by Julie Leto
Her body ached in the most delicious places. The musky scent of sex and sweat acted like an aphrodisiac, and even though she knew she might not be able to walk in the morning if they made love again, she couldn’t help wondering where he’d gone as his side of the bed was empty.
“Hey.”
She rolled over, her body drawn to his husky voice. He stood in the doorway dressed in a pair of sweatpants with Lady cuddled in his arms.
“Oh, crap,” she said, sitting up. “The cats. I haven’t—”
“I fed them,” he reassured. “Might be a good thing they were hungry. Black Jack didn’t hiss at me for once.”
She relaxed into the covers. “They’re getting used to you.”
He padded to the bed and dropped the cat onto the mattress. The tortoiseshell feline pounced onto the sheet and batted the folds and tents as if mysterious prey existed underneath. Abby laughed as Danny sat down on the edge of the bed and caressed her cheek.
“No one around here should bother getting used to me,” he said. “I won’t be here that long.”
Unable to deal with that reality just now, Abby leaned into his hand. “Then how about if we all just enjoy you while we have you?”
Danny chuckled, but something in the sound made her look up. His eyes, so brilliant green, seemed—for a split second—sad. But he erased the expression the instant he realized she was watching. He drew his hand back, but she caught it and turned his palm so she could better see the ring that he’d inherited from his father.
“Tell me more about this,” she said, reaching across to turn on the decorative lamp on her bed table, which was more for show than light. But the 10-watt bulb illuminated the center stone enough for her to see a scratch in the shape of a Z. “What does the Z mean, or was the mark accidental?”
He allowed her to turn his hand and examine the ring from all sides. It was old, that was for sure. The gold had worn thin on the inside and showed signs of repair. The center emerald, though marred, still sparkled a green nearly as brilliant as Danny’s eyes. The black opals on either side, however, flashed with brilliant turquoise and tiny flecks of gold. Her area of expertise was not jewelry, but she’d seen enough to know this was an exquisite piece of workmanship.
“Not accidental, no. It’s the mark of my ancestor, Joaquin Murrieta. My great, great, great, great—” he counted on his fingers, then added one more “—great grandfather.”
“Neither Joaquin nor Murrieta is spelled with a Z.”
“Apparently, it came from a nickname. He was a sort of, um, bandit. A famous one. A couple of books and movies were based on his life.”
Abby sat up and yanked the hand that had been responsible for so much pleasure over the past twenty-four hours closer to the light. “Wait, you’re telling me you’re related to Zorro?”
“Zorro is a fictional character, but yeah, that’s what my brothers tell me.”
A thrill chased up her spine and she couldn’t help but envision Danny dressed all in black, with a slim mask and voluminous cape, a finely honed sword at his side and whip coiled in his belt. The image was highly erotic—though everything about Danny was erotic at the moment.
“That’s really cool,” she said, sounding sixteen and not caring. That’s how old she’d been when Antonio Banderas swashed his buckle across movie screens in the role of the notorious rogue. She’d watched the movie as many times as teenagers today swooned over Twilight.
And though she’d been drawn in by Banderas’s sultry good looks, she’d also totally connected with the female lead, Elena, played by Catherine Zeta-Jones. The good girl. So prim. So proper. So torn between the upstanding Don Alejandro and the wanted man he became when he donned the mask.
Danny, however, didn’t share her enthusiasm. He shrugged noncommittally. “Cool is not the word I’d pick.”
“What, then? I mean, this ring is over a hundred years old and belonged to a guy who is notorious and mysterious. Books and television shows and movies have been made about him. He was California’s Robin Hood.”
“But was he? What part of his story was real and what was just romanticized bullshit that sold a lot of movie tickets?
She could see this was more than mere speculation for him. This was his family legacy.
“Does it matter? What’s left now is a powerful legend.”
“And this,” he said, taking his hand back and examining the ring as if it was the first time he’d really looked at it. “If not for this hunk of metal and stones, I might not have gotten arrested or reconnected with my brothers or put Lucy’s life in danger.”
“If you hadn’t gotten arrested, I never would have found you.”
She drew his hand back to her and kissed the center stone, genuinely thankful that it had fallen into his possession, no matter the circumstances or the consequences. He was here with her now, openly grappling with who he was in relation to his brothers, his family, the world and her. She didn’t have any answers for him, but she wasn’t afraid to confront the questions anymore. Not for herself.
And not for him.
Leaving the ring, she kissed his knuckles, then turned his hand so she could swirl intimate circles in his palm with her tongue. Though her body had not yet fully recovered, she couldn’t help wanting him again, especially now that she knew he was a direct descendent of one of the world’s most legendary lovers.
“The history of the ring says it, um, bestows certain gifts on the wearer,” he said, his confession clearly reluctant.
“Really? Like what?”
“It’s supposed to boost a guy’s need for risk and danger.”
She laughed. “I think you already have that part covered.”
“It’s also supposed to increase the wearer’s appeal to women.”
