The Perfect Ten Boxed Set

by Dianna Love

  “Oui.” His agreement sounded a lot less assured, too.

  Not that I blamed the poor guy. I didn’t figure he ran across a lot of dead guests on his watch.

  But I didn’t have time to worry about him. I had to get somewhere I could send a text message. The minute the law arrived, and I was identified as discovering the body, I’d lose my phone and any way to communicate with the agency. This mission had just turned deadly up close and personal, and Ling Mai and the team needed to know. Maybe this would get them off their asses. Either that or I was more on my own than I’d ever thought possible.

  By returning to the staging stateroom where I’d left my locked and warded valise I achieved my first goal—accessing my cell. I whipped it out, shocked to find a few bars of reception. Punching in a quick text message to Mandy, I hit the send button.

  New model murdered. I found body. Advise.

  I’d left off the whole P.S. Oh, and I died, but don’t worry, I’m alive now bit. They’d yank me in a heartbeat for having a mental breakdown.

  I hadn’t brought dry, clean clothes along so I rubbed myself a bit more with the towel before discarding it. For now, I was stuck looking as if I’d taken a shower with my clothes on as I heard a put-put-put alongside the boat. A quick glance out the port window and I spied an official looking boat pulling up to the launch dock. The Gendarmerie Maritime, the officials who handled suspicious deaths in coastal French waters, hadn’t wasted any time. One more clue that Bran’s world was not mine. Men like him received immediate attention. Someone else might have waited longer for the law to arrive.

  Of course lights and sirens weren’t flashing. Bran must have worked very fast to keep the approach low-key and confidential.

  That approach would no doubt extend to the manner in which the gendarmes handled Bran’s core staff.

  Would that approach also be given toward a lowly hairdresser who had a lot to hide once Bran was out of sight?

  I was about to find out.

  * * *

  Dawn had just slipped over the horizon when a commotion outside Bran’s stateroom arrested my attention. Bran entered his room as the rose-yellow dawn exploded into bright sunlight beyond the open balcony doors. My getting into his safe had been a bust. The man cast one great warding spell. So I was on to Plan B—find a way to circulate outside of the back room. Which led to Plan C— link Dominique to the attack on me, the brutal murder of Sasha, and the guy who might be holding Van.

  I shied away from examining how I knew it was Bran as his door opened before I looked. We’d avoided each other for hours, ever since finding Sasha’s body in the spa. Now there would be no avoiding him and my reaction to him.

  Keep it professional. Please let me keep it professional. Not personal. So don’t go down that road.

  “You?” He stopped just inside the door, looking as constrained as I felt and as wary.

  “The purser is looking for a place to stash me.” I tripped over my rush of words, trying to reassure and explain all in the same breath. Last thing I needed was for him to disappear before I could ask a few key questions. “I’ll be out of here soon.”

  When the silence grew between us I jammed my hands in the pocket of my jeans, rubbing my ring and asked, “How is . . .how are . . .?” Oh, hell, I didn’t even know what to ask.

  There. That was professional. Not.

  A cynical and exhausted smile tugged the corner of his lips. He’d been up all night, too. “Today’s show has been cancelled. I’ve been on the phone with our guests most of the night. Some claim prostration, traumatized as only twittering, senseless women can be. Others are ghouls, calculating how much press coverage they can expect from almost being at the scene of a crime.”

  Maybe the smile was more than cynical. Or was it the tone of his voice? This was not a man who suffered fools well.

  “And you?” I asked, breaking my own rule so quickly it was a surprise I didn’t get whiplash. I was so treading on personal grounds. “How are you doing?”

  He crossed to the king-size bed and sat on the edge, weariness etching his posture. He raked one hand through thick, already tousled hair before spearing me with a glance even bleaker than the one I’d seen on him in the Roman bath hours ago. What surprised me was that he allowed how on edge he was to show.

