“Jezebel, I presume?”
If he knew her code name, he was one of the good guys. She hoped. Reminding herself that David was only a scream away, she pulled the fruit out of her mouth and fumbled for an answer.
“Er, I’m not sure. I mean, isn’t there some kind of a code or something you’re supposed to give first. So I know who you are?”
The smile widened. “I’m Thunder. Adam Ridgeway. We spoke yesterday.”
“Oh. Yes.”
Paige remembered Mr. Thunder all right. This was David’s boss in his secret life, the one who’d given her the choice of being fitted with an electronic leash or being bundled out of Cannes on the next available plane. She eyed him with a touch of dislike.
“You know, you have a rather nasty manner over the…” She made a small circle in the air with the strawberry, not quite sure what that diamond-studded compact was. “Over the radio,” she said.
“So I’ve been told.” He walked into the suite and deposited the leather flight bag on an armchair. “Where’s Maggie?”
Paige gestured toward the high double doors. “In the bedroom. David’s with her. You can go—”
He didn’t wait for her permission.
There couldn’t be any mistake. This was definitely Mr. Thunder. Brows raised, Paige trailed after him as he opened the doors. He stopped on the threshold, his eyes fixed on the still figure in the bed.
“Adam!” David kept his voice low, but his face registered total surprise as he rose from the armchair. “What are you doing here?”
Adam Ridgeway’s intent gaze didn’t leave the unmoving Maggie. “I had planned to come for your wedding, anyway. I decided to move the trip up a bit.”
David sent Paige a quick look.
“How is she?”
Adam’s question betrayed no emotion, but there was a quiet, almost indiscernible intensity to it that made Paige glance at him quickly.
“She’s going to be fine,” David assured him. “I gave Claire hourly status reports. Didn’t she keep you posted?”
“She did. I got the last report during an in-flight refueling over the channel.” His jaw worked. “It appears that Chameleon has a near-fatal aversion to carrots.”
“Distilled carrots, anyway. We’ve been with her every moment, Adam,” David said, his voice gentling as he studied his boss’s face.
Well, well…Paige thought.
“The doctor says she shouldn’t have any lingering aftereffects from the reaction, other than a sore throat as the paralysis wears off. She’s supposed to talk as little as possible for a while.”
Paige thought she detected a slight softening of the stark lines around Adam’s mouth, as if in relief—or was it amusement? Whatever it was, it was gone when he turned to face David.
“I’ll take over here,” he said with cool authority. “You and Paige had better go across the hall and get some sleep. I understand you have an appointment this evening. With Victor Swanset.”
Shock rippled down Paige’s bare arms. Good grief, she’d forgotten all about the Baron of the Night and his invitation to dinner!
At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to tell both David and his boss that she was abandoning her role as Meredith Ames. She no longer cared who got the blasted microdot. Or how. Or when. She’d had enough.
In the past twenty-four hours, a world-class pervert had sidled up to her in the casino and offered her an unbelievable amount of money to do things she was sure were anatomically impossible; she’d been frightened out of her wits by an eighty-year-old man who stepped out of a wall wearing his thirty-year-old body; and she’d capped off the day by putting a mascara-wand bullet through Henri’s former business partner. What’s more, David, her David, had made her repeat over and over again an emergency code to be used in the event he didn’t return.
Paige had had more than enough excitement and adventure to last her the rest of her life. She wanted to go home, and she wanted to take David with her.
Unfortunately, he grinned at her then.
It was that slashing, crooked grin he’d given her earlier, just before he went in to make hamburger out of Antoine’s face. The grin that finally, unreservedly, said they were in this together. They were a team. Equal partners.
Paige swallowed a sigh and pasted a weak answering smile on her face.
“That’s right,” David answered, turning to Adam again. “We have an appointment with Swanset tonight. If everything goes as planned, we’re going to wrap this mission up, and then…” His glance swung to Paige once more. “And then we’re going to arrange that wedding you came for.”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. David saw the answer to his unspoken question in her eyes. His grin softened into a smile that was for her and her alone.
