French Silk

by Sandra Brown

  “What’s she like?”

  “Oh, Yasmine, forget—”

  “For God’s sake, Claire, indulge me. What’s she like?”

  “Pretty. Blond. Slen—”

  “That’s not what I meant. I know what she looks like.”

  “You’ve met her?”

  “I’ve seen her.” Claire’s brows arched inquisitively. “Yes, I spied on them a couple of times,” Yasmine admitted impatiently. “I did everything a nice little mistress isn’t supposed to do. I whined. I made demands. I issued ultimatums. I pleaded. I threw tantrums. I called their house in the middle of the night just to hear his voice when he answered the phone. All that crap.

  “Since he began campaigning for reelection, he’s had less time to spend with me. The less time we had together, the more I hounded him. That’s one reason Alister got pissed, I think. I was taking chances with us getting caught. He was afraid Belle would find out. Or maybe she did find out. Who knows? Now I wouldn’t believe a word the lying prick says.”

  “I can see why he’d be attracted to you. You’re so different from her.”

  “In what way?”

  “Every way,” Claire replied. “I didn’t like her. She comes from aristocracy and makes certain everyone knows it. She’s cool and aloof. Snotty. Bigoted. And, I would guess, passionless.”

  “Maybe he didn’t lie about that,” Yasmine murmured.

  “It’s premature to say this,” Claire said hesitantly. “And you won’t believe me, but it’s true.” She reached for Yasmine’s hands and pressed them between hers. “The relationship wasn’t good or you wouldn’t have been so unhappy all the time. You’re better off without him.”

  Yasmine shook her head. “No, Claire, you’re wrong. I’m miserable. In fact, my entire life is in shambles.”

  “That’s not true, Yasmine!”

  “Obviously you’ve forgotten my financial straits. The money you’ll pay me for those stock shares won’t make a dent in what I owe creditors.”

  “That’ll turn around. Give it time. You’re beautiful and talented, Yasmine,” she said, meaning it. “Thousands of women would trade places with you in an instant. Right now your heart is broken, but it will mend.”

  Yasmine’s eyes narrowed and tilted up at the corners, giving her a calculating, feline look. “My heart is broken, but I’m not going to suffer alone.” She withdrew her hands from Claire’s grasp, reached into her shoulder bag, and withdrew an object that made Claire recoil.

  “My God, Yasmine. What are you doing with that thing?”

  The voodoo doll was a grotesque effigy of the congressman. She held the doll up and looked at it proudly. “See that hair on its head? That’s really Alister’s hair. That makes the spell more powerful. And this,” she said, pointing to the exaggerated red felt penis thrusting from the doll’s crotch, “well, you know what that represents.”

  Claire was appalled. “You’re not serious, are you? A few candles and talismans, okay, that’s harmless. But you can’t seriously believe in spells and black magic.”

  Yasmine turned on her angrily. “Why not? You believe in a virgin birth, don’t you?”

  To argue religion was a futile pursuit. Claire wasn’t going to engage in it, especially now when her friend was emotionally fragile. She wisely kept quiet as she watched in horrified fascination as Yasmine lay the doll on the bar and reached into her blouse. She withdrew a silver charm suspended from a chain around her neck. The charm was a hollow, filigree sphere. It was filled with matter that Claire couldn’t identify, but it had the odor of herbs.

  “By wearing this close to my body,” Yasmine said in a menacing voice, “I can control his thoughts. He won’t be able to get me off his mind. I’ll haunt him day and night. I’ll drive him freaking nuts.”

  “Yasmine, you’re frightening me.”

  She laughed low in her throat. “Yours is nothing compared to the fear Alister will experience before I’m finished.”

  “What do you mean ‘finished’? Yasmine, what do you intend to do?”

  Ignoring the question, she said, “Watch, Claire. Observe. Learn. In case you ever want to put a curse on someone.”

  Flipping back the collar of her shirt, she revealed a row of long, sinister pins. She pulled one from the fabric and laid it aside only long enough to strike a match from the matchbook lying on the bar. She ran the burning match along the pin until it became almost too hot for her to hold, then she plunged it into the repugnant red penis of the doll.

