Double the Pleasure

by Julie Leto

  “Why was Pilar at the gallery?”

  Grey took over the interview, figuring this was his strongest talent anyway. Though to any casual observer, Reina appeared to be nothing more than a little thirsty, he could see she was rattled to the core. She needed space and time to digest Judi’s seemingly innocent story after suspecting her of something much more sinister.

  He’d already learned that Reina didn’t make friends easily, but those she took into her life, she believed in completely. If Judi was somehow involved in the robberies, it would cost Reina more than the jewels, more than the insurance policy or even the solvency of her business.

  “She came with Mrs. Davis.”

  Grey glanced over his shoulder. Reina didn’t react, so Grey assumed the connection between Reina’s mother and the art patron with the fat wallet came as no surprise. He did wonder, though, why Pilar hadn’t mentioned the purchase when she’d called earlier to speak to her daughter. Or why Judi’s hadn’t phoned her boss earlier in the afternoon, immediately after the sale.

  That was it. The timeline was off, which could explain why Judi remained so quiet, why her hands shook so violently that she finally slipped them beneath her thighs. She looked everywhere around the room but at them, yet when she finally met Grey’s gaze, a tear spilled down her cheek.

  If Judi was faking, the woman had more talent than Lane Morrow, who’d already won a Golden Globe for her ability to turn on convincing waterworks. Judi was either hurt by Reina’s suspicion or, as Grey suspected, she was trying to hide something—like a guilty conscience.

  Though Reina remained in the kitchen, her face expressionless, her eyes had darkened with speculation. Like that night in the parlor with Claudio, she’d removed herself from the situation and had become an outwardly passive observer. Grey now knew her well enough to know there was little that was passive about Reina Price. She was listening, watching, assessing the situation from a distance.

  So smart. So beautiful.

  Reina finally entered the room again, this time with a glass of wine, which she held out toward Judi.

  “Drink this.”

  Grey stepped aside, questioning her with a perplexed look she didn’t acknowledge. Hospitality?

  She followed the goblet with a tissue. Judi used both. “I’m sorry, Reina. I shouldn’t have listened to your mother. I shouldn’t have come here tonight.”

  Reina sat beside her. “Following Pilar’s advice is usually not a wise choice.”

  Judi sipped her wine and didn’t reply. This must have been significant to Reina, because she glanced at him triumphantly before laying her hand over Judi’s knee.

  “Judi, I need to ask you something important. How much does Pilar know about the robberies at the gallery?”

  Eyes flashing, Judi drank more wine, jerking her glass and sloshing a few drops over the side. “I don’t know. Whatever you told her.”

  “I haven’t told her anything since the first robbery.”

  “You haven’t?”

  Reina shook her head. “She doesn’t know about the insurance or about my need for more money. At least, she doesn’t know from me. And I’m fairly certain I asked you to keep the information to yourself.”

  “I did!”

  “Then why did my mother encourage you to contact me about a ten-thousand-dollar commission? That’s a small amount of money to a woman like her.”

  Judi gulped the last of her wine, then shot to her feet. “I don’t know, Reina. I don’t. I just did what she asked.” Tears rained from Judi’s eyes with renewed flow. She swiped them away with what was left of her tissue. “I—”

  With a graceful nod, Reina stood, cutting Judi off before she said anything more, anything that might be incriminating, Grey suspected. What was she doing?

  “Why don’t you go on home, Judi?”

  “What?” he exclaimed.

  She turned toward Grey, her look indignant. “Judi didn’t mean any harm tonight.” She turned back toward her assistant and patted her shoulder, but a slight stiffness in her movements clued Grey in that she didn’t believe her claim one bit.

  Judi set the wineglass on a table and clutched her jacket close. “I didn’t. I really didn’t.” She stepped past Reina, then with a quick and muttered curse, turned back and threw herself into Reina’s arms. “I’m so sorry, Reina.”

  Reina didn’t answer. She didn’t quite return the embrace, didn’t say a word as Judi scrambled toward the back door. Grey grabbed her by the oversize coat.

