Children of Destiny Books 4-6 (Texas: Children of Destiny Book 10)

by Ann Major

  And now Victor had decided to behave as abominably as everyone else.

  Eva leaned down and peered into the drawer. She pulled at it, but it wouldn't budge.

  Yellow cat's eyes stared at her from the dark.

  "Victor, please...chere. Kitty, kitty. The movers are here," Evangeline pleaded in Cajun French, his native tongue, and most decidedly his favorite language.

  Victor yawned and showed a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth. Like all males, he excelled in being difficult. His yellow eyes were disdainful slits, and his ears were flat against his skull. His black tail flicked back and forth as if to say he hadn't the slightest intention of coming out unless he heard something really fascinating like a can opener. The phone kept ringing.

  "Zola! Haven't you found Victor's sardines yet?"

  Two burly men with a dolly and furniture quilts shifted their weight impatiently in the shadowy warehouse. Finally one of them spoke in a surly undertone.

  "Look, luv, how wuz I ter know 'e was in there when I shut the drawer? But sardines or no sardines, we ain't got all day. Not to wait for no bloomin' cat."

  If the bad grammar grated, the casual endearment was unendurable.

  "Love!" Every nerve in Eva's body bristled. Very slowly Eva pushed her tortoiseshell glasses up the bridge of her nose. She arose and studied the gum-chewing, tangle-haired hulk lounging against a crate of Venetian crystal. Red letters blazed Party Animal from his black T-shirt.

  "You're new, aren't you?" she demanded softly.

  He stared down at her.

  Her severe, double-breasted black jacket with white pinstripes, matching pleated trousers and black spike heels accentuated her pencil-slim figure. Her red hair was pulled back. There were touches of gold at her throat and ears. Every detail of her costume, even her overlarge glasses, was deliberately calculated to make her seem more suave and professional than she secretly thought she was.

  The big boy shifted uneasily. "Give me a break, lady," he muttered.

  "Who interviewed you for this job?"

  "A...a...Miss Zola."

  "I suppose she told you nothing about what to wear to work?"

  "Nothing."

  "First, I’m not your 'love.' I am Miss Martin, your boss. Second and third, no message T-shirts and no gum in Connoisseurs."

  When the giant gulped his gum and hung his head, Eva smiled triumphantly.

  The phone rang again. Outside it was pouring. Victor dug his claws into the drawer and hunkered lower. Lady Balfoure was still waiting. The sale of the manuscript and the future solvency of Connoisseurs was still very much up in the air, but Eva felt better because she’d won a minor battle.

  Suddenly Zola flew into the warehouse and waved a can of sardines that flashed in the dim light like a victory signal. "Found them."

  "If you'd just put things where they belong in the first place—" Eva began.

  "If you'd just leave Victor at home where he belongs—"

  They both stopped, each realizing it was useless to try to reform the other.

  Zola was black, beautiful and original. She'd come from Louisiana with Eva. She adored antiques but missed Louisiana. Tall and thin, Zola had prominent cheekbones, huge eyes and a shower of ebony ringlets. She always wore miniskirts and painted her nails to match. She was the last sort of person one would have expected to find in a shop like Connoisseurs. She kept the accounts in a jumble. She forgot to place orders and relay telephone messages. But she loved the customers and worked so hard to satisfy them, they adored her.

  "Now where's Victor—that rascal?" Zola murmured.

  "In there." Eva pointed to the drawer of the armoire where a pair of slitted eyes glowed.

  "I can handle it from here if you want to get the phone, Eva."

  "If..."

  Zola pushed a pair of lime-green bracelets that looked like huge frosted doughnuts up her golden arms. She opened the can and held it against the drawer. The movers were as entranced by the curve of golden thigh as was Victor by the delectable vapors of sardines. "Here, you hungry?" she whispered in a tone that all three males found utterly seductive.

  Eva saw his black paw poke out of the drawer just as she raced out of the warehouse for the phone.

  Good! Otto's line was still blinking. She grabbed it.

  "Liebchen, for a moment I was afraid—" He sounded tense.

