Not Your Ordinary Faerie Tale

by Christine Warren

  Even if she still stood on the sidewalk and glared at him as if she’d like to rip the sword off his back and beat him with it.

  Luc held up a hand and willed it not to tremble. “I’m sorry,” he said in a voice much calmer than he should have managed. “I didn’t mean to be insulting. I just—I needed to know what you saw so I could deal with the situation. I can use magic to hide the sword. I can’t leave it behind—a guardsman never travels without his weapon—but I can make it so that no one else will be able to see it. Call it a compromise.”

  She eyed him for another moment, her mouth set in a firm and decidedly unhappy line. Then she gave a short nod. “Fine. Go ahead. Make it disappear.”

  He really wished she hadn’t made it sound like a challenge. Since he’d already cast the glamour she’d just dared him to perform, he now had to think of a way to explain to her why it was already done but she was somehow seeing through it. Now, he judged, was not the time for that particular conversation. He’d always hoped his heartmate would at least like him a little before learning she was stuck with him.

  Closing his eyes, Luc drew a deep breath and hoped Corinne would see it as a signal of intense concentration. He waited for several heartbeats before lifting his lids and offering her a weak smile. “All right, then. Ready to go up?”

  Corinne made an is-that-it? gesture with one hand and shot her chin forward belligerently. “What about this spell of yours?”

  “Already done.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded.

  “So how come I can still see the sword?”

  Luc shifted slightly. “The intention is to hide it from other people,” he hedged. “You already know it’s there, so I don’t need to hide it from you. Right?”

  “I guess,” she said, clearly unconvinced. “So you’re telling me that no one else can see your huge, honkin’ sword at the moment, but I can?”

  “Yes.”

  Corinne snorted and turned to the front steps with an amused shake of her head. “Fine. It’s your felony conviction. Let’s go say hello to Bruno.”

  The multipaned art deco doors swung open before they reached the top step. An older man, stocky but impeccably groomed in a plain black suit, stood back to invite them in with a wide smile. “Good evening, Miss Corinne. Is it Ms. Markham’s turn to host your Girls’ Night festivities?”

  Corinne smiled back and stopped in the foyer—deliberately, Luc had no doubt—to give the man a good look at both of them. “Hey, Bruno. No, actually, it’s just me tonight. Well, me and my…friend. We stopped by to talk to Ava for a bit. Luc, this is Bruno Mueller. Bruno, Luci—”

  “Luc Macanaw.” Luc stepped forward before she could finish and took the older fellow’s hand, shaking it firmly. “How are you, Mr. Mueller?”

  “Oh, not so bad,” Bruno said. He wore a pleasant smile on his creased and jowled face, but his black eyes were sharp and piercing as they sized him up. “So you’re a friend of Miss Corinne’s, eh? I haven’t seen you with her before.”

  “I’m not from around here.” Luc deliberately gave the doorman a good look at his left shoulder and side where the un-glamoured sword would have been easily visible. It also had the advantage of placing him partially in front of Corinne, making it difficult for her to answer Bruno’s questions on Luc’s behalf. She’d wanted the doorman to get a good look at Luc. Luc had no problem with that, but he saw no need to allow the little troublemaker to throw gasoline on the fire.

  Bruno didn’t blink, just nodded, his smile widening and his stance subtly relaxing. He never took a second look at the visitor’s shoulder. Luc know he’d been approved. At least conditionally.

  “A visitor, huh?” The doorman shook his head. “Me, I was born and raised not ten blocks from here. Never understood why anyone would want to live anywhere else.” He gestured to the gated elevator at the rear of the foyer. “Well, you kids didn’t stop by to talk to me. You know Ms. Markham’s apartment. Give her my regards.”

  Luc murmured his thanks and guided Corinne to the back of the building with a hand at her waist. She looked over her shoulder to see Bruno resettling himself at his desk beside the door, then turned back to glare at Luc.

  “How did you do that?” she demanded.

