Kane leaned over her, gazing at her face with that odd, fixed look in his eyes. He lifted a hand to touch her cheek very lightly, and then kissed her. He was gentle at first, but there was something inside him clawing to get out, and the force of it shuddered through his body and made his kisses grow rough and urgent, and his hands hard with need.
“Kane?” she whispered as his lips left hers to burn their way down her throat. She was a little tense, uncertain. She wasn’t afraid of him, but this dreadful silence was scaring her.
“I almost lost you,” he muttered in a jerking voice half muffled against her skin. His hands were moving over her almost frantically, as if he were reassuring himself of her warmth and life. “Let me love you, baby . . . For God’s sake, just let me love you. . . .”
Tyler’s anxiety vanished as his rough words emerged, and her body came alive. Her response to his touch was as powerful as always, yet he was different and she was responding to that, as well. She could hardly believe what all her instincts were telling her, yet she had to believe even though he didn’t say the words she needed to hear. He had been shaken by her narrow escape, too shaken to be able, now, to hide what he was feeling.
He loved her as though afraid of never again having the chance to hold and touch her, his hands trembling as he stroked her body, his own big frame shuddering almost convulsively with desire. He kissed her again and again, catching her soft sighs and whimpers in his mouth. He muttered rasping words against her skin, words that were stark, graceless, bluntly sexual.
Tyler was burning, dizzy. His desire ignited her own with a ferocity she’d never felt before, and even as her body went wild in his arms, it seemed as if some ultimate barrier inside her shattered. She had surrendered to him long ago, but now she wasn’t simply giving way to something too strong to fight, she was giving herself fully and freely.
There was a need in him that was naked, intense, the sound of it raw in his voice and the look of it dark and haunted in his eyes. He desperately wanted something from her, something more than passion, and the very strength of his need compelled her to offer him everything she had to give.
It wasn’t a reasoning decision on her part, or even a conscious one. She loved him, and he needed. She offered her body, accepting his eagerly; she offered the wild fury of her desire for him, returning his urgent passion with nothing held back. But he needed more, and she gave willingly.
“I love you,” she moaned, crying a little, holding on to him with all her strength because he needed that, too. He jerked at her words, a low groan bursting from his throat, burying himself deeper as if he were trying to fuse their bodies in the eternal instant when violent pleasure shuddered through them.
KANE LIFTED HIS head at last to gaze down at her softly flushed face, her shimmering eyes. She was still holding him in a mute refusal to let him leave her, and there was a stark vulnerability in the tremulous curve of her lips.
“Say it again,” he murmured, needing to hear it.
Her lips quivered, but those beautiful, wet eyes met his gaze steadily. “It was the one thing I never guarded,” she whispered. “The one thing I never expected you to steal from me. I love you, Kane.”
He half closed his eyes. “Thank God. Ty . . . baby, I’ve loved you since the day we met.”
“What?” She stared at him numbly.
He couldn’t help but smile at her total astonishment. “I didn’t know it for a long time. I just knew I couldn’t get you out of my mind.” His hands lifted to frame her face, his thumbs brushing gently at the silvery evidence of tears at the corners of her wide eyes. “Your big gold eyes and flaming hair, your temper and the cool way you faced trouble. Everything about you fascinated me—even the habit you had of tricking me every chance you got.”
Tyler drew a shaking breath. “I never realized . . .”
He kissed her. “I was afraid you were feeling trapped after we became lovers. You’re so damned independent.”
“I thought you were feeling trapped.”
“I am.” He kissed her again. “Trapped in something I never want to escape. Lord, Ty . . . I love you so much it’s like madness. When I . . . when I saw that statue falling tonight . . . I’ve never been so terrified in my life.”
She threaded her fingers through his thick, silky hair and lifted her head off the pillow to kiss him. A bit ruefully, she said, “Maybe we should thank Simon for that. I was too scared of clinging to tell you I loved you. Until tonight.”
