“Where is he? The person who ordered the milk! Who is he, and which way did he GO?” I grip her arm so hard, she lets out a little scream of panic.
“I don’t know! I didn’t see who ordered it! My manager told me—”
She jerks her head toward the squat, black-haired man with a beak of a nose steaming toward us from the kitchen. He obviously is not happy with me right now.
“Monsieur!” he shouts, wagging his finger as all the restaurant patrons look on, agog. “Monsieur, we have had enough of you! Get out! I can no longer tolerate this kind of—”
I grab him by his lapels and drag him against me so we’re nose to nose. Then I thunder into his face. “WHO ORDERED THAT FUCKING GLASS OF MILK?”
He blinks, once, exhaling a terrified breath, then blurts, “A woman, a woman in a black veil. She came in and ordered it, she said to send it to your table, she said you would know what it meant, she tipped me one hundred euro—”
I shake him so hard his eyes roll around in his head like marbles. Pounding through my veins is a drumbeat of a woman, a woman, a woman.
“WHERE DID SHE GO?”
The manager points to the front door. “Sh-she disappeared! I don’t know anything else! She didn’t say anything else!”
I shove him aside and sprint out the door. On the sidewalk, I turn in every direction, frantically hunting for any glimpse of black. Everything is spinning and I can’t see straight. My heart is a firecracker, my pulse is wildfire, and electricity blisters my skin.
Then, around the corner of a building half a block away, I see something dark billow and snap like a sail in a breeze before disappearing from sight.
The hem of a long black veil.
I run faster than I’ve ever run in my life. I’m a bolt of lightning crackling over the sidewalk. I’m a supersonic sound wave.
I’m Lazarus, risen from the dead.
When I round the corner, panting and out of my mind, I see a figure draped in black far ahead on the crowded avenue. The figure walks briskly, looking straight ahead, her gait purposeful as she weaves through the throng of strolling pedestrians. She ducks into an alleyway just as I break into a run.
When I reach the alley, I find it deserted except for a pair of reeking Dumpsters and scattered trash. Windows in the tall brick buildings on either side stare down like blank eyes. A lone pigeon pecks at the ground, wings beating in a panic when I run past it with a bellow of frustration.
But in my rush, I’ve missed something. There’s a door halfway up the alley, a door cracked open so light from inside spills out onto the cobblestones in an inviting yellow slice.
My heart in my throat, I slowly backtrack and push open the door.
I step into an art gallery. It’s bright and airy, filled with stylish couples mingling and chatting, drinking chardonnay. I move like a dream walker through the gallery, gazing in cold shock at all the colorful framed oils hanging on the bright-white walls.
In every painting, the subject is a dragonfly.
“Mr. McLean? Excuse me, sir, are you Ryan McLean?”
I turn toward the voice. It’s a woman I’ve never seen before, an elegant redhead in a tailored ivory suit. She’s very beautiful, with milk-pale skin and secretive eyes, her fiery hair coiled in a low chignon. She smiles at me, waiting for a reply.
“Yes,” I say gruffly, finding my voice. “I’m Ryan McLean. Who are you?”
“Genevieve,” she replies, as if the name should mean something to me.
I swallow, fighting to maintain my composure when everything inside me is howling wolves and hurricanes. “Where is she? Where’s Mariana?”
Genevieve’s smile deepens. “I’m sorry, I don’t know anyone by that name. But I was instructed to give you this.”
She holds out a folded piece of stationery. I take it, my hand shaking like a leaf.
“Good luck to you both, Mr. McLean,” Genevieve says warmly. “She was always a favorite of management.”
Without another word, the redhead turns and melts into the crowd.
I stand with the note in my hand until I become aware I’m garnering a lot of curious glances. Then I unfold the paper and read the words written in precise, slanting black ink.
I can picture you there, among the date palms and veiled women.
I can picture you stealing into a locked room at dawn
with the morning call to prayer echoing over the empty medina,
the sun on red-tiled rooftops already hot.
