Teresa Medeiros (11 page)

“That’s the closet.”

An invisible sigh was followed by a small, defeated, “Oh.”

Tristan squeezed his eyes shut and counted to ten before tripping the switch that would free her. She
emerged from the darkness, blinking up at him like a rumpled baby owl.

He pointed toward the living room. “That’s the way out.”

Her smile betrayed only a faint decrease in wattage. “Of course. I knew that.”

He leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb and watched with morbid fascination as Arian marched toward the elevator, her confidence undaunted. He winced in anticipation of her slamming into the sealed doors, but she skidded to a halt a mere inch from breaking her pert nose.

She studied the doors, her brow puckered in a frown, then tried backing up and approaching them from a new angle. Tristan felt his lips twitch with a reluctant smile. Shooting him a distracted glance, Arian braced her narrow shoulder against the doors and shoved. When that failed to budge them, she began to claw at the seam between the doors, her frustration starting to show.

Tristan rolled his eyes heavenward. His business rivals might think he was a sadistic son of a bitch, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to cast this particular lamb to the wolves. Whether she was a conniving fraud or simply deluded, the snarling pack of reporters would tear her from limb to limb before she ever set foot outside the building. He had his own scars from their teeth to prove it.

As if to affirm his decision, the helicopter swooped into view of the living room windows, its mighty roar shuddering the triple-glazed glass. Arian ceased her assault on the elevator and spun around to plaster herself against the wall.

It wasn’t the visible effort with which she swallowed her terror, but the tremulous smile she summoned for his benefit that made Tristan take a step toward offering her shelter in his arms.

There be dragons
.

The ancient warning popped into his head without preamble. He hesitated, the throb of the helicopter’s rotors drowned out by the thudding of his heart in his ears.

He knew he should march over and snatch the living room drapes closed, but the prospect of once again being entombed in his own penthouse made his gut clench with primitive claustrophobia.

For ten long years, he’d been a prisoner of his wealth. A prisoner of his regrets. A prisoner of the past. He’d erected an impregnable fortress in the very heart of New York City only to find himself trapped inside a cage of glass walls and steel beams.

But Arian’s courageous smile made him believe escape was possible. Escape to a haven of blue skies, autumn breezes unpoisoned by smog, a far horizon unspoiled by the jut of skyscrapers. Her smile also reminded him that if his enemy had breached his defenses as easily as she had, he’d be dead right now.

The helicopter edged nearer. The photographer leaned out, positioning his telephoto lens for a close-up. Tristan crossed the room in three angry strides, grabbed Arian by the hand, and stabbed the elevator call button. The doors slid open without protest, earning a disgruntled look from his companion.

“Where are you taking me, Mr. Lennox?” she asked as he dragged her into the elevator.

He shot her dress a disparaging look. “Bloomingdale’s.”

As the service elevator lumbered its way toward the ground floor of Lennox Tower, Tristan studied Arian from the corner of his eye. He had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from making the obvious crack about a French maid. The dowdy black dress he’d pilfered from Housekeeping wasn’t much improvement over her original costume, but at least he’d been able to coax her into leaving off the white apron.

Their departure had been delayed for over an hour while he combed Lennox Enterprises for a suitable pair of stockings. An ambitious young executive had finally rushed up, waving the spare package of panty hose she carried in her briefcase for just such emergencies. While visibly appalled by their sheerness, Miss Whitewood’s misgivings had been mollified by their modest hue.

Black.

Tristan fought the urge to chuckle. Arian’s eyes might be hidden behind the oversized pair of Ray•Bans he’d confiscated from Sven’s extensive collection, but her head was tilted at the perfect angle to study the rapidly
descending numbers above the door. At first Tristan thought she was counting floors, but then he realized she was muttering a fervent stream of Hail Marys. If she got any paler, she’d be transparent, he thought, his amusement spoiled by an annoying twinge of pity.