  “Good morning, Alister,” she whispered. “Sleep well? Don’t even think of making love to your insipid wife. Even one of my famous blow-jobs couldn’t get it up now, you limp dick.” She lit another match, heated another pin, and jabbed it into the doll’s torso.

  Claire grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her hard. “Stop this! This is ridiculous. Practicing voodoo is dangerous and stupid and I won’t have my best friend deluding herself with it.” She shook her again. “Do you hear me, Yasmine?”

  She blinked to clear her vision, as though Claire had snapped her out of a trance. “Of course I hear you.” Smiling broadly, she asked, “You didn’t think I was serious, did you?”

  “I—” Claire began uncertainly.

  Yasmine laughed. “I sure pulled one over on you, didn’t I?” She dropped the charm back into her bodice and replaced the doll in her shoulder bag.

  “Don’t let Cassidy see that,” Claire said. “He was interested in your Jackson Wilde doll, but I dismissed it as a gag. He might reconsider.”

  “Come on, Claire, relax. It’s like having the gypsy lady at a carnival read your palm. You don’t really believe in it, but it’s fun.”

  Claire still wasn’t convinced and her expression must have conveyed that. Yasmine shot her a retiring look as she picked up her drink. “This black magic hocus-pocus is all a hoax, but it’s fun to pretend that I could really hurt Alister. Why should I be the only one agonizing? It makes me feel better to know that the bastard might be suffering a little, too.” She sipped her drink. “Enough of my love life. Tell me how Cassidy sweet-talked himself into your pants.”

  Quietly, Claire reentered the bedroom. Since it was on the west side of the house, it remained in semidarkness. Cassidy was still in bed, lying on his back with his hands stacked beneath his head, staring at the ceiling fan as it slowly rotated above him. He had an arresting profile, strong, masculine, each feature well defined. She loved the shape of his lips, and looking at them now, knowing how they tasted and felt against hers, whether supplicant or demanding, made her mouth water.

  His biceps were as round and hard as apples. Soft dark hair lined his armpits and matted his chest, which rose above a flat, taut belly. It tapered into a narrow waist and an even trimmer pelvis. His sex was full and firm, and Claire knew it by touch, smell, and taste.

  She tried to suppress the erotic memories as she closed the door behind her. He turned his head. “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “Everything all right?”

  “It is now. It wasn’t. She was awfully upset.”

  “About what?”

  “Is that any business of yours?”

  He eased his hands from beneath his head and propped himself on one elbow. “Don’t get your stinger out, Claire. It was a politely curious question.”

  She sat on the edge of the bed but kept her back to him. “Her lover broke off their affair. And don’t ask me who he was because I can’t divulge that.”

  “I didn’t intend to ask.”

  “So… good. We’ve got no problem.”

  “Really? Could have fooled me. From your tone of voice, I’d guess we do.”

  She stiffened her spine. “You should go back to your room now. Yasmine would like to shower and sleep for a couple of hours before we start working.”

  “This hasn’t got anything to do with Yasmine.”

  “All right, it doesn’t.” Claire sprang to her feet and turned to confront him. She flung her hand toward the French d
oors. “In case you haven’t noticed, Cassidy, the sun is up. It’s morning.”

  “So what? Are you going to turn into a pumpkin?”

  “No, but you’re going to turn into an assistant district attorney who would love to pin a murder rap on me.”

  “Did you commit murder?”

  “I don’t have to answer that.”

  “I’d prefer you didn’t, if it’s going to be another lie.”

  “Just leave.”

  He threw off the sheet and sprang from the bed, naked and sexy. Carnal recollections of last night elbowed their way into her consciousness. They were unwelcome, but they were there nevertheless and she was forced to make room for them. Seeing him like this, she longed to touch him again, to feel his powerful thighs against hers, to have his hands stroking her body.

