by BETH KERY
She lost track of time and the bizarre reality of her situation. A numbness settled on her.
Something had happened to her in that armoire, and she didn’t know what it was.
She still listened to them. How could she not, as close as they were and knowing their movements prevented or allowed her escape?
After an immeasurable period of time, their more distant, sporadic murmuring quieted. The minutes dragged by without Emma hearing a sound. She finally dared to open the cupboard a half an inch and peer out cautiously. Not only was the bedroom dark, every light in the office had been extinguished. The only exception was the monitor on the desk. It cast a dim, bluish, ghostlike luminescence on the shadowed room. All was quiet.
Now. Go.
Just when she’d galvanized herself into action, she saw a tall shadow suddenly appear in the bedroom entrance—there and then gone. She jerked slightly, her breath hissing into her lungs at the sudden shock of seeing him. She’d rustled the garments in her surprise. Her limbs tingled when she heard the subtle metallic sound of the hangers moving on the rack above her. His footsteps slowed just feet from the armoire.
Oh my God, he heard me.
She waited, horror settling on her like a mist, tingling and burning her skin, but she didn’t move. She didn’t breathe.
A second or two later, she heard the muted sound of the lock being released on the door to the suite, and the knob turning.
No. He didn’t hear me.
It’d been her oversensitive imagination.
The door closing behind him sounded hushed and mysterious, like a lover’s secret whispered in the darkness.
* * *
His insomnia was growing worse. It didn’t matter how much he threw himself into his work, or fiddled around in his workshop, or exercised, he couldn’t quiet his brain anymore. Sex used to help him rest, too. But the sickly residue that seemed to be permeating his life was now ruining even that primal, fundamental aspect of his existence. Oh, he still felt the physical pleasure, but it was like he was enacting a parody of the sexual act these days while part of him seemed to watch his uninspired performance, disgusted and amused by his lameness.
Cynical and bored . . . tired, and not yet thirty-one years old.
He’d had high hopes that like his father, full depression wouldn’t settle in until his forties. But in all fairness, his father hadn’t known Cristina when he was eight years old like he had. That was when she’d entered their life like a poison. By most accounts, he was the champion survivor of the Montand family in the post-Cristina apocalyptic world.
Not that there was much victory in that.
He walked silently through the living room and passed the bar, recalling he’d left the brandy decanter in the dining room earlier. A moment later he shut out the lights and stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows with brandy snifter in hand, gazing at the wide body of water that he couldn’t really see because of cloaking night.
The darkness pressed on him. Called to him.
A strange prescience distracted him. The bare skin of his torso tingled and roughened. In the reflection of the windowpane he saw movement. He went utterly still.
His morbid thoughts vanished as he watched the girl ascend the stairs in the distance. What was she doing? Where had she been? He’d specifically asked that the nursing staff remain on Cristina’s level, he thought irritably.
Her figure was so light, her feet were so quick, her tread so silent he might have been catching a glimpse of a fey creature making an escape. He watched her fly up the stairs, her red fairy pack flung over her shoulder. Curiosity and amusement replaced his brief flash of anger. Her back and shoulders were held very stiff and erect, as if to say that although she was fleeing, she was doing so proudly. Defiantly? Silently thumbing her nose at the mortal world?
His stiff mouth softened and flickered at his uncharacteristic fanciful thought.
She wasn’t entirely fairylike. No, he’d recognized her just now from the back—that erect carriage, that enticing, graceful curve that led from a narrow waist to round hips. He hadn’t noticed her today because he’d been overseeing some new equipment installation at his plant in Deerfield, but he’d seen her yesterday on Cristina’s monitor. Just in passing . . . brief glimpses before she’d cheekily opened those curtains.
Emma Shore.
He’d asked Mrs. Shaw for the offender’s name yesterday and recalled it now.
He’d thought her unconventionally pretty before she’d irritated him by yanking open those curtains. Interesting looking. Her golden-blond hair was fairly short and reminded him of the style flappers used to wear, boyish and highlighting the shape of her skull. It suggested a nonconformist spirit—or at least a female who wanted others to think she was different, anyway. It touched her collar in the back while the soft-looking waves in the front ideally framed a delicate, piquant face. He couldn’t tell the color of her eyes on the monitor, but he’d noticed they looked large and dark next to her pale skin and hair. She had a tilt to her chin and a bright smile that went well together. Most people couldn’t pull off brash sweetness, but she did. Somehow. Or at least that had been his quick impression.
He’d certainly thought that her face looked far too young and fresh to go with the lush, ripe firmness of her ass. Her figure was light and supple, the gracefulness of her movement capturing his attention.
Not that he’d been staring. She was just difficult not to notice on the screen, that’s all. Any straight man would have looked twice. Any straight man with good taste would have looked more than that.
He’d follow her now and demand an explanation for her intrusion into his home.
He remained unmoving, however. She’d annoyed him, but her appearance had lightened him somehow as well, freshened him like a lungful of sea air after a night of debauchery.
He stared out at the black lake, lost in thoughts that, for once lately, weren’t bitter and morose.
