His gaze found its way back to hers. Keen and penetrating, it fixed her in place, made her forget her wariness her dislike, her distrust of strangers. She said impulsively, “The only things worth believing in are things you can see. Anything else is just self-delusion.”
He seemed to take that as some kind of challenge, because his eyes flashed, then a slow smile spread across his face. “Hold out your hand and close your eyes.”
“What?” Startled, Ember took a step back.
He chuckled, then said, “I don’t bite. Unless, that is, you want me to.”
That brought the blood back to her cheeks. Was he flirting with her?
No, men like him didn’t flirt with girls like her. Plain girls. Ruined girls. Girls with one good hand and two left feet and a lifetime of could-have-beens choking their throats until they wanted to scream.
“Just hold out your hand,” he insisted, his voice low and persuasive. “Trust me.”
He said those last two words as if they were a dare, and he looked at her that way, too.
Trust you? Ha. As if.
However, because he was in possession of what was apparently a bottomless bank account and she needed the sale, Ember silently proffered her right hand, palm up.
His smile grew mocking. “Halfway there. Close your eyes.”
It was her turn to narrow her eyes at him. She glanced around the store. There were a dozen people within eyesight; the women’s book club that met every Wednesday sat at a table near the back of the store—all six of them still gaping at Christian—a few more customers were browsing the aisles. She was probably safe.
When her gaze fell back on Christian, his lips were pressed together but his eyes were bright and amused, as if he was trying to hold back a laugh.
Let him laugh. She knew from experience that you were never safe, even in the most familiar of places. Life had a way of knocking you down and spitting in your face when you least expected it, then cutting off your legs at the knee when you tried to stand back up.
Think of the sale, Ember. Think of your rent. Indulge him and get a payday or piss him off and get evicted.
She huffed a short, impatient breath, then closed her eyes.
She didn’t really know what to expect, but what she definitely wasn’t expecting was a slow, sliding stroke of his finger, feather-light, from her inner wrist down the center of her palm.
His touch jolted through her like a bolt of lightning.
She gasped. He warned softly, “Eyes shut.” So she kept them shut and let the feeling of his finger languidly sliding against her skin sizzle through her, snapping her nerves alight like a thousand switches had been flipped to “on” inside her body. She became exquisitely aware of her breathing, the warmth in her cheeks, the smell of old books and the sweet musk of the cone of incense burning in a far corner of the shop, the low murmurs of the book club ladies and the rain drumming outside on the cobblestones. Every sensation was heightened because her eyes were closed, blocking out the room and all its color, light, and distractions.
In a dark, soft voice, Bedroom Eyes said, “You can’t see me touching you, correct?”
Breathless, Ember nodded.
“So how do you know I am?”
Because I feel it in places in my body I barely remember having.
She shoved that thought aside and aloud said, “Because I can feel it.”
His finger withdrew. The electric tingle abruptly ceased. When she opened her eyes Christian was staring at her. As she stared back at him, some unknown emotion fleetingly crossed his face, hardening those perfect features, darkening his eyes. A muscle twitched in his square jaw.
“That’s how you know something’s real. It doesn’t matter if you can see it. Your eyes can and will play tricks on you. But if you can feel it, it’s real.”
There was a lesson here, but Ember wasn’t sure if it was in any way related to what he’d just said. It seemed more likely her body had just tried to tell her something, the same thing his eyes had told her when she first saw him. Come closer and Stay away.
She swallowed, embarrassed by her heated cheeks, disturbed by her fluttering heartbeat. She straightened and looked him in the eye. “And this relates to your first edition Casino Royale…how?”
The smile returned, dazzling in its dark, knowing perfection. “Because I can trust you not to swindle me. I can feel it.”
She laughed a little disbelieving laugh, unsure if he was toying with her or being serious. Either way, it probably didn’t matter. She was going to give him his book and never see him again.
