"You are in your third life, I’d bet my next check on it,” Lotus said darkly, wishing her pulse
would settle down, wishing she didn’t love what he was doing to her.
“You’d lose.”
She turned to look at him. “You don’t know me, or what I want to do with my life.”
Dash felt alert, his skin prickling in warning. “What don’t I know, Lotus?”
“My family will hate you. They’ll want to draw and quarter you,” Lotus wailed, even as she snuggled close to him as he pulled her into his arms.
“Why?” Dash whispered.
“Because.” Lotus sobbed.
“Tell me, Lotus.”
She wiped her cheeks. “I don’t know where my courage has gone. I never used to cry about anything. I didn’t even flinch when my brothers poked me in the arm . . . not that they did it much.” She gulped. “They love me . . . and I love them. And I love my cousins and my aunt . . . and uncle . . .” Her voice trailed.
Dash held his breath, deciding to nudge her himself. “There was a Sinclair in my files. Hans and the rest of my security people seemed to think the file had been disturbed.” He paused as he saw how white she became. He felt his jaw ache as he clamped his teeth together.
“Hey, buddy, this is your destination. Gettin' out?” The weary cab driver looked over his shoulder and indicated the pay box.
“Right.” Dash pushed some bills into the box and told the driver to keep the change. Then he pulled Lotus out of the cab with him. “Stop looking like that. Nothing is going to happen to you. Dash leaned over her as he led her into the lobby of the building.
“My uncle,” Lotus breathed as they stepped into the elevator and were whisked to their floor.
“Will you tell me about it now?”
Lotus hesitated, then nodded. “I will tell you all I can.”
“Fair enough.” Dash decided in that moment that he was going to wipe away that strained look on her face no matter what it took.
He led her into the apartment and up the stairs to the bedroom where he threw their bundles down on the bed. “Now, do you want to sit down here and talk to me?”
“Why don’t we dress first?” Lotus struggled to keep the tremor from her voice.
She is really uptight about this, Dash thought, watching her walk toward the bathroom, then retrace her steps to pick up her duffel bag and hug it to her.
She stopped before she entered the room. “I don’t think I want you looking at me when I tell you.” She went into the bathroom and closed the door. She pressed her face against the wood of the door, drawing in deep breaths. Why should she feel guilty and afraid? He’s the gambler. It was in his gambling casinos that the man who besmirched her uncle’s name played. How could she have approached Dash and told him what she was planning to do? He would have had her thrown out of the place or arrested. She looked at her duffel bag, then lifted the file out of her bag. She hated it! Now when she showed it to Dash, he would hate her.
Dash stood there in the outer- room, listening to the muffled sounds of her movements in the bathroom, his hands jammed into the pockets of his suit coat. He had pushed her to the wall, forced the issue. She could end up despising him. He took a deep breath. “Whatever it is, darling, we will be staying together. Don’t doubt that.” He spoke to the closed door, then he peeled off his suit coat and shirt and flung them at a chair. He stalked down the corridor to the other bathroom that belonged to the suite. He shaved, alternately cursing his image and telling it he was right. He washed quickly and left, retracing his steps toward the other bathroom. He inhaled a deep breath and pushed the door open.
Lotus was sitting in front of the vanity in the bathroom doing her nails when Dash entered, a towel around his waist. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
She pushed at the folder on the vanity. “That is a copy of the file in your office. I took the file, had it copied, then returned it.”
“Why?” He spoke low, not wanting to interrupt the jerky statements she was making.
“Because the file says that my uncle ran up huge bills in your casinos both in Las Vegas and in Atlantic City. It isn’t true.” Her eyes flew to his face. “He isn’t a gambler, and even if he were, he would never take funds from the family company.” Dash sighed. “I have heard the same story many times before, Lotus.”
“This time it’s true. Uncle loved Sinclairs. He would never do anything to harm the business. He and my father have expanded the company so much. They have put their blood and backs into it, so have my brothers and my cousins. No one in our family would do such a thing.”
