by Julie Leto
“Officer,” Grey said, “this man is Ms. Price’s client and, while his story sounds outlandish, I think he’s telling the truth.”
Reina rewarded Grey with a gentle smile. “Nothing is missing from the house.”
The police officer didn’t look the least bit happy about admitting that there was no sign of forcible entry, but he did, and after both Grey and Reina vouched for Claudio one more time, the officers left, with a warning to the Italian that if he got in any more trouble, they’d be calling Immigration.
“How did you get inside?” Reina asked immediately after the officers drove away. “The door was locked when we left.”
“I’m handy with…tools,” Claudio admitted, then dipped his hand into a flower box and retrieved a small case that must have held the paraphernalia he’d used to bypass Reina’s lock without leaving so much as a scratch on the door.
“So you’re a thief by trade?”
“No, no. In Italy, I work as a private investigator.”
She pressed her lips together. “Why did you break in?”
“I was worried for you,” he insisted. “That is the truth.”
“Why? There’s something you aren’t telling me, Claudio. If I’m in danger, I want to know why and from whom. And I insist you tell me now.”
Grey sat back and watched Reina work Claudio over—though this time she didn’t use any of her latent sensuality on the man. Not a single flirtatious glance or provocative pout. Just plain, deep-set onyx eyes and flaring nostrils, enhanced by rigid hands on her luscious hips. Grey shook his head, knowing the Italian didn’t have a chance.
“Please, let’s go inside,” Claudio implored, suddenly looking a tad older than he had a moment before. “I mean you no harm, Reina. I could never hurt you. Never.”
“Why not? I’m nothing to you. A stranger. An artist you hired to help make you rich.”
Claudio’s gaze darted toward Grey and again Grey felt adrenaline pump through his veins the way it did whenever he discovered a lead to a great story. Whatever Claudio knew, whatever Reina had him just on the edge of confessing, was going to rock her world.
Claudio turned back to Reina, his hand outstretched as if he meant to stroke her cheek. “But, you see, none of that is true. You’re not a stranger to me, not really. We met once. A long time ago.”
14
REINA DIDN’T OFFER wine or brandy, didn’t even present Claudio a chair in her living room as her breeding shouted at her to do. She couldn’t speak. Words flew through her brain like a flock of ravenous vultures that had found a carcass to feast on. She forced herself to remain quiet rather than look like some babbling idiot. Luckily, Claudio didn’t seem to expect anything more.
At Reina’s insistence, Grey had taken the jewels back upstairs. She hated how she missed his presence, the way his magnetism added balance to her equilibrium, but she wondered if Claudio would be completely honest with her with Grey in the room. So she took a chance. So far, Claudio hadn’t been honest with her, but she didn’t think he was dangerous. Of course, only a day ago, she would have had a great deal more confidence in her instincts than she did tonight.
“Per favore, bella. Sit down. You’ve had a shock tonight, I know.”
She chose to remain standing, even if her action was a blatant attempt to gain some sort of control over a downwardly spiraling situation. “Shock, Claudio? No, just a lot of confusion.”
She snorted, amused by her own understatement. Confusion didn’t begin to describe the ricochet of conflicting feelings rocketing through her, starting with her deepening emotions for Grey. That had thrown her most of all. Judi’s strange behavior and possible involvement in the thefts? Surprising? Sure. She’d counted the younger woman as a friend. But Judi wasn’t the brightest diamond in the showcase. Never had been, never would be. Leading her astray wouldn’t be much of a challenge for anyone with strong enough motivation.
Her mother’s possible involvement? Reina didn’t quite know what to think about that scenario. The only emotion she could identify with regards to Pilar somehow using her for money she didn’t need was anger, the kind of blind rage she’d fought all her life, the kind she’d learned to wrap in a tight ball she could hide and deny at will. She tried not to remember all the times Pilar chose to celebrate Reina’s birthday by pawning her off on Dahlia, who’d take her to a zoo or amusement park while Pilar attended some vapid party or lounged in bed with her latest paramour. She tried not to think about the boarding schools, the trips to foreign places for mother-daughter bonding weekends that ended up with Reina touring the sites alone while her mother flirted and fawned over some handsome man with a thick wallet. And last, there was Pilar’s hardheaded refusal to tell Reina anything about her father. She had so many questions, but she’d stopped asking them a long, long time ago, weary of the futility.
Finally she dropped into a chair and cradled her head in her hands. She couldn’t deal with all this, and her feelings for Grey as well. She had to find her control. Her center.
But where?
Claudio leaned forward. “I know about your assistant.”
Good. Conversation about Judi seemed the least explosive topic at the moment. A fine place to start.
“How?”
Claudio hesitated. The strained look on his face made Reina yearn to call the question back. Maybe the answer was more than she wanted to know. “When I couldn’t find you, I went to see your mother.”
Definitely more than she wanted to know, but at least he explained the man entering her mother’s house through the back door. “You know my mother?”
She’d asked this question before, back when Claudio first came to her with the offer to restore the collection. He’d denied knowing anything about Pilar except by her reputation as an actress. But all of a sudden he knew how to find Pilar in New Orleans? And felt comfortable going to Pilar’s house in the middle of the night?
