by Julie Leto
She pushed away from the door, clutching the small, handwritten diary Claudio had swiftly and secretly given her after Zane had left the room.
“This is for you alone,” he’d whispered, retrieving a book from a hiding place beneath the sponge that had cradled the stones.
The creased leather-and-gold-leaf pages had felt heavy in her hands. The dire expression in his eyes intensified the weight.
“This belonged to my mother,” he explained. “Years ago, when she was a young woman, she found a companion to il Gioielliere’s diaries. Hidden in the family home, apparently forgotten. To help her learn English, she translated them herself. What she discovered changed her life.”
Reina had flipped open the first page, lovingly penned in crisp cursive: Memoirs of Viviana Bazardi.
Her breath instantly caught and she reverently turned the pages, spying words that increased her curiosity. Words like passion, insatiable, hungry with desire. Viviana Bazardi had been the mistress for whom il Gioielliere had created his priceless, sensual collection. The woman millions of readers across the country intimately knew through the words of her once-clandestine lover.
Now Reina held Viviana’s most intimate secrets and impressions and wondered how her confessions could change a woman’s life. She eagerly flipped to a page in the center.
I learned his length. Memorized his thickness. His heat. If any other man came into my bed, even if I were blindfolded, I would know my Gianni, my Gioielliere, the moment his shaft pressed against my thigh. For an entire year, he denied my yearning to feel him inside me. But tonight, I received my deepest wish and my body still…
“He’s gone?”
Reina jumped at Zane’s voice but knew better than to try to conceal the book. Instead, she let her hand drop casually to her side. While she indeed trusted Zane with her life, she didn’t want to tell him about the diary just yet. Zane would be the type to want to read it with her, and frankly, she didn’t think her body could survive the sensual overload. Even now, she was having a hard time concentrating with him standing so near.
“Claudio?” she asked. “Yes, he just left. He knows I’m anxious to get to work.”
Zane peered outside, brushing aside her decorative sheers. “The security won’t be in place for a few hours, though it looks like Rocco and Guido are still on the job.” He turned, leaning casually against the window. “I don’t think its wise to have the stones in plain sight when Brandon arrives.”
“Don’t you trust your friend?”
“Brandon? Definitely. But I’d rather keep all this on the q.t. As I see it, we have two problems to solve. First and foremost, protect the jewels. Second, find out who was behind the robberies at the gallery.”
And third, Reina thought, figure out why I suddenly find you so incredibly alluring, Zane Masterson.
Reina pressed her lips together, certain she couldn’t admit such a strange turn. Not that Zane would be surprised that yet another woman considered him desirable. The minute they appeared together at any party, opening or event, she heard the envious whispers erupting around her. She’d been waylaid in more ladies’ rooms than she cared to count, besieged by women begging for confirmation of Zane’s sexual appetites. She’d seen him, with a sly wink or a tender touch, turn seemingly confident, self-sufficient women into quivering bowls of jelly. Up until this afternoon, she’d considered herself immune.
She remembered the first time she’d met Zane—or, rather, the first time she’d seen him. At a party, though she couldn’t remember the host or the occasion. She’d noticed him the minute he’d walked into the room, late, because he’d caused a stir of excitement unmatched by any other guest—as if everyone, men included, expected to have a great time now that Zane had arrived. Reina, proficient in the art of people watching, had immediately sought a private vantage point. From a perch at the top of a staircase, she’d witnessed his seamless movement around the room, gauged his interest in his companions by the subtle turn of his smile, and learned to read his body language. Hands in pockets? He liked the person he was with. Crossed arms? Bored. Left hand through the hair? Antsy to move along.
By the time he’d finally worked his way to her, she had his number. And Zane, being an apt people watcher himself, had read her knowledge right away. He’d turned down the charm and had become a friend. They’d even dated once or twice, but quickly concluded that what they had gained in friendship, they paid for in sexual chemistry. She admired Zane, trusted him, believed him to be a true catch for any woman who could break down the walls of his playboy nature. But she hadn’t once fantasized about him or desired to feel his hand brush against her or longed to taste his mouth in a long, wet kiss.
