Smoke and Mirrors (9 page)

A low laugh rumbled from behind the curtain, and I didn’t need to feign surprise, pushing Brad from me and rising to the full height of my Cesare Paciotti heeled feet.

“You did not tell me you had company.” I was in full-on, blushing retreat mode, gathering my dress and stepping over the smashed crystal.

But Alberto moved more quickly, coming to stand between the exit and me. He was, as his picture had shown him, only smaller. More slender and elegant. Almost effeminate in his stance, yet filled with undeniable sexual appeal. Not my type, but obviously that of the many women listed on his rap sheet at Vauxhall. Only his gaze clued me in. Cold. Raptor-like. A small part of me – the one I’d felt when I looked in my rapist’s eyes at the hearing – wanted to dive behind Brad.

Somehow I managed to stand my ground, and hesitantly laid my hand on Alberto’s extended palm. Bringing it to his lips with a slight bow, he reminded me once more of my rapist. Deceptive, charming, disarming and altogether dangerous.

I looked squarely into his dark Spanish eyes. Beautiful, almond shaped eyes that had, by some accounts, witnessed over a hundred sanctioned executions. “Signora, you have me at a disadvantage. This cabrón,” he said, eyeing De Torres’s chillingly-still figure with amusement, “has placed us both in a most embarrassing situation. Let’s make the best of it, no?”

I chose not to smile, but lessened my look of severity. “I am Signor De Torres’s doctor, Alexandra Hermanas. And now, Señor, you have me at a disadvantage.”

Still holding my hand, he laughed again. “Alberto Sanchez, Signor De Torres’s business partner.” He paused, reluctantly dropping my hand, and glanced back at our silent host. “What happened to the Hippocratic oath, eh?”

I managed a blush of embarrassment and opened my mouth to say something appropriate, but Giovanni beat me to it. His jaw looked as though it belonged to a nutcracker. “Mind your own fucking business, Sanchez, and apologize.”

I hadn’t expected that, and wondered for one moment if Brad had broken through De Torres’s façade. But Sanchez only rocked back on his alligator loafers and laughed all the harder, wiping his eyes when at last he had exhausted the joke’s usefulness. “Very well, Giovanni; my most humble apologies to your lovely woman and to you. Now, I’ll leave you both a moment’s peace.”

He kissed my hand one last time before placing the cigar back between his teeth and exiting the room in a cloud of smoke and cologne. I immediately went to the sink and washed my hands, much to Brad’s sardonic approval. “Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t alone?” I asked, loud enough for our eavesdropping quarry to hear.

Giovanni snorted, “In that dress…would you believe me if I said I forgot he was here?”

I let loose a caustic laugh, aware my hands were actually shaking. “That depends on how you make it up to me.”

He crossed the marble floor, feet deliberately loud, and pushed me against the dolphin column with a loud creak. “What do you have in mind?” His hands found mine and calmed them against his chest. There was genuine concern in his eyes. But he covered it by closing them and kissing me thoroughly.

My involuntary moan was loud enough for the man in the hallway to hear and move away, satisfied that we were going to take advantage of our ‘moment’s space’. Some long, brain-numbing moments later, Brad pulled back and winked at me, growling at the same time and jostling the bed with his bent knee. I wondered if he knew I hadn’t been acting. Then I quietly panicked, wondering if he had been.

We kept up the pretense for a good ten minutes, while he filled me in on some of the guests and I tried my damnedest not to think of his mouth and hands.

Eventually, he led me downstairs, my arm looped through the crook of his, giving me the heady feeling of Cinderella at the ball. However in this tale, the evil stepsisters were drug kingpins and our fairy godfather would need twin caskets if the gown and pumpkin vanished at midnight.

When our feet hit the floor, an impromptu receiving line was formed, and Giovanni greeted and introduced me to each of his guests. I couldn’t help but note the multitude of men were only too eager to flatter me, surprised that De Torres’s newest woman was a doctor. It seemed to open an entirely new oyster of opportunity for them: the pairing of intelligence and, if somewhat artificially arrived at, beauty.

The women did what most women do, and spoke from two sides of their mouths. The one side that praised me for ‘catching’ Giovanni and the other that whispered spiteful words when my back was turned. Obviously, I enjoyed every minute of it, considering that none of them guessed the half of it.