For a moment, there was just the two of them in the quiet room, Paige and David. Jezebel and Doc. Meredith and…whoever. At this point, Paige was too tired to sort out their growing cast of personalities. All that mattered was the tender smile in David’s eyes.
That smile stirred a slow, delicious heat just under her skin. While David gave Adam concise instructions on Maggie’s medication, Paige shoved aside her weariness and made a mental list of her own.
First, a bath.
Second, find something sinful enough in Meredith’s wardrobe to make David forget both his caution and his control.
Third… Well, she’d improvise on items three through ten.
After all they’d shared today, there was no way in hell she was going to let David occupy the sitting room sofa tonight. Not if he was going to throw emergency codes at her that suggested he might not be around to occupy anything else in the near future. Not if they were getting married.
Which they were. As soon as they could arrange it. As soon as they wrapped up this mission. She’d shed the last of her doubts and insecurities about herself and David somewhere in a dank, garbage-strewn back alley.
Feeling far more determined about the upcoming evening with Victor Swanset than she had a few short moments ago, Paige tucked her hand in David’s as they left the bedroom and walked through the sitting room. They were halfway to the door when she caught sight of the small figure curled up on the sofa.
“David! We forgot about Henri.”
“So we did.”
Turning, he walked back to the door to the double doors of the bedroom.
“The kid on the couch is Henri,” he informed Adam. “If he wakes up, make sure you keep one hand on your wallet at all times.”
“Roger.”
Back in Meredith’s suite, Paige ran hot, steaming water into the claw-footed tub. She’d washed her hands and face before tending to Maggie, of course, but there was no telling what her bare back had made contact with in that alley. And her feet…Ugh!
Her plans for the rest of the night definitely didn’t lend themselves to dirty feet.
Sweet, tingling anticipation fought its way through her layers of exhaustion. Smiling, she dumped an extra measure of bubbling, perfumed oil into the tub. Tonight, she wasn’t worried about Meredith’s client walking out of the suite with an unfamiliar scent clinging to his skin. Tonight, Meredith’s client wasn’t walking anywhere.
Shedding her vest and skirt and white lace panties, Paige sank into the hot water with a groan of pure pleasure. She let the water run until the bubbles reached the tip of her chin, then turned off the old-fashioned ceramic handles with one foot. Leaning against the high, sloping back of the tub, she went completely, bonelessly limp.
She’d soak for ten minutes, she told herself. Then she’d pull on the erotic lace teddy she’d dug out of the wardrobe and demonstrate to David its unique construction. The sinful little scrap of pale lemon lace was designed, she’d discovered to her somewhat embarrassed delight, for immediate carnal copulation.
Doc found her in the bathroom fifteen minutes later, sound asleep. She’d slipped down in the tub until the water lapped at her lower lip. Her slow, deep breathing fanned the bubbl
es dotting the water’s surface into small circles.
Smiling, he bent and scooped her out of the tub.
Naked and wet, she burrowed against his body, seeking his warmth. “David?”
“I’m here, sweetheart.”
“I want to go to bed,” she muttered grumpily.
“Me too.”
Supporting her bare bottom on one knee, he reached up to turn off the bathroom lights, then carried her into the darkened bedroom.
Chapter 13
A chorus of chattering, chirping starlings woke Page the next morning. The birds were perched on the wrought-iron balcony railing, noisily commenting on the glorious sunshine or the availability of insects in the lush gardens below or whatever it was that birds chattered about at the ungodly hour of…
Paige lifted her head and squinted at the painted porcelain clock on the bedside table.
Ten o’clock? That couldn’t be right.
She blinked a few times to clear the sleep from her eyes and checked again.
Ten o’clock.
Flopping back down, Paige studied the ornate plasterwork overhead and wondered what had happened to her normal morning energy. Usually, she jumped out of bed at dawn, eager for the day ahead. Except, of course, on those mornings when David was lying beside her.
