What lay outside was a spectacular view of the Las Vegas Strip. Even in the daylight, neon lights flashed, decorating the hotel and casinos lining the street as far as she could see. Next door, a miniature version of the Eiffel Tower stretched up into the cloudless blue sky. Across the street, fountains sprayed hundreds of feet in the air from the middle of a man-made lake. She sighed, dropping the curtains shut again. Julian’s world was full of material extravagance and artificial beauty. But all the slick buildings, the mirrors, the gilt and glittering lights left her with a vaguely sticky feeling. All she wanted was to be back in her own home, and teaching classes at the yoga studio. Instead, she was here, in Sin City.
During her human life, she’d never been remotely interested in what this city had to offer. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”—the popular motto of this adult playground—offended her sensibilities and went against everything she believed in. Gambling, drinking, strippers…everything this city stood for was in stark contrast to her life of moderation and constraint. And as an angel, coming here was completely out of the question. Unless Arielle had given her some assignment that brought her here, she would never have had a reason ever to set foot in this godforsaken place.
Why, oh, why had she promised to stay with him for a whole week? She’d fallen straight into Julian’s trap. But with her brother as bait, there’d been no real choice. Andrew was a strong, ethical person, but clearly he’d been no match for Julian.
“The Lussuria,” she said, testing the hotel’s name on her tongue. “Pretty. What does it mean? Luxury?”
Behind her, he laughed, still lounging on the bed. “Lussuoso is the Italian word for luxury. Lussuria means lust.”
She shivered, turning toward the bathroom. “I’m going to shower,” she announced, hoping he did not hear the tremble in her voice.
He was gone from the room by the time she’d finished, presumably showering in his own bathroom. For the first time since they’d gotten in the car last night, she might have a few minutes alone. She needed to call Arielle. Julian had just used her room’s telephone to call for room service, but now the phone was gone. He must have taken it with him. Peering behind the bedside table, she looked at the empty telephone jack and swore out loud.
She had to get out of here.
Yanking open the closet, she grabbed her dress, ignoring the other items that hung there. There was no sign of the strapless bra she’d worn last night, but she didn’t have time to look for that now. She slipped into the dress, grabbed her shoes and ran for the front door.
Her heart pounded as she rode the elevator down, glancing at the illuminated floor numbers as she descended from the forty-fifth floor. She fished in her purse, gathering cash and a credit card in her shaking fingers as she began to formulate a plan. It would be easy enough to grab a taxi from the lobby, go to the airport, catch the next flight home. But what if Julian came after her? Would he try to stop her?
And suppose she did manage to escape. Would he unleash his wrath on Andrew or on Nick, as he’d threatened? Her Assignee would be arriving later today, and she knew that he would not be spared. She had seen for herself what went on at Devil’s Paradise. Julian was capable of anything.
The elevator doors opened, and she stepped out into the luxurious lobby of the hotel. Tourists milled there, oblivious to the ominous air that chilled her to the core. A vast archway stretched into the casino, where on this bright Sunday morning the crowds were already massing amidst the ceaseless electronic beeping of the slot machines, the rattle of the roulette wheels. In the other direction, the entrance to Julian’s club waited. A large silk banner above the closed doors announced the grand opening of Devil’s Ecstasy next weekend.
She stood at the lobby’s edge, surveying the scene. This was no innocent pleasure destination, designed for entertainment. It was a lair of evil, a sanctuary for demons. She could feel it in her bones, in the pit of her stomach. She wished to God she could walk out the front door and never look back.
But she knew that was impossible. She thought of Nick and Andrew, shivering as she speculated about what Julian might do to them if she left. No, she could not go. She knew what she had to do—she had no other choice.
Surprising Serena in bed was a moment Julian would savor for a long time to come. As he showered, his erection remained as his mind pored over the details of her body. She was deliciously built, with lithe, toned muscle giving way to soft curves that would fit his hands perfectly. It was as though she had been created to satisfy his every desire. He thought of her perky breasts tipped with rosy nipples. Looked forward to exploring every inch of her luminous skin, to arousing her erogenous zones and enjoying the height of her pleasure. And the height of his own pleasure, too.
He stepped out of the shower, dried himself with a thick bath towel and slid back into one of the hotel’s robes. He sauntered through the living room and opened the door to her bedroom. The only thing there was silence.
“Serena?” he called. No answer. He checked her bathroom. She was not there, either. Then he saw that the closet was open, and her dress and shoes were gone.
Well, it was nothing that he hadn’t expected, after all. She was a feisty little piece of work, and from the looks of things, not easily mastered. But she’d return. He would have bet on it.
He opened a newspaper and sat down to wait.
When Serena got back up to the suite, Julian lounged in an armchair with his feet propped on a footstool, his expression maddeningly relaxed. He smiled over the top of his newspaper as he saw her.
“So glad you decided to rejoin me, after all. You made a prudent choice,” he said easily. “However, I don’t feel I can trust you entirely. You attempted to break our agreement. If you do so again, I’m afraid I’ll have no choice but to arrange for your brother to come out here to take some photographs.”
Serena marched past him and into her bedroom without saying a word.
