He was a forger.
A very good one.
And she had walked right into his trap.
Chapter 39
Erik looked at the page on his drafting board waiting to be illuminated. Then he looked at Serena and frowned. She was pale, tight, and watching him with either contempt or anger flattening the line of her mouth. Maybe it was both.
He supposed he could sit here trying to guess what was on her mind, but his younger sisters had taught him that a man has about as much chance of figuring out how he stepped in the shit with a female as he has of getting himself pregnant. He could try ignoring her mood, but his sisters had cured him of that approach, too.
Unfortunately, they hadn’t ever managed to teach him finesse. “What did I do wrong this time?”
Wordlessly Serena gestured in the direction of the before and after shots. The ends of her soft scarf fluttered as though trying to chase her fingers.
He followed the graceful arc of her hand. “So the place is messy. So what? I wasn’t expecting a white glove inspection.”
She gave him a blow me glare.
“C’mon, Serena. Spit it out. From the look of your mouth, it can’t taste good.”
“You’re a forger.”
The rush of pure, hot anger that went through Erik at the contempt in her voice shocked him. It was shock that allowed him to keep his temper. Barely.
“Takes one to know one,” he said through clenched teeth.
“I’ve never passed off any of my weavings as old pieces.”
“But I’ll bet you know the techniques of early weavers.”
“Of course. I learned to weave on a back-strap loom just like—”
He talked over her. “And I’ll bet you know which plants produced which dyes in the old days and the difference between wool and goat yarn and—”
“Every weaver who is any good knows—”
“—what tapestries differ from which wall hangings and the techniques weavers in various cultures used at different times in their history.”
She put her fists on her hips and looked down at him—the handsome, arrogant son of a bitch sitting so at ease in the midst of all his forgeries. “Yes,” she said tightly, “I know quite a bit about the history and tradition of various textiles in cultures from Stone Age string weaving to modern silk art kimonos. So what?”
“So if Rarities wanted an estimate on the worth or probable authenticity of a weaving, you could give them one based on your own learning and experience.”
“What’s your point?”
“It takes one to know one.” His voice was soft, cutting. “If you want to know how a piece of ironwork was made, you go to a man who hammers iron for a living and ask him. If you want to know whether the technique of a weaving is in line with the date being claimed for it, you ask a textile specialist. If you want an estimate on anything, you go to someone who knows how that thing was made, when it was made, and from what it was made.”
“There’s a difference between an expert and a forger!”
His smile was as slicing as his tone. “I know. I just didn’t think you did. I’m an expert on illuminated manuscripts, particularly Insular Celtic. I polished my expertise by doing what the old scribes and monks did—I made manuscripts by hand. In the process of teaching myself, I learned how to make a replica. Then I learned I had a gift for it. I love doing it. I’m not bad at it.” He smiled thinly. “Screw modesty. I’m goddamn good. And I always, always, include an anachronism in my work so that anyone who examines it closely will know it’s modern.”
She wanted to believe him. She wanted it so much she was afraid to let herself. Without realizing it, she clenched her hands tightly on her scarf, sinking her nails into her palms. She felt the discomfort only at a distance, and only for a moment. The scarf seemed to thicken under her fingers, blunting the edges of her nails.
“Now,” he added softly, “you tell me why I should trust a struggling artist whose grandmother’s violent murder was never solved, an artist who as a result of that murder inherited some illuminated pages worth—”
“Are you accusing me of—“ she cut in furiously.
“Be quiet,” he snarled. “It’s my turn to do the accusing and yours to do the listening. Why shouldn’t I believe you killed your grandmother? Why should I believe that you didn’t know your pages were forged? Why should I trust you at all after you turned down a million bucks for those same suspect pages? What’s your game, Serena Charters? What do you really want?”
“To smack you until your ears ring.”
He almost smiled. “What’s your second choice?”
“Yell at you.”
“You’ve already done that. Next?”
She scrubbed her hands over her face as though trying to wake up. He had no more reason to trust her than she had to trust him. They both knew it.
She had no way of proving she hadn’t killed her grandmother.
He had no way of proving he hadn’t sold his forgeries as the real thing.
“What a mess,” she said bitterly. “If you don’t trust me, why did you bring me here? I might sneak in and murder you in your sleep.”
This time he did smile. “Be kind of interesting to have you try.”
Her head snapped up. She saw the light of amusement and something else in his golden eyes. Something hotter. “You don’t really believe I killed my grandmother, do you?”
“No.”
“Why?” she asked starkly.
“It’s called trust. You should try it.”
“I never learned how. G’mom . . .” Serena shrugged and fingered her scarf unhappily. “She never trusted anybody. I thought that was how it was for everyone. Arm’s length, wary, never expect anything but bad news, never give anything you don’t have to because there’s never enough to go around.”
Erik wondered how his sisters would have looked at the world if they had been orphaned at six instead of in their teens, and if their guardian had been flinty rather than full of hugs, paranoid rather than busier than a one-armed drummer. Erik hadn’t been a perfect stand-in parent by any means, but his sisters hadn’t seen the world as an enemy just waiting for an opportunity to eat them alive. In fact, there were times when he was afraid he had raised his sisters to be too open, too confident.
