Covenant (Paris Mob Book 1) (17 page)

“
D
id you hear from Julien
?” Charlotte asked from the kitchen.

She was stirring a pot of tomato sauce, adjusting the seasonings as Christophe worked on his laptop at the tiny dining room table.

“I did.”

“Was he able to get the email address?” she asked, turning off the heat on the sauce.

“He was.”

He crossed the room and stood behind her, pulling her against him. Lifting her hair, he touched his lips to her neck. She sighed as a shiver ran up her spine, her nipples already hard despite the fact that they’d spent two hours making love while the ocean rushed onto the beach below the house. He’d taken her ferociously, making her come again and again before he’d finally released himself into her. She’d given up thinking she’d ever have enough of him. He would always leave her wanting more.

She’d accepted that now.

They’d made a trip into town for supplies, and Charlotte had uncorked the wine, letting it breathe while she cooked, happy and content to have Christophe in the little house she called home. She realized with surprise that she’d always met her dates at restaurants and bars, had always returned to the houses of the men she saw regularly. She’d never given any thought to why she hadn’t invited them to the cottage by the beach, but now she wondered if she’d been saving it.

If she’d been saving a part of herself.

Their intimate dinner was a glimpse of domesticity she’d only been witness to in other couples, and while she doubted life with Christophe would be quite so provincial, she was determined to enjoy it as long as it lasted. She hadn’t even told her mother she was home, and she wouldn’t return to work until they’d settled the issue of Randall Ayers and Christophe went home.

“We should eat before this gets cold,” she said. She didn’t want to think about the moment when he would leave her.

He turned her around in his arms and kissed her. “Will I get to look at you over dinner?”

She laughed. “Unless you’d like me to blindfold you.”

He grinned. "Maybe later."

This was a different Christophe, and she wondered if it was a product of being out of his usual environment, in a place that was unfamiliar to him, one in which he didn’t control every facet of life.

She didn’t know, but she liked it. Probably too much.

She dished their plates in the kitchen while he poured the wine, and they took everything to the tiny table on the balcony off the living room. The white lights strung through the trellis cast a soft glow over their meal, and she sighed contentedly as she took the first bite of pasta. It was one of the few things she knew how to make well — perfectly al dente with a simple sauce of fresh tomatoes sautéed with garlic and basil, oregano and red pepper and the slightest pinch of sugar.

“You didn’t tell me you could cook,” Christophe said after chewing his first bite.

“Because I can’t,” she laughed. “Not really.”

He shook his head. “You must be setting expectations low to impress me. It’s very good.”

“I’m glad you like it. It’s almost literally the only thing I can cook well.”

He raised his glass. “To one good meal then.”

She touched her glass to his. “One good meal.”

The wine was dry and earthy, with the slightest hint of spice. She should have known it would be good when Christophe picked it out. He was a man who seemed to know everything about everything.

“Did you already email Ayers?” she asked, twirling more pasta around her fork.

“As soon as I got the address.”

He’d been honest about the cyber lab he kept in Paris, and about the work they did there, not all of which was legal. She didn’t love the idea of hacking — she wouldn’t want anyone fishing around in her computer — but in this case it had been necessary. Randall Ayers was a bona fide celebrity; getting close to him would be virtually impossible without his permission. An email to his personal account was the best chance they had at securing a meeting with him.

“Do you think he’ll meet with us?” she asked.

“I don’t think he’ll have a choice.”

“What did you say in the email?”

He turned his wineglass in his fingers. “I told him that I’d been led to believe he might know something about an important piece of art, and that I would prefer to discuss the details with him directly rather than with the press.”

“You’re a smart man, Christophe Marchand.”

“You can tell me I’m smart when we’re allowed onto the Ayers property tomorrow,” he said.

She paused, glass almost to her lips. “Tomorrow?”

He nodded. “Apparently getting his physical address was easier than obtaining the email. I told him we would be around at noon.”

She set down her glass. “So he’ll either let us in or he won’t.”

“Yes.”

