Double the Pleasure

by Julie Leto

  “Reina is fine, so far as I know. She went to find her mother, ask her some questions.”

  After a silent pause, Claudio responded. “She deserves as much.”

  Grey grinned. “That’s what I figured. So I was wondering if we could meet. You see, I’m a newspaper editor, signore, but what you say to me will be off the record. I’m not sure Pilar Price will tell her daughter the whole truth. Reina deserves that after all these years, don’t you agree?”

  Claudio did agree and, after giving him directions to the coffee shop across the street, Grey hung up the phone. He drummed his fingers on the desk, wondering. The idea he’d left to simmer in his brain a few minutes ago started to thicken. He took a chance. He dialed the extension of the newspaper’s art director, a young woman he’d hired fresh out of college about three years ago. While she’d done well in insuring that the Herald looked crisp and neat in black ink and newsprint, Grey had always wondered what the talented Gen Xer could cook up if given an innovative idea.

  He was about to find out.

  REINA SLIPPED BACK inside her house, exhausted yet again. She’d spent the entire day trying to find her mother, but Pilar had proved an evasive quarry. Her mother had turned off her cell phone, as had Dahlia. With no answer at the house, Reina had hired a taxi and set out to track her down. She’d just missed them at the spa where they had standing Tuesday morning appointments, then waited outside the restaurant where they normally lunched, only to watch their car speed away the minute Reina spotted them. Reina had hailed another cab again, then parked herself inside her mother’s house until she’d tired of playing cat and mouse and returned home.

  She changed into work clothes, and after grabbing a plate of fruits and cheese to nibble, knocked on the wall of her bedroom to gain entrance to the secret room. She closed the door behind her, allowing herself a moment’s disappointment that Grey hadn’t come back, hadn’t called. Her body ached for him. Her shoulders possessed a tightness only his hands could work away. Her chest constricted with the need for—a hug?

  So simple, elemental. Vulnerable. And still, Reina wanted his touch more than she wanted to find out the truth. It was just a matter of time before she caught up to her mother and worked out the undoubtedly complicated reasons and excuses for whatever she’d done. Reina had desperately wanted to confront Pilar and learn the who’s and whys to put this entire fiasco behind her before Grey returned.

  Behind her? And how long would that take? An hour? Maybe two? Even she wasn’t that cool and in control. Reina, alone in the privacy of her workshop, laughed until she cried…then cried until she ran out of tears. She cried for her mother, a woman so selfish she’d likely manipulated her own daughter and risked Reina’s business reputation for some unknown but inevitably shallow pursuit. She cried for Judi and Dahlia, probably drawn into the web before they knew what they’d done. But, mostly, she cried for the woman she’d allowed herself to become—aloof, detached. Sensual, but starved. Able to feel the physical pleasures of lovemaking, but scared to experience real love. How could she truly love someone when she lacked the ability to open her heart without fear? To trust? And how could she trust anyone completely when the one person she should have been able to count on in any and all situations—her mother—had taught her that trust was a weakness that someone, somewhere, would exploit?

  And if Reina’s suspicions were on target, Pilar had just done exactly that. And though Reina thought that she loved Grey, how could she…really? She had so many walls erected, so many locks and gates, even a talented and resourceful man like him would probably wear out before he breached them all.

  And why should he have to work so hard? His burns from his love affair with Lane Morrow had to be fresh. Yet, he didn’t talk about her much, and claimed to have put his anger behind him. He hadn’t once used Lane’s mendacious nature as an excuse to hold back from caring about Reina.

  The irony slapped her in the face. Grey, a man on the run in disguise as his twin, was more honest than she was.

  A sob choked her, but she forced the thick pressure down her throat with a large sip of wine. With a defiant sniff, Reina grabbed a tissue from her worktable and swiped her tears away. Enough of that. She had a job to do. Regrets, she’d save for later. She checked her watch, then shuffled through Claudio’s schematics and chose a brooch and a hair comb to work on next. They were both simple designs, with no sensual use according to both diaries, only evocative shapes. She worked until the sunlight outside died and the lamp no longer aided her tired eyes. She’d polished all the stones for the brooch and had cut some of the prongs, and still had to solder the smaller pieces on the comb, constructed of silver and ebony. She laid a soft cloth over the unfinished pieces. She’d finish one of them in the morning. If nothing else intruded. Like her family, sorry as it was.

