The Perfect Ten Boxed Set

by Dianna Love

  “You’re wounding me.” Franco placed a hand over his heart but made no move to leave. “Seriously, ladies, I need your help.”

  I choked on a sip of coffee. “You want what?”

  “I’m worried.” He glanced around him before speaking. “Have you seen Dominique today? Ghastly, simply ghastly. I’m afraid the poor woman is losing her control.” He eyed me. “And we do know the woman personifies control.”

  I set my cup down before asking “And what do you want us to do?”

  “Well.” He leaned closer. “You two, being the new girls, might notice what others are missing.”

  “Such as?”

  “You know, you might see someone who doesn’t look like they belong. Who might be bothering Dominique.”

  “Are you saying you think someone’s threatening her?” Jaylene asked, her face betraying only mild curiosity.

  “I don’t know what the problem is.” Franco released a dramatic sigh. “But I do know an unhappy Dominique makes an unhappy group.”

  “Maybe it’s PMS?” Jaylene offered.

  “Pahleeze,” Franco’s response was accompanied by a dramatic eye roll. “I’m around enough women daily to know the difference between hormones and...and—”

  “And?” I asked, my lips twitching, realizing I might even miss Franco.

  “And something else.” His tone became very serious. “I don’t like the way she’s behaving, that’s all. Not one bit and tomorrow we arrive in D.C.”

  My shoulders tensed. “And that has significance because?”

  “Dahling, you must have heard. The gala reception? Kennedy Center. Everyone who’s anyone.”

  “We’ve had receptions at every stop we’ve made.”

  “Don’t be dense, poppet. Those were small potatoes.”

  “Enlighten me,” I said. “I’m a pig farmer’s daughter, not a potato farmer’s.”

  “So you haven’t heard?” Franco glanced between both of us. “But then you might not, word only just arrived hours ago.”

  “Spell the words out here, Frank.” At this rate Washington D.C. would be two cities behind us before we received any news.

  “Well,” Franco lowered his voice. “Bran will be given an award. For creativity in the arts. Very posh affair at the Kennedy Center.”

  “Bully for him,” Jaylene said drolly.

  “Oh, but it’s a very great honor. Only three people will be presented with the award.” He looked at us both. “Dahlings, everyone who is anyone will be there, must I repeat that.”

  More schmoozing and cruising. “That’s nice,” I said.

  “Well, I’d think associating with the First Lady would be a bit more than nice.”

  I caught Jaylene’s narrowing of her eyes, before she steeled her voice to a calm tone. “The First Lady—what does she have to do with anything?”

  “She’s the one who’s going to present the award to Bran.”

  CHAPTER 49

  That evening the Blue Door Restaurant was ultra high-society. Only moments ago heads bobbled as some rapper with a non-Idaho guy name—Puffy, Baby, Booboo—floated through the entryway. Bran and I were tucked away in a private alcove so I could ignore him to study the menu. There wasn’t a decent hamburger or sausage dog anywhere on the menu filled with fancy French words and unfamiliar ingredients. Plus no prices. Who didn’t put price tags on their menus?

  “You’re too quiet.” Bran regarded me across the crisp linen tablecloth, his hands stroking a crystal stemware glass, its dark, red liquid reflecting candlelight. The same hands that stroked me last night. Same sensuous movement. Same intoxicating spell cast. One more minute and I’d start begging.

  I clenched my hands in my lap instead.

  “Alex?” Bran prodded. “You want to tell me what’s upsetting you?”

  I leaned forward, sucking in a deep breath. Now or never. “What do you know about this award function in D.C.?”

  “You’ve heard about that?” He cast his gaze down. Embarrassed or hiding something? “The whole affair is of no importance to me.” He fingered the glass stem tighter. “I’d temporarily forgotten.”

  “You can’t afford to forget. There’s too much at risk to have meetings with major dignitaries slip under the radar. It’s important and it’s business.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Who set it up?”