It meant that at this time tomorrow, it would all be over. Either Ayers would have a lead on the cross, in which case it would be time to call in the authorities, or he wouldn’t, in which case it would be time for Christophe to return to Paris. Time for Charlotte to go back to her real life.

“You look almost disappointed,” he said.

She smiled. “I am a little,” she admitted.

He studied her over the flickering candlelight. “Have you enjoyed our adventure?”

“Very much,” she said. “And you?”

“More than I could have imagined. And it’s not over yet.” He stood, left his napkin on the table, and held out his hand. “We still have the beach.”

T
hey reached
the sand using the winding pathway down from the house. The beach was empty and mostly dark, occasional spots of sand lit by the lights spaced every twenty-five feet on the road above. Christophe had grabbed the old afghan off the back of the sofa on their way out the door, and he wrapped it around her shoulders, then took her hand.

She breathed in the salty air as they walked and felt immediately calmer. The beach always did that for her — put things in perspective, reminded her that her problems were small in the grand scheme of things. The rhythm of the waves making their way onto the beach was proof that life would continue. It would continue whether or not they found the cross. Whether or not she was ever able to banish the loneliness she now realized she wore like a second skin.

It would even continue when Christophe left.

Then she would walk the beach and remember this moment when her hand was in his. When she could almost make herself believe he belonged to her.

“I see why you live with the bad art,” he said.

She laughed, then nudged his shoulder with her own. “I knew you hated it.”

He hesitated, and she thought he would try to soften his criticism. “It’s truly atrocious.”

She laughed harder, tears stinging her eyes. “It really is.”

He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “I understand, though,” he said. “Truly. There is no greater master than nature.”

She smiled up at him.

“Let’s sit,” he said.

He positioned himself on the sand and pulled her down in front of him. She nestled herself between his legs, and he wrapped the blanket around both of them so that she was locked in a cocoon of warmth. She leaned back against him and closed her eyes, letting herself savor the moment, feel her breath, hear the waves making their way onshore before rushing back out to sea.

“Do you like it here?” he asked.

“I do,” she said.

“I don’t mean here on the beach,” he said. “I mean in California.”

She thought about it. “It’s difficult for me to separate my feelings about my mother from Los Angeles. In some ways, it’s home. In others, New York feels like home. Or the home of my youth anyway.”

“And Paris?”

“It’s the home of my father, the only place I ever felt close to him. I sense him in every old building, every piece of furniture, every painting hanging in the Louvre.”

“If California is your mother’s home, New York is the home of your youth, and Paris is your father’s home, where is your home?” he asked.

She looked out over the blackness of the water, her eyes pulled to the horizon she couldn’t see. “I suppose I don’t really have one.”

She felt the truth of it, its full weight, for the first time.

He was silent for a long moment. “I’m not sure I do either.”

She twisted a little to look up at him. He was gazing out over the water, like he was looking for the same thing she’d been searching for only moments before.

“What about Paris? And Corsica?”

“I thought Corsica was home once,” he said.

“And now?” she asked.

“Now I think no place will be home without you.”

Her breath caught in her throat. She placed a hand on his cheek, looked up into the beautiful angles of his face, the aristocratic cheekbones, the full lips. “What are you saying?”

“I”m saying I don’t want to be without you. That somehow you’ve come to feel like home. That I want to take care of you.”

He looked down at her, pulled her closer. And it was only then, when she saw his eyes, that she knew he was speaking the truth. There was pain there, and a naked kind of fear she had never seen in him.

She turned in his arms, cradled his face in her hands. “What does this mean?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Your work is here. Your mother. I wouldn’t ask you to leave it all behind. But…”

She looked into his eyes. “But?”

“I can’t imagine walking out of your life,” he said. “Or letting you walk out of mine.”

She nestled closer to him, burying her smile against his chest. She hadn’t imagined it after all; there was something between them. Something rare and important.

Something worth saving.

The how of it all was still in question. She didn’t have the answer. Not yet. But they would find one.