Which he was not doing this particular morning, she acknowledged. Her hair slithered on the pillow as she turned her head to survey the empty space on the other side of the bed. She couldn’t tell whether or not David had abandoned the sitting room sofa last night. The covers on his side were neatly smoothed, the way they always were when he rose before she did.
A flash of pale lemon yellow just beyond the bed caught her attention. Paige sighed, eyeing the lace teddy she’d laid out in such anticipation. If any carnal copulation had occurred in this bed last night, she’d slept right through it.
Of course…there was always this morning. And this afternoon. And most of the evening, before they were to go to Victor Swanset’s villa for dinner.
At the reminder of the Dark Baron’s invitation, Paige slipped deeper under the covers. After her surge of determination to see this thing through last night, in the bright light of day she was having second thoughts. And third. And fourth.
Despite his gallant, old-fashioned charm, the Baron gave her the creeps. She’d be glad when her brief association with him was over.
Of course, they still didn’t have proof that Victor Swanset was the man they were after. Until and unless he showed his hand, they had to maintain their cover. Paige would be Meredith for another day and night, at least. David would be the engineer who had engaged her services for his own private symposium.
More adventure.
More excitement.
Paige groaned.
Mumbling under her breath about being careful what she wished for in future, she pushed the covers aside. She needed to go to the bathroom, badly, and she wanted to check on Maggie. She was sure Adam Ridgeway had provided their patient excellent care last night, but there were some things a woman would just as soon not have a man do for her. Especially a man who looked at her the way Adam looked at Maggie.
Paige had one bare foot on the carpet when a brisk knock sounded on the bedroom door. She slid back into the bed and yanked the covers over her naked form once more. Maybe Maggie wouldn’t mind waiting for a few more moments, she thought, her pulse leaping.
She cast a quick glance at the lace teddy, but it was too far out of her reach. She’d just have to make do without it, she decided, injecting a note of sleepy-sultry huskiness into her voice.
“Come in.”
The double doors were nudged open. A heavily laden cart trundled in, followed immediately by a bright, freckled face.
“Bonjour, mademoiselle.”
Paige clutched the satin coverlet higher. “Good morning, Henri.”
“Monsieur, he tells me to order you the breakfast, which I have done. Me, I have eaten already, but I will join you. Just to keep you company, you understand.”
A collection of domed dishes and an elegant silver coffeepot rattled as the boy rolled the cart to the edge of the bed.
“We have here the brioches and the croissants,” he informed her, lifting the lids for her inspection. “And sausage and fresh fruit. And a seafood quiche of a quality that is not quite what one expects of the Carlton, but it will do.”
He plucked a fat pink shrimp from the dill-and-lemon garnish atop the quiche and popped it into his mouth.
“Yes, it will do.”
Dragging the dressing-table chair over next to the cart, he plopped down on it and beamed at her expectantly. “So, mademoiselle, which shall you have first?”
Paige’s need to go to the bathroom had transitioned from urgent to desperate. Moreover, she didn’t think it entirely appropriate for her to breakfast naked with this child, as precocious as he was. But the covetous sidelong glance he gave the sizzling sausages tugged at her heart.
“Why don’t you pour me a cup of coffee?” she suggested. “I’ll start with that and wake up a bit while you, uh, test the dishes for me.”
Tucking the coverlet under her arms, she puffed the pillow up behind her back and accepted the milky coffee Henri prepared for her.
With unabashed gusto, he piled a dish high with delicacies and dug into them.
“Where is monsieur?” Paige asked after a moment, trying to catch the boy between mouthfuls.
“He goes across the hall, to confer with the other gentleman and your so-lovely friend.”
Tilting his head, Henri eyed her shrewdly. “Your friend is not in the business I thought, yes? Nor are you, mademoiselle.”
Paige took a sip of coffee, hiding behind the cup until she decided how to answer.
