Risk the Night

Anne Stuart

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Anne Kristine Stuart Ohlrogge

CHAPTER ONE

It had started as an average day. The man currently calling himself Constantine awoke in his small apartment in the third arondissement of Paris after three hours’ sleep. He seldom needed more, and often made do with less, a blessing or a curse from the surly god who made him. He’d showered, shaved and dressed in work clothes, staring at himself in the mirror for a long time. He had no vanity – his face and body were tools of his trade and nothing else. He had a lean, wiry frame, deceptively strong, and he was taller than he appeared. His face was narrow, with strong bones, and the only thing remarkable about him were his bright blue eyes, an unfortunately memorable shade of turquoise. He put in the muddying contacts, surveyed the results with satisfaction before tying his hair back and covering it with a cap. In his black jeans and black turtleneck he would blend in with the students in the area, particularly with the backpack he’d purchased for the occasion.

He double-checked its contents. A change of clothes. His Glock and silencer, just in case. He tucked the knife in one of the black boots he wore, yanking the jeans over the bone handle. He’d planned carefully, as always, and it wouldn’t take long. He’d have more than enough time to return here for a shower if things got messy. The good thing about black – blood never showed.

It was a warm spring day, promising rain later. He moved down the streets at a leisurely pace in the early morning hours, reaching the discreet boutique hotel well before the city day had begun. Scum of the earth like Mirador never gave him a moment’s pause. He had a gift, a gift for death, and in the case of someone like Mirador it was well-used.

He didn’t know why he hesitated. He’d been trained for this by none other than the United States government, though they no longer paid his bills. And at least on his own he could pick and choose his targets. He didn’t have to worry about shades of gray – either the target was scum or worth redeeming. He had more than enough business taking care of the absolute scum.

So much, in fact, that he was getting tired of it. So damned tired. But for now he had no reason to quit.

He took care of Mirador, quickly, cleanly and headed back to his apartment, going straight for the shower. By the time he emerged, made his second cup of coffee for the day and turned on the television the hit had already made the news. Switching off the television, Constantine headed out for the worst part of his day.

“I was an idiot to tell you I’d do this,” he said, walking into the empty third floor flat Taggart had rented for the occasion.

Taggart had been leaning over a camera, but he rose and looked up at him, his face creasing with annoyance. He was older than Con, and he’d been in the business since he was very young. He knew more, had done more than Con even wanted to think of, and he owed him. Though he wasn’t sure he owed him this much.

“Cry to someone else,” Taggart growled, not bothering to remove the cigarette from the side of his mouth. “Your voice will be disguised, the room will be pitch black and the reporter will be on the other side of a barrier. There’s no way you’ll be identifiable.”

Con made a grumbling noise. “So why are we doing this?”

Taggart shrugged. “I owed someone a favor. Like you owed me a favor. Probably the guy I’m doing it for owed someone else. You weren’t just hatched – you know how these things work.”

“I know how these things work.” He looked around the empty apartment. He was restless, edgy, and the last thing he wanted to do was sit down and spin stories for a gullible reporter. But Taggart was right. He owed him. “Where?”

“Got the bedroom set up. There’s a bullet-proof divider between you, just in case this isn’t as innocent as it appears. The windows are completely blacked out – there won’t be a shred of light getting in.”

Con’s smile was cool and brief. “Don’t think I won’t kill you if this blows up in our faces. I’m not that sentimental.”

“Neither am I,” Taggart said, opening the door into an inky dark room. “I assume Mirador was your work?”

“Why assume that? I’m on vacation.”

“Sure you are.”

At least Taggart had seen to the basics. Coffee, wine, fresh bread and cheese and fruit. He wasn’t particularly hungry – he didn’t eat much the days that he worked. Taggart would know that as well, but Con wasn’t interested in playing games. He made himself a cup of coffee and leaned back in the darkness, waiting.

He heard the shuffling noise a few minutes later, another sound, as if someone bumped into a piece of furniture, and then the scraping sound of wood on the marble floor. He leaned forward toward the microphone that would distort his voice. “Do you have a blindfold on?” He spoke in French. He suspected the reporter was American – they usually were.

He was right about that. He just hadn’t expected it to be a woman. “Yes, and it’s a pain in the ass,” she said in a low voice, her schoolgirl French adequate. She’d had an expensive education, an anomaly which normally would have interested him. Right now he had too many other things on his mind. “Renard said I could take if off once you told me I could.”

“Not yet.” He lit a cigarette, the flare of light blinding in the inky darkness. Stygian darkness. He wondered if this was what hell looked like. He expected to find out sooner rather than later. “All right,” he said. The faint glow of the cigarette wouldn’t give anything away, and it would throw her off. He didn’t smoke.

He heard the rustle of cloth, the clearing of her throat, and he knew she wanted to ask him not to smoke. She didn’t dare. Smart woman.

“What did you want to know?”

She cleared her throat again. “My name is Elizabeth Shannon and I’m writing an article …”

“I don’t care who you are or what you’re doing,” he said, bored. If that was her real name then he was christened Constantine. “Renard made the arrangements. If I didn’t trust him I wouldn’t be here.” Trust Taggart to have taken a name like Renard. Sly old fox. “Ask your questions. I have things to do.”

“I’m taping this. Do you mind?”

“Why should I?” He took another drag of his cigarette and waited, patient, bored. Slightly distracted by the husky note in her voice. Unlike others he never found sex appealing on the days that we worked. But there was something about her voice …

“You kill for a living?” She asked the question in English. Mid-Atlantic seaboard upper class American English. He was right.

“I do.” He answered her in the same language, with a guttural German accent. German accents were tricky – you could easily start sounding like a Prussian nobleman or a Nazi commandant. He always used a light touch, even when he used a working class voice.

“Who hires you?”

“Whoever can meet my price. Governments. Private contractors. Individuals. I’m not fussy.”

“What is your price?”

“It depends on the job, the complexity, the fame of the individual. I’d say probably more than you can afford. Were you looking to hire me?”

“No.” He was spooking her, deliberately, and she was trying not to show it. Good for her. He could terrify combat veterans if he tried. He considered toning it down, but didn’t.

“How many people have you killed?”

“I’ve lost count.” He was lying to her, of course. Another of his curses – a photographic memory. He knew each face, each name, each job, and always would.

“Are there jobs you would refuse to take?”

“Why would I?” He was toying with her, more interested in her answers than his own variety of lies.

“Because the … the victim … the target … what do you call them?” She was beginning to sound rattled. He took another drag on the cigarette he didn’t want and smiled.

“Take your pick,” he said. “Victim sounds good.”

He could pick up on her annoyance now. She suspected he was playing with her. Good. He liked an intelligent adversary, and she was most definitely that.

“Did you kill Congressman Walters?”

“No comment.”

“Did you kill the King of Waziristan?”

“No comment.”

“Did you kill Jimmy Hoffa?” she demanded, frustrated.

“No comment.”

“Would you kill a good man? If the price was right?”

“How am I to know whether a man is good or not? One man’s savior is another man’s terrorist. It’s not my place to judge.”

“Just to carry out the sentence.”

“Yes.”

“Would you kill a woman?”

He took another drag on the heavy Turkish tobacco. When in France he smoked Gitanes if necessary, unfiltered. “What makes you think women are any less innocent than men? I can assure you, certain women are far more dangerous than their male counterparts.”

“I take it that means yes.”

“Take it any way you wish.” Taggart was going to be annoyed with him. He was supposed to give this inquisitive female enough to feed her paranoid fantasies with no real information. Instead he was stonewalling her, for the simple reason that he wanted to annoy her. To get a reaction from her. For God’s sake, he wanted to move her. What the hell was wrong with him today?

He heard her intake of breath. “Have you ever killed a woman?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

“A child?”

“No.”

Silence as she digested that information. He should have lied to her – he didn’t want her making the mistake of thinking he was human. “Are you here in Paris for a particular job?”

“I’m on vacation,” he said. “I’m here for the wine and the food and the pussy and nothing else.”

He felt her instinctive reaction, and he wanted to laugh. A crude word was such a minor thing compared to the world he was opening up for her.

It went with his accent – rough German that was then distorted by the microphone. He could croon to her in a few hours and she’d have no idea who she was talking to. The idea was tempting.

He wondered what she looked like, he thought as he fielded her questions. Was she tall and leggy, unnaturally thin and nervous like so many career women? Was she slightly plump, with glasses and sensible shoes? He liked that idea. He was tired of wafer-thin models.

He found he was getting turned on, which was odd. Not his style. He liked the idea of fucking her. Of going out and finding her after this was done, seducing her, seeing how far he could push her. He could seduce just about anyone, and this woman, whose name was most definitely NOT Elizabeth Shannon, would be child’s play.

Blonde or brunette? Tall or short? He fantasized as he spun her stories, some blatant lies, some horrifyingly true, and she was naked with her sweet, questioning mouth on his cock. He didn’t usually like women to be frightened of him, not in bed. He liked an even match, a woman who gave as good as she got, one who had the illusion that she was in control. They never were. He made it a rule never to walk into a situation where he didn’t command complete control.

It would be easy enough with this one. She was young, thinking she was experienced. Those were the easiest to get to.

He shook his head, amused at himself. He wasn’t taking care of that little problem this afternoon. This was business, this was for Taggart.

“Tell me,” he said, pitching his voice low. Even with the distortion and the German accent he knew it would come through the other side of the wall as pure seduction. “Do you have a lover?”

He felt her instinctive withdrawal as she considered her answer. “In fact, I have. A very kind, sweet man. Not that it’s any of your business. Why do you ask?”

“Do you like kind, sweet men? Do you fuck in the darkness, missionary-style? Do you even suck his cock?”

“You’re disgusting.”