At this, she guffawed. “You’ve never needed a ring for that, though things have been more intense this time around.”
He scowled until she calmed her laughter to a quiet giggle.
“What’s the third thing?” she asked.
“How do you know there’s a third thing?”
She rolled her eyes. “There’s always a third thing in legends and curses and spells.”
He frowned. There was a third thing—one he was clearly reluctant to admit.
“When a Murrieta descendant wears the ring, he’s supposed to have a heightened sense of right and wrong and a strong urge to fight for justice, rather than personal gain.”
She smiled at him. “So you think the ring is the only reason you agreed to come back to Chicago with me? To help me recover what you took?”
“The thought occurred to me.”
She shook her head, then tugged him onto the bed and climbed, naked and needful, onto his lap. “Does it really matter why you came? Because it doesn’t to me. All I know is that while you’re here, I’m going to take advantage of you in every possible way.”
He slid his hands down her back and underneath her bottom so he could tug her against his growing erection.
“Promise?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah,” she agreed. “And I don’t make promises that I can’t keep.”
11
TO MAKE SURE THEY DIDN’T get distracted, Danny got out of bed before Abby to shower and dress in the guest room. He wasn’t one to complain about nonstop sex, but he’d come here for a reason and it wasn’t to connect to her so deeply that he wouldn’t be able to break away when the thing was through.
After he’d gone into the kitchen to find sustenance, he heard her stir. He half expected—and half wanted—her to appear in the living room wrapped up in a sheet, mussed from the night’s loving, and ready to go again, this time on the kitchen counter. But when she finally emerged from her room, she wore a pair of slim gray pants and loose tunic sweater that slipped sensually off her shoulders, but otherwise kept her relatively covered. With her face scrubbed and her hair pulled back in a flouncy ponytail, she looked fresh and well loved.
Just like a woman should.
“
You made breakfast?” she said, pointing to the plate of scrambled eggs and bacon he put in front of her.
“My specialty.”
She slid onto the bar stool and immediately picked up a fork. “I hope you’re good, because I’m starving.”
“I believe you said that at some point last night,” he teased.
She scooped a large bite of cheesy eggs onto her fork. “I’d never doubt your sexual prowess, but your cooking is a different matter.”
“We both had quite the workout last night.”
She hummed her agreement while she chewed and swallowed. “I have aches in muscles I’d forgotten I had. I might need a massage later.”
He rubbed his hands together. “I’m a little out of practice, but I can probably oblige.”
“I meant from my masseuse,” she said with a wink.
“Even on an off day, I’m better than Svetlana.”
She crunched through a strip of bacon, extra crisp, the way he knew she liked it.
“You remember her name?”
“I remember a lot of things about you, Abby, including how much you hate to eat food when it’s cold. Eat, and then we’ll talk.”
She dug in and they spent the meal in relative silence, chatting mostly to the cats, who were circling underneath the table in search of scraps. While she cleared the dishes into the dishwasher and tossed puff balls for the cats to chase, he pulled out the file on her painting and booted up her laptop. With Lucy on her way out of the country, Danny had to depend on his own research skills to come up with a plan for breaking into the collector’s house before he unveiled the painting to the general public.
He pulled out the invitation that Abby had received to the masquerade and typed the name of the collector, Harris Liebe, into the search engine. He came up with several references in art newsletters and blogs about the upcoming event, along with loads of speculation about the subject of the nude, but little else. Most of the links went to Harris Liebermann, a chain of art galleries to which this Liebe guy seemed to have no connection.
“Not finding much?” She joined him in the living room, where he’d set up shop on the couch. She placed a fresh cup of coffee for him on the table beside the computer while she sipped her own. “I didn’t.”
“No, nothing. What did your sources tell you?”
“He’s a foreign speculator of some sort. Made a lot of money investing in war-torn Middle Eastern countries—very hush-hush. He supposedly inherited a load of art from a relative and just started expanding the collection a few years ago, which is why no one knows him.”
“And how did he get ahold of your work?”
She shrugged. “I don’t even know for sure that the painting he has is mine. But my private investigator in New York has really great contacts on the black market. He’s 99.9% sure the painting is mine. But you’ll know it when you see it.”
Would he? Danny had stolen the painting, but he hadn’t spent a lot of time studying it. It had, after all, been a nude of her grandmother.
“Let’s hope. This art blog has a couple of posts speculating about which Pierre-Louis painting he might have and what young socialite the artist enticed to take off her clothes. That seems to have been his specialty.”
She nodded. “He even kept a journal that details most of the women he painted, particularly the nudes. I managed to get a look at it a couple of months ago. It’s housed at a library where a friend of a friend is on the board of directors. My painting is mentioned, but the model, surprisingly, isn’t named.”
“If that’s the case, why are you so worried? If he can’t identify the subject, then your family will be kept out of it.”
“It won’t take much detective work to connect the painting to the Albertinis. My grandmother—well, she had a reputation. A deserved one. She was a great woman, but she had her appetites, so to speak. The family tried to cover it all up, but society pages in the thirties were just as bad as the tabloids today.”
