“You work for Etienne Lucheux?” he asked.
“Mr. Lucheux owns the company, yes.” She’d never actually met Mr. Lucheux because she reported directly to Giselle.
“Why did he send you here?” He still didn’t sound convinced she was telling the truth and why did he think Lucheux sent her when she’d told him Giselle had?
“I have papers you need to sign.”
Those silver eyes turned hard as granite. “Show me the papers.”
She put her briefcase on his desk and extracted the envelope with shaking hands, biting her tongue to stop herself from telling him where he could put the damn papers. He snatched them out of her grasp. What an arrogant ass!
While he leafed through them, a harsh line drawn between lowered brows, she fumed. And yet, despite her anger, she had to admit he was good-looking. Almost breathtakingly handsome with his full head of black hair, a little on the long side but not too much. And those gray eyes that went from dark to light and back again. She almost had the feeling they’d met before but that was impossible. She would have remembered meeting someone like Christien Chevalier.
The muscles in his jaw tightened and he tossed the papers on the desk. They missed and landed on the chair, one sliding to the floor.
“They’re fake. Now why don’t you tell me why you are here?”
Stunned she stared at the lone page on the floor. When she glanced through them while waiting in line she’d thought something was weird, but fake?
“All I know is I was supposed to bring them to you. I was told we had an appointment and all you had to do was sign them and I’d be done.”
“I assure you, Miss…” He raised a brow in inquiry.
“Alexander. Lainie Alexander.”
“Lainie.” Her name sounded foreign and exotic coming from him.
“It’s short for Madelaine.” She didn’t know why she was telling him this. It wasn’t any of his business what her name was.
His perusal of her sharpened until she felt like a bug pinned beneath a microscope.
“Madelaine.”
If Lainie sounded foreign and exotic, Madelaine sounded downright sinful when whispered in that way. Suddenly images of a large bed with navy curtains and soft sheets invaded her mind. She suppressed a shudder of longing that came from nowhere.
“The papers,” she said, more to remind herself than him.
Those granite eyes never left her face. His thoughtful expression made her more nervous than his angry expression did.
“I only make appointments Monday through Wednesday. I would never make an appointment on a Thursday night. Those papers are a ruse.”
Confused and a little frightened, she ran a hand through her hair, forgetting the French twist she’d worked so hard to create. Of course the bobby pins fell out and half her hair tumbled down her back. Great. Wonderful.
She didn’t care anymore.
“Look, Mr. Chevalier—”
“Christien.”
“Excuse me?”
“My name is Christien.”
She breathed through clenched teeth. One minute he was seething in fury and the next he was asking her to call him by his given name.
“Christien. I didn’t make the appointment, my boss did. I have no idea why she would create this…ruse.” What an odd word to use. “If there was an ulterior motive she kept it from me.”
“Madelaine—”
“Don’t call me that.” Her visceral reaction startled her. She’d never particularly liked her name, believing it too different from the Lindsays and Nicoles and Megans in her class, but she’d never disliked someone using it as much as she disliked him using it.
He cocked his head. “Is that not your name?”
“I prefer Lainie.”
“Madelaine. Are you telling me you have no idea why she would send
you
to do her bidding?”
Her back teeth came together. He totally ignored her polite request to call her by the name she preferred, then insinuated something when he emphasized the
you.
As if she weren’t good enough to deliver his papers? This man was arrogant and she wasn’t sure she liked him very much. “I have no idea,
Mr.
Chevalier.”
A smile touched his sensuous mouth, gone before he allowed it full rein. She shuddered to think of the devastating impact of his smile should he ever unleash it.
He moved to the edge of his desk and planted his butt on it. His finger tapped the edge of the desk. The silver in his eyes dulled as if his thoughts turned inward. He was thinking something, but whatever it was she wasn’t privy to it. Nor did she think she wanted to be.
He shook his head, straightened and walked with quick, angry strides to the other side of the room. His back to her, he took deep breaths, those wide shoulders rising and falling.
He turned around, piercing her with those steely eyes. “How long have you worked for Lucheux?”
“Three months.” Three very long months. She’d applied for the job after finding an advertisement in the local hometown paper. To her surprise, Giselle called her right away. Two phone interviews later, they flew her to Milwaukee for a face-to-face interview. Once they met, Giselle had been condescending, standoffish and disdainful. She’d looked at Lainie as if she were looking at a bug smooshed on the sole of her shoe.
Lainie had written off the fabulous opportunity to work for Lucheux Limited, disappointed the chance had slipped through her fingers. To her shock, she received a call from Giselle later that afternoon offering her the position as assistant to the director of Human Resources and citing a salary that still made Lainie swallow in surprise.
