The Chase

by Vanessa Fewings

  The room was filled with the ethereal sound of shards of white light shattering into a million crystals and this was music unlike anything I’d ever heard, as though prisms of color had transmuted into notes...

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I thought of Tobias, realizing this was what he’d wanted me to know.

  Being here was the only way I’d have understood.

  I knew this with all my heart and a sigh of understanding escaped my lips.

  The elderly monk’s right hand rested on the top of my head and his words flowed, sending peace coursing through me. Time evaporated...

  Outside, I blinked against the light of the sun, unsure how long I’d been lost in this meditation.

  Soothed by prayer, the truth glared as brightly as this morning light: Tobias used his mastery of technology to right the wrongs of this world. Art and science had a common denominator and it was spirituality.

  Icon was fighting back.

  33

  Madame Rose Récamier emanated the kind of calmness I’d come to appreciate over the last seven days since Tobias Wilder had left my life.

  Rose emanated empowerment too. Her Grecian dress not just a fashionable choice of the early 1800s, it also emphasized her self-respect as she reclined on that long sofa, her posture of facing away with her arm relaxed along her body and her hand open revealed she made decisions on her terms.

  Perhaps that was why my dad had bought her for me and hung her in my bedroom at such a young age, so I’d wake every day to see this strong woman who embraced her femininity.

  Rose wasn’t the only painting to have altered the pathway of my life.

  St. Joan’s momentary appearance at Christie’s had sparked controversy for a while. This portrait felt like the tip of the iceberg in an intriguing mystery that was now my life. Perhaps somewhere within those leftover boxes of heirlooms stored in the basement of my dad’s old house were clues.

  For now, the storm had settled, and I let out a sigh of gratitude that calm had returned to my life again. It was so easy to become absorbed in a painting and forget the world around me.

  After all that had happened I still believed Rose would be safe here.

  I wondered how many visitors would ever realize what they were looking at when they viewed her. Perhaps they’d assume she was nothing but a pretty girl in a simple white dress who had been lucky enough to be immortalized on canvas.

  If only they knew her like I did.

  Rose’s bravery in entertaining free-thinking artists and painters at her private salon apparently caused Napoleon, France’s most famous military and political leader, to banish her from Paris. She’d hosted one too many of his opponents, apparently, and Napoleon had a reputation for exiling those who’d threatened him.

  Madame Rose had been no wallflower.

  And neither was I.

  I’d cracked open a conspiracy within the art world, and I refused to disappear into the fabric of a life that had no meaning. Only when the veil is lifted do we see the world as it really is, a sometimes heartbreaking creation that we can only comprehend through art.

  And art was in my blood.

  Though it was Tobias Wilder who had found his way into my heart.

  I was no longer angry with myself for letting him in. He, like me, had been exposed to the lengths men would go to possess, and centuries had seen too many of them get away with it. Until Wilder had swept in and demanded retribution.

  As he’d reassured me, no one gets hurt. He was merely reuniting the paintings with their rightful owners.

  Though it was still highly illegal and morally questionable.

  I gave a nod of respect to Rose and made my way back to the other end of the gallery. Punching the button to call the lift.

  I’d not heard from Tobias since I’d drifted to sleep at his home in Oxford. Afterward, I’d been dropped off at my London home and my adventure had ended abruptly.

  Or had it begun?

  Stepping into the lift, my thoughts stayed with him.

  The moment you see through the veil of truth there is no unseeing it.

  I mused it was still interesting how thoughts of Tobias lifted my spirits, his gorgeous smile, the way he laughed at my silly jokes, and how he’d risked so much to hide St. Joan away and suppress the evidence of my father’s undiscovered secrets.

  My descent took me to the ground level.

  I’d taken this brief detour on my way to Huntly Pierre and felt centered again and inspired by these remarkable artists.

  The lift doors opened and I headed toward the foyer.

  Ahead of me lay an 11:00 a.m. appointment where I’d get to appraise a Raphael. Later, I’d attend a routine staff meeting and somewhere during the day I’d water my bonsai tree.

  I paused to admire a corner marble sculpture of Aphrodite. It was new to The Otillie, and I quietly thanked those who’d donated her. She was beautiful, her sweeping dress carved masterfully and her oval face exquisite. I knew what it meant to hand over a cherished piece of art to share with the world and also knew that peace came with such a decision.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out. I turned the corner and huddled against the wall.

  A quick glance around reassured me I was alone.

  I accepted the incoming video and saw Tobias’s smiling face looking back. His enduring dashing looks concealed the mystery behind the man.

