by Nora Roberts
“A woman in love isn’t always reasonable,” he said with an avuncular smile. “A man has to make certain adjustments.”
“There’s very little I wouldn’t do for Ryan,” Pierce returned. “But it isn’t possible for me to change what I am.”
“We’re talking about a routine,” Swan tossed back, losing patience.
“No, we’re talking about my way of life. I could drop this escape,” he continued while Swan frowned at him, “but there’d be another one and still another. If Ryan can’t accept this one now, how can she accept one later?”
“You’ll lose her,” Swan warned.
Pierce rose at that, unable to sit any longer. “Perhaps I’ve never had her.” He could deal with the pain, he told himself. He knew how to deal with pain. His voice was even when he continued. “Ryan has to make her own choices. I have to accept them.”
Swan rose to his feet and glared. “Damn if you sound like a man in love to me.”
Pierce gave him a long, cold stare that had Swan swallowing. “In a lifetime of illusions,” he said roughly, “she’s the only thing that’s real.” Turning, he strode from the room.
Chapter 16
They would tape at six o’clock west coast time. By 4:00 P.M. Ryan had dealt with everything from an irate property manager to a frazzled hairstylist. There was nothing like a live broadcast to throw even the most seasoned veterans into a state of madness. As it was put to her by a fatalistic stagehand, “Whatever could go wrong, would.” It wasn’t what Ryan wanted to hear.
But the problems, the demands, the touch of insanity kept her from crawling into a convenient corner to weep. She was needed and had no choice but to be dependable. If her career was all she was going to have left, Ryan knew she had to give it her best shot.
She had avoided Pierce for ten days by keeping an emotional distance. They had no choice but to come together time and again, but only as producer and star. He made no attempt to close the gap between them.
Ryan hurt. At times it still amazed her how much. Still, she welcomed it. The hurt helped smother the fear. The three safes had been delivered. When she had forced herself to examine them, she had seen that the smallest was no more than three feet high and two feet across. The thought of Pierce folding himself into the small black box had her stomach rolling.
She had stood studying the largest safe with its thick door and complex time lock when she had sensed him behind hen. When she had turned, they had looked at each other in silence. Ryan had felt the need, the love, the hopelessness before she had walked away from him. Neither by word nor gesture had he asked her to stay.
From then on Ryan had kept away from the safes, concentrating instead on the checking and rechecking of all the minute details of production.
Wardrobe had to be supervised. A broken spotlight needed repair at the eleventh hour. A sick technician had to be replaced. And timing, the most crucial element of all, had to be worked out to the last second.
There seemed to be no end to the last-minute problems, and she could only be grateful when each new one cropped up. There was no time for thinking, right up to the moment when the studio audience began to file in.
With her stomach in knots, her face composed, Ryan waited in the control booth as the floor director gave the final countdown.
It began.
Pierce was onstage, cool and competent. The set was perfect: clean, uncluttered and faintly mysterious with the understated lighting. In unrelieved black, he was a twentieth-century sorcerer with no need for magic wands or pointed hats.
Water flowed between his palms, fire shot from his fingertips. Ryan watched as he balanced Bess on the point of a saber, making her spin like a top, then drawing the sword out with a flourish until she spun on nothing at all.
Elaine floated on the torch flames while the audience held their breath. Pierce enclosed her in a clear glass bubble, covered it with red silk and sent it floating ten feet above the stage. It swayed gently to Link’s music. When Pierce brought it down and whipped off the silk, Elaine was a white swan.
He varied his illusions—dashing, spectacular and simply beautiful. He controlled the elements, defied nature and baffled all.
“Going like a dream,” Ryan heard someone say excitedly. “See if we don’t cop a couple of Emmys for this one. Thirty seconds, camera two. God, is this guy good!”
Ryan left the control booth and went down to the wings. She told herself she was cold because the air-conditioning in the booth was turned up so high. It would be warmer near the stage. The lights there shone hotly, but her skin stayed chilled. She watched while he did a variation on the transportation illusion he had used in Vegas.
He never glanced in her direction, but Ryan sensed he knew she was there. He had to know, because her thoughts were so completely centered on him.
“It’s going good, isn’t it?”
Looking up, Ryan saw Link beside her. “Yes, perfect so far.”
“I liked the swan. It’s pretty.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe you should go into Bess’s dressing room and sit down,” he suggested, wishing she didn’t look so pale and cold. “You could watch on the TV in there.”
“No. No, I’ll stay.”
Pierce had a tiger onstage, a lean, pacing cat in a gilt cage. He covered it with the same silk he had used on the bubble. When he removed it, Elaine was caged and the tiger had vanished. Knowing it was the last illusion before the final escape, Ryan took a deep breath.
“Link.” She reached for his hand, needing something to hold on to.
“He’ll be all right, Ryan.” He gave her fingers a squeeze. “Pierce is the best.”
The smallest safe was brought out, its door open wide as it was turned around and around to show its solidity. Ryan tasted the iron tang of fear. She didn’t hear Pierce’s explanation to the audience as he was manacled hand and foot by a captain of the Los Angeles Police Department. Her eyes were glued to his face. She knew the deepest part of his mind was already locked inside the vault. Already, he was working his way out. That’s what she held on to as firmly as Link’s hand.
He barely fit inside the first safe. His shoulders brushed the sides.
He won’t be able to move in there, she thought on a stab of panic. As the door was shut, she took a step toward the stage. Link held her by the shoulders.
“You can’t, Ryan.”
“But, God, he can’t move. He can’t breathe!” She watched with mounting horror as the second safe was brought out.
“He’s already out of the cuffs,” Link said soothingly, though he didn’t like watching the safe that held Pierce lifted and locked inside the second one. “He’ll be opening the first door now,” he said to comfort himself as much as Ryan. “He works fast. You know, you’ve seen him.”
“Oh, no.” The third safe had the fear rocketing almost beyond her control. She felt a bright dizziness and would have swayed if Link’s hands hadn’t held her upright. The largest safe swallowed the two others and the man inside. It was shut, bolted. The time lock was set for midnight. There was no way in from the outside now.
“How long?” she whispered. Her eyes were glued to the safe, on the shiny, complicated timer. “How long since he’s been in?”
“Two and a half minutes.” Link felt a bead of sweat run down his back. “He’s got plenty of time.”
He knew the safes fit together so snugly that the doors could only be pushed open far enough for a child to crawl through. He never understood how Pierce could twist and fold his body the way he did. But he’d seen him do it. Unlike Ryan, Link had watched Pierce rehearse the escape countless times. The sweat continued to roll down his back.
The air was thin, Ryan could barely draw it into her lungs. That was how it was inside the safe, she thought numbly. No air, no light. “Time, Link!” She was shaking like a leaf now. The big man stopped praying to answer.
“Two-fifty. It’s almost over. He’s working on the last one now.”
/> Gripping her hands together, Ryan began to count off the seconds in her head. The roaring in her ears had her biting down hard on her lip. She had never fainted in her life, but she knew she was perilously close to doing so now. When her vision blurred, she squeezed her eyes tight to clear it. But she couldn’t breathe. Pierce had no air now and neither did she. On a bubble of hysteria, she thought she would suffocate standing there as surely as Pierce would inside the trio of safes.
Then she saw the door opening, heard the unified gasp of relief from the audience before the burst of applause. He stood on the stage, damp with sweat and drawing in air.
Ryan swooned back against Link as darkness blocked out the spotlights. She lost consciousness for no more than seconds, coming back when she heard Link calling her.
“Ryan, Ryan, it’s all right. He’s out. He’s okay.”
Bracing herself against Link, she shook her head to clear it. “Yes, he’s out.” For one last second she watched him, then turning, she walked away.
The moment the cameras shut off, Pierce walked offstage. “Where’s Ryan?” he demanded of Link.
“She left.” He watched a trickle of sweat run down Pierce’s face. “She was pretty upset.” He offered Pierce the towel he’d been holding for him. “I think maybe she fainted for a minute.”
Pierce didn’t brush away the sweat, he didn’t grin as he always did when an escape was completed. “Where did she go?”
“I don’t know. She just left.”
Without a word, Pierce went to look for her.
***
Ryan lay baking in the strong sun. There was an itch in the center of her back, but she didn’t move to scratch it. She lay still and let the heat soak into her skin.
She had spent a week on board her father’s yacht off the coast of St. Croix. Swan had let her go alone, as she requested, asking no questions when she had arrived at his house and asked for the favor. He’d made the arrangements for her and had taken her to the airport himself. Ryan was to think later that it was the first time he hadn’t put her in a limo with a driver and sent her off to catch a plane by herself.
For days now she had lain in the sun, swam and kept her mind a blank. She hadn’t even gone back to her apartment after the taping. She had arrived in St. Croix with the clothes on her back. Whatever she needed she bought on the island. She spoke to no one but the crew and sent no messages back to the States. For a week she simply slipped off the face of the earth.
Ryan rolled over on her back and dropped the sunglasses over her eyes. She knew that if she didn’t force herself to think, the answer she needed would come to her in time. When it came, it would be right, and she would act on it. Until then, she waited.
* * *
In his workroom, Pierce shuffled and cut the Tarot cards. He needed to relax. The tension was eating at him.
After the taping he had searched the entire building for Ryan. When she was nowhere to be found, he had broken one of his own cardinal rules and had picked the lock on her apartment. He had waited for her through the next morning. She had never come home. It had driven him wild, furious. He’d let the rage take him, blocking out the pain. Anger, the undisciplined anger he never allowed himself, came in full force. Link had borne the brunt of his temper in silence.
It had taken Pierce days to regain his control. Ryan was gone, and he had to accept it. His own set of rules left him no choice. Even if he’d known where to find her, he couldn’t bring her back.
In the week that had passed he had done no work. He had no power. Whenever he tried to focus his concentration, he saw only Ryan—felt her, tasted her. It was all he could conjure. He had to work his way back. Pierce knew if he didn’t find his rhythm again soon he would be finished.
He was alone now, with Link and Bess honeymooning in the mountains. When he had regained some of his control, he had insisted they keep to their plans. He had sent them on their way, struggling to give them happiness while his own life loomed empty ahead of him.
It was time to go back to the only thing he had left. And even that brought a small trickle of fear. He was no longer sure he had any magic.
Setting the cards aside, Pierce rose to set up one of his more complicated illusions. He wouldn’t test himself on anything simplistic. Even as he began to train his concentration, flex his hands, he looked up and saw her.
Pierce stared hard at the image. She had never come this clearly to him before. He could even hear her footsteps as she crossed the room to the stage. Her scent reached him first and had his blood humming. He wondered, almost dispassionately, if he were going mad.
“Hello, Pierce.”
Ryan saw him jolt as if she had startled him out of a dream, “Ryan?” Her name on his lips was soft, questioning.
“Your front door wasn’t locked, so I came in. I hope you don’t mind.”
He continued to stare at her and said nothing. She mounted the steps of the stage.
“I’ve interrupted your work.”
Following her gaze, Pierce looked down at the glass vial in his hand and the colored cubes on the table.
“Work? It—no, it’s all right.” He set the vial down. He couldn’t have managed the most basic illusion.
“This won’t take long,” Ryan told him with a smile. She had never seen him rattled and was all but certain she would never see him so again. “There’s a new contract we need to discuss.”
“Contract?” he repeated, unable to take his eyes from hers.
“Yes, that’s why I’ve come.”
“I see.” He wanted to touch her but kept his hands on the table. He wouldn’t touch what was no longer his. “You look well,” he managed and started to offer her a chair. “Where have you been?” It was out before he could stop it; it was perilously close to an accusation. Ryan only smiled again.
“I’ve been away,” she said simply, then took a step closer. “Have you thought of me?”
It was he who stepped back. “Yes, I’ve thought of you.”
“Often?” The word was quiet as she moved toward him again.
“Don’t Ryan!” His voice was defensively sharp as he moved back.
“I’ve thought of you often,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Constantly, though I tried not to. Do you dabble in love potions, Pierce? Is that what you did to me?” She took another step toward him. “I tried very hard to hate you and harder still to forget you. Your magic’s too strong.”
Her scent whirled through his senses until they were all clouded with her. “Ryan, I’m only a man, and you’re my weakness. Don’t do this.” Pierce shook his head and called on the last of his control. “I have work to do.”
Ryan glanced at the table, then toyed with one of the colored cubes. “It’ll have to wait. Do you know how many hours there are in a week?” she asked and smiled at him.
“No. Stop this, Ryan.” The blood was pounding in his head. The need was growing unmanageable.
“A hundred and sixty-eight,” she whispered. “A lot to make up for.”
“If I touch you, I won’t let you go again.”
“And if I touch you?” She laid her hand on his chest.
“Don’t,” he warned quickly. “You should leave while you still can.”
“You’ll do that escape again, won’t you?”
“Yes. Yes, damn it.” His fingertips were tingling, demanding that he reach for her. “Ryan, for God’s sake, go.”
“You’ll do it again,” she went on. “And others, probably more dangerous, or at least more frightening, because that’s who you are. Isn’t that what you told me?”
“Ryan—”
“That’s who I fell in love with,” she said calmly. “I don’t know why I thought I could or should try to change that. I told you once you were exactly what I wanted, that was the truth. But I suppose I had to learn what that meant. Do you still want me, Pierce?”
He didn’t answer, but she saw his eyes darken, felt his heart speed under her hand. “I can leave
and have a very calm, undemanding life.” Ryan took the last step to him. “Is that what you want for me? Have I hurt you so much you wish me a life of unbearable boredom? Please, Pierce,” she murmured, “won’t you forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive.” He was drowning in her eyes no matter how he struggled not to. “Ryan, for the love of God!” Desperate, he pushed her hand from his chest. “Can’t you see what you’re doing to me?”
“Yes, and I’m so glad. I was afraid you could really shut me out.” She let out a quiet sigh of relief. “I’m staying, Pierce. There’s nothing you can do about it.” She had her arms around his
