by Dee Brice
“No!” She had the grace to blush, but would not meet his eyes.
“You do believe it,” he said, trailing after her, watching her pick up the clothes she had dropped on the floor on her way to the shower, feeling his world falling apart. The woman he was falling in love with thought him capable of murder. Either that or—he narrowed his eyes in a glare she did not see—she was attacking him to deflect suspicion from herself.
“I don’t believe it,” she insisted, finally looking at him. She raked her damp hair back from her face and sighed. “Look, we’re both tired and I, for one, am starving. Let’s table this for now, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. What do you want to eat?”
“Those enormous shrimp—”
“Gambas,” he provided.
“Gambas, Caesar salad, steak—rare—with baked potato and all the fixings. A nice cabernet or gamay wine. You decide.”
“And for dessert?”
TC noticed the hint of amusement in his deep voice and that his eyes were hooded, leaving her feeling oddly deprived of his openly admiring gaze.
“We’ll see.”
“Indeed we shall.” Whistling, he pulled on a pair of faded jeans that hugged his powerfully muscled legs and buttocks. And, she noted when he turned to face her, the burgeoning bulge at the apex of his thighs. If she didn’t know it was anatomically impossible, she’d swear he was deliberately taunting her with his maleness. That his mastery of his own body—of his growing cock—was as total as his control of hers.
With a cheeky grin, he left the room.
She couldn’t stop her answering smile, but soon her euphoric mood faded. Just when she thought she might begin to trust him, something or someone like George Fox came along to make her instincts scream that she couldn’t trust anyone. Especially not a man who called Interpol agents by their first names.
But, damn, she was tired of fighting alone. How wonderful it would be if she could tell Ian the whole story, to let some of her burdens rest on his wide shoulders. But she couldn’t. Not now, when her life, her freedom, hung on her ability to prove her innocence.
Rummaging in her dresser drawers, she pulled out a pair of lacy emerald-colored bikini panties and the matching bra Ian had insisted on buying her. A shiver chased down her spine. She appreciated the maid’s putting away their purchases, but disliked the idea of a stranger handling her clothes. It felt like an invasion of her privacy, of her most intimate thoughts and dreams.
She was being silly, she assured herself as she tried to close the drawer, but could not. What the hell? Opening the drawer, she discovered a large velvet pouch. Its strings had caught over the back edge, preventing the drawer from closing. Digging in the bag, she went cold to the marrow of her bones. In the soft velvet bag were a dozen stones, emeralds of the finest quality, she would wager, wishing for her jeweler’s loupe to better gauge their quality.
Shivering, shaking uncontrollably, she dug deeper and pulled out a somewhat smaller bag of the same black velvet. Sickening premonition tightening every muscle in her body, she opened the pouch, then crumpled to the floor. Isabella’s Belt slipped from her suddenly numb fingers.
How? Who?
The answer to that was patently clear. Ian Soria’d had the Belt planted, probably by that toady George Fox, but possibly by that cherubic traitor Nick Troy! But why plant the other gems as well? Wasn’t that a bit of overkill, even for an unmitigated fiend like Ian Soria? Feeling as if she’d been used for a punching bag, she struggled to her feet and forced herself to search the rest of the dresser. When she found the Walther PPK380, she smiled grimly, reminded that Ian had called her Ms. Bond, that the Walther was James Bond’s favorite weapon. Was this the gun that had killed the bank staff?
Rage flooded through her. She’d had enough of waiting for the axe to fall. She’d find out who had killed those men, who had tried to kill her, who had planted this incriminating evidence in her suite. And if Ian Soria tried to get in her way, she’d…
Overcoming her distaste for what she had to do next, she ransacked Ian’s side of the dresser, only mildly surprised to find not one pair of handcuffs but two. Unfortunately, neither set was big enough to fit around his treacherous neck, but they would serve her present needs. She dumped her discoveries on the bed and dressed. She had to get out of there before the police, whom Ian no doubt had called while she dawdled, arrived.