  “How am I?” he repeated, more to himself than me, his voice tugging at me. “A woman under my protection had her throat brutally slashed with no apparent motivation. I have a yacht full of law enforcement officers, because they know a killer is somewhere on the boat. My name—” he paused, then spoke again in a tighter, lower voice. “My name, already under investigation for robberies, is now linked with a murder. How do you think I am?”

  Yeah, the edge sliced razor-sharp. But I needed him now. I needed him in control and focused and determined. He was my only potential ally on this ship. The only person who knew my true role and the only person who could help me get the answers I was determined to get.

  So no matter how much I ached to empathize, or soothe, which really wasn’t my nature anyway, there was no time for it. Any moment Dominique could slam through his door with her own agenda. Later I could find time to talk to him about his very unique gift, but for now I’d keep focused on Sasha.

  “Have you talked with Dominique?” My voice was more get-with-the-program intense than I intended, but it worked.

  He glanced up, his gaze icy. “Of course, I have. She handled a lot of the most hysterical of the women and the press releases.”

  “Anything else?”

  “What does it matter to you?”

  This was not personal, this was business.

  I stepped closer, though approaching the leashed fierceness straight-on took years of training as a sibling-sister amongst bigger, badder, meaner brothers. “It matters because there’s only one person who knew, for sure, I’d be looking for Sasha and most likely find her. That Franco and you were there, too, was a fluke, nothing more.”

  He didn’t respond, which was fine because I stumbled against one of the questions that had been bothering me since last night. “Why were you there?” I asked, blaming exhaustion for not wondering before this.

  He glanced up, his eyes devil dark. “Why was I where?”

  “On the foredeck. How did you find me?” How did you revive me?

  His shoulders relaxed as mine tightened. There was something I was missing here. Something he thought I was going to discover. His body language betrayed him.

  He shrugged, “Does it matter?”

  “It does to me.”

  His glance was razor sharp, more warlock than human. “I wanted some fresh air.”

  “So you just happened to walk to the foredeck?” Think, Noziak, what was he not saying?

  “Yes,” he bit out, jerking to his feet. “I took a walk. I found you. I . . . I healed you. Would you rather I’d have left you to die?”

  I hesitated. Was now the time to ask at what cost was his healing? I already knew one price; he could not help Sasha. Which brought me back around to what was niggling at me.

  The dead shifter. That was it. Bran had to have seen the dead shifter. I had no idea how long I’d been dead on deck but it was long enough for someone to dispose of a dead body. Someone strong enough, like a warlock, could have tipped Gurn into the sea. But why?

  “Did you get rid of the man’s body?” I asked, stepping back, feeling as if I were shadow boxing, trying to figure out the details.

  “If I say yes, will you stop hounding me?”

  Not really a yes, but not a no either. I figured I’d pushed him as much as I could.

  “Nothing makes sense,” I murmured, scrubbing my hands across my face.

  “I’m not the enemy here, Alex,” Bran’s voice washed against me.

  I glanced at him as he continued, “If I were your enemy you’d be at some Monte Carlo police station facing a murder charge right now.”

  Still was a strong possibility of that happening, given the direction
of the questions they’d asked me earlier. Or the fact I had a criminal record. But why hadn’t the police made a bigger issue out of my wet clothes? Franco had to have told them I had blood all over me

  One step at a time.

  I looked at Bran, really looked at him before crossing to a chair opposite him and slipping into it. It wasn’t lost on either of us that the chair was as far away from him as I could get and still be in the same room.

  “Why are you afraid of me?” This was Bran, the multimillionaire who’d created his own empire, talking now. One step accomplished. I had his full attention. A Taser on stun would have had less power. Bran was not an easy man to be around in the best of times; in my limited experience most powerful, self-made men weren’t. Warlocks fell into the same category. And now I had to tell him that the person he trusted most in the world might be working against his best interests.

  Not fun.