She took a deep breath. “We’ll figure it out.”

He tightened his arms round her. “Yes.”

C
hristophe looked
out over the water as he drank his coffee. Charlotte was in the shower, and while he’d been tempted to join her — the perfection of her naked body was quickly becoming his greatest vice — he had wanted a few moments alone before they made their way to Randall Ayers’ house.

He scanned the beach, now dotted with people strolling and sunbathing, and thought of the night before. Perhaps he should have offered her a more extravagant declaration of his love. Something grand and bold.

He’d been terrified in the moment — the first time he remembered being truly frightened since his mother’s death. She’d been so serene during their affair, skirting the question of its meaning, its importance, in a way rarely demonstrated by women. In his previous experience, it was women who liked to define things. Who liked to know what it all meant. Charlotte’s poker face had thrown him, and he hadn’t been entirely sure of her response until after he’d said the words.

For a moment, her body had gone entirely still in his arms. He’d panicked, wondering if this would be his karma — to be denied the one thing, the one person, he wanted above all others.

Then she’d touched his face, and he’d seen everything in her eyes. All the feelings that had been swirling in him in the two weeks since she’d walked into his life. All the vulnerability and fear that had been stalking him as he fell in love with her.

Of course, he didn’t tell her that he loved her. Not yet. He was still learning how to love a woman. How to be open and share his feelings, a notion completely foreign to him. But he would. And he would do better next time. Tell her he loved her in a romantic place with all the right words.

He’d thought sharing his feelings with her would bring relief. That he would stop being afraid. He’d taken her to bed, made love to her as the wind blew back the curtains on the windows, the surf roaring below. But when he woke up with her in his arms, he’d been startled to realize he was more afraid than ever.

She would be his. And that meant he suddenly had everything to lose.

He’d contemplated every possibility as she breathed softly against his chest. He could send her back to Paris, have her guarded by Julien until he returned. He could wait for Julien to come to L.A., have him stay with her while Christophe went alone to interview Ayers.

But he knew she wouldn’t agree to any of it. They’d come this far together, and he knew enough about her to know she would bristle at the idea of being kept under lock and key. The mystery of the cross belonged to her too. Randall Ayers was an aging actor with a relatively high profile. He wasn’t going to try anything during the visit, and that was assuming he even let them in when they arrived. And there was the added improbability of a Hollywood actor being in possession of a priceless artifact — yet another reason Christophe expected the meeting to be perfunctory.

They would follow this last clue. Put an end to the investigation that he had begun for the simple purpose of learning more about Charlotte Duval. That’s how she’d started: as a distraction. A novelty.

But she’d become everything.

He was anxious to be done with it. For once, he was looking to the future.

S
he looked
out the window as they drove to Bel Air, taking in the familiar houses surrounded by iron gates. She knew it well, both from her years at school there and from the many artists and collectors who lived in the prestigious enclave of Los Angeles. All that time she’d never had any idea that Randall Ayers lived in the neighborhood, or that he would come to play such an important part in a mystery like the one surrounding Tucker’s Cross.

Of course, there was no proof that he had the cross. Peter Montoya had been anxious to be rid of them in Boston. He could have thrown them Ayers’ name as a diversion. And even if he had been insinuating that Ayers knew something about the cross, it didn’t mean the actor had ever had it in his possession, or that he had it now.

She looked over at Christophe and felt the now-familiar flutter of desire in her stomach. Had it been a dream? Had he really said he wanted to be with her? That he wanted to find a way to make it work between them?

He glanced over at her, smiled, then picked up her hand and kissed it. Then there was no doubt that it had been real. The affection in his eyes was too vivid, too raw, and she had a sudden flash of the fear in his eyes when he’d confessed his feelings for her.

He’d been afraid she didn’t feel the same way.

It was almost impossible to believe. She’d felt such a strong attraction to him since the moment they’d met, and her growing affection for him, born out of their long conversations in Vienna and Boston, had felt so obvious to her.

But somehow he hadn’t known.

