The Novels of Nora Roberts Volume 1

by Nora Roberts

  “Exploiting it?” Roxanne suggested, and Lily beamed.

  “That’s it. You take advantage of what you’ve got. Make it work for you. Your brains, your looks, your womanhood. Baby, the women who’ve done that have been liberated for centuries. Men didn’t always know it, that’s all.”

  “I’ll think about it.” One decisive nod, then she kissed Lily’s cheek. “Thanks.” She stiffened when she heard the key in the lock, and forced herself to relax. Beside her Lily was already vibrating with excitement. It baffled Roxanne, and delighted her. After all the years they’d been together, she mused as Max swung through the door. He can still make her feel that way.

  She wondered, fleetingly, if there would ever be someone who could give her that kind of gift.

  Luke strolled in behind Max, grinned and tossed Roxanne a pouch.

  “Still awake?” Filled to the brim with his victory, Max was already kissing Lily. “What more can a man want, Luke, than to come home after a successful venture and find two lovely ladies awaiting him?”

  “A cold beer,” Luke answered as he headed toward the mini-bar. “It must have been a hundred-twenty in that vault once we killed the power.” Luke popped open a beer and gulped half of it down his dry throat.

  He looked like a barbarian, Roxanne thought, jiggling the pouch in her hand. Dark, sweaty, overtly male. Because watching him made her own throat go dry, she turned back to her father. Now this was a man, she thought, pleased, who understood class. An aristocratic pirate, his moustache gleaming, his black trousers meticulously pressed, the dark cashmere sweater smelling lightly of his cologne.

  There were thieves, she decided as she sat on the arm of the couch, and thieves.

  “Mouse and LeClerc?” Lily asked.

  “Both gone off to bed. I invited Luke in for a nightcap. My dear boy, perhaps you could open a bottle of that Chardonnay we have chilled.”

  “Sure.” While he uncorked the bottle, he glanced at Roxanne. “Don’t you want to see what’s in the pouch, Rox?”

  “I suppose.” She hadn’t wanted to seem anxious. Certainly didn’t want to give either of them too much of a reaction. But when she poured the contents of the pouch in her hand no amount of willpower could still her gasp. “Oh,” she said as diamonds sizzled against her skin. And again, “Oh.”

  “Spectacular, aren’t they?” Max took the pouch and poured the remaining stones into Lily’s cupped hands. “Russian whites, round cut, perfect quality. What do you say, Luke, a million-five?”

  “Closer to two.” He offered Roxanne a glass of wine, set Lily’s on the table.

  “Perhaps you’re right.” Max murmured a thanks when Luke brought him a glass. “It was tempting to be greedy, I admit. Standing there in that vault.” With his eyes closed, he could see it. “All that utilitarian steel gleaming, and inside a treasure trove of emeralds, sapphires, rubies. Ah, Lily, the artistry. Necklaces dripping with color. Square-cut, pear-shaped, baguettes, tiffanies.” He sighed. “But these handsome fellows will be much simpler to transport and invest.”

  Luke remembered one piece in particular, a dramatic symphony of emeralds, diamonds, topaz and amethyst worked into a hammered gold collar in Byzantine style. He’d imagined slipping it around Roxanne’s neck, lifting all that heavy hair, fixing the clasp. She’d have looked like a queen wearing it.

  He would have tried to tell her that he’d needed to see her wear it, needed to give her something no one else could.

  And she would have laughed.

  Luke shook his head as Max’s voice penetrated his fantasy. “What? Sorry?”

  “Something on your mind?”

  “No.” With an effort of will he banished the image and his scowl. “I’m tired, that’s all. It’s been a long day, I’m going to turn in.”

  Maternal instincts were stronger than the flash of gems. Lily forgot about the diamonds sparkling in her hands. “Honey, don’t you want a sandwich or something? You hardly touched your dinner.”

  “I’m fine.” He kissed her, the left cheek, then the right, in a habit he’d developed over the years. “Good night, Lily. Max.”

  “An excellent job, Luke,” Max put in. “Sleep well.”