Chapter Four
At the end of her shift the next night, Emma entered the bedroom to say good-bye to Cristina. Her patient had fallen asleep while Emma gave her report to Debbie, the night nurse. Emma paused next to the bed. Cristina looked even more shrunken than usual, her skin like dry, gray parchment stretched too tight over bone. A hospice nurse’s main goal was to make the last days of her patient’s life as comfortable and fulfilling as possible. Finding out what that meant for Cristina was proving to be a challenge for Emma. She sensed Cristina’s soul was heavy. Shedding that weight—even a little—might help ease her passage from this world.
“Night, Cristina. Sleep easy,” Emma whispered before she turned to leave the hushed room.
“It’s your own fault. You knew what I was capable of and what I wasn’t. You were capable of even less.”
Emma blinked and spun around at the death-rattle voice.
“Cristina?” she whispered, confused to see that her patient hadn’t moved from her sleeping position. She turned to go again after a pause. Cristina was having increasingly disturbed sleep, nightmares, and occasional hallucinations.
“It was too much for me. Not only one, but two! You knew as well as me I wasn’t cut out for it. So you found yourself a martyr. Is it my fault she died? And then you had the nerve to think I’d transform into her overnight and replace her, you bastard!”
Emma started at the venomous shriek. She hurried toward Cristina, who was now jerking and tossing on the bed, her mouth bared in a snarl, arms flailing.
“I’ve got her,” Debbie said, appearing by Emma’s side as Emma gently restrained the swinging arms and spoke in firm, soothing tones, calling Cristina back to the waking world.
“I think she’s okay,” Emma said after a moment when Cristina began to quiet and settle. Still, the invisible threads of her patient’s nightmare seemed to brush against Emma . . . cling to her.
She waited until Cri
stina settled fully into sleep before she walked out of the bedroom and retrieved her purse. She noticed the stack of clean towels on a small table.
The vision triggered the memory of wandering around the house last night, of being trapped in that armoire. Lots of things triggered that memory. Almost everything, in fact, Emma reminded herself grimly as she searched for her keys in her purse. She’d finally escaped from that miserable experience and found her car, the laundry bag still slung over her shoulder like an inexplicable artifact she’d brought from another world.
She’d witnessed a lot of grief in her life, and understood the complexities and paradoxes of loss. Death transformed the living. It changed them, whether they wanted it to or not.
She’d been changed somehow last night, breathing the singular male scent that clung to the garments hung in the armoire, listening to the sounds of sexual excitement ringing in her ears. She’d been altered, but not by death, by something she found far more disturbing. The whole strange incident had upset her in a way she couldn’t name. Something had rocked her comfortable world, and she resented the man—irrationally, she knew—for that earthquake.
She hadn’t wanted Colin to touch her this morning when he’d stopped by before catching his train for work, a fact that bewildered her almost as much as it had Colin. She hadn’t seen him since Saturday night, after all. Sure, their physical relationship had mellowed lately—and it had never been firework explosive since they’d started sleeping together two years ago—but she’d normally be glad to see Colin and eager to express her affection.
As a means of punishing herself for her odd behavior and her inability to shut off her brain in regard to the man at the Breakers and his perversities, she’d sentenced herself to labor. She’d gone to the Laundromat this morning, one of her most hated errands, and finished what she hadn’t last night.
It’d been hard to return to the Breakers today following the “armoire incident,” as she’d taken to calling it in the privacy of her mind. Once she was there, however, burying herself in work helped, like it always did. She hadn’t slept well after she’d returned home last night. As good and exhausted as she was, all she could think about was dreamless, deep sleep, a rest blessedly devoid of the disturbing image of that man—Vanni—locking down his climax as though he thought he didn’t deserve the pleasure.
Who was he? One of Montand’s guests? A relative?
She constantly found her mind wandering, taking little imaginary excursions through the mansion, seeking him out. Was he in the mansion at the same time as her? What was he doing? She’d asked Margie this afternoon in a deliberately offhand manner if there were any other inhabitants of the house beside Montand. Margie had told her only Michael Montand lived there on a full-time basis—although he was currently away, to her knowledge—while Mrs. Shaw, two maids, a gardener, and the cook were day help. Alice, the maid, had told Margie that Montand was known to have guests there, though. Occasionally he threw lavish house parties, which affluent guests from all over the world attended.
Who was Vanni then, and how was he related to Montand? Or perhaps her original suspicion was right, and they were one and the same man?
No. They couldn’t be. That didn’t make any sense.
Stop thinking about him. He was cold and heartless about something that should have been intimate. He was a sick, strange man.
No, another voice in her head argued.
He was suffering. And something about him had called out to her . . .
A good night’s sleep would end her stupid obsessions. She flung her purse over her shoulder and started for the exit. She came to a sudden halt and gasped.
“Oh my God, you startled me,” Emma said to Mrs. Shaw, who stood in the entryway to the suite, unmoving.
“I’ve come to get you. Mr. Montand would like a word,” she said unsmilingly.
Her mouth fell open. “With . . . with me? Mr. Montand? Why?”