At dinner, I found myself seated ‘accidentally’ to none other than Alberto Sanchez. Forcing a blush when he pulled out my chair, I thanked him for allowing Giovanni and me a few moments alone. He brushed my gratitude aside and became quite serious. “How did you come by your current employment?”

Placing my flute back on the pristine tablecloth, I shrugged. “Signor Mancini’s colleague, il Dottore Roberto Ferré, is an old friend of my family’s. And as it happens, I was looking for a new position somewhere warm,” I said, smiling guiltily, “when Signor Ferré called to see how I was doing. You see, my parents died a few years ago, and he takes it upon himself to check up on me. When he mentioned this opportunity and its brevity, I jumped at the chance.”

Giovanni sipped at his wine, evidently satisfied with my answer. “What will you do now that it’s almost over? Will you stay on here?”

I let my laugh become self-mocking. “Señor Sanchez, I’m not twenty-two. And I’m certainly not naïve enough to believe Signor De Torres has decided to settle down. No, I’ll find another suitable practice, and, if we still derive pleasure from one another, I have no doubt he’ll find a way to visit me.”

He raised a shrewd eyebrow. “You’re an interesting woman, Alexandra.”

And then, much to the satisfaction of Giovanni’s hungry guests, dinner was served.

•   •   •

De Torres had hired one of
Sardegna’s
most famous folk groups to play at the festivity. Their main sound was drawn from the Organetto, an accordion-like instrument, and they kept to traditional round dances like the ‘Ballu Tunfu’. I enjoy dancing, however, it took me several attempts to get the intricate steps just right.

Fortunately, I worked out any kinks with the man who had been seated to my left. A rather amusing Algerian of dubious royal decent, he insisted on demonstrating the ins and outs of Sardinian folk dancing. We had finished our third spin when Giovanni found us.

He’d shed his jacket and was flushed with the simple joy of a fast dance. “Alexandra, vuole ballare con mi?”

My partner retreated when I tilted my head questioningly in his direction. Grasping my hands, De Torres swept me into the center of the crowd. His use of my first name, alias or not, left me dizzy and boneless, and it took little more than the constant brush of his taut body against mine to make me forget we weren’t alone.

No one cut in on us, and I think we would have danced until dawn had the musicians themselves not announced their last piece. It was a tango, and tangos being what they are, I felt volatile with lust. The first beat began, and within seconds the sea of dancers had stopped to watch us.

•   •   •

Brad had kept an eye on Alberto throughout the evening. And the fucker had eyes for Alex, all right. Giovanni was millimeters away from gauging them out with his olive fork.

Now Sanchez’s own date stood beside him pouting because he’d directed her off the tiled floor. She was an excellent dancer, Brad considered fairly, but nothing like Alexandra. Where platinum hair and heroin chic thinness had its place in the fashion world, sultry chestnut manes and curves under sophisticated couture were eternal.

Alexandra might not have been Alberto’s current type, Brad decided, but she was, like a rare gem, eminently worth collecting, and Alberto Sanchez was a consummate collector of all things beautiful. Especially things in pairs, and Alexandra Hermanas might have well been his daughter’s mother for all their likeness.

No, Brad thought, Sanchez had made up his mind; Alexandra would work for him.

At least she would, Brad considered, dipping Alexandra almost to the floor, his hand caressing her bared flesh from neck to cleavage, if Giovanni didn’t kill him first.

•   •   •

It was almost dawn when the remaining guests were bundled into cars and driven down the brightening drive. The hired help were making their final rounds, when Brad finished his private meeting. The group had consisted of a handful of his most important clients, and Brad had brought them up to speed on his latest shipment. Afterward, they had hammered out the varied exchange points for each buyer’s goods. It had been a taxing meeting, and he was glad it was over. Compartmentalization of his varied lives had always been easy for him, but lately, thoughts of Alexandra/Ms. Brothers had had a nasty habit of blending his mental mailboxes.

His hands skimmed the piano, producing a tune he had heard during the night. It reminded him of her: unusually cadenced, sophisticated, sensual.

Worth remembering.

Worth protecting.

The shrill sound of his house phone snapped his train of thought. His maid appeared a moment later, still impeccably dressed despite the long evening of service. “Signor De Torres, it is Signor Sanchez. He says it’s urgent.”