  He opened the door and tossed a look over his shoulder. They were gathered close. Max in the center with Lily nestled under his arm, Roxanne on the arm of the couch, her head resting against her father’s side, her hand full of icy white stones.

  Family portrait, he thought. His family. His eyes shifted to Roxanne’s, held. He’d do best to remember she was family. “See you, Rox.”

  He shut the door and walked across the hall to his own room, where he knew he would spend what was left of the night dreaming about a prize much more unattainable than diamonds.

  She rubbed his nose in that the very next day. The minute rehearsal was over, Roxanne hopped on the back of a motor scooter behind a blond Adonis. She sent a cheery wave, linked her arms around the French bastard’s waist and blasted off into the reckless Parisian traffic.

  “Who the hell was that?” Luke demanded.

  Max stopped by a flower vendor and purchased a carnation for his lapel. “Who was who?”

  “That jerk Roxanne just raced off with?”

  “Oh, the boy.” Max sniffed the red blossom before slipping the stem through his buttonhole. “Antoine, Alastair, something of the kind. A student at the Sorbonne. An artist, I believe.”

  “You let her ride off with some guy you don’t know?” It was outrageous. It was inconceivable. It was unbelievably painful. “Some French guy?”

  “Roxanne knows him,” Max pointed out. Delighted with life in general, he took a deep breath of air. “When Lily finishes changing, I believe we’ll all have lunch in some quaint outdoor café.”

  “How can you think about eating?” Luke spun on his heel and fought the urge to put his hands around Max’s throat. “Your daughter’s just driven off with a perfect stranger. He could be a maniac for all you know.”

  Max chuckled and decided to choose a dozen roses from the vendor’s cart for Lily. “Roxanne can handle him perfectly well.”

  “He was staring at her legs,” Luke said savagely.

  “Yes, well. It’s difficult to blame him. Ah, here’s Lily.” He presented her with the roses and a sweeping bow that made her giggle.

  Roxanne had a perfectly wonderful time. A picnic in the countryside, the scent of wildflowers, a French artist who read her poetry under the shade of a chestnut tree.

  She’d enjoyed the interlude, the soft, stirring kisses, the whispered endearments in the world’s most romantic language. She slipped back into her room half dreaming, with a secret smile on her lips and stars in her eyes.

  “What the hell have you been doing?”

  She muffled a shriek, stumbled back and stared at Luke. He was sitting in the chair by the window, a bottle of beer in his hand, the stub of a cigar in the ashtray beside him and murder in his eyes.

  “Damn it, Callahan, you scared me to death. What are you doing in my room?”

  “Waiting for you to decide to come back.”

  Once her heart started beating again, she pushed her hair from her shoulders. It was windblown from the drive, and made him think of a woman just rising out of bed after an interlude of hot, reckless sex. It was one more reason for murder.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve got a good hour before we have to leave for the theater.”

  She’d let the son of a bitch kiss her. Oh, he knew it. She had that look about her, those soft, swollen lips, the heavy eyes. Her shirt was wrinkled. She’d let him lay her back on the grass and . . .

  He couldn’t bear to think of it.

  It was bad enough when they were home and she took off with American guys. But French.

  Every man had his limit.

  “I’d like to know what happened to your brain. What did you think you were doing, going off with some smarmy French creep named Alastair?”

  “I went on a picnic,” s
he tossed back. “And he isn’t smarmy or a creep. He’s a sweet, sensitive man. An artist.” She threw that out like a gauntlet. “And for your information, his name is Alain.”

  “I don’t give a flying shit what his name is.” Luke rose slowly. He was still under the delusion that he had control. “You’re not going out with him again.”

  For an instant she was too stunned to speak. But only for an instant. “Who the hell do you think you are?” She advanced on him to shove the heel of her hand in his chest. “I can go out with whomever I want.”

  He snagged her wrist and brought her up hard against him. “Like hell.”

  Her chin snapped up, her eyes sizzled. “Who do you think’s going to stop me? You? You’ve got no say in what I do, Callahan. Not now, not ever.”