  “Zane, let me—”

  “Keys,” he demanded, hand out, palm up.

  Wisely she snapped her mouth shut, gave him the keys to Reina’s house and ran out.

  Grey tossed them onto the kitchen table with a clank, then took a deep breath. “I can’t believe you let her go. She knows more than she’s saying.”

  The sympathetic expression Reina had cast on Judi was now replaced with stonelike determination. She snatched the keys, examined the tiny crystal key chain, nodding at first, then shaking her head. Her bottom lip quivered, but when she turned to meet his gaze, he saw nothing but steel.

  Reina’s smile lacked humor, but made up for it in weary irony. “This key chain does indeed belong to my mother. Dahlia gave it to her years ago when we lived in Austria.”

  “Then you don’t think Judi came here looking for Claudio’s jewels?”

  “I didn’t say that. Did you notice her choice of outerwear?”

  He remembered the black bomber-style jacket. “A strange choice for someone so fashionable.”

  Reina took the wineglass to the sink and rinsed it clean. “The security guard I hired after the first robbery wears a very similar style, not to mention that it’s probably eighty degrees outside tonight.”

  Grey watched Reina calmly and carefully towel-dry her crystal, never once letting on that her suspicion bothered her in the least. Man, if she could bottle that cool, she’d be one rich woman.

  “Do you think Judi was involved in the robberies? With the guard?”

  At that, Reina glanced aside. “Judi’s shown no sign of new wealth. The security guard still has his job. Besides, selling jewels of that quality for a decent price requires connections. You don’t exactly get full value at a pawnshop. I think the time has come for me to ask some serious questions.”

  “But you let Judi go.”

  “If she’s betrayed me, I’m the last person she’s going to tell. And if she’s involved, I don’t think any of this was her idea.”

  “Who would she tell?”

  Reina strode back to the table and closed her fist tightly around the key chain.

  “That’s easy. She’d tell my mother.”

  DIALING THE CELL PHONE as he drove, Grey called the security company and reinstated the monitoring of the system. If anyone broke into the house while they were gone, the police would be notified, and so would he. And with the majority of the jewels from Claudio’s collection tucked in a pouch Reina wore around her waist, and the original schematics concealed in the hidden room, they had left the house without much worry about the safety of il Gio’s legacy.

  The safety of Reina’s heart was another matter entirely.

  Once she’d given him Pilar’s address, she hadn’t said another word. He hadn’t forced her to either, wondering what could possibly be running through her mind. One irrefutable fact remained—Judi had gotten the key to Reina’s house from Pilar. A key Reina had never given to her mother.

  Grey suspected Pilar was somehow involved in the robberies. He felt it in his journalist’s gut. Though Reina insisted her mother had enough wealth to last a lifetime, she also acknowledged that her mother would know precisely how to dispose of the jewels and receive full value in return. And even though she insisted that her mother would never betray her own daughter so callously, Grey wondered.

  But, for now, he’d trust her judgment and follow her lead. An intelligent woman, Reina knew her scheming mother better than anyone else. And, without proof, he deci
ded not to speculate aloud, especially after he spied the defeated look lingering around Reina’s eyes. He’d thought he’d experienced the ultimate betrayal when Lane had published her book and then traveled the talk-show circuit to make sure even the people who couldn’t read knew that he was a sex maniac.

  But if Pilar was involved? Her mother? If there was anyone in the world Grey knew he could count on, it was his family. Zane already proved as much by handling the newspaper and his stalker for him with his usual devil-may-care effectiveness. His parents, though they spent more time lately traveling the West than preparing family dinners, still kept in touch. They’d called him immediately after Lane’s book hit the scandal sheets, claiming they didn’t believe a word, insisting he not worry about them or their opinions in the coming backlash. They loved him, point-blank.

  Just like he loved Reina, point-blank.

  The emotion punched him like a fist to the gut. Love? Really? Now?

