of puppies and children and very new lovers.

And finally, the one image that had brought him back to her room last night and kept him company through the hours of his vigil while she slept…one solitary tear slipping down her cheek, leaving its trail of silver…

“There’s something else, isn’t there?” Her voice was quiet, not accusing, just accepting. Waiting.

Jake shook his head, not in answer to the question, but to chase the images of those other Eves from his mind. And he frowned, not at her, but as a means to force himself to concentrate on the Eve that faced him now with her bruises and bandages and a bright, intelligent gaze. Finally he took a breath, let it out slowly and said, “That time I just bought you-I said it’s up to you what you do with it?”

She nodded, her face grave. “I understood what you were saying. I have to find a way to break up with Sonny without making him suspicious.” She looked away before she swallowed. “It’s not going to be easy.”

“How would you feel,” Jake said carefully, “about doing something…a a little bit more… preemptive than that?”

Her eyes came back to him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, how would you feel about helping us nail your…fiancé?” He said it warily, not certain about her reaction. Regardless of what she’d told him about her feelings and how she’d gotten involved with Cisneros, the guy had been her lover. Breaking off a relationship was one thing; taking somebody she’d been intimate with and putting him in prison for life was another.

She wasted no time in dispelling his doubts as she exhaled in an explosive little gasp of surprise. “Help you-you mean like…spy? On Sonny?”

Jake drew a hand over his face, muffling his swearing. “Jeez, Waskowitz,” he finally muttered. “Spy? You think I’d go to this much trouble to save your ass and then get you killed? No. All we want you to do is plant some listening devices-”

“Bugs!” she cried gleefully.

He snorted. “Okay, we’d like you to bug Sonny’s private space-bedroom, office, car-anywhere he’s likely to do business-”

“What about his telephone?”

“That’s…tricky.”

“You could show me how.” She was sitting up straight in bed, as eagerly predatory and bright-eyed over the idea of those bugs as a little banty hen who’d just scratched up a whole nest of the six-legged kind. “And-oh, God, now I get it-you’re going to hide the bugs in my collar! That’s what Dr. Shepherd meant when he said he’d have it ready for you. That is so cool.”

“You don’t miss a trick, do you?” said Jake dryly.

Eve shrugged. “It’s a no-brainer. That was my question, remember? What’s with the collar? So it’s obvious.” She gave herself kind of a shivery little hug, then looked past him toward the window as she said pensively, “I guess great minds do think alike. I was going-I was planning-to see if I could find anything out about Sonny’s… business-” Jake’s breath expired like a pressure valve letting go, but she raised her voice and rushed on before he could interrupt. “All right, I know-but the thing is, I’m not sure I can. What if I can’t?-I don’t know if I’m a good enough actress to break up with Sonny without making him suspicious. I’d always be afraid…looking over my shoulder-”

Jake pushed away from the window. It took only that to bring him close enough to her to take her by the shoulders. “Listen to me,” he said in his softest, growliest voice. “You are not to do anything except what we tell you to do, capish? No poking around, no snooping, no lurking in places you shouldn’t be. You’ll plant the bugs only where it’s possible to do so without arousing suspicion, and that’s all you’ll do, or no deal. You understand?”

She nodded and whispered, “Capish. ”And her eyes clung to his face as if she were mesmerized.

As for Jake, after the first sweeping search for the verification he needed, and finding it in her eyes and her nod, his gaze zeroed in on her mouth and stayed there. He watched it form the word as she whispered it, saw the first fine sheen of perspiration appear on her chin and upper lip, like diamond dust on her skin. He felt the tickle of a pulse in his fingers where they gripped her shoulders, and his own heart slamming hard against his ribs.

Her lips parted. She drew a breath in the soft, careful way of someone afraid of shattering a soap bubble…or preparing to be kissed.

He let go of her as if she’d burst into flames and spun away, holding up one hand in a vague gesture that was meant to be the “I’m sorry” he couldn’t quite form into words.

Lord help us, I’ve lost my mind, he thought, staring morosely down at the parking lot from his safe haven by the window. It was the only explanation. As if this whole thing wasn’t balanced on the razor’s edge as it was…

“Jake?”

He didn’t want to turn around. Didn’t want to answer her. Sure as hell wasn’t going to look at her.

“I’ve been thinking. You know, about what you said before? About how could I change my feelings so quickly? And what I told you, about Sonny, and it being a matter of tim-ing… well, that was true, but I think it was only part of it. I know this is going to sound like I’m trying to justify myself with the benefit of hindsight, but… somewhere inside, I think…I knew.”

“Knew…?” With great reluctance he shifted so that he could look at her, one shoulder against the wall, arms casually folded, one ankle crossing the other. Aloof, he told himself. Completely detached.

She had pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, and above the drape of hospital bedding, her eyes were the luminous violet of a twilight sky. “Knew…that it was wrong. Oh, not that I knew Sonny was a crook, I don’t mean that. Just that he was wrong…for me. That I was wrong to marry him. Because I kept finding excuses. For God’s sake, we were in Vegas-the world capital of weddings! I could have married him months ago-that’s what he wanted. But I said no, I wanted my family there. Then I got the bee in my bonnet about Savannah, and I insisted on that particular church even though there was a three-month waiting list. What was that? I’m not even religious.” She let out a breath and looked away, and he watched a blush deepen under her natural tan, like time-lapse photography of a ripening peach.

“What you said? About being ready to ‘jump his bones’?” She sounded ashamed but hell-bent on confession. And why tell him? he wondered. Her relationship with Cisneros was the last thing he wanted to have to hear about. But she was going doggedly on, in a low, tense voice. “It wasn’t…quite like that. I mean, that wasn’t what it was about. When I opened that bottle of champagne and went looking for Sonny, it wasn’t because I wanted him so much, I just couldn’t wait to…” She collected another breath, a quick little in-and-out, stalling for time, then dragged her gaze bravely back to him. “I think…what I wanted more than anything else, was to be convinced. I had all these butterflies. I was thinking, My God, Evie, what are you doing? Are you crazy? All of a sudden I wanted to prove to myself I wasn’t crazy. I wanted Sonny to make love to me-I mean really knock my socks off-so I’d know I was doing the right thing by marrying him. As if sex was enough…” She swallowed, looked away again briefly, then came back to him with a wry smile.

Detach, he thought, silently grinding his teeth.

“See, I have this awful tendency, where emotions are concerned. I sort of go overboard in the opposite direction from what I’m really feeling, you know what I mean? Like, I cry at parties and make jokes at funerals-that sort of thing. Terrible. So…the more uncertain I was about whether I wanted Sonny, the more I… Well, you know.”

She groaned and bowed her head, resting her forehead on her drawn-up knees. He saw her shoulders begin to shake, but it was a moment before he realized that she was laughing. “Oh, God…” She lifted her head, but covered her eyes with her hand. “I bought all this sexy lingerie. I mean, what was that? It sure as hell isn’t me. That thing I was wearing-”

“You mean, the teddy?” Jake asked, in a tone of polite interest. Complete detachment.