  She watched as he pulled on the old, faded jeans he’d worn into her room the night before. He didn’t button them this time, either. They had molded to his body so well and so long ago that there was little risk of them falling down.

  “Why don’t you cut the bullshit about Yasmine and her secret lover and tell me what this is all about.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t.” He aimed an index finger at the tip of her nose. “Don’t retreat behind that lofty finishing-school disdain, Claire. I know now that it’s an act you put on when it conveniently suits your purpose, when you want to avoid a confrontation. I met the real you last night. There,” he said, pointing down at the rumpled bed.

  “Is that why you took me to bed, so you could get to know me better?”

  “Yes. In every sense.”

  “How romantic. Now what was the real reason?”

  He grabbed her hand and shoved it into his open fly. “Drop this nonsense, kiss me, and in about twenty seconds your memory will be revived.”

  She pulled her hand free. “I’m sure you’ll claim you only wanted to make love to me.”

  “That was the general idea, yeah.”

  “I don’t believe you, Cassidy. You’re always accusing me of lying. Now I think you are.”

  He snorted a laugh and shook his head in bafflement. “What? What happened during the half-hour you were gone?”

  “I recaptured my sanity,” she muttered, turning her head aside.

  He took her chin between his fingers and drew her back around. “Don’t talk to me in riddles.”

  “Okay, I’ll be blunt,” she said, lifting her chin off the perch of his fingertips. “Yasmine said some things that made me think.”

  “About what?”

  “Sweet talk.”

  “Come again?”

  Yasmine’s question as to how Cassidy had wound up in her bed had yanked her from the warm, hazy glow of being in love and had plunged her into cold reality. Feeling tremulous but sounding intentionally hostile, she asked, “Why did you sleep with me last night?”

  “Isn’t that rather obvious, Claire?”

  “You’d like me to think so.”

  “We wanted each other,” he said.

  “But you initiated it.”

  “You weren’t coerced.”

  “No, you didn’t come to me waving your ID, or with a satchel full of official documents, or issuing threats. You were much too clever for that because you know how I resent and resist authority. Instead you approached me as a man to a woman. You tapped into my jealousy. Yes,” she said, slicing the air with her hands. “For whatever irrational reason, I was jealous of Yasmine yesterday. You took advantage of that and the sexual ambience that prevails over our sets.

  “Yasmine talked about being a fool,” she continued. “I comforted her by saying that, at one time or another, we all take departures from our better judgment and it’s usually because of our libidos.

  “That’s when it occurred to me what a colossal fool I’d been. You wooed me into bed, hoping that by morning you’d have your killer. Maybe you were counting on breaking down my defenses and getting a confession before dawn.”

  “Oh for Christ’s sake!” Having listened with diminishing patience, he now raked all ten fingers through his hair, then propped his hands on his hips. “Precisely when was this confession supposed to take place, Claire? During foreplay? Or at the moment of climax, did I expect you to scream, ‘I’m guilty’? No, wait, I’ve got it. I was hoping that once we’d screwed ourselves senseless, you’d talk in your sleep, right?”

  “This isn’t funny.”

  “You’re damn right it’s not,” he shouted.

  “If you wanted to catch your murderer so badly, why be so insidious? Why didn’t you just arrest me?”

  “Hasn’t it occurred to you what a conflict of interests this creates for me? For weeks I’ve been wrestling with it. Last night I wanted to make love to you more than I wanted an indictment.”

  “Liar.”

  He advanced on her, his stride long and angry. “If you think the reason I wanted to sleep with you had anything to do with this murder case, then your memory is shorter than the time it takes you to come.”

  Her palm connected hard with his bristly jaw, making a sharp, cracking sound. “Get out of my sight.”

  He caught her wrist and yanked her hard against him. Anger seethed in his eyes. For a moment Claire thought he might return her slap. Finally he spoke, but his lips were thin and hard and barely moved to form the words. “Gladly, Miss Laurent.”

  Before he went through the French doors, he turned. “You know what’s really got your goat, Claire? You’re mad at yourself for showing me the real you. You’re angry because you let down your guard, because you liked everything we did so damn much. You loved it, from the first kiss to the last sigh. And the only one lying about it is you—to yourself.”

