He was half-smiling, as if she amused him. "May I ask how you came to this decision?" he inquired.
She set her champagne glass down. She was shivering in the chilly room, and all too aware of the effect that had upon her nipples, covered only by a fragile layer of silk and chiffon. "I can't bear the falseness," she admitted. "I know I'm being childish. I'll find it everywhere I turn, in every work environment. But I can't go back there and pretend everything's fine when it's rotten inside. I won't do it. Not for anyone. Not for any sum of money."
He chuckled, and poured himself a glass of champagne. He lifted it to her in a silent, smiling toast, and took a sip.
She was bewildered. "What? Did I say something funny?"
"Not at all," he said. "You said exactly what I hoped you would say. This was a test, Erin. A test that you have passed."
She shivered, and wrapped her arms around herself tightly.
"So you've just been playing with me? Is this all a game to you?"
He sipped his champagne, regarding her keenly over the rim of his glass. "No. The offer was a real one. But I was wondering if you would refuse it on principle. I wanted to see what you were made of. Only if you passed this test would you know what lay beyond the initial offer."
She reached for her glass, and took a gulp, coughing as the bubbles burned down her throat. The torque felt as heavy around her neck as a hangman's noose. "And what does lie beyond it?" she asked.
His lips curved. "An infinity of other possibilities. If you have the courage to embrace them."
"Please be more clear and direct." She'd grown accustomed to Connor's blunt honesty. She had no patience for talking in circles.
"Very well," he said. "Come to Paris with me."
She almost dropped her glass. His hand flashed out and steadied it, his fingers closing over hers. The delicate stem wobbled. Bright drops of liquid splashed out onto his hand, glittering like gems.
He lifted his hand to his lips and licked the drops away.
The calculated sensuality of the gesture repelled her. The room felt glacial, the billowing curtains were ghosts that fluttered around her, wringing their hands in frantic warning. She could almost hear their voices, whispering in her head.
"Paris?" she whispered.
He nodded. "Yes. I did not plan this. I am not an impulsive man by nature. But now that I have seen you, I have never been so serious in my life. Come to Paris with me, Erin."
Erin took a cautious step back. "Ah… and do what?"
This panic was so silly. Men flirted with her on a regular basis. Not as extravagantly as this, perhaps, but it was not an unknown occurrence in her life. And yet she wanted to turn and run. She wanted to cover up that plunging neckline that exposed her chest, her breasts, her heart to his gaze. She wanted a woolen greatcoat, a suit of chain mail. A six-foot reinforced concrete wall. Claude Mueller scared her. There was no earthly reason for it, but he scared her to death.
"And do what?" he repeated softly. "Ah, we'll discover that as we go. Some things can't be planned. They must be lived, in the ever-changing flow of the moment. But we have so much in common, Erin. I, too, have been wounded by falseness. I am repelled by what is venal and rotten. I am intrigued by your refusal to compromise. I am moved by authenticity. I sense it in you. I know how rare it is. I crave it. Like a drug."
She forced her mouth to close, forced herself to swallow. "You don't know me," she said stiffly. "You don't know anything about me."
He reached out his hand, and traced the sensual outline of the dragon torque. His forefinger was very cold against her skin. "I know all I need to know," he said.
She forced herself not to recoil, not to be abrupt and rude, but Connor's face blazed in her mind as she stared down at Mueller's hand against her body. The love in Connor's eyes the night before, when he had kissed her hands and offered her his heart.
Her perception shifted, and she saw herself, a tiny, lonely figure standing on a wind-whipped arctic ice floe that bobbed in dark, icy cold sea water. She was dressed only in the fragile golden gown. The icy white sky above was reflected in Claude Mueller's hungry eyes.
She thought of Novak.
No. Enough of that. Novak was dead, far away in Europe. Nick had said so. It was confirmed. Besides, this man did not look anything like the pictures she'd seen of Kurt Novak. This man was dark-haired, blue-eyed, with two normal hands, a different face. She would not be sucked into a paranoid fantasy. She refused to be controlled by irrational fear.
Follow your heart, her mother had said. In this frozen, arctic landscape, her heart was all she had to follow. Everything else was hidden by cold, blinding light. She thought of her heart. Her warm, red, beating heart, which could not be commanded or fooled. Her heart, which had made its immutable choice years ago: Connor.
She put her glass down and gave in to the impulse to raise her hands to her bosom, shielding her vulnerable heart from his gaze. "I'm, ah, very flattered by your interest, but I'm not free."
His face hardened. "You refer to the gentleman who accompanied you to Silver Fork? Tamara and Nigel described the scene to me. I was sorry to have missed it. McCloud is his name, no?"
She nodded.
"My timing is wretched." He turned and set his glass down sharply on the table behind him. "You were not yet involved with him when you came to Santa Fe, correct? Or San Diego?"
"No," she admitted.
"No. Of course not." He dug his hands into his trouser pockets, his back still turned to her. "From what Nigel and Tamara said, it does not sound as if you were made for each other. Mr. McCloud mistrusts the quality in you that I would treasure the most. You are tragically wasted on a man like him."
She drifted slowly, imperceptibly away from him on her bobbing ice floe. "You are entitled to your opinion," she said.
He gave her a small, self-deprecating smile. "Forgive me. I take it back. I had no right."
"It's all right," she murmured.
He stepped forward impulsively and seized her hand. "Forget it. And forget my offer, if it makes you uneasy. Dine with me, Erin. We will talk of beauty and authenticity in a squalid world. A meeting of minds on a higher plane. It will be our secret, my dear. Your nervous, jealous gentleman friend need never know."
His words pulled it all into focus. Mueller was driving a wedge between the two of them, widening the gap that was already there. She could feel Connor's fear and longing, reaching out across space, tugging at her. The tug unraveled her unnatural calm. Black dots danced in her eyes. Her heart raced wildly.
She had to find Connor. Right now. This minute. She jerked her hand out of Mueller's grip. She didn't give a damn if she seemed abrupt, or rude or childish. She had to get the hell out of here and find Connor.
"I'm sorry." She backed away. "I can't I have to go. Right now."
His eyes narrowed to cold blue slits. "So soon?"
"I have to go," she repeated. "Sorry. Really. I don't mean to be rude. I'll come back tomorrow to look at your new pieces if you like—"
"How kind." His voice was heavy with irony. "It would seem to be the least that you can do."
She rushed out of the room and down the corridor, running on the balls of her feet so that the heels would not trip her. Tamara looked up from the foot of the stairs, alarmed. "Erin? Are you all right?"
"I need my purse. I need my clothes. I need a cab. Please, Tamara. Help me. I have to get out of here," she said desperately. "This minute."
Tamara lifted a device strapped to her wrist, and pressed a button. "Silvio? A car for Ms. Riggs out front immediately, please."
She looked back up at Erin, frowning in concern. "Silvio will take you anywhere you wish to go. I'll get your things. Wait just a moment."
They were, in fact, only moments, but they felt like hours. Erin seized her clothes, shoes, and purse from Tamara and backed toward the entrance. "I'm sorry, but I can't take the time to change," she babbled. "I'll bring the dress back tomorrow when I come to assess the othe
r—"
"The dress is yours, Erin."
"Heavens, no. I can't possibly accept it. I have to—oh, dear God. I almost forgot. Please, take this thing away." She pried the torque off her neck and handed the thing to Tamara. Immediately she could breathe more easily. "I'm sorry, Tamara. I don't know what's come over me. I feel like—like I'm out of my mind."
Tamara's eyes were somber. "Go, then. The car is waiting."
Erin got in and gasped out her address to the driver. She could not wait to get out of this hellish dress. She could not wait to call Connor, to hear his voice, assure herself that he was all right.
She needed it with a frantic desperation that felt almost crazy. If he was crazy, too, then fine and good. It meant they were a matched pair.
Tamara watched the taillights disappear into the dusk, and then continued to stare, her eyes straining in the gloom, but for what she was not sure. Something about that girl moved her. She would like to help Erin Riggs, if she could, but she was no longer sure if she could even help herself. If there ever had been a chance to change her mind and run, it was long past. She was alone in a boat with no oar, a wild current pulling her toward a huge waterfall. She could almost hear its thundering roar, almost feel the cold, white, foaming water, the blinding force. The sharp rocks that awaited her at its foot like teeth.
The quality of the air changed, chilly currents swirling around her as her employer joined her on the steps. He pulled his maimed hand out of his pocket and touched her face. He had taken off the prosthetic, as he always did when they were alone together and he wanted to touch her. He moved his hand until the thumb and the one entire middle finger that remained encircled her throat, pushing aside the high Chinese collar of the satin dress she'd chosen to hide the bruises on her throat. The tip of his finger found her pulse, felt it quicken. Danger had always been her most potent aphrodisiac, but this quickening no longer resembled sexual excitement. This had passed far beyond. Deep into the toxic, barren wasteland of pure fear.
"Everything is in place, of course." It was not a question. If the answer had been no, her life would already be forfeit.
She nodded. "The transponder on McCloud's car shows it parked in a garage near her apartment building. He's waiting for her there."
"And she left wearing the gown. Costumed for high drama. A special bonus. Delicious. This episode should be even more piquant than I had imagined. Do you care to watch the show with me?"
She heard the implacable command beneath the polite phrasing. "Of course," she murmured. "How could I resist?"
How indeed. Voices inside the barricaded part of her howled with bitter amusement. She'd been asking herself that question all week.
"Come," he said. He removed his hand from her throat, and gestured for her to precede him down the corridor to the viewing room.
He never turned his back on her, never. It was uncanny. He must sense that she wanted to kill him, and yet he had confided all his most perilous secrets to her. She wondered why he hadn't killed her yet.
Maybe he was saving her for something special.
They entered the viewing room, with its huge wall screen. Novak sat on the couch before it, on the side with the mouse pad, and clicked on the icons until the dim, silent interior of Erin Riggs's tiny apartment filled the screen. "It's almost a waste," he mused.
"What's a waste?" She was quick to give him openings to hold forth. He loved the sound of his own voice.
"She's rare. So genuinely innocent. I'm surprised that a worthless specimen such as Edward Riggs ever managed to spawn such an unusual daughter. More beautiful than I had expected, too, though I expect that is partly the result of your genius, my dear."
"I try to be useful," she said.
"Do you?" he said. "Come here, Tamara. Be useful."
She sat next to him. "She's very intelligent. She senses a trap."
"But she doesn't recognize the source of her panic," her employee said. "She doesn't trust her instincts. She is ruled by her own code of conduct. She persists in thinking that the world follows rules that she can understand, and therefore, she'll be back tomorrow, right on time, like the conscientious professional that she is. If she were free of the prison in her mind, she would change her name and run."
"But it wouldn't do any good," Tamara said, to flatter him.
He smiled as he touched her face with his ruined index finger. His teeth seemed incredibly sharp. "I'm tempted to take her to Paris for real," he said. His hand trailed lower, touching her throat, her breasts. "I would like to have sex with her. It would be stimulating, I think, to plunder all that radiant, sensual innocence."
He seized her hand, placed it on the bulge in his trousers. She forced herself to smile. She was in for it now. Erin had aroused his most sadistic instincts. She hastened to divert him.
"She never would have gone with you willingly," she said. "She's already bonded with McCloud. You would've had to lure her before their affair caught fire. And once she saw your hand…" Her voice trailed off. Sometimes her employee appreciated honesty. In other moods, it could be a deadly miscalculation.
"You are right," he said. "We're committed to this course of action. It would be a shame to waste all this planning, anyway. Every detail is falling into place. Even the ones I did not anticipate. The sacrifice is acceptable in the eyes of the gods."
"I don't believe in gods," Tamara said boldly. "Any gods."
His eyes pinned her, like a snake mesmerizing its prey. Their luminous glow probed ceaselessly for weaknesses, secrets.
"No? What a treasure you are. A woman who is not afraid of anything. Not even fear." He pulled out a pocketknife from his trousers. The blade whicked out. He lifted the gleaming point to her larynx, and pressed. If she swallowed, it would break the skin.
The blade moved down, feather light. The dark, lapis-colored satin of her dress silently gave way to the preternatural sharpness of the blade. Her body was naked beneath it, only a pair of high, lace-topped black stockings. She wore no panties. She never did. On principle.
She closed her eyes and held herself still as the blade skimmed over her skin, tracing patterns like letters, but an unspeakably alien script. An evil enchantment, to pull her deeper into his thrall.
The blade grazed over her chest, pausing over her racing heart as if drawn to its frantic energy. It trailed lower, over the vulnerable hollow of her belly. He dug the tip into her navel, but she dared not gasp from the pain. One breath, and it would sink into her vitals.
He drew the knife lower, tickling it over her hipbone. The point dug into the skin over the femoral artery in her groin. It brushed tenderly over her mound. "Open your legs, Tamara." His voice was silky soft.
She couldn't move. She was transfixed with terror. She'd gone too far, missed her chance, overshot, fallen short. What an ignominious end. She, who had always hoped for a bold, glorious death.
The level of light in the room suddenly augmented. The video screen flickered into motion. Erin was home. The show had begun.
She gestured toward the screen. "Don't you want to watch?"
He snapped the blade shut, slipped it into his pocket A reprieve.
"We watch, Tamara," he said. "And then we play."
She barely saw what was happening on the screen, she was so conscious of his mangled hand, burning against her naked thigh.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Erin burst through the doors of the Kinsdale and bolted for the stairwell. As soon as she'd torn off that hellish dress and showered off the soiled feeling that Mueller's touch had given her, she would call Connor and apologize for running away. She had to start following her heart. It was that, or watch it break into a million pieces.
Connor was sitting on the staircase, waiting for her.
She reeled back at the foot of the stairs. Her purse, her shoes, her clothes, thudded to the floor. She teetered on the heels and braced herself against the wall, horribly aware of her bosom practically falling out of the bodice, and her eyes, smudged
from the tears she'd been blotting away in the car. "Connor?" she whispered.
His hard gaze raked her from head to foot. "My, my," he said softly. "Don't… you… look… special."
"Connor, I—"
"Check you out, babe." He rose to his feet, looming over her. "No bra. And I've never seen you wear makeup before, at least not like that. It changes your whole look. Wow. What a wild woman."
She shrank back against the wall at his soft, deadly tone.
She'd seen him angry, but never like this. "Connor, I was on my way to—"
"What does it say to me, this new look?" His voice was a mocking parody of playfulness. "It says, the party's over and I've had too much champagne, so take me home and fuck me hard."
Anger jolted her upright. "Don't you dare speak to me like that!"
He advanced upon her. She stumbled away until her bare back was pressed against the tiles. "Did you have fun today, Erin?" he asked.
She lifted her chin. "No, I did not, as a matter of fact," she said. "Connor, don't do this."
He seized her shoulders and pinned her against the wall. "Where the fuck did that dress come from?"
The fury in his voice snapped like a whip against her raw nerves. She struggled wildly in his grip, but he just pressed her harder against the wall with his lower body and cupped her breasts in his hands. "This thing shows your tits off to a really great advantage. Did Mueller like the view? Is this what you meant when you said you were a bad girl now?"
She slapped his hands away from her breasts. "Don't speak to me like that! I did absolutely nothing wrong."
"You lied to me, and you broke your promise. And you're dressed up like a high-priced whore to kiss some rich man's ass. Did you fuck him, too?"
Her hand flashed out. He caught it, lightning quick. "None of that, Erin," he snarled. "It's a valid question. Just look at yourself."
"I would never do a thing like that, and you damn well know it. You owe me an apology."
He let out a crack of bitter laughter. "Don't hold your breath. I've had a really shitty day. I don't feel very apologetic right now."
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