Storm of Shadows

  For now, he tried for matter-of-fact and kind, drying her with tender touches that he kept strictly dispassionate. “How’s that?”

  “I can get dressed now.” She waited until he withdrew his hands, then in a flurry pulled up her panties and pulled down her skirt.

  He tucked his handkerchief back into his pocket, located her glasses in the door pocket, and slid them on her nose. “Is that better?”

  “I can see. But my hair. How’s my hair?” She raked her fingers through it. “Philippe will kill me if my hair doesn’t fall correctly.”

  “He must have done something right, because it looks just like it did when we left the salon.” He found the mirror on the ceiling and flipped it down so she could see.

  Her hand flew to her swollen mouth. “My lipstick! Where—”

  Aaron unclicked the latch and handed her the purse, and watched as she got out the compact. But when she tried to apply the lipstick, her hands were shaking. “ I don’t know how to do this even when I haven’t been—” She hung up on the word.

  “Coming?” He took the lipstick out of her fingers, knelt in front of her, carefully applied the color, and tried to find the right words to help her face the ordeal ahead. “I want you to promise me something.”

  “What?”

  Claude stopped the car at the front step.

  “I don’t want you to feel guilty for finding pleasure, or be embarrassed because you found it with me.”

  She stared at him, hanging on his words as if he were reciting a lover’s poem.

  He continued. “What we did was wonderful. Every moment was bliss. But the experience was private between you and me and no one, I repeat, no one, will ever know what we did back here.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m not going to tell them. You’re not going to tell them.” He cupped her cheek in his hand. “And if you can manage not to blush every time I look at you, no one will ever guess.”

  She leaned into his palm, a trusting gesture he treasured. “I’ll try.”

  “That’s good.” She looked so relieved, he couldn’t help adding, “Next time, I promise we’ll do something worth being embarrassed about.”

  He should have been sorry to make her blush again, but damn it. He was suffering, and how was he going to get out of this car with his trousers looking like a one-man tent? “You look lovely.” He pushed her hair out of her face. “Philippe’s right. You’re going to be the hit of the party. Women are going to want to be you and men are going to simply . . . want you.”

  “I guess that’s true.” She put the lipstick away. “This outfit worked with you.”

  He sighed. “I wish that was all there was to it.” Because right now, even in her couch upholstery dress, she could lead him anywhere, into any danger.

  Claude discreetly knocked on the door. Obviously the chauffeur had a suspicion what had been going on in the backseat.

  Aaron unlocked the door and opened it. “Please assist Dr. Hall,” he instructed.

  Claude held the umbrella and offered his hand to Rosamund. As she slid her legs out, Claude very carefully didn’t look at her.

  Smart man.

  Taking a breath, Aaron calmed his rampaging body, then joined her at the bottom of the long sweep of steps.

  “How was the champagne, sir?” Claude asked.

  “I can unequivocally say it was the best I’ve ever had.” Aaron smiled, a slash of savage humor. Taking Rosamund’s arm, he walked with her up the stairs.

  Aaron had been in a lot of grand houses in Paris, but not Fournier’s home. The seventeenth-century château had been constructed of pale marble by one of Louis XIV’s nobles. A cacophony of elaborate towers, spires, and mansard roofs, surrounded by a sizable park planted in mazes and formal gardens, the place was a monument to Louis Fournier, the financier, and his rise to riches. Even more telling was the string of limousines that snaked down the drive, waiting to deliver noble and affluent guests to the home of a man who had risen from the deepest poverty to the greatest heights . . . by any means possible.

  Fournier had a reputation as a son of a bitch with shady connections to the underworld and a ruthless streak that didn’t shrink at blackmail. He was also a well-known old goat with a reputation for buying en-viably beautiful mistresses, using them for a time, and discarding them. All in all, the kind of man Aaron took care to avoid.

  Yet for all that, Fournier was well-known in the antiquities world for his library of ancient manuscripts and his collection of ancient art.

  So here they were. Rosamund would be beautiful and fashionable and provide a distraction. Aaron would find the manuscript and steal it. Together, they would work as a team, and if all went well, after tonight they would return to New York City with the knowledge that would assist the Chosen Ones in their battle.

  If only she were more worldly, he would feel better about leaving her to fend for herself.

  “Listen,” he said in an undertone. “The people at this party are rich and decadent. They come to these parties to see and be seen. They have no employment, they drink too much, they experiment with drugs, they revel in every kind of sexual excess.”

  “I understand. This is the Roman Empire at its most decayed.” She nodded.

  “Exactly.” He could speak her language. “And Louis Fournier is Caligula.”

  “Insane?”

  “No. Corrupt. The ultimate debaucher of innocents.” Aaron swallowed. Innocents like Rosamund. The top of the stairway grew closer and closer. He had too little time to properly warn her, and he talked faster. “At some point, I’ll have to leave you to get my hands on the manuscript—”

  “You’re going to coerce some poor employee to show you the manuscript,” she corrected.

