Men of Intrgue A Trilogy Read Online Free PDF Page B

chest as he said, “While I was sick I dreamed that we were together like this.”
    “That wasn’t a dream,” Helen replied, feeling her face flame in the darkness. “You had the chills and couldn’t seem to stop shaking. I got on the bed with you and held you until you quieted down.”
    He didn’t answer for a moment, but she felt his lips moving in her hair. When his voice came it was low and husky.
    “I don’t know how to thank you for what you have done,” he said quietly. “You probably saved my life. And I’ve got to live long enough to do what must be done.”
    There it was again, the hint that his business encompassed more than he could say. Since he had brought it up, she pressed her advantage, asking, “Can’t you tell me what you were doing when you were hurt?”
    “No.”
    “Why?” She cast about for an idea. “Did you steal something?”
    His whole body stiffened, and she was immediately sorry she had said it.
    “Do I seem like a thief to you?” he responded softly, and his grip on her shoulders relaxed, as if he didn’t want to touch the person who could ask him such a question. “I told you once I was not a criminal, and I wasn’t lying.”
    Helen half sat, looking down into his face. “You admitted that what you were doing is illegal. Most people would say that makes you a criminal.”
    “Is that how you see the world,” he replied coldly, “all clear choices, everything black and white?”
    “I see,” Helen answered, frustrated by his obstinacy, his distant tone, “that you are treating me like a child.”
    “You act like one,” he stated flatly. “‘Tell me, tell me,’ as if this were a game we are playing, keeping secrets. It is not a game. When I say that I do not want you to know in order to keep you safe, you refuse to believe me. You kept me alive when I might have died without you. Should I pay you back by putting you in danger? What kind of friend would I be if I did that, Helen?”
    She didn’t answer, unable to argue with him. She noticed that his English became less colloquial when he was upset. He dropped the familiar conjunctions and adopted a more formal style, speaking the way he must have when he first learned the language.
    He sighed heavily and reached for her again. “Come here. I don’t want to fight with you.”
    Helen curled up with him again, unwilling to pursue the discussion, but still troubled.
    “Can you trust me, Helen?” he asked, twining his fingers with hers and inching her closer. “Can you accept that I am making the right decision?”
    “I guess I’ll have to,” she replied grudgingly, settling against him.
    There was a smile in his voice when he directed, “Go to sleep, my stubborn little American.”
    Helen was tired and, despite her misgivings, found it surprisingly easy to obey him. She was almost out when she murmured, “The Chinese believe that you are always responsible for someone whose life you have saved. Do you think that’s true?”
    He waited a beat before he answered soberly, “I wonder.”
    But Helen didn’t hear him.
    She was asleep.

 
    Chapter 2
     
    Helen was reading in the chair next to the bed when Matteo opened his eyes the next morning. He didn’t speak, but studied her covertly, taking in every detail.
    She was wearing a blue robe with white lace ruching at the neckline, her blonde hair flowing over her shoulders loosely. Her pose and her clothing reminded him of a painting he had once seen; it depicted a golden girl in a blue dress sitting in a shaft of sunlight, bending her head over a book in her lap. Helen was absorbed, turning the pages without looking up, her expression rapt.
    What an unexpected delight she was, Matteo thought. By all indicators, she should have grown up to be a vain, self indulgent woman like her mother. Instead she was a dreamer, a loner who had come to this out-of-the-way place to escape the heedless life her family led. And when he had burst into her self imposed isolation and