Slipping the bag of emeralds into the one containing Isabella’s Belt, sliding the Walther into the waistband of her slacks, she took both sets of handcuffs in hand and let her fury claim her.
Hearing the door open, Damian turned and watched Tiffany glide toward him, once more the sinuous woman he had met in St. Anton. Like him, she wore unrelieved black and, judging by her stormy green eyes, her mood bordered on fury.
“Where are you going?” he asked, mesmerized by her sensuous walk toward the outer door.
“One of us is leaving,” she said, flinging the bundle she carried into his face.
“What are you doing?” he asked when he had fought free of the smothering fabric. Too late he saw the weapon she held in a steady hand.
“I’m leaving.” Motioning with the gun—his own weapon—she followed him to the bedroom. “Handcuffs, luv, one around the bedpost, the other around your wrist.” She tossed them to him, not blinking, her expressive face as blank as a wall.
Although he doubted she would murder him in cold blood, he recalled the callousness with which the bank people had been dispatched and considered his options.
“I never hurt anyone,” she said, “but if you push me, I’ll leave you maimed.”
“Okay.” He cuffed himself and willed her to come closer so he could grab the gun and force her to free him.
“Now these.” She tossed him a second set of cuffs and watched him fasten his free hand to the bedpost. Leaving the Walther well out of his reach, she checked the handcuffs. “Shame on you,” she scolded and squeezed them until they locked. Then she patted him down until she found a set of keys in his pocket and removed them.
“Why are you doing this, Tiffany? I have done everything to keep—”
“To set me up.” Opening the pouch he had brought with him, she took out a smaller bag, then turned it upside down and let the contents spill over his chest. “I think the Santanas may find they’re missing some emeralds.” Doing the same with the larger bag, she sneered at his startled expression. Isabella’s Belt tumbled into his lap.
“Tiffany, I swear—”
“Don’t worry, Ian, the police you called should be here in a little while.” She disconnected the telephone and carried it beyond his reach, then returned to study him with a steady, condemning gaze. “I won’t give you the satisfaction of knowing how much you’ve hurt me.”
She stalked to the open balcony door. Whirling to face him, she threatened, “If you try to find me, Ian, I swear I’ll shatter your kneecaps.”
He saw her gather the tattered shreds of her composure. With a cheeky grin, she blew him a kiss and vanished through the French doors.
* * * * *
“Jesu, Damian,” Nick Troy said when he spotted Damian handcuffed to the bed. “What the devil happened? Where’s Tiffany?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. She… Is she splattered all over the carrera?”
“Tiffany, you mean? Splattered in the street? Of course not.” Spotting the jewels scattered across the bed, Nick gathered them up and stared at Damian as if one of them had lost his mind. “Lord almighty—”
“Just toss everything into the bathroom,” Damian advised with an engaging smile for the maid nervously shadowing Nick. Her keys rattled in her trembling hand. “Later, Nick. Tip the girl, then order up.”
“Order up? Steak? Ajiaco? I’ve a hankering for chicken stew. Paella?”
“Scotch. A bottle—the largest they have.”
“Right.” Fishing in his pocket for a tip, Nick grinned and backed the maid to the suite doors. “Gracias, señorita. ¿Mas tarde? Later?” He pressed a qui
ck kiss to her cheek, then closed the door on her.
“Now you can get me out of these damn cuffs,” Damian said when Nick reappeared in the bedroom.
Hearing a loud tapping, he wandered back into the living room. “Not just yet, I think,” Nick said over his shoulder. He ignored Damian’s curses and opened the French doors. Stepping onto the narrow balcony, he discovered a rain-drenched and shivering Tiffany.
“Hello,” he said conversationally, as if he had found her lounging in the living room.
“The problem with dramatic exits,” she said through chattering teeth, “is the lack of a planned escape route. I didn’t realize he’d locked the balcony doors to the living room.”
“Why are you whispering?” he whispered.
“Because I don’t want him to know I’m still here.”
Nick frowned at her puzzling statement, but did not pretend to misunderstand which him she referred to. “Why?”