And good riddance. She didn’t need a beauty queen—king—panty-melter like him hanging around her bookstore. There’d be so much ogling going on, no one would ever buy a damn book again.
“Okay, then, Mr. McLoughlin. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
From the corner of her eye, Ember saw Sofia approach. One of the book club ladies, she was sixtyish and matronly, with a stout build and an alarming, tall gray bouffant coiffure. Her lack of a youthful figure didn’t seem to be standing in the way of her determination to get an introduction. She sauntered forward like a paunchy lioness looking at an easy meal, her eyes roving all over Christian as if she was deciding which part to sink her teeth into first.
Ember turned her back on him, strode resolutely to the end of the counter, and reached Sofia before she could do something embarrassing. She’d been widowed more than ten years, and never missed the opportunity to stalk a young, good-looking man. Ember had seen it end badly too many times before, and was determined to spare her from another humiliation.
“Do you ladies need a refill on your tea?”
Ember tried to communicate with her eyes that Sofia should go back to her table. But, as luck would have it, Sofia took a wrong step and twisted her ankle on an uneven floorboard Ember had been meaning to fix as soon as she had the money. Eyes wide, hands outflung, Sofia pitched forward with a small, surprised cry. It happened so fast Ember didn’t have time to react.
Christian, however, did.
Somehow, from all the way down at the end of the long counter, he was there in time to catch Sofia before she fell. With a hand under one arm, he steadied her and brought her back to her feet with a murmured, “Watch your step, madam. These old floorboards can be treacherous.”
Sofia, wide-eyed, hand fluttering around her neck like a big, pale moth looking for a place to land, breathed, “Oh, yes, they can. How silly of me. Thank you, Mr…?”
He didn’t take the bait. He simply smiled down at her—incredibly, she simpered and blushed—then released her arm and turned his keen gaze to Ember.
“Tomorrow, then.”
She nodded, slowly, calculating the time and steps it would take to appear where he had, seconds ago. She didn’t think it could be done. But…it had.
“Tomorrow,” Ember repeated. It almost sounded like a threat.
But Christian’s smile grew wider and his eyes crinkled, as if he were enjoying a private joke. “See you then, September.”
He turned and, with a dozen pairs of eyes watching, made his way to the door. He collected his umbrella and went outside, pausing for a moment on the sidewalk to open it. Then he took a few steps forward and melted like a phantom into the rainy night.
Beside her, Sofia exhaled her breath in a gust. Fanning herself with one hand, she said in Spanish, “My God, sweetheart! Who was that?”
“James Bond,” replied Ember with frown.
Sofia blinked at her, confused.
“Never mind. Are you all right?”
Sofia nodded, still distracted. She looked back at the door Christian had disappeared through. “So how do you know this James Bond?”
“I don’t. He was just looking for a book. I never met him before tonight.”
Sofia turned toward Ember. Her brown eyes were full of questions. She pointed a finger at the small gold nameplate pinned to Ember’s sweater and said, “Then how did he know your full name?”
With
a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Ember glanced down at the nameplate.
Ember, it read, in clear bold type. Of course it did, because Ember never went by her given name. But Christian, the beautiful stranger disgorged and swallowed again by the night, had somehow known it.
How?
She glanced up at the door of the shop, looked out the windows into the sideways slanting rain, and thought that was a very, very good question.
Ember awoke early the next morning with no foreboding premonitions about the day. The rain had tapered off during the night—thank God—and through the windows of her apartment the sky loomed a perfect, cloudless blue. In the distance the round mosaics that topped the spires of Gaudi’s Sagrada Família cathedral glinted red and yellow and green in the morning sun like enormous bowls of fruit, and all of Barcelona—labyrinth streets, medieval churches, plazas and palm trees and the shimmering azure strip of the Mediterranean sea in the distance—was laid out like a sumptuous feast.
The view from her bedroom was the absolute best thing about her apartment. That and the rooftop terrace, where she took her coffee every morning and tried not to think about the past.