“You’ve already trusted me at least a little,” he said finally. “Has it hurt you?”
“G’mom warned me particularly about forgery. You have all the qualifications for being a forger.”
“Except one. I’m not.”
Her lower lip moved as she bit into it from the inside.
“Would you trust Rarities Unlimited to tell you the truth?” he asked.
She tilted her head to the side, considering. “I think so, yes. Their reputation is all they really have, isn’t it?”
“It’s all anyone has.”
She had the grace to look embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to insult you. I’m just . . .”
“Cautious.”
She nodded.
“To the point of paranoia,” he added.
“No. If I was paranoid, I never would have come here with you no matter how fast you seduced my cat.”
His lips curved and he looked at the animal in question, who was still asleep on his jacket. “It was mutual. The best seductions always are.”
She was more than cautious enough to let that comment sizzle right on by her without comment.
For a few moments longer Erik watched the sleek pile of black fur on his jacket, but Serena didn’t say anything. He wondered if telling her all of it now would send her running. Then he thought of the pages and homemade napalm and Bad Billy waiting out in the street.
Hell.
“Sit down, Serena,” he said, standing and offering her the drafting chair. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, but it was the only thing to sit on besides the floor.
She started to ask why she should sit, remembered his comments about trust and paranoia, and sat rather gingerly on t
he odd chair. At a long-legged five feet seven inches, she was used to having her feet reach the floor in any chair she used. Not this one. She had to hang her heels over one of the rungs and perch like a kid on Daddy’s chair.
“I’m working for Rarities on these pages,” Erik said.
“I had that figured out.”
“Rarities is working for a client.”
“I wondered about that. Who?”
“The House of Warrick.”
Serena went still. “What do they want?”
“What did Warrick tell you when you saw him?” Erik asked.
“He looked at the pages, turned the color of tomato sauce, and started trying to buy them. I didn’t want to sell. He didn’t want to believe me.”
“How much did he offer?”
“I didn’t hang around for his final offer.”
“Why?”
“I was on my way out the door.”
“You were in too big a hurry to find out what the pages were worth?”
“I didn’t like his attitude.”
“In what way?”
She wanted to tell Erik it was none of his business. Then she reminded herself that pushing people away was a reflex that she really should outgrow. Otherwise she might find herself alone like her grandmother, alone in a burning house. A sitting duck, and then a dead one.
“Norman Warrick acted like I was dog shit,” she said tightly. “He wanted to know why I had waited a year to approach him. He called me a ‘clever young girl’ who wanted to take up where her ‘purported’ relatives left off.”
Erik frowned. “Any idea what he meant by that?”
“Not a clue. Nothing nice, that’s for sure. Personally, I think he’s senile. I took the pages and left while he was still throwing offers at me. He was a really interesting shade of purple by then. I admit it; I hope he blew some circuits. You would have thought I was trying to rob him. Is that how it works in this business? You yell at each other until someone gives up?”
“Only if you know each other real well.”
“I don’t know him. I don’t want to. I won’t take that abuse from anyone.”
There was anger in her eyes, but there was also distress. She hadn’t liked the confrontation, hadn’t liked being treated like excrement. Some people would have just shrugged it off. She hadn’t been able to. It had hurt and embarrassed and then enraged her.
Erik shoved his hands into his pockets. It was either that or tuck stray strands of hair behind her ears, and then trace the curve of those same ears, and then give those soft lips a try.
Abruptly he turned and looked at the wall of before and after photos. Nothing that happened seemed to make his job any easier. Everything conspired to make it harder. Getting her full trust was looking close to impossible.
So the hell with half measures and subtlety. He didn’t have the patience for all the sneaking around and pretending and half-truths and evasions and outright lies. That was why he worked for the Fuzzy side of Rarities. The demands of undercover work irritated him. He was too direct. His first and last impulse was to put all the shit on the table, deal with it, and get on with his life.
Abruptly Erik turned back to Serena. “My job for Rarities is twofold. First, I’m supposed to give Rarities my professional opinion of your pages. Second, I’m supposed to attempt to buy them from you on behalf of the House of Warrick.”
Then he waited for what he had put on the table to hit the fan.
Chapter 40
Serena’s eyes widened and her mouth flattened into a narrow line. “I’m not selling them.”
Erik measured the go-to-hell tilt of her chin. “Can you afford not to?”
“I’ve bumped along just fine so far without a lot of money.”
“And you did it all yourself.”
“Yes.” She didn’t bother to keep the satisfaction from her voice.
“What if Warrick offered a million dollars?”
“He already did.”