The knowledge wove itself together with all the other things she’d learned about him, creating a tender spot in her heart that hurt a little when she breathed. They were like survivors of a shipwreck, adrift on the sea of their loneliness, shocked to find another soul in the water.

“That’s it,” Christophe said, driving slowly past a Tudor style house set back from the road, surrounded by a tall wrought iron fence. He kept driving. “I’m going to park on another street, just in case.”

She didn’t ask him to clarify. She assumed the “just in case” was a product of his business acumen. That he’d had to make these kinds of contingencies countless times in the past. It brought a strange kind of security — the knowledge that she was safe because she was with someone more practiced in danger, in violence, than anyone else.

He pulled up next to the curb and turned off the car. When he turned toward her, she saw that he had a gun strapped under his jacket, exactly like the men in his foyer in Paris.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

She nodded.

He hesitated. “You could wait here, you know. I’m sure I won’t be long.”

She looked at him with surprise. “Why on earth would I do that?”

He shrugged. “It might be a little uncomfortable given the way we got ahold of Ayers’ email address.”

She smiled. “And the threat you made about the press?”

He leaned in, kissed her quickly on the lips. “That, too.”

“No way,” she said. “We started this together. We end it together.”

His nod was slow. He looked into her eyes a moment longer before reaching for the door with a sigh.

They made their way around the block. All of the houses were set back from the road, most of them prominently displaying security decals warning intruders that the property was protected. The Ayers estate would be no different, and she had the unwelcome image of them being escorted from the property by security guards. Thank god Ayers had relinquished some of his celebrity to a new generation of social media savvy performers; the paparazzi would likely be absent from this quiet street.

She looked up at Christophe. “Do you think he’ll let us in?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It seems risky not to talk to us. Even if he has nothing to do with the cross, I can’t imagine he’d like the press asking about it, digging around in his affairs.”

They came to the address given to them by Julien. There were two stone pillars outside the property, the house number emblazoned on a bronze plaque. A fifteen foot gate with pointed spires spanned the space between the two pillars, a keypad mounted on one side. She looked up and saw a security camera moving to take in their faces.

Christophe pressed the call button.

“Yes.” The voice was indistinct through the intercom.

“We’re here to see Randall Ayers,” Christophe said. “He should be expecting us.”

There was a brief moment of silence. Charlotte wondered if they would be turned away after all, or maybe even ignored until they retreated on their own. But then a buzz sounded from inside the key pad, and the gates swung slowly open.

They walked through it. Charlotte turned to watch it close behind them. The driveway was made up of brick pavers, and they followed it toward the imposing house at the center of the property.

It was three stories tall, with the peaked roof, tall windows, and wood trim that was a hallmark of the Tudor Revival style. The grounds were lush and well manicured, English-style gardens around the house giving way to an immaculately maintained lawn surrounding the property.

She tried to quell her nervousness as they approached the enormous front door. Christophe had barely finished knocking when it swung open to reveal a woman in a blue dress covered with an immaculate apron.

“Hello,” Christophe said. “We’re here to see Mr. Ayers.”

She opened the door wider, gestured for them to come in. She didn’t speak a word, but she motioned for them to follow her down a long central hall with dark tile. Charlotte closed the door and started after her next to Christophe.

The house was as silent as a tomb. She caught glimpses of the other rooms as they continued toward the back of the house: large high-ceilinged rooms decorated with comfortable oversized furniture, the floors covered with thick rugs that were cozy but obviously not antique.

The woman hesitated at the final door on the right, then stepped over the threshold. They followed her through the doorway, and Charlotte realized their mistake almost immediately.

Christophe stepped in front of her, shielding her body with his own before she could see the threat that lay beyond him. She strained to see around his broad shoulders and caught sight of a man grabbing hold of the woman who had opened the door. He zip-tied her hands and opened the door to something that looked like a closet, then shoved her in. She heard a thump and cry from inside, but a moment later, Christophe spoke, and all the breath seemed to leave her body.

“Bruno. What a surprise.”