He laughed softly. “That answers my question. You should try it sometime. You might even like it.”

“I’ll have you know that I’ve …” her voice trailed off as she realized what he was doing. Her laugh was rueful, and he was hard. He should have had Taggart put a filter on her voice too. It was low, melodic, slightly nervous and most definitely self-aware. “You’re the one who’s supposed to answer the questions,” she said. “Not me.”

“You don’t want to tell me about your sex life?”

“Not particularly. Any more than you want to tell me about yours.” The moment she said the words she knew her mistake. “Cancel that. You’d probably like nothing more than to try to embarrass me with salacious stories. I’m here to find out about your work as an assassin, nothing more.”

He smiled to himself. “I don’t like that word, ‘assassin.’ It’s too melodramatic.”

“God, you’re not going to use one of those tough-guy movie terms, are you? Like Cleaner?” She’d relaxed now, ready to lob some of his snark back at him. She had no idea how mismatched they were, but he could be gentle with her. For now.

He laughed softly. “No, sweetheart. I avoid terminology. I am what I am, do what I do. Aren’t you tired of this by now? Do you want to go somewhere and fuck?”

Her heard her swift intake of breath, but her reply was calm enough. “If you think sexual innuendoes are going to scare me off after some of the stories you’ve told me then you have a strange opinion of women.”

“You’re American. Most Americans are far more comfortable with violence than sex. Just look at your television shows.”

“I’d rather not,” she said dryly. “And no, I don’t want to go somewhere and fuck, though you’re very kind to offer. I’m meeting my boyfriend for dinner.”

“Too bad. If there were more time I’d unzip myself and …”

“I gather you’re getting bored with all this.” Her voice was brisk, interrupting his crude comment. “So am I. Just one more question.”

Just as well, he thought. He was getting distracted.

“Would you tell me your name?”

He laughed, a short, sharp sound. “You know the answer to that. If I did I would have to kill you,” he said. “And don’t decide to be Nancy Drew and try to find out who I am. If you do I will kill you. And you won’t be some Daniel Pearl type martyr. I’ll make it look like an accident, and no one will ever know you died for your fucking story.”

Her heard her intake of breath, and he knew she believed him. “I won’t,” she said.

“I didn’t think you would,” he said peaceably. “Anything else? I need to get to my gym.” Another lie. He worked out in whatever room he was inhabiting, exercises to keep him agile and alert. He didn’t need fancy machines.

“Just one. Why do you do it?”

He laughed. He could imagine how it sounded on the other side of the pitch dark window, like the sound of the devil, laughing from the fires of hell.

“Because I’m good at it. Everyone has certain talents. You’re a journalist. I kill.”

Dead silence from the darkness. “Are you a sociopath? Or a psychopath?”

Good for her, he thought silently. “A psychopath loves his work, sweetheart. I’m a sociopath. I just don’t care.”

And he flicked off the microphone.

Enough.

CHAPTER TWO

Madison Mary Banks felt the micro-recorder slip out of her sweat-damp hands and land on the floor. It was tough enough to withstand the punishment, having survived war zones and her sister’s energetic toddler, but she made no effort to retrieve it. She felt strange, disoriented, she smell of tobacco on the air, the sound of his distorted voice in her ear. She wrapped her arms around her waist, hugging herself. She had just spent the better part of an hour in a darkened room with someone who could only be called a monster – it was no wonder she felt ill.

His stories lingered in her brain, and she wished there was some way to wipe it clean. He’d answered everything in detail, but not in specifics. No names, but how long it took a man to bleed out, depending on which artery was severed. Which poisons worked the best. Sniper training, but not where he’d received it. She now had a sickeningly clear view of what it was like to be a … a termination specialist in the modern world. She just wished she didn’t.

The door opened, and light flooded the room, momentarily blinding her. She felt an instant’s panic, but it was simply Renard, the friend of a friend of Drake, her boyfriend, the man who’d facilitated this meeting.

Drake was going to laugh at her, say “I told you so” when he saw her. But maybe she’d have managed to pull herself together by then.

“You okay, mademoiselle?” Reynard’s voice was cool and obsequious. Just the kind of man whose ancestors stormed the Bastille and knitted while the aristocrats were beheaded. She knew how she presented to most people, no matter what kind of thrift store clothes she dressed in, and he was probably wishing they still had tumbrels.

“Fine,” she said, her voice hollow. “Has he gone?”

Renard raised an eyebrow. “Yes, mademoiselle. He left a good ten minutes ago. I was waiting for you to open the door.”

“I was … was assembling my notes,” she said weakly, reaching down and picking up the recorder. “It’s good to have your thoughts in order while they’re still fresh.”

“Indeed, mademoiselle. You will tell our friend I fulfilled my part of the bargain?”

Which friend, she wondered. Drake, or a friend of a friend of Drake’s? She rather hated the idea that she was sleeping with a man too closely connected to the creature she’d just interviewed.

“I’ll tell him,” she said, rising, the recorder clutched in one hand.

Constantine heard the door to the apartment close behind their departing guest, and he sank to the floor with another cup of coffee, his legs crossed beneath him as he watched Taggert dismantle his safe house.

“Did you have to do that?” Taggert demanded irritably.

“Do what?”

“Try to seduce her. She’s harmless, but she has connections. If you wanted to fuck her that badly I could have cancelled this and you could have picked her up at a café. At this point if you shagged her you’d probably screw her up for life. You gave her quite a convincing picture of our lives, though a bit more colorful and imaginative than the truth. But why the hell did you let her tape you?”

Constantine frowned. “I did, didn’t I? In fact, I didn’t intend to be that helpful. She was just so damned gullible that I kept pushing.”

“You forget how long I’ve known you. You were just so horny that you kept pushing. You need to keep away from her, my friend. I don’t think the tape is important, though I might see if I can send someone to get rid of it.”

“I know the kind of men you hire – they’re clumsy. It would … annoy me if they ended up accidentally killing her.” His voice was light, almost airy. “It would annoy me a great deal.”

Taggert snorted, unimpressed. “Get it yourself. You’ll be seeing her again.”

Con rose in one fluid gesture, his innate grace causing more than one man to mistake his devotedly heterosexual orientation. “I don’t know what she looks like, I don’t know her name, and I have no interest in finding out. I’m enjoying the most deliciously salacious fantasies about her, I admit. I doubt reality would come even close.”

“It seldom does,” Taggart said morosely. He finished packing up the case and locked it. “Today didn’t happen.”

“It seldom does,” Con replied.

Maddy wasn’t sure how she made it out into the bright sunshine. It was a hot day, and she still shivered. She was walking, fast, a New York City walk, not a Parisian stroll, and she forced herself to slow down, take deep breaths. She looked at the digital recorder she was still clutching. She could throw it into the busy street, watch it get crushed beneath the wheels of the cars. She could slam it against the cement pavement, hard, and see the plastic shatter.

She took another breath. She wasn’t going to start making melodramatic gestures. She wasn’t her mother. This had been her choice of a story, and she could just as easily choose not to write it. Except that she had to get it out of her head.

Beneath the distortion of his voice he’d sounded oddly gentle. That, perhaps, was part of the horror. That he could recount such acts with the air of a guest at afternoon tea, or some kind of charity benefit, champagne glass in one hand, plate of canapés in the other. Flirting with her. Coming on to her. He had to be in his mid-sixties to have committed some of the crimes he described. She’d mocked him, but maybe he really had done something to Jimmy Hoffa, assuming he’d been a child prodigy.

Prodigy of death. She needed a shower. She would probably never eat again, certainly not for the next twenty-four hours, but she wasn’t a baby. She’d had Drake call in favors for this, and she couldn’t throw it away because she was afraid to pull up her big girl panties and get on with it.

She’d write the story, and she’d write the hell out of it.

It wasn’t until she was under the pounding, hot water of the shower in her small, crowded apartment that she realized what it was about the man that had been so disturbing.

Despite the stories, the details, the cool detachment as he catalogued the measured ending of countless lives, she’d been aware of something else in the subdivided cocoon of darkness. She’d been aware of him. Of a sinuous thread of charisma, drawing her, calling to her. Like looking into the eyes of a cobra about to strike and being too mesmerized to move. She’d listened to his voice, his distorted, heavily-accented voice, and she’d despised him. And felt the insane, irrational stirrings of sexual desire.

She sank to her knees in the old tub, wrapping her arms around her shivering body. Closing her eyes, she drew in the blankness. In a moment she would get up, turn off the shower, brush her teeth and reapply her makeup. She’d go out and meet Drake at the ambassador’s party and she’d smile and laugh and shrug off her silly little reaction.

But for now, she wasn’t going anywhere.

The one problem with Paris, Con thought several hours later as he put his arm around the tiny waist of Tessa Parker, aspiring actress, Vogue cover model and not so coincidentally the great-niece of the deposed king of Batavia, was the fucking paparazzi. They shouted in a dozen different languages, most of which he understood, the camera flashes were blinding, and security in Paris was lax. He smiled genially as he ushered Tessa into the party, wondering which tabloid his face was going to adorn tomorrow. He’d be background for Tessa’s startling beauty and vivid camera presence. Hide in plain site had always been his modus operandi, something Taggart never ceased to wonder at, but it served him well. As the elegantly handsome Euro-trash, D’Angelo, he went to the best parties, drank and gambled with the best people, and Tessa was the perfect foil. In her case heroin-chic was accurate. She injected it under her tongue, between her toes, anywhere on her rail-thin, perfect body that wouldn’t show, and she moved through her round of parties and photo-shoots in a compliant daze.

She was dazzlingly beautiful. He had no idea if she had a brain in her head beneath the steady supply of drugs, and he didn’t care. She was a means to an end. All he had to do was lead her around, point her in the right direction, and she was so pretty that conversation wasn’t required of her. She would listen and smile and nod her head and everyone would be mesmerized, and he would move through the rarified world at her side, seemingly just as vacuous, as he waited for his next job.

