Ahead of them, the sun splintered off the water, sparking like diamonds strewn across the sea as the seventy-five-foot cruising yacht putt-putted through the harbor, heading toward open water.
Stroking one hand from her neck to her waist, he let it settle in the curve. Her arms, her shoulders, her satiny back, all were bared to the sun. “As much as I hate to cover one inch of your skin, you’ll burn to a crisp.”
She turned her face up to him, pulled her sunglasses down from her crown to cover her gorgeous eyes. “I dipped myself in number sixty.”
“Everywhere?”
“Everywhere that’s likely to see the sun.” She put a hand on her hip, a move that brought her breasts into play, though he doubted she realized it. “I thought you had a meeting.”
“I do.” He lifted a hand to summon Gio from the stern. “This is Giovanni. He’s investigating the theft.” He switched to Italian. Things would be said that he’d rather Maddie didn’t hear.
“Gio, this is Ms. St. Clair. I’d prefer that she believe you speak no English.”
“I understand.” He shook the hand Maddie offered and smiled politely.
Adam skipped over small talk. “You’ve made progress?”
“The thief used your desktop.”
“My personal desktop? In my office?”
“Yes. He—or she—logged on with your password and breached the security system from your desk.”
Adam let that thought simmer, then, “What about the fail-safes? The passwords required at key points in the process?”
Gio looked chagrined. “Somehow—and we’re still trying to figure out how—the thief infiltrated the programming and rewrote it. The passwords were eliminated.”
“That’s not possible.”
“It’s not impossible.” He rattled off tech speak. Adam let it roll past him. He understood more about computers than most people, but this was several levels beyond him. “Only a handful of people could do it,” Gio summed up, “and none of them works for you.”
Adam crossed his arms. “Then one of them works for someone who works for me.”
“I’m checking out the experts now, verifying their whereabouts on the date in question.”
“It’s unlikely they did it personally. But they could’ve talked someone through it.” He leaned back against the rail. “Follow the money, Gio. That’s how you’ll nail them.”
“It was the first thing we did, and we got nowhere. We’ve traced every transaction in and out of your people’s accounts for the past six months and confirmed every one.”
“Even Maribelle’s? The woman goes through millions a year. She could slip something through.”
Gio shook his head. “Her expenses fall into three primary categories—clothes, travel, and remodeling her villa. I went over her finances personally, took them back a full year. Everything checks out.”
“It has to be her.” Maribelle fancied herself a woman scorned. She might be American, but Italian blood ran in her veins. A ten-year vendetta would be nothing to her.
“My opinion,” said Gio, “based on all I’ve learned about Maribelle and on my own interactions with her, is that she’s too smart to jeopardize her villa and her stipend just to steal one painting that she’d have trouble fencing.”
“Henry says the same, and I agree it doesn’t make sense. But you don’t know her like I do.”
They held swords at each other’s throats, Maribelle and he. No telling when she’d try to draw first blood.
“Send her records to me,” he said. “I’ll review them myself.”
They spoke for a few moments more, then Gio motored back to shore in the launch and Adam turned his attention to Maddie. She’d pushed her sunglasses up and was watching him through narrowed eyes.
“I take it the Monet is still missing.”
He cocked a brow. “I thought you didn’t believe it was stolen.”
“It would be an elaborate charade, wouldn’t it? Especially since—as you love to point out—I’m your lawyer now.”
She’d finally accepted that much. Now he wanted her to be more. How could he make her accept that too?
He began by telling her what Gio had found.
She listened closely, then bottom-lined it. “So you’ve got a traitor on staff.”
“Apparently.” He’d left out any reference to Maribelle. Someday soon, if things went as he hoped, he’d have no choice but to explain. But not now.
With his hand on her back, he guided her to the stern. The crew had set up a small table under the awning; white tablecloth, red grapes, and Pinot Grigio chilling in a silver ice bucket.
She took a seat, kept silent while he poured the wine. Then she sipped, and a low humming came from her throat, the sound she made when something tasted delicious.
The same sound she made in bed. It drove him mad.
Her tongue touched her lip. He struggled not to stare.
He made himself look out to sea. They’d left the harbor behind, and the captain had opened the throttle to cruising speed. Vessels of all types dotted the glistening water, from small fishing boats to a yacht several times larger than his.
“I figured you for one of those,” Maddie said, tilting her chin at the superyacht.
“Does size matter to you?”
“Anyone who says it doesn’t is lying through her teeth.” She plucked a grape from the bowl, sucked it into her mouth. “But you don’t have anything to compensate for.”
Music to his ears. His trousers shrank two sizes in appreciation.
“Still, any old tycoon can have a yacht like this.” She waved a hand like she was a yacht expert.
He refocused with an effort. “I had a superyacht and sold it. It raised too many expectations. Every business associate felt entitled to accompany me on a month-long cruise.”
“With supermodels and movie stars?”
“At the very least. A smaller craft restricts the guest list.”
“And exclusive orgies are so much more intimate.”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you read about me.”
“Pfft. I don’t read about you.”
He eyed her.
