by Josie Litton
The longer he gazed at her, the more intolerable all that became. He wanted to know her in the most intimate way possible, not merely the contours of her lovely body but her most secret dreams, her deepest wishes, all of her in every way.
He needed that desperately; he could even convince himself that in some sense he deserved it. But whether he did or not, he couldn’t allow her to put herself in such heedless peril. Someone had to stop her and it fell to him to do so.
Tossing the sheet aside, he moved swiftly. Before she had begun to awake, Natalia was pressed into the mattress, held down by the full length of his hard, powerful body, her arms stretched out over her head and a furious male glaring down at her.
“Tell me,” he demanded as her eyes blinked open.
She stared at him in bewilderment. Not fear, he noted, and found some relief in that.
Huskily, she murmured, “Tell you what?”
“Everything. We made a deal.”
Her expression cleared. Abruptly, she stiffened. “Lucius…”
His hold on her tightened. “No more delays or distractions. We’ve run out of time. Tell me. Why did you come to the Odalisque? Why did you break into my system? What were you looking for?”
“I don’t know what--”
Damn, she was stubborn! What would it take to get through to her?
“Who is Naomi Havers?”
Her mouth dropped open. She stared at him in blank astonishment that turned swiftly to fury.
“What did you say?”
“You heard me,” he grated. The knock at the door might come at any moment. He could not stand by and just see her taken.
“Who is Naomi Havers?”
Her heart was pounding against his own. Her eyes turned the dark purple of the sky on the verge of a storm.
He had just a moment to sense the strength coiling in her--body, mind, will and training all coming together in a way he knew to the core of his own being.
And then--
“You bastard! It was a trap.”
She moved so quickly that if he hadn’t been who he was, he would have been flat on his back on the floor, clutching his gonads and praying for unconsciousness. As it was, he was lucky to just manage to evade her as she leaped from the bed.
The sight of her pert bottom bouncing as she ran delayed him a moment or two but he caught her half-way across the room and whirled her around.
“I want to help you!”
Her foot caught around his ankle, her hip thrust out, she grabbed his arm and--
Goddamn, this was embarrassing. She’d flipped him as casually as she would have some asshole thug who made the mistake of thinking her an easy mark.
He jackknifed upright, caught her half-way out the door and dragged her back into the room. “Listen to me! You can’t go out there. You’ll be arrested the moment you do.”
Her eyes narrowed to outraged slits. She butted her head into his chin so sharply that for an instant everything went black.
“I’ll take my chances,” Natalia said and bolted again.
Fuck, if anybody ever heard about this, he’d be a laughing stock. Zhao Feng would shake his head in disbelief. His foster brothers would laugh themselves sick. And Adrian…he’d need a truss.
Time to end it.
She was on her back under him, on the floor, locked down before she could draw another breath. Because when it came to it, he was better. No slight on her, to the contrary, he was enormously impressed. But enough was enough.
Controlling her with his body, he cupped her face in his hands. With tender urgency, he said, “I’m not going to hurt you. Nothing you’ve done or can ever do will change that.”
Her breath shuddered. She stared up at him.
His gaze locked on hers, he saw the moment when everything changed.
Chapter Twenty-six
Trapped under a man who had won a brothel in a steel cage match, naked and in the most vulnerable position a woman could be, Natalia stopped fighting.
Not because she gave up; she could never do that. Because she was suddenly, overwhelmingly struck by a reality so stunning that it left no room for anything else.
She could trust him.
Lucius Belmont would not hurt her. On the contrary, he was doing his utmost to protect her, even from himself.
When had anyone last done that? Her father in his own way but after him, she’d been the one looking after both herself and Naomi. And at the same time trying to set the past to rights.
Now, staring into the eyes of the man who had let her strike out at him rather than do her any harm, she glimpsed a future that filled her with desperate yearning.
“Let me up.” Her voice was hoarse. She could feel herself shaking all over. The world itself seemed to be coming apart.
Lucius stood. He held out a hand to help her. On her feet, the shaking was worse. That wouldn’t do. Her pride demanded better and he certainly deserved it.
Straightening her shoulders, she said, “Naomi Havers is my half-sister. We share the same mother.”
His reaction took her aback. What had the man expected her to say?
“You were looking for your half-sister? Not for sensitive information that could be used to blackmail heads of state or overturn governments or anything of that sort?”
She stared at him in astonishment. “Good lord, is that what you thought I was doing?” What an extraordinary imagination the man had.
“Another theory was that I was the target.” He shrugged modestly as he answered her silent question. “I’ve done a bit of work on the side for the British government. It may have made some people less than happy with me.”
“You bought me at the auction and took me to bed while entertaining the notion that I was planning to kill you or turn you over to someone who would?”
When he nodded, Natalia could only shake her head. “That was insanely reckless. What could you possibly have been thinking?”
“I wasn’t really,” Lucius admitted. “At least not about anything except you. Couldn’t seem to.”