She required nothing from him but company. She had no interest in sex, which was just as well. He could fuck on demand, but her bone-thin, ravaged body reminded him too much of famine victims, and he could control his sexual appetites. She spent her days, when she wasn’t working, being maintained like a thoroughbred horse. Groomed and exercised, every square inch of her body, every inch that could be seen, was perfect, and it cost a great deal of time and effort to keep her that way. She had no time to consider her high profile boyfriend or where he had first appeared. She probably didn’t even remember the meeting he had arranged.

Tessa stumbled slightly as they walked into the party, blinded by the flashing lights, and his arm tightened. She smelled like chemicals, he thought, leaning down to nuzzle her ear as the cameras flashed. She’d shot up before they left, and the initial buzz was just beginning to wear off. She had no idea her elegant, lazy boyfriend knew what she was doing in the loo right before they left her hotel suite, no idea that he’d gone to her supplier not long after he’d chosen her as his mark and made it very clear that Tessa was only to have the safest, most consistent supply of heroin available. She was never going to be able to buy too much and make a fatal mistake, she was never going to get a dangerously strong batch. She would have the best, a safe, careful source. He hadn’t even had to touch the hardened drug lord behind the dealer Tessa usually used. Even Rabard knew a worthy opponent when he saw him.

Not that he particularly cared if she died, he told himself. But he’d chosen her for a reason, because she could be easily controlled and used. A drug overdose would be unpleasant. With her political connections her death would be scrutinized, as would her playboy lover. And the last thing he wanted was to answer questions.

Besides, she was pretty, sweet and harmless. Either her addiction would overcome her and she’d die, or she’d eventually get clean. There was no way he could influence the outcome – he’d be someone else by then.

But for tonight she looked up at him like a lover, even though they’d actually only fucked a handful of times. He had the feeling he was about to add to that handful. Maybe even double it. This was his second job since he’d become D’Angelo, and Tessa’s lover, but for some reason his blood was running hot.

Not for some reason, he reminded himself, guiding Tessa in the direction of the ambassador, her second cousin twice-removed. It was that fucking reporter. It was the voice on the other side of the glass. He tried to tell himself she was a middle-aged troll. She was certainly no match for Tessa – few people were. If she were anywhere close to the kind of female beauty D’Angelo had associated with she wouldn’t be working for a newspaper.

It didn’t matter. He heard her voice in his head, the horror he’d done his best to ingrain in her, her refusal to be cowed, and he burned.

They mingled, a graceful dance of conversation and flirtation, all subtext and nothing substantive. He sipped his Moet et Chandon, kept his hand on Tessa’s skinny arm, glancing around the crowded room.

Embassy parties were usually too tame for Tessa, who liked loud rock and roll and coke for entertainment, but the elderly ambassador was family, and she’d insisted they stop here first. Which was fine with him. All he had to do was wander around and look pretty.

He saw the woman from a distance, and his eyes narrowed, suddenly alert. She was sitting at one of the little tables with a man a few years older than she was, and he knew he’d never seen either of them in his life. The man was speaking to her earnestly, holding one of her hands, and she was listening with the air of a patient mother.

He knew how to watch someone without people noticing. He smiled, and circulated, and guided Tessa across the room with masterful ease. Who the hell was the woman?

She was young, maybe a few years older than Tessa, with a badly-cut mane of red hair to her shoulders, wire-rimmed glasses, a soft pale mouth and dark eyes, vulnerable eyes in an otherwise ordinary face. There was a slight softness around her jaw, suggesting she carried a few extra pounds that were hidden by the flowing black dress she was wearing. Expensive dress. Vintage couturier. Expensive earrings. The infomercials were full of crap – you could tell good diamonds even from a distance and those were impressive.

She had something on the table beside her, and she pulled her hand free to tap it while she was continuing to talk in an intense, inaudible voice.

“Is something wrong?” Tessa murmured, following his gaze.

“Of course not, cara mia,” he said gently. He usually spoke Italian with her, but tonight he couldn’t be bothered with more than the accent and the endearment.

“Do you know that woman?”

He wasn’t usually so gauche. If a drug-addled woman noticed his fascination then anyone else might. He shrugged. “She looks familiar, but I can’t place her.”

“Do you want me to ask?” Tessa murmured. “Do you want me to see if they would like to join us?”

“No.” He smiled down at her. “You’re all I need.”

She blinked. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.” He could find out soon enough who she was, if his interest held for longer than the next five minutes.

Except, of course, that he knew who she was. Without hearing her voice, without ever having seen her face he knew exactly who she was. The woman who’d spent an hour locked in darkness with him. The woman he wanted.

“Who is that man?” Maddy leaned forward and whispered to Drake.

“Darling, there are a great many men here. Which one in particular?”

“The handsome one. He’s with some model.”

“Again, that doesn’t narrow things down much …. Ah,” he said. “I think you mean D’Angelo. Don’t tell me you’re like half the women in Paris.”

“I’m definitely not like half the women in Paris, and in what way did you mean?” she countered good-naturedly.

“They’re all in love with him. He’s just Euro-trash, with no purpose on this earth but to look pretty. I’ve had it on good authority that he’s really gay.”

Maddy shook her head. “No, he’s not.”

“Come on, sweets, you can’t believe your gay-dar is that infallible,” Drake protested.

“He’s not gay,” she insisted. “He exudes sexuality. Hetero-sexuality, in fact.”

Drake laughed. “It’s not like you’re the most sophisticated woman here tonight. I imagine it’s wishful thinking on your part.”

“Hardly,” she scoffed. “I’m here with you – I don’t need another man. Maybe it’s wishful thinking on your part.”

He laughed at that. “You’re all I’m thinking of. And you’re going home with me …” At that moment his phone rang, and his forehead creased in annoyance.

“Answer it.”

“I’m not going to. They’ll just want me to do something and I’ve saved tonight for you and me. You’ve finally gotten the big scoop you’ve been looking for, and we need to celebrate. We’ll go back to your place and drink champagne and have make wild, monkey love and tomorrow you’ll agree to marry me.”

She felt her stomach knot in sudden apprehension. “You know, I’m not sure if wild, monkey love is what I’m in the mood for. The man’s stories were pretty unsettling.”

“Did you believe him? Half of these guys like to lie, puff themselves up.”

“I believed him,” Maddy said. “I wish I didn’t.”

“Well, then, I’ll drive him right out of your mind,” Drake said, still ignoring the insistent ring of his phone. Finally it stopped, and his broad shoulders relaxed. And then tensed, as the phone started ringing again. “God damn it!” he snapped, yanking out his cell phone and barking into it. “Speak to me.”

Maddy winced. She always hated it when he answered the phone that way, but she couldn’t figure out how to tell him. It reminded her of a bad Hollywood movie. Then again, everything was reminding her of the movies, probably because the afternoon felt so surreal. People didn’t really kill other people as easily as some might make a turkey sandwich. Did they?

She looked back toward the man called D’Angelo, but there was no sign of him or his skinny girlfriend. She would have given ten years off her life to weigh what that girl weighed. Unfortunately it just wasn’t going to happen. She had wide hips, c-cup boobs and curves when curves weren’t fashionable. Then again, curves were never fashionable in Paris. Tant pis. She was what she was.

Drake closed his phone with a snap. “We’re off for tonight, I’m afraid,” he said in a disgusted voice. “Something’s come up and I’m going to be spending the night at the paper.”

She quickly composed her face into an expression of deep disappointment, hiding her secret relief. “Oh, that’s too bad! But we can always celebrate tomorrow.”

He smiled absently, his mind already on his new problem. “We’ll do that,” he said. “In the meantime I’ll take you home on the way to the office.”

“No need. I can get a taxi.”

“Don’t be absurd.” He caught her hand and pulled her to her feet. “I was brought up a gentleman, I’ll have you know. I’ll put you in a taxi first.”

She set the champagne flute back down on the table and picked up the digital recorder, putting it in her vintage Judith Leiber. She’d wanted to talk to him, to use him as a sounding board. Drake was always so sensible, so unsentimental, and he was a journalist born and bred. He could help her sort through the strange, conflicting emotions that had been tormenting her since she left Renard’s house this afternoon.

But that wasn’t going to be tonight. Which was all right – she needed time to get her own thoughts together before she approached Drake. He was going to be really pissed if she told him she didn’t want to use the story. He had nothing but contempt for human weakness, and he’d see her second thoughts as just that.

She smiled at him. “Tomorrow night, then. It’s a date.”

The vast entry hall of the embassy building was a mass of people, pushing and shoving only as extremely well-bred people could. “What’s the problem?” Drake demanded of someone.

“It’s raining, m’sieur,” the uniformed guard said. “This is the line for taxis.”

“Shit.” Drake was looking harassed. “I knew I should have brought my car.”

“The office is just three blocks away, Drake,” Maddy said gently. “You never were afraid of a little water.”

“That’s not the problem. You’re way over in the Marais. There’s no way you can walk …”

“But I’m in no hurry. I’ll just take a comfortable seat and wait my turn. I’m a big girl, Drake. I just spent an afternoon with a sociopath and lived to tell the tale, I can certainly survive a Paris taxi-ride on my own.”

“Paris taxis are probably more dangerous,” he said dourly.

“Go ahead.” She gave him a little push. “I’ll be fine and you know it. Emily Post will absolve you of your social crime.”

He stared at her with mounting frustration. And then, out of the blue, he grabbed her by the upper arms, yanked her against him and kissed her. “You’re the best,” he said. “And you are going to marry me, you know.” A moment later he was gone.