Until today, that is.
She slipped around him and returned to the parlor, where she replaced the book in the case and latched it shut.
“Why do we have to worry about the gallery?” Reina asked. “I plan to work on this collection from home. Judi can handle the day-to-day operations and I can go in occasionally to take care of anything more complex.”
“Don’t you think your staff or your artists will get suspicious if you suddenly don’t show up every day like you usually do?”
She’d considered that situation last night on her way home from the reopening of Club Carnal, before she’d indulged in the night of self-pleasure she’d hoped would wear the edge off her sexual tension. Maybe she’d done the opposite. Maybe she’d primed her body for intimacy rather than alleviating her needs completely.
“Reina?”
She shook her head, determined to conceal her edginess from Zane and keep to the subject at hand. She had no foolproof solution, but had come up with something that could at least buy her time. “I’ll tell them I’m working on a deal to improve the security of the studio. They’ll assume I’m looking for an investor.”
Zane nodded, visibly impressed. “That should work. For a little while. Hiding from your colleagues may give you time to finish Claudio’s collection, but what about afterward? You realize that all of the evidence points to an inside job.”
God, Reina didn’t want to think about this. Then again, contemplating such betrayal knocked her errant erotic thoughts into submission. “Of course. The police have taken great delight in insisting on that scenario.”
“Don’t you believe them?”
She sighed. She didn’t know what to believe. The facts as presented by the police did indeed point to a perpetrator who had knowledge of details such as the original combination on her safe, the location of the security cameras and the presence of the expensive jewels. Reina often worked with estate pieces, but once the creations were complete, she turned them over to the owners without delay. In both robberies, the stones had been stolen almost immediately after they’d been delivered and before she’d crafted them into one of her signature pieces.
“If I didn’t believe them, I wouldn’t have asked for your help, Zane. I know I need to root out who has betrayed me. Everyone took lie detector tests, did I tell you?”
Zane shook his head.
“Everyone passed. So either no one at the gallery is guilty, or they are all better liars than I am. Either way, I can’t concentrate on investigating further until this collection is reconstructed and delivered back into Claudio’s possession. And as soon as your friend has the security system up and running, you won’t have to stay here if you don’t want to.”
“Who says I don’t want to?”
Something in Zane’s voice, something sultry—something hot—cautioned Reina not to look at him. She ignored the warning and glanced in his direction, surprised to see such wanting in his gaze when he was looking at her—his friend.
God, no wonder women melted at his feet. One spark of desire in his crystal-blue eyes injected her body with a quick flash of need. Unfulfilled passion stirred inside her, thrumming through her veins, stealing the steady cadence of her breath.
She cleared her throat, hoping to hide herself behind her usual aloof pers
ona, the one she’d never felt the need to use with Zane. Until tonight. “I just assumed you had someone waiting for you at a party…or in some bedroom.”
Mistake. Her gaze darted toward the stairs, where her own boudoir awaited. A flash of a fantasy streaked through her mind. Soft Egyptian cotton entangled around her naked thighs, revealing her bare breasts, which were wet and puckered from Zane’s skilled mouth.
“No bedroom awaits me tonight, Reina,” he claimed, though his eyes betrayed a quick glance in the same direction as hers, complete with an equal amount of wanting. “Except, of course, yours.”
4
HE WATCHED, WAITED FOR her reaction, any reaction. Her lips, wet from a swipe of her tongue moments before, remained still. Eyes wide with strength and confidence hardly blinked. Grey cursed himself for not knowing more about his brother’s affairs, though he figured a mainframe computer couldn’t keep all his brother’s dalliances straight. But had Zane seduced the alluring Reina Price? Had she seduced him? Should he initiate a repeat performance?