  “You’re wrong.” He said it between his teeth. His hand had dived into her hair, fisted there. He couldn’t seem to stop it. He could smell her, and the lingering tang of grass, of sunlight. Wildflowers. It plunged him into a murderous rage to think someone else had been this close. Close enough to touch. To taste. “You let him put his hands on you. If you do that again, I’ll kill him.”

  She would have laughed the threat off, or shouted it off. But she saw the naked truth in his eyes. The only way to combat the fear that sprang into her throat was with fury. “You’re out of your mind. If he put his hands on me it was because I wanted him to. Because I like it.” She knew it was the wrong thing to say, but was as helpless to stop fanning the flames as Luke had been to stop them from igniting. “And I want yours off. Now.”

  “Do you?” His voice was soft, smooth as silk. That frightened her more, much more than his sneering threats. “Why don’t we just call this a free lesson?” He damned himself even as he brought his mouth down to cover hers.

  She didn’t struggle, didn’t protest. She wasn’t sure she continued to breathe. How could she when the heat flashed so fast and hot it incinerated everything? Even thought. This was nothing, nothing like the soft, gentle kisses of the artist. Nothing like the awkward or arrogant embraces of the boys she’d dated. This was raw, it was primitive, it was terrifying. She wondered if there was a woman alive who would want to be kissed any other way.

  His mouth fit over hers perfectly. The scrape of the skin he’d neglected to shave only added to the dizzying knowledge that at last, at long last, she was being held by a man. Naked aggression, frustrated passion, pure rage, erupted from him, into her, creating a kiss beyond anything she’d experienced. That single, wild moment was everything she’d dreamed of.

  With his hand still fisted in her hair he dragged her head back. If he was going to hell, he would at least have the satisfaction of knowing it had been worth it. He didn’t think, didn’t dare to think, but plunged his tongue between her parted lips and filled himself on her.

  She was everything he’d imagined and more. Soft, strong, sexy. The moan came from her instant and torrid response. The way her body strained and trembled against his, the way her mouth met demand for hot, violent demand. Her lips clung to his, forming his name. He swallowed her moans like a starving man swallows a crust of bread.

  He wanted, desperately wanted, to tumble her onto the bed. To tear her clothes aside and drive himself into her. To feel her arch as she closed around him. He couldn’t breathe for wanting it.

  It was like being closed in a box. Trapped. Running out of air. His heart and lungs were straining. He had no control over them. No control over anything.

  He jerked back, fighting for air, and some rag of sanity. She was still wrapped around him, her eyes dark and heavy, her lips soft, parted and eager for more. Waves of shame and need washed over him, warring tidal waves that had him shoving her roughly aside.

  “Luke—”

  “Don’t.” He was hard as iron and twitchy as a stallion. If she touched him now, only touched him, he would take her like an animal. To protect her from that, he cloaked himself with all the fury he felt for what he’d nearly done, and aimed it straight at her. “Free lesson,” he repeated and pretended he didn’t see her lips part in shock, or her eyes glitter with hurt. “That’s the kind of treatment you’re asking for if you go out with men you don’t know.”

  She had pride, and was enough of an actress to use it to mask devastation. “Odd, isn’t it? You’re the only one who’s ever treated me that way. And I know you. Or thought I did.” She turned her back on him and stared out the window. She wouldn’t cry, she promised herself. And if she did, he wouldn’t see it. “Get out of my room, Callahan. If you touch me that way again, you’ll pay for it.”

  He was already paying for it, Luke thought. He curled his hand into a fist before he could give in to the urge to stroke her hair. To beg. Instead he walked to the door. “I meant what I said, Roxanne.”

  She aimed a glittering look over her shoulder. “So did I.”

  13

  Roxanne took Lily’s advice and compromised with Max—though Roxanne preferred to think of it as a deal. She would register at Tulane University and give her college education serious attention. If after one year she was still determined to join her father’s less public show, she would be taken on as an apprentice.

  It suited Roxanne perfectly. First, because she enjoyed the process of learning. Second, because she had no intention of changing her mind.

