“You looked like you were going to pass out.” He put the chicken on the platter and closed the lid to the barbeque. “You did great, though.”

“No.” She shook her head and set flatware beside two red plates. “I was so scared I was numb, but you… you weren’t scared at all.”

She was wrong. He’d been afraid. He’d been more afraid than he’d ever been in his life. Not for himself, but for her. He moved to the table and set the platter in the center beside two lit candles that looked just like pears. “I’ve learned how to deal with fear,” he told her. “I don’t let it interfere with want I need to do.”

“Well, I don’t ever want to learn how to deal with fear, because I don’t ever want to be shipwrecked and shot at ever again.” Lola walked into the house and returned in less than a minute with salad and a basket of sliced French bread. “Once we got to the base that night, where did you go?”

Max held out her chair for her as she sat. “The naval station right next door to the Coast Guard base. Within an hour I was on my way to D.C.”

“Oh.” A little wrinkle appeared on her forehead as she placed a barbequed thigh on her plate. “I tried to wait up for you.”

He sat next to her and spooned salad into bowls that resembled hollowed-out heads of lettuce. He handed one to her, then spread his napkin in his lap. “I’m sorry,” he said, just as he had all the other times, with all the other women whom he’d disappointed over the years.

“No, I don’t want you to be sorry.” She chose a piece of bread, then handed him the basket. “You never said you would come and see me, so there is nothing for you to feel sorry about,” she said, but he didn’t believe her, not really. She took a big bite of salad and washed it down with her wine. “What sort of business do you have in Charlotte? Is there some hostage situation that the rest of us don’t know about? A spy conference?”

“Nothing that exciting, I’m afraid. Duke Power has hired me to come and check out their security.”

“Why? Is there a terrorist threat?”

“No. They’ve hired me because that’s what I do. I’m a security consultant.”

She stared at him. “You mean you have a real job?”

“I have a real job and a real company.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “Here,” he said, and handed her his business card.

As she ate a piece of bread, she studied the card. “Z Security. Are you the Z?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He dug into his chicken. “That’s me.”

“You have a real job, yet you do all that secret agent stuff on the side? Why?”

“Why, what?”

“Why would any man in his right mind risk his life when he has another job? His own business.” She set the card on the table. “Why would you choose to get shot at and beat up when you don’t have to? Is it the money?”

“No, but the money is very good.”

“Are you insane, then?”

He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Probably.”

“Because I don’t think normal people like to get shot at, Max.”

“I don’t like to get shot at, Lola,” he said, and reached for his beer. “But it comes with the job.”

“But that’s just it, you have a real job. You don’t have to be involved with drug lords or blow up yachts.”

“I know I don’t have to.” He stabbed another piece of chicken and put it on his plate. He’d had different versions of this conversation before. With other females. Although Lola was the only woman who knew what he did for the government, the only one who knew the dark side of what he did, it always came back to the same basic thing. Why couldn’t he just settle down and live a normal life in the suburbs and raise two children and drive a minivan? He had no answer other than the truth. He just wasn’t that kind of guy.

He glanced up and caught her staring at him. The sun had begun to set, and light from the candles flickered across the table and onto her plate and hands. A light breeze tousled her new blond curls, and her brows were lowered. “What?”

“You like it, then. You like the fear biting the back of your neck and stealing your breath. And not knowing if you’re going to live another day.”

“I like what I do, yes,” he answered.

“No wonder you don’t get romantically involved with anyone. I imagine it would be very hard to have a serious relationship with a woman when you have to leave in the middle of the night to save the world. Especially when you don’t know when or if you’ll return home again.” She shook her head and took a big bite of her chicken.

He reached for his beer and watched her over the bottle as he took a drink. He wondered if she was being sarcastic, but she didn’t look like it. “Relationships are hard in my line of work, yes,” he said, which was an understatement. Relationships were impossible.

She nodded. “Mine, too. It’s hard when I don’t know if a man wants to be with me for me, or just wants to be seen with me.” She sat back, her eyes wide. “Wow, that sounded really conceited, didn’t it?”

He laughed as candlelight flickered across her lips. “Yeah, it did, but I imagine it’s true.”