  He clenched his jaw together. He was no idiot. He’d never told a woman he’d loved her before, but he certainly wasn’t going to make his debut with someone who now faced the kind of betrayal that would send most people over the proverbial edge. Reina was too cool for hysterics, but as he maneuvered the car toward her mother’s house, he could feel her retreating from the world, wrapping herself in protective layers from head to toe.

  They found Judi’s coupe parked in front.

  “She ran straight to her,” he said.

  Reina’s lips pursed slightly. “That’s not entirely surprising. Judi and my mother have become quite close. She even stays in the guest room sometimes, when she fights with her roommate. If she’s upset about being caught in my house, she’d run right here.”

  Grey turned the corner, spying the driveway around the other side of the house. He stopped to allow a dark sedan to finish backing out. The midsize limousine quickly pulled away. When Grey started up the driveway, Reina stopped him.

  “Wait, there’s someone at the back door. There. Going inside.”

  He doused the headlights. “It’s a man.”

  Reina leaned across him to see more clearly, her perfume teasing him with its sultry scent. Unable to resist, he bent forward to kiss her, then swallowed a silent curse when she made a huffing sound and sat back in her seat.

  “No use confronting her now,” Reina said, clearly exasperated.

  Grey hesitated, not willing to give up so easily. He understood that she’d be reluctant to challenge her mother with only vague suspicions and an unaccounted-for key, but he didn’t expect Reina to be waylaid by yet another late-night guest. “You don’t want to find out what this is all about?”

  Reina waved her hand impatiently at the house, not completely successful at hiding her frustration. “No use. My mother obviously has a paramour tonight. If I know Pilar, she’s banished Judi to Dahlia’s care and is concentrating on her newest lover.”

  “She won’t make him wait to talk to her own daughter?”

  Reina skewered him with a look that bespoke her years of experience with Pilar. “I suppose if I barged in and demanded an explanation, she’d put him off long enough for me to make a fool of myself. No, when I speak with my mother, I can’t come across as accusatory. Not without more proof than a key and Judi’s odd behavior. Not if I want her to tell me the truth.”

  This time, it was Grey’s turn to trust. It was her problem and her mother. And besides, why was he in such a hurry to figure out who had orchestrated the robberies at the gallery? Once the mystery was solved, he’d have no other reason to stay at her house, no other reason to remain in her life.

  “Your mother may be just an innocent pawn. Judi could have used her to find out things about you, to ingratiate herself into your family.”

  Reina nodded, but the gesture was noncommittal.

  “But,” he surmised, “you don’t think that’s the case.”

  Reina pressed her lips together, then speared him with a look at once icy and desperate. “My mother hasn’t been anyone’s pawn since she was a child. My head tells me there are a thousand possibilities to explain this away.”

  “But your heart?”

  She didn’t answer, and Grey felt a stone form in his stomach, hard and cold. More than likely, her heart wasn’t speaking to her at all. She’d closed out the sounds, muted the sadness, protecting herself from a backlash of painful realizations. He knew how that worked, firsthand.

  He also knew that as long as her heart remained blocked off, she couldn’t acknowledge her own feelings for him or accept how much he cared for her.

  “Let’s go home then,” he said, shifting the car into first gear.

  She stopped him by laying her hand over his fist. “No. Please. Let’s just drive awhile?”

  The small sound of her voice nearly broke him in two. He nodded, and turned the Jaguar around, heading out of the French Quarter with all the speed British engineering allowed. Pilar wasn’t going anywhere. Reina had all the time in the world to confront her mother and discover the truth.

  But if he didn’t find a way to put a crack in her heart, a fissure he could use to seep inside on some later date, he might as well forget ever establishing something deeper between them.

  And that, he wasn’t willing to do.

  HE TOOK HER TO the Mississippi River, to a secluded spot on the corner of the industrial area adjacent to the newspaper’s main complex. Trees and landscaping hid them from view of anyone working the night shift; the vast expanse of the raging brown waters of the river masked them from the notice of anyone on the other side. They sat on a cold stone bench, watched a barge float by, marveled how a tanker that size could look so small.