I recognize the words instantly, because they’re my own. And now I know exactly where I’m going.
I drop my head back, close my eyes, and inhale my first real breath in months.
Thirty-Seven
Mariana
Morocco
Once upon a time in another life, I was a little girl.
I had a little girl’s dreams of fairy tales and handsome princes. I had parents and a sister and a scruffy yellow dog named Dog. I went to school in a ramshackle schoolhouse with a dirt floor and woven banana leaves for a roof, and picked avocadoes on my parents’ farm. I didn’t know I was poor, or powerless, or cursed.
Once upon a time, I was happy.
Then…I grew up.
I grew up and learned that happiness is like heaven, a thing everyone yearns for but few ever find. I learned about death and betrayal and sex and longing, about hunger and sadness and fear.
I learned that dreams are only for dreamers.
I learned to survive.
Then one day many, many years later, I learned about love.
I discovered love was nothing like a fairy tale. It was more like a bad poem written in indecipherable meter by a drunken poet who couldn’t keep a job, so he lived with his mother his whole life while writing the most outrageous roadblocks and outcomes, based on nothing but the whims of his own inebriated brain. It had an awkward beginning, a wildly improbable middle, and an awful, painful end. And nothing rhymed.
Love was the worst.
Inconveniently, it was also the best.
I didn’t trust it from the get-go.
What I didn’t realize is that love isn’t like Tinker Bell. Love exists whether you believe in it or not.
And whether you believe in love or not, it believes in you.
* * *
He finds me on the third day. Three long days, three unending nights, and then I look up from my mint tea and he’s there.
Standing across the medina, his gaze fixed on me, a bare glint of yearning bright in his eyes, he’s there.
He looks terrible.
Like he’s been sleeping on park benches and dining on scraps from trash cans to survive. Like all he’s ever known is heartbreak and brutality. That I’m the cause of the pain he’s wearing like a second skin makes all the broken parts inside me grind together and bleed.
I rise from my table, shaking and breathless, my nerves channeling fire. Between us, the square is a riot of color and noise, food stalls, trilling laughter, dancers and dusty barefoot children. Freshly dyed silks flutter indigo and saffron in the breeze. I turn and make my way through the winding alleyways, draped in carpets and thick with people, until I reach an azure door.
I push through the door into a quiet courtyard, Ryan’s presence behind me so vivid, it’s almost like touch.
Past a splashing fountain, up a winding staircase to a quiet room at the top with a view of distant mountains and walls painted the same blue as the door. By the window, I turn and wait, holding my breath.
He eases into view in the open doorway, moving carefully, silently, as if approaching a wild animal trapped against a wall. When he sees me, his eyes flare. He inhales through parted lips and stands staring at me for a long, silent moment, drinking me in, his hands trembling at his sides.
“How?” he asks in a low, hoarse voice.
“There was a submarine on the yacht. A little two-seater. That got me as far as Tunisia. From there, I took the train to Casablanca, then a bus here.”
His
brow creases in confusion.
“I had the captain take me. He knew how to operate the sub…and how dangerous a gas leak on a yacht loaded with munitions would be. He knew what to do to make it look accidental.”
He processes that, then slowly takes a step forward over the threshold. His gaze darts around the room, questioning, cataloging the furniture, the high, timbered ceiling, the colorful pillows on the bed. Then it snaps back to me again, as if magnetized.
When he doesn’t speak, I do. “The crew on the yacht were prisoners. Forced to work for free, their silence guaranteed because their tongues were cut out. When I explained to him what I wanted to do, the captain was more than willing to help me. He wanted to disappear, too. Become someone else. Live a different life. We parted ways in Tunisia.”
Ryan takes another few halting steps toward me, then stops, the tremor in his hands getting worse. He’s focused on me with an extraordinary intensity, his eyes burning with questions and need. He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. There’s a pulse of heat like a heartbeat between us.
With a break in his voice, he says, “Why?” and I know what he’s really asking.