“I see,” Dash said quietly. He took the file from the vanity, turned, and left the room. He sat in one of the chairs, his eyes speed-reading the information in front of him, aware that she had come into the room and stood at his side. When he was through, he handed the file back to her and rose to his feet. “If what you say is true, then the file is a lie and someone has embezzled funds from your family’s company.”
Lotus’s eyes widened. “You accept what I say?” Relief and a flood of love filled her. She felt blinded by Dash for a moment.
“I accept that you would tell the truth to the best of your ability. That means that someone else is lying. So . . . we’ll find out who that is.”
“We.” Lotus’s voice trembled.
“We, my darling. We are going to settle this together. Then after we settle it, I’m going to take you to Boston to meet my family.”
“I like Boston,” Lotus ventured, feeling a small wriggle of relief deep inside. Perhaps they could settle things! No, she wouldn’t get her hopes up! "Do you live near Quincy Market?”
“Ah, we own some land around there.” Dash smiled at her, delighting in seeing some of the tension dissipate in her face.
“Oh, is your family in fishing?” Lotus knew that the Charles River wasn’t that far from the market. “Ah, yes, we have been in fishing.”
Lotus nodded. “Fishermen.”
“Now maybe we should study this file more closely. We might pick up a glimmer of who the culprit could be,” Dash told her, taking her arm and sitting her on the chair while he took the hassock in front of her.
“All right.” She felt almost euphoric. He believed in her! He wanted to help her! Could he be fooling her? She brushed away such a stupid thought. She loved Dash.
“Then after we look at it, will you tell me how you got into my office, and even more important how you learned to use a burglar’s tool?”
Lotus laughed. “It wasn’t that difficult, but I won’t tell you how I got Hans away from the door because then you might fire my friend.” “Richard?”
Lotus gasped. “How did you know?”
“You were seen talking to Richard. And he won’t be fired, but I am putting him in another casino away from Hans. There would be ill feeling if he stayed at Cicero’s.”
Lotus stood, rocking the overstuffed chair, seeing Dash rise from the hassock. She reached up to him. “Dash. Thank you.” She kissed his chin.
Dash held her when she would have moved back from him. “He has his job because he’s your friend, my darling.” His mouth took hers in a plundering kiss that had her dizzy.
They sat down again, but this time Lotus was in his lap. They pored over the file twice, but Lotus couldn’t find anything pertinent. Dash didn’t say anything. She assumed he had come to the same conclusion.
He rose with her in his arms. “I think it’s time to relax a little.” He kissed her nose as he stood her on her feet. “Now get dressed.” He took the file with him and left the room.
Later, as Lotus dressed in the beautiful salmon-colored satin evening suit, with matching shoes and bag, she studied herself in the mirror as she donned the jewelry. I don’t know him. I never know what he’s thinking, but he doesn’t frighten me. I don’t feel threatened. But what kind of man is Dash Colby?
She was turning in front of the full-length mirror in the bedroom when Dash entered from the hall.
“How do I look?”
“Wonderful.”
Lotus saw the heat in his eyes and she felt like preening. She lifted her chin, sucked in her tummy, and inhaled.
“Darling, you are lethal enough already. Don’t try to arm yourself any more than you are. You’re shooting me down as it is.” His body reacted to her at once. He grinned at her ruefully when he saw her eyes drop down to the revealing bulge in his trousers. “We’ll have to hope my jacket camouflages your effect on me, angel. I can’t seem to control what you do to me.” He slipped into the jacket he had been holding over his shoulder with one finger. “Do I look covered enough?”
Lotus let her eyes rove over him as he stood before her in the gray silk evening suit, the fine silver threads the same shade as his gray-blue eyes and making the silver lights in his hair gleam. "You’re gorgeous,” she told him.
He felt the blood cascading through his veins at her words, his heart thumping painfully in his chest. He struggled to control his ragged breathing. “You do have a way with words, angel.”
