at the cotillion, the woman whose signature she’d signed to the dozens of letters she’d written him.
Just for a couple of days she wanted the opportunity to shine in somebody else’s eyes. In Omar’s eyes. Eventually she would tell him she couldn’t marry him, and he would return to Gaspar none the wiser.
It seemed a foolproof plan, but Cara had a feeling the only fool in the whole plan might just be her, for even contemplating such an adventure.
As Cara Carson left the Lone Star Country Club, two waitresses in the country club’s Yellow Rose Café went on break together.
“So, Daisy, do you have any big plans for the rest of the weekend?” Ginger Walton asked, as the two sat down at the small table in the break room.
Haley Mercado, who for the past six months had been pretending to be Daisy Parker, smiled at Ginger. The auburn-haired, blue-eyed young woman had, in the past couple of months, become a good friend. “Yeah, I’m working tonight, then I’m working tomorrow night.”
Ginger laughed. “Me, too. At least working all these hours keeps us out of trouble, right?”
“Right,” Haley replied, although nothing could be further from the truth in her case. She was in a world of trouble.
Working undercover for the FBI, Haley was not only pretending to be somebody she wasn’t, she was also tied emotionally and by blood to one of the most powerful families in the Texas Mafia. And that was just the beginning of her woes.
“Just think,” Ginger continued as she opened a bag of potato chips. “Maybe someday we’ll be here waiting tables with tired feet and sore backs and our Prince Charmings will waltz in and take us away from all this.”
Haley snorted in appropriate Daisy-like fashion. “Honey, I gave up on the notion of Prince Charming a long time ago,” she exclaimed in the thick accent she’d adopted for her new persona.
“Not me,” Ginger replied, a dreamy expression in her eyes. “I’m not looking for a man to take care of me or anything like that,” she hurriedly added. “I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. But it would be nice to have somebody special to share my life with, somebody who adored me as much as I adored him.”
Ginger’s words stirred a memory in Haley, one she rarely allowed to surface in her mind. A single night of passion spent in the arms of the man she’d loved from afar for years. Her heart ached as she thought of the consequence of that night.
She shoved away the memory, knowing that to indulge herself in thoughts of the past and that man would only make her life now more difficult. And things were difficult enough already.
“Where does Harvey have you stationed for tomorrow night?” Ginger asked.
“The Men’s Grill,” Haley replied.
“Lucky you, the tips are always good in there,” Ginger replied.
Yeah, lucky me, Haley thought. She’d already told her contacts at the FBI that she was assigned to the grill the following night. That meant when she came to work the next evening she’d be wired, and her goal would be to record any conversations that might take place that could bring down the Mafia.
The temporary Men’s Grill was the place where power was wielded, deals were made, and bargains were sealed. In the smoky confines of the private bar and restaurant, “the family” met to conduct business.
“The family” included members of her family, the Mercados, and part of her deal with the FBI was that she would help tumble the Mafia in exchange for immunity for her father, Johnny, and her brother, Ricky.
However, there was one man Haley hoped to bring to his knees. Frank Del Brio. His very name caused a chill of fear to race up her spine. Fear coupled with rage.
Since the death of Carmine Mercado, the head of the “family,” there had been rumors that her brother was the logical choice to take his place. Haley had also heard rumors that Frank Del Brio was acting as if he was already the new don.
But that wasn’t why Haley wanted to see him arrested and locked up for the rest of his life.
Frank Del Brio had briefly been her fiancé. It had been because of him that she’d had to fake her own death and was now working with the FBI. He’d been responsible for her estrangement from her family, for the plastic surgery she’d undergone to transform her features and for the murder of her mother.
“Hey, am I paying you two to sit in here all night?” Harvey Small, the manager of the Lone Star Country Club, stuck his head into the break room. “Break is over. I need you on the floor.”
“Back to the salt mines,” Ginger said. She crumpled up her empty chip bag, tossed it into the nearby trash container, then stood.
“Yeah, no rest for the wicked,” Haley said, also standing.
Maybe tomorrow night she would get the information the FBI needed and the mob would be busted. Frank would be thrown in jail, and Haley could reclaim her life. She could be reunited with all the people she loved.
And maybe tomorrow night Frank Del Brio would recognize her beneath her disguise and all would be lost. She shoved this frightening thought out of her head as she and Ginger hurried back to work.
Two
She dreamed of him all night long. She dreamed of Sheik Omar Al Abdar and a beautiful foreign land called Gaspar, which he had described in one of his letters as a gemstone afloat on the sea.
In those dreams of Omar, he had gazed at her with his beautiful eyes and told her that he loved her more than anyone else on earth, and he called her Cara instead of Fiona. She’d awakened with a fierce longing, wishing that her dream would become a reality.
It was just before noon when Cara stood before her bathroom mirror, checking her reflection to make sure she looked all right for lunch with a sheik.
The dreams had stirred a wistfulness inside her, a longing to see the country that Omar had written about so eloquently in his letters, a longing to spend time with the man who had written such beautiful words.
The woman in the mirror who stared back at her wore a small frown. She had searched through her closet, trying to find something to wear that might be something Fiona would choose. But Fiona and Cara had completely different taste in clothing.
Fiona was like a brilliant flower, partial to vivid colors and cutting-edge styles. Cara was far more conservative, bland and boring. Her frown deepened, and she consciously smoothed it away and smiled at her reflection.
She’d found the jade-colored dress in the back of her closet with the tags still attached. She’d bought it on a whim, although it wasn’t her usual conventional style. The scoop neckline was a little risqué for her and the flirty skirt was definitely shorter than what she normally wore. The dress was more the type that Fiona would wear, which was why she had chosen to wear it today.
A wave of guilt swept through her and she turned away from the mirror. She was consciously planning on impersonating her sister for the first time in years.
As children they had occasionally fooled people by pretending to be each other. Those were childish games with no real consequences. But she and Fiona weren’t children anymore, and her impersonation of Fiona had prompted an important man to travel thousands of miles to propose.
Just for a couple of days, she told herself. Surely there was no harm in continuing the pretense for a couple of days. What memories these days would provide her in the future!
Her heart leaped up to her throat as a knock fell on her door. A quick glance at her watch told her it was time for Omar to pick her up.
She just hoped she could pull this off. She grabbed her purse from the sofa and she was surprised to open the door and see not Omar, but rather a short, thin man.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Carson. My name is Rashad Aziz. I am the personal assistant for