Sure as Hell

by Julie Kenner

  “It wasn’t that hard,” he said. “Best customer service in the world.”

  She nodded at that, then took the glass of wine he handed to her. They sat for a moment until she could stand it no longer. She had to know. “So how did you know about this place? It’s beautiful.”

  “I’m glad you think so.” There was a pause, and for a moment, she feared he wouldn’t answer her question. Though why the way in which he found the place would be such a secret she couldn’t imagine. “The truth is, I’ve been coming here for years, simply to get away. I have family here, and I used to come visit during the summers. Believe it or not, the lifestyle here can get old.”

  “I know.”

  He looked at her sideways, as if not sure if he believed her. She was serious, though. The glitz and glamour of the life she knew so well had become a yoke around her neck. Escape, however, was not a luxury she had.

  After a moment, he cocked his head, indicating the cliff face behind them. “Come here,” he said.

  “Where? There’s nowhere to go.”

  “Trust me.”

  And, because she did, she stood up and crossed the two paces to the cliff.

  “That stone,” he said, pointing to one slightly bigger than the others, and definitely smoother. “Pull it out.”

  She did, not even worrying about her manicure as she worked the stone free from the ones around it. It came easily, and once removed revealed an inset into the cliff face, at the back of which sat a small wooden box.

  “My treasure,” he said. “Open it.”

  She did, revealing a pirate’s treasure. Or, at least, the kind of trinkets a child would see as treasure. Chips from the casinos. Paste gemstones. Coins from all over the world worth, tops, five American dollars.

  She drew her finger through the contents, smiling as she did. “What is this?”

  “I told you. My loot.” He chuckled, then reached in for a chip from the Moreau casino. “When I was a kid, I used to play pirate on the beach. I’d spend my days searching for treasure, and that’s pretty much what I came up with.”

  “Impressive.”

  He chuckled. “Maybe. At any rate, when I was ten, I had a fight with my dad about not being serious enough about my future. I took my moped and headed off, stewing in my own juices. That’s when I found this place. I hid the chest behind that stone and never looked back.”

  “You’re serious?” She couldn’t believe that he’d pulled out his childhood treasure for her to see.

  “Dead serious. I was actually wondering if it would even still be there.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered, touched and a bit distressed to discover that her eyes were actually tearing up. What man had ever pulled her so intimately into his life? What man had ever wanted to?

  Because she couldn’t look at him without revealing the tears, she examined the box more closely. As she trailed her finger through the treasure she snagged a thin gold chain. She pulled it up, revealing a simple seashell hanging like a charm. “What’s this?”

  “I found the shell on a walk once. I liked the colors and the perfection.”

  “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  “Put it on.”

  And even though she knew she should protest, she found herself working the clasp. “Are you sure?”

  “It’s treasure fit for a queen,” he said. “And I really want you to have it.”

  She nodded, suddenly afraid that words would spoil the moment. She opened the clasp and handed it to him, then turned so that he could fasten it for her.

  The shell settled between her breasts, the simple necklace unlike anything that had adorned her body in centuries of wearing only the finest gems and the purest gold.

  But this . . . this really was treasure. More than that, it was a pact. She and Dante were joined now, by more than just sex.

  And instead of terrifying her, that realization filled her heart with joy and brought a smile to her lips. And when she turned to kiss him, she found that he was smiling, too.

  ‡

  Chapter Seven

  Dante spent the next few days doing everything he could to figure out who could possibly be trying to kill his father . . . and the next few nights doing everything he could to please Lucia. They laughed, dined, and strolled hand in hand through the city, exploring her elaborate retail opportunities, as well as her quiet, flower-lined streets. They even managed to work in a visit to the oceanographic institute, and he’d been thrilled that Lucia seemed as delighted by the aquariums as he was.

  But it was outside, on the stone balcony overlooking the sea, that her face really came alive. He reached out and stroked her cheek. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m happy,” she said, and he couldn’t help but laugh.

  “What?” she demanded, obviously offended.

  He kissed the tip of her nose. “You sound so surprised.”

  For just a moment, her face seemed all too serious. But then she smiled, the effect vanishing with the curve of her mouth. “Sorry. No. Not surprised. Just . . . happy.” She took his hand. “I like the way it feels.”

  “I’m glad. I like it, too. I’m sorry I’m not able to—” He cut himself off, feeling ridiculous for apologizing. After all, a man had to work. Still, most men were able to tell their girlfriends who they were and what they did. He still hadn’t even told Lucia his last name.

  Of course, she hadn’t told him hers, either. For that matter, he had no idea what she did during the day.

  “Maybe one day I can get away for a few hours,” he said. “We could have lunch.”

  “That would be great,” she said. “But you don’t have to do that for me. I’ve got plenty to keep me busy.”

  “Right.” He felt a pull of jealousy at the thought of whatever else she was doing. Or not jealousy so much as a longing. He simply wanted more. He wanted her 24/7. And it made him ache to know that wasn’t possible.

  Ironic, really. The man who’d waded into espionage and now made a living going after the bad guys couldn’t quite work up the courage to ask one beautiful woman if there was a future between them. It wasn’t the question he was afraid of, of course. It was the answer.