  The demands of her stage career and her education had the added benefit of leaving her limited free time. She spent as little as possible in Luke’s company.

  She would have forgiven him for the shouting, even for the orders. Certainly she would have forgiven him for the kiss. But she would never forgive him for turning one of the most glorious moments of her life into nothing more than a lesson offered from master to student.

  She was too professional to allow it to interfere with her work or his. When rehearsal was called, she rehearsed with him. They performed together night after night with none of their inner feelings bubbling up from beneath the slick surface of the act.

  If the troupe went on the road, they traveled together without incident—polite strangers who shared a plane or train or car from place to place.

  Only once, when Lily expressed concern that Luke’s escapes were becoming more complex and more dangerous, did any of the trapped turmoil escape.

  “Let him be,” Roxanne had shot back. “Men like him always have something to prove.”

  Her small and sweet revenge was in dating a succession of attractive men. She brought them home often, for dinner, parties, study groups. It gave her a great deal of pleasure to know her current beau—as Lily was wont to call them—was in the audience during the performance. It gave her a great deal more pleasure to know that Luke was aware of it.

  She leaned toward the scholarly type, because she was attracted to a keen mind. And, deviously, because she knew that none of Max’s prodding had pushed Luke beyond his single year of college. It was so satisfying to mention, casually, that Matthew was a law student, or that Philip was working on his master’s in economics.

  For herself, Roxanne had chosen to study both art history and gemology. Her purpose, much to Max’s delight, was to enhance her knowledge of what she now termed her hobby. If one was going to steal great works of art and fine gems, she’d informed her father, one should have a solid understanding of the background and value of the take.

  Max was proud to have a daughter with vision.

  He was pleased, too, that his reputation as a performer and respect for his troupe had grown. He treasured his magician-of-the-year award from the Academy of Magical Arts. He no longer found it necessary to avoid national exposure. The Nouvelles had two successful television specials under their belts, and Max had recently signed a contract to write a definitive book on magic.

  A month before, he’d relieved a Baltimore matron of an opal and diamond brooch, with matching earrings. He’d used his share of the profits—after tithing—to pay for his research into what had become his biggest interest: the philosophers’ stone.

&nbs
p; To some it was a legend. To Max it was a goal, one he needed badly now that his dual careers had reached their zenith. He wanted to hold it, that rock that was a magician’s dream. Not simply to turn iron into gold, but as a testament to all he had learned, accomplished, taken and given back over his lifetime. Already he had gathered books, maps, scores of letters and diaries.

  Tracking down the philosophers’ stone would be Maximillian Nouvelle’s greatest feat. Once he had it, he thought—hoped—that he could ease into retirement. He and Lily would travel the world like vagabonds while their children carried on the Nouvelle tradition.

  As New Orleans settled down into a chill, rainy winter, Max was at peace with the world. The occasional twinge the damp weather brought to his hands was overcome with a couple of aspirin, and easily ignored.

  Roxanne liked the rain. It gave her a cozy, dreamy feeling to watch it patter on the sidewalk, run down the glass of the window. She stood on the covered balcony outside of Gerald’s apartment and watched the thin, chilly curtain chase away the pedestrians. If she took a deep breath she could smell the café au lait Gerald was brewing in his tiny kitchen.

  It was nice to be here, she thought, taking this rainy night off. She enjoyed Gerald’s company, and found him smart and sweet. A man who liked to listen to Gershwin and view foreign films. His little apartment over a souvenir shop was crammed with books and records and VCR tapes. Gerald was a student of the cinema, and had already collected more movies than Roxanne imagined she would see in her lifetime.

  Tonight they were going to watch Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, and Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

  “Aren’t you cold?” Gerald stood inside the narrow doorway, holding out a sweater. He was perhaps a half inch shorter than Roxanne with broad shoulders that gave the illusion of more height. He had lank, sandy hair that fell—endearingly, she thought—onto his forehead. He had chiseled, leading-man looks that reminded her faintly of Harrison Ford. His mild brown eyes were given distinction by the dignified tortoiseshell glasses he wore.