“We knew each other a long time ago,” he admitted quietly.
Reina narrowed her eyes, but was too tired to confront him about his initial lie. Didn’t really matter now, did it? “She must have been very surprised to see you.”
“She didn’t see me. I arrived shortly after your assistant. And after what I heard, I thought it best to check on you.”
“What did you do? Hide in a closet?”
He shook his head, but weakly, as if whatever he’d done wasn’t much above her guess. “No, no. Dahlia let me inside. As I waited in the hallway, I overheard their conversation, then slipped out before Pilar realized I was there. Bella, I think Judi was behind the robberies at your gallery. She kept talking about hurting you tonight and said something about breaking into your house. She was angry with Pilar, though I’m not certain the reason. I returned to make sure you were all right.”
Reina fought to control her breathing. So Pilar was involved, though she still didn’t know how or why. But for the moment, she had to deal with Claudio. With his lies. “You said you knew me. That we’d met once.”
Claudio’s smile was bittersweet.
“You were a child. Precocious, bright. No more than four, exploring the village around your mother’s summer home in Venice. I don’t expect you to remember.”
Her chest constricted. “Then why have you remembered me?”
At that moment, Grey stepped into the doorway. His face seemed sterner, rougher than normal—his stance stiff, unyielding. And still, Reina’s insides quivered at the sight of him. When he threw her a quick, loving glance, she thought she’d melt onto the floor right in front of Claudio.
“Reina has had a lot to deal with tonight, Claudio. More than she should have to all at once. I think now that we’ve determined that you had only her best interests in mind, you should go. Let her get some rest.”
Grey stalked to the chair and cupped his hand over her shoulder, draining the last of her energy from her body. She did want more details, but Claudio wasn’t going anywhere. Not as long as she still had his legacy in her posse
ssion. Whatever story he had to tell could wait until tomorrow. She nodded her agreement with Grey.
“The collection is safe. I’m safe.” She reached up and laid her palm over Grey’s strong knuckles. “I’ll call you in the morning and we can set a time for you to look over what I’ve done so far.”
Claudio waved his hand at her and rose. “Don’t worry about that. Take a few days off, if you must. The collection is valuable, but not more than you, bella.”
Again Claudio reached out to her, apparently wanting to touch her cheek, but he didn’t breach the last few inches he needed to press his flesh to hers. She knew Italians to be an affectionate, demonstrative culture and didn’t pull away from him, wanting somehow to experience a tactile representation of the deep emotion she spied in his eyes.
But one glance at Grey sent Claudio out the door with only a quick good-night.
“What was that?” she asked.
“What?”
“You seem angry with Claudio. Why?”
Grey helped her stand, slipping his arm around her waist to lead her toward the staircase. “He caused quite a lot of unneeded stress for you tonight.”
Though exhausted, Reina wasn’t a fool. Grey knew something. He had discovered some information, some clue, perhaps, that negated Claudio’s claim to have broken in tonight solely to check on her safety. “That’s not it.”
They took the stairs together, slowly, his body supporting hers in a way she found highly erotic. She wanted him again. Tired as she was, she wanted to feel him inside her once more before she surrendered to sleep. She wanted him to wash away the feelings of betrayal, confusion and anxiety that threatened to rock the foundation of her world. Even if he was the cause of her ultimate unsteadiness, she knew he could anchor her with the kind of lovemaking only the two of them shared.
At the stop of the landing, he turned her to face him. Through the doorway to his guest room, she spied the glow of his laptop computer. A portable printer hummed in the creaking silence of the house.
“You’re working?”
He nodded. “Get some sleep, Reina. I don’t have anything definitive to tell you, but I should by morning.”
“I need to see my mother in the morning,” she noted, knowing that if she didn’t confront Pilar soon, she might not ever discover the truth. “She has some questions to answer.”
“Yes, she does. And if things go well—” he tilted his head toward his room “—I’ll have ammunition for you.”
Reina shivered at the thought. “I don’t need ammunition against the woman who gave birth to me, Grey. I’ll handle Pilar. My mother is a fantastic actress, but she’s not so good at lying as she is at skillfully avoiding the truth. I won’t let her do that.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“To bed?” she asked, a smile tugging her lips despite her exhaustion.
“To your mother’s,” he clarified, his eyes dancing with mischievous possibilities she felt certain he wouldn’t act on tonight.
“No. If Pilar has a handsome man in the room, she’ll throw all her concentration on charming you and she won’t pay the least attention to me. I’ll be fine.”
She turned toward the bedroom, knowing she really should sleep alone tonight…and wondering why, all of a sudden, the concept seemed so foreign to her.
She knew, of course. She loved Grey. She wanted his arms around her, wanted to wrap herself in the unique heat of his body and experience the warm breeze of his breath across her bare skin while her eyes slowly closed and her mind shut down. She accepted this reality without question or doubt, having no more energy to deny what was simply the truth.
He brushed a soft kiss on her cheek, then clearly struggling to pull back, placed another on her lips before taking a full step away from her. “Sleep well, Reina.”