“Americana!” a male voice shouted from the street below. “Hermosa Americana! Estas despierto?”
The worst thing about her apartment lived downstairs.
“No, Dante, I am not awake,” Ember muttered, eyeing the window. She carefully edged away from it, imagining her elderly landlord standing with arms akimbo in his white undershirt, paisley silk robe, black dress socks, and white slippers in the middle of the plaza, neck craned back as he stared up at her window and called to her. He was totally unconcerned with disturbing anyone else in the vicinity, or with how he might look, black toupee askew and hairy shins on display. One of the reasons her rent was so cheap was because she gave Dante English lessons, but said rent was several days past due—again—and judging by the sound of it, and the way he’d called her gorgeous as he did whenever he was going to ask for money, the subject was about to come up.
Again.
She crossed to the secondhand wood console table near the front door and picked up the piece of paper from where she’d left it last night when she arrived home.
Christian McLoughlin. Even his handwriting looked rich.
“Okay Mr. Moneybags,” she said sourly, staring down at it. “Time to put up or shut up.”
A sharp knock on the front door startled her so much she jumped.
“Hey, delinquent. You in there?” a voice whispered through the wood.
Ember heaved a sigh of relief and shoved the paper in her pocket. She wore jeans again today, though different ones from yesterday. She wasn’t going to have Moneybags thinking she dressed any differently for him than she did every other day. Even if he was rich and sexy and…irritating. Let all the other females fall at his feet, her dignity was about the only thing she had left. And it wasn’t for sale.
Well, it mostly wasn’t for sale. She’d risen early so she could get to the storage facility and retrieve a certain expensive tome for a certain odd, otherworldly, over-confident customer. But that hardly counted.
At least that’s what she was telling herself, anyway.
Quickly and quietly, trying to make as little noise as possible, Ember cracked the door ajar and peeked out into the hallway.
“Need a quick getaway?” Asher whispered.
Her neighbor from across the hall peered in, brown eyes sparkling merrily behind a pair of trendy glasses, a crooked, mischievous smile on his face. An expat like herself—originally from Boston—he worked as a sportswriter for the local paper. He was tall, athletic, and deeply fabulous, and also one of the smartest, funniest and most interesting people she’d ever met. He knew about books, art, politics, music, how to make you laugh just when you needed it, and how to stay quiet when words could only make things worse. Asher was the kind of person who made you feel smarter and more interesting just by association.
An added bonus: his apartment had a staircase leading down to the back alley. She’d made good use of it to escape from Dante on more than one occasion.
“You heard, huh?”
He snickered. “Honey, everyone within a five-block radius heard. Dante’s got a voice that could wake the dead. C’mon, hurry before he gets tired of yelling in the street and comes up for a little one-on-one.”
He dashed back across the hallway and held open the door to his apartment, gesturing for her to follow.
Ember grabbed her house keys and her handbag from the console table, scanned the hallway left and right, pulled the door shut, locked it behind her, and darted across the corridor into Asher’s apartment. His door slid shut behind her with a near-silent snick.
“You’re a lifesaver, Ash,” she breathed, leaning against the closed door.
He made a wry face and drawled, “Well, if you’re going to compare me to candy, I’d rather be a lollipop if you know what I mean.”
On the television hung above the fireplace, a newscaster was saying something about a reward of one million euros for information leading to the capture of a terrorist. Asher clicked the power off with the remote control on the coffee table, then crossed to the kitchen. He poured a shot of vodka into a highball glass and added tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce, and lemon juice. After swallowing a long draught of the concoction and sighing in pleasure, he lifted the glass in her direction. “Bloody Mary?”
“Ash, it’s eight o’clock in the morning. On a Thursday.”
He rolled his eyes. “Which is why I’m not having wine, darling. Don’t be a pill. I know you don’t like to drink but a little sip here and there won’t kill you.”