  “What do you want to hear?” she lashed out. “That you’re a terrific lover? Does your male ego require morning-after accolades? Okay, I’ll say it. It was bloody wonderful. You knew all the right buttons to push, when to be aggressive, when to be passive.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It’s not a compliment. A technique as smooth as yours must have taken years of practice to develop. How many other female suspects have you bedded, hmm? Is that how you count coup? Not whether or not you send them to prison, but if you’ve managed to screw them first!”

  “Listen,” he said through clenched teeth, “I’ve never had to fuck my way into getting a conviction.”

  “Oh no?”

  “No. I’ve never had to resort to tricks. I’m too good at what I do.”

  “Well, if you’re so damn good, Mr. Cassidy, go about your business and get the hell out of my bedroom!”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “You look fabulous.” Joshua Wilde breezed into Ariel’s hospital room pushing a wheelchair. The nursing staff had informed him that she was dressed and waiting to be escorted outside, where a throng of journalists was clambering to take pictures and question her about this latest episode in her dramatic life. “Your chariot awaits, madam.”

  Ariel snapped the latches on her suitcase. “Is the chariot necessary?”

  “Hospital policy. Besides, it has such a biblical ring.”

  She frowned at him over her shoulder.

  Josh accepted her foul disposition with equanimity. He looked inordinately handsome and dashing this morning. As usual, he was wearing his chic clothing with flair and his hair was well groomed and shiny, one long wave dipping low over his brow. But there was an uncharacteristic spring in his step. The last few days of rest and relaxation had rejuvenated him.

  Even though Ariel was still dressed in unrelieved mourning black, she looked remarkably attractive for someone just discharged from the hospital. A beautician had been brought in to shampoo and blow-dry her long platinum hair. She’d applied her own cosmetics and had purposefully failed to put cover-up over the faint shadows beneath her large blue eyes. The haunting effect would remind her adoring public just how grueling her recent ordeal had been.

  She wasn’t espec
ially glad to see Josh and was determined not to share his cheerful mood. “You’re grinning like a goose. What about?”

  “Nothing,” he replied pleasantly. “Just generally happy.”

  “While I’ve been cooped up in here, you must have spent the entire time playing the piano.”

  “Practically around the clock.” He pilfered a banana from a lavish fruit basket, peeled it, and bit off a large chunk. “Didn’t play one gospel tune, either.”

  “All that classical junk,” she muttered, as she checked her reflection one last time in her compact mirror. “I’m almost glad I wasn’t there to hear it.”

  “I sounded pretty good, if I do say so myself.”

  She closed her compact with an economic flick of her wrist and dropped it into her handbag. “Keep your fingers limber because in a few days you won’t be playing for pleasure anymore. You’ll be pounding out gospel again.”

  Josh’s smile faltered. He tossed the banana peel onto her bedtray. “What do you mean ‘in a few days’? The doctors said you should have total rest for at least another month.”

  “I don’t care what they said. By the end of next week I want another prayer meeting scheduled. We had so much momentum going, then this.” She slapped her stomach as though punishing the child she carried. “We’ve got to get back on track. The sooner the better. I don’t intend to let up until Cassidy, or whoever’s in charge of the investigation now, puts somebody on trial for Jackson’s murder.

  “And that will be only the beginning. I plan to be present in the courtroom every day. The trial will be a hot news item for weeks, months. I want to be there for the duration. Visible. A tragic figure. I’ve got to make the most of the free publicity. Ready?”

  While outlining her plans, she had been checking the bathroom, closet, and bureau drawers for anything she might have previously overlooked. Now she turned to Josh, who had remained quiet throughout her speech.

  “Let me get this straight,” he said tightly. “You haven’t learned your lesson yet.”

  “I’m going to eat, all right? You can stop nagging me about that.”

  “But the bulimia was only half the problem, Ariel. You’re going to drive yourself to the point of another collapse, is that the plan?”