  He pulled the elevator gate shut behind them and gestured for her to choose the floor. “I told you. Magic.”

  “Right. Magic that can make things selectively invisible.”

  Luc hoped his face conveyed more exasperation and less desperation. He was not ready to have this talk. “Did you pursue a degree in advanced physics before deciding to give it a go in the exciting world of print journalism?”

  “No—”

  “Then it would be pretty pointless for me to try to explain how magic works before we get to your friend’s front door.” The elevator slid to a stop, and he reached out to open the gate to the fourth floor. “You’re just going to have to trust me on this.”

  Corinne paused on the way down the carpeted hall to shoot him a meaningful glance over her shoulder. “I’m not the kind of girl who trusts easily.”

  If Corinne had held out any hopes of Ava taking Luc in hand and bending him to her will the way she seemed to manage with every other living thing in the universe, she was doomed to disappointment. The other woman answered the doorbell, took one look at the tall, formidable package of manhood outside her peephole, and whisked the door open before Corinne could get two words out of her mouth.

  “—me,” she finished lamely, her hair stirring in the breeze created by the swiftly moving panels of wood. She quirked an eyebrow at her friend. “Have you got a few minutes to talk?” she asked drily.

  “Of course, Corinne darling,” Ava purred, never taking her eyes off Luc. “Anything for you. Right after you introduce me to your new friend.”

  Of course. The femme fatale routine. Corinne didn’t think Ava normally went in for the bulky-with-muscle type, but obviously she’d taken one look at Lucifer Macanaw’s breathtaking features and gorgeous body and decided to make an exception. And what Ava wanted, Ava always got.

  Corinne fought back a wave of irritation. It shouldn’t bother her any if her friend had set her sights on Luc. It wasn’t like he was Corinne’s boyfriend, or even a man she was interested in. Remotelyinterested in. He was barely one step removed from a complete stranger. He meant nothing to her, absolutely nothing.

  But that kiss had certainly felt like something.

  It felt like trouble, she told herself sternly, despite the warmth that brewed in the pit of her stomach every time she thought about the way he tasted—all heat and spice and magic—or when she took too deep a breath standing beside him. The man smelled almost as good as he tasted, and that, for God’s sake, should be a sin. If she carried a rosary with her like her nana did, she’d be tempted to whip it out and say a decade every time the man so much as looked at her.

  Like right now, which after a second she realized he was doing, because Ava had just asked her to introduce them.

  “Ah, right. Sorry,” she said, feeling her cheeks go red. “Um, Luc this is my friend Ava Markham. Av, this is Luc Macanaw. He’s…well, he’s interested in your models.”

  “And I’m sure my models will be more than interested in him,” Ava said with a sly smile and a coquettish wave into her apartment. “Please come in and make yourself comfortable. Are you a photographer, Mr. Macanaw? You can’t live in New York, or I’m certain I would have heard about you a long, long time ago.”

  “Ah, no. I’m from out of town,” Corinne heard him answer as she stalked ahead of them toward her friend’s ridiculously white-on-white living room. “And actually, I’m in, er, private security.”

  Corinne threw herself onto the snowy, over-stuffed sofa with a distinct huff. Private security? She supposed that was one way to explain wearing a broadsword to conduct a simple witness interview.

  “Security? How fascinating. Please have a seat. Make yourself comfortable.” Ava gestured toward the sofa,
all hostessly concern. “Can I offer you something to drink? I have wine, or I’ve been known to mix a mean martini. Unless you’d prefer something hot? Coffee? Tea?”

  Or me?Corinne snarked in her head. She didn’t know why she hadn’t anticipated Ava making a play for Luc when she’d been walking him over here. Ava never missed an opportunity to put the moves on a man this good looking, unless he spoiled it with his attitude before she managed her patented I’m-too-good-for-you-but-I’ll-do-you-anyway come-on.