Offhand, she thought that was far and away the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to her.
Quietly, he asked, “Will you tell me what your half-sister has to do with the Odalisque?”
“The last time I spoke with Naomi was six months ago. She was in London and she was very excited, talking about you and the Odalisque. She said she was going to apply for a job at the club.”
Lucius cleared his throat. “Is she the sort of person who would want to work there?”
“She’s very beautiful and she’s always been much more free spirited and exuberant than me.”
Drily, he murmured, “I’d say that you’re catching up. But how did that lead you to want to break into my system?”
“I haven’t heard from her in six months. We don’t live in each other’s pockets but we’re all the family either of us has. It’s rare for us to go more than a few weeks without talking. Or at least it was.”
“I take it that you tried other ways to find her before going to the abbey?” Lucius asked.
“I contacted everyone I could think of. It seems as though she’s just dropped off the edge of the world. The only lead I had left was you and the club.”
Aware suddenly of her nakedness, she reached for the cover on the bed and wrapped it around herself. Far from warming her, even that small separation from him made her shiver.
Forlornly, she asked, “I never got into your real system, did I? You let me see the password but believing what you did, you must have taken precautions to keep me away from anything sensitive.”
He nodded without apology. “You were in a shell system with a keystroke recorder. That’s how I knew who you searched for. But afterward, I looked for the same name in the real system. I’m sorry but there’s no mention of any Naomi Havers.”
Natalia swallowed against the dashing of her final hope. “Then she never applied for a job here?”
“She might have made inquiries but she wouldn’
t have gotten anywhere. We only hire on direct referrals from members or staff. Anyone without that kind of reference doesn’t get in the door.”
“I see…” Her throat clenched. Tears that would no longer be denied spilled down her cheeks.
“Natalia…” She was aware of Lucius, warm and strong beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders and drawing her closer. But nothing could stop the grief that welled up in her.
Shakily, she said, “I’m so afraid of what’s happened to Naomi and worse, that it’s my fault.”
“That’s absurd. How could it possibly--”
She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t bear to see his reaction when he finally knew the truth about her. But she owed him that and nothing, not even the loss of all she had briefly dared to dream, would let her deny him.
Softly, she said, “My father went by the name David Bollinger. But he was known in certain circles by another name: Le Chat.”
“The Cat? I don’t--wait.”
Lean fingers slipped under her chin. When her gaze would have slipped from his, he tightened his hold.
Sternly, he said, “Natalia, look at me. Le Chat is the name of a legendary cat burglar renowned for stealing jewels from some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world. It was thought that he retired years ago but more recently it’s seemed that he’s back in action.”
He frowned suddenly. The look in his eyes would have terrified any sensible person. But not Natalia. She could only think once again of how beautiful those eyes were, how they looked in the heat of passion or when he laughed or…
“You picked up where he left off,” Lucius accused. His dismay could not have been more evident. “You’re the one who’s been scaling rooftops, coming and going like a ghost, stealing a fortune and leaving the elite to do nothing but gnash their teeth.”
He shook her lightly. “What were you thinking? Don’t you realize how dangerous that is. These aren’t people to fuck with--”
“I know that,” she exclaimed. “So did my father. He learned it to his most bitter regret.”
“What do you mean?”
“Fifteen years ago, he broke into the wrong villa in the south of France. Oh, he got the jewels he was after but he also stumbled across a dossier that had to do with laundering money from blood diamonds. What he read disgusted him so much that he found a way to get it to the proper authorities. For once, they actually did the right thing and shut the whole horrible business down.”
“Good for your father.”
Natalia shook her head. “No, not good. The people he injured found out what he’d done and they retaliated. They killed my mother.”
Her voice broke. For long moments, she could scarcely breathe. As though it was the most natural thing in the world, Lucius held her, stroking her hair and waiting patiently until she was able to continue.
“At first, it seemed as though they’d intended to kill my father and had missed. He assumed they’d be coming after him again. He sent Naomi and me into hiding in Switzerland. We were both just little girls--I was six and Naomi was ten. I remember how we clung together, so terrified and alone.”
His arms tightened. She felt the rage in him and how rigidly he controlled it.
“Then what happened?” he asked.
“Time passed and my father realized the truth. They’d done exactly what they intended to do. They’d taken from him the woman he adored and left him to live with the agony of losing her. That was bad enough but he had to dread what would happen to Naomi and me if they found out that we existed.
“That’s why you’re Natalia Bollinger, a girl from Bournemouth?”
She nodded. “He’d anticipated that we would need clean identities from the time I was born. After mother died, he focused on that intensely, crafting legends that he believed would withstand any kind of scrutiny. But you saw through mine, didn’t you? Somehow you knew.”
He smiled faintly. “Natalia Bollinger was simply too good to be true. She’d never done an impulsive, reckless or even remotely naughty thing in her life. Meanwhile, I was confronted by a real, warm, flesh-and-blood woman with tremendous spirit and passion. The two just didn’t fit.”