“Try to relax, Miss Whitewood. It’s an elevator, not a death trap.”

She offered him a wan smile. “ ’Tis a bit like traveling in an oversized coffin, is it not?”

“After my security teams clear the Tower of all press, I’ll take you for a spin in the express elevator. It’s designed to travel from the penthouse to the ground floor in under fifty seconds.”

Arian clutched her stomach. “Forgive me, Mr. Lennox, but I was under the impression this was going to be my last ride. Aren’t you escorting me to my new lodgings?”

Tristan could feel her unflinching scrutiny, even through the tinted lenses of her glasses. “I’ve reconsidered my decision. It shouldn’t take my staff more than a few days to verify your claim.”
Or more likely, to prove you’re nothing more than a conniving charlatan
. “There’s no reason you can’t remain my guest until then. And since you may be forced to address the press yourself before this is all over, I’m taking you to Bloomingdale’s to choose some more suitable clothing.”

He drew his own pair of Oakleys from the pocket of his Burberry coat and slipped them on to let her know the matter had been settled and no arguments to the contrary would be tolerated. But Arian didn’t look surprised, merely thoughtful.

When the elevator doors groaned open, she bounded through them as if fearful the steely jaws would snap shut and crush her. Tristan could still hear the hungry buzz of the reporters swarming the main entrance to the Tower, but the alley outside the service entrance was deserted, just as he had hoped. The press would never expect him to make such an obvious escape. He
was a little disconcerted himself to realize he hadn’t left the Tower on foot since its construction had been completed over seven years ago.

He caught Arian’s elbow and guided her toward the street, frowning as he felt her stumble. He’d deliberately borrowed a pair of low-heeled pumps, yet she was teetering along as if they were spike heels from a Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogue.

He shot her feet a puzzled glance, noting the problem immediately. “Your shoes are on the wrong feet.”

Although the dress only fell to mid-calf, she still lifted its hem to examine them. “No they’re not. They’re my feet,” she assured him.

Blowing out a breath of exasperation, he knelt before her and lifted each foot in turn to remove the pumps, giving her no choice but to clasp his shoulder for balance. As he cupped her right foot in his palm to slip on the appropriate shoe, his thumb lingered against its delicate arch, beguiled by the warmth of her skin through the sheer nylon. Her fingers tensed on his shoulder. He glanced up to meet her wary gaze, feeling unaccountably guilty.

Realizing how ludicrous he must look playing Prince Charming to her Cinderella in the middle of a graffiti-spattered alley, he crammed her foot into the other shoe, ignoring her wince.

She continued to stumble along, this time because she was staring so intently at her feet. “Imagine that. A different shoe for the right and left. Who would have thought of anything so clever?”

Their sudden emergence onto Fifth Avenue spared Tristan from coming up with an answer to that ridiculous question. As he paused to turn up the collar of his coat, the bustling crowd threatened to swallow Arian’s slight form. She craned her neck to gape up at the surrounding skyscrapers, outwardly oblivious to the dirty looks of the pedestrians forced to bump and jostle their way around her. As she reached the curb, a horn blared, forcing Tristan
to lunge forward and jerk her out of the path of a speeding taxi.

“If you don’t watch where you’re going, you’ll be spending the next few nights at the hospital. Or the morgue,” he snapped as he herded her into the flow of pedestrian traffic. His heart was galloping along at twice its normal rate, reminding him that he was long overdue for a checkup.

Unfazed by his rebuke or her narrow escape, Arian threw back her shoulders and took a deep breath, drawing the cheap rayon of the uniform taut across her breasts. “I adore October! The air is so sweet and crisp. Isn’t it glorious?”

Tristan averted his gaze from her chest and sniffed cautiously. “All I can smell are exhaust fumes.”

“Why, would you look at that charming lamp!” She snatched his hand right out of his pocket and dragged him over to examine a perfectly ordinary crosswalk signal.