  And who could blame Luc for being drawn in? Ava was, quite simply, a stunningly beautiful woman. She’d been a frickin’ supermodel during her teen years, before she’d decided she’d rather spend her life using her brains instead of her looks. Now she managed models, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have passed for one of her own clients. From the top of her sleek, dark head to the tips of her red-polished toes, she displayed not a single excess millimeter of fat, not a single pimple, not a single hair out of place. She wore what she probably considered a casual lounging-around outfit of flowing, black silk trousers and an equally silky knit wrap-top in pale blue. She looked like an ad from a “celebrities at home” magazine.

  If Corinne hadn’t already loved her like a sister, she would have hated her like the clap.

  “Nothing, thanks,” Luc said, shaking his head but smiling. Of course he was smiling. Ava’s top showed enough cleavage to make your average lawn jockey grin.

  He shifted, the movement bringing him closer to Corinne. Probably so he could ask her to pinch him to show him he hadn’t dreamed up Ava’s spectacular looks.

  “Actually, Corinne told me you might be able to answer a few questions for me,” he continued. “For us, really. I’m interested in the same thing her paper has asked her to look into. Apparently a few of your models have reported a couple of odd occurrences lately.”

  Ava’s dark, carefully arched brows flew toward her hairline and she straightened from her seductively languid posture to give her guests a closer second look. She gazed from one to the other, her eyes lingering on Luc’s face, then dropping to the space between her guests. For a minute she said nothing, and when she spoke again, the purr in her voice had subsided.

  “She told you that, did she?” Ava nodded and stepped around an armchair to settle herself in the wide seat. “I’m assuming, since they’re the ones we talked about earlier today, that Corinne was referring to the three young women I just booked to work an outdoor runway show in Buffalo. This November.”

  Despite her irritation, Corinne snorted at that. “Christ, you’re cold, Av. If that’s the revenge you have planned for your models for missing one shoot, it’s just been confirmed for me that I don’t ever want to get on your bad side.”

  “You’ve been on my bad side before,” Ava informed her, her dark eyes glinting. “You survived, relatively unscathed. Though I do reserve the right to inflict further revenge should it become necessary.” She tucked her bare feet up under her and rested her forearms on one arm of the chair. “Actually, April missed one shoot, but Leena and Marlie have each missed two now, which not only puts them on my shit list but also qualifies them for a lower step on my pay scale. I don’t dick around when it comes to business.”

  As she always did when she visited Ava’s apartment, Corinne moved to swing her feet up onto the antique coffee table and had to catch herself at the last minute. No matter how many times she came here, the flawlessly decorated, spotlessly white surroundings always managed to make her feel like she’d just been rolling around in a mud pit. Which made her want to actually go roll around in a mud pit and track it all over the apartment, but only because she was spiteful. Tonight the urge seemed particularly strong.

  “You’d think anyone you represent would know that,” she said, crossing her legs instead and grabbing for her backpack and the notebook inside. “You said before that these are the same girls who reported being stalked by—er, by the…”

  “By ‘Legolas of the Woodland Realm’?” Ava quoted. “Yes. They each made that reference, as if he’d just stepped out of the movies.”

  Luc leaned forward, his attention obviously captured, whether by Ava or her story, Corinne preferred not to guess.

  “Were these among the witnesses who filed police reports?” he asked.

  “Hardly,” Ava said. “That would have required brainpower and clear thinking, which none of these girls possesses. Besides, the police couldn’t do anything if they had filed reports. No one committed any crimes. Looking weird in public? Please, two of these sightings were on St. Mark’s Place. It’s looking normal that’s the crime down there.”

  Luc frowned. “Yet you called Corinne. Why do that? If there was no crime, no trouble caused, why did you even mention it to her?”

  “Because she’s a reporter. And because she’s my friend. The day after I learned of the incidents, I saw Mindy Daniels, from Channel Seven, at the Four Seasons. She said their program director is thinking of putting someone on it. I couldn’t let a cheap barracuda like that Daniels woman scoop my best friend.”