  He shrugged. “Dom—she handles these types of affairs.”

  Bingo. “And how long has your cousin known about the arrangements?”

  The lines bracketing his eyes tightened before he replied, “Far as I know the award concept had been presented as a possibility months ago. Yesterday Dom told me the arrangements had been finalized. Why?”

  “We don’t know for sure.”

  “We? You mean your agency?”

  “Of course.”

  His lips quirked into a cynical smile. “And how much does your agency know about us?”

  My stomach took a dive. “What kind of question is that?”

  “An honest one.” His voice deepened, his face looking dark and enigmatic in the flickering light, more demon than warlock now. “So, tell me Alex, was last night about us or about business?”

  I reached for my own wine, swigging it as if water. “Last night had nothing to do with the agency.”

  “You sure?”

  “That’s a cheap slam.”

  This conversation was not going as planned. I was the one meant to call the shots, not get blasted by them. Warlocks always had to have the last say, it was a part of their need to control.

  “Is the question so outrageous to ask?” He leaned back in his chair, the buzz of conversations around us contrasting with the pocket of strained silence between us. “I’m curious where we stand?”

  “Can we get back to business?” I released a sigh when the waiter interrupted my next words. A steaming bowl of fist-sized shrimp and tempura-fried leeks in a pomegranate sauce was slid before me.

  The dish smelled divine. Too bad my appetite had flatlined.

  Bran nodded the waiter off, ignoring his own Maine lobster as he asked. “Will you be attending the award ceremony with me?”

  Better question was would it serve the mission or would my part in the mission be finished by then?

  “I don’t know, it all depends,” I answered truthfully, my throat raw.

  “Let me rephrase.” He leaned forward. “Regardless of any business between us, will you be attending the event with me?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” The exasperated words escaped before I could tamp them down. At the flare of his nostrils, I added, “I won’t need to be circulating in that crowd. Not as your date.”

  “So our being together does all come down to business.” He sounded hurt, but that couldn’t be. He knew the score from the beginning. We’d had sex, that’s all.

  “I don’t know why you’re upset.” My fork remained on the table, my hands wadded together in my lap. “Why are you acting like this?”

  “Acting? Who’s acting here?”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Acies acendo adamo,” he murmured, his ice cold voice chilling me.

  Fine, two could play the emotion game. Only my emotion raged hot. My father warned me about my temper, but Dad was far away and this arrogant warlock was pissing me off. “Don’t you spout your dead languages at me. I’m tired of pussyfooting around you and cousin dearest.”

  He spoke volumes with a quirked brow.

  I lowered my voice and leaned toward him. “Do you know a man named Vaverek?”

  He shook his head, his gaze lasered on mine.

  Time to go for broke. “Do you know a man named Van?”

  “I might. It’s an unusual name but not unknown. Does this Van have a surname?”

  “Noziak.” The word tasted cardboard dry in my mouth. “Van Noziak.”

  His head tilted before he spoke in a very calm and measured tone. “He is related to you?”

  “My bro
ther.”

  The intensity in his gaze deepened. “You expect me to know your brother?”

  I tried to use a quick sensing spell to determine if he spoke the truth but his warlock defenses were locked into place.

  In for a penny, in for a pound. “My brother is being held by a man named Vaverek. Held and tortured.”

  “And you think I’m involved in this?” He leaned forward, his voice pitched low and intense.

  “I don’t know,” I knew the truth damned me. Around me the air stilled, sounds quieted into unnatural stillness, but I didn’t care. I wanted to know what Bran knew and I wanted to know now. “I know your cousin is involved. Since you two are so close. . .”

  The temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees. I glanced around, realizing that the silence was not because people had stopped talking, but because they were frozen, caught in time. Bran was spell casting even if he didn’t realize it.

  What kind of power did he possess to silence a whole room of people in mid-action? Oh, wait, this is a warlock that brought me back from the dead; why was I surprised?