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you’re gorgeous?” Lotus chuckled feeling like Wonder Woman all at once, feeling such a rush of love and gratitude for him. He had accepted that her uncle was innocent! He was already committed to finding out who the real criminal was! She felt humble
and proud that she was with Dash. What an awesome fate had led her to him!
“Maybe. I don’t know. Even if they did, it sure never mattered as much as it does now,” he drawled, the lazy heat of his smile reaching out for her. “Shall we go?”
“Yes.” Lotus felt helium light as she glided toward him.
“Will I muss your lip gloss if I kiss you?”
Lotus lifted her head. “Kiss proof.”
Dash’s mouth covered hers in a deep, searching kiss. He had to push back from her, his breathing ragged. “Darling, we have to go.”
The taxi ride along Fifth Avenue was a blur to Lotus because Dash held her, but when she saw that they were pulling up in front of the Plaza Hotel, she gasped. “I’ve always wanted to dine here.”
“You’ll like the Edwardian Room.” Dash watched her, passion and amusement filling him as her head swiveled every which way as they entered the side door and walked along the short corridor to the Edwardian Room.
“I like piano,” Lotus said when the maitre d’ led them to a cozy table in the corner so that one view was toward Central Park, the other toward the square across from Bergdorf Goodman. She stared at the graceful brunette playing the instrument, her hands flying over the keys as she played a Gershwin tune. “She’s quite good, isn’t she?”
“New Yorkers are very sophisticated even to the cab drivers, bus drivers, maids, you name it. they demand the best . . . and they get it in New York. There is very little second best here.” Dash smiled at her, then nodded to the wine steward to bring
Dorn Perignon, ordering prawns Pernod at the same time. “I know you like seafood.”
Lotus smiled and nodded, wondering at herself. If her brothers had ordered without asking her, she would have railed at them, but she let Dash do it without a murmur.
He leaned toward her. “I won’t do it again. I know you’re independent, but I wanted you to taste this dish. It’s very special.”
“You read my mind?”
“I could see it bothered you that I had ordered for both of us.”
“It should have bothered me. I don’t know why it didn’t,” Lotus told him frankly. “You have a strange effect on me.”
“God! Tell me about strange effects.” Dash hovered over her while they drank the champagne and ate.
The only person who claimed their attention was the pianist and then only when she played a love ballad.
From the Plaza they went to Regine’s where they danced.
It stunned Lotus at how easily Dash moved through each motion of the slow or fast dancing. He was liquid movement. “Thank you for being she murmured to him, bending her head back to look at him, chuckling when she saw the bemused expression on his face.
He shook his head. “I won’t bother to ask what’s going through your head now.” His voice was thick as he bent over her.
When at last they took a cab home, Dash held t and kissed her. Even in the elevator that took them to the apartment he embraced her. Lotus
knew she would have been angry with him had he not taken her right to bed and made love to her all night.
The sun was coming up slowly when she remembered that there was much more to discuss about the Sinclair file. How would they go about searching for the person who had masqueraded as her
uncle?
CHAPTER FIVE
Lotus’s body ached when she awoke, but she felt as though she were seeing life anew. Yet, her limbs felt heavy. Her body seemed to have a density to it that it had never had. She was very much in love.
"Hello.” Dash rolled her over on top of him. Hello,” Lotus breathed, loving the way her hair curtained them from the world.
I've put the coffee on and I came back to this room to waken you, but when I saw your little backside, I had to get back in bed.”
Did you?” Lotus felt tingly. Then she remembered, masking a yawn behind her hand. “Should we talk more about the file?”
“So talk, darling.”
“Right here. Shouldn’t we get up? I should dress.” 'Here is fine.”
Lotus stared down at him, not wanting the world they had built between them to crack and crumble. She sighed. “It’s not a long story.”
"Go on.”