Arian seemed to have found her balance while Tristan was the one left stumbling to keep up as she tugged him this way and that, pointing and chattering at sights he had passed a thousand times, but never noticed through the smoked glass windows of his stretch limousine.

He was almost enjoying the rare anonymity of being part of a crowd. He was accustomed to heads snapping around and a path magically opening wherever he went, but if anyone glanced at him today, they would simply see a well-dressed man with a petite, dark-haired young woman clinging to his hand.

Encouraged by Arian’s rapt attention, he sought to explain the formula he’d developed to help pinpoint any avenue address. “If you’ll drop the last digit of the address, divide the remainder by two, then add or subtract the key number offered in several prominent travel guides, you’ll be able to discover the nearest cross street.” When she failed to compliment his genius, he
spun around, realizing too late that his hand was empty and Arian was nowhere in sight.

His surge of panic receded when he saw a flash of black going round and round in one of the revolving doors of Trump Tower, much to the annoyance of the scarlet-coated doorman and the amusement of the gathering crowd. It took Tristan three circuits to rescue Arian, and by the time he succeeded, she was so dizzy and breathless with laughter she had to lean on his arm for support.

Her delight lingered until they passed a corner cart where the aroma of roasting wieners threatened to send her into a frenzy of near-religious ecstasy.

“Would you care for a hot dog?” he asked stiffly, wondering if the vendor had change for a hundred or took American Express.

“A hot dog? No, thank you,” she said weakly, backing away from the cart. At first Tristan feared it was his own sneer of distaste that had spoiled her eagerness, but she was gazing at the skewered sausages with something more akin to horror. “Some of the poor in Paris considered cat a great delicacy, but I never could bring myself to try it.”

She withdrew with a forlorn little sigh, leaving Tristan to choke back his laughter as he realized just how badly she had misconstrued his offer. He was about to explain when she seized his arm and tugged him into the doorway of Tiffany’s.

Peeping around his shoulder, she said, “Don’t look now, but those men are following us.”

Ignoring her hissed dictate, Tristan threw a casual glance over his shoulder. Five burly, gray-suited men were huddled in front of a toy store, their efforts to look inconspicuous failing miserably. One of the men seemed to be admiring his reflection more than the charming window displays.

“Those men are paid to follow us,” he whispered back. “They’re my bodyguards. I arranged for them to
delay their departure until Cop could divert the press’s attention, but I would never leave the Tower without them.”

Arian stole another look. “Why, you’re right! There’s that kind Mr. Nordgard. Sven!” she trilled, waving wildly. “Oh, Sven!”

Tristan pulled her hand down. “For God’s sake, don’t wave! You’ll blow his cover and then he’ll sulk for the rest of the day because you recognized him in his Ray•Bans.”

Arian drew off her own sunglasses to reveal a pensive frown. “Why do you require guards, Mr. Lennox? I can’t imagine a man like you being afraid of anything.”

“The streets of New York can be a very dangerous place.” Her luminous brown eyes reminded him that there were more subtle dangers than gang members or kidnappers. “Only a fool wouldn’t be afraid,” he added lightly, tucking a
wayward
strand of hair behind her ear.

If he expected her to linger at Tiffany’s to admire the costly trinkets she planned to buy with his million dollars, he was sorely disappointed. She forsook the glittering window display without so much as a longing glance when a policeman mounted on a handsome sorrel came trotting past.

“Oh, sir! Please, sir, might I have a moment of your time?” Arian cried, bounding after the horse before Tristan could restrain her.

The officer slowed, guiding his mount in a prancing circle. The mouth above his helmet strap looked as if it hadn’t cracked a smile since the early eighties. He shot Tristan and his trench coat a suspicious glance. “Is that fellow bothering you, ma’am? Are you in need of assistance?”

By the time Tristan reached the duo, Arian was already explaining. “… it’s just that she’s the first horse I’ve seen in New York. I was beginning to fear there weren’t any left.”