  And although his heart said the answer would make him happy, his head wasn’t quite willing to take the plunge.

  So he danced around it, offering instead tidbits of himself in an age-old system of barter-dating. Tell a bit about me, and I’ll learn a bit about you. So far, though, he was the one doing most of the talking. And, he had to admit, he hadn’t revealed all that much either.

  He took her hand, wondering if now was the time to put a stop to that, but she pulled him close. “Kiss me,” she whispered. “Kiss me here, with the wind in our hair and the sunset filling the sky.”

  How could he argue with a demand like that? He pulled her in close, and he kissed her. And sunset was all but forgotten. Time stopped, and there was nothing in the world but Dante and Lucia. No place but the one under their feet, and no reality but the two of them.

  “It is a nice view,” he said.

  “Shut up and take me back to the room.”

  Dante didn’t argue. After all, the view would still be there tomorrow. The woman . . . well, he was still working on that.

  Moreau Sur la Mer was only a short walk from the aquarium, and they took it leisurely, hand in hand, enjoying each other’s company despite the urgent desire pounding just under the surface.

  She broke the silence first, and Dante almost gasped when she asked him what he did back home in New York. When he answered, he was careful not to look at her too directly, because he was afraid of what he might see in her eyes. Did she truly want to know about him? Or was this small talk? A desperate way to keep her mind occupied and her hands off him? Lord knew he’d been thinking along the same lines, almost resorting to singing old childhood tunes in his head simply so he wouldn’t jump her and take her, right there in the street.

  For the next couple of blocks, he told her about how he
’d started the company with Thomas. About how they tried to help the parents of kidnapped children. He even told her about Megan Anders. “We still don’t know where she is. That’s the hardest part. When you want to do something, but your hands are tied.”

  “I know what you mean,” she said.

  “Do you?”

  “Not about saving children. Or even about saving people,” she added, with a laugh that seemed unduly self-mocking. “But I do understand about frustration. Of wanting to do one thing, but being forced to do something else entirely. Or nothing at all.”

  He cocked his head, trying to hear the story she wasn’t telling him, but it was no use. “What exactly do you do? You work with your father, right?” The question probably crossed some unspoken boundary, but he didn’t care. The truth was, he was falling in love with this woman. There. He’d let the thought out, and now there was no taking it back.

  He let the truth settle into his head, wondering why he should be surprised. True, he barely knew this woman. And, also true, he’d pretty much been smacked upside the head with emotion. But in a way that made perfect sense. After all, he’d fallen into the work he loved, why should it surprise him that he found the woman he loved the same way?

  The bottom line was that he did love her. And he wanted to know about her.

  And their rules be damned.

  Thank God she didn’t call him on it. Instead she just shrugged and looked a bit irritated. The expression wasn’t directed at him, though, but at some faraway paternity figure. He knew; he’d seen that expression reflected back at him at least a thousand times.

  “I guess you could say I’m his point person,” she said. “He has his fingers in more pies than you can count, but when he has a problem, I’m the gal he calls.”

  “I can see that,” he said. “You’re very competent.”

  He said it with a tease, but she took it seriously. “I’m good at what I do. I’m bored with it, though.”

  “Maybe you just need a break.”

  She shook her head. “No. I never really had a taste for the work, but I didn’t have options. And I was good at it. I got by simply by knowing I was so damn good.”

  “And now?”

  “I’m tired of it. And that means I’m not as good.” She drew in a breath. “I just don’t want the job anymore. That’s about all there is to it.”

  “So you’ve quit?”

  She shook her head. “It’s my father. It’s not that simple.”

  He nodded, because he understood. “But?”

  “But we’ve come to an understanding. There’s one final project in the works and then I’m cut loose.”

  “And what will you do then?”

  A lift of one beautiful shoulder. “I’ll stay in the family business.”

  “You sound like you don’t want the job.”

  “Sometimes I think I don’t know what I want.”

  “Then why take it?”

  “Honestly? Because this business defines me. Daddy’s company,” she said, putting an odd emphasis on the word. “What would I do if I didn’t do that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe—”

  She waved her hand. “It was a rhetorical question. Really. I’m just feeling contrite. Of course I want the job. Besides, how could I walk away, knowing it would piss off my sisters to have me step in to run the show?” She looked up at him, mischief in her eyes. “Do you have brothers or sisters?”

  He shook his head, and she waved a hand again, as if that explained everything.

  “I’m the oldest. I think I never quite got used to not being the only.”

  “If that’s the main reason you’re taking the job, you should just pack it in and come work for me.” He had no idea where that had come from, but he didn’t regret the proposition for a second. Especially not once he saw the warm light of interest in her eyes.

  “Do you mean that?”

  He considered denying it; after all, he had no idea what she did. But the words wouldn’t come. Instead, he uttered an emphatic, “Of course.”

  It was all fantasy, though, and it was best he remembered that. He might want a future with this woman, but right now, the future extended only into the night. Only into bed.

  That wasn’t enough for him.

  Right then, though, it would have to do.