She found herself smiling after him. She wasn’t any too certain of that, but she’d probably be a fool not to. They cared about the same things, their politics were in tune, they believed in the written word and they were both pragmatists. They were good together, physically as well. He brought her to orgasm most of the time, and when he couldn’t she took care of it herself. He was kind, he was honorable, and he loved her.

She felt someone behind her, taller than her own five foot eight, and she turned, expecting one of the guards. To her complete astonishment she found herself looking at the perfection of an Armani dinner jacket, tailored and fitted, and she knew whose face she would see above it.

The playboy of the month was looking down at her, an amused expression on his face. “Mademoiselle, my girlfriend has a very soft heart, and she has seen that you have been abandoned. She has sent me over to ask if you would like a ride home in our limousine.”

For a moment she froze, feeling a like a deer in the headlights. She wasn’t good with all that intense masculine beauty bearing down on her, that charisma that could make a nun melt. “I … I …” she stammered stupidly. What the hell was wrong with her? She could tackle serial killers with one hand tied behind her back. A brainless piece of window dressing should be child’s play. “That’s … very kind of you, m’sieur,” she said, gaining her self-control. “But a taxi will do me very well.”

“Alas, ma’mselle, but there are no taxis. Not on a rainy Paris night. I promise you, Tessa is harmless.” There was a note of amusement in his accented voice. Italian, she thought. Probably some faux count or prince. Assured of his charm, knowing she would give in or appear hopelessly gauche.

And like Drake, she’d been brought up to be impeccably well-behaved, even with dubious European royalty. She didn’t rise to the bait, ask him how harmless he was. She gave in, rather than argue, and because she couldn’t imagine the harm in it. She’d seen their pictures on tabloids, Paris Match, French People. They were hardly going to turn into murderers preying on slightly gauche reporters.

“You’re very kind, m’sieur.”

“You may call me D’Angelo,” he said, the name rolling off his tongue as the amusement sparkled in his warm brown eyes.

“It’s a lovely name,” she said inadequately.

“But not, I am afraid, accurate. I have little in common with the angels. And you are?”

She flushed. Her manners really had gone down the toilet. “I’m Madison Banks. I work for the Tribune.”

“A reporter,” he said, delighted. “I love reporters. Tessa, not so much. But that will be our little secret. We will tell Tessa that you’re a student, shall we?”

“I’m a little old to be a student.”

“A graduate student then. At the Cordon Bleu.” He smiled down at her. He put his large, warm hand beneath her elbow and she jumped. “Come along, Miss Banks. We will see you safely home.”

CHAPTER THREE

Maddy settled back into the butter-soft leather of the limousine, trying to relax. Tessa Parker had been all slightly dazed cordiality, and as she felt herself maneuvered through the crowds she wondered if the woman had had too much champagne. She would have felt a lot better herself if she’d had a nice, single malt Scotch under her belt.

D’Angelo had taken the seat facing them, his back to the driver. It was a full-sized limo, and he was able to stretch out his long legs without touching them. She’d been afraid he would sit next to her, but there was plenty of room in the car, and she’d been handed in next to Tessa, who was so small and frail a good gust of wind could blow her away.

“You’re very kind to do this,” Maddy said, hiding her ridiculous nervousness, focusing on the woman next to her and trying to shut out the amused brown eyes across from them.

“But of course, Miss Banks,” Tessa Parker said smoothly. “You looked so forlorn standing there that it seemed like the kindest thing to do. D’Angelo agreed with me, of course.”

She relaxed slightly. For some reason she thought it had been the man’s idea, and the idea had unnerved her. Instead it was simply a kind gesture on the part of a fellow American.

The afternoon with the man must have unsettled her even more than she thought. Here she was suspecting dire motives from everyone she met. These were the glitterati – they would have no interest in someone like her apart from an act of random kindness. Though she wouldn’t have thought acts of kindness were much in their repertoire. Even if they’d known she was a reporter they were the kind of people who avoided cameras and journalists, rather than seeking them out. And she was not much more than a newbie, lucky enough to be working freelance in Paris thanks to her family connections.

“Who was the man you were with?” D’Angelo murmured as they swept by the rain-wet streets. “He seemed very much in love with you.”

“Ah, D’Angelo is such a romantic!” Tessa said fondly, her voice slightly, delicately slurred. The man smiled mockingly but didn’t demur. As far as Maddy was concerned his girlfriend was dead wrong. This man was a cynic, through and through.

But she answered his polite question anyway. “My boyfriend. God, that sounds absurd at my age. He’s presumably about to become my fiancé, but since I haven’t said yes yet I’ll simply have to call him my boyfriend.”

“Like D’Angelo,” Tessa said.

Maddy couldn’t help it – her eyes met the man’s eyes, and he smiled wryly, the knowledge passing between them, whether she wanted it to or not. Her so-called boyfriend was nothing at all like D’Angelo. No one was.

“You’re tired, Tessa,” he said in a soothing voice. “Go to sleep.”

To Maddy’s uncomfortable surprise Tessa did exactly that, immediately closing her eyes. Maddy met his gaze again, and held it, refusing to look away. “Do you practice some kind of mind-control on her?” she said, not bother to mask the asperity in her tone. “Or is that simply a post-hypnotic suggestion?”

He didn’t bother to react, apart from a possible glint in his dark eyes. “She takes drugs,” he said calmly. “There’s nothing I can do about it, but it’s better if she sleeps for a bit. You could have probably put her to sleep the same way. Shall I wake her up and we’ll try it?”

She looked at him with sharp dislike. “It’s not a game, it’s a disease.”

“You have a very soft heart, Miss Banks. Around here we tend to think of it as a moral failing, or at the very least a weakness. Tessa has been given everything in this life – wealth, beauty, even a decent amount of brains, though you’d never know it. And she’s chosen to throw it all away.”

She stared at him. “This from a playboy?”

He laughed. “Why do I bother you so much, cara? Haven’t you run into your share of playboys? You’re part of the Banks family, aren’t you? The political dynasty that has still managed to hold onto its money and power over the generations. You must have had gigolos lined up at your door.”

She took a deep intake of breath. “You’re very well-informed for someone I’ve never seen before. Is that what you are? A gigolo? I’ve told you, I’m already well-taken care of in that regard.”

“I wonder,” he murmured, and there was just the faintest taunt to it. “In fact, I tend to have a very good memory, and I majored in world politics at university. The Banks family took up a fair amount of study time.” He smiled at her, a guileless, enchanting smile that she trusted not one whit. And yet her skin warmed beneath it. “And no, I’m not a gigolo. Merely someone with too much money and too much time on my hands. And Tessa is very beautiful, is she not?”

Maddy glanced over at her. Even in sleep she was exquisite, like some fairy princess, frail and delicate. There was a time in her life when she would have given anything to look like that. She hadn’t felt that way in years. Not until tonight. “She is.”

“So why, then, am I so attracted to you?”

She froze, turning her gaze back to him, expecting mockery. There was none. There was heat, strong and direct, and she could feel it between her legs, on her breasts, everywhere.

She let out a shaky laugh. “Not that I’m not flattered, Mr. D’Angelo,” she began.

“Just D’Angelo,” he murmured.

“That’s affected.”

“Yes,” he agreed courteously. “You were saying? You are flattered but …?”

Her annoyance should have put a stop to that treacherous thread of arousal that was dancing through her body. But then, it had been there all day, ever since being locked in with a man who should have appalled her and instead seduced her. “I’ve had a very strange day,” she said. “And while it’s lovely that you’re suddenly overcome with lust for me, I think the smartest thing would be to decline whatever it is you’re offering. Even if I weren’t practically engaged, I’m just too screwed up today to consider a one-night stand, even with someone as pretty as you.”

Still that lovely smile. “Merci. I think you’re pretty too.”

She didn’t snort derisively – that would have been fishing for compliments. She knew she was reasonably attractive – just not when she was sitting next to one of the most beautiful women in the world.

“So I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she ended, pleased with herself.

He shrugged, the gesture effortless in the beautiful dinner jacket. “Feel free to change your mind.”

“I’m hardly likely to.” And if she did, how was she to tell him? Send a bat signal out her fourth floor window?

She suddenly realized they had stopped moving, and she had the absurd notion that now that she had rebuffed his unlikely advances he was going to kick her to the curb. But the door opened, the driver standing there with a large umbrella, and she recognized the familiar shape of the small apartment house in the Marais district. “We’re here,” she said, feeling somewhat foolish. She turned to D’Angelo, but he’d already slid out of the car and taken the umbrella from the chauffeur. “Watch over Miss Parker,” he said to the man, and then held out his hand to her.

She looked at it. She would have expected rings of some sort, but he wore none, and his hands were large, tanned, graceful-looking. Pampered playboy, she thought, wishing there was a way to avoid touching him without being gauche, but she had no choice, and she put her smaller hand in his.

She controlled her instinctive jerk of surprise as he pulled her from the limo. His hands were calloused, as if he were used to hard work, which of course was impossible. And the desire he felt, the desire that she knew perfectly well flowed between them, was a live thing between their hands, their skin.

She pulled free the moment she reached the wet pavement. “The rain has stopped,” she announced. “And I can take it from here. Thank you so much for your kindness …”

He had already folded the umbrella, handing it back to the chauffeur before taking her arm in an unbreakable hold that was even worse than his hand on hers. Even more erotic. “I wouldn’t think of not escorting you to your door, Miss Banks.”

“I live on the fourth floor, and there are no elevators.”

“I will try not to hyperventilate.”

There was nothing she could do. He was too strong, too determined. She wasn’t afraid of him, she told herself. She’d told him no, and he would hardly descend to raping her. In truth, he could have just about anyone. On a different day, he might have even had her.

