by Julie Leto
She frowned slightly at him, waved over an associate, then excused herself from the customers and approached him with her arms crossed just beneath her breasts, which were even more impressive close up.
“Where have you been, Zane? You said you’d be here by five o’clock.” She glanced at a table-size clock prominently displayed in the gallery, shaped like a man’s genitals.
“Sorry,” Grey said with a shrug. “I got caught up.”
She rolled her eyes, arresting Grey’s interest with the fathomless, ebony irises and feline shape. “Yeah, I’ll bet you did. I hope she was worth it, because now we’ll have to leave before I can fill you in. Claudio is meeting me at the house in twenty minutes.”
“Claudio?”
Grey noticed that when he said the name, his pronunciation lacked the natural roll of the tongue that gave hers such a deep, musical quality. His Creole-laced accent worked best with French, not Italian.
“Claudio di Amante. I’ll explain in the car. Let me grab my bag and talk to Judi for a minute. If we leave in five, we’ll arrive at the house just before he does.”
Grey bit down his natural inclination to ask more questions and instead stepped toward the door. Even in a rush, Reina moved precisely, her heels clicking gently on the tile floor, her hips swinging with a sweet but controlled shimmy. She walked with a grace that spoke of practice. Did they have cotillions where she came from?
Then he remembered she was a U.S. citizen. Despite his desire to leave his newspaper and staid lifestyle behind, he’d checked up on the woman shortly after putting down the phone with his brother. In the article he’d found in the Herald’s archives, his reporter had revealed very little about the woman’s background. She was the daughter of Pilar Price, the internationally renowned stage actress. She’d been born in New York City, but raised and schooled mainly in Europe, either by tutors or at exclusive academies. Nothing in the text hinted at hobbies or her social life, which he assumed, since she traveled the same circles as his brother, included the coolest parties with the hottest people.
Well, she definitely qualified as hot.
She emerged from her office with a slim leather briefcase and a black scarf she’d tossed over one shoulder. She stopped at the reception desk and spoke in discreet whispers to the receptionist, whom he now knew was Judi. She joined him and, at the buzz, waited for him to open the door.
That threw him for an instant, before his old-fashioned manners, beaten into the background by one too many liberated women, fought back to the surface.
“Sorry,” he muttered, but she waved his apology away.
“Why were you late?”
She walked directly toward Zane’s classic red Jaguar, parked just a few spaces up the curb. Apparently, he was driving.
“Nothing’s wrong, is it?” she asked.
Grey disengaged the alarm system, then opened the passenger door. He stood back, not only allowing her room to slip into the low-riding car, but also giving himself a clear vantage point to watch her undulate her body into the cramped space. Not surprisingly, she managed the feat with a graceful dip, like a dancer. He slammed the door, wishing she’d been wearing a skirt. A short one.
He grinned. He’d only been Zane for a few short hours, but he was thinking more like him by the minute.
“Nothing earth-shattering,” he answered, after buckling his seat belt. “I should have put it off until after I met you. Bad call on my part.”
He turned the key and maneuvered the car onto Julia Street, remembering only after he reached the light that he didn’t know where he was going.
Wait. Think.
Oh, yeah. He knew. She lived in the house on First Street, the one Zane had inherited from their great-grandmother, who had been born in the bedroom overlooking the garden and died in the kitchen shortly after baking up a batch of her famous praline pecan cookies. Grey smiled. Grand-mère Lucretia, who’d passed into the other world at the ripe age of one hundred and four, had been a favorite of the twins. She’d never raised her voice, never forbidden them to explore the entire house, secret passageways and hidden rooms included. Her wartime tales remained with Grey to this day. He would have been jealous that Zane received the house as his inheritance, but he’d gotten the island where her family first settled after emigrating from Canada. He shook his head, thinking of how long it had been since he’d visited the island.
Reina cut into his thoughts. “Claudio insists that I’m the only designer who can do justice to the collection. And the timing couldn’t be more crucial. He’s counting on me. More than he should.”
