“The security guards...”
“One of them works for me.”
She blinked, looking up at him in surprise. “For you?”
He nodded, his expression grave. “Willfort hired a couple of extra guards to help out with the crowds tonight. One of them reports to me. So I have backup.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Um...is there anything else you haven’t told me about tonight?”
The look of guilt that flitted across his expression was answer enough. Tara sighed.
“When this is over,” Blake said, “we’ll talk.”
She nodded and drew back. “I’d better hurry. I’m supposed to meet the others backstage.”
“Is your lipstick the smudge-proof kind?”
She automatically glanced at the mirror, focusing on her bright crimson mouth. “Yes. Is something wrong with it?”
“No. Just didn’t want to mess it up when I did this.”
With only that warning, Blake smothered her lips beneath his for a long, thorough kiss. Tara was clinging to him by the time he drew slowly away.
“Tara, I—” He bit off whatever he might have said. “We’ll talk later,” he promised instead.
She nodded, her voice
temporarily gone.
He took a step backward. “C’mon. I’ll walk you backstage.”
Taking a deep breath for courage, Tara fell in beside him.
SOMETIMES DURING the next hour, Tara found herself fighting the urge to pinch herself to see if she was dreaming. How many tax attorneys had the chance to perform with an internationally famous magician? Jeremy’s act was a spectacular one—pounding music, flashing lights, elaborate sets and, of course, his breathtaking illusions.
She saw Blake only once after the performance began, just long enough to whisper to him that she didn’t see the big man from the gallery among the enthusiastic audience in Willfort’s private little theater. And then Blake disappeared, presumably to execute his own plans for the evening, and Tara went back to work.
She took the performance seriously, giving it her full concentration. She’d only been half joking to Stephanie about being afraid to make a mistake—Jeremy Kane truly was a demanding taskmaster when it came to his work. She identified with that trait well enough not to complain. She’d always been a perfectionist herself when it came to work. It was that determination to have everything done correctly that had made it impossible for her to give in to the senior partners’ demand that she knowingly do something she knew was wrong.
She had worked as hard learning this act as she ever had researching a tax question. And it had paid off with Jeremy’s praise and her own confidence that she wouldn’t make a total fool of herself this evening.
Tara’s big act—the one that justified her presence there—came close to the end of the production. She was ceremoniously locked into a large fiberglass ball, which was then rolled playfully around the stage in time to driving rock music. At the end of the number, Jeremy would open the ball, only to reveal to the audience that Tara had been replaced by a beautiful, well-trained Irish setter.
The entire cast—with the exception of Tara, of course—would be on stage for that dramatic unveiling. She would be hiding alone in the wings after slipping from the hidden trap, waiting for her cue to take her bow. She almost looked forward to the thunderous applause she was certain to receive after Jeremy’s clever performance.
Hearing the opening notes of the music, she drew a deep breath, pasted on the bright stage smile Stephanie had taught her and stepped onto the stage.
SMUGLY SATISFIED with his own performance that evening—all except for one loose end still left dangling— Blake slipped into the theater in time to hear the music begin. He recognized it as what he and Tara had called. “the big ball number,” and he found a spot in the back where he could stand unnoticed to watch.
Tara stepped onto the stage, looking so beautiful his breath caught, smiling in a way that let him know she was enjoying herself. He scanned the audience quickly, realizing with a slight frown that he wasn’t the only man who was close to drooling over her. And then he looked back toward the stage.
Jeremy helped Tara climb into the lower half of the colorful ball. At a wave of Jeremy’s hand, his other three assistants—Stephanie, Paula and Monica—lifted the top half of the sphere and snapped it into place, completely concealing Tara within it. And then the fun began. The audience laughed as Jeremy and his assistants began to play with the large ball, rolling it around the stage, batting it between them, making everyone believe that Tara was getting quite a workout in there.
Blake heard the amazed gasps when the ball—which had never left the audience’s sight—was opened to reveal the Irish setter, who barked and rose on his haunches, begging for the applause he received in spades. Blake knew that Tara was to appear from the wings in a puff of smoke soon afterward to receive her own accolades.
The smoke arrived, but Tara didn’t.
Blake saw the slight frown that darkened Jeremy’s face as he turned his head to look in the direction from which Tara should have made her entrance. The three women posturing behind him also looked surreptitiously that way, their smiles frozen in place, but just a bit puzzled.