Chevalier walked toward her, yanking her back to the present, the supposedly fake papers and his intimidating presence. Except
walk
was too ordinary a word.
Stalked
might be better. He stopped when they were toe-to-toe and for the first time she realized the complete power of the man. Tall, wide-shouldered and fit beneath the expensively cut dark gray suit, he exuded authority and commanded attention. He dominated the room with a strength of force she’d never encountered before. It was as if her surroundings were sucked into his aura.
His gaze focused on the part of her hair falling over her shoulder. He picked up a lock and rubbed it between his fingers, inhaling deeply, as if pulling her scent into him. Something crossed his face, an expression close to grief.
She blinked and the glass-and-chrome desk, the leather chair, the bookcases and tinted windows, wavered, before disappearing. Suddenly she was surrounded by a darkness broken only by the moon’s light. Sadness rushed through her, pressing on her shoulders, squeezing her lungs and heart.
A man stood in front of her. He looked like Chevalier. He had Chevalier’s stormy gray eyes and thick black hair, but he wasn’t dressed like Chevalier. If she wasn’t mistaken, he was dressed in period clothing. Like from medieval times. He touched her cheek and spoke to her in a language she didn’t understand.
Her sadness drove into her, weakening her with its intensity. She was sad for him and for her.
“Where did you get this?”
Yanked back to the present by his harsh question, she took a deep breath. The room swam into focus, the desk and chair still sitting before the windows, the bookcases in their right place. And Chevalier in front of her, dressed not in medieval clothing but an expensive gray suit that matched his eyes.
His fingers touched her necklace, then skimmed the soft skin of her neck. Heat exploded inside her and centered on his touch. He did nothing more than touch, but it felt as if she’d been branded.
She struggled to shake off the remnants of the strange vision. Something weird was going on here. Something otherworldly and something she didn’t want anything to do with, yet her feet refused to move to the door.
Their gazes locked, held. His was so familiar.
“It was a gift from my mother. Years ago.”
He lifted the silver key she’d worn almost her whole life and cradled it in his large palm.
He muttered in what sounded like French. He cocked his head, studying her. “I make you nervous.”
“Yes.” No reason to deny it.
“Don’t be afraid, Madelaine. I would never hurt you.” His voice wrapped around her, held her spellbound until the room around them faded once again.
“I would never hurt you, chérie.” A callused hand touched her cheek, skimmed down to her chin, sending shivers through her.
“I know.” She leaned in to the caress—
Lainie took a frightened step back and stumbled over the leg of a chair.
What the hell?
“I should go.” She gathered her briefcase and shot a look at the papers strewn over the desk chair and on the floor. She wasn’t happy she wouldn’t be returning the papers to Giselle, and Giselle would be furious when she discovered Lainie didn’t have them, but at the moment, she didn’t care. Whatever was going on in this room was far bigger than Giselle and her wrath.
“Madelaine. Please—”
“I’m sorry. I need to go. Just—” she waved a hand toward his desk, “—do whatever you want with those.”
She practically raced to the door and out into the crowded dance floor. She pushed through the crowd.
“Sorry.” She used her elbows when people wouldn’t move out of her way.
“Hey!”
“What the—”
“Excuse me.”
Air. I need air. Breathe, Lainie.
She stumbled through the door and leaned against the rough brick of the façade, ignoring the curious stares of the people waiting in line and the strange expression of the bouncer.
Christien quickly stepped out a side door and made his way down the dark, deserted alley.
He reached the street just as Madelaine stumbled out the front doors of his club and leaned against the wall. The expression on her face stopped him. Confusion. Terror. He’d scared her but he’d been angry when he saw her. Angry that another shared her looks. Angry she was in his club, making him remember. When he learned her name, and saw the key around her neck, everything changed. But before he could find out for certain if she truly was his Madelaine, she’d fled.
He didn’t want to frighten her more by chasing after her, but
mon Dieu,
he had to know if it really was her.
He made the sign of the cross and muttered an expletive.
Madelaine.
Her name whispered through his soul. He ached with the remembered feel of her and it had taken everything inside him to keep from gathering her in his arms and holding her tight. For so long he had been without her, to suddenly find her in his club was a miracle and many, many prayers come true.
He took a step in her direction, but a cab pulled up and she scrambled inside. The cab pulled away, taking her with it.
He breathed fast. Sweat beaded on his brow and his hands clenched into fists until his nails dug into his palms.