Brad strode towards her, taking the phone and nodding his head in thanks. “Alberto?”

“I just returned to the hotel to find Francesca severely hypoglycemic. The bitch I hired to stay with her didn’t listen to a thing I said. Can you get Alexandra here?”

Hastily stepping into his loafers, Brad grabbed his keys. “You’re at Hotel Pitrizza?”

“Yes, and for God’s sake, hurry.”

Dialing Dottore Mancini’s home phone number on his mobile, Brad lowered himself into his Ferrari and backed out of his hidden garage. He had just cleared the gates when she answered. “Clinica Cagliari, buongiorno.”

The Ferrari’s tires gripped the gravel noisily. “Francesca’s ill. I’m on my way to the clinic. Be ready when I get there for whatever a diabetic emergency might entail, va bene?”

“Va bene.”

•   •   •

I was in jeans and a t-shirt when the Ferrari stormed through the quiet streets and slammed to a momentary halt in front of the clinic’s front door. Still dressed in his evening attire, we were off again before my door had closed. He might have set a land speed record that day for the time we made, though neither of us noted the actual number, as I spent most of the harried ten minute ride on the phone with a terrified Alberto.

We hit the Pitrizza’s entrance only fifteen minutes after Alberto’s original call, startling the hotel concierge into action. Leaving the car running, we both exited and ran past the man with quick words of explanation. The desk clerk was waiting for us and shouted for the elevator operator to bring us to the penthouse suite.

I was pulling out a glucose kit and syringe when the doors opened, revealing the surreal site of seven or eight blanch-faced adults trying desperately not to set off the man who was rocking his small daughter. The silence was deafening, and I feared that the nearly hysterical girl in the corner was destined to become another casualty in the sordid world of drug dealers with bad tempers.

Giovanni saw this too, and after expressing his regards to Alberto, dismissed the girl with words I hoped indicated her need to hide and never be found. I knelt in front of Alberto and Francesca, assessing her exterior while I distracted her with a peppering of questions regarding her ragged stuffed penguin. Her skin was clammy, her words slow and sluggish, but she managed to explain why he’d been gifted a new beak as I pricked her finger. I’d wiped away the drop and checked her count before she really noticed what I’d done.

“You’re a lovely patient, you know.” I pointed to Giovanni’s returning figure in illustration. “Grownups like him get upset over sticking plasters.”

Her uncharacteristically gray complexion perked at this interesting news. “Did he cry?”

Alberto managed a laugh, stroking the hair from her ear.

“No, but he did this.” I screwed up my face in a wince that made her giggle.

Giovanni squatted down beside me. “I was upset because it was a pink plaster.” He winked at her conspiratorially. “She’s got soft hands; so she can’t hurt big blokes or little ladies.”

Francesca pushed herself up to sit against her dad’s chest. “I’m not little; I’m seven.”

De Torres feigned a thunderstruck expression. “Seven? I thought you were ten, being tall like your mother.” His wide hands were quintessentially Italian, measuring out her height with demonstrative flair.

Perfect. Keep her looking at you.

“You know my mother?”

He nodded, eyes flicking to my hands to see if he still needed to divert her attention. “You’re going to look just like her when you grow up. The boys will be tripping over themselves to bring you all sorts of lovely things.”

“I don’t like boys.”

De Torres grinned. “Good girl.”

“But I like candy.”

Alberto snorted. “Only sugarless.”

She stuck her tongue out at him, bringing a sparkle of life back into his flat eyes. “But I like the other kind.”

Clasping my bag shut, I clicked my tongue. “So do I, but it makes your teeth rot, and you won’t keep that beautiful smile if you eat too much of it.”

I opened my mouth and pointed to a filling in my right bottom molar. “I got that because I ate too much candy when I was seven. My mother made me eat only good things after that, so now all the rest of my teeth are perfect. And whenever I think of eating something sugary, I look in the mirror and remind myself that my whole mouth would be silver if I hadn’t listened to my mother.”

“You’d look awfully silly with silver teeth.”

“So would you.”

She giggled again, her face flushed with growing color. “Papa, can I get a kitty if I promise not to get silver teeth?”

Alberto hugged her to him, laughing with pleasure at her recovery. “You can have a hundred kitties if you promise not to get silver teeth.”