"I didn’t break into your office. As you know, Richard took Hans’s attention away so that I could
slip in the door. I did break into your safe. I’ll show you the tool. I told you a little about my uncle last night and how ill he is. I did it to clear his name of running up gambling debts at your casino and skimming money from our company to pay for them.”
“Go on.”
“He couldn’t do such a thing. He's incapable of being anything but forthright. That’s why I wanted the file. I don’t know who signed his name but it wasn’t my uncle.”
“Who do you think did this?” Dash probed in quiet tones.
“I don’t know.”
“You can’t think of anyone?”
“No. It must have been a stranger. Someone who has access to the company . . .
“That doesn’t make sense, love. How could a stranger juggle the books? What type of accounting department does the company bave?”
“The company is called Sinclairs, after our family My great-grandfather was a friend of George Eastman, the founder of Kodak,” Lotus said, repeating the proud maxim of the family in a distracted way. She gulped a shaky breath. “It has to be a stranger, Dash. Most of the employees at Sinclairs, in every department, have been there for years. Loyalty is a built-in commodity.”
“Gambling can get out of control, like drinking or drugs get out of control. There are no friends just the game, the thrill, the roll of the dice. An addicted person will do almost anything to satisfy the craving.” He stroked her. “And then there is the person who has a larcenous soul. they don’t come with a mask and gun, Lotus. Son of them wear business suits and carry briefcases, but they systematically rob the companies or persons they work for year after year. How many times have you read about a lawyer or business manager dipping into another’s income? Thievery has many faces, some of them sophisticated.”
Lotus studied him. “I guess I know you’re right, but it’s very hard to accept that someone like that works at Sinclairs.”
Dash kissed her throat, his hand going over her like a sensuous feather. “Maybe I’m way off the target, sweetheart.”
“And maybe you’re not.” She sighed. She smiled at him, feeling her lips tremor. “If we are to keep talking, you’ll have to stop rubbing my backside. My concentration is slipping.”
Dash chuckled throatily. “Tell me about it.” Lotus let her head sink on his chest. “Let me finish. This isn�
��t easy.”
All right.” Dash’s breath lifted the fine hair on her brow. “Go on with your story.”
Lotus’s insides felt raw as she recalled those days just after the discovery was made by an out-side auditing firm that had always come in and done the books twice a year. “When the officers of Denton, Denton and Fix came to my father’s and uncle's offices that day, I was there, working, as I Usually did whenever there was a break in my studies."
"This is when you were in the master’s program at the university?”
Rochester Institute of Technology, actually, Thy have a fine Graphic Arts department.”
"And you wanted to be a photographer?”
Yes. I have always wanted to be a photographic
journalist, especially an overseas correspondent, but I have been sidetracked a few times.”
“You’re beautiful enough to be in front of the camera as a model, not behind it as a photographer.”
“I did do a little modeling but I like the camera work best.”
“Did you model in Rochester?” Dash felt a choking constriction in his throat and chest. Jealousy! He’d never experienced such an emotion before meeting Lotus.
“Some, but not much.”
Dash had a vivid vision of her doing lingerie modeling and flinched. “We’re getting away from the subject. You were telling me about the accounting firm confronting your uncle and father.”
“Yes. They told them the attempts to juggle the books were done by someone knowledgeable in accounting and that the handwriting was familiar to them. . .” Lotus gulped and pressed her face into Dash’s chest. “It was uncle’s handwriting, and he had signed the pages, but he swore he didn’t do it.” She jerked her head up. “And we all believe him . . . but, it came out in the papers anyway.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “God! I never cry!” She gasped. “He turned into a ghost overnight.”
Dash rolled her on her side next to him, reaching down to lick the tears from her cheeks. “Darling, don’t.”
“He’s such a good man. His face went from sunny health to gray. He stopped smiling. He wouldn’t look at anyone. Then he had the stroke. Lotus sobbed.
“Damn it. I’ll find out who did this. And as for the debts, darling, they’re canceled.”
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