Why did you make me believe you were dead?
“I went a little mad,” I whisper, closing my eyes. “When I found out Reynard was Vincent’s father—”
Ryan’s sharp intake of breath makes me open my eyes. I nod at his expression of disbelief.
“Yes. And I loved him. My whole life, I loved him, and he’d been lying to me about everything. It was all a test.”
I have to stop and breathe around the vise winching closed in my chest. “He was grooming me to take over as his heir,” I say when the pain eases and I can speak again. “He said it in front of his men, so I knew that if they didn’t think I was dead, I would be hounded. Hunted. Cosa Nostra doesn’t let people go. So I died. Only I didn’t. And now I’m here…”
I trail off into silence, suddenly miserable with the strain of this moment, with everything so raw and aching between us, with so much left to be said.
“Well,” he murmurs after a moment. “the FBI thinks you’re dead, too. I mean, the Dragonfly. Case closed. You’re free now. You can go anywhere, do anything you want.”
He swallows hard, so clearly struggling. I’m forced to bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood so I don’t run to him and fling my arms around his shoulders.
With his heart in his eyes and a rasp of hope in his voice, Ryan asks very softly, “What do you want?”
I break then. All my careful control, all my pretense of calm, it all falls away with a shudder. “The same thing I’ve wanted since I saw the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen dazzling the crowd at a pool in St. Croix. You, cowboy. I want you.”
We move at the same moment, arms reaching out for each other, and meet in the center of the room in a hard, breathless embrace. His arms tighten around me, and he’s shaking just as hard as I am. My name on his lips is a prayer, his voice ardent and sweet and so full of love, it splits me wide open. I kiss him, and it feels like homecoming, his unshaven jaw rough in my hands, a thrum of pleasure and happiness like wildfire burning through me.
“Why did you wait so long?” he says hoarsely. “Angel, why did you wait so long to let me know you were alive?”
When I look up at him, his cheeks are wet.
I kiss his face, his soft lips, his closed eyelids. “You needed time to miss me. Did you?”
As I hoped he would, he laughs, a sound that makes my heart leap with joy. He hugs me so tight, I think my ribs might be crushed, but I don’t care.
“I’m not capable of witty repartee right now, so I’ll just say yes.”
I wrap my arms around his waist and nuzzle my face into his neck, breathing him in, feeling like I’ve been living under a thundercloud for a thousand years and the sky has just opened up and bathed me in rays of golden sunlight. “That isn’t the real reason,” I whisper.
He’s serious again in a heartbeat, his smile gone and his brows drawn together.
“I…I did go a little crazy, after I found out about Reynard,” I say haltingly. “I didn’t believe in anything for a while, not hope or trust or love. I didn’t even recognize my own face in the mirror. I thought I might be ruined, or that maybe I was cursed because of the diamond, but then…”
Ryan takes my face in his hands, searching my eyes. “But then what?”
“But then I got proof that I wasn’t.”
He slowly shakes his head. “I don’t understand.”
I draw away from him and go to the bathroom. I return holding a little white stick that shakes in my outstretched hand.
Ryan takes it, looks at it, at the little window on the front, and sinks to his knees on the floor. I crouch down beside him, wind my arms around his shoulders, and close my eyes.
Against my neck, he whispers, “There’s a blue line on this pregnancy test.”
“Yes,” I say, my eyes filling with water. “There’s a very blue line.”
Blue as a dragonfly’s wings, that line.
Blue as my lover’s eyes.
Epilogue
“We’re going to be late,” Mariana says, sifting her fingers through my hair.
“So we’ll be late. I’m busy, woman. And be quiet! With all your yammerin’, I can’t hear the bean.”
Her laugh makes my head bounce. We’re in bed, naked, and I’ve got my ear pressed against the gentle swell of her belly. It’s my new favorite activity, second only to having my lips pressed here. I do a lot of talking to this growing belly, and singing at it, too, so much so that I think Mariana is more tired of having a grown man clinging twenty-four seven to her stomach than of the nausea she’s dealing with about as much of the time.
