“Forget it, Lacroix,” she said, taking a seat in front of the vanity mirror to freshen her makeup. Sealing her fate. “I’d like to see just how romantic a true Frenchman can be.”
♥♥♥
As it turned out, unfortunately, very romantic.
Of course, it would be impossible for a twilight stroll along the River Seine on a warm summer’s night not to be romantic. Paris, City of Light, was the most romantic place on earth.
And Jean-Marc was the most romantic of men, Ciara decided sometime later as they walked over the Petit Pont among the throng of lighthearted tourists jostling their way toward Notre Dame. He bought a sprig of purple stephanotis from a roving flower vendor, and tucked it behind her ear so the sweet scent floated about their heads.
He bent to steal a kiss and she sighed against his lips, loving the taste of him. Loving the way he smiled at her as he took her hand in his. Wishing...wishing he were any man on earth but the man he was.
She withdrew her hand and banded her arms over her abdomen, turning to gaze out over the Seine, at a glass tourist boat glittering in the sunlight as it glided along the peaceful water under the bridge.
Damn
.
“Why are you avoiding me again, Ciara?” he asked, glancing over her defensive body position.
God, how she hated lying. How she hated deceiving him. How she hated that it was impossible for them to be together.
She needed distance. Somehow, she had to push him away.
She took a steadying breath, and asked, “Are you married?”
The air between them shifted. Bristled.
“Is that what you think?” he demanded quietly. Not a peaceful quietly—a dangerous quietly.
“Yesterday you asked me if I was a drug dealer or prostitute. Is that what
you
think?”
His mouth thinned. “That was different.”
“Was it?” Suddenly, she wondered... “A man like you—respectable, handsome, sexy. Romantic...” She turned to him. “It doesn’t make sense for you not to be married.”
He regarded her. The muscle at the back of his cheek ticked. “I was married,” he said. “But not any more. We’ve been divorced for four years.”
“Not separated?”
“Divorced,” he repeated. “Why are you asking? Now, after it’s too late?”
A warning buzz skittered up her spine. “What do you mean, too late?”
He grasped her upper arms, pulled her to his chest and put his mouth close to her ear. “I’ve fucked you, Ciara, more than once,” he said in a low growl. “You gave yourself to me willingly, and I intend to keep you.”
Her pulse kicked up. Everything in her wanted to surrender to the raw power contained in his murmured declaration, in the strength of his fingers on her flesh. To lie back night after dark night and let him take his fill of her, for as long as he wished.
But the very thought of it scared her to death.
“Why are you so determined?” she asked, baffled that he would want her this fiercely. “We hardly know each other.”
He raised his hand to cup her cheek, looking both frustrated and menacing all at the same time. “I wish to God I knew.”
“You have to know I want you, too. Jean-Marc. But—”
He showed her his palm. “Don’t try to feed me that lame bullshit about us being too different, or you being too young for me. I don’t give a damn about all that.”
She swallowed at his expression.
Hot. Possessive
.
“What happened to your wife?” she asked.
His eyes narrowed. “You’re testing my patience, woman.”
“And you’re pushing me too hard.”
The frustration took over his eyes completely. He paced away and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I went through a rough patch about five years ago. There was this case—” He blew out a breath. “It went bad and I took a nosedive for a while. Got a little obsessed. Stopped trusting people.”
She tipped her head. “Including your wife?”
“Including everybody. My ex-wife took the opportunity to move on. She has since remarried.”
Was this the case Valois had told her about? That had nearly ended his career? Ciara wanted to ask more, but he obviously didn’t want to talk about it. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be. I’m fine. About that,” he added pointedly.
She sighed, her insides filled with conflicting feelings that pulled her in opposite directions. “I still—”
“
Écoute
,” he interrupted. “Let us call a truce for tonight. We’re here together in this beautiful place. Let’s enjoy it. And later...” He smiled and gathered her in his arms. “Later, we can enjoy each other,” he murmured, tipping up her chin for a kiss.
What was it about good sex that could turn a woman into a brainless, witless lump of clay, ready to be molded into anything a man wanted?