Everything had been the same. The luxurious fall of mink hair. The cinnamon-colored eyes. Even her height when she wasn’t in those silly shoes. He unclenched his fists and wanted to roar with frustration and misery.
’Tis her.
And yet it wasn’t her. He’d searched those eyes, looked deep into her soul and saw nothing but fear with small glimpses of memories she kept tightly locked away. There had been a moment when he was certain she remembered, but the moment passed.
He sagged against the brick wall, his legs suddenly weak, and watched the taxi until it turned a corner out of sight.
Wouldn’t their love have withstood the ages? Regardless of time and rebirth, she would have remembered, wouldn’t she?
Heart heavy with the grief he’d carried for seven hundred long years, he headed inside. He wouldn’t be able to learn her address until the taxi returned. He thanked all that was holy that Ronald flagged down the taxi in their employ. He would discover where she lived soon enough. But not soon enough for him.
He entered his office and stopped, inhaling deeply. Lavender. He closed his eyes, his memories racing back to a time of brutality. To a time when the only light in his life had been his sporadic visits to a fortress in France and a woman named Madelaine.
He looked down at the fake contract sent by Etienne Lucheux. He touched the papers, his mind working quickly. What game was Lucheux playing? What message was he sending and how had he managed to resurrect a dead woman?
An uneasy feeling twisted his gut and he breathed deep, absorbing the familiar smell of his lost love.
And a woman who wore a silver key around her neck.
Her breath sawed in and out of burning lungs. Her heart beat so heavy and so fast the forest animals probably heard it.
She certainly couldn’t hear anything over the drum of it.
Her legs weakened. Exhausted, she pressed on.
In the distance, she heard the faint sounds of the baying dogs.
Mon Dieu,
he’d brought the dogs!
She put on a burst of speed. A tree branch snagged her veil and yanked her head back. Whimpering, she grabbed at the veil, not wanting to leave a trail even though the dogs could easily smell the wake of her fear. She tripped over a root, stumbled a few steps and went down on one knee. She swallowed her sobs, tears leaking down her cheeks.
A glance over her shoulder showed only leafless branches, ghostly in the fog suspended over the forest floor. The sound of the dogs appeared closer, but that could have been a trick of the fog.
She began to pray. Broken prayers that never helped before but in which she’d never given up hope.
“Pater noster, qui es in caelis,”
she whispered through uneven breaths,
“sanctificetur Nomen tuum.”
Our Father, who art in heaven…
The voices of her pursuers approached, closer now. Her heart nearly stopped and she forgot about praying.
“Do you have those papers?”
Lainie looked up from her computer monitor to find Giselle inside her office door, one pale, perfectly plucked eyebrow rising in inquiry. She’d been expecting Giselle all day, had futilely hoped she wouldn’t show, but knew this conversation was inevitable. Lainie was exhausted from a night of tossing and turning and from the strange dream that plagued her once she did fall asleep. She wasn’t in the right frame of mind to verbally spar with her boss, but she also knew Giselle wouldn’t go away if politely asked.
The questions that had kept her awake most of the night weighed her down. Why would Giselle send her on a mission with phony papers? And were they truly phony or was Chevalier playing some game? No. The look on Chevalier’s face and his anger convinced her he wasn’t playing a game. So why did he believe the papers were fake?
She wasn’t any closer to the answer than she had been in Chevalier’s office. Just more tired.
“About those papers.” She sat back and eyed Giselle, trying to quell the nervous flutters in her stomach. Things weren’t adding up and it was making her uneasy. Uneasy enough to question what she should do. Tell Giselle that Chevalier thought the papers were fake? Or keep the information to herself? Right now playing things close to the vest was her best option. “Mr. Chevalier knew nothing of our appointment.”
Other than a slow blink, Giselle’s face remained expressionless.
“I had to wait in line and pay twenty bucks to get in.” If she expected Giselle to offer reimbursement, she would have been disappointed. Good thing she didn’t expect it. “I only saw him because he saved me from being accosted by a customer.”
That got a reaction, but only a slight twist of the lips. Sometimes Lainie believed Giselle was made of ice.
“Is there a point to this drawn-out story?” Giselle asked in a bored tone.
Lainie tamped down her rising anger. “My point is he knew nothing of the appointment, yet you were adamant I had an appointment with him.”
“I can’t help it if he’s so disorganized he can’t keep his calendar straight.”
Lainie highly doubted Chevalier was disorganized. She was pretty sure, just from meeting him once, he knew everything that went on around him.