“Why? You’re a brilliant designer.”
“A brilliant designer who can’t keep her jewels safe. Or rather, his jewels. That’s why I called you, Zane. I need your help.”
Grey nodded, though he had no idea what she was talking about. Why couldn’t she keep the jewels safe? He’d seen security cameras inside the gallery, even noticed a guard. And if this Claudio person wanted Reina to work on a jewelry collection, why was she meeting him at her house rather than at her gallery?
That question seemed natural enough to ask without giving himself away.
“You have my help, Reina, of course. But why aren’t we meeting him at the gallery?”
“The gallery still isn’t safe, you know that.”
Now he did.
He took a chance. “Has something new happened that I don’t know about?”
Reina seemed to be a very private person. She wore black. She spoke in a voice that bordered on a whisper. A very cultured, very sexy whisper.
And his brother wasn’t one to pry. He didn’t doubt Zane and Reina’s friendship or their mutually beneficial business relationship, but Grey doubted they were true confidants. As far as he knew, Zane didn’t have and didn’t want someone to share his innermost secrets with. If he did, he’d choose his twin brother, right?
“After the second break-in two weeks ago, my insurance carrier canceled me. But don’t worry about liability,” she reassured him. “Each of the artists I’m currently showing has their own policy and I’m not accepting any more commissions that involve valuable pieces. Well, I wasn’t. Until Claudio.”
Though he doubted Zane cared one flip about liability or insurance, he knew his brother handled his investments with care. Grey managed most of the family accounts and Zane hadn’t dipped into his trust fund for years. In fact, Zane could have taken control of the money after his thirtieth birthday, but preferred to let Grey manage the portfolio as he had their entire adult life.
“I’m not worried about the insurance,” he said, trying to sound as flip as he figured his brother would about such matters, “but I am worried about you. You shouldn’t have to pass up business because the building I’m leasing to you isn’t secure.”
“Let’s not discuss this again, Zane. I can’t allow you to pay for any more security at the building. If you’d leased it to that auction house, they’d be responsible for keeping their pieces safe. Just as I am. You already had the alarm system installed before I opened.”
“At the gallery,” he said, hoping he was correct in his next guess. “But not at the house.”
“I saw no need. Before.”
Her voice had dipped in volume, and Grey heard the distinct sound of misgiving.
“It’s a grand old house,” he commented, allowing a break from the tension. “The ten-foot wall and bramble vines kept my great-grandmother safe, even when she lived there all alone.”
“That’s why I didn’t have an alarm system put in. Now, I simply can’t afford it. I’ve spent all my extra money, except what I need to live and keep the gallery open. The rest is tied up in investments until at least the end of the year.”
“You shouldn’t have to afford it. It’s still my house. It’s my responsibility to keep my tenant safe from harm.”
Reina remained silent. Grey shifted a bit in the soft leather seat, wondering if talking about responsibility with such ease was a mistake, since he wa
s supposed to be Zane. He’d often wondered if the word even existed in Zane’s vocabulary, but reminded himself that they did, after all, share the same genetic material and had been raised in the same loving household. Except for attending different schools, they’d had nearly indistinguishable influences.
And yet, they remained the most different set of identical twins he’d ever met.
“Zane, you don’t know how much I want to deny that.”
“You don’t want me to help you? Then why’d you call?”
Reina touched the middle finger of her right hand to the precise center of her forehead, as if the tiny pressure could relieve whatever ailed her.
“I called because no matter how much I don’t want to ask for your assistance, I can’t afford to let Claudio di Amante, his jewelry, or his very generous offer slip away. Crass as it sounds, I need the cash. And, consequently, I need your help.”
Needing money didn’t sound crass to him. Probably wouldn’t to Zane, either. They’d been raised in wealth, but they had never forgotten that their money had come from the entrepreneurial spirits of their hardworking ancestors.