Finally Reina grinned. “Save your flirtation, Zane. When are you going to learn that you have no effect on me?”
Her words shouted her indifference, but the claim remained contradicted by the flush on her neck. He’d seen her employ her unattainable seductress persona on Claudio, had wondered about its origin, its purpose. But he certainly hadn’t wanted her to draw that cloak around herself when only he was around.
He blocked her escape route, stepping completely into her personal space, and touched one finger to a blotch of red at the base of her throat.
“The lesson will be more convincing when you don’t get all flushed at the thought of making love with me.”
Her lips curled into a sweet smirk. “Maybe I’m just coming down with something.”
“Maybe you just want to come.”
Her eyes flashed wider, but if she intended to respond, he saw no indication in her dark irises. She leaned down and grabbed the metal suitcase, swinging it just so he had to jump back or risk damaging his family jewels with jewels both harder and heavier, despite his growing erection.
“I have all I need for that right here in this case. And upstairs in the pink box I keep under my bed. You’ll have to find your own means for satisfaction, I’m afraid.” She sashayed past, a full-fledged grin on her lips. “Call me when Brandon arrives. Oh, and order dinner. I’m starved.”
She disappeared up the stairs, the sound of her light laughter growing fainter until silenced by the slam of a door.
Good Lord, she thought he was teasing.
Desperate to know where things stood between Reina and his brother, Grey pulled out his cell phone, but he stopped before dialing Zane’s number. Or rather, his number. Did he want his brother to know that he was toying with the idea of seducing his tenant, a woman who had obviously been friendly enough with his twin to tell him about the mysterious pink box she kept beneath her bed?
What was he thinking, anyway, playing with such a hot fire? Hadn’t Grey fulfilled all of his thirst for sexual adventure with Lane, only to have his secrets revealed to anyone and everyone with a basic mastery of the English language and twenty-four ninety-five plus tax?
Apparently not, he decided, judging by the intensity of his hard-on.
Grey hit the menu key on Zane’s phone, not surprised to find a long list of restaurant phone numbers programmed in. He found one he liked, ordered a quart of rich chicken-andouille gumbo, a loaf of their signature bread and a cheesecake. He delighted in ordering the dairy confection, mindful of how Lane’s lactose-free diet had kept him from indulging. Reina, though slim around the waist and stomach, didn’t strike him as a woman afraid to luxuriate in anything sensual, culinary or otherwise.
And once assured she and the jewels would be safe in the house, he intended to find out, in every sense, if his assumption was correct.
Brandon Chance arrived when he promised, cased the house and mapped out an installation plan on a piece of paper in the kitchen. From a large van parked behind Reina’s house, he and his partner, his sister-in-law, Samantha, produced a wide range of electronic devices Grey couldn’t begin to understand.
He did, however, catch an uneasy vibe between him and his old friend. As soon as Reina came downstairs and assured him she would be fine while he went back to his apartment for a change of clothes, Grey excused himself. Brandon, however, caught him just as he was backing Zane’s Jag out of the small garage.
“Okay, Grey. What’s this game you’re playing?”
He groaned, not bothering to argue with a man who’d known him since they played Little League together in the third grade. “No game, Brandon. Just a break. It’s not the first time Zane and I have switched places.”
Brandon laughed. “No, I distinctly remember the time you did it in, oh, God, the eighth grade? You conveniently forgot to inform Zane that you had an oral test in history.”
“Zane hated history more than I did. He never would have switched that day if I’d told him.”
“You flunked because of him.”
Grey shrugged. “Yeah, well, it lowered the bar for the rest of the year, didn’t it? Sister Catherine thought herself the best teacher in the entire school when she coaxed her poorest student to an A by exam time.”
“Must be nice to have a twin brother to handle all your failures. Is that why he’s running the newspaper? So if the problems make the business dive, it’ll be Zane’s fault?”
