Page 24

CHAPTER 24

Dante grabbed a pillow off the bed and handed it to Maarja, who looked at it and him in alarm. Shrugging out of his jacket, he tossed it around her shoulders and pushed her ahead of him toward the front door.

They were escaping.

She fought, distracted from her thought of some kind of absurd, primitive, life-changing marriage ceremony to the here and now. “You can’t let them take my house!”

“What? Why?” He glanced around.

She did, too.

It was small and old, dated in its plaster walls and high ceilings and all the accoutrements that marked it as a late 1930s construction. But—“This is my house. My home. The first place that is mine. You can’t let them burn it, or bomb it, or whatever you think they’re going to do.”

He urged her onto the front porch.

She set her heels and turned to him.

He had his phone out, talking to somebody. “Protect the Gothic house. If anything happens to it, I’ll hold you responsible. Yes. Untouched. Make it so.”

She thought about objecting to the idea that one person in Dante’s organization would now extend their dark wings over her home, but…she loved this place where her heart beat in warmth and safety, this home where she relaxed in wooly socks and listened to the storms off the Pacific, where her past was just that, the past, and cast no shadows.

He held his phone. “Walk to the sidewalk. Take a right. Step into the shadows of the trees. Stay there.” He directed her every movement.

She did. Hit the concrete and headed right. What kind of dumbass wouldn’t? He had the whole thing figured out, and she figured he wasn’t going to marry her and kill her in the same night. If he wanted to off her, he’d have done it a long time ago.

Behind her, Nate jumped the limo’s hood—that man was scary athletic—and slid into the driver’s seat. The motor purred and the vehicle smoothed forward.

Where the shadows deepened, she stopped. Dante caught her from behind. She didn’t startle; she knew it was him. “Give me your phone,” he instructed.

She fumbled it out of her pocket and placed it in his palm.

He took the pillow out of her arms and handed it and the phone off to…someone who lurked there. A woman, dressed like her in a pink T-shirt and shorts.

So creepy.

And a man, dressed like Dante in his suit, white shirt, and loosened tie.

The female handed over a blue hoodie.

Dante whipped his jacket off Maarja’s shoulders and tossed it over her shoulders. The male shrugged out of his jean bomber jacket, gave it to Dante, and took his phone.

To the casual eye, the impersonators resembled Dante and Maarja. They stepped forward into the light cast by the streetlamp.

Nate stopped the limo, hurried around, and opened the back passenger door.

From the porch across the street, Mr. Cummings called, “Nice ride, Maarja!”

The female gave a wave of acknowledgment. Flinging the pillow into the car, she leaned in and was swallowed by luxury. The male followed, Nate closed the door, returned to the driver’s seat, and the car sped away.

“Perfect,” Dante breathed, and shoved Maarja farther off the walk into the darkness. He helped her into the hoodie, pulled on the jacket, removed his tie, and stuck it into his pocket. He rumpled his hair into a frenzied mess, pulled something from the jacket pocket—lipstick?—and with his finger smeared some around his mouth, then around hers. This was, she realized, an elaborate charade to fool…them. Him. Her. Whoever had started this.

From farther up the road, another car, a black sedan, started its motor and cruised after the limo.

For the longest three minutes of her life, Dante held her in place, watching, waiting… “That should be enough,” he said in her ear. He twitched the hood to cover her distinctive hair and flung an arm around her shoulders. “Let’s start walking. Up the hill. To the Live Oak.”

The Live Oak Restaurant and Inn, the five-star restaurant in this one-horse town, with luxurious suites taken by celebrities who wanted privacy and mostly got it.

“Of course. The best dinner on Big Sur.” She walked, wandered, really, scrunched up against him. He stopped her every few minutes to hug her, kiss her, and always his focus was on their surroundings. These embraces held no emotion, no passion; they were merely camouflage that gave the impression of nonchalance while Dante took the time to survey the street around them.

“A lot of people are looking out windows at us,” he commented.

“It’s a village. Not much to do on a Tuesday but watch the tourists suck lips.”

“They don’t recognize you?”

“I’d say not, or there would be some catcalls.”

“Good. That’s good.” He increased their pace. “Here’s the house I rented. We can get in a little bit more of a hurry now.”

“The house? I thought you said the Live Oak…”

“We’ll go in the front door, turn on the light, cast some interesting shadows on the blinds, turn off the lights, leave. I chose this house for the side door. If they’re watching—” whoever they were “—they’ll probably miss that one. Rich people don’t know much about small old houses and how they’re constructed.”

“And they don’t yet realize you had this planned down to the nth degree.” She didn’t know what she thought about that. His security measures put an end to her turmoil about his primitive wedding ceremony—no, not primitive, phony —and flung her into another set of confused emotions. Worry. Anger. That niggling discomfort that she’d been constantly observed while unaware. More anger.