“I don’t,” she insisted. “But you’re ubiquitous. Turn on the TV and there you are. Sit down at a bar, you’re up on the screen. War and famine can’t buy a headline, but Adam LeCroix’s every burp and fart is covered from every angle.”
He laughed. “Good God, I hope not.”
“You know what I mean. And you love it.”
He sat back. “Is that what you think?”
“That’s what everyone thinks.”
“Then I’ll have to give my publicist a raise.”
“For convincing everyone you’re a media whore?”
“For keeping the media’s attention where I want it, on my public profile, and off my private life.”
She looked unconvinced. “So Cannes and St. Tropez and canoodling with the world’s most beautiful women, those are all publicity stunts? The real Adam LeCroix likes to sit home with Sudoku?”
“I prefer crosswords. But yes, I feed the press regularly. It keeps them from peering over my fences, looking for a story.”
She studied him, considering. For the first time, she looked interested in something above his belt.
He let her look. He wanted her to see past the persona.
“So you’re telling me that under all the flash you’re really a private person?”
“I’ve never thought of it in those terms, but I suppose I am. I like, even need, time to myself. When I socialize for my own enjoyment, I prefer to be with a few close friends. And when a woman genuinely interests me, I don’t flaunt her in front of the cameras.”
He brushed a knuckle down the back of her arm. “You don’t see any paparazzi now, do you?”
She didn’t take the bait, but she didn’t pull her arm away either. “Okay, that explains the puny yacht, but not the sprawling villa or ginormous penthouse. Those cry out for houseguests and
parties.”
“I enjoy both on occasion, as long as they don’t encroach on my personal space. My penthouse suite, as you know, is far removed from the guest suites. And here at the villa, guests stay in the other wing. My wing is off-limits.”
“You put me in your wing.”
“You’re the first. The only.”
Most women would eat that up. Maddie sniffed instead. “You want to keep me away from Lucy and Crash. For some perverted reason, you get off on them screwing under your roof.”
For a brilliant woman, she could be annoyingly obtuse. “Oh yes,” he said impatiently, “that’s it precisely. I hope they’re doing it right now, on his bed, her bed, and a float in the pool. Why must you badger them?”
“Because Lucy doesn’t know what she’s doing, that’s why.”
“And if she doesn’t experiment, how will she learn?”
“She can learn from me.” Maddie drummed her fingers on the table. “I thought we were having lunch. Where’s the food?”
He ignored her ploy. “What will she learn from you? What relationship wisdom do you have to impart?”
“That’s there’s no wisdom in having a relationship. Period.”
“And you learned this through your own vast experience with relationships?”
She gave him the stink eye. “What do you know about my relationships?”
“I know you’ve never had one.”
Her jaw dropped. “You snooped into my personal life?”
He could have bitten off his tongue. But it was too late, so he shrugged one shoulder as if it were only natural. “I don’t hire a person into a position of trust until I’m certain nothing in their past will compromise them.”
“Really? Then how’d you end up with a traitor in your house?”
“When I find out, I’ll tell you.”
Lunch arrived before war could break out, delivered by six-foot-studly Armando. Maddie ogled him. When he lifted the silver lid, she gasped, “Pizza!” and dazzled him with a smile.
“He didn’t cook it,” Adam pointed out after dismissing the poor man. “You’ve given him an erection he doesn’t deserve.”
“Then take me to the chef. I’ll be glad to make out with whoever put this together.” She sucked cheese off her finger.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but the chef is a woman.”
“For this pizza, I’d swing both ways.”
Jesus, now he had that vision to torment him.
MADDIE’S DRESS WAS an instrument of torture. It barely covered her best parts under a skim of silk and left the rest of her satiny skin gleaming in the sun.
Standing at the bow, she squinted against the sunlight refracting off the water, eyes fixed on the approaching shore. Adam turned his back to it, leaned his elbows on the rail, and watched her instead.
The wind feathered her hair, fluttered her skirt. Her feet were bare, her toenails pink.
She’d abandoned her sandals under the table after her second glass of wine. After her third, she let him slide his hand under that diaphanous skirt.
Then she tried to drag him down to the stateroom.
He’d resisted, God help him. And God help Henry if abstinence failed to win her.
She’d shrugged it off, but her frustration was patent, a mirror of his own. Desire leaped like a living flame between them. Fighting it took all of his willpower and a steady eye on the prize. He wanted more from her than another quick fuck. He wanted to learn what drove her, what moved her.
So far, she’d deflected every personal question. Now he went for an opening she couldn’t resist. “Ferrari or Bugatti, which do you prefer?”
Her lips pursed. “Hard to say. It was stoplight to stoplight in Manhattan. And here, we never broke thirty.”
“I have an interest in a racetrack near Milan. We can take the Ferrari there and open it up.”
That got a grin out of her. “Okay. But that gives it an unfair advantage.”
“When we get back to New York, we’ll take the Bugatti to Watkins Glen. You can decide after that.”
She didn’t say yes, but she didn’t say no. He shifted his arm an inch so it lay along hers. Electricity tingled his skin.
He slid a pry bar into the opening he’d made. “Why haven’t you learned to drive?”