  Once again, they were skipping a meal. But Lucia didn’t care. She was full up on Dante, and he on her. At the moment, she was tasting his sweetness, her teeth nibbling at his earlobe as she curled up, languid, against him, her body completely sated and happy.

  “You’re amazing,” he said, his voice low and soft with sex.

  “We’re amazing,” she said, and as she spoke, she realized that was true. Together, they seemed to be more than the sum of two individuals. He completed her, and she dared to think that she completed him.

  A shiver cut through her, and she squeezed her eyes shut. That was not the direction her thoughts needed to be going. Love and commitment were all well and good . . . just not for her. She had a different kind of life. She knew that. She’d accepted it centuries ago.

  And no matter how sad her reality might be, she was in the end a pragmatist. And no matter how appealing it might be to revel in the fantasy that she could chuck it all and go work with him . . . well, a girl had to live in the real world.

  “Hey,” he said, stroking her cheek. “Where are you?”

  “Right here,” she promised, pushing the mood aside. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

  To prove the point, she covered his mouth with hers, tasting his sweetness. Beneath her, she could feel the press of his erection, rock hard again despite having satisfied her so thoroughly only minutes before.

  She reached down and stroked it, her body tingling with emotion and need. He felt like velvet and steel. Most of all, he felt like hers.

  “I want you,” she said.

  “You’ve got me.”

  “Now.” And as if to prove it, she straddled him, then took him, demanding with her body that he never leave her, and that she never leave him. It was a lie, of course, an illusion. But what a sweet, sweet fantasy.

  And as they rocked together, their bodies throbbing with heat and lust, she forgot who she was and what she had to do. And for those few minutes, it was good.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispered sleepily, his breath tickling her ear.

  Lucia snuggled closer. They’d made love all night, and she’d willingly lost herself over and over to the fantasy that her time with Dante was the reality, and everything else was somehow just a dream.

  It wasn’t, though, and in moments of clarity, she had to acknowledge that. After all, each day she’d been scoping out the hotel, planning the assassination. Her investigation had made it clear that her usual plan of getting close to a subject wasn’t going to work here. The time frame her father had given her had almost expired, and the man still wasn’t on the premises. That meant that she’d have to go the old-fashioned way, abandoning a syringe for the messier approach of a sniper’s bullet.

  Not a big deal, really. After all, she’d taken out many subjects that way.

  Still, there were risks. She lived in the mortal world, and murders were investigated.

  This time, however, that didn’t matter. Once the deed was done, she’d be abandoning her old life and taking over her father’s empire. Things like pesky police investigations would never bother her again (and, really, such things had only ever been an annoyance, not a true threat).

  She was only a day away from finally being done with this life, this career. And yet instead of being happy, she was drowning in melancholy.

  Beside her, Dante had fallen asleep, oblivious to her turmoil. But Lucia couldn’t sleep. Instead she lay there, her head on the pillow, Dante’s arm possessive across her chest. Between her fingers, she held the necklace, her thumb idly rubbing the ridges on the seashell.

  She wasn’t used to feeling so out of sorts. So lost. So . . . emotional.


  And the truth was, it wasn’t just Dante. These thoughts had started long ago. When she’d begun to lose her taste for her job. The kill and the hunt didn’t satisfy. And yet without them, what purpose did she have? What was she without that one thing to define her?

  She didn’t know, and the future seemed to loom before her like an abyss.

  She knew she wanted more; she just didn’t know what. And the warm fuzzy feelings she’d been having weren’t just limited to sex and cuddling. She’d felt a tug of something warm and compassionate when the baron had pulled out all those family photos . . . and completely decimated her ability to inject him with the poison.

  She was losing her edge, and that terrified her.

  Especially since she knew, deep down, that the man beside her could be her perfect mate. She loved him. No matter how terrifying it was to utter those words, even in her own head, she had to acknowledge the truth.

  She loved Dante. And once she was free of the yoke of her profession and had control over her destiny—and her father’s kingdom—perhaps she could find a way to make that love last.

  The thought satisfied her, and she snuggled closer, managing in the process to wake Dante up. “Hey,” he whispered, “you can’t sleep?”

  “Thinking,” she said, secretly happy he’d awakened. She loved talking with him. Loved holding him. Loved everything about him.

  “Lucia?”

  “Mmmm?”

  His gaze met hers, and she saw both strength and fear. “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I’m falling in love with you.”

  She gasped, and then she smiled, the slow sweetness spreading through her and lighting her from within. He loved her, too. In all her years had she ever heard anything so wonderful?

  She wanted to repeat the words back to him, but they were too foreign. She’d never said such things aloud—not in earnest, anyway. And so instead she tried to show him, cuddling closer, stroking his skin with soft touches, hoping that he could see in her eyes what she felt in her heart.

  Maybe soon she could work up the courage to speak, but until then she said the only thing that came into her head. In retrospect, she wasn’t sure where the question came from. Perhaps it was innocent; she simply wanted commiseration from someone else stuck working for their father. Or perhaps deep in her heart she knew that his love was too good to be true. And her reality was too bad to overcome.