  She really did think he was the Godfather.

  How cool was that?

  “It has to be done,” he reminded her. “There’s no other way. Now listen. Be careful who you talk to and what you say. Don’t go into any unoccupied rooms with anyone. Drink only bottled water with the top still screwed on—”

  “All right. I’ve got it. Avoid date rape and date rape drugs.” She placed her hand on his arm. “I’ll be wary.”

  “Yes. Good.” She could never be wary enough to satisfy him. After all, he knew she was wearing a garter belt and a lace thong.

  As they reached the top and the lights of the château reached out to encompass them, she glanced at him. Once. Twice. “You’ve got my lipstick all over your mouth,” she whispered frantically.

  Of course he did. How could he not?

  Pulling out his handkerchief, he wiped at his lips.

  At once the scents of fine champagne and Rosamund’s pussy filled his head, and if retrieving this manuscript were not a matter of crucial importance, he would have picked her up and carried her off into the night to have his way with her. Instead, he tucked his handkerchief back into his pocket, and swore that for the pure pleasure of knowing his touch had brought her to completion, he would never wash the fine scrap of linen again. Turning his face to hers, he asked, “Better?”

  “Yes. Yes. I’m fine. Stop asking me!” She wrung her hands in distress. “I’m not that much of an idiot. I know men and women do what we did all the time. I’m okay!”

  So. She was feeling a little high-strung.

  He looked into her eyes, and enunciated clearly. “Did I wipe off all the lipstick?”

  “Oh. Oh, I thought . . .” She didn’t seem to know whether to look at him or not, but he waited patiently, and finally she steeled herself and looked into his face. “There’s a little . . . you missed a place. . . .” Swiftly, she used her thumb to wipe his lower lip.

  Swiftly, he caught her thumb between his teeth and bit.

  She caught her breath. Jerked her hand back. Looked up at the open door where the butler stood waiting. Looked down toward the town car below that discharged another couple, handsome and sophisticated and French. “Don’t do that.”

  Taking her hand, he kissed her t
humb. “Or what will you do?”

  “I’ll tell everyone you’re an enforcer.”

  “That’s fine, but most of these people have been acquainted with me for years.” He felt that prickling at the base of his neck, the one that meant he was being watched. He scanned the cars coming behind them, looked at the open door ahead. “They wouldn’t believe you, and if they did, they’d be thrilled at the idea of knowing a real enforcer.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. I told you. They’re corrupt and useless. Well, most of them are, anyway.” He made a lightning-swift decision. She needed to be warned. “Some of them are merely venal—and one of them has put a price on my head.”

  Chapter 25

  “What?” Rosamund pushed her glasses up on her nose and shoved her hair out of her eyes.

  “I removed something from his possession that he had stolen from its owner. He took it badly, and Fujimoto Akihiro has sworn to remove me from this life.” They walked through the front door of Louis Fournier’s home, and stood waiting, a little apart.

  “Fujimoto Akihiro? I met him. He’s a well-respected Japanese businessman. He made a donation to the library.”

  “He buys stolen art, or if the piece he wants is not on the market, he commissions his people to steal it.” The little creep. Aaron detested Fujimoto, detested the kind of ruthless conceit that demanded he have everything he ever desired regardless of who the owner might be. He thought he was something special, but to Aaron, who actually was something special, Fujimoto was nothing but a man with no morals and far too much money.

  Aaron examined the grandiose entry, the security team, the guests milling not far away . . . and Rosamund.

  Together, they had managed to restore her makeup and clothing to the same condition they had been in when Philippe had tucked them in his limo. Yet at the same time, she looked different.

  In some undefinable way, she looked well-loved.

  In his effort to make her believe in her beauty . . . All right. No use lying to himself, at least. In his effort to get between her legs, he had made her even more . . . well. Just even more.

  It was going to be a very long night.

  “Is he here tonight?” she whispered.

  “Fujimoto? Probably not. I’ve been underground for months. Philippe contacted Fournier’s people this afternoon and informed them that we would be using the invitations, and even with the best sources of information, I doubt Fujimoto could react that quickly.” Although Aaron was assuming the little asshole wanted to be in on the kill. If Fujimoto sent in his assassins, Aaron could be dead before the evening was old.

  Again he surveyed the guests, but saw nothing amiss, nothing out of place, nothing obvious to worry about.

  Two security people approached Rosamund and Aaron and asked their names, checked them off the list, then politely begged their pardon and thoroughly frisked them for weapons. When they were cleared, they were each handed a glass of champagne and escorted into the public part of the château.

  “Aaron.” Rosamund tugged at his sleeve, looking at him as if she wanted to say something, but didn’t know how.

  Probably she was remembering that time in the limo, was too shy to speak. Placing his hand protectively at the base of her spine, he asked, “What is it?”