  I sent out a guarding spell. Not for me, but for the innocents who didn’t know how deadly an angry warlock could be.

  “Last night, Alex? Was that a means to an end?”

  “Last night has nothing to do with anything else.” Why did my throat ache and my eyes sting?

  “You’re wrong. I think you’re hiding from the truth.”

  “What truth? You wouldn’t know the truth if it bit your backside. Dominique is involved up to her groomed eyebrows, yet you protect her.” I slammed my mangled napkin on the table. “You ignore reality, to what? To sell dresses? To keep up an illusion of the great Bran fashionista empire. My brother’s life is on the line and yet you keep blocking me.”

  “Blocking you? You’ve been using me all along.” His voice now sounded like ice–cold, controlled, killer ice. The far windows rattled and a breeze whipped through the still room, fluttering tablecloths, erasing the flicker of candles. “Our relationship has been one big game to you. With me as a pawn.”

  I shivered in my chair, feeling his will pressing against me. No way was I going to roll over and let his power flatten me. I called forth my magic and pushed back. Little by little and watched his eyes widen in surprise.

  “Think what you want to think.” I gritted my teeth to hold against him. “But I’m protecting you by telling you what I have. You don’t care about me. About my brother. You don’t care about anything except covering for your bitch of a cousin and yourself.”

  “I don’t know anything about your brother. Why should I care about him? Why should I be held accountable for thwarting you when you don’t trust me enough to tell me about him?”

  Why didn’t he understand? I was risking my career, possibly my life and the lives of my teammates trying to prove him innocent?

  “Someone once said to me, ‘I don’t need protection’.”

  Oh, but he did. And I was trying. I was really trying here.

  “I protected you, too.” His voice sounded heavy now.

  “When?”

  “All along.”

  I wanted to say something, break the tension stretching between us, but I didn’t. I held my tongue. As painful as this was it might be for the best. Slice me now, or later, what did it matter?

  The roll of power between us roiled and spread.

  I bit the inside fold of my lip till I tasted coppery blood and watched him wait for my words. The words I wouldn’t say.

  He folded his napkin and slid it onto the tablecloth. So freaking powerful to act so calm and controlled while sweat broke out on my skin, my heart kicking into high gear to hold against him.

  Warlocks and witches. I should have listened to my first reaction to this man. He could destroy me like a gnat.

  He stood. “When you’re ready to deal with me as a woman, and not as a chess player, I’ll be here. Until then—” He scorched me with his look but didn’t finish his sentence before he walked away.

  Once he left the room the pressure popped, noise rushed back into the void, waiters glanced around as if wondering what happened.

  I sucked air in ragged gulps, waiting for my nerves to settle, my heart to slow.

  “Is there a problem, Miss?” a white jacketed waiter had materialized at my side.

  Oh, yeah. A big problem and I’d blown handling it on so many levels.

  CHAPTER 50

  In the tour home late the next day, I stepped back from Franco, ignoring the clients and models circulating through the formal dining and living rooms. Would he take the bait I so juicily dangled before him? My plan was to roust Dominique while protecting as many people as I could.

  Franco looked confused, then skeptical, with pinched lines between his brows. “You? An IRS agent?”

  What? I didn’t look brainy enough? “That’s what I said.”

  “I didn’t know the IRS had field agents.” He pressed two fingers to his lips. Leave it to Frankie-O to latch onto the one technical glitch in my plan. The man must have been a flea in a past life; he so unerringly knew how to make me itch.

  “That’s why we’re so effective.” I was lying, but he didn’t have to know that. By the time he realized he’d been used the tour would be over, Dominique would be arrested, and all would be well with the world again.

  Almost.

  I leaned closer. “I need your help here, Franco.”

  “Why my help?” His eyes narrowed.

  Crud. The man hadn’t backed away from good gossip and being the first-to-know since I’d joined the tour. Why now?