But the memory of the man in the darkness still haunted her, and she wasn’t going to let her odd, lingering arousal push her into making a terrible mistake. Besides, the man beside her was probably lousy in bed. He was so good-looking he wouldn’t have to make much of an effort, and most women would still be grateful.

They moved up the stairs in silence, though each time she tried to tug free his hand tightened, and she wondered if she’d have bruises. She had climbed these narrow flights of stairs for months now, considering it her own form of cardio-vascular exercise, but tonight she was rushing it, desperate to get away from him, and she was growing winded from the effort.

“You don’t need to run,” he said in a low voice. “I’m not that bad.”

She didn’t respond, saving her breath. By the time they reached the top floor she was suddenly regretting her haste. What did he intend to do once they got there?

He released her then, holding out his hand. “Your keys?”

She didn’t want to give them to him, but she had no choice. She reached inside the Judith Lieber handbag and fished them out, handing them to him. He unlocked the door, pushed it open, and gave the keys back to her.

She didn’t move. He was going to kiss her. She’d allow him that much, because she wanted so much more. She wanted the implicit promise of his body, she wanted to fuck the crazy, hot confusion out of her own. She wanted this day, with these twin, insane attractions, gone, but not without a deep, rich taste of him.

“Good night, Miss Banks.” Without another word he was gone, and she heard him descending the stairs.

She was so damned tempted to lean over the stairwell and call to him. To curse him, to call him back, she wasn’t sure which. Instead she went into her apartment, triple-locked her door, and breathed a deep sigh of relief and regret.

He could have had her. Constantine knew if he’d pushed it he could have had her a dozen times, including on the back seat of the limo while Tessa slept on. He’d considered shoving her up against her door, pulling up her vintage Balenciaga and fucking her senseless. He’d seen the digital recorder in her purse, and she would have dropped it as she was caught up in the fury he knew he could inspire in her. Knew, because he was feeling that same rage, a maelstrom of need that threatened to burn him up.

He was semi-erect and he didn’t give a damn if it showed, though the chauffeur, who was gay, was much too polite to gaze at his employer’s boyfriend’s crotch. And Tessa was too spaced to be aware of anything.

The smart thing to do was take her home, close his eyes and screw the hell out of her while she dreamed, only half awake, picturing Madison Banks’s ripe, creamy flesh instead of the bony mass beneath him. The loose dress had exposed Madison’s shoulders and the tops of her breasts, and he’d been enchanted, mesmerized, in love in the best possible way. A fantasy he could dismiss with a snap of his fingers, but a lush one while it lasted.

That was, if he were smart.

Right then he wasn’t feeling smart. He’d killed two men today. He’d told an inquisitive reporter too much of the truth and too many lies as well, and allowed her to record it. There were people skilled enough to hack their way through the voice distortion, leaving him exposed.

No, he needed to retrieve that recorder. And smart or not, he needed to get inside Madison Banks and see if he could make her come as hard as he was planning to.

Simmons drove them home through the rain-damp streets, the lamplights reflecting off the water and sending strange shadows into the car. The chauffeur was driving fast, but there were no paparazzi following them. They were a bunch of pussies—give them a heavy rain and they’d rather spend their time in some bar, drinking, than chasing their meal tickets.

Just as well. He didn’t want cameras anywhere around him tonight. Not when he considered what he was planning to do.

He carried Tessa’s frail body into the back elevator used for the hotel’s more famous guests, up to her suite of rooms. He laid her down on the bed, stripping off her clothes. She wasn’t wearing underwear, and she didn’t own any nightclothes. He pulled the covers up to her chin, then brushed her hair out of her exquisite face. Her handlers would yell at her tomorrow for sleeping in her makeup, and she’d pout at him, and he’d enact the enraged lover and then there would be the tender rapprochement. He could play the part perfectly.

He brushed a kiss against her forehead, then stripped off his jacket, tie and vest and tossed them across a chair. For a brief moment he considered his work clothes – the all concealing black would be perfect for what he’d suddenly decided, but there was some, unlikely part of him that was repulsed by the idea. Sex and death. Fucking and killing. So different, and yet so alike.

He shoved his key in his pocket and headed out, the hunter in search of a different kind of prey. Knowing he had lost his mind.

Maddy took another shower but it did absolutely no good. Her skin still felt hypersensitized. Was there such a thing as Spanish Fly? She felt as if she’d ingested some. She was aroused, on fire, edgy and restless. The thought of going to bed was unbearable – it was still early, after all. Her mind was going round and round, and the more she tried to avoid it the more obvious it became.

Sex. It was all she could think about. It had started with that terrifying interview, the sly questions that the anonymous, distorted voice had asked oh-so-gently instead of the other way around. And then, mere hours later, D’Angelo’s dark eyes, his touch on her skin, his outrageous conversation.

She was hardly his type, she thought with a rough laugh. Her breasts were full and high, her hips rounded, her thighs and calves muscled from walking but definitely there. She was a woman, not a stick-thin waif, and she was comfortable in her body.

Except when she thought of his eyes, comparing her to Tessa Parker.

Fuck that, she thought, pushing him from her mind with her usual firm discipline. She wasn’t interested in having sex with either an assassin or a playboy. She was just interested in having sex.

Which was perfectly normal. An appetite, like any other, and it wasn’t her fault that it had come over her like a PMS craving for chocolate. She could deal with it.

She took the ancient flannel robe from the bathroom door and wrapped it around her plain white underwear. She’d stolen it from Drake, and it was so soft and comfortable it would wrap her in a cocoon of safety. How could you feel aroused in white cotton and ancient flannel?

She poured herself a nice glass of Beaujolais, just because. She didn’t like to drink alone, but there were times when it was the best thing to do. She turned her stereo on, to a mix of French and English music, Charles Aznavour and Marc Lavoine, Jacques Brel and Florent Pagny. And of course Piaf.

And still she felt it. That clawing, aching feeling, the need to have sex, to have it right now. She headed for her phone, desperate to hear the sound of Drake’s voice. Desperate to have him there.

And then she put down the phone without dialing. She wanted him to blot out all the confusing, overwhelming, arousing feelings that were swamping her. But she knew it wasn’t Drake she wanted.

The flannel had been a bad idea after all. The familiar softness, instead of soothing her, aroused her, the touch on her skin more erotic than silk.

She moved around the apartment, lighting the candles she kept but seldom used. She felt hot, and she went over to the doors leading to the narrow balcony, pushing them open to wet night air.

She leaned over the iron railing, looking out into the night. She loved Paris when it rained, the smell of the water on the sidewalks and buildings, the soft wind that usually came with it. Paris had brought her senses alive. It was no one’s fault that tonight, for some unknown reason, they were suddenly overloaded.

She turned away, pouring herself another glass of wine. She’d already turned off the electric lights, and she moved to the high-backed wing chair she’d found at an antique store. There was no hurry. She could sit here and listen to the rain and drink her wine. The night was hers.

She might have drifted off to sleep. The wind picked up, and the candles fluttered in the breeze, as the heavy rain followed, beating against her windows. It was coming in the open balcony, and a fine spray covered her. She closed her eyes, reveling in it, awash in the sheer sensuality of it.

And when she opened them he stood there, on the narrow little balcony. He was soaking wet, the rain running down his stark, beautiful face in rivulets, plastering his white shirt to his chest. He was there, as she somehow knew he would be.

He was everything she hungered for, everything that was wrong. She looked into his eyes, and her body convulsed in a tiny, shocking climax.

She was in deep trouble.

CHAPTER FOUR

“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded when she managed to catch her breath.

He didn’t move in out of the rain, he simply let it pound down over him, oblivious to it as he leaned back against the railing. He didn’t speak, and she was suddenly, irrationally afraid. She had no fear that he would hurt her, though it wasn’t as if he seemed harmless. He was a very dangerous man indeed – she instinctively knew that, for all his indolent playboy facade.

It was something else, something deeper, something infinitely more troubling. She managed to surge to her feet, ignoring her shaky legs, moving to shut the doors to the balcony, locking danger out in the storm.

He caught her wrist in one strong hand, halting her, and she stared up at him, the touch of his skin a shock. In the cold spring air he was hot, burning.

He pulled her, and she didn’t fight him. Pulled her out onto that narrow sliver of a balcony, out into the driving rain, and kissed her, his mouth hot and heavy on hers, wet, demanding. It was a lover’s kiss. The kiss of man who was ready to climax, and her hands, the ones that should have pushed him away, clutched his shoulders, holding on, as she surrendered to him.

Surrender. There was no other word for it. His tongue was inside her mouth, pushing, demanding a response. This was no gentle seduction, this was a claiming, dark and carnal, and she gave in, willingly, feeling the rain beat down on both of them with the night air of Paris all around.

He lifted his mouth, and everything went sideways, as her feet left the ground, and she had the sudden, crazy fear that he was going to throw her over the balcony, down four stories to be smashed against the pavement.

A moment later they were out of the rain, and he was carrying her through her candlelit apartment, the scent of something rich on the air. She could hear Charles Aznavour on the stereo, and she thought of Piaf. “Non, je ne regrette rien.” No, I regret nothing. All the mistakes, the wrong moves, the wrong lovers, I regret none of them.

She wouldn’t regret this. It made no sense, it wasn’t her, but she could no more fight it than she could battle a tidal wave.

He seemed to know her apartment, another impossibility. He carried her up the two steps into her darkened bedroom and tossed her down on the unmade bed, still covered with the clothes she’d discarded earlier in the day. She sat there, the flannel robe clutched tight around her, and stared up at him. She could see the whiteness of his teeth as he flashed a grin, and he began unbuttoning his soaked shirt.

“You might want to get out of those wet clothes, ma belle,” he finally spoke, in Italian-accented French, his voice not much more than a whisper in the night air.

She couldn’t move. Somehow her acquiescence had gotten her this far; she wasn’t sure how much further it could take her.