  While at Pilar’s house, Reina had done some snooping, and after numbing her emotions with hard work for a few hours, she felt at ease to think about what she’d found. Hidden in Pilar’s antique secretary, she’d found an old stack of letters from her mother’s mortgage company, a mortgage Reina didn’t even know her mother had. So far as Reina knew, Pilar had never bought anything on credit in her life. She couldn’t be bothered with remembering to make monthly payments and rarely stayed in any one place long enough to receive timely bills. And, besides, the rich and famous paid cash for everything, according to her. But her rich and famous mother hadn’t paid what she owed the bank on her house for at least six months, then had made a large payment that had brought her up-to-date.

  So maybe Judi hadn’t been the one to need money. But Reina didn’t know the details and had no way to figure them out until Pilar decided she wanted to be found. After penning a note to her mother demanding a phone call, she’d come home. Now she’d worked until she couldn’t see straight. She left the secret room, listened for Grey, who still hadn’t returned, then undressed, filled her tub with hot water and essential oils and eased her tired body into the slick, wet heat.

  When all else failed, she turned to her bathtub to provide her some relaxation. And while working off a little sexual energy at this point seemed like a great idea, the contents of the pink box under her bed wouldn’t do the trick. She wanted Grey. She needed him. And for once in her life, she decided not to be too cool to admit it.

  So when he knocked on the door, the temperature of the bathroom shot up as if she’d just run another long blast of piping hot water.

  “Reina, you okay?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  His chuckle rumbled through her like a sexual thrill.

  “Anything I can help you with?”

  “Mmm,” she answered, noncommittal, silently amused by her desperate attempt to being standoffish when all she wanted to do was shout at him to hurry the hell up and come in and join her.

  He didn’t hesitate, turning the knob and flinging the door open, his shoulder leaning cockily against the jamb. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure if that was a yes or a no.”

  “You’re the newspaperman.” She lifted her sponge and drizzled steaming water over her breasts. With no bubbles to cover her, her hair lazily knotted at the top of her head, she knew he had only the slight fog from the heat to hamper his view. “What do you think?”

  15

  GREY LICKED HIS LIPS, then watched in the hazy distance as Reina’s nipples tightened in instantaneous response. Lord, he wanted her. His erection pressed against the zipper of his slacks. The knot of his tie, already loosened sometime during his sequestering in his office, seemed to tighten like a noose. He tore the silk away but left the length dangling in his pocket. Never know when something like that could prove useful.

  “I brought you something,” he said, reminded by the crinkle of newsprint that he still had the mock-up in his hand.

  She leaned over the edge of the tub and spotted the glossy papers. “Did Zane write another interesting article about you and Toni Maxwell?”

  “Yes, but that’s not what I have for yo
u.” Grey had gone to the newspaper for two reasons—one, to find out if he missed his job as much as he wanted to deny he did, and, second, to pull together facts that would set Reina free of her troubles with her gallery and family. Unfortunately, what he’d learned on the second count might do more harm than good.

  He tucked the newspaper behind him. “Maybe this can wait for later.”

  What harm would it do to spend a few hours loving Reina before he rocked the very foundation of her world? For the first time in his life, he’d cursed his natural investigative skills. For an hour this afternoon, he’d sat at his desk, scanning the facts, chewing two pencils to splintering nubs before Zane’s latest column about Toni Maxwell caught his eye and spawned an idea. He’d called his art director and his best mock-up guy into his office, ordered in dinner and started typing. Now, at half past ten o’clock, he held the fruits of their labor. Half of him swelled with pride at creating what he considered a revolutionary piece of journalism.

  The other half of him just swelled with desire. But a noise from downstairs reminded him that now wasn’t the time to play.

