by Nora Roberts
With her head pillowed on sea grass, Adrianne laughed with him. “What did you do?”
“I pictured myself in a cell, then made a very fast and very inelegant exit, mostly on my hands and knees. By the time the alarm was given, I was soaking in the tub at my hotel.”
When he brought himself back and glanced at her, she was smiling. “You miss it.”
“Only in rare moments.” He flipped his cigarette into the spray. “I’m a businessman first, Addy. It was time to get out of the business. Spencer, he’s my superior, had come too close too often.”
“They knew about you, yet they let you in.”
“Better a wolf in the fold than loose, I suppose. Sooner or later you get sloppy. It takes only one mistake.”
She looked back at the sea with its turbulent water. “I have only one more job, and I’ve no intention of being sloppy.”
He said nothing. With a little time, a little care, he was certain he could persuade her to let it go. If talk didn’t work, there were roadblocks he could construct. “What do you say to a siesta, then Christmas dinner?”
“All right.” She rose, carrying her sandals by the straps. “But I get to drive back.”
Perhaps it was foolish to fuss, but she couldn’t resist. It felt good to linger in a scented bath and dust on clouds of fragrant powder. These were peculiarly women’s habits, a seed of which had been sown in her in the harem. She enjoyed taking a long, leisurely time preparing, though her evening with Philip could hardly be called a date. She knew that a good part of the reason he was making himself so available as an escort was to watch her. She might have told him she had no other business on the island, but there was no reason he should believe her. In any case, being with him served her purpose. Or so she told herself as she chose a thin white dress with yards of skirt and no back. She would be as free with her time with him as he was with her. In that way, he wouldn’t be on guard when she slipped out of the country … tomorrow.
There were plans to be finalized, plans she’d begun to make a decade ago. Soon after the new year she would go back to Jaquir. She clipped stones on her ears that were as cold as her thoughts and as false as the image she would present to her father.
But for tonight she would enjoy the lingering light of a tropical sunset and the whisper of calm seas.
When Philip knocked on her door she was ready. He, too, wore white, with his shirt a splash of blue against his jacket.
“There’s something to be said for spending winters in hot climates.” He ran his hands down her bare shoulders. “Did you rest?”
“Yes.” She didn’t tell him she’d made a quick trip to the El Grande to pack her things there and check out. At his touch she felt the frustrated confusion of a horse who’s spurred and curbed at the same time. “And like a tourist, my thoughts rarely go beyond the next meal.”
“Good. Before we go I have something for you.” He drew a small velvet box from his pocket. This time she did step back as though she’d been pinched.
“No.” Her voice was cooler than she wanted it to be, but he took her hand and placed the box in it.
“It’s not only rude to refuse a Christmas gift, it’s bad luck.” He didn’t add that he’d had to pave his way with bribes and tips until he’d found a jeweler who would open his shop on the holiday.
“It wasn’t necessary.”
“Should it have been?” he countered. “Come now, Adrianne, a woman like you should know how to accept a present graciously.”
He was right, of course, and she was being a fool. She flipped open the box and studied the pin resting on white satin. Not resting, she thought, stalking, like the panther it was, richly black, sharply carved with its ruby eyes on fire.
“It’s beautiful.”
“It made me think of you. Something we have in common.” He pinned it on her dress with the ease of a man accustomed to doing such things.
She needed to take it lightly, and smiled. “From one cat burglar to another?” But her fingers strayed up to stroke it.
“From one restless soul to another,” he corrected her, and slipping the box back into his pocket, took her hand.
They dined on delicately grilled lobster and sharp, fruity wine while mariachis strolled singing songs of love and longing. From their table by the window they could watch people walk along the seawall and small boys, always eager for a coin, loiter by the row of cabs waiting to open a door.
While they ate, the sun went down in a blaze of color, and the moon, less rushed, rose majestically.
She asked him about his childhood and was surprised when he didn’t evade or pass it off with a joke.