She opened to him and he took. Standing there in the fading golden light of the warm Paris evening, with the ripe green smell of the river and flowers, and the sweet spice of the cafes and food vendors surrounding them, the laughter of children in the air, and the cooing and rustling of pigeons underfoot. It was all too perfect to spoil.
Tomorrow she would do what she must. But tonight...tonight she would forget about all the reasons she shouldn’t, and simply enjoy him.
She wouldn’t feel guilty.
Not while they strolled past the incredible cathedral of Notre Dame, then to the Isle St. Louis and back, then further down the river to a small bistro on a dark, cobblestoned side street where they ate a simple meal accompanied by a sizeable carafe of hearty red wine and talked with their fingers laced and their heads bent close till the smiling proprietress finally shooed them out at closing time well past midnight.
And certainly not as they made sweet, languorous love for hours and hours, until the orange-rose sun peeked over the gray slate tile rooftops and the birds began to sing their morning songs and the church bells chimed five times.
Not until Jean-Marc reluctantly left her bed to get dressed and go to work did harsh reality once again intrude onto her haze of sated emotional bliss. Along with the guilt.
When he was gone she buried her face in the tousled sheets where he had lain. She wrapped her hands around the back of her head and fought the tears, breathing in the musky peach blossom scent of his body and his passion.
She had to leave him. She had no choice. But God, did it hurt.
Who would ever have thought the very worst consequence of her life of crime would be this?
Slowly, Ciara rose and dragged herself from the bed. And reluctantly started to pack her things.
♥♥♥
For Jean-Marc, the next day started out good and just got better. Making love to Ciara two nights in a row had him feeling happier and more content than he had in years.
At
36 Quai des Orfèvres
, he and Pierre made excellent progress on the unsolved robbery cases they were going through, piecing together
le Revenant
’s early history of petty theft.
It was slow work. It took the whole day to get there, but by the time they’d gone back through ten years worth of files, the matching thefts finally trickled to a stop.
“I think we’ve finally found when he started,” Pierre said after they’d pored through the files for eleven years back and come up with nothing that fit. “Thank God.”
Jean-Marc stretched his aching back muscles. A sense of satisfaction settled in his bones. Even if they were hitting dead ends everywhere else, their profile was yielding some great information.
“
Alors
. It definitely appears the Ghost started stealing ten years ago,” Jean-Marc agreed. “That probably puts his age at this point between twenty-five and thirty-five. Which fits with his current level of sophistication.”
He got up and perused the maps on the incident room wall. Yesterday they’d added a second one of Europe, and used a different color push pin to mark the robberies committed during each calendar year.
An unmistakable pattern had emerged.
“
And
we know where he’s from.”
Pierre tapped the pins for
le Revenant
’s first year in business, one by one. Every one of them was stuck in the port city of Marseilles. He grinned at Jean-Marc. “I gotta tell you,
mon ami
, this was one damned fine bit of police work, if I don’t say so myself.”
Jean-Marc grinned back. “May as well admit it, we’re geniuses.”
Pierre jerked his chin at the sheaf of notes and graphs by Jean-Marc’s hand. “What else does your brilliant statistical analysis tell us?”
Jean-Marc’s chair squeaked familiarly as he leaned back in it and contemplated the cracked plaster of the ceiling, ticking off on his fingers. “He moved to Paris nine years ago. He started out snatching purses and lifting wallets on the train and
métro
. Eight years ago he switched to jewelry, started refining his craft. Then he added silver and a painting or two, and began to escalate. Every year the items he steals get more and more valuable.”
“And his robberies get progressively more skilled and more daring,” Pierre said. “And yet still elegantly simple. To filch a diamond bracelet right off a heavily guarded princess’s wrist, surrounded by two hundred people and the
commissaire
who is hunting him...” Pierre’s words trailed off in a shrug and a puff of admiration.
Jean-Marc didn’t need reminding of the man’s preternatural abilities.
“There’s something we’re missing,” he said, drumming his fingers on the desk blotter. “Something important.”