However, she chose not to comment on the last remark. Arguing with Giselle was useless, and damaging to one’s career and psyche. “Mr. Chevalier seemed angry at the content of those papers.”
Again no expression, but it seemed as if Giselle was trying too hard not to express any emotion. On a normal day, Giselle wouldn’t have a problem expressing to Lainie or anyone else exactly what she was thinking. But today wasn’t normal. Nothing had been normal since she walked into The Chevalier last night.
“I repeat my first question. Do you have the papers?”
Lainie took a deep breath. “No. Chevalier wouldn’t sign them.”
The muscles in Giselle’s face tightened in contained anger, putting Lainie even more on edge.
“So you left the papers with no idea if he would return them? You have no idea what was in those papers or how important they were.”
“He didn’t seem to think they were very important.”
Brows slammed down over pale blue eyes. Everything about Giselle was pale. Her hair was so blond it was almost white, her skin so fair it was translucent and on the days she wore red—which was almost every day—the look was jarring. “What are you trying to say?”
The slight headache Lainie had been battling all day threatened to erupt into something much worse, but her spurt of anger pushed it away. She didn’t like being played with. “I’m just telling you what happened. Chevalier wasn’t impressed with the papers.”
Giselle’s look turned speculative, which was odd. Nothing about this conversation was going as she expected and it made her headache worse and her anxiety skyrocket.
“Did he say anything else?”
Lainie took her time forming her answer, because she was taken off guard. She’d expected Giselle to ask why Chevalier thought the papers weren’t important but it appeared Giselle was fishing for something else.
What was going on here?
“Other than the fact he was angry, no.” Technically not a lie. Chevalier hadn’t said much past the observation of the papers. It was the other stuff that bothered her. His strange reaction when he first saw her. The visions. Lainie’s heart constricted when she thought of the visions and the dream that troubled her sleep.
Whatever she was in the middle of, she wanted no part of it. Something wasn’t right about her whole meeting with Chevalier.
“I suggest Mr. Lucheux call Mr. Chevalier to clear things up,” she said.
Giselle drew in a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. Lainie’s stomach fluttered in apprehension. Giselle was known for her unexpected explosions of anger. Lainie sensed one of those explosions was imminent. “Mr. Lucheux is far too busy to be chasing paperwork when that is
your
job.”
“I fail to see how advertising contracts fall under the Human Resources Department.”
Three months ago she thought the very generous salary Lucheux Limited offered would help her look past Giselle’s disdain and abrasiveness. With her student loans due each month and her father’s nursing-home bills, Lainie had been drowning in debt and needed the money. With this job she could afford to pay her loans and the exorbitant nursing-home costs. Even though she had nothing left over at the end of the month, she felt better knowing her dad was in a good place, with qualified people to look after him and someday those student loans would be paid. Until then she’d eat peanut butter and jelly, refill her water bottle instead of buying bottled water and drink the office coffee instead of the fancy stuff.
Until then, she’d have to put up with her boss’s weird looks and condescending attitude.
“You work for
me,
” Giselle said quietly. “Your job is not to question my decisions.”
Lainie sat up, her exhaustion falling away in the face of her anger. Her stubbornness ignored the voice that screamed
shut up.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I’d signed up for the army.”
Giselle’s pale eyes narrowed. Lainie could almost see the fire breathing from her mouth.
“Do you have a problem, Miss Alexander? Is there something you’d like to discuss with me? Like maybe your two-week notice?”
A tremor shook her body. She’d pushed too far this time. She thought of her father, frail and confused after all that had happened to him. If she lost his spot in the nursing home because she lost her job she’d either have to find a cheaper place that was less equipped to handle him or she’d have to take him in herself. She’d tried taking care of him in the beginning and it hadn’t worked. His mood swings had become violent and she’d been forced to put him in the home.
She bit the inside of her cheek and tamped down on the anger. She’d been doing that a lot lately. For her father she’d continue to do it even if it was humiliating. “No, ma’am.”
“I didn’t think so.” Victory gleamed in Giselle’s eyes as well as a touch of disappointment. She wanted Lainie to fight back, but Lainie wasn’t giving her the satisfaction. “Go back to Mr. Chevalier and retrieve those papers.
Signed
papers.” She glanced at her watch. “I want them by tomorrow morning.”
Lainie went still. Her anger disintegrated, replaced by a tremor that shook her body and soul. She didn’t want to go back to The Chevalier. She had a feeling she’d barely escaped last night. “But tomorrow’s Saturday.”
Giselle shot her the evil glare that had earned her the nickname Dragon Bitch. “Tomorrow. Or you’ll be looking for another job.”