  “Because you’re closer to Dominique than anyone else on the tour.” I lowered my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “It’d make sense that you’d be the one to tell her what you’ve discovered.”

  “Not Bran?” A furrow joined his frown.

  I released a huff of air. “I’m trying to keep this simple here, not complicate everything.”

  “And my telling Dominique that you’re an IRS field agent investigating her does what?”

  Where was a hot curling iron when I needed one?

  “I told you. I can’t blow my cover, but the rumor is she’s meeting with someone here in D.C. to launder money.”

  Franco’s brows vee’d so deep a slalom skier could have used the trench.

  I continued, “I don’t know if the rumor is true or not. But if it is true, and she knows she’s being watched—”

  “Then she won’t meet with this person.”

  “Exactly.” Or just the opposite, but Franco didn’t need to know how devious undercover work could be. He was a civilian after all. A prick, but a civilian prick.

  “And you want to protect Dominique because of—”

  “Because of Bran.” This part was only a half-lie. Exposing Dominique would save Bran, long term; short-term, it’d destroy the only family he had.

  But Franco had to be given a reason that made sense, and if that required me to play caring lover, so be it. Two days ago it would have been bought without question. But now?

  “But I thought you and Bran were on the outs?” Franco’s face took on the highly expectant look I associated with him whenever gossip was to be consumed.

  “We had a small misunderstanding.” I avoided Franco’s too penetrating gaze, while Bran’s words echoed in my mind. “You’re using me.”

  Here it was true. Not earlier, but here, yes.

  “Look.” I forced a shrug. “I came to you because I trusted you.” Not as far as I could throw him, but he was a slender guy. “I thought you’d want to help Bran.”

  Finally, some real truth.

  “And.” The words gagged in my throat. “Because deep down I know you’re a good guy and wouldn’t want to see innocent people get hurt.”

  Something came and went in his gaze, before his usual cynical smile returned. “And what do I get out of this?”

  Okay, this Franco I recognized.

  I stepped closer. “You get
to be right in the middle of all the action.”

  His grin notched up. The man positively buzzed. “The middle? Will I have to testify, because I don’t want—”

  “No testifying.” This I could reassure him on. “Just between you and me.”

  “And Bran? Will he know?”

  “Maybe later. After all is done and Dominique has been contained. But you know he’s protective of his cousin and may want to jump in and save her from herself if he can.”

  There was that “p” word. Bran should have it made into his legal first name. Later I’d have to ask Fraulein Fassbinder if protectiveness was a trait of certain kinds of warlocks.

  Franco nodded his head slowly. “I see. You’re so right, Bran would save Dominique, no matter what the cost to him. So I am the only one that can help you.”

  Sad but true. “Yes,” I kept my tone sincere even as I laid my next words on a little thickly. “The success of the mission is all up to you. I’m trusting you to get the job done.”

  “Then, I’ll do it.” He straightened his shoulders, resembling a banty-cock rooster heading toward the hen house.

  “Good.” Take the win, Alex. “Just let me know when you’ve shared the news.”

  “Because?”

  I straightened until I towered over him, bringing home my point. “Because I want to know.”

  “Don’t get your feathers ruffled.” He shook his head. “I was only asking.”

  “Then we’re clear?”

  “Perfectly.” He examined his nails. “But you didn’t mention if I was to be paid for this or not?”

  Good grief, the man was a mercenary prick.

  “Think glory, action, power,” I hummed, enunciating each word separately. “This is not about money, but about saving a good man—”

  “Bran.”

  “Yes, Bran.” I stumbled only a little over his name. “And about making sure Dominique doesn’t hurt him anymore.”

  Franco’s face turned hard and serious; the transformation was so dramatic, I stepped back, even as he asked, “Is Dominique behind Sasha’s death? Has your investigation uncovered anything about that?”

  “No.” Not yet, but we would. Not that Franco would ever be privy to that intel. “Sasha’s death is unrelated to the IRS investigation as far as I know.”