  Eva rubbed her bandaged wrist. "You're not still carrying on about that idiot on the scooter?"

  "I won't be able to rest until you're safe with me—tonight."

  "You're just using that to order me to come. I told you I never go to birthday parties," Eva insisted.

  "Not even mine?"

  "I explained months ago. And you know how I told you boats and I don’t mix."

  "La Dolce Vita isn't a boat. She's a floating palace."

  For fifty-eight years Otto had been used to getting his way. Eva held the phone away from her ear for a minute and took a deep breath and counted to five.

  She put the phone back to her ear. "I've been single too long to put up with this sort of nonsense from any man—even a prince."

  He laughed. "This prince has asked for your hand in marriage."

  "Things were perfect before you became obsessed with marriage."

  "They will be so again, once you marry me. I want to announce our engagement at my party."

  "I—I'm not sure I should marry anyone." She decided to make a joke of her doubts. "Why should I subject myself to the whims and tyrannies of a husband—especially a royal one used to giving commands?"

  "Because you are an idealist when it comes to people and money, and I am not. Because I have money, and you need it. Because I am the only man you've dated that your family has ever approved of. Because you want children and I need a male heir. Because you are a woman, the kind of woman who can never be complete without a man. Because you get lonely living alone, liebchen. I see it sometimes in your eyes. Because, you see, you need me, and I want you."

  He had struck a nerve—several nerves.

  She did so want to be independent and successful, but sometimes she felt tired, tired of struggling all by herself, tired of trying to prove herself, and failing. Tired of trying to forget Raoul. Before she’d lost him, all she’d ever wanted was to marry and be happy…to have children. At the same time such thoughts made her feel guilty. In the twenty-first century women were supposed to be feminists with careers.

  "If you come, we can discuss the manuscript," Otto purred.

  Nine million pounds. Did he think he was buying a manuscript or her?

  Nigel had warned her. "Prince Otto buys his wives just as he buys his masterpieces. He’s had three, you know.”

  Otto used her silence to change tactics abruptly.

  "Liebchen..." There was a new element in Otto's voice. "Something else rather unpleasant has occurred. I've had news of...Raoul."

  Otto disliked Raoul and rarely mentioned him.

  She felt a tingle of unwanted excitement and, surprisingly, dread. "What?"

  "There's a man who says he was with Raoul in Africa when he died."

  "Who?"

  "You will have to come to Portofino. I can tell you nothing but his name, Nicholas Jones."

  "The name means nothing."

  "He says he has a message to deliver."

  "I'm not interested in Raoul anymore," she lied, struggling to keep her voice flat and emotionless. “He’s been gone…for a very long time.”

  When she caught sight of her reflection in the antique, gilt-edged mirror across the room she saw that her face was as still as death, as gray as ash. Why, she looked like a ghost. Only the frantic pulse in her throat told her she was very much alive.

  "The sun is shining in Portofino," Otto whispered.

  Her heart beat in quick erratic thuds.

  "I am offering you a paradise of sun, sea and cobblestones. A mysterious stranger who knows something of my former, treacherous protégé and your 'friend.' What kind of woman would prefer stayi
ng in London and working?

  Outside the window rain cloaked the shops and the street with gray wet.

  "It's supposed to rain in London—all weekend," Otto persisted.

  Rain always reminded Eva of Louisiana. Of Raoul. Of the girl she'd once been. Of the months of horror and scandal after his death, when all the vicious stories about him had been printed and the local gossips had linked her name to his. Rain reminded her of everything she had run away from Louisiana to forget.

  Eva’s heart drummed like the rain against the window. The dark day coupled with her sleepless night must have made her more susceptible to the slightest mention of Raoul. Mr. Jones could say nothing that she did not already know. Raoul was dead, and both she and Otto wanted to forget him.

  Still, she'd been working too hard at Connoisseurs and needed a break.

  Doorbells jingled and Nigel bustled into the shop, his weary arms brimming with auction-house catalogues. If she managed to negotiate the sale of the manuscript, no one at Connoisseurs would have to work as hard as each did now to make the overhead. Zola could have more time off for her baby.