“I wish you would cling a little,” he said, matching her tone. “Damn it, I want to wrap you in cotton and spoil you to death.”
Tyler gazed at him gravely. “I wouldn’t mind being spoiled, at least some of the time. But, Kane—”
“I know.” He grinned faintly. “Don’t think I’m picturing a demure little hausfrau with a smudge of flour on her nose. You’re a hellion, Ty, a fighter, and that’s the woman I fell in love with. I have no doubt you’ll scare the hell out of me at least once a week, because you just can’t stay out of trouble—”
She raised her head to kiss him again. “Trouble?” Her amber eyes were innocent.
“You’re a lightning rod for it,” he said firmly.
“Look who’s talking,” she murmured. Slowly, provocatively, her even white teeth began worrying her lower lip.
Kane felt an instant jolt of desire, but eyed her somewhat warily. “You’re doing that deliberately,” he muttered. “To distract me. You’re an evil woman.” He had always suspected that if Tyler ever chose to be deliberately seductive, a man would be putty in her slender hands; he had been right.
“I love you, Kane,” she said softly, her big eyes warm and shimmering.
He groaned and lowered his head to kiss her hungrily. So what if he was putty in her hands? Big deal.
SOMETIME LATER, TYLER sat up beside him. “I’m not sleepy,” she announced.
He opened one eye to peer at her, then opened the other because she was glowing with happiness and incredibly beautiful. “It’s after midnight,” he murmured.
“Are you sleepy?”
“No.”
“Good.” She leaned over him to open the drawer of the nightstand, producing the two diaries. “Then I think we should read these tonight. Simon’s obviously made up his mind to get rid of us, and if we give him time to pull another stunt like he did tonight, you’re going to kill him.”
Kane sat up and banked the pillows, then settled back against them. “I’d only be doing the world a favor, to say nothing of Erica and the contessa,” he pointed out.
“Yes, but the Italian police might not see it that way. We have to get evidence against him, or at least find out where the art objects are.”
He nodded a reluctant agreement. “Okay, but I don’t want you out of my sight as long as we stay here. Please, Ty,” he added as she looked at him gravely. “I know you tend to land on your feet just like a cat, but I don’t think I can take another scare like tonight—at least not right away.”
Tyler smiled at the last rueful words. “All right. It’s no hardship, staying with you.” Then, sternly, she said, “Just don’t expect me to hide behind you. I’ll guard your back, but I won’t hide.”
“I know that.” A slow smile curved his lips. “And there’s no one I’d rather have guarding my back.”
“I’m glad.” She settled beside him, turning over onto her belly as she handed him Vincente’s journal. “You read Vincente; all those languages are impossible for me. I’ll stick with Melina.”
“You’re fascinated by her,” Kane noted in amusement.
“Well, since she writes about practically everything in her life, maybe something will ring a bell.”
It was over an hour later when Kane said, “Ty.”
She looked up at him quickly. “You’ve found something?”
“Listen to this. ‘I fear the worst. Even now, the countryside shudders under enemy fire, and we have heard the stories of atrocities; burning and looting. It is said that the vi
le Hitler means to plunder Europe of its riches. Today, several of my neighbors came to me with a plan. They are still young men, unlike myself, and mean to fight for our country. They have sent their families to safety, and have asked me to store their valuables at Villa Rosa.’ ”
Kane read slowly, obviously being careful of correctly translating Vincente Montegro’s multilingual writing. “ ‘Their families know nothing of this; we feel it safer that only the six of us know. We have drawn up a list of each family’s possessions, so that the valuables may be returned to their surviving members once this hateful war is over. I have sworn a blood oath to do this.
“ ‘I sent the servants into town on errands, and my neighbors helped me to make all safe. Even if the walls of Villa Rosa fail to stand, I have no doubt the secret room—’ ” Kane looked up at her. “The rest of the page is missing.”
“Damn,” Tyler said softly. “So Simon was at least that careful.”
Kane studied the journal on his lap. “I’m only about halfway through; maybe there’ll be something else further on.”