“Why?” she shrieked-whispered. “Because he’s responsible for the attempts on my life! Look, I realize he’s a friend of yours, but I don’t trust him.” She strode into the half-bath and returned with a hand towel pressed to her face.
“Nick, I’m dying in here,” Damian shouted from the bedroom.
“Better him than me,” Tiffany mumbled. She raised her head and fixed Nick with a speculative glare. “Can I trust you? Probably not, but I’m out of handcuffs. Would you mind getting my luggage from the bedroom?”
“And then what?”
“Then we’ll go somewhere safe. And we’ll talk.”
“About what?” he said, sounding damn close to fearful.
“About you. About me.”
“About Da— About Ian?”
She grinned. Nick shivered.
“Most especially about Ian.”
* * * * *
Trailing Tiffany to a table in a dark corner of the hotel bar, Nick forced himself to survey the few customers rather than the tantalizing sway of her hips. Had he accompanied any other woman who looked like a kitten rescued at the last minute from drowning, he would have worried about being tossed out on his butt. But, with a walk like hers, Nick was more concerned about protecting them both from the men who were staring at her while dismissing him with a sneer. Sometimes, he thought with an inward groan, looking harmless put him at a disadvantage. He could only hope this wasn’t one of those times.
When they were seated, both with their backs to the wall so they could see the entire room, Nick gave the waitress their order and glanced at his companion. For the first time since he’d met her, she looked weary, unable to cope with whatever misfortune fate threw at her.
“Do you have identification?” she asked once the waitress had delivered their drinks—a beer for him, Irish coffee for her—and had gone.
“Pardon?”
“Do you have any form of identification that proves you’re Nick Troy and that you work for…whoever you work for?”
“Y-yes. Do you want to see it?” he said, unable to keep incredulity from his voice. He was support, not a field agent who wouldn’t carry identification while undercover.
“Yes. You can pretend you’re showing me pictures of the wife and kids, if you like.” She grinned, briefly looking like her usual self. “I promise to ooh and ahh at the appropriate time.”
“That isn’t necessary,” he said, nonetheless relieved that the other patrons had turned their attention elsewhere. He withdrew his wallet, showed Tiffany his badge and his photo-identification card, then put everything back in his pocket.
“Ian doesn’t carry identification,” she said, wrapping her fingers around her drink as if warming her hands. “Oh, he has a driver’s license and a passport, but he doesn’t carry a badge like you do.”
“Why would he?” Nick had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had no idea where this conversation was going, nor did he have the foggiest notion of how to gain control.
“Ian said he sometimes works for Interpol.”
“Did he?” Nick was shocked into saying. Hunter must have been desperate to intimate so much to their primary suspect. Desperate or a fool.
“But he can’t prove it.”
Choosing his words with care, Nick said, “Agents working undercover don’t carry the kind of identification that would give them away if someone searched their wallets.”
“So, Ian does work for Interpol.”
“I’m not saying that.” Feeling as if he were choking, Nick loosened his tie and prayed that Damian would come charging in to rescue him. Then Nick remembered that his friend was indisposed, trapped on the bed by his dead brother’s handcuffs. Nick wanted to run, convinced Damian would kill him—or worse!—once he got free.
“Then he doesn’t.”
“Pardon?”
“Then Ian doesn’t work for Interpol?”
“Why do you want to know?”
At that, she seemed to lose all control. Whispering furiously, she said, “Because he’s trying to kill me. Because I want you to take me into protective custody. Because I stole Isabella’s Belt.” Holding out her hands, her wrists together, she demanded, “Cuff me, Troy.”
Nick burst out laughing.
* * * * *
“Where the hell have you been?” Damian shouted when Nick reappeared several hours later.
“With Tiffany,” Nick said calmly, freeing Damian’s hands.
Damian sprang to his feet, then fell back with a groan. Fiery needles pierced his legs and feet. His wrists ached and his head felt like a hundred miners were pounding his brain with picks.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
“Somewhere safe.”
“Where?” What the hell was going on here? First, Tiffany had acted as if he was an axe murderer, now Nick was treating him like a leper.