“He didn’t tell me his reasons, but I assume it’s about your work here. He’s very particular in regard to his stepmother’s care,” Mrs. Shaw said with a tiny smug smile.
“I see,” Emma said, even though she didn’t. To her knowledge, Montand had never spoken to any of the nursing staff individually. His expectations had been discussed with Dr. Claridge, who was the hospice doctor, and Monica Ring, the nurse supervisor. A flicker of anxiety went through her. What if this request was somehow associated with the armoire incident? Was she about to be called out or accused? Her heart started to beat uncomfortably in her chest.
There was only one way to find out.
“Okay. I’m ready,” she said briskly, hitching her purse higher on her shoulder.
She followed a silent Mrs. Shaw down the hushed staircase, past the lavish workout facility and indoor pool, her heartbeat pounding louder in her ears with every step. Mrs. Shaw left the staircase behind on the next level. She led Emma into the luxurious living room she’d seen last night, the lush ivory carpeting hushing their footsteps. Emma could almost feel the housekeeper’s disapproval and dislike emanating from her thin, stiff figure.
Mrs. Shaw paused before a door and swung it open.
“Ms. Shore is here,” she said to someone in the room.
She stepped aside and gave Emma a glance of loathing before nodding significantly toward the interior. Her heart now lodged at the base of her throat, Emma stepped past Mrs. Shaw into the interior of the room. She had a brief, but vivid impression of a stunning dining room consisting almost entirely of black, white, and crystal. A huge white modernist china cabinet and wet bar structure dominated the wall closest to her. The long, grand dining room table was made of African blackwood and was surrounded by more than a dozen handsome blackwood and white-upholstered chairs. Two large crystal chandeliers hung above the table. The far wall consisted of warm brick in beige and reddish tones, offsetting the cool luxury and sleek lines of the room. On the brick wall hung a large painting that she recognized in a dazed sort of way was a modernist depiction of an engine.
She heard the door shut and glanced over her shoulder. Mrs. Shaw was gone.
Emma turned back to the single inhabitant of the room. He sat at the head of the table turned toward the glass wall that faced Lake Michigan. For a few seconds, she just stood there, speechless. He matched the room in almost every way. He wore a black tuxedo with careless elegance. His brown hair was not cut short, necessarily, but it wasn’t long, either. A woman could easily fill a hand with the glory of it. It was thick and wavy and had been combed back from his face. A dark, very short goatee seemed to highlight a sensual mouth. He was all precision lines and bold masculinity: an angular jaw, broad shoulders, handsome Grecian nose. The only way he didn’t match the immaculate, stunning room was the way his tie was loosened and the top collar of his white dress shirt unbuttoned at his throat.
He was even better looking than the actors hired to drive cars and drink champagne for his company commercials. Impossible.
“Well don’t just stand there,” he said, just a hint of impatience in his tone. He set down the fork he’d been holding on to a plate. Emma blinked. It hadn’t even registered immediately that he’d been eating, she’d been so captivated by the image of him. “Come here,” he prompted when she remained frozen.
She stepped forward, a surreal feeling pervading her. As she drew nearer, she realized that his eyes were the same color of the lake on a sunny day—a startling blue-green. The lake would serve to soften and warm the cool, sharp lines of the beautiful, austere dining room during the day. This man’s eyes, however, would soften nothing. They seemed to lance straight through her.
His firm, sensual mouth quirked slightly.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he demanded quietly.
“Am I looking at you a certain way?” Emma asked, surprised and set off balance by his question. “I hadn’t realized,” she fumbled. She yanked her ga
ze off his compelling visage and glanced around the room, wide-eyed. “I’ve never seen a room like this. It was a little like walking into a photo from a magazine or something.” Especially with you sitting at the end of that grand table in that tux.
She looked at him when he laughed mirthlessly. “Cold and uncomfortable, you mean. I’ll be sure to pass on your compliments to my architect and interior designer.”
She matched his stare. “That’s not what I meant.”
He frowned slightly but didn’t respond. Nor did he look away. “You’re Michael Montand?” she prodded in the uncomfortable silence that followed.
He nodded once and glanced at the chair nearest to him. “Have a seat. Can I get you anything to eat or drink?”
“Would you mind telling me why you asked me here first?”
His eyebrows arched in mild surprise. They were a shade darker than the hair on his head and created a striking contrast to his light eyes. Clearly, she was just supposed to follow his command without comment.
“You’re taking care of my stepmother. Surely you don’t think it odd that a family member would want to speak with you about your work,” he said.
“You haven’t called anyone else from the nursing staff down here.”
“Nobody else has directly disobeyed my orders.”
She swallowed thickly at the ringing authority in his tone. Her heartbeat began to roar so loudly in her ears, she wouldn’t be surprised at all if he heard the guilty tattoo. What could she say that wouldn’t betray what she’d accidently seen last night? Had that man—Vanni—told Montand something?
Was he Vanni? she wondered wildly. No, Vanni wasn’t a nickname for Michael. Plus, the man she’d partially seen last night had long hair and it had been lighter, with gold streaks in it. She opened her mouth to utter some feeble excuse—she had no idea what—but he cut her off.