Erik whistled softly through his teeth. Steep—for a forgery. “You turned him down?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he wasn’t making sense. He said he wanted ‘the rest of it’ for that price. There isn’t any ‘rest of it.’ The pages you saw are all that G’mom left me, and maybe all she had left, period. I don’t know. I don’t even know how to begin to find out.” Serena picked up the ends of her scarf and rubbed its soothing texture over her temples. She was getting the kind of headache that made drugs look good. “Anyway, no amount of money would have tempted me, no matter how many or how few pages I find or don’t find. I can’t explain it, but I won’t sell even one of the pages. I simply can’t. They belong to me in a way I can’t describe. It would be like selling myself.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” she asked wearily, rubbing her cheek against the soft scarf. But her tone of voice said that she doubted he understood at all.
“I feel exactly the same irrational attachment to the Book of the Learned,” he said. “But I know I’ll never have the money to outbid Warrick, so I have to endure the exquisite torture of watching something that is part of me sold on the open market. All I can do is ask—beg—you to let me make a replica of the pages before they go out of my life forever.”
Serena lowered her hands and looked at Erik, really looked at him, for the first time since she had seen his work and decided he was a forger. His eyes were direct, clear, tawny, the color of single-malt scotch. His hair was the same shade of gold. His lashes and eyebrows were bronze, as was the shadow of beard that lay beneath his high cheekbones and stubborn chin. His mouth was bracketed by what could have been impatience or anger or both reinforcing the other, energy visibly seething around him.
She had seen him like this before, long, long ago.
And now, as then, it was his eyes that held her. The elemental fire in them, the intelligence, the power. Even when begging for a favor, he was in no way weakened. Like Mr. Picky begging for dinner, Erik was as much demanding as asking, even though neither cat nor man would ever see it that way.
“You’re smiling,” Erik said.
“You remind me of my dre—“ She switched words at the last moment. “—my cat.”
He glanced at the mound of black fur. “How so?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Sure I do.”
“You’re both arrogant.”
Erik blinked. “Arrogant? I’m begging here, lady.”
Her smile widened. “You really believe it, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
Her palms itched to run over his body as if he was indeed hers to pet and play with. The joys of born-again virginity paled whenever she was around him. He made her wonder what it would be like, if it would finally be unique with him, finally be satisfying all the way to her soul. She closed her eyes for an instant and let out a sigh that kept breaking. The uncanny material of her scarf lifted as though stirred by her breath.
“You’re like a cat or a bird of prey,” she said. “Arrogance is so ingrained in you, so normal, that you don’t think of it as arrogance. You just loom over me and ‘beg’ for something that you could easily take by force.”
“I won’t.”
“I know,” she said simply. “That’s why I’m giving it to you.”
He looked at her mouth as she spoke. The cat in him wanted to settle in for some serious licking.
“Do you have a camera here?” she asked.
He nodded without looking away from her mouth.
“Take as many pictures of the pages as you like,” she said.
“Okay.”
She tilted her head, surprised by his lack of interest. “Erik?”
“He stepped out for a bit. I’m his evil twin brother. The one who thinks like a cat.”
She blinked.
He bent down to her. “A cat with some serious licking in mind.”
Her lips parted on a startled breath. “What?”
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“This.”
The tip of his tongue traced the outline of her lips and the sleek inner surfaces, tantalizing her until her hands came up and held his teasing mouth still.
At first he thought she was refusing the kiss. Then the tip of her tongue touched his, overlapped, curled. In a silence broken only by their quickening breaths, they tasted each other and found it both new and hauntingly familiar, wholly unexpected and somehow as inevitable as a river racing down to the sea.
They couldn’t taste enough, couldn’t share enough, couldn’t get close enough. Suddenly his hands shifted and his arms tightened as he pulled her off the stool into the kind of hug that went from mouth to ankles.
She barely noticed the change of position. She was too consumed by tasting him more completely, sinking her fingers into the flexed muscles of his back, and feeling the hard thrust of his arousal against her belly. When she shifted her hips against him, he made a thick sound and lifted her so close that even her toes couldn’t touch the ground. Slowly, slowly, he answered the motion of her hips with the hard promise of his erection.
The ragged, hungry sound she made took the world away. He barely kept himself from pulling her jeans off and taking her just the way they were, straight up and deep. Fighting himself, wanting to keep kissing her yet knowing that both of them were about to go under for the third time, he lifted his head just enough for his lips to shape words. “Last chance to say no.”
She shook her head as though coming out of water. “What?”
He saw the hungry, dazed violet of her eyes, the flushed pink of her lips, and the wet gleam of a mouth that now tasted like both of them, like forest and mist and something hot, not quite sweet, incredible. His head dipped and he bit her lower lip with fierce restraint, and sucked on it the same way. “We want each other. Badly. Are we going to do something about it?”
Reality hit. Serena shuddered from a combination of surprise and the passion that had come from nowhere, sandbagging her.
“Oh. My. God.” She let out an explosive breath. “I’m sorry. That’s—it’s not like me. I don’t know what happened.”
“Is that a no?”
She bit the inside of her lower lip. Her body was humming, flushed with a kind of heat she hadn’t ever felt, certainly not after something as simple as a kiss.
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