  “I need to tell you something you won’t want to hear,” I said, my voice shaky with fatigue. Maybe I should put off this conversation, not that it would ever get easy. I was asking him to do what I was not willing to do, abandon family. I was here because of Van, and with that thought front and center I steeled myself to push forward. “We need to talk about Dominique.”

  “Talk about her why?” His voice sounded constrained.

  “Her possible involvement in events.”

  “You don’t know my cousin.”

  “True.” I didn’t know him either, so taking him as a temporary ally right now might make all my other mistakes pale by comparison, but I needed answers. I looked at him, my hands loose on my knees, my voice flat. “What I do know is that Sasha’s murder changes the thefts happening around this show.” I watched him flinch, but plowed ahead. “Those thefts were externally directed. Someone using the cover of your tour locations to line their pockets. But Sasha’s death was the result of one of two things. Possibly both.”

  “Go on,” he said at last without raising his head.

  Small progress that he didn’t shut me off totally. I inhaled and braced myself. “The first is that Sasha stumbled onto information she shouldn’t have and was killed to keep her quiet.”

  “She’d been with the staff less than a week.”

  “But it’s still a possibility.”

  Small, baby steps.

  “And the second issue?”

  “The second issue is personal.” I steeled myself, twirling my ring on my finger like a weapon. “Someone wants to destroy you.”

  He raised his head and stared at me as if I’d just sprouted horns and a forked tail. Ironic given he was the only warlock in the room, and angry warlocks had often been described through history as the devil’s own.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” He stood, a powerful, controlled move as he thrust hands deep into the pockets of his linen pants. He paced, but with each step measured and held tightly in check. This was not a person to be prodded into anything—especially a theory at odds with his world view.

  I kept my gaze averted, not to avoid him, but to give him some room to digest what I’d laid before him. Breaking a granite shell took time, and Bran was all granite.

  “I trust the people around me.” He scowled at me, his tone making it clear I was an outsider threatening his world. Fair enough, my response would probably have been the same. “They are not just my employees, they are my friends. My family.”

  Then this guy obviously didn’t have a lot of luck with family.

  “Look.” It was time for damage control, but there was no avoiding the truth. “I could be wrong about this being personal.” My gut told me I wasn’t.

  “You are.”

  “Fine.” I raised my hands. No harm, no foul. “So we focus on the first issue. Sasha knew something, or saw something she shouldn’t have.”

  “And none of that has anything to do with the staff or Dom.” His words were angry, his eyes desperate. “So keep her out of this.”

  That had me sucking in air and curling my fists. Noziaks didn’t back down when things got ugly. We plowed ahead.

  Besides, keeping out was not my call. If the cinnamon scented Prima Donna was involved, it’d come out sooner or later. With hope before there were any more casualties.

  I tried a different tack. “That still leaves a number of guests and your staff to look at closer. My gut tells me staff is where we should look in more depth, but there’s no telling if Sasha knew one of your guests previously and her past caught up with her here. From what I’ve been able to see some of these women arrive at several of your events in a year. So we can’t eliminate guests totally at this point.”

  “Is that all?” He didn’t even look at me.

  “No, but having two shifters running free on the same yacht can’t be a coincidence. Something is going on here.”

  There, I gave him a little wiggle room, but no way was I going to avoid what the facts spelled out for me. First thing law enforcement had to have done before they contacted the IR agency as a what-the-hell last option was cross-reference guests with thefts. The fact no names surfaced must have been clarified with Bran before I came on board.

  “I agree.” He now stood right next to me and stared me down. “But you’re saying that Sasha’s death could have had nothing to do with her being one of my models.”

  I was afraid he’d clutch that very teeny, tiny straw too quickly.

  “There’s a scant chance.” I backpedaled, accepting that just because I’d jump first and rethink things after the fact, not everyone acted under that principle.

  “Then we must discover if Sasha knew one of the guests.” At least he sounded like a man stepping away from the edge and not toward it. “What next?”