He came towards the bed, still wearing rain-splattered formal trousers, and took some of her discarded clothes and threw them on the floor. And then the bed sagged beneath him, as he knelt on the mattress and reached for the ties of the flannel robe.

Instinctively her hands moved to stop him, covering his, but the touch of his hard hands was oddly more arousing. She didn’t want him touching Drake’s robe – it didn’t seem right or fair.

“You’re doing this,” he whispered, and sensed his impatience. “You know you are. You already made up your mind when you saw me on the balcony. You came then, didn’t you? I could see it in your eyes, in the way your body jerked. You already knew you were going to take me then, didn’t you?”

She did, but she wouldn’t admit it. How had he known about that tiny, unbidden climax that had hit her? “It had nothing to do with you,” she said defensively. “This has nothing to do with you. I’m simply …” The words trailed off, too damning to admit.

“Aroused?” he supplied. “You were sitting there waiting for a lover. You had the candles and the wine and the music. But where was the man?” His voice was low and persuasive.

“I don’t need a man.”

She could see his smile quite clearly now as her eyes grew accustomed to the murky darkness. “You don’t need anything or anyone, do you? I think that’s what draws me to you. You just don’t give a fuck. But you will.” He leaned forward, putting his mouth against her ear, and she shivered in reaction. “You will give a fuck, won’t you?” he whispered, his breath hot against her. He bit her earlobe, and she felt a jolt of pure, animal response. She closed her eyes, knowing she should fight it, but he’d untied the robe, and the night air was hitting her skin. He pushed the soft flannel off her shoulders, down her arms, and he was looking at her, at the plain white underwear she was wearing, at the voluptuous curves that dieting couldn’t help.

He slide his long fingers under white bra straps and began to pull them down her arms. “Denial,” he said with a soft laugh. “You knew I was coming and still you dress in a nun’s underwear. A nun’s, or a virgin’s. What does your lover think about this schoolgirl stuff?”

Her lover. She could see Drake’s handsome, earnest face. She could see it above her, his expression set in rigid lines when he came. The memory should stop her, make her tell this man to go away. But Drake’s face vanished, as the straps reached her elbows, her breasts half-spilling from the utilitarian bra.

He sat back. “You know, I’m finding these quite erotic after all.” One of his long fingers slid down her skin, from her parted lips, down her jaw and neck to the round tops of her breasts. He leaned forward, his rain-wet hair brushing against her skin, and put his mouth where his fingers had been. She could feel the rasp of his tongue against the beaded swell, and then his teeth, as they caught the edge of the bra and pulled it down further, so that her breasts spilled out completely, no longer shielded by the scrap of cloth.

She knew the bra straps weren’t restricting her arms, but she felt oddly bound, unable to move as he dipped his head down further, and his teeth surrounded one nipple, a tiny pain that was oddly arousing, and she gave a little squeak of reaction as her legs shifted restlessly.

“Ah, you’re a talker,” he murmured, lifting his head slightly to run his tongue over the puckered flesh, and she stifled her instinctive moan. “Are you a screamer as well?”

She gritted her teeth as he blew on the damp skin, another level of arousal. She was so wet she could feel it, hotter than she’d ever been for Drake, hotter than she’d ever felt before. She needed to open her mouth, to tell him she wasn’t doing this, when he moved to her other breast, and this time his bite was harder, and she squeaked again, though whether it was in pain or pleasure she couldn’t tell.

She wanted to lift her arms, to put them around his neck, but the bra straps were just enough to stop her, trap her. The room was suffocatingly warm, and she was covered with a thin film of sweat.

“Do you want me to take the bra off you?” he whispered. “Or do you like bondage? I’m certain I can find something to tie you up with if you want to pretend you had no choice.”

He’d lifted his head, and she met his gaze as steadily as she could. “Do I have a choice?”

“Of course you do, ma belle. But you already made your choice, when you kissed me back.” His warm, strong arms slid around her, and she felt her bra come free, and she was no longer bound. He leaned back, pulling it off her and tossing it to the floor along with the other clothes.

“Can I change my mind?”

He gave a soft laugh. “Impossible. You won’t be able to. You have my permission to say no, of course. I’ve never forced a woman in my life. But I really don’t you think you could. Not when I do this.” He put both hands on her breasts, still damp from his tongue, his deft fingers plucking at them, wickedly skillful, and she wanted his mouth, sucking at her, pulling at her, and she knew it hadn’t been arrogance on his part, merely the truth. She was too far gone. She couldn’t, wouldn’t stop.

He had to have felt the last of her resistance vanish, because his smile was full of erotic promise. “That’s my girl,” he said in his soft French. He pushed her back on the pillows with surprising gentleness. “Now let’s get rid of these absurd panties.”

She let him slide the cotton down and off, and then he pushed her legs apart, exposing her to his liquid gaze. Again, that shiver of fear danced across her, as he touched her, fingers parting her delicately. She was about to protest when he leaned forward and put his mouth between her legs, his tongue swirling, touching and tasting, his teeth, oh my god, his teeth, biting her again, a sharp little pain that made her cry out in pleasure.

He made her climax, too easily, her hands fisted tight in her sheets as she tried to catch her breath, tight shudders rippling through her.

He raised his head, and in the shadows she could only see his eyes, gleaming in the darkness. “Not good enough,” he murmured, and put his mouth against her again.

She was absurdly sensitive from her climax, and she protested, not sure she could bear to be touched, but he ignored her. This time he only used his tongue, and when she started to climax once more he pushed his fingers inside her, sliding, pumping, until she dug her heels into the mattress, arching off the bed with a scream of helpless pleasure, her body shaking, hard, as he kept tonguing her.

He pulled away, collapsing on the bed beside her, panting. “I almost came against the sheets,” he said. “You have a dangerous effect on me, ma belle.”

A moment later he rolled off the bed with disconcerting energy. “Would you like a glass of wine?” he asked her with perfect courtesy. “Yes? No? I’ll bring you one anyway. You look like you need it.” He left her room, and she couldn’t move. Had her brain melted along with her morals? What in hell had just happened? She knew she should get up, lock the door, call someone, call the police, get him away from her before she destroyed her life completely, before she lost everything.

It was too late.

She managed to get to her feet, and she glanced down at the bed. She’d lain on Drake’s discarded robe while he’d tongued her. Betrayal was already complete.

She followed the candlelight into the living room and stopped, shocked, when she couldn’t see him. Had he left? The idea was both absurd and reasonable, and then he moved in the shadows. He was lounging on her sofa, a glass of wine in one long-fingered hand, watching the rain come down.

She stood in the candlelight, naked, past feeling shy. She heard his swift intake of breath as he looked at her.

“Christ,” he said. “You’re fucking gorgeous.” He started to rise, but she was already beside the sofa, her touch on his shoulder urging him back down.

“Stay there,” she whispered, and sank to her knees on the floor beside him. She didn’t think about what she was doing, she only acted, filled with a primal need, a deep hunger only he could satisfy. The zipper of his pants was straining over his erection, and she fumbled with it, her hands shaking.

He laughed softly. “I’ll take care of it,” he said, releasing the zipper. He shoved the trousers down his narrow hips, ready to shuck them off completely, when she stopped him. He was gorgeous, iron-hard, and she wanted to touch him. But some last remnant of sanity held her back, and she didn’t move.

“Put your mouth on me.” His words were quiet, and she still hesitated, even though she had started this. His hand shot out and caught her chin, his fingers rough. “Now.”

She moved, and bit his hand, hard. He didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away, the pain ignored. “Don’t do that to my cock,” he said in an even voice.

“Bastard,” she muttered, releasing his hand from her sharp teeth, wishing she’d drawn blood. And then she leaned over him, took him in her hand, and let her mouth sink around him.

He said nothing, but she could feel the pleasure ripple through him, and an answering reaction spread through her naked body. She covered the head of his cock, sucking lightly, and he was smooth and cool and delicious. She took more in, loving the feel of him against her tongue, the strange sense of control and power that swept over her. This was madness, and she was giving into it. She held him in her mouth, all his strength and masculinity, his very essence, and she took more, filling her mouth with him, her fingers wrapped around the base as she sucked, kneeling over him, her hair spread over his hips, wanting more, so much more.

She was shaking with desire. Why was this arousing her more than anything she’d ever done with Drake? How could she be on the verge of climaxing with no one touching her? She could come simply from the surging thrust of his cock in her mouth.

“You can take more,” he murmured. “If you want to.”

She wasn’t going to lift her head to answer. It was impossible, he was too big, but he brought his hands down, his long fingers cradling her face, massaging her jaw, stroking her with such a deft, sure touch that she opened, and the last few inches filled her mouth, and an unexpected climax shook her body.

“Oh, Christ,” he groaned, holding still, letting her take what she wanted.

And she wanted more. She wanted him to come in her mouth, she wanted to swallow him, swallow everything, take it all inside her.

But suddenly he pulled her away, lifting her off him, and she let out a cry of protest, struggling.

It was a waste of time – he was too strong. He pulled her onto the shabby old sofa, underneath him as he reached for his pants, shoving them off his legs. He pushed her back against the cushions, turning away, and then he came back to her, a silver packet it his teeth as he tore it open, taking the condom and sheathing himself in it. She closed her eyes, her legs spread around him, but his hand caught her chin once more.

“Look at me,” he said. “I want you to watch me when I come inside you.”

She couldn’t move. Didn’t want to move, her eyes caught with his as he lowered himself over her, and she felt him against her, the silken touch of his sheathed cock against her wetness. “Watch me,” he whispered, pushing inside her.

She let out a little gasp. He was big, so much bigger and she wanted to close her eyes, savor the feel of him, but she couldn’t. She simply stared into his eyes as he pushed deeper, harder, taking her as she had taken him.