She slammed the door and lay on the bed, desolation washing over her. Julian had outmaneuvered her at every turn. If she’d been willing to stoop to his level, she wouldn’t be in this mess right now. But that was impossible. Serena might not be able to talk to Arielle right now, but she was sure that at the very least, her supervisor would tell her to stick to her values. To play fair and have faith that the divine was on her side. That was becoming increasingly difficult, if not altogether impossible.
Oh, if she could just hear Arielle’s voice, if only to assure her that there was someone out there who had some clue about how to undo the horrific situation she’d gotten herself into. About how to protect her brother without sacrificing herself.
It was the scent of fresh baking and bacon wafting from the living room that finally lured her out of the bedroom. She had to face Julian at some point, and she might as well pacify her growling stomach while she was at it.
A young woman in a hotel uniform was unloading plates from a room-service cart onto the polished mahogany table in front of Julian. “I wanted to bring up your breakfast personally, Mr. Ascher,” she said. “We’re so pleased to have you staying with us again. Mr. Ranulfson sends his regards and extends his invitation to dinner at our five-star restaurant, Firebrand. If you need anything, my name is Tiffany. I’m the chef’s assistant.”
“Thank you, Tiffany,” he said.
The woman continued, “I hope you’ll make use of all our amenities. If there’s anything you wish for—” her voice dropped into a slight hush “—anything at all, please don’t hesitate to let us know. I will be personally available to cater to your every need,” she said.
Serena watched her, wondering if she was discreetly flirting with Julian. Well, who could blame her? Julian was a handsome man—a very handsome man—and obviously attractive enough to draw female attention. Even if he was pure evil.
Julian seemed oddly immune to Tiffany, despite the way she flipped her shiny brown hair and smiled at him almost adoringly. He indicated Serena, saying to the chef’s assistant,
“And the needs of my guest, Miss St. Clair.”
Tiffany’s smile thinned as she looked briefly at Serena. “Of course, sir.”
As she walked out of the room, she threw one last glance at Julian, although he did not return it.
When the woman was gone, Serena collapsed into an overstuffed armchair, tucking her feet beneath her. “I thought only demons would work here. I didn’t know there would be humans, too.” Unable to help herself, she added, “She seemed eager to serve you.”
He chuckled to himself, poring over the selections on the table. “We like to keep a mix of employees. Easier to blend with the human world that way.” He heaped plates with eggs Benedict, buttermilk pancakes and fresh fruit, and handed one of them to her. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
She straightened in her chair and balanced the plate on her lap. “Of what? You’re perfectly free to associate with whomever you choose. Please don’t let me cramp your style,” she said, giving an egg yolk a vicious stab and watching it bleed yellow on her plate.
“You are jealous.” His smile broke into a grin, and he forked a strawberry into his mouth. “Don’t worry. She’s got nothing on you.”
They ate in silence. Having slept far beyond her usual breakfast time, Serena realized she was ravenous. She forced herself to eat slowly, although she wanted to devour the entire plate.
He gestured to a bottle of champagne that sat on the cart in a silver ice bucket. “Would you care for a little champagne? A mimosa, perhaps?”
“Why are you always trying to ply me with champagne? It’s barely three in the afternoon,” she grumbled.
“Come on and live a little. Have some fun.”
“Fun?” The word escaped her as a high-pitched squeak. “Your idea of fun is perverse. Toying with people’s lives and threatening to destroy them is not fun,” she said somberly.
He set his empty plate aside. “And what’s your idea of fun? Drinking chamomile tea on a Saturday night? Preventing other people from enjoying themselves? Your brother said he wasn’t sure if you ever really knew how to have fun.”
Tears welled in her eyes, but she blinked them away. She was not going to let him see her cry.
“You’ve gone too far,” she said, choking back the sorrow that welled up in her, not only from Julian’s taunting words, but also from the pain of missing Andrew. From hearing what her brother had thought of her. From realizing it was true. She stood, turning to head for her bedroom.
Behind her, Julian exhaled a long sigh. “Serena, wait. We have to call a truce. We cannot spend the next seven days bickering like schoolchildren. Let’s be adult about this.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “I am an adult,” she said, wishing that she didn’t sound like a petulant three-year-old as the words came out of her mouth.
“Then start acting like one. You agreed to come here, and you’re not leaving. Accept the consequences of your choice. Look outside. All of Las Vegas is at our feet. Aren’t you the least bit tempted to go outside and explore?”
“Choice!” she nearly exploded. “Coming here was hardly my choice. You coerced me. You threatened my brother and now you’re insulting me to my face. You want me to take responsibility for my actions? Screw you. You have no idea how to be an honorable person, do you? If you even had the tiniest inkling of what that means, you’d let me go.”
For a moment, she thought he might tell her to go to hell. Then he settled back in his chair and gave a long sigh. “I do know what it means to take responsibility for my actions. If you insist, I can at least be the one to take the high road and be the one to offer the olive branch.” He paused for a long moment before he finally said, “I apologize.”
It was perhaps the least sincere apology she’d ever heard, but there it was. She brightened a bit. “So will you let me go?”