She nodded, but didn’t hold out much hope. After a moment she said, “Stefano couldn’t have known; he would have honored his father’s blood oath. The necklace, Kane, the ruby necklace that Simon used to pay the gambling debt: it was never returned to the family that owned it. Those five men must have died during the war, and Vincente died before he could tell Stefano what they’d done with the valuables.”
“He knew they’d been hidden,” Kane agreed, “but he had no idea where. Why didn’t he read his father’s journal when he got home after the war?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we can ask Elizabeth about it.” Tyler returned to Melina’s diary, feeling depressed. She read almost without attention, a part of her mind trying to figure out where a “secret room” might be in the villa.
Absently Kane said, “So Simon had an added reason to keep this from Elizabeth. Not only because he wanted all the Montegro wealth for himself, but because he was selling items that didn’t even belong to her. She wouldn’t stand for that—”
“Kane!” Tyler gasped.
He looked at her. “Not Melina?”
Tyler drew a breath and began reading softly. “ ‘My cousins enjoy playing a game of search, and they are vilely bad tempered when they cannot find me. They beg Mama to tell them where I hide, but ’tis a Montegro secret, and she would not betray it. She scolded me for discovering it myself, saying I was too young and flighty to be trusted, but I will never reveal our secret! My cousins have searched the cellar again and again, coming so near me that I laughed to myself, knowing they would not think to press the stone hand of a pagan god.’ ”
“I’ll be damned,” Kane said blankly.
Lifting his eyes from the diary, Tyler looked bemused. “Melina. Silly Melina. The cellar . . . A wine cellar! Palladio designed some fancy ones, I know. There must be a statue or something of Dionysus. No, the Roman version. Bacchus. The god of wine.”
“Guarding a hidden room,” Kane murmured. “Clever.”
“It’s the middle of the night.” Tyler’s eyes were shining with excitement. “We could go and look now.”
Kane hesitated, though he was as eager as she. “I don’t know, Ty. I don’t trust that bastard to be asleep in his bed.”
“He’s already tried—and failed—once tonight,” she pointed out reasonably. “He’ll have to regroup and consider his options. Think it through.”
“Yes, if he’s being logical about it. But is he? Maybe we should wait until morning and talk to Elizabeth.”
Tyler waited silently, watching him. She had known Kane before this adventure, but her love gave her even greater insight now, and she knew what he’d decide. Despite his newfound anxiety over seeing her in danger, he was something of a lightning rod himself and could no more choose the safe path than she could. They were two of a kind, and she gloried in that certainty.
“Hell,” he said finally, his lips curving, vivid green eyes alight. “Let’s do it.”
Half an hour later, both dressed in dark sweaters, rubber-soled shoes and jeans, and armed with their flashlights, they made their way silently downstairs and toward the rear of the villa where the kitchen was located. They found the heavy wooden door leading to the cellar and went cautiously down, Kane leading the way.
There was a switch at the top of the stairs, which they had made use of, and a number of shaded lights hanging from the ceiling of the cellar provided adequate illumination. Three walls were lined with tall racks, sadly depleted so that few bottles remained, and the rest of the floor space was taken up with stacks of odd bits of broken furniture and old trunks.
Directly across from the foot of the stairs, standing upright and apparently a part of the wall itself, was a marble slab. Carved from the stone was the muscled figure of a naked and bearded man, a cup in one hand and the other upraised as if to halt anyone who approached.
As they crossed the room and stood before the life-sized sculpture of Bacchus, Tyler giggled as a sudden thought crossed her mind. When Kane looked at her questioningly, she murmured, “I wonder how many parts of his anatomy Melina fondled before she found the right one.”
Kane grinned at her. “She does seem to have been a mite precocious.” He looked at Bacchus, then said, “You do the honors, Ty. You’re the one who stuck with Melina.”
In spite of their light words, they were both tense, and Tyler’s hand trembled just a little as she raised it and touched the cold stone of the god’s hand. She pressed steadily, feeling it give beneath the pressure; there was a sharp click, and the marble slab swiveled easily on a central axis.
For an instant they both stood staring at the blackness of a doorway, then they exchanged looks. Kane flicked on his flashlight and aimed it into the opening.
The room was relatively small, no more than twelve feet square, the walls, floor and ceiling constructed of stone. And it was nearly half filled with wooden crates, iron strongboxes, and other containers. In the beam of the flashlight, the blackened gleam of tarnished silver was visible; at least three of the crates were filled with platters and cups and candelabras. Kane moved the beam of light slowly, revealing a number of very old jewel cases piled haphazardly atop one another, along with numerous paintings rolled up and propped against the walls.
“My God,” Tyler said softly. “Some of the richest families in Italy lived in this area. Kane, most of this stuff has to be priceless.” She was on the point of turning her own flashlight on and going into the room to explore more carefully, when some faint sound or her own instincts warned her. Kane whirled around even as she did, both of them staring at the wicked barrel of a pistol held in a steady hand.
“Quite priceless,” Simon agreed coolly. “And people are always willing to pay for priceless things.” He laughed a little, the sound like the dry rustling of leaves.
“You fool,” Kane said flatly. “Do you really think we can disappear without questions being asked?”
“Oh, but you’ll be found. Or, rather, your bodies will. Mother did warn you, after all, that the ground around the villa is treacherous. I’m afraid you’re both going to lose your footing and fall. There’s a certain place I know where you’ll fall a very long way.”
He was, Tyler thought with the clarity danger always lent her, talking too much. It was the classic blunder of villains, particularly amateurs like Simon Montegro. Her mind worked quickly. Her peripheral vision caught a slight flicker as Kane’s flashlight twitched, and that motion was enough to alert her to what he had in mind. Rivals and enemies they might have been, but in three years dangerous situations such as this had welded them into an efficient—and decidedly original—team.
Tyler dropped into that accustomed role with total ease and even a surge of almost savage enjoyment. She laughed.
Simon jerked slightly, his cold eyes sending her a sharp glance as the unexpected and inappropriate sound pierced the silence. “What’re you laughing at?” he demanded.
“You,” she told him dryly. “Of all the melodramatic postures, yours is the worst, Simon.” She had his attention now, and held it easily. “And you’re so damned pathetic. Stealing from your stepmother, beating your wife. You’re really a worm of a man, aren’t you?” She could feel Kane tensing beside her, readying himself.
“Bitch,” Simon muttered.
Tyler wanted to tell him that he really shouldn’t have said that because he’d pay dearly for it later, but she didn’t waste her breath warning him. She laughed again. “Do you really expect us to be herded along meekly and pushed over a cliff? Honestly, Simon, that’s so—”
She never finished the sentence. In common with most polite people, Simon was waiting for her to finish it; that was a human trait she and Kane had learned to take advantage of in the past. They had also learned through experience that Tyler could throw an object and accurately hit a target within her reach.
Simon’s hand was her target, and the flashlight she threw while she was still talking hit with her usual accuracy. The gun went flying, and Kane lunged with a growl.
Tyler went to get the gun, returning somewhat hastily when she heard agitated sounds from Simon. “Kane, stop choking him.”
“I want to kill him.” Kane’s handsome face was wearing a fighting grin that held no humor and would have been familiar to a berserk Viking howling his way into battle.
Simon’s well-made shoes were dangling off the floor, his fingers plucking at the iron hands encircling his throat, and the noises escaping him were growing desperate.
She knew Kane was honestly furious, not the least because Simon had nearly killed her. But she had seen him almost this angry in the past, and had learned to deal with his very rare but killing rages by being matter-of-fact and even humorous about the situation. It occurred to her only now that if she had stopped to consider her ability to calm him down in the past, she would have realized he had cared more about her than either of them had realized.
Tyler tucked the gun into the waistband of her jeans, brushed Simon’s hands away and began prying Kane’s fingers loose. “Well, you can’t kill him.”