“Maybe the bean is sleeping. Did you ever think of that? Maybe you’re giving the poor child insomnia with your constant harassment.”
I lift my head and look at my woman, sleepy-eyed against the pillow, her hair mussed and her skin glowing, and try to send her an appropriately outraged glare. I end up smiling instead. My pretend outrage is no match for her beauty.
“Harassment? No. This is called communication.”
“It’s a little one-sided to be accurately described as communication, honey. It’s more like an extended monologue. Very extended.”
The wry twist to her lips makes me chuckle. “Okay,” I say, moving up the bed. “I’ll give the bean a break. For now.”
I kiss Mariana softly, prop my head on one hand, and flatten the other over her bump. It’s not too big yet—she’s only four months along—but it’s irresistible to me. Along with all the other parts of her gorgeous body.
I had no idea pregnant women could be so damn sexy. I never looked at them that way before. It’s probably the fact that she’s pregnant with my child that’s bringing out the beast in me, but I swear my knocked-up woman is the most erotic thing I’ve seen in my life. If it were up to me and my perma boner, we’d spend every minute of the day naked in bed.
Unfortunately, it’s not up to me, which Mariana proves by pronouncing, “Go start the shower. We need to get ready!” and giving me a little shove in the chest.
“Bossy,” I grumble.
She smiles sweetly at me, batting her lashes like a debutante. “Which you love, so stop your fake complaining.”
I nuzzle her neck, running my palm up her rib cage until I find the soft fullness of a breast. “I do love it,” I murmur, swiping my thumb over her nipple. “I love it all.”
“Stop trying to distract me. It’s not going to work.”
“It’s already working,” I say, chuckling darkly as she shivers and arches into my hand. I lower my head and suck her hard nipple into my mouth.
“Dinner,” she reminds me, but her voice is breathy and she’s twining her legs between mine. I use a hint of teeth on her nipple, chuckling again when her fingernails dig into my chest.
“We’re already late.” I lift my head and capture her mouth in a long, sweet kiss.
>
Mariana breaks away reluctantly. “Kai’s making his special schnitzel! He’s so excited about it, I don’t want to be rude!”
“Schnitzel for Thanksgiving dinner.” I shake my head. “It’s un-American.”
Mariana rolls her eyes. “There’s going to be turkey, too. And apple pie, because I told him you’d throw yourself on the floor and have a tantrum if you didn’t have a ‘proper’ Thanksgiving meal.”
“Really?” I brighten at this news, but then grow suspicious. “What about stuffing? Cranberry sauce? Green-bean casserole? Those poufy white dinner rolls? I bet he doesn’t do the rolls. He seems like one of those weird, multigrain, no-yeast, gluten-free, non-GMO bread stick kind of guys.”
Closing her eyes, Mariana sighs. “And I’m having a child with this man,” she mutters.
“Yes, you are, you lucky girl!” I say, grinning like mad. Then I kiss her all over her face until she’s helplessly laughing.
She pushes me away, still laughing, and rises from the bed. She shakes her hair out, tossing it over her shoulders so it cascades in a dark wave down her back. I look on, feeling like I might burst with the happiness pounding inside me.
“I know you’re staring at my ass, cowboy,” she says as she walks, hips swaying, into the bathroom. “I can feel it tingling.”
“Oh, I’ll give you a tingle.” I throw off the covers and leap out of bed, running after her.
* * *
By the time Darcy opens her front door, we’re an hour late to Thanksgiving dinner, but I’m feeling so self-satisfied with how loudly I made my woman scream in the shower, not even an asteroid plummeting toward earth could put a dent in my cheer.
“We thought you mighta got lost!” Darcy says crossly, standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips. When she glimpses my shit-eating grin, however, she starts to smile.
Wicked Intentions: The Wicked Games Series, Book 3 Page 28