“My mother sold tickets at the cinema. That came as a plus for me, as I could always go in and watch whatever was showing, sometimes for a whole afternoon. Other than that, it didn’t go much further than paying the rent on a miserable two-room flat in Chelsea. My father had breezed into her life long enough to make me, then breezed out again when he learned I was on the way.”
She felt a pang, and would have reached for his hand, but he lifted his wine. The moment passed. “It must have been difficult for her. Being alone.”
“I’m sure it was hell, but you’d never know it. She’s a born optimist, the kind of woman who can be content with whatever she has no matter how little or how much. She’s a great fan of your mother’s, by the way. When she found out I’d taken Phoebe Spring’s daughter to dinner, she lectured me for an hour for not bringing you to see her.”
“Mama had a way of endearing herself to people.”
“Didn’t you ever think of following in her footsteps as an actress?”
It was easy to smile as she lifted her glass. “Didn’t I?”
“How much is an act, I wonder.”
“An act?” She gestured with her hands. “Whatever’s necessary. Does your mother know about your—vocation?”
“You mean sex?”
He hadn’t been sure she would laugh, but she did, then leaned forward so that the candlelight caught in her eyes. “Not avocation, Philip, vocation.”
“Ah. Well, it’s nothing we discuss. Suffice it to say that Mum’s no fool. More wine?”
“Just a little. Philip, do you ever think about going back, about one last, incredible job? Something that would keep you warm in your old age.”
“The Sun and the Moon?”
“That’s mine,” she said rather primly.
“The Sun and the Moon,” he repeated, amused as he watched her. “Two fascinating jewels in one necklace. The Sun, a two-hundred-eighty-carat diamond of the first water, absolutely pure, brilliantly white, and according to legend a stone with a checkered past. It was found in the Deccan region of India in the sixteenth century, the rough cut being over eight hundred carats. The stone was found by two brothers, and like Cain and Abel, one murdered the other to have it. Rather than being banished to the Land of Nod, the surviving brother found misery in his homeland. His wife and children drowned, leaving him with the rather cold comfort of the stone.”
Philip sipped, and when Adrianne made no comment, topped off his wine, then hers. “Legend has it he went mad, and offered the stone to the devil. Whether he was taken up on it or not, he was murdered and the stone began its travels. Istanbul, Siam, Crete, and dozens of other exotic places, always leaving a trail of betrayal and murder in its wake. Until, having satisfied the gods, it found a home in Jaquir around 1876.”
“My great-great-grandfather bought it for his favorite wife.” She ran a finger around and around the rim of her wineglass. “For the equivalent of one and a half million American dollars. It would have cost him more, but the stone had developed a nasty reputation.” Her finger stilled. “There were people starving in Jaquir at that time.”
“He wouldn’t be the first ruler to ignore such things, or the last.” He waited, watching her as the waiter cleared their plates. “It was cut by a Venetian, who either from nerves or lack of skill lost more of the rough stone than he should have. H
is hands were severed and hung around his neck before he was left in the desert. But the stone survived to be paired with a pearl, just as ancient, that had been plucked out of the Persian Gulf, perfectly spherical, with an orient that defies description. Lustrous, glowing, like two hundred fifty carats of moonlight. While the diamond flashes, the pearl glows, and legend has it the pearl’s magic fights against the diamond’s. Together they’re like peace and war, snow and fire.” He lifted his glass. “Or sun and moon.”
Adrianne took a sip of wine to ease her throat. Talk of the necklace excited as much as it upset. She knew just how it had looked, draped around her mother’s neck, and she could imagine, only imagine the way it would feel in her hands. Magic or not, legend or not, she would take it.
“You’ve done your homework.”
“I know about The Sun and the Moon the same way I know about the Kohinoor or the Pitt, as stones I may admire, even lust after, but not as stones to risk my life for.”