  “On second thought, this shouldn’t wait. You might want to get dressed.”

  She chuckled and poured more water over her enticingly bare, sensually curved shoulders. “I most definitely don’t want to get dressed, Grey.”

  Good Lord, but he could easily spend an entire lifetime with a woman so focused on what she wanted. He only wondered if she would let him stick around that long.

  Only, in a minute, she wouldn’t have a choice, would she? He’d gotten in, forced his way. Would she forgive him for invading her personal life so thoroughly?

  “You may change your mind when you read this.”

  He handed her a towel to dry her hands, then turned on the light, doused the candles rimming the tub and traded the towel for the mock-up magazine. She scanned the masthead, raising her eyebrows before reading the name aloud.

  “The Weekly Confessional?” she questioned.

  “I’m not married to the name, just the concept. It’s edgy, if I do say so myself. A collection of first-person, epistle-style reports. News from the point of view of the people in the news, told with the help of a seasoned reporter—in this case, me. This is just a mock-up. For your eyes only.”

  She scanned the headline, Centuries of Secrets, then spied the byline underneath.

  “Claudio?”

  “I interviewed him for two hours today. What’s written there, I believe with all my soul, is the truth. Reina,” he said, snagging her bathrobe off the hook beside the door and extending his other hand to help her out of the water, “I think you’ll want to be on dry land when you read this.”

  She must have understood the seriousness in his eyes, because she instantly complied, silently toweling off and covering herself before joining him in the bedroom.

  He handed her the magazine again, then wondered if she would want him to leave the room. Deciding he’d rather stay, he parked himself in the chair she kept in the corner of her room. She reclined on the bed, the pages spread open, her eyes darting across the page so rapidly he wondered if anyone truly read that fast.

  Then he realized she was reading the same passage over and over.

  She sat up, crossed her legs like a child reading a storybook, trailing her index finger underneath the words to make sure she didn’t miss a single letter, a single implication.

  He’d almost decided to get up and pour her a brandy when he watched her bottom lip quiver.

  She speared him with a look of complete desperation. “Where is he?”

  “You haven’t finished. Read it all, sweetheart. Learn all the facts before you confront him.”

  She slammed the magazine shut and jumped off the bed, desperate, as close to enraged as he’d yet seen her.

  “Where is he?” she demanded.

  Grey stood up and placed both hands on her shoulders, lightly. He breathed easier when she didn’t yank away.

  “Downstairs.”

  She dashed out, nearly forgetting to open the door first, nearly tripping over the stairs that she took two at a time. When she reached the front parlor where he’d left Claudio, she grabbed on to the threshold, panting.

  He caught up behind her, but remained a few inches away. As much as he wanted to put his arms around her, anchor her, allow her to falter within the safety net of his presence, he had no idea how she’d react. The last thing he wanted to do was make this harder.

  When he saw the reflection of her expression in Claudio’s broken spirit, Grey knew he couldn’t help. He couldn’t edit this scenario. This had to play out and all he could do was watch. He’d done his part today. And like any decent reporter, the fallout of his words were completely beyond his control.

  “How long have you known?” she asked.

  The menagerie of emotions clinging to the desperate tones of Reina’s voice clutched at Grey’s heart like talons. Anger. Sadness. Fear. As if the answer had the power to shatter her heart like the delicate glass figurines displayed in the curio beside her. She clutched the top, rattling the contents, steadying herself as she stepped farther into the room.

  Claudio nearly faltered over the coffee table. “Only for a few months, I swear. After the first robbery, Dahlia contacted me. She told me the truth—who had stolen the diaries from me all those years ago, who had arranged for the robberies at your gallery. She told me I was your father and that just as Pilar had never told me, she’d never told you. Dahlia thought I could help. The restoration of the collection was my way.”