“Why do you think that?” she finally asked, stalling.
“Because the so-large gentleman who has such a passion for you tells me I must stay here, where he can keep the eye on me. But I am not—under any circumstances, you understand—to discuss fees and prices with you.”
“Oh.”
“And me, I am not stupid.”
No, he wasn’t stupid. Pitifully thin and bruised, perhaps. Definitely dirty. But not stupid.
“So, mademoiselle, what is it that you do here? And what is it that we must do tonight that puts the so-serious look in monsieur’s eyes?”
“We?”
“But of course, we.”
If David had been reluctant for Paige to join the OMEGA team, she could just imagine his reaction to the news that Henri was volunteering for an active role in their mission. She was trying to find a way to let the boy down gently when he gave her a cheeky grin.
“I will stay here with you for a while, no? I cannot go back to the Allées, you see. Not for a while. Antoine, he sees me with you before you put the bullet through him. Now he will break my head, as well as my legs, if he catches me.”
“The pig,” Paige muttered.
Although Maggie had managed to confirm that there wasn’t any connection between their operation and Henri’s former business partner, Paige now wished David had put the thug away permanently, instead of just pulping his face.
Henri was not going back to the Allées, she decided grimly. Not today. Not next week. Not ever. Paige wasn’t exactly sure where he would be going, but she’d get David to work something out. Or Adam Ridgeway. He could put all that inbred authority of his to work on Henri’s behalf.
“Why don’t you roll the cart into the sitting room?” she suggested to the boy. “Just leave me a brioche and some coffee. We can finish this discussion after I get dressed.”
She waited until Henri had closed the bedroom doors, then made a dash for the bathroom.
Ten minutes later, she’d scrubbed her face, brushed her teeth and her hair, and pulled on a black knit tank dress held up by narrow spaghetti straps that crossed over her bare back. The deceptively simple little dress—what there was of it—clung to Paige’s body like a second skin.
Sl
ipping on a pair of strappy black sandals with thin cork soles, she grabbed a few essential supplies for Maggie and stuffed them in her purse, alongside the gold halter, then hurried across the hall with Henri. While waiting for a response to her knock, she rested a hand on his shoulder. The light touch caused the boy to blink up at her in surprise, as though he weren’t used to human contact.
Paige smiled down at him reassuringly, although the sensations conveyed from her fingertips to her brain shocked her. She registered both the threadbare quality of the navy sweater the youngster seemed to live in, and the thinness of the shoulder it covered. She’d make an excursion to the hotel’s gift shop this morning, Paige decided, her mouth settling into a determined line. Henri needed clothes, as well as nourishment.
When David opened the door a moment later, her inner tension and nervousness eased perceptibly. This was the David she knew. Calm, solidly handsome, his brown hair combed, his gray shirt tucked neatly into a pair of dark slacks. His eyes showed no trace of the so-serious look that Henri had noticed earlier.
“So you’ve finally decided to rejoin the living,” he said, with a small, teasing smile.
Warmed by the intimacy of that half grin, Paige followed Henri into the suite. “You should’ve wakened me.”
“I tried,” he murmured, for her ears alone. “Several times. You were unconscious. Naked and sprawled over most of my side of the bed, but unconscious.”
“Try harder next time.”
That settled the question of whether or not he’d abandoned the sofa last night. Unfortunately, it didn’t tell Paige whether he’d tried to wake her in an attempt to abandon his self-imposed restraint, as well. Resolving to put that scrap of lemony lace to work at the first opportunity, she headed for the bedroom, while Henri peeled off to investigate a basket of pastries.
“How’s Maggie?”
“Better. Her throat is still a little raw, but she’s recovered her energy.”
She’d recovered more than just her energy, Paige saw as soon as she walked into the bedroom. Her face had lost its deathly pallor, thank goodness. Her eyes, a deep nutmeg brown without their disguising contacts, sparkled with a combination of rueful humor and relief.
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