  Great. I’d gotten myself out on this limb, it was time to continue holding on for dear life—or jump.

  “Next?” I said, averting my gaze again, flexing fingers that had become rigid fists before I stepped in the direction I’d hoped to avoid. “It’s time I move out of the back room. I can investigate only so far when I have access to half the people involved. And I need your help to do that.”

  He went still, his whole body taut, his eyes carefully banked, his gaze shuttered. Warlock under threat.

  Not quite the response I’d wanted. Why did I feel I’d just propositioned him?

  Maybe all I’d sensed between us was only my imagination anyway. There was no spark zipping between us—no crazy, illogical attraction that blurred the edges of professionalism and made thinking difficult. All one-sided.

  That was good news; it was better to lose my mind than my professionalism. So why did it hurt like a horse’s kick? Damn, I hated feeling like a fool.

  I slowly rose to my feet and stood there, in the center of his room, waiting for him to throw me out on my ear. Not a sensation I was inclined to tolerate for long.

  I out loud aloud to break the strained silence. So what if my voice came out a little too breathless. “I just need a way to move among your guests as freely as I now move among your staff, that’s all.”

  “Is it?” His husky voice deepened, enough to give me a chill of goose bumps dancing down my arms. Fatigue. It had to be fatigue. Or the whole dead-undead thing messing with me. Again.

  “Exactly what are you asking?”

  My words stuttered, not nonchalant as I’d intended. But then again I was caught and held in that predator stare of his, the one that could make a grown woman weep, or beg, and I wasn’t sure which side of the fence I wanted to sit on.

  He stepped closer. I held my ground.

  “You tell me exactly what it is you want.” His words vibrated like the thrum of a powerful engine held in check. “What do you want from me?”

  A touch? More? All of you? Where was this coming from? I didn’t lose my head over gorgeous, sexy, dangerous warlocks. Okay, I didn’t run across all that many.

  Mine fields. Dangerous, dangerous mine fields. Remember, I’m an agent here, not a woman. Don’t listen to my hormones’ knee-jerk response, to
my heart pounding harder, my muscles clenching, the hot, tingling warmth starting from my core and racing outwards.

  Fatigue, damn it, that’s all.

  “Guests,” I stuttered again and grasped for brain cells that had fled the minute his scent reached me. The second he neared enough to touch, if either of us reached out. “I want guests.”

  His smile taunted. Promised. Seduced. His lips curled in a secret, wicked smile. So maybe he was more than a word-weaver and heal-from-the-dead mage. Right now he was the king of seduction.

  “Guests?” The single word feathered like a whisper, a caress across raw nerve endings. “You’re sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “Have you heard of the acies acendo adamo?”

  He’d thrown me for a loop, which was not the first time this evening. “I don’t what you’re talking about.” Though the language was familiar, Latin, the meaning was obscure. Could it be a spell?

  His gaze bore down on me. “The portent is very old. Lost in the mists of time.”

  “What portent?” I clenched my hands, bracing myself.

  “Between a powerful warlock and the even more powerful witch who would bring him to his knees and start the time of change. The time of loss.”

  What were we talking about? And why did it make me want to lash out? Or weep?

  “You don’t know your history?” he asked, with a quirk to his brow.

  History be damned. It wasn’t as if I got exposed to a lot of Latin, or witch lore in Mud Lake.

  “Let down your wards again, little witch, and you’ll find the meaning to the portent.”

  A quick rat-a-tat at the door saved me. We both started, glancing toward the door, avoiding each other’s gaze.

  Dominique cruised into the room without waiting for an invite, her hand clutching a newspaper, her gaze immediately riveted on me. “What are you doing here?”

  The words shot like an angry accusation more than a question.

  “Waiting for a room.”

  “Why do you need a room?” Dominique’s gaze slashed to Bran’s and her voice shot up in volume. “She’s not staying on the yacht.”