“When the motive is only money or acquisition, even diamonds can be resisted.” She started to rise, but he caught her hand. His grip was firmer than it should have been, and his eyes were no longer amused.
“When the motive is revenge, it should be resisted.” Her hand flexed once in his, then lay passive. Control, he thought, could be both blessing and curse. “Revenge clouds the mind so that you can’t think coolly. Passions of any kind lead to mistakes.”
“I have only one passion.” The candlelight flickered over her face, deepening the hollows of her cheeks. “I’ve had twenty years to cultivate it, channel it. Not all passions are hot and dangerous, Philip. Some are ice cold.”
When she rose he said nothing, but promised himself he would prove her wrong before the evening was over.
Chapter Nineteen
He was a difficult man to measure, Adrianne thought. He could be intense one moment and frivolous the next. As they drove to the hotel, he spoke lightly, amusingly, of mutual acquaintances. That moment might not have passed in the restaurant when he’d taken her hand, looking into her eyes as if he could bend her to his will by the look alone. Now it was all tropical breezes and moonlight. Talk of the necklace and the blood that had been spilled for it were blown away.
It was easy to see how he had slipped into the circle of the rich and the pampered. You didn’t see a fatherless street thief from Chelsea when you looked at him. Nor did you see a calculating, sure-footed cat burglar. Instead, you saw the cultured, the faintly bored, and the charmingly aimless. While he was none of those things.
Even knowing it, she relaxed. Part of his power was the way he had of making a woman tremble one moment and laugh and put up her feet the next. She found herself regretting when the car was parked and the evening had whittled down to the walk to her door.
“I was annoyed to find you here,” she told him as she dipped into her bag for her key.
“You were furious to find me here.” Taking the key from her, he slid it into the lock himself.
“All right.” She was amused and relaxed. Both showed in her smile. “I don’t often change my mind, but it’s been nice having your company today.”
“I’m glad to hear that, as I intend to stay with you.” As he spoke, he cupped her elbow and moved through the door with her.
“If you think I might nip back to take the St. Johns’ jewels, you needn’t worry.”
He tossed the key on her dresser, then took her evening bag and sent it in the same direction. “My being here at the moment has nothing to do with jewels.” Before she could step back, he laid his hands on her shoulders, then ran them with terrifying gentleness down her arms. Quite naturally, his fingers linked with hers.
“No.”
He lifted one hand, kissed it, then lifted the other. “No what?”
Like a rocket the heat tore down her fingertips. It was one thing to ignore what you’d never needed, and another to resist what you suddenly did. “I want you to go.”
Keeping one of her hands caught in his, he brushed her hair back from her shoulder, his fingertips just skimming her bare flesh. He felt the jolt of reaction, but wasn’t certain if it was hers or his. “I would, if I believed you. Do you know they call you unattainable?”
She knew it very well. “Is that why you want me? Because I’m unattainable?”
“It might have been enough.” He toyed with her hair. “Once.”
“I’m not interested, Philip. I thought I’d made that clear.”
“Your talent for lying is one of the things I most admire about you.”
He was closer, already closer than he should have been. “I’m not sure what else I can do to convince you you’re wasting your time.”
“It doesn’t take much, when it’s true. You have a way of looking at a man, Addy, that turns the hottest blood to ice. You aren’t looking at me that way now.” He cupped the back of her neck. Even as she went rigid he watched her mouth, ripe, full, soft, tremble open. If a man were sated, he’d still hunger for it.
She felt her heart spring up to her throat to beat wildly when his lips whispered over hers. She started to lift a hand to push him away. That was self-preservation. But she curled her fingers into his shirt and held on. That was need.
Then with need, surprisingly, came regret.
“I can’t give you what you want. I’m not like other women.”
“No, you’re not.” Instinctively, he ran his fingers along her neck, soothing, reassuring even while his lips played havoc with her nerves. “And I don’t want any more than you’re able to give.”
