Cherry Adair - T-flac 09 (2 page)

They’d done as he’d asked. Kept a low profile, stayed invisible, and watched over Serena. Doing what, he wasn’t sure.

“Where can I send you?” Each man told him where they wanted to be teleported, and Duncan sent them on their way. The sizable deposits in their bank accounts would come from his own pocket.

“What’cha do?” Brown asked curiously. “Send those yahoo Halves to observe a female tango?”

Worsethan a female tango. “Serena Brightman-Campbell.” The name said it all.

“Ah. The bimbo who married that multimillionaire old guy, Ian Campbell?” Chapman asked curiously.

“He died last year, didn’t he?”

“Yeah.” They’d been married all of two years. It had made Duncan’s flesh crawl seeing the front page pictures in all the newspapers. Thirty-year old Serena and that old fart arm in arm at her white—
white
for Christ’s sake!—wedding three years ago. There was only one reason a beautiful young woman married a guy like Campbell. Duncan figured not even the combo of Serena and a blue pill could get a rise out of the seventy-nine-year-old groom.

Still, they’d both been grinning like besotted fools in the pictures. Duncan knew that forcing himself to look at every one of the pictures was like holding his tongue to dry ice. Not too bright and a touch on the painful side.

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Serena Brightman-Campbell had gotten every last freaking dime when her doddering old husband had reached his expiration date. Word out there was that Campbell’s two sons—older than Serena by a good thirty years—were gunning for blood. Their pretty, young stepmother’s blood.
All
of it.

By calling out to him telepathically, Henry Morgan had made Serena’s problem
Duncan’s
problem.

“She’s an old friend. Her judgment has pissed off a few members of the Campbell family,” Duncan said, figuring discretion was the better part of valor. “I hired a few guys to watch her back.”

“You gonna send more Halves to keep an eye on your ‘friend,’ Edge?” Hart asked curiously. “I’ve seen pictures. She’s
gorgeous
. Shitloads of cash as well. Too plum an assignment for a Half. Beauty, bucks, and she’s a full wizard to boot. You’ve got some downtime coming. Maybe this requires your personal attention.”

“Not interested.” One freaking Curse on his head was enough. “Let’s finish this up so we can get out of here.

NEWYORKCITY

Serena teleported directly from the desert into her New York apartment bathroom. Dirty, tired, and still seriously pissed off, she turned on the shower, then yanked off her boots, and stripped off her sweat-stained, sand-encrusted shorts and tank top, kicking the pile aside. She still wasn’t sure if she’d been antsy all week because she’d somehow sensed she was being watched. Or if it was a presentiment of impending—
what
? She had no idea. Things at the Foundation had been copacetic. Much-needed money had poured in from the last fundraiser. Ian’s two adult sons had been ominously quiet.

Which was almost more disconcerting than when they were harassing her with their latest attempt to vacate the terms of Ian’s will. Maybe someday the greedy bastards will understand that their father had left everything to her for a reason. Ian had known long before he’d married Serena that his sons didn’t share his humanitarian leanings. And she would use the very last breath in her body to make sure Ian’s wishes were followed to the letter.

Had Duncan Edge somehow gotten involved with Paul and Hugh Campbell? It seemed doubtful. But, hell, anything was possible.

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This, however, wasn’t the hour to worry about it. Right now she was going to take a lovely hot shower, slather herself in scented lotion, and crawl between her one-thousand-thread-count sheets. After a good night’s sleep she’d look into Duncan’s intrusion. She shivered just thinking about Duncan joining forces with Ian’s greed-driven sons. Hell, she shivered just thinking about Duncan period.

She gave herself a shake, enjoying the glide of her long hair down her bare back. Tonight was for her.

Used to extreme temperatures in the places she visited for the Foundation, weather barely phased Serena. Hot or cold, it was a given that each location she and her team visited would be poor and rural; she was used to sleeping on the ground wrapped in a blanket, used to not looking too closely at what she was eating, used to primitive facilities—assuming there were any facilities at all. Which was why she relished her infrequent visits home. She could hike the jungles with the best of them, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a girl who appreciated the indulgence and sanctuary of her perfectly appointed penthouse.

Like the rest of the apartment, her bathroom was spacious, and opulently luxurious. Creamy, peach-veined marble, twenty-four carat gold fixtures, and plush carpeting the color of ripe apricots. They were her favorite colors. But knowing exactly what she loved was just one of the many things her husband, Ian, had been good at. He’d spoiled her, and loved her, and known her, sometimes better than she knew herself.

Her heart squeezed painfully. God she missed him. Missed his dry sense of humor. Missed the love he’d lavished unstintingly on her. Missed his council and his wisdom.

The fact that he’d given her almost everything her heart could desire, and countless things she hadn’t even known she’d needed or wanted, was immaterial. Those had only been
things
.

She missed him every day. And at night, when she lay in their vast empty bed, she missed the comfort of his arms around her.

Neither of them had cared what people said. Their world was complete. They’d had each other, and they’d had the Foundation. And knowing intellectually that her husband would die decades before she did, hadn’t softened the heart-wrenching emotional blow when he’d closed his eyes that night a year ago and never woken up. How stupid to think that just because she’d anticipated being a widow, Ian’s death wouldn’t have a devastating emotional impact on her.

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Their luxurious home wasn’t home anymore. The apartment, which overlooked Central Park, was much too big for just her. She’d sell it eventually. Find something smaller. But not now. It was too soon. Too complicated. Too painful.

Ian would have known how to deal with Duncan. Henry, too would know what needed to be done.