She thought he was all the way in, when he slid his hands beneath her butt and pulled her up, against him. The last bit of his cock shoved home and a shudder of pure, molten pleasure exploded inside her.

He smiled down at her. “Now you can close your eyes, ma belle. And enjoy the forbidden.”

She lifted her hands from the sofa and clutched his shoulders. “Who’s forbidding me?” she whispered.

“Good girl. Take what you want.” He pulled out, then thrust back in, deeper than ever, and she moaned, her head thrown back.

“Too much?” he whispered against her mouth.

“More,” she gasped, digging her fingers into his sweat-slick shoulders.

It was if she’d released a whirlwind. He pushed her down onto the old feather cushions, pinning her shoulders as he arched over her. She held on to him, reveling in the feel of him, deep inside her, as a darkness began to build, something powerful and unknown, differing from the climax he’d given her on her bed, different from anything she’d ever felt before. Everything was dissolving, leaving nothing but their joining, thrusting against each other, and her body trembled with the beginning of a terrifying, impossible release.

“No,” she gasped, suddenly frightened. She didn’t want to go there – it was death and disaster and she would be lost.

He covered her mouth with his, silencing her cry, and she kissed him back as a climax shuddered through her, clenching around his thrusting cock.

He growled in response but didn’t stop, pushing deeper, deeper still inside her, and the darkness closed over her. She struggled, and his mouth was hot and damp against her ear.

“Let go,” he said, his voice a mere whisper. “Don’t fight it. Take it. Take me.” He bit her earlobe again, hard, and she cried out, sliding to a darker level of hell, shuddering in the final, building response that made no sense, she had come already, too many times, she didn’t want this, she was afraid …

And then the last barrier fell, and she tried to scream, but no sound came out as she tumbled into the darkness, free falling, her entire body shaking apart. She clawed for something to hold onto, but he fell with her, his silent, choked gasp echoing in her ears as everything went black.

She came back to herself, slowly, reluctantly, but he was no longer inside her, on top of her. She was lying on the sofa, a cover placed carefully around her, and she lay unmoving, trying to gather the scattered bits of herself back together.

Had she actually passed out? Her entire body felt sensitized, bruised, her skin paper-thin with nerves pulsing beneath it. She lay where she was for long moments, staring out into the rainy night. She had no idea what time it was, midnight or dawn. The doors to the balcony were open again, and she wondered if he’d left as silently as he’d arrived.

And then she heard the shower running.

She managed to sit up, but just barely. She wrapped the cover around her and got to her feet, amazed that she was even able to stand. She took the two steps up into her bedroom and the bathroom beyond, glancing at the clock on the way. It was three-thirty, the empty middle of the night, when monsters roamed and souls were lost.

She wasn’t sure what she meant to do, opening the bathroom door. It was filled with steam, and he stood there, naked beneath the pounding water, beautiful. She had an old-fashioned French shower, with no curtain, and through the steam he could see her quite clearly. He reached for her, and belatedly she tried to pull back, but he simply pushed the cover off her and pulled her into the shower, wrapping his warm, wet body around hers.

For some reason she began to cry. Silently, and her hot tears mingled with the water. He kissed her forehead, murmuring soft words, he held her tenderly, ignoring his own erection as it grew between them, stroking her, soothing her as she shook with emotions she couldn’t name.

When she finally stopped he washed her tear-drenched face in the water, smoothing his hands over her cheeks, before turning off the shower. He wrapped her in one of her huge bath sheets, lifted her and carried her back to bed.

He lay down with her, holding her in his arms, and the feel of him was almost more powerful than the sex. It was comfort, protection, impossible as it was it felt like love. Non, je ne regrette rien, she reminded herself, the last bit of tension draining from her body as she sank against him. I regret nothing.

They made love again as the light of dawn began to fill the apartment, gentle at first, tender, and then suddenly turning feral, and she turned her head into the pillow to stifle the scream he’d coaxed from her, so easily. She knew she shouldn’t fall back asleep, but exhaustion overcame her, and when she awoke she was alone in the bed.

A dark, impossible dread had begun to fill her, and she lay very still, hoping, praying he was gone. This insane suspicion was simply the result of too many things assaulting her senses. She was wrong, terribly wrong, and if she simply stayed in bed she wouldn’t have to find out the truth.

CHAPTER FIVE

Constantine made coffee. He should leave, check on Tessa, but something kept him here. He’d been mad last night. Perhaps he still was. It had to be insanity. He’d made his way up the fire escape of the building like fucking Spiderman, just to get to her. And now he couldn’t leave.

He didn’t bother to turn around when he heard her come into the kitchen. If he looked at her he might drag her back to bed again, and he couldn’t afford the time. He’d already been here too long. Ten minutes was too long.

“Why did you come here?” Her voice was only a thread of sound.

He laughed. “You can’t be that naïve.” She’d spoken in English, and he’d answered in the same language, his voice stripped of the Italian accent he’d used. He didn’t even know if it was his normal voice – it had been so long since he’d used it. But it was ordinary enough, the flat, neat English that gave no clue to his origins. She didn’t seem to notice.

“I’m not naïve at all,” she said. “I told you no.”

He braced himself, turning to look at her. At least she wasn’t wearing that fucking flannel robe. She was wearing some other enveloping kind of thing, hiding her delicious body, thank god. Not that he had to see it. The memory of it was going to stay with him a long, long time.

“No, you didn’t,” he said wearily. “You said it was a bad idea. But it wasn’t. You’re a sensual woman, even when you’re dressed in your mother’s baggy Balenciaga or the underwear of a nun. You needed a lover last night, and your own lover wasn’t coming home. You needed me.”

She ignored that. “How did you know that dress was my mother’s?”

“I’m an observant man.”

And just like that her face froze, and her blue eyes were like chips of dark ice. “I think you should leave.”

“You’re absolutely right. I should.” He didn’t move. He should have read the signs, but he was a fool.

“I know who you are.”

He wasn’t a man who made mistakes. He wouldn’t have survived as long as he had if he did. “You do,” he agreed, hoping he was wrong. “I’m a worthless playboy, a man who uses women. But I didn’t use you. After tonight I promise you won’t see me again, you can forget this ever happened.”

But she had grown very still, no longer trembling. “I know who you are,” she said again, and the sudden realization shocked him.

He would have to kill her. In his arrogance, so certain he’d managed to blind her with lust, he’d given himself away. Maddy Banks knew him, and for that terrible truth she couldn’t be allowed to live.

“Don’t say it.” His voice was cold. His fingers flexed on his coffee cup.

She stood a little straighter, as if considering her words. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again, looking at him. He rose and came to her, putting his forehead against hers, closing his eyes, and he slid his hands around her slender neck, cradling it. He leaned down to kiss her, to say goodbye to what he couldn’t have, when her mouth opened beneath his, and her arms slid around his neck. She was trembling, and he didn’t know why. Whether it was desire, or the knowledge of what he must do.

“Ma belle,” he whispered against her lips.

“Don’t,” she said with a muffled cry, and there were tears pouring down her face. “Just make it fast.”

He could do that. He could snap her neck, so quickly that she wouldn’t realize what was happening. He could do what he had to do.

“I can do fast,” he whispered, pushing her up against the kitchen door. It took only a moment to rip open her robe, and he was still hard, seemed to be always hard in her presence. She didn’t move, quiescent, and he released his cock with one hand while his other slid between her legs, finding her wet, ready.

He lifted her, pressing her against the door, and thrust inside her, all the way home with one thick shove, and she arched back with a shudder of pleasure that was unmistakable. Did her desire for him override her fear of death? Or was she one who courted it, secretly longed for it?

He didn’t care. He pushed for release, fast and hard, and she came an instant before he did, the slick walls of her cunt milking him.

He hadn’t used a condom. It took him a moment to realize it, as he slowly disengaged, letting her limp body slide down against his. Not only had he betrayed himself, he’d left clear DNA behind.

Not that he was in any data banks, at least, not recognizably. He was systematically screwing himself in his blind desperation to screw her.

He slid his hands up to cradle her throat, and she looked up at him out of dazed, tear-filled eyes. “Au revoir, ma belle,” he whispered.

She managed a smile, shaking her head. “Good-bye.”

He tightened his fingers, and a moment later she slumped in his arms. He caught her body in his arms, carrying her back to the bed, refusing to remember lying there with her. He set her down, pulling the torn robe back around her, chastely. And then, like fucking Prince Charming, he leaned down and brushed his lips against hers.

He went back out into the kitchen, washing the coffee cup and wine glass, wiping down any obvious surface. If they looked hard enough they could track him. If he had half a brain left he would torch the apartment, wiping out any trace of his presence.

But he wouldn’t do that. He’d come to the end of the road, that particular road. He’d had enough.

The early morning streets of Paris greeted him as they had the day before, and yet everything felt different. The smell of fresh bread mixed with the stink of diesel. The small car was where he’d stashed it, and he drove through the suicidal traffic, back to the hotel, back to Tessa. With luck she’d still be passed out, and he could slip away without having to make excuses, face recriminations. He could simply … vanish.

In the end, it was easier than he wanted. She lay stretched across the bed, the needle near her outstretched hand. He cursed, feeling for the thread of a pulse at her neck, but her skin was already cool.

She hadn’t been dead long enough for rigor to set in – in the overheated room it had to be only a few hours. He pulled the covers over her, pushing her hair back from her face. For some crazy reason he leaned down and kissed her cool, dead lips, this woman he had used and never cared for. This time he wasn’t Prince Charming. Now he was the Angel of Death.

He wanted to go back to that apartment in the Marais. He wanted to go back to bed with Madeleine and stay there. He wanted fresh air and blue skies and space. He wanted everything new again, when he knew that was impossible.