  “Have you forgiven me?” He gave a kind smile.

  “Yes and no.”

  “I’m sorry I... You look so beautiful when you sleep.”

  “If you ever drug me again...so help me God.”

  “I’m strangely aroused.” He chuckled. “I’m glad you’re open to sleeping with me again.”

  “I wish you’d trusted me. You like to live dangerously. I got all the way to New Scotland Yard. You cut it close.”

  “I had faith in you. Thank you for returning the artifact. The priests are eternally grateful.”

  “Your way of implicating me?”

  “Secrecy is our code.”

  My heart ached as I asked this nagging question. “Did you use me to get closer to the case?”

  “Never... I care deeply for you. I let you in. That’s all the proof you need.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to fathom those words and how I’d ever get over him.

  “I hear you received a blessing from a high priest Lama?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s life changing.”

  “You’re life changing.”

  “As are you.” He let out a long sigh. “Whenever you want you can have St. Joan back. She is yours, after all.”

  “You know that for sure?”

  “I do, yes.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath. “Are you still in England?”

  “No.”

  “How can you be sure I’m not recording this?”

  “It’s my phone.”

  My eyes closed for a beat as I realized he’d probably been tracking my every move. “Does anyone else know you’re Icon? Coops? Logan?”

  His silence lingered too long.

  “Throw yourself into your inventions, Tobias. You’re gifted and capable of so much good.”

  “Necessity is the mother of invention and my inventions serve a need.”

  “You’ve got to stop this. This will end badly. I know you believe this is your purpose and this is who you are but you can’t save everyone. You can’t turn back the past.”

  My heart ached that he’d risked everything to let me in and I was now his greatest threat.

  “I tried not to get close to you.” His voice cracked with emotion. “My need for you is my greatest weakness. You’ve utterly destroyed me.”

  The m
ore we resisted each other the greater the pull of gravity between us.

  “Please, do this for me,” I said. “Walk away from this life. Isn’t there another way to help these people?”

  “I wish there was. I started out trying every avenue to right these wrongs. Every means to work within the law. If there was any other way don’t you think I’d choose that?”

  “But why you?”

  “I’m the only one who can. I have the knowledge, the resources and the will. No one else can do what I’m doing.”

  “All of it just for art?”

  “Zara.” His voice softened. “You were the one who told me it’s more than a painting.”

  “It’s still wrong.”

  “I’ve made peace with that. But you know what’s right? It’s people reconnecting with these works that go beyond life saving. They’re life affirming. Everything has more meaning if you look beyond the evidence. If I’m the one to carry this burden, then so be it.”

  This ache in my chest would never lift.

  “I will always love you.”

  I nudged up closer to the wall. “Then don’t leave.”

  “It must be this way for now.”

  I clutched my stomach to lessen this dreadful pang of loss.

  “You know what surprises me the most, my sweet Zara?”

  “What?”

  “You of all people never once questioned your own provenance.”

  My chest heaved with the revelation...

  Would I ever be brave enough to explore his implication? I wasn’t sure I was.

  Silence lingered... “Zara.”

  “Yes?”

  “Madame extraordinaire. You’d create such a sensation in Paris.” He’d just told me how to find him.

  My thumb slid across the screen. “I’m coming to get you... Icon.”

  Before he could respond, I ended the call.

  I slipped the phone into my handbag, steeled my nerves and left The Otillie, passing a multitude of lavish masterpieces, their ageless faces gazing upon me with an aura of regard.

  We both knew we’d meet again. It was only a matter of when.

  * * * * *

  In THE GAME, the second novel of the ICON trilogy, bestselling romance author Vanessa Fewings widens the canvas of an intoxicating and thrilling world as Zara must make the ultimate choice at a moment when all is not what it seems.

  If you loved the danger and desire in The Chase by USA TODAY bestselling author Vanessa Fewings, you won’t want to miss the next installment in this addictive series!

  The spellbinding ICON trilogy continues in

  The Game

  When London’s most prominent young art theft investigator must choose between the work she adores and the one man she shouldn’t love, the stakes have never been higher.

  Order your copy today!

  And look out for

  The Prize

  The exhilarating conclusion to a stunning series!

  “Vanessa Fewings has created an intriguingly sexy and masterful beginning to the ICON series!”

  —New York Times bestselling author Lisa Renee Jones

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  ISBN-13: 9781488023460

  The Chase

  Copyright © 2017 by Vanessa Fewings

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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