  “If I see the right manuscript, how do you want me to tell you?”

  She wasn’t thinking of sex. She was thinking of Sacmis’s journal.

  Damn it.

  “If you find the right manuscript, probably a few quiet words should alert me,” he said.

  She smoothed her skirt. “Then I’m ready. Let’s go.”

  He had been thoroughly put in his place, and by a woman who didn’t even know she had done it.

  Standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at the huge ballroom, Rosamund breathed, “Fascinating.”

  “It is, isn’t it?”

  The château had been stripped of its original seventeenth-century stylings and transformed into a stark black-and-white modernist showcase for Louis Fournier’s antiques. The pieces were displayed in glass cases set randomly around the room. A spotlight shone on each piece of art, electronic security sparkled warningly, and beside each case, a beefy security guard had been placed to stop anyone foolish enough to try to touch.

  Aaron knew Fournier kept the manuscripts in his private library, and no one saw them without an invitation—which meant no one except his staff had seen them for years.

  Colorfully dressed guests swirled around the cases, looking, admiring, drinking too much and eating too little.

  “With this kind of security, even if you threaten the right person, how will you be able to take the manuscript?” Rosamund gripped Aaron’s arm in alarm.

  He enjoyed her concern a little too much. “I have talents you don’t know about,” he said in understatement. “Don’t worry. All you have to do is circulate.”

  As they descended the stairs, the guests were starting to notice them, glancing up and then doing the same double take Aaron had done in the salon.

  As a distraction, Rosamund was perfect.

  Unfortunately, as they reached the ballroom, every man in the place took a step closer.

  She was a distraction for more than just the guests—Aaron couldn’t concentrate worth a damn.

  Rosamund jabbed Aaron in the arm with her fist. “Look. Look! Have you ever seen anything like that?”

  Aaron looked in the direction of her gaze, and saw him. DeMonte D’Alessandri, playboy and industrialist. Of course she would gush about him. Any woman would. The guy was handsome and wealthy, he knew it all too well, and he was headed right for Rosamund. He stopped before her, struck his best pose, and in his suave Italian accent, he said, “Aaron, introduce me to the lovely signorina.”

  No. I don’t want to. “D’Alessandri. Good to see you. This is Dr. Rosamund Hall, daughter of the antiquities expert Dr. Elijah Hall and an antiquities expert in her own right.” Those credentials should be boring enough to send DeMonte fleeing.

  Instead, DeMonte lifted her hand and kissed her fingers with all the elegance of his noble Florentine background. “Tell me I have met you in time. Tell me you are unwed.”

  “No. No, I’m not married.” She tugged her hand free and pointed at the first spotlighted glass case. “Do you know what that is?”

  Knocked off-balance by her blatant disinterest, D’Alessandri looked over his shoulder. “No. What?”

  “It’s an Andrei Rublev Russian icon, fourteenth century, one of the finest I’ve ever seen.” Rosamund stepped around DeMonte and rushed toward the case. “I wonder how Mr. Fournier acquired it.”

  Aaron chuckled at the sight of D’Alessandri’s face as Rosamund walked away from him without a backward glance. That would put the Italian Lothario firmly in his place.

  Instead D’Alessandri hurried after her like a dog in heat. Aaron followed and arrived in time to hear him say, “It is a wonderful piece. Perhaps you could tell me what you know about it.”

  Rosamund launched into a description of the Russian culture, the significance of the icons in Russian religion, and the meaning of this particular piece.

  In normal circumstances, D’Alessandri would have fallen over in a stupor. Instead, he stood beside her, stared at her bosom, and made interested noises.

  No. No, this wasn’t possible. Rosamund couldn’t be so enticing that shallow, frivolous DeMonte was willing to be bored to death for a chance at her.

  It got worse. Three other guys—two married, one single, all horny bastards who couldn’t keep their hands to themselves—joined Rosamund and D’Alessandri at the case. Damn it all to hell. Rosamund was fulfilling every boy’s dream of uptight-and-sexy-as-hell librarian.

  Thank God she was oblivious.

  As she hurried from case to case, expounding on the antiquities she saw beneath the spotlights, Aaron knew he should be slipping into Fournier’s library, finding the manuscript, and “borrowing” it for the evening.

  But
the silly, vain, I’m-living-on-Daddy’s-money, worthless and wealthy society boys were listening to Rosamund. As if they were interested. When Aaron knew for a fact they were fighting to remain awake. If he left Rosamund alone, one of them would suggest that he knew where more antiquities were located. He’d lure her into some dark bedroom and try to . . . try to do what Aaron had tried to do on the drive over.

  And she hadn’t finished with her orgasm! She was primed, ready for sex as provided by the right man.

  Aaron was that man, damn it.

  She used her clutch purse to gesture at her captive audience, then impatiently placed it on top of the case and kept talking.