  Sun, sea and cobblestones. Eva imagined the white afterdecks of La Dolce Vita, the sparkling sunlight or the Ligurian Sea, the warmth of the sun on her skin. There would be elegantly served lunches on the afterdeck following a leisurely period of gossip and aperitifs. The weekend would be a blur of delectable foods, pared wines and champagne. Although she avoided water sports now, she could watch the other guests sail, ski or swim.

  And she would meet Nicholas Jones. Perhaps he could tell her something that would give her closure.

  When Eva made up her mind, she made it up quickly. "So, it's really sunny?"

  "And my jet is standing by at Heathrow to pick you up Liebchen."

  "You’re always so sure of yourself."

  There was a silence, and then Otto spoke, his guttural purr triumphant. "Because—you see—you are not so different from other women."

  She felt like screaming at him, but he had already hung up.

  She slowly set down the phone.

  Sun, sea and cobblestones. And Otto's mysterious stranger, Nicholas Jones.

  Everyone thought she should marry Otto. Even Nigel.

  But she wasn’t in love with Otto. Was it wise to commit to marriage before she put her feelings for Raoul behind her?

  Hadn't she come to London to get over him and to prove that she could make a life for herself?

  She flipped her calendar, intending to see what was scheduled for the next week.

  But the page fell open on her birthday, which was the same as Otto's although no one knew, not even Otto, because birthdays, especially her own, were occasions she no longer celebrated. An eternity ago Raoul had sent her a letter and promised to return on her birthday. He had sounded almost like he was ready to make up after their quarrel. Instead, on that day, she had learned of his death and betrayals in Africa.

  She would be thirty. Had Raoul lived, he would be forty-five. She had never imagined she would really ever be this age without a husband and children of her own. Her sister, Noelle, had twin girls. Otto would marry Eva, give her children. Her biological clock was ticking.

  In the blank square that was the date for her birthday Eva scribbled a single word.

  "Portofino."

  Why did she feel that her entire life was hanging in the balance?

  Chapter Three

  Trying not to alert the thugs beneath him, Nicholas bent over the stateroom’s doorknob with his tools. He didn't like the damp wind sweeping across the balcony any more than he liked the purple clouds towering against the southern horizon. A nasty storm was brewing in the Mediterranean, a freak, unseasonable storm that none of the weather forecasters had predicted.

  Unfortunately, he’d made his plans without prior knowledge of the storm.

  He put the thought of the storm out of his mind, and focused on the problem at hand. Nicholas felt like a common thief as he crouched in the shadows of the little balcony outside Otto's stateroom, the luxury cabin Otto had assigned to Evangeline.

  Otto had armed men everywhere. If they caught him aboard, they'd kill him.

  This was hellish nonsense. It seemed like a scene from one of Nicholas's blackest nightmares. But from the moment he'd spoken to Zola, he'd known he had no choice.

  "A motorcycle nearly ran her down. Prince Otto says she's a target because of her close connection to him. He's involved in some sort of international arms conference. She went to Portofino so he could protect her."

  Damn the clever bastard

  So here Nicholas was in Portofino, an unlikely hero in an unlikely melodrama, trying to pick what was surely the most stubborn lock in Europe when he could have been enjoying a brandy on his own boat, Rogue Wave, while contemplating Otto’s downfall.

  Instead his bad left leg was cramping, and it was a struggle not to gag on the acrid smoke wafting up from the afterdeck. Beneath him two of Otto's men were smoking cheap Italian cigarettes while regaling one another with the filthiest jokes Nicholas had ever heard.

  To free his hands Nicholas placed a black-and-gold box beside the door. Then he inserted the tiny knifelike tool back into the lock and began to jiggle it. He had to work fast before Otto came upstairs.

  Nothing happened.

  When noxious smoke enveloped him before the wind blew it away, perspiration beaded on his brow. Twin howls of laughter erupted over a particularly lewd punch line. Nicholas was too old for this game; he didn't know any of the rules or the tricks.

  But he had to see Evangeline alone and talk her into going into hiding. He couldn't risk a public meeting.