At a stoplight, Grey turned and faced her, trying not to appear too intense about his offer. “The least I can do is arrange security for the house. But that may not be enough. All the bells and whistles in the world won’t keep someone out if they’re determined to get in.”
Reina allowed his warning to linger, responding neither verbally nor with any change of her expression. After a moment, she slipped her hand into her briefcase and retrieved her sunglasses, hiding her eyes from his scrutiny. If she was worried, she didn’t let on as he drove the car from the gallery to the Garden District.
Some women could be hard to read. Lane had always nibbled her bottom lip when something was bothering her, a problem he could usually solve for her with a spontaneous seduction.
He turned onto St. Charles Street, wondering what Reina Price, the somewhat aloof designer of intimate jewelry, would do if he pulled onto a deserted side street and tempted away her troubles with a long, wet kiss.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
He hadn’t noticed that she’d turned her attention on him.
Clearing his throat, he answered, “You don’t want to know, chère.”
She laughed. “Don’t pull that coy crap with me, Zane Masterson.”
“Crap? Now you are being crass.”
“I’ve been in the States too long, I suppose.”
“Oh, yes…no one curses in Europe. I forgot.”
Her chuckle deepened and Grey relished the sound. Deep. Guttural. Honest. Yet mysterious, as if expressing humor wasn’t something she did very often.
But she did with Zane.
The rapport she felt for his brother reflected in the way she reclined into the seat, relaxed and trusting, and in the way she spoke to him, with unguarded words and easy confessions. Grey wondered just how intimate a relationship she and Zane had shared in the past. Just how intimate a relationship he had to mimic in his impersonation of his brother.
He shook his head silently. Tough job, but someone has to do it.
Zane and Grey had decided to tell no one about the switch. Though Zane assured Grey that Reina could be completely trusted with their secret, Grey reminded Zane that letting anyone in on the situation stole the fun. Grey was, after all, supposed to be on a vacation from being himself, a reward he richly deserved.
“Oh, they curse in Europe,” Reina admitted. “But somehow the accents seem to detract from the vulgarity, not to mention the beauty of some of the languages. I used to love to hear my mother lose her temper in Spanish or Italian. Sounded like so much fun.”
Grey understood. His great-grandmother, the one who had owned the house Reina now rented, could swear up a storm in Acadian French and it sounded as if she was spouting poetry.
“Do you speak Italian?”
Reina glanced over her glasses. Oops. Maybe Zane already knew the answer to that.
“I mean, do you still speak Italian?”
Reina pushed the shades onto the bridge of her nose. “Mother never spent much time in Italy after I was born, though she had a summer home we’d visit every few years. I get by in restaurants. I know enough Spanish and French. Pilar preferred the stages in London, Madrid, Paris, Prague—though I never could grasp Czech grammar. We did spend a lot of time in New York.”
“And now New Orleans.”
“Yes, well…your city offered my mother her own theater, her own company of actors and free rein over nearly every aspect of the productions. How could a woman as talented—and as vain—as my mother possibly refuse?”
Grey knew the question was rhetorical, so he concentrated on remembering the way to his great-grandmother’s house. He hadn’t been there in years, possibly since before he’d learned to drive. Still, the great thing about New Orleans, besides the food, was that little ever changed. After a few uncertain minutes, he made the correct turns and was soon maneuvering the tiny sports car along a narrow alley that ran up to the garage behind the house.
After struggling with a wrought-iron gate he vowed to convert to automatic even before he installed a security camera, Grey helped Reina out of the car behind the house. He nearly instructed her to wait for him before she went inside, but then saw a glossy black limousine advancing along the street in front of the house. The mysterious Claudio di Amante, no doubt.
“He’ll go to the front door. I’ll meet you inside. Don’t want to keep the man waiting.”
The minute Reina disappeared inside through the back door, Grey cursed. He hadn’t had time to check the guy out. Taking a chance that his brother wouldn’t be at the newspaper on such a gorgeous Saturday evening, he quickly dialed the crime desk while securing the car inside the detached garage.