“Like what?”
“That’s the question,” Jean-Marc said, and thoughtfully turned his gaze to the wall map. “Let’s talk to the police in Marseille. I have an old friend there I can call. See if they’re able to shed any light. Meanwhile we have to ask ourselves, is he finished now, for this month?”
“That diamond bracelet was pretty valuable. He’s over his usual take. You really think he’s going to pull off another job right away?”
“It’s possible. He has been steadily escalating.”
Pierre hummed in agreement. “Okay. So say he’s not done. Where will he strike next?”
Jean-Marc turned back to him with a grimace. “That,
mon ami
, is exactly what we must figure out.”
♥♥♥
Jean-Marc glanced at his watch as he rang the outside bell to Ciara’s flat for a third time. He and Pierre had gotten so wrapped up in their work on predicting
le Revenant
’s next move that Jean-Marc hadn’t noticed the time flying by. It was late. Well past 9:00 pm.
He hoped she hadn’t given up on him. He’d wanted to call her earlier, to let her know he was on his way, but she didn’t have a phone. Ridiculous, in this day and age.
He’d have to have one installed for her. Or better yet, buy her a cell phone. So he could get hold of her whenever he felt the urge. Which, if today was any indication, would be every other minute.
He’d just pressed the buzzer for the fourth time when a gray-haired old lady with bifocals poked her head out from the locked front entrance to the building.
“You’re here about the apartment?” she asked.
“I’m here to see Ciara Alexander. Apartment 6B.”
The woman opened the door wider and looked him up and down in the dim glow from the ancient courtyard corridor, her gaze snagging on the large bouquet of flowers he held in one hand.
“She’s gone,” she said with an accusing scowl. “This morning. Who are you?”
He stared at her in disbelief. “Gone?
Ciara
? What do you mean gone? Where?”
She lifted a shoulder. “How the hell should I know? Damn foreigners. Can’t be relied on. I knew I shouldn’t have rented to her. Nothing but tr—”
“You’re telling me she
moved out
?” This had to be some kind of mistake. A misunderstanding.
“Packed her bags and had me call a taxi. Nothing left of her but that damn Arab demon symbol painted on the wall. Knew I should have gotten a bigger security deposit.”
“Did she leave a forwarding address?” he demanded, his mind finally emerging from paralysis.
She narrowed her eyes at him calculatingly. “Who’s asking?”
He whipped out his wallet and held his
carte
to her face. “
Le flic
.”
She backed up, eyes flaring. “Honest! I have no idea where she’s gone—”
“I want to see the apartment,” he snapped. “She must have left a note.” Something to tell him where she’d gone. She knew he was coming tonight. They’d talked about it.
They went upstairs and he hurried through both rooms of her closet-sized apartment, searching for a letter or a piece of paper.
The furniture was all there. The ratty sofa they’d made love on the third time, the wobbly table where they’d shared a thrown-together meal, the dresser where his card had sat along with her hairbrush and a tiny bottle of perfume. The bed where they’d—
“Get out,” he told the hovering landlady, and slammed the door in her face. He needed to be alone.
He threw the bouquet of flowers on the bed, staring at it for long minutes, trying to come to terms with what he knew he had to accept, but couldn’t fucking believe.
She’d lied to him. The entire time he’d been with her. The entire time he’d been between her legs, deep inside her. She’d sworn she wasn’t afraid of him because he was a cop. But he must have been right about her all along. There was no other explanation for her precipitous disappearance.
What the
hell
was she involved in?
He took one last look at the ornate blue design painted over the bed, the only thing left to show she’d ever lived there, turned, and walked out.
He should have known. Should have followed the visceral instinct that had screamed warnings at him to leave Ciara Alexander the fuck alone.
Damn
Pierre for dragging him over here after he’d made up his mind.
But damn himself most, for his silly romantic notions. For falling for her.
Non
, he thought, blinded by the bright summer sun as he marched out of the building. He slid his dark shades over his eyes.
Forget her
. He didn’t need this. Didn’t need her.