When he deepened the kiss, she moaned. There was something both of despair and of wonder in the sound. For an instant, only an instant, she gave in to it. Her body pressed against his, her lips parted, her heart opened. He had a glimpse of beauty, of generosity so overwhelming it left him shaken.
Then she was drawing back, turning away. “Philip, I know what my image is, but it’s only an image. This kind of thing isn’t for me.” She clasped her hands together to hold them steady.
“Maybe it hasn’t been.” Again, he put his hands on her shoulders. “Until now.”
She had pride. It had gotten her through the unstable and confusing years. Because it was strong, she was able to speak without shame. “I’ve never been with a man. Never wanted to.”
“I know.” She turned back, as he’d hoped she would. “I understood that this morning when you told me about your father, what you’d seen happen between him and your mother. There’s nothing I can say to erase that or ease your feelings about it—except that it doesn’t have to be that way, should never be that way.”
He touched her again, a hand to her cheek. It was as much a test for himself as for her. She closed her eyes, allowing herself to absorb the feel of his fingers on her skin and the jangle of nerves and needs it brought to her. She’d always been a woman who’d known her own mind, and her own destiny. Tonight, it seemed, he would become a part of both.
“I’m afraid.”
He slipped the twin ivory combs out of her hair. “So am I.”
She opened her eyes at that. “I don’t believe you. Why should you be?”
“Because you’re important.” He set the combs aside to let his fingers tunnel through her hair. “Because this is important.” He drew her close again, struggling to remain gentle, to remember her fragility rather than her strength. Both were there, both had snagged him from the first instant. “We can analyze this all night, Addy. Or you can let me love you.”
There wasn’t a choice, nor had there ever been. Adrianne believed in fate. She’d been destined to leave Jaquir, as she was destined to return. And she was destined to spend this night, if only this one night, with Philip, and learn what it was that made women give their hearts, and their freedom, to men.
She expected passion. She understood it. That was the wild frenzy that made men search for a form of release. She knew of sex from the frank talk of the harem to the wistful romantic chatter at tea parties. Women were as hung
ry as men, if not always as able to sate the hunger. The impression of sex that had remained with her since childhood was a tangle of limbs, a torrent of sound and movement best done in the dark.
When his lips came to hers again, she was prepared to give herself over to it.
But it was only a whisper of a kiss, the brush, retreat, brush of mouth against mouth. Her eyes blinked open in surprise to find him watching her.
He saw the confusion, and the desire growing moment by moment as he toyed with her mouth. There was no urge to devour or possess. Not this time. Not with her. Whatever skill he had, whatever patience he’d developed, he would use tonight. He let his hands lose themselves in her hair, giving them both time to adjust to the unexpected.
So when he touched her, she didn’t stiffen. Her body seemed ready to be stroked and discovered. He shrugged out of his jacket and she no longer hesitated to run her hands over his shoulders, down his back. Impatient to know the same freedom he was experiencing, she tugged at his shirt until it was free and she could feel the flesh beneath.
She heard him suck in his breath at her touch. His mouth became more urgent on hers, his heartbeat less steady. She heard him murmur, but didn’t understand his request to go slowly. She couldn’t know how much it cost him to undress her carefully, to keep his hands easy when he wanted to grasp greedily. Naked, she shivered once. The sound of her dress falling to a pool at her feet echoed like thunder in his head.
Her skin glowed in the vague moonlight that silvered the ends of her hair as it fell over her breasts. He’d known what it was to want, but he hadn’t known that the edge of desire could be so jagged—so jagged his hands shook as he tugged off his shirt, so jagged his throat ached as he lay her on the bed.
She, too, had known want. But her desires had always had a clear route and a definite end. Security, reputation, restitution. Now she learned that some desires had a morass of paths leading to many destinations. She was still afraid, but no longer of him. She feared herself now, and what price she might be willing to pay to go on feeling as she felt tonight.