“And you really care about this?”
In the past twenty-four hours, he’d watched Abby transform into an entirely different woman from the uncertain, wounded girl who’d played dress up in the New Orleans casino and enticed him away in her private jet. She was bolder, more confident, more comfortable in her own skin. He doubted she’d pass up a chance to pose for a nude painting herself if given the chance. In fact, after last night, he’d bet money that if the guy with the brush was attractive enough, she’d have an affair with him just because she could.
But then, his experiences had been limited to the privacy of her home. Out in the world, in public, where her actions would affect the people she loved and respected, she’d likely hold tight to her good-girl persona if it killed her.
“My father would care,” she explained. “He’d be humiliated to have all this dug up again. Viviani Goletti—his mother—was married when she had the affair with Bastien. And if the truth about our affair gets out, too? It’ll kill him.”
“A bad reputation never killed anyone. I mean, your grandmother lived into her eighties, right? And I have no doubt your father would stand beside you, no matter what gets out about us. Isn’t that what fathers are supposed to do?”
He had no experience of his own on this point, but from what he knew about Ramon, his past had been fairly shady. The natural instinct to work on the wrong side of the law had come to Danny genetically, as well as through his exposure to his adopted family. He came from a long line of people who made mistake after mistake.
Abby’s family, on the other hand, seemed to treat questionable decisions with much more fear and loathing.
She picked up the engraved invitation to the masquerade and unveiling at Harris Liebe’s home. “I don’t want to risk hurting my family, Danny. My father’s childhood was pretty rotten sometimes, thanks to what people whispered about his mother. He says now it made him stronger, but he still doesn’t want it all brought up again. And when I had to tell him about you, about what I’d done…” She shook her head, as if she couldn’t stand to let the memory form in her mind. “It won’t take long for the right people to connect the dots. Our affair could be exposed and then Marshall’s memory will be dragged through the mud, too. It will be so much easier if we just get our hands on the painting first and make it disappear.”
Danny decided not to argue. She wanted the painting back, no matter her reasons, and he needed to get it for her. Once he did, he could close this chapter of his life with a definitive thud. He knew she forgave him—she never would have made love to him the way she had if she hadn’t emotionally healed. But until the painting was back in her possession and her family legacy restored, he wouldn’t be able to put this part of his life behind him.
He glanced down at the ring. Before his arrest, he never would have let his brothers into his life. But since he had, he was starting to understand the importance of having pride in where he came from, in what he’d leave behind when his time on this earth was over. When he left Abby behind, the least he could do was leave her with more than she had when they’d first met.
“I need to get into Harris Liebe’s place. Scope out the lay of the land.”
She smiled and yanked out another slip of paper. “This is the catering company that will be doing the masquerade. My friend Erica uses them all the time for her events and they owe her a favor. They have people coming in and out for days prior to a party like this. I’ll have her tell them we’re throwing a similar shindig and so we’re coming along to see how they operate.”
He shook his head. “We? No way. I don’t want you anywhere near this.”
“Without me, there is no this!”
That much was true, but other than having Lucy to fence the items he stole, Danny worked alone. And he certainly wasn’t going to make an exception for a socialite with no thievery experience. She wasn’t even a good liar.
“As remote as it is, there’s always a chance that I’ll be caught,” Danny said. “If that happens, I don’t want you connec
ted to me in any way. Talk about embarrassing your family.”
Danny flattened his hand over her mouth.
“It’s either my way or no way on this, Abby. Non-negotiable.”
She scowled, but nodded her assent.
“Good,” he said, removing his hand. “I’ll case the place, then figure out the best time to break in prior to the party. But there are other plans to be made. For instance, once I have the painting, what do you want me to do with it? You’ll want it out of Chicago in a hurry, at least until the heat dies down. If this Liebe guy knows about your original ownership, you’re going to be the first person the police question.”
“If he reports the theft,” she reasoned. “He might not, since it was originally stolen, right?”
“But he might. You know, I could pose as a private collector and try to buy the thing back before the auction.”
She shook her head. “I made discreet inquiries about a private purchase the minute I found out what he intended to do. He insists on an auction. But you’re right. I’ll need a place to stash the painting until I can bring it home. And I have an idea about that.”
She flipped to the bottom of the file and retrieved a glossy catalogue emblazoned with the header El Dorado Auctions. “When I was researching you, I learned about your brothers liquidating the inventory of your father’s auction house. If they haven’t sold the building yet, I was thinking maybe we could stash the painting in their vaults.”
Danny grimaced. The last thing he wanted to do was involve his brothers in another one of his messes. But at last count, Michael owed him for helping save Claire from a serial rapist. Since Michael had inherited the property in San Francisco and Danny knew from Lucy that the vaults there were formidable, this wasn’t a bad plan.
“I don’t know what the security is like there now that the building is unoccupied. The painting could get stolen again.”