“So you went to your associates at British intelligence?”
“I asked a friend there for help,” he corrected. “But never mind about that now. Go on with what you were telling me. What other precautions did your father take?”
“He wanted to train us both to be able to protect ourselves. Naomi wasn’t interested but I was.”
Smiling gently, Lucius said, “Which is how I landed on my back not long ago.”
She nodded. “I’m good but not cage match champion good. At any rate, there isn’t much more to tell. Father died five years ago; in the end, I think grief really did kill him. He’d spent most of the fortune that he’d made protecting us and suddenly he was gone. Naomi was overwhelmed so I had to do something.”
He looked at her chidingly. “Reviving the name of Le Chat seemed the best option?”
“What can I say? It takes money to stay hidden, never more so now with all the power of technology. The jewels provided that but even more, I wanted to find a way to end the danger to us once and for all.” Her voice broke. “Instead, I may have made it immeasurably worse.”
“You think your search for safety attracted the attention of the same people who killed your mother?”
She nodded. “I have information about them. I just have no idea who to trust it to. If they have Naomi…”
Lucius stood. He went over to a closet, pulled out clothes and began dressing.
Staring at him, she asked, “What are you doing?”
Grimly, he said, “Taking care of this. I know exactly who to give the information to. And I can promise you, if anyone does have your half-sister, they will be begging to give her back.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
“There you are,” Lucius said as he stepped out onto the terrace of the apartment overlooking Mayfair.
It was late afternoon; he had been gone for hours. A dozen questions hovered on Natalia’s lips. But for the moment, all she could do was drink in the sight of him--real, there and in a way that she could still hardly conceive of, hers.
He smiled as he studied the play of emotion across her face. They mirrored his own.
“I hope you aren’t getting chilled.”
In the absence of any clothing of her own, Natalia had made do with borrowing one of his shirts. She’d had to roll the sleeves up numerous times but she thought herself well enough covered in the garment that came down almost to her knees.
At any rate, she’d been far too anxious to remain inside. Fresh air had helped, at least a little but now he was back and--
“Do you remember,” Lucius asked, “what the American poet, Robert Frost, said about home?”
Puzzled by the question, she had to think for a moment. “It’s the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”
He crossed the terrace and came to stand in front of her. His hand smoothed a stray strand of hair back from her face.
“Substitute ‘family’ for ‘home’ and I think he was on to something. After all, in a very real sense family is home, isn’t it? Far more than any mere place can be.”
“You’ve found Naomi.”
It was a statement, not a question. He wouldn’t be there as he was, smiling, if he didn’t have news she would want to hear. And yet, he felt called on to remind her of the nature of what it meant to be a family.
“British Intelligence found her,” he said gently. “She’s in Azerbaijan and she’s waiting to hear from you. I have the number where she can be reached.”
Natalia had to struggle to grasp what he had just said.
“I don’t understand. What is she doing in a country in the back of beyond that has more oil and goats than it has people?”
“Apparently, she’s attending the wedding of the ruling warlord’s daughter. It seems that free-spirited,
exuberant Naomi left London six months ago in the entourage of a rock band that was embarking on a world tour. They’re being paid a truly obscene amount of money to play for the happy couple.”
“Then she’s safe…”
“And very sorry, especially after her chat with me, for having caused you so much worry. She assures me that it will never happen again.”
Natalia shook her head. It was all almost too much to take in. “I don’t understand. I traced her passport--”
“I will refrain from asking how you did that. The band is travelling by chartered jet. Beautiful young women getting on and off private planes in such circumstances aren’t generally asked to produce their passports.”
“I feel like such a fool. Everything I did--”
“Was for love and out of an excess of responsibility that was thrust on you at far too young an age. But that’s over now. The information you acquired has been most gratefully received and will be acted upon forthwith. Your and Naomi’s safety is guaranteed.”
A great weight lifted from her. There was still much she wanted to understand; she would have more than a few words for her feckless half-sister. But Lucius was right, in the end they were still family and always would be.
“I’m very grateful,” she began.
He dismissed that with a flick of his hand. “Now that’s settled, we need to talk.”
His big, hard body brushed against her. A powerful arm wrapped around her waist. He smiled down at her.
“The seventy-two hours will be up soon,” he said.
She nodded. “You’ll be keeping your money. I never wanted it.”
“I know that. Even so, I’d like to offer you an extended arrangement.”
Her breath caught. She felt the sun shining down on the ancient city, warm on her back and shoulders. It was no match for his own heat calling to her.
“How extended?” she murmured.
He lowered his head, his lips brushing hers. She raised up on her toes and took his mouth, drinking in the taste of him. Fire raced through her blood, banishing fear, erasing loneliness. She could have stayed in that moment forever save for the future that beckoned just beyond it.