“Of course not. Now, run along and change out of that dress from last night,” he said. “There are plenty of new clothes hanging in your closet.”
She went into the luxurious walk-in closet to look at the clothing the personal shopper had chosen. For several minutes, she stood wrapped in a bath towel, browsing through the items. The clothes were far more daring than her usual wardrobe, and far more sophisticated. There were low-cut dresses that were only slightly longer than certain T-shirts she owned. Most of the tops were either backless or transparent. None of the garments reached below the upper-thigh. But at least the clothes were beautiful. Whoever had selected this wardrobe had done so with good taste.
The undergarments were another story. She opened boxes to discover sets of lingerie in a gorgeous array of colorful silk and lace. But when she tried them on, she discovered that the bras were quarter-cups that stopped just beneath her nipples. The panties were either minuscule thongs or open at the crotch. She imagined he’d taken a perverse pleasure in instructing someone to buy these things for her.
It took her a while to coordinate an outfit that provided enough coverage in all the right places. In the end, she chose the longest of the dresses, which was cut from a paper-thin fabric that clung to her like water. And threw a silk pashmina wrap over it to cover the dress’s plunging cleavage.
“Let me see,” he said when she returned to the living room. Whisking away the pashmina, he gave her the once over and ended it with a nod of satisfaction. “You’ll boil outside with that scarf. Otherwise, acceptable.”
She resisted the temptation to cross her arms over her chest, and said, “Most of the things in that wardrobe look like they came out of the closet of a call girl.”
“A very high-end call girl, if you must. Those clothes were expensive,” he said mildly. “But if you insist, after we tour the Strip, we’ll do some more shopping.”
As they ambled down the palm-tree-lined boulevard, Serena marveled at the hotels, each with its unique theme. At the replica of Venice, gondoliers rowed their long black boats down the miniature canals. The office towers of New York and the Statue of Liberty loomed at another hotel. Yet another featured a live pirate battle waged between life-size ships. The sun shone; the day was deceptively bright. As they walked, Arielle’s words came crashing back into her head. He has the power to destroy you. He could have your soul in eternal damnation if something terrible happens.
Something terrible…like sleeping with him? That much was still unclear to Serena.
She replayed Arielle’s warning in her mind as Julian chatted easily about the hotels, about the fine weather, about his new nightclub and its upcoming grand opening. She said very little, since almost every response that came to her tongue was a sarcastic retort. But he did have a point, she realized—there was no point in keeping up this constant arguing. Gradually, as they progressed along the Strip, she found it very easy to be civil to him. Too easy.
“Tell me about yourself,” he said, catching her hand and tucking it under his arm while they strolled among the crowds.
She struggled, trying without success to dislodge her fingers from his grip. “You’ve already managed to find out more than I could probably tell you in a day. Did you have someone investigate me?”
He smiled, reaching to smooth a wisp of her hair that tangled in the light breeze. Clearly, the answer was yes. “Aren’t you curious about me?” he asked. He exaggerated a frown, but a little of that pretended hurt was genuine, she sensed.
“No,” was the safest thing to say. The only thing she could say.
Of course she was curious about him. She wanted to know everything—where he was born, what his childhood had been like, how he’d felt the first time he’d fallen in love, how he’d died. All the minute details of the circumstances that had produced this wildly handsome man who walked beside her, this remarkable physical body that housed such an embittered old soul.
As they walked, she started to formulate the answers in her own mind. England, if she had to guess, judging from his comments about Coleridge and the hint of an accent that crept into his voice at certain times. He’d been a lonely child, she knew
intuitively, from the flashes of that tiny, abandoned boy she sometimes caught when his guard was down. And the other thing she knew with certainty, although she had no concrete proof, was that his death had something to do with a woman.
She stopped herself from musing any further. Whatever else there was, whatever else he meant to tell her…it was most certainly better not to know.
Smiling, she tried to focus her attention instead on the massive neon signs flashing overhead, even in the bright sunshine. The wild stimulation of the Strip was almost enough to distract her from wondering.
Passing their reflection in a large mirror in a hotel lobby, he paused. “Look what a striking couple we make,” he said, drawing her close to him. She said nothing, but pulled away instantly, blushing furiously. But she saw that he was right: his dark hair and tanned skin made the perfect foil to her fairness. She was used to attention from men, but she usually ignored it. As they walked, she began to notice the admiring glances they attracted from the tourists of both genders, and every size, shape and color roaming the Strip.
She reminded herself again, He’s not a normal man. I could lose my status as an angel, or worse. She shivered. She’d slipped with him before, and it had been terrifyingly easy. What would happen if she did sleep with him? And what had Arielle said about it? She tried to remember her supervisor’s words. “It would depend on the circumstances,” Arielle had said. Serena vowed to herself that it would never get that far. She must not let him kiss her again. She only had to last one week. Seven days and he would be out of her life for good.
If only she could talk to Arielle, get a moment away from him. She scanned constantly for pay phones as they walked, but every time she spotted one, Julian had his arm around her waist or a healthy grip on her hand.
Where Demons Fear to Tread Page 10