Nick raked his perfectly styled hair and expelled a sigh heavy with frustration. “I promised her I wouldn’t tell you.”
“You what?” Damian surged to his feet and grabbed Nick’s lapels. “Who the hell do you think you are? This is my case, Nick, and Tiffany is my prime suspect.”
Nick stood his ground. “You aren’t Michael, Damian. This case isn’t yours. And from what I saw here tonight, you’ve recovered Isabella’s Belt.”
“Yeah, well there is still the matter of murder.”
“You can’t believe Tiffany murdered those men.”
“Can I not? Let me tell you something about Ms. Tiffany Cartierri.” Damian proceeded to relate how Tiffany had elbowed him in the bathroom, how she had held him prisoner at gunpoint—twice—and had threatened him with bodily harm if he tried to find her. “The woman is lethal.”
“The woman,” Nick countered with heavy irony, “is running for her life. And she thinks you’re the one trying to kill her.”
“I hope you told her the truth.”
“I told her nothing. How could I? This is still an open case.”
“So, you agree Tiffany is still the prime suspect.” For a time he had believed in her innocence, now he felt less certain. A telephone call would confirm whether or not Emilio Santana was missing any emeralds. Another call would determine the authenticity of Isabella’s Belt, now residing in his bathtub. If it was a fake, then Tiffany had lied to him about the Belt she said she had taken from the bank. Confessed as she wakened him with bitter espresso coffee and sweet galletas the morning after he’d fallen asleep on her bed.
So why this hesitation?
Because she could have shot him, but had not? Because that act of mercy proclaimed her innocent—not innocent of stealing Isabella’s Belt, perhaps, but of killing those men at the bank? Maybe she had difficulty killing someone who was facing her. Maybe a garrote from behind was more her style. Maybe she could not kill a man with whom she had made love.
Maybe his brains had taken up residence somewhere below his belt.
“No, I don’t agree. I do think, however, that whoever did kill those men wants her dead, as well.”
“Why?” Damia
n wondered aloud, his mouth dry, his head pounding with fear for the woman who had captured his heart. He did not trust her, but he was, he feared, falling in love with her.
Nick shrugged out of Damian’s grasp and paced away. “Maybe it’s somebody she stole from during her career as a thief.”
“Or maybe it is someone whose jewelry she recovered.”
“Huh?”
“Someone who wanted the insurance money more than he wanted the stolen property.” Damian restored the telephone and dialed. He ordered ajiaco and bottle of scotch from room service. “Or maybe it is someone who feels she betrayed him.”
“Her father?”
“Or Sir James Foster.” Liking that idea more than Charles Cartierri framing his own daughter, Damian nodded.
“So, what are we going to do?”
“You won’t tell me where she is?”
“No.” Nick grinned. “But I’ll tell where she’ll be tomorrow night.”
Damian barely drew a breath. “Where?”
* * * * *
At eleven o’clock the next night, TC stepped out of the green and ivory taxi and pulled her full-length cape tighter around her. Realizing she was gaping, she closed her mouth, but continued to stare at the building across the street. Glass and wrought iron seemed to soar to the cloud-riddled heavens. The Tiffany-style glass entrance glowed ruby red around the revolving door. Bacchus and some goddess or other looked down from the second story, but TC couldn’t decide if their expressions were welcoming or forbidding.
“Wow,” Nick said.
“I thought you’d been here before.”
“I only know people who have.”
“And these costumes we’re wearing?” TC asked, eyeing his tights-encased legs, his short, baggy pantaloons, his armor-plated chest.
“De rigueur,” he said with an insouciant smile. “If we weren’t in costume, we wouldn’t be admitted. This is, after all, fiesta.”
“By invitation only,” TC said, parroting Nick’s words of last night. “How did you get us invited?”
“I know people. Come on, we’re missing the fun.”
TC sniffed her disgust at the situation, but let Nick lead her across the street and then preceded him through the revolving door. Inside, she found herself surrounded by an oddly attractive combination of Byzantine and Art Nouveau décor. Surprising her, strains of Mozart drifted down from somewhere overhead.