Grey didn’t want to have this conversation. Besides, Zane could take care of the problems at the newspaper. He had Masterson blood, Masterson genes, a degree in journalism and a high IQ. Not to mention an endless supply of easygoing patience, which Grey, as far as he knew, had never had.
“Since when did you get so insightful?” Grey asked, not hiding his annoyance.
Brandon grinned like a schoolboy on the last day of class. “Marriage does that to you, particularly when you wed a woman who makes a living exploring emotions and soothing feelings.”
Grey’s eyebrows shot up. The man was whipped. He’d just described his wife as if she were a psychologist, when, in truth, she ran a spa in the French Quarter that specialized in aromatherapy.
“I think you’ve been sniffing Serena’s funny flowers a little more than you should,” Grey quipped.
“And I think you haven’t been sniffing enough flowers, funny or otherwise. Look, if you want a vacation to stop and smell the roses for a while, that’s cool. But this business with Reina’s break-ins, it’s serious. She could get hurt. So could you.”
“You know about that?”
Brandon shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Pilar Price is one of Serena’s best clients. Yeah, I know about it. I offered to help, but Reina didn’t have the cash to pay for my services and refused a line of credit. Pilar even volunteered to bankroll the security, but Reina refused. She really wanted to handle this on her own. The fact that she asked you—”
“Asked Zane,” Grey corrected.
“Whatever. The fact that she asked at all means she must be fairly desperate. I don’t really know her. She seems like a nice woman, but…”
“You’re not going to warn me from hurting her, are you?”
Brandon braced his hands on the car door. “Actually, no, smart ass. Reina has a reputation as a real cool operator. Her mother is a full-fledged femme fatale, with baubles in her strongbox from senators and statesmen. I heard about Lane’s book, Grey. I was going to warn you from getting hurt.”
Grey swore, put the car into reverse and backed down the driveway, careful not to hit Brandon’s van even though his fist itched to punch his face. He knew his friend meant well, but since when did he need protection from women?
He tilted his head out the window. “You just worry about the house, Brandon. If someone so much as leans on her back gate, I want to know about it. Otherwise, I’ll be back in an hour.”
Brandon waved, his smile crooked. “I’ll be here. I’ll probably be here all
night.”
Grey threw the car into gear and tore off down the cobbled road, turning in time to wave at Rocco and Guido, parked in a dark sedan at the end of the block. By the time he crossed onto St. Charles Street, he’d beaten his anger back into mere annoyance. He couldn’t blame Brandon for offering unsolicited advice. They’d been pals a long time. And he couldn’t blame his buddy for mentioning Lane’s book. He figured even Brandon had probably read it. Why wouldn’t he? Everyone else had. Everyone else in the frickin’ free world knew that Grey Masterson, newspaper titan and seemingly serious businessman, possessed a taste for sexual adventures.
Just like every other guy he knew. He also figured that every other guy he knew, with the exception maybe of the newly married and clearly smitten Brandon, wanted to screw Lane Morrow. He’d been the one to do it. Dozens of times.
And he’d paid the price with his privacy, privacy he could only regain by becoming his brother.
He wove through the darkened New Orleans streets on his way to Zane’s apartment, wondering what Reina would do if she discovered which Masterson brother she harbored in her home. Despite Brandon’s suggestion that she might be as cool a user as her mother, Grey now knew the secret face of a woman with a hardened heart. Reina didn’t have that look. But Lane had. Hungry for power, starving for recognition, desperate to see her name in every medium from television to newspapers to magazines and Web sites. She’d betrayed her lover to reach her goal. She’d betrayed herself.
Reina, on the other hand, wore her innate sensuality like a cloak—fashioned in silk and lined with mink. He could see where lesser men would be intimidated by her blatant sexiness, her aristocratic eroticism. He could also see where his brother would build a friendship with someone like her—someone indifferent to his often outlandish but effective charm. Someone who could put him in his place.