She couldn’t even think about Henry lying in a hospital bed, so pale and lifeless. Did everyone she love have to die? “Oh, for goodness’ sake. Get a grip. Stop being so damned melodramatic!” she told herself out loud. “
Henry’s
not dead.” As for Duncan Edge—“Damn that interfering son of a bitch. What is he up to?”

The mirror over the sink bounced against the wall and three bottles of scented lotion on the counter skittered across the marble in response to her inner turmoil. Closing her eyes, she willed herself calm, forcibly reigning in her temper. Only Duncan Edge had this infuriating affect on her telekinetic skills.

Another annoying thing she could lay at his door. His
revolving door.

Playboy jerk.

The last bottle fell to the floor. Damn, damn!
That’s
what he did to her. Made her curse
and
lose her temper. She’d always had a problem containing her telekinetic power, Duncan made that control snap like no one else. And even after all these years, all her hard work to channel the power constructively, just the
thought
of him made it go haywire.

It hadn’t changed a bit, from fourth grade all the way to twelfth. Serena scratched an insect bite on her arm as the large bathroom started filling with steam. The mirror stopped moving as she regained control of her temper.

Duncan had always mocked her lack of emotional control.

Her temper was
perfectly
controlled, thank you very much. Yanking off the scrunchy holding back her hair too fast, she swore as she pulled long strands of hair out with it. The large antique mirror started dancing against the wall, and her favorite perfume bottle crashed to the floor filling the room with the fragrance of jasmine.

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Did Edge have
more
than three of his minions watching her? It was pure fluke that she’d managed to catch the men at all. They’d been Halves. Annoying of Duncan, but clever since she hadn’t sensed the presence of the half-breeds. She’d never have known they were there if they hadn’t been so careless.

The Halves hadn’t bothered to check before levitating food and water to their hiding spot behind a sand dune.

She opened the wide, clear glass shower door and stepped inside the enormous steam filled stall. The water was hot and plentiful. Bliss. Lord, she needed this, she thought with a happy sigh. Her parched skin almost sucked up the liquid before she could soap up. It had been an unofficial visit to Mongolia.

Unofficial
meaning she’d telepored in and out instead of using the Foundation’s private plane.

Her team there was doing a terrific job as always. The two-room school house/medical center was almost ready for occupancy. The village was already using the basic latrines they’d built for them, and the people had enough food, medicine, and livestock to sustain them until the new cattle bred, and the newly planted crops came in.

She was a little embarrassed and a lot irritated that she’d dispatched Duncan’s men back to him with more force than necessary. It wasn’t their fault that she had a grudge against their boss. Still, none of Edge’s men had cooperated with her when she’d demanded to know what they were doing in a small village on the outskirts of nowhere Mongolia.

Had they even
known
why their hellish boss had sent them to the Gobi to spy on her? Probably not.

Duncan liked to play things close to the chest.

She hadn’t spoken to him in five years, seven months and three days. Not that she was counting, she thought with irritation as she reached for the soap. It flew off the soap dish, missed her shoulder by an inch and thunked hard into the glass door before shooting upward to hit the ceiling. The scented bar skimmed the marble tile, and crashed down again, hitting the shower head and breaking in half.

“Oh, for—” She made a grab for the long handled back scrubber as it flew around the inside of the stall in counterpoint to the soap.

Deep breath. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Breathe out.

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She caught the soap and the back scrubber’s handle before they hit her. She hadn’t lost her temper in years. Five years, seven months and three days to be exact.

What possible reason could he have for sending people to spy on her?
None
. Their paths had no reason to cross. They didn’t stay in touch, they rarely saw each other. They’d had an adversarial, highly competitive “relationship” for want of a better word, in wizard school. These days they occasionally bumped into each other at some fundraiser or charity event.

Pouring a generous blob of fragrant shampoo into her palm, Serena started washing her hair. It was long and thick and she rarely wore it down. Wearing her hair pinned up in a classic, if old-fashioned, chignon suited her perfectly.

Duncan preferred cool blondes.

She’d spotted him with a gorgeous Nordic model at the Met a few months ago, but he hadn’t seen her, and she hadn’t gone over to say hi. She remembered how damned drop-dead gorgeous he’d looked in a stark black tux, his dark hair curling against his collar, that annoying single dimple in his cheek flashing as he spoke intimately to his companion.

It hadn’t been her fault that an urn had toppled to the floor, or that a pile of programs had gone flying like projectiles all over the lobby. Could have been a gust of wind from an open door. Or not. Serena dug her fingers into her scalp and scrubbed her—

She felt a sudden tingle, and blinked. “Holy shit!”

She’d been teleported from her lovely hot shower to a chilly, ultra-modern kitchen. She knew only one man who’d have a stark black and silver kitchen. One man rude enough, and confident enough, to do this without permission.

“Hello, Serena.” Duncan’s translucent blue eyes scanned her naked, dripping body. “You’ve lost some weight. Been working out?”

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“Know what I want more than my next breath?”

Heather shook her head as Caleb leaned in, close enough for his breath to stir her hair. “To kiss you.”

Her mouth parted softly. Her pulse leapt at the base of her throat, and her pupils flared in a show of nerves and excitement. “Are—” She swallowed hard, then licked her bottom lip. “Are you asking permission?”

He shook his head. “A kiss loses the lure of spontaneity if one has to ask.”

“Are you trying to lure me, Caleb Edge?”

“Not lure. Seduce.”

Skimming his fingers along the curve of her jaw he watched her eyes darken to aged whiskey with anticipation. She dragged in a ragged breath.

Helpless to prevent it, good intentions be damned, Caleb’s vision blurred as his mouth touched hers.

Not giving her time to think.

Soft and unthreatening, he brushed his mouth back and forth until her lips parted on a sigh. His blood pooled in his groin as the slick heat of her tongue came to greet him. She tasted amazing, and her