  That was the river. Massive. Ageless. Loud. Loud enough to drown out the cacophony of Reina’s situation.

  They really couldn’t speak, not with any intimacy, so, instead, Grey took her hand in his. He tugged her fully beside him on the bench, forcing her to lean her head against his shoulder, snaking his arm around her to anchor the closeness.

  She resisted for an instant, but with a sigh he felt against his heart, she surrendered.

  He had no idea how long they sat there. He’d totally allowed the sloshing water to wash all thoughts from his mind when Reina twined her fingers around the buttons on his shirt, releasing them. She toyed with his chest hair, threading and pulling with what he at first thought was an unconscious repetitive motion, like when he tapped his pencil on the side of his blotter.

  But when she tugged his shirt out of his waistband, he knew she wanted more. She wanted to make love.

  He paused, uncertain what to do or say—unsure if making love to her when she was so vulnerable was the right thing to do. That alone stopped him dead. He never would have considered that with any other woman. With any other woman, he would have counted on his prowess as a lover to distract her from whatever ailed her. But Reina was different. So different. He’d already recognized that she used sex as a weapon, as a means to keep men away from her, even when she made love to them. She allowed her lovers only so much, told them what to do, insured that they did it, then sent them away.

  He wasn’t about to become one of them.

  When she swung onto his lap and moved to take off his shirt, he grabbed her wrists and shook his head. The look in her eyes, a mixture of confusion and hurt, instantaneously bought her release from his grasp. She pulled his shirt over his head and placed one sweet kiss just above his heart. He reached beneath the sheer jacket she wore over her cat suit and fingered the zipper, attempting to tug it down, but she leaned back, licked her lips and shook her head.

  Then she leaned forward and kissed him softly, once over each eye, then on each cheek.

  Grey knew he’d stopped breathing, felt sure his heartbeat had ceased. This wasn’t about her pleasure at all. This wasn’t about using sex to escape or hide or create a chasm between them.

  This was about him. About her showing him how she felt, because she couldn’t use words. Because of the river…and not
just the mighty Mississippi. He sensed a flood of emotions raging through her right now. Conflicting, heart-wrenching conclusions she wasn’t yet prepared to face. Grey remembered his own turmoil in coming to terms with his feelings for her, but realized his chaos didn’t seem so daunting anymore.

  He’d much rather help her with hers. And if allowing her to pleasure him was the best he could do, he could think of a thousand worse tortures. He smiled and nodded, sending her on a slow and complete exploration of his body.

  First, she removed his clothes, taking her time, folding his pants into a neat square topped with his shirt, his briefs. She took off the filmy jacket she wore and undid the clasp that held her hair, but nothing more. She circled around to the back of the bench and massaged his neck deeply, showing him this was all about him—his pleasure—her need to take care of him. She rubbed his muscles with practiced precision, adding the lotion of her wet kisses across his shoulders, behind his ears.

  When she tugged on his lobes with her teeth, there was nothing childish about the thrill that rang through him. A warm wind rippled the air, rustling the hair on his chest, stirring his erection. She walked around to the front of the bench again, grabbed his face with both hands and kissed him. Her tongue was hot, hard, insistent. She wanted to be in charge again, but, this time, she focused on his satisfaction only.

  When she dropped to her knees and wove a path of openmouthed kisses from his nipples to his belly button, he thought he’d go insane. She wrapped her hands around him, grasping his buttocks, pulling him closer to the edge of the bench, closer to the edge of orgasm. Her chin grazed the tip of his cock, her hair dangled enticingly over his bare thighs. He couldn’t stop himself from tangling his fingers in her raven locks. It was either that or break his hands from clutching the stone bench so tightly.

  She didn’t take him in her mouth right away, instead sat slightly back, cupping his balls, stroking his length until he was full and hard and throbbing for her touch. She kept her eyes fixed on his sex, as if his shape fascinated her. When she took a tentative taste, followed by a long lick from hilt to tip, he wondered if she’d ever done this before.