GREY WOKE TO THE SOUND of a car honking, followed by quick footsteps across the foyer downstairs, then the opening and shutting of a door. Reina had left?
He dashed down the stairs in time to see a taxi pull away. He cursed, slamming his hand on the front door and discovering a handwritten note taped just above the peephole.
Grey, didn’t want to wake you. I’m going to find my mother. If you need me, call me on the cell phone. When I return, we’ll compare notes.
With love,
Reina.
With love? How he wished.
But now wasn’t the time to deal with that. Better to save the emotional exploration for when he had cleared the other questions from this increasingly confusing and disturbing situation. He’d received the reports from his friend at Interpol last night, had read through them as Reina slept, and he wondered if he shouldn’t call Reina right now and let him know what he’d discovered about Pilar.
Or more distressing, what he suspected about Claudio di Amante.
He decided he needed a few more facts first, and after setting a pot of coffee to brew, he showered, shaved and dressed. A quick call to Zane let him know he’d be out of the office all day, leaving Grey the freedom to go to the paper and access some of his best resources.
Before he left, he double-checked the secret room and discovered that Reina has once again taken the most valuable stones with her. He reset all the alarms—bells and whistles and monitoring. He doubted anyone would be so stupid as to try and break into the house again, particularly during daylight, but trusted the alarm company to do their job as they had the night before. He had more serious concerns. While he thought he had all the pieces to construct the puzzle surrounding the thefts at Reina’s gallery and Claudio’s oddly timed business proposal, he had a few more facts to check before he could make any definitive accusations.
After a quick stop at his apartment to grab some “Grey” clothes—a conservative pair of slate slacks to replace Zane’s trendy khakis and a button-down dress shirt with requisite patterned tie, instead of Zane’s chest-hugging silk T-shirt—he drove to the office, parking Zane’s candy-apple-red Jaguar down the street and used a side entrance into the main building. He noticed security had been beefed up considerably. More guards, more closed-circuit cameras, fewer visitors roaming the halls. Luckily no one challenged him and he was able to make it to his office without even his secretary noticing.
The minute he closed the door behind him, he felt a surge of something powerful seep into his veins. Damn, he missed this place. More than he would have guessed. More than he thought possible. He breathed in deeply, certain the odor of ink really scented the air, even if the presses were several floors down. He listened to the sounds of activity in the city room just on the other side of his wall. Phones ringing constantly, the whistle of faxes, the tapping of keyboards. Voices carried even through his well-built office. Some story was breaking. On any other day, he’d have dived right into the fray, anxious to swim into the strongest current to pull the facts to the Herald’s shore.
Or would he? It had been so easy to walk away, to leave the hustle and bustle of the newspaper game to play recluse with Reina. He’d left the paper at a time the business had needed him the most—with circulation on a downward slide and a saboteur wreaking havoc in production. He’d valued his own personal healing over the health of the family legacy. Not that he’d left the newspaper high and dry. He had left his twin in his place.
And judging from the memo he found on the center of his desk detailing the upswing in sales for Sunday’s edition, thanks to Zane’s column about his affair with Toni Maxwell, Grey knew he’d made the right decision. But it hadn’t been becoming Zane or living Zane’s lifestyle that spurred his nearly instantaneous rebirth.
It had been Reina.
Sunlight streamed through the windows. He walked to the long bank of windows and watched the Mississippi River churn by. He scanned the corner of the property, just beyond the parking lot, for the private spot he’d taken her to last night, but the trees shielded his view as he knew they would. He felt a quick flash of desire burn through him, but he tamped down the reaction. The next time he mad
e love to Reina, the next time they shared any sexual pleasure, it would be to celebrate their new relationship—one based on love, not just sex.
But before he could force Reina to work past her demons to reach into her heart, he had to help her identify those demons, even the ones she loved.
He sat in his chair, taking a moment to allow the soft leather to mold to his body. He missed his desk. He’d only been gone four days, but the minute he typed his password into his computer and snapped on the headset for his phone, he knew he’d never be able to do anything else. In the aftermath of Lane’s book and the saboteur and the stalker and the falling circulation, he’d considered trying something new, something he hadn’t been groomed for his entire life.
But now that Zane seemed to have things in control, Grey knew a complete career switch wasn’t the answer. As an idea brewed, he connected to the Internet and found his favorite search engine for online newspaper articles. He typed in the name Claudio di Amante and waited. After several seconds, a surprisingly large collection came up, most from Italian newspapers.
He activated the translation software and tried again. There, in an article from a Venice daily, he found what he needed. He sent a print command, then flipped open his cell phone, where he’d programmed the number to Claudio’s hotel.
“Di Amante,” the older man answered.
“Claudio, this is—”
He hesitated, but realized that if he expected the Italian to tell him the truth, he’d have to employ at least an equal amount of honesty himself.
“This is Grey Masterson. Zane is my brother, my twin.”
“Is Reina all right? Has something happened?”
The worry in the man’s voice shot straight into Grey’s gut. He’d had suspicions about the man. Now he knew he was right.