It had been an erotic fairy tale, a dream and nothing more. If he saw her he would probably feel nothing. And he knew women – she would never want to see him again.

No, he had no choice. He would disappear again, vanish an become someone new. He’d lighten his hair, take out his contacts, dress in rough, serviceable clothing. He’d forget everything that had happened in Paris.

He was going to have to find a new way to make a living. A talent for wetwork didn’t mean he had to follow it. A gift for death was no gift at all.

He headed out into the early morning light, vanishing in the icy mist.

Someone was pounding on the bathroom door. Maddy didn’t move from beneath the shower, once more thanking god that this apartment had a ridiculously large supply of hot water. It had to be Drake – no one else had a key to the place. She had to face him sooner or later, and he was no fool. She’d done a cursory job cleaning up, wiping any lingering trace of the man out of existence, but the knowledge of sex still hung in the air, and Drake would know it.

At least she’d never said she would marry him. Some small piece of wisdom had remained as everything else had gone out the window. She tilted her face up into the hot stream of water. Even now she didn’t know what was truth and what was her imagination. She only knew the man was gone and wouldn’t return. She could pull sanity back around her like the soft flannel robe.

Drake must have heard the shower and decided he wouldn’t be intruding. He pushed the door open, and there was concern on his good-looking face, in his dark eyes, as he stared at her.

“How long are you going to stay under there?” he demanded in a calm enough voice.

Forever, she thought. But obediently she turned off the water and stepped from the corner of the small bathroom, taking the towel he offered her, and she wondered how much he saw. What kind of marks the man had left on her pale skin.

“I’ll make us coffee, shall I?” he said briskly. “Then we can compare notes.”

Not likely, she thought bitterly. But she managed a tight smile. “I’ll get dressed.”

To her surprise he brushed a kiss against her mouth. Drake wasn’t one for random kisses. “You do that.”

She’d already stripped the bed, shoving the sheets and all her discarded clothes into a hamper. It was daylight, and the shadows were clear. She dressed quickly, refusing to look at her reflection in the old gilt mirror she’d found at a flea market. She didn’t need to see herself to know what she looked like. Rode hard and put away wet was the term that came to mind.

Drake pushed the mug of coffee across the counter towards her, made just the way she liked it, with almond soy milk and lots of fake sugar she had her mother send her from America. She took the stool opposite him and took a sip, letting the caffeine slide through her system like the blessing it was.

“Tessa Parker is dead,” he said abruptly. “They’re looking for her pretty boyfriend but he seems to have disappeared. Not that the French police are worth a damn. Someone like D’Angelo could pretty much buy himself out of anything.”

She set the coffee back down. After the first sip it was churning like acid in her stomach. “What happened?”

“Overdose. Sometime in the middle of the night. They think he was the one who shot her up – she had so much junk in her system that it would have been almost impossible for her to have done it herself.”

“She was already an addict,” Maddy said carefully.

“That wasn’t generally well-known,” Drake said, watching her.

“You’re not the only one who can find out things.” There was just the trace of an edge in her voice. She’d never found Drake condescending before. It must be her own guilt. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t get much sleep.”

The words hung in the air between them, like a confession. Drake put out a well-shaped hand and covered hers. “This isn’t like you, Maddy,” he said gently. “I suppose the man must have amazing charm, though I’m damned if I can see it. He’s just one of a score of petty users with a good-looking face. You’ve never been shallow.”

She didn’t ask him how he knew. There would have been people at the party who would have told him whom she left with, and he knew her too well. He could look at her and know things had changed.

She smiled at him. “Now aren’t you glad I never agreed to marry you?” she said lightly.

“The offer’s still open. Everyone likes an occasional adventure every now and then. Even me.” His thumb stroked her hand. She had a bruise on her wrist, she noticed. At times last night he’d been infinitely tender. At other times rough.

“Not a good idea,” she said.

“All right,” he said, not withdrawing his hand. He’d seen the bruise as well, as his fingertips traced it lightly. “We’ll revisit the question in a few months, when you’ve had time to think about things. In the meantime, how long was he here?”

“I really don’t want to discuss it …”

“Because Tessa died sometime between three and five in the morning. I’m assuming he’d left by then since he chose to disappear. An innocent man doesn’t take off when his girlfriend has an accidental overdose.” There was just the slightest emphasis on ‘girlfriend,’ and Maddy tried not to flinch.

“A man innocent of murder might not want all the attention a high profile death might bring,” she said.

“Was he here?” For the first time there was an edge in his voice.

“Yes. He left about six.” Or at least she assumed so. The last thing she remembered was the darkness closing in, the strength of his fingers around her throat, the knowledge she was going to die at his hands.

But she hadn’t. And neither had Tessa Parker.

Drake seemed to relax, his hand still stroking hers. “Doubtless he’ll show up again eventually, living off some other rich woman. Did he know who you are? How much money you have?”

She pulled her hand away. The implication was clear – he had chosen her as a new meal ticket. There would be no other reason he had come to her. “I have no idea. We didn’t talk much.”

Drake flushed. It has been a cruel blow, but she didn’t care. “I deserved that,” he said, scrupulously fair. “Are you going to see him again?”

“No. He couldn’t have known Tessa was dead when he left, but we were both very clear that last night was a moment of temporary insanity.” She took another, careful sip of her coffee. “He’s out of my life. Forever.”

“And you have a book to write,” Drake added. “We never had much of a chance to discuss your interview yesterday. How was it? You told me you taped it – I’d love to hear it.”

It had been gone, of course. He hadn’t come just for her. She shrugged. “It wasn’t terribly useful. I’ve already erased it.”

“But you said Renard was helpful,” Drake protested.

“He was. The man he found was not. If I decide to continue with the investigation I’ll take another tack.”

“And we’ll go on as before?”

Not likely, she thought, smiling at him. It was as if the first sharp wind of winter had blown in, destroying the bright flowers. Things were never going to be like before.

By the time he left Drake had convinced himself that everything was the same. He would come by and take her to dinner this evening, they would talk about work, and sooner or later he’d talk her into bed again. And she’d probably give in, just to try to wipe the man from her mind, from her body.

She’d told Drake the truth. Last night had been temporary insanity. There was just one problem. It hadn’t been temporary with her.

She dressed in black jeans, a shirt and over-sized sweater, then put on her boots. It wasn’t Parisian attire, but she didn’t give a damn. She managed to tame her hair into one thick braid, then grabbed her fourth cup of coffee and moved toward the small balcony. Her stomach was in an uproar, her hands were shaking, her heart hurt. Pushing open the doors, she stepped onto the narrow platform and looked out over the skyline of Paris. It was beautiful, and she loved it with all her heart.

It was time to leave.

She wouldn’t say good-bye to Drake – he’d only argue. Her mother could have someone pack up the apartment – that, or leave it for her if she ever wanted to come back to it. She wouldn’t. Everything had changed, whether she liked it or not. She was a new person, and the old Maddy was gone.

For some reason she looked down into the streets. The icy mist was rising, and there was an old Citroen parked illegally in the alley behind her building. She stared at the car in bemusement – she’d always loved old, classic Citroens. This one looked fairly battered, and she watched as the door opened.

A stranger got out. He had short, sun-streaked blond hair, faded jeans and a flannel shirt beneath a down vest. He was tall, lean, and moved with an economy of motion, reaching up and removing his sunglasses as he turned to look up at her balcony.

They stared at each other, and Maddy felt her breath catch, her heart slamming against her rib cage. In the distance Notre Dame chimed eleven – he’d been gone five hours. It had been enough time for him to completely change his appearance. Why had he come back?

But she knew the answer. He made no effort to come to her – he merely leaned against the car, folding his arms across his chest as he stared up at her. Waiting.

Clearly this kind of insanity had a lingering effect on all parties concerned. She stepped back and closed the windows, setting down her coffee cup. She grabbed her coat and the backpack she used as a purse, locked the door behind her, and started down the narrow, winding stairs.

She didn’t hurry. He would be there.

He was. He straightened to his full height when she approached him. She wasn’t used to men being so much taller than she was.

“Ready?” he said. Even his voice was different. Lower, a deep, sexy rumble that heated her bones and did nothing to calm her racing heart.

She thought she should make some kind of protest. “This is insane.”

“Yes.” He surveyed her out of surprisingly blue eyes, almost a turquoise color, startling in the familiar/unfamiliar face. “You’re here.”

“Yes,” she said. She glanced at the car. “This thing run?”

“Like a champ.” He tilted his head, surveying her. “I figure if I can’t kill you then I might as well keep you.”

“Very romantic,” she said. “I’m going back upstairs.”

“No, you aren’t. By the way, my name is Thomas Lambert.” He didn’t move, and neither did she.

“Hello, Thomas Lambert. What do you do for a living?” She held her breath. There was an odd look in his eyes, as if he were far away, and then he smiled at her with surprising tenderness.

“Actually I’m at loose ends right now. I decided it was time for a change. I didn’t like my old job much.”

She nodded. “Change is always good. Where are we going?”

“Do you care?”

“Not really.”

“Then get in the car.” He moved out the way, even opening the door for her. Despite the outside wreck of the car, the inside was perfectly restored and spotless.

She sat very still as he went around the back of the car and climbed in beside her. He turned to look at her, and then he put his hand behind her neck and held her for a deep, endless kiss. When he pulled away his eyes were suddenly sober. “You sure you want to do this?”

“I’m sure,” she said.

And a moment later they were flying through the Paris traffic, heading for God knew where.

She leaned back and smiled. Everyone would scream, no one would believe it. She’d have to send her mother an anonymous email telling her she was fine. But for now, she was going to disappear, with a man she couldn’t possibly love, a man who couldn’t possibly love her, and maybe they’d never come back.

For now, that was good enough.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE