Page 83 of Hot Zone

She didn’t like any of the possible answers she came up with.

Had he intentionally played on her intense attraction to him to keep her completely distracted from his purpose—distracted from her purpose, too—in being here? Had he managed to pick out of her brain what she was actually searching for and realized he had to prevent her from succeeding? Yes, he’d helped her make this journey through a war zone. But here she was, potentially mere feet away from the fragment, yet with no means of actually locating the wedge, thanks to him stealing her skill.

Funny how he’d accused her time and again of stealing his psychic abilities, when all along he’d been taking hers. Clever man. Had she really been that blind to what he was up to?

The gall of betrayal blossomed, hot and bitter.

Oh, yes. She’d been blind, indeed.

She found an out-of-the-way corner on the crowded deck between a pair of massive, fat-bellied amphoras of what smelled like lamp oil and sank down, huddling into the folds of Rustam’s cloak.

Now what was she supposed to do?

It was time to get back on track. Do her job. Find the disk, activate her cuff, and get the hell out of here.

It would be a relief to leave behind the temporary insanity that had taken hold of her and return to her own place and time. Rustam was good, all right. He’d completely befuddled her. She probably owed Artemesia a giant thanks for dragging him away from her and distracting him so he couldn’t maintain the control he’d obviously insinuated into her mind.

Tessa swore under her breath. She’d been so gullible. The first sexy, handsome man who’d ever given her the time of day, and she’d fallen head-over-heels for him. Had she been the least bit suspicious when he was freely bedding the greatest beauties of an entire age yet mysteriously turned his affections upon her?

Noooo. She’d believed he actually found her that attractive and had blithely jumped into his bedroll, swallowing his whole “I choose you for my consort and to be the mother of my children” line.

By his own admission, scores of women mothered his children. She was just another conquest to him. And an easy one at that.

Worse, he’d managed to divert her from her original purpose in coming to Greece. Tessa might physically be close to the fragment, but she may as well be halfway around the world, given how much progress she was making at actually finding it.

Renewed resolve flooded her. If it took searching the entire ship from stem to stern on her hands and knees, so be it. When the sun came up, she would find that wedge, come hell or high water!

She must have dozed at some point because she jerked awake with sunrise blasting light into her eyes. She felt like hell. She needed another four or five hours of sleep. The grueling pace of the past week and the unfamiliar strain of riding a horse for hours on end had apparently caught up with her.

She was hungry for real food. Right now, a big stack of pancakes smothered in maple syrup with bacon and orange juice, and a steaming hot cup of coffee, sounded like manna from heaven. She wanted to drink water that didn’t taste of goat skin or dust, and she wanted a hot shower with real shampoo.

And then last night’s long vigil and its unpleasant realizations caught up with her. She dragged herself to her feet, her heart heavy. Time to search the ship. She was near the rear of the vessel, so she started there with the intent to methodically work her way forward. She would do the top deck first. If need be, she would figure out a way to sneak below and search there, too.

She’d been at it for maybe a half hour and had worked about a third of the way to the front of the ship when the sound of a horn drifted across the water. The single long blast was followed by two short, sharp ones. The ship’s crew responded with alacrity, racing to drop the sails and hurrying aft to throw the anchor overboard. Startled, she gazed across the water and saw that all nearby ships were doing the same.

Apparently, the fleet was coming to a halt.

Artemesia burst up on deck wearing a barely there gauze gown that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Tessa had to admit the woman looked pretty good for having never heard of aerobics or macrobiotic diets.

Rustam came up on deck behind the queen, his tousled hair loose about his shoulders. He yawned and stretched like a sleepy lion. Tess scowled. The two of them could have each other, for all she cared.

Someone from the next ship over shouted, and Artemesia jumped as if a bee had just stung her. She turned and raced back below deck, dragging Rustam with her.

Tessa had caught part of the message, something about an immediate audience. Indeed, a few minutes later, the queen returned, fully dressed in a gorgeous red gown, her hair pulled back from her face with a pair of beautifully jeweled combs. The woman really was lovely. Even in harsh morning light with no cosmetics, she was exotic. Commanding.

A good-size rowboat pulled up beside Artemesia’s ship just as Rustam stepped back up on deck, fully arrayed in an elaborate scarlet toga. He wore a gold circlet around his forehead, and his bare, bronzed biceps were clasped by a matching pair of gold cuffs encrusted in thumbnail-size rubies. He looked every inch the prince he claimed to be.

Tessa’s traitorous heart flip-flopped before her head reminded it sourly that he’d used her and played her, shamelessly distracting her and preventing her from accomplishing her mission. Still, he was beautiful to look at. She felt his mind reach out to her, but she forcefully cut off her own response. No more freebie mind reading for the alien, thank you very much.

His gaze went bleak. Hard. He spared a single, arrogant glance at her and then turned to murmur in Artemesia’s ear. The queen laughed, a throaty, seductive sound that set Tessa’s teeth on edge.

She turned away from the lovers and watched the sailors below expertly guide the rowboat close and hold it steady while Rustam and the queen were lowered aboard. The vessel pulled away.

Pain stabbed Tessa like a dagger in the gut, and she forced her mind away from naming it. Who cared if it was envy or loss or a broken heart? It didn’t matter. She had to find the disk and get out of here…hopefully before those two returned.

She took the opportunity to duck down the stairs and search below deck in the queen’s absence. The space was dark and damp, the ceilings so low she had to duck every time she came to a support beam. Rustam must have had to crouch over like a hunchback to move around down here at all.

Stop thinking about him!

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