An old wound, scabbed but never scarred, still raw and bloody just beneath the surface, peeled open. The first wave of panic left her breathless as it tightened around her chest like a vise. She felt alternately hot then cold, and struggled to keep her face straight, her knees from buckling and sending her sliding down to the floor.
“Sweetie, you look pale. Are you feeling all right?”
Asher had lowered his drink to the counter and was staring at her with wide eyes, his expression concerned. She wanted to say, All right is something I will never be again, but instead she forced a shaky smile and nodded.
“I’m fine. I just forgot to eat breakfast. Low blood sugar.” She pushed away from the door and walked across his living room, toward the little back patio with its narrow metal staircase, twisting down to the yard below.
“Let me get you something to eat before you go—”
“No, it’s okay.” Ember yanked open the glass sliding door. “Thanks for saving me. I’ll see you later.”
She slammed the door shut behind her and turned to the stairs, but not before she saw the look of surprise on Asher’s face.
And hurt.
He wouldn’t understand, though. He couldn’t. It wasn’t as if she would ever tell him what happened, because she didn’t speak about it with anyone anymore. After a dozen different therapists over the years, she’d learned long ago that airing your sad stories didn’t help you heal. Nothing helped. There were things that just couldn’t be fixed.
Some bridges, once burned, were burned down forever.
Ember took the stairs three at a time and set off down the alley at a run.
The call came at precisely ten o’clock, just as Christian was reaching for the phone. He pulled the cell from his coat pocket and stared at it a moment, looking at the number on the screen.
It was September. Having not five minutes ago looked up the phone number to the book store, he’d just been about to call her.
It was nothing, it was less than nothing, but Christian very firmly believed coincidences were anything but, so he stared at the phone for a few moments longer before finally answering. He held the phone to his ear, listening.
“Um…hello?”
Her voice on the other end of the line was tentative. She was, no doubt, wondering why he hadn’t said the same thin
g himself.
“Good morning, Ember,” he said, watching a russet falcon far off in the distance soar over a stand of Aleppo pines. His new home was situated deep in the Parc de Colleserola, a vast, forested, natural preserve in the mountain range that rose above the city of Barcelona. On any given day he saw wild boar, genets, stone martens, rabbits, and an extensive array of birds.
All the creatures of the forest skittered away from him in terror, of course, even the huge and vicious wild boars, but the place reminded him of his real home. Of the wild, ancient woods at Sommerley that he knew as intimately as his own face in the mirror, and missed with an ache in his chest that felt carnivorous.
“I have your book,” Ember said in her straightforward American way, and Christian smiled. The accent he found so charming lent every vowel a blunt vigor, nothing at all like his own Downton Abbey languor he thought made him sound like an overbred plonker in comparison.
But it wasn’t her accent that had his thoughts returning to her again and again last night after he’d left the store.
She wasn’t the prettiest girl Christian had ever seen—in fact she seemed determined to be plain. Her modest way of dressing, her unstyled hair, and her lack of makeup or jewelry all screamed I’m invisible! But there was something different about her, something indefinable, which caught and held his attention. Something about the eyes, perhaps—wide and brown and piercingly intelligent—or maybe it was the way her dark eyebrows, operating independently, seemed able to indicate disbelief, amusement, or, as they did frequently as she looked at him, deep disdain, all with a single swift arch.
Even her eyebrows were intelligent. Christian had the vague, discomforting feeling this girl with the clever eyebrows might be the kind of girl who knew people’s secrets.
She might even know his secrets. What a goddamn disaster that would be.
“Good. I’ll be in today to collect it.” On impulse, he asked, “Where are you from, originally?”
“Originally? My mother’s womb,” she replied a little tartly, and his smile grew deeper. He found her inexplicable dislike of him intriguing. It had radiated from her in waves yesterday at the store, little zings of irritation that felt like nettles against his skin. He didn’t normally have that particular effect on women, and it surprised him. It made him want to change her mind.
Edge of Darkness (A Night Prowler Novel) Page 2