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.”