  Corinne tried not to be touched by that, but Ava was not what one would call a demonstrative friend; more like a demonic one. She was ruthless, demanding, controlling, and occasionally rude. Her friends jokingly referred to her as the Bitch Goddess of the Universe, only they didn’t always mean it as a joke. But Ava had a gift. Just when she’d gone and done something one of them thought was unforgivable, she would turn right around and do something so sweet and generous and incredibly thoughtful that you couldn’t stay mad at her even if you wanted to.

  More surprising, though, were the times like this, when she did or said something lovely out of the blue, unprompted, for no other reason than that she meant it.

  Corinne cleared her throat. “Well, uh, thanks, then.”

  Predictably, Ava waved it away like a gnat. “Believe me, I can’t stand Mindy Daniels. She’s like the Yorkshire terrier of the New York news market—all hair and attitude and not two brain cells to rub together. I’d rather give a lead to my Vietnamese pedicurist than to her, and Tuyet doesn’t even speak English.”

  Mushy as a sponge cake, that one.

  “I doubt I can answer any of your questions, though,” Ava continued. “I didn’t see the mystery elf on any of the occasions we’re talking about. You’d have to go straight to my models for the details.”

  “That’s why we came,” Corinne said. “We need their contact info, names, phones, addresses. We need to get their firsthand accounts to move ahead with the story. Can you give us those?”

  “Sure. Just let me get my BlackBerry.” She stood and moved toward the sofa table behind them. “I’ll give you everything I have and wish you good luck. None of them is returning my messages.”

  “Do they usually?”

  “If they want to get paid.” Ava copied the information onto a sheet of notepaper and handed it to Corinne. Then she turned to Luc. “Now, I understand why Rinne wants to interview the girls. She needs them to write her story and scoop that Daniels bitch. But what exactly is it that makes you so interested in meeting three attractive but dimwitted women? Looking for a date?”

  Corinne heard the challenge in her friend’s voice and braced herself for Ava to swoop in for the kill. She felt Luc tense. Maybe she should check her backpack for a tissue. He’d probably need something to wipe away the drool.

  “No, actually,” she heard him answer, yanking her shocked gaze back to his face. “I’m just looking for the man we think the models may have spotted. He’s…a concern to, ah, a client of mine.”

  “Really? Well, I hope you find him, then.” Ava extended her hand to him, her fingers clinging to his for a moment while she searched his face. “I hope you find any number of things during your stay here.”

  “I think I’m already on the right track.”

  Corinne watched the exchange through narrowed eyes, waiting for the inevitable exchange of phone numbers, or, God forbid, for them to just get it over with and kiss. Only
it didn’t look like that was a danger. The predatory female vibe Ava had put on the second she spotted Luc through her peephole had disappeared. Now she looked, well, almost businesslike. And Luc just looked…resolved.

  Corinne frowned in confusion. Was there any chance this day could start making sense?

  SIX

  Corinne seemed distracted as they left her friend’s apartment, Luc noted. The tiniest little furrow had taken up residence between her brows, making him want to smooth it away with his thumb. Or his tongue. She’d barely said good-bye to Ava, and she responded to Bruno’s cheerful address by murmuring a distracted “Have a good night.” Clearly, she had something on her mind. For some reason, he didn’t think it was the models they needed to interview.

  “Where to now?” he asked as they stepped out into the night air, less because he thought she had an answer and more because he wanted to remind her that he still existed. She appeared to have forgotten that between Ava’s living room and the front stoop.

  “What? Oh,” Corinne blinked and frowned at him. “Um, nowhere. I mean, it’s getting late, so I think we should just leave this until tomorrow. It’s after ten, so it would be really rude to start making phone calls or knocking on people’s doors. Let’s just meet at The Pink Pillow tomorrow morning like I originally suggested.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  “In what meantime? We go home. To our respective homes,” she added hastily. “I go to my apartment to get some sleep, and you go to wherever it is you’re staying and, er, do whatever it is that you, uh, do.”

  Oh, but he had some suggestions for her about what he did. Or at least, about what he wanted to do. To her, specifically.