  Grey watched Reina’s hands quivering at her sides and he ached to yank her away from Claudio and protect her from the aftermath of her father’s full confession. Grey never realized he had a knight-in-shining-armor complex, so he tamped down the instincts. Reina wasn’t the type to appreciate his rescue. He firmly planted his feet on the fringe of her Turkish carpet, and willed himself to keep from planting his fist on Claudio’s face.

  Even if Claudio wasn’t responsible for the string of lies now threatening Reina’s world, his honesty hurt her. Now that Grey had the whole story, thanks to his afternoon interview, he couldn’t help admiring the man any more than he could curb his anger. Yes, Grey resented the complicated web of mistruths and misrepresentations that Claudio had initiated when he’d showed up in Reina’s gallery with his lucrative offer. He should have told her the truth then.

  But Grey also knew the man’s reasons were valid. Why would Reina believe a stranger over her own mother? Dahlia had refused to corroborate his story, fearing for her own status and job. So Claudio had found a way to gain his daughter’s trust, and Grey hoped that Reina could fight past the lies and see the strength in Claudio’s character for herself.

  “Why did you care? You never knew about me, never even knew you had a child somewhere.” Her voice trembled against the silence.

  “Because your mother once loved me.”

  “Did you love her?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean I can’t love you. And it doesn’t mean she had a right to keep you from me. My daughter. I never knew.”

  This time, Claudio bridged whatever barrier had kept him from grabbing Reina and pulling her into his arms. Grey watched the older man curl his head over her shoulder, witnessed the quiet desperation of his embrace, as if by holding her so tightly, he could squeeze out all of the pain and shock and make it seep away like water pressed out of paper pulp.

  But Reina’s response didn’t match his warmth. Her back stiffened. Her neck elongated regally and her shoulders squared. When Claudio could no longer ignore her wooden stance, he released her and let her go, taking only her hand as he led her to the couch.

  Grey considered leaving them to their privacy, but his decision to stay solidified the moment Reina’s front door burst open and Pilar barged in like a well-dressed tornado.

  “Take your hands off my daughter!”

  She flung her purse at Claudio’s head, but he had the alacrity to duck at the r
ight moment.

  Reina stomped to her feet. “How dare you! Mother, this is my home. You will not throw a tantrum here to avert the fallout of what you’ve done.”

  “I’ve done nothing,” Pilar claimed, but even this seasoned actress couldn’t pull off such a blatant lie. She stepped back, nearly knocking into Grey, who steadied her with a hand to her elbow.

  Reina’s gaze darted between her father, whose stare remained fixed on the floor, and her mother, who seethed with more righteous indignation than any guilty woman had a right to show. Grey could see that Reina didn’t know where to start, whom to speak with first. Did she want to confront the lies of the past or the ones of the present? Did she want to spend a moment with the father she’d never met, or face the betrayal of the mother she’d apparently never truly known?

  How she made a choice, Grey didn’t know, but the minute her onyx eyes fixed on his, he knew precisely what she wanted him to do.

  With his palm cupping Pilar’s elbow firmly, he guided her in the direction of the kitchen. “Ms. Price, perhaps we should wait in the other room.”

  “I will n—”

  Reina cut her mother’s protest off with a glare as hard and black as petrified coal. A battle of stares ensued, with no words, no gestures—just the cold, heartbreaking eyes of two women who’d once possessed a bond that now lay tattered on the floor. With no guilt or fault to weaken her resolve, Reina easily won.

  Yanking her arm away from Grey’s touch, Pilar stomped off toward the back of the house, her heels knocking an unsteady stiletto rhythm on the hardwood floors.

  “I’ll just be in the other room,” Grey said, “if you need me.”

  Reina pulled the magazine close to her chest, as if she meant to embrace the paper and ink for all the truth it had provided. Her eyes were glossy, but her lips no longer quivered so visibly.

  “I will need you, Grey. Soon. But first I need to speak with Claudio alone.”

  He nodded, then turned to follow Pilar before she could stir up more trouble or slip out of the back door, which he suspected she would attempt to do now that she realized she couldn’t manipulate her way out of this fiasco. Reina crossed the room and snagged his hand with hers before he had moved more than a few steps away.