She hesitated, and he wasn’t sure she’d answer. Then she shrugged a shoulder as if it was inconsequential. “I missed my chance. Everyone else learned in high school. I didn’t. And once I got to college, I was living in the city. I didn’t need a car.”
“But you love cars.”
“I can love them without driving them. Besides, I can’t afford a real sports car, so what’s the point?”
“What if I gave you the Bugatti? Would you learn then?”
She laughed, his favorite sound, second only to that sexy humming. “Sure. But nobody gives away a two-million-dollar car.”
He wriggled the bar another inch. “Why didn’t you learn in high school?”
“Because no one taught me.”
“Why not?”
Again she hesitated. He flicked nonexistent lint off his shirt, glanced up at the sky as if only idly interested in her answer.
“My mother didn’t drive,” she said after a moment, “and my father . . . we didn’t get along.”
He’d assumed as much, since she’d claimed the man was dead when he wasn’t.
“No aunts or uncles? Family friends?”
“My father didn’t allow it. And like I said, by the time I was old enough to learn on my own, it wasn’t a priority.”
She must have decided she’d gotten too chummy, because she stepped away from the rail, slamming the door on his pry bar.
“I hope you’re happy,” she said over her shoulder. “You dragged me out here for a five-minute meeting that I couldn’t understand anyway, then dawdled the day away while Crash and Lucy went at it like bunnies.”
Weren’t they the lucky ones.
And she walked away, the scarves dancing the dance of the seven veils around her satiny naked thighs.
PORTOFINO, MADDIE DECIDED, was the prettiest place in the world.
For the best part of an hour, they strolled the waterfront, winding in and out of shops, sipping cappuccino under an awning at a trendy café.
Then Adam drew her down a side street, into a tiny gelato shop where all the colors of the rainbow winked at her from the freezer case.
“Adam!” A middle-aged woman rushed out from the back to kiss him on both cheeks. She gushed a stream of Italian, incomprehensible but overflowing with affection, punctuated by arm patting and cheek pinching.
When he introduced Maddie in the same language, the woman’s eyes popped. Clasping Maddie’s shoulders, she did the two-cheek thing, greeting her like a long-lost daughter.
“Magdalena’s an old friend,” said Adam.
“Let me guess. You staked her so she could open this shop.”
“Now she has seven, up and down the Riviera.”
Bustling behind the counter, Magdalena shooed aside the young women working there. They were busy batting their eyes at Adam, smiling for all they were worth.
“Her daughters,” he said, “Angelina and Maria.”
“They want to jump you.”
“Then you should stake your claim.” He smiled down at her, lacing his fingers through hers.
She should have made a face, but who could blame her for staring instead? His jet hair was wind-tossed, his skin freshly bronzed. And his eyes, bluer than the sea, glinted with pleasure at her obvious bedazzlement.
Magdalena packed two cones with rose-colored gelato. “Cherry,” Adam said, passing one to Maddie. “Her newest creation.”
Maddie licked it and the flavor melted into her tongue, cold and creamy, subtle and sweet.
“Mmm,” she hummed.
And Adam kissed her.
His lips were cool and tasted like cherry. So did his tongue, sliding across her teeth. “That sound,” he murmured against her
mouth. “It goes right through me. Do it again.”
Hunger tightened the muscles low in her belly. Hunger for him. She bit him, lightly.
“Magdalena’s watching,” she murmured. “She’ll think there’s something going on.”
“Darling, there is.” He bit her back.
Behind the counter, Magdalena’s daughters tittered, but the sound faded out like the ending of a song. Adam’s gaze was hot enough to melt her gelato.
She wanted him. She’d wanted him on the yacht, and for hours before that. When he’d slid his hand up her skirt, she’d all but thrown herself at him. But even though both of them were panting like wolves, he’d fended her off, claiming he wanted to talk.
Talk! Most men dreamed of sex without strings, but Adam wanted conversation.
Obviously, her resistance to jabbering about herself had piqued his nosiness. She’d thrown him a bone when he grilled her about her license, but it wouldn’t be enough. If she wanted another crack at what he was packing in his pants—and she did—she’d have to play along. Dribble out some harmless factoids to let him think she was into sharing.
The downside risk was minimal. In seven days, they’d be back to their separate lives. True, that was five days more than she’d spent with any man, but she wasn’t afraid of getting in too deep. She was commitment-proof.
She took a big sloppy slurp of her cone, watched his eyes dilate.
Yep, a little fake intimacy and he’d roll over like a puppy.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Vicky: If something’s important to you,
I will make it important to me.
Maddie: But not if it’s silly.
LUCY LOUNGED ON Maddie’s couch, bare heels stacked on the arm. “Did you know there’s another villa on this property?”
Maddie toweled her hair, then poked her fingers through it. “Probably servants’ quarters.”
“Nope. Henry and the rest of them have rooms upstairs in my wing. And there’s a separate fence around the villa, like it’s a compound or something.”
“Ask Adam if you’re curious.”
“I did. He said not to worry about it. And not to go over there.”
Maddie’s ears pricked. Maybe he’d stashed the Lady in Red there.
The Wedding Vow Page 18