  Since she believed Raoul was dead, there was no telling what she would do when she saw him again.

  Nor did he have the slightest idea what he was going to say to her, let alone how he could possibly convince her that her life was in grave danger—from Otto, her would-be fiancé—and that he, Nicholas, had come to protect her.

  Nicholas remembered her softness, her beauty, her trusting innocence. Her hair had been silken flame; her brown eyes as luminous and quiet as a fawn's. Just the memory of her beauty brought a sense of hollow pain to his chest. There had been a time when she’d trusted him and he could have talked her into anything.

  No. She wasn't that woman. Maybe she never had been. She had chosen her family over him, and now she thought she belonged to Otto.

  Nicholas worked grimly, but without success, the metal blade clicking impotently. Anya's party would begin in less than an hour.

  The blade jammed. Damn. He’d lost his touch.

  He managed to pry it loose. For hours, it seemed, the inane jokes went on beneath him as his blade strained inside the stubborn lock, as he agonized over how he was going to approach Evangeline, as the precious seconds ticked away one by one.

  Just as he was about to give up, something in that hellish metal trap gave.

  In his excitement, he dropped his tool. It clattered against the glass door as it fell. Thowop! Then it rolled onto the painted white aluminum.

  Damn.

  With a groan he knelt to pick it up. There was a sudden hush beneath him; the relaxed banter and jokes stopped. There was a new urgency in the Italian voices.

  "Dio! What was that?"

  Nicholas's hand froze as he reached for the black-and-gold box.

  "The balcony."

  The men were shouting the alarm just as Nicholas opened the door and stepped silently into a gleaming cocoon of pink Carrara marble. His bad leg was throbbing, and his limp was more pronounced. The fragrance of a thousand roses filled the air which was refreshing after the nauseating stench of the men’s smoke.

  He saw gold vases filled with pink roses. A Titian hung on one wall; a magnificent Gobelin tapestry was on the other. Mirrored doors ran the length of the cabin. The nearest door stood open. He saw dresses hanging inside it. The last two doors were also slightly ajar. Filmy traceries of perfumed steam seeped out of them. A bathroom. The floors
were covered with thick Persian carpets.

  Nicholas felt repelled by Otto's extravagance. Otto hadn't changed. He had always used his money to overpower, to impress, to enslave and corrupt—to buy those things in life that no man should ever have to buy. Women. Eva.

  In the center of the vast stateroom was a bed covered with a pink silk spread. Otto's bed. Hers, too, no doubt.

  Nicholas flinched at the thought and then pushed it from his mind, concentrating instead on the black silk evening gown that lay there. The dress was lined with red taffeta. A heavy collar of diamonds and blood-red rubies had been tossed down beside it. Nicholas picked up the necklace and fingered it grimly. It was the kind of thing Anya wore. In disgust, he pitched it back onto the bed.

  It was clear as day that Eva was Otto's mistress and that she was only too happy to be the newest piece of merchandise on Otto's auction block.

  What was her price? A necklace of diamonds and rubies? No. More. Much more. On the bed beside the necklace were catalogues of priceless illuminated manuscripts, and then Nicholas remembered she had a shop to finance. Otto's money could give her success, her family's respect, status in society, all the things a man like himself could never provide.

  Sour grapes? Nicholas laughed mirthlessly at himself. Who was he to judge after the things he'd done? Besides, it wasn't as if he wanted her for himself.

  Where the hell was she?

  Restlessly he moved farther into the bedroom. On a wing-backed chair he saw bits of fragile black lace. She had always been messy. He picked up the feminine garment, examining what he discovered was a filmy brassiere. For a second longer he let it dangle from his fingers while he imagined the creaminess of her breasts filling it. Instantly aroused, he flung the intimate bit of gossamer down.

  Damn Otto for forcing him into such a degrading position. He had no wish to spy, no wish to sneak around a woman's bedroom and invade her privacy, especially not Evangeline's. Still, the picture of her white skin and dark nipples pushing beneath black lace lingered like an erotic dream in the back of his mind and kept him hard.