“Shelby Parker.”
“Shelby, it’s Grey. I need a quick favor. What do you have on any robberies over at the Price Gallery on Julia?”
His intrepid, albeit young, crime reporter didn’t miss a beat. “Two robberies, actually.” He could hear her fingers flying over her keyboard. “The first one was about two months ago. A collection of antique ruby necklaces taken from a locked safe. Ms. Price was allegedly redesigning new settings for the grand-daughter of a duchess who’d inherited them when the stones were taken.”
“A duchess?”
Shelly snorted. “No, the grand-daughter. Have you seen Reina Price’s designs? She definitely appeals to a younger crowd.”
He recalled the flowering pin he’d seen at the gallery, the one that brought the taste of a woman’s arousal to his mouth. He’d experienced the appeal of Reina’s work firsthand and doubted it would have affected him any less, no matter his age.
“And the second robbery?” he asked, needing to keep his mind on the matter at hand.
“Oh, here it is. I didn’t cover this one…happened a month ago. Another cache of jewels stolen from the safe—a different, more impenetrable one than the first, supposedly.” Shelby rattled off the details, which Grey instantly committed to memory. “The night watchman, hired after the first robbery, was knocked unconscious. Security camera tapes missing. The police suspect—”
“—an inside job.” Grey had covered the crime beat during his college internship and then as a cub reporter. He’d learned to think like a detective so he could ask the right questions. He never figured he’d have to use his experience to help a friend. Zane’s friend. Maybe, someday, his friend.
“Any suspects?”
“Not according to this. We haven’t done any follow-ups. Want me to get on it?”
While he admired Shelby’s eager enthusiasm, he didn’t need her sticking her nose in Reina’s business right now, not with him planning to stay close until he was sure she was safe. He wasn’t exactly sure when he’d formulated that part of his scheme, but he figured it was sometime around the moment Reina stepped out of her office in all her sensual loveliness.
“I’ve got it covered for
now, thanks. And listen, if you see me around the office, don’t let on that I called you, okay? I’m working on something.”
Shelby hissed with expectant curiosity. “Does this have anything to do with the sand in the gas tanks?”
Sand in the gas tanks? Obviously, something new had happened at the newspaper. Grey bit back any questions, determined to allow Zane to deal with the family troubles despite his concern and curiosity. He would just have to find out the details from Zane later. For now he would focus on Reina. “No, it doesn’t.”
Shelby paused, and Grey could practically hear the sharp mechanisms in his reporter’s brain rushing to all sort of outlandish conclusions, conclusions she’d been known to prove on occasion. “Anything I can help you with, boss?”
Grey closed his eyes. The smell of the blossoming night jasmine in Reina’s garden brought to mind the exotic scent of her perfume. He let the powerful essence work its magic over his wired nerves, and imagined, for a brief moment, how the fragrance would intensify if he pressed a delicate white petal over Reina’s smooth, warm skin.
“No, thanks, Shel,” he murmured. “You get back to the grind. I’ve got this one covered.”
3
REINA SLIPPED HER ATTACHÉ beside the worktable in her solarium studio, then surrendered to her strong need to peek one more time at Zane. Zane, the playboy whose charm she’d been immune to since the first moment she met him. Zane, who flirted with her more out of habit than out of seductive intent. Zane, who suddenly seemed to look at her with eyes she’d never seen.
Shielded by the ferns she’d hung near the window, she watched him pace just outside her garage while talking on his cell phone, looking more serious than she’d ever seen him in the entire five years she’d known him.
Not to mention more handsome, more mysterious, more…sexy. Caged, like a powerful animal. Ravenous. Ferocious. Reina closed her eyes and allowed a quick fantasy to rush through her. Duran Duran provided the soundtrack. Hungry like a wolf.
“Okay, it’s official,” she said aloud, shaking her head as she stepped into her guest bathroom to check her makeup and hair before she answered the door to Claudio, whose knock she expected any second. “I am long overdue for a lover.”