“It’s just that if a person gains any sort of notoriety, for any reason, there are people who want to use you to get their face in the media. To get attention. They don’t like you, they just want to be seen with you.” She ran her fingers through the top of her hair and combed it back off her forehead. “Remember John Wayne Bobbitt? His wife cuts off his penis, and all of a sudden he’s famous, or infamous, rather, and surrounded by strippers and porno queens. And you know those girls wouldn’t have paid him one lick of attention if he hadn’t been on all the talk shows getting his fifteen minutes of fame.”

She folded her arms beneath her breasts and was filled with such indignation, he had to laugh. “Maybe John Wayne has a good personality. Maybe he’s a great guy.”

The corners of her mouth turned downward. “Max,” she said as if she were talking to someone with half a brain, “he’d made his wife so mad, she took a knife and…” She paused to make a slicing motion with her hand. “Looped off his penis.”

“Damn.” He sucked in air between his teeth. “Can we talk about something else?”

“Oh, sorry,” she said, but she didn’t look sorry at all. The corners of her mouth turned up and she flashed him a white smile. “I guess I got carried away. My other friends and I talk about stuff like that.” She sat forward and took a bite of her salad. “What do you and your friends talk about?”

Nothing that he would share with her. “Sports.”

“That’s boring. I bet you talk about women.”

He thought it wise not to comment, and instead concentrated on his meal.

“Come on. You can tell me. We’re friends, remember?”

He shook his head and swallowed. “Forget it. If I told you, we wouldn’t be friends.”

“That bad, huh?” Instead of letting it go, she dug in like a tick. “I’ll tell you what women talk about if you tell me what men talk about.”

Growing up, there had never been a female influence in Max’s home. His father had had several off-and-on relationships, but never anything permanent enough to have an effect on him. The single women Max had known seemed to talk mostly about their work and past relationships, while his friend’s wives talked about the agonies of childbirth. And while Max was mildly curious to know what women talked about when men weren’t around, he figured this conversation would likely blow up right in his face. “When was the last time you spoke to your ex-fiancé?” he asked, changing the subject.

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Let’s see. The last time I spoke with him was when I offered him money for those photographs. The last time I saw him was in court a few months ago. He showed up wearing an Armani suit and Gucci shoes. I’m sure he paid for his suit and shoes from the money he’s making off me, and I just wanted to wrap my hands around his neck and choke him.”

Max wanted to choke him, too. To pick him up by the throat until his feet dangled off the ground, but not so much because of the suit or shoes or Internet site. No, but because Lola had loved him. Jealousy, thick and potent, churned in his gut. Max had never been jealous over a woman, and he didn’t like it. “Didn’t he have money before the Internet site?”

“When I was with him, he did. But he’d invested heavily in tech stocks, and when the market went south, so did his money. Which is the main reason for the site. Sam loves money.” She shrugged. “And he hates me.”

“Why does he hate you?”

“Because I broke off the engagement three months before the wedding. He couldn’t handle it. I think mostly because I was an accessory to him.”

He pushed his empty plate aside. “Is that why you broke off the engagement?”

“No, I didn’t see that part of the relationship until I was out of it. I broke it off because when I decided to get out of modeling, he wasn’t supportive of my decision. In fact, he tried to sabotage my recovery. He wanted the thin bulimic Lola.” She spread her arms. “That’s not who I am anymore.”

Maybe not, but she looked good to him. So good, he had to concentrate on his next question. “Where does Sam live?”

“He used to live in Manhattan, but when he lost his money, he was forced to move. The last I knew, he was living in Baltimore and working for himself. Now he makes a living day trading, and running lolarevealed.com.” She finished her chicken and pushed her plate aside. Candlelight flickered across her face and the front of her shirt. “So, what’s the plan?”

“I don’t know yet,” he answered. Roses and magnolia scented the night breeze, and Max once again wondered what he was doing sitting in Lola Carlyle’s backyard, listening to the sound of her voice, while her dog jumped and snapped at fireflies. Usually, on Friday and Saturday night, he played pool or darts with his buddies in dark bars where the beer was cold and the bullshit thick. Where you could throw peanut shells on the floor and fistfights broke out on a routine basis. “I’ll have to make some inquires. Find out exactly where he lives and if he still works out of his home. His schedule. Where he goes and what he does.”