Lucheux stepped closer to the window to watch Madelaine exit the building.
The warm April breeze fanned her hair out behind her, picking up the glints of red and reflecting them back. His fingers curled around the windowsill. He leaned forward, hampered by the thick glass.
“She delivered the papers as promised,” Giselle said.
“Good.”
Giselle stepped up next to him, nearly trembling from her suppressed fury. Madelaine enraged Giselle. Ever since he discovered her existence Giselle had been quietly seething.
“Chevalier isn’t pleased.”
“I didn’t expect him to be.” What had Chevalier’s reaction been when he saw her last night? As shaken as Lucheux’s when he first spotted her?
“She didn’t succeed in getting his signature so I sent her back.” Her tone didn’t suppress her fury that Madelaine had somehow failed in her mission, which wasn’t the case at all.
“The goal wasn’t for him to sign fake papers, but to meet her. I say she succeeded admirably.”
Giselle hissed out a breath. He enjoyed seeing Giselle thrown off her game.
“If he isn’t already, Chevalier will soon be preoccupied with her,” he said.
“He can’t honestly believe she’s his dead lover.”
Madelaine disappeared from sight but Lucheux kept watch over the street. He didn’t comment on Giselle’s statement because a part of him wasn’t so sure. The resemblance Lainie Alexander had to Madelaine, Countess of Flandres, was beyond eerie and bordering on downright scary. What if she was the reincarnated Madelaine? What would it mean?
Giselle turned to him, her expression incredulous. “Surely you don’t believe it’s her.” When he didn’t respond, she laughed. “You do!” Lucheux mashed his back teeth together. He hated when Giselle laughed at him. Those pale eyes that disconcerted him on many an occasion looked troubled. “You believe it too,” he said softly. “You’re afraid it’s her.”
She stopped laughing and scoffed, but wasn’t able to stop the flash of fear in her eyes. His comment hit the mark. Interesting.
“Of course not,” she said.
Lucheux had known Giselle for many centuries. He was tied to her in ways that defied description and both sickened and enraged him. In all that time he’d never seen her afraid. He considered her fear quietly and tried to decide how to use it against her.
Lainie stood outside The Chevalier and rubbed a sweaty palm down her skirt. In the light of day the building looked different with its darkened windows and the door closed and locked. Not precisely abandoned. More like waiting for something to happen.
This early in the afternoon the only things moving were a few pieces of trash fluttering in the cool breeze. She shivered and stood at the front door in indecision. No line of people waited to get in. No bouncer turned her away. Nothing but a big, black door and her clamoring nerves faced her.
Last night she’d escaped this place, promising herself she would never return and now here she was, not even twelve hours later, right back where she said she wouldn’t be. Damn Giselle. And damn the fact Lainie needed this job so much. If she had only herself to worry about she’d walk away. Forget the job. Forget the great pay. It wasn’t worth Giselle’s abuse or facing Chevalier again. But it wasn’t just her. She had responsibilities and a sick father who relied on her.
“Come on, Lainie, don’t be a coward.” She’d never been a coward. Not when the government stepped in and tried to take her family’s farm. Not when she worked all day and attended college at night for five years. And not when her father slowly shriveled away to a shell of himself after he lost his land and certainly not when she had to make the difficult decision to put him in a nursing home.
Coward
wasn’t in her vocabulary.
She looked to the right and left. Chevalier picked his place of business well. At one time it had been an abandoned warehouse among a block of other abandoned warehouses. According to the research she’d done at work this morning, he’d bought the block, refurbished the buildings and now rented all of them out. Businesses lined the bottoms and apartments the tops. Six years after his purchase people were on waiting lists to rent those apartments. She couldn’t even imagine the amount of money he’d spent to undertake such a huge project. But it paid off. He was now one of the richest men in Milwaukee and one of the five hundred richest men in the United States.
She looked at the door again. Time was up. Giselle wanted those papers by tomorrow and Lainie was damned if she was giving up her Saturday to chase them down. A surge of anger had her taking a step closer to the door. Somehow she’d get those papers from Chevalier and be done with all of this, without having to go inside.
She knocked, tentatively at first, then harder.
I’m not going in. I’m not going in.
She shivered even though the temperature was well past seventy. Thoughts of last night spiked her fear. She didn’t want to relive last night. Chevalier’s weird behavior. The strange visions. Thank goodness the bartender never delivered her water or she would have thought someone drugged it.
And the strangeness didn’t end when she left the club either. It continued right through the night and into her dream of the woman running through the forest.