“Precautions are necessary for our continued good health, and in this case, elaborate precautions are in order.” He spoke in an instructive tone, like he was teaching her what she needed to know in the future.

Which led her back to the anxiety about the wedding ceremony and what he expected was going to happen with them in between what he’d already mentioned happening against the wall and, she supposed, on the bed and in the shower again and back on the bed and, if her friends were to be believed, on a trapeze while using Crisco shortening.

Meanwhile, Dante ushered her inside the tiny house, turned on the lights, lowered the blinds, made sure they were positioned correctly to cast silhouettes, and pulled her close, body to body.

He was not as focused on their safety as she thought.

Or he was really good at multitasking. Because that was a big boner he tucked against her.

In a hushed tone that sounded wickedly tempting, he said, “If the neighbors are watching anyway, we might as well give them a passion to aim for.” Bending her over his arm until she threw her arms around him to keep her balance, he kissed her in light dry brushes that both confused and enticed her. His warm breath smelled dark, like black licorice and bitter chocolate fudge. His tongue, when he slid it across the seam of her lips, made her jump. He shushed her, clutched her waist more firmly, cradled her head, and kissed her with such depraved skill she floundered under the breaking wave of too much : too much heat, too much craving, too much Dante.

When he began a slow retreat, she followed, trying to entice him back to her, back to the magnificent hunger between them, but he was inexorable, and when she stood erect and opened her eyes, she found she held his head between her palms. Snatching her hands away, she stepped back…and he let her. She retreated. He moved to the lamp and the click as he darkened the room sounded loud and rude.

“There,” he said softly.

There what? There, he’d fooled them , whoever they were? There, he made her wet and frustrated? There, the neighbors were grabbing for their vibrators and their roommates?

He caught her hand and tugged her toward the short hallway between the living room and the bedroom. He stopped in the dark. “Here’s the bathroom if you need to use it.”

“Thanks.” She went in, did not slam the door, flicked on the light, and peed. The man really knew how to knock the lust right out of her. She’d driven home, found the bottle first thing, and never again thought of her bladder. Until now, when he pointed it out, like a big ol’ fat nasty uncouth rude boy who should mind his own genitalia.

She came out, he went in—apparently he was minding his own genitalia—and she realized this pause, and the normalcy of having the bathroom light go on and off, would portray the couple in this house as doing the natural thing proceeding bedroom activity. They , if they were still out there, would move on rather than continuing to watch.

Damn it. She was beginning to think like Dante, like an Arundel.

Going into the bedroom, she turned the lamp on low, tossed the covers down, and straightened the sheets, knowing her silhouette was doing its part to create the right scenario. When he appeared in the doorway, he said, “Very good.” Walking over, he turned the lamp back off and grasped her wrist. “Five minutes, and we’ll move.”

She nodded. He couldn’t see her, but she was still feeling hot and bothered and not all that cooperative.

He spoke, maybe to fill the silence, maybe so that anyone listening at the door would hear him murmuring in a slow deep, seductive voice. “I would kiss you more, for the pleasure of you in my arms, answering me, seducing me—”

She gave an incoherent grumble. Seducing him, indeed.

“But if I kissed you, I wouldn’t be able to stop. Not again.”

Her irritation eased. Maybe she wasn’t the only one helpless in this cycle of needing and wanting and mindless…lovemaking.

No. She wouldn’t call it that. That would indicate intimacy, engaged emotions, a relationship. Better to call it fucking, and she told herself one time did not mean mindless fucking.

Her other self pointed out, logically and with great precision, that thinking about the fucking every night while she was alone in her bed constituted mindless…something. Mindless horniness. Mindless need. Wanting to touch herself now, in the dark, while he stood beside her…that constituted lust.

She was not married to him. She was tagging along so she didn’t get killed because of that damned… “What happened to the bottle?”

“Not to worry, I have it,” he assured her. “Let’s go out the side door. It’s right here.”

She grabbed his lapel. “Wait. A month ago you hated me. I was the villain. I had stolen la Bouteille de Flamme . I’d killed your father. My sister’s blood meant nothing. You judged me. Why now? You make some kind of phony marriage to me? You believed me when I said someone came into my house and put the bottle in my drawer? Why? Why now?” She was so angry. The bastard. The Arundel. Dante. Always the same. Injustice and death and…and fucking.

And she was the one being fucked. A pretend marriage. Damn him all to hell.

“You could have been the one who they sent to kill me,” he said. “You could have been the one who planned the theft of la Flamme . You’re smart enough. You’re the apex of the Daire family. You could own the world. I knew it. But I didn’t believe it.”

“Because I was a virgin.”

“Because you risked your life to save my mother!” He took a long breath. “I made you memorize the number. The last thing I did was make you repeat it. What does that mean to you?”

“It means you’re hedging your bets.”

“I only bet on sure things.” He put his face close to hers. “You. Need to. Remember. That.”