Dangerous to Know (4 page)

“We'll find her, Doc.”

“Yes, we will. All right, here's how I think we should—”

He broke off and dug in his pocket. Maggie's pulse leapt in anticipation as he pulled out his gold cigarette case. With the information control would provide, they could kick into action.

“Doc, here. Go ahead, Cyrene.”

For a second or two, the only sounds disturbing the sunny stillness of the sitting room were the wash of the waves on the beach across the street and the hum of traffic that drifted in through the open balcony doors. Then Claire Huffacker's calm voice filled the air.

“There are more Rolls-Royces per capita in Cannes than in any other city on earth…” she began.

“Why doesn't that surprise me?” Maggie murmured, glancing at the priceless antiques scattered about the sitting room.

“But I found two that fit your description. One belongs to a reclusive film star, Victor Swanset. He's an English expatriate who owns a villa on avenue Fiesole, in La Californie.”

From her intelligence briefings prior to this mission, Maggie knew La Californie was an exclusive residential area that clung
to the rugged hills above Cannes. According to the intel briefer, its grandiose Edwardian villas had once been home to a sparkling mix of European royalty and distinguished diplomats and their bevies of mistresses. They sat tucked away among the fragrant stands of pine and eucalyptus trees, and the only access to them was via a steep, winding mountain road.

“No one has seen Victor Swanset in public for over a decade,” Claire continued. “My sources indicate he's an anonymous, driving force behind the Cannes Film Festival. Supposedly he's donated millions to preserve his art. I don't have anything else on him right now, except…”

“What?”

“The computer cross-referenced a missing-persons report with Swanset's name listed as a contact. The report was filed about a year ago, on a cook who disappeared from his villa. I'm following up on that now.”

“What about the owner of the other Rolls?” Maggie asked.

“It checks to a French banker. Gabriel Adrenne. He was in Tokyo at an International Monetary Fund conference until two days ago. He supposedly stopped over in Cannes for a few days' rest before flying back to Paris.”

Claire paused, then added softly, “I've verified that he was also in Cannes last month, when the prototype fiber optics technology was smuggled out of the States.”

Maggie and Doc exchanged swift looks.

“Do you have a fix on his location here?” Doc growled.

“Nothing firm. He keeps a condominium in one of the beach-front palaces, but isn't using it on this trip. His staff doesn't have a clue why. From what I've been able to gather on him so far, he's a Donald Trump type. Early forties. Wildly extravagant. Overextended financially. Enjoys the finer things in life, including a string of very expensive ex-wives and mistresses, but is having trouble paying for them. I'll have more for you when I get his health and social history over IIN.”

“Thanks, Cyrene,” Doc replied, then quickly signed off. “Get changed,” he told Maggie, his eyes a flat steel blue. “We're going hunting.”

She nodded, already on her way into the bedroom. Slamming the door behind her, she peeled off the halter and stuffed it into her purse. That little dot was going with her wherever she went.

Working frantically at the zipper of her red shorts, she hurried toward the ornate wardrobe that held Meredith's clothes. She had the shorts halfway down her hips when she heard a sharp pounding on the door to her suite.

Kicking off the clingy shorts, Maggie grabbed a pale lavender silk kimono from the wardrobe door and flung it on. She dug in her purse for her .22 and dashed out of the bedroom as another staccato rap sounded on the oak panel.

His weapon in his hand, David melted back into the shadows beside the huge nineteenth-century armoire that housed the suite's entertainment center.

“It's probably the boutique, delivering my purchases,” she told him softly.

“Could be,” he replied. “Or it could be one of Meredith Ames's customers, sent up by the accommodating concierge. Whoever it is, get rid of him. Fast!”

“Right.”

Tucking the .22 into a pocket of her kimono, Maggie pulled open the door.

If the individual standing in the corridor was a delivery boy, he'd forgotten his packages. If he was one of Meredith's customers, he was a precocious one. Small and wiry, with a shock of red hair and a splash of freckles across his thin nose, he couldn't have been more than ten or twelve years old.

To Maggie's considerable amusement, he gave her a cheeky grin and ran his eyes over her bare legs with a blatant masculine approval that was all French.

“Mademoiselle Ames?”

“Oui?”

“Bon.”
He turned and called out, to no one in particular that Maggie could see, “Your friend is at home,
mademoiselle.
You can come out now.”

Keeping a firm grip on the weapon in her pocket, Maggie leaned out the door and peered down the corridor. When a pile
of laundry in a wheeled hamper a few yards away began to heave, her eyes narrowed. Sheets and towels tumbled over its sides, and then a disheveled blond head poked its way out of the mound.

While Maggie gaped in astonishment, the street urchin went to help Paige Lawrence climb out of the laundry cart.

The woman looked as though she'd run a marathon—and finished dead last. Her hair straggled down her back in wet, tangled snarls. Her bright red jacket had disappeared, along with one of her shoes. The narrow gold bandeau covered only the center of her breasts, leaving the full curves above and below bare. Her shorts rode down in front and up in back as she clambered awkwardly over the side of the cart and clumped down the hall on one high-soled platform shoe.

“I'm sorry to bother you like this,” she murmured distractedly, “but I'm in something of a predicament.”

“So I see.”

Paige shoved her wet, tangled hair out of her eyes with one hand. “I fell into the bay and lost my purse, along with my passport and all my money.”

She'd lost a lot more than that, Maggie thought wildly. She couldn't even begin to anticipate Doc's reaction when he saw his sweet, demure former fiancée.

“Why don't you tell me about it inside?” she suggested faintly.

Paige flashed her a relieved smile. “Thank you. I was hoping I could count on you. This is all so embarrassing.”

When she limped awkwardly into the foyer, the cocky boy strolled in right behind her. Hooking both thumbs in the waistband of his rather scruffy-looking shorts, he gave the ornate sitting room a quick once-over and whispered softly.

“A palace,
mademoiselle,
” he commented in swift, idiomatic French. “You must do very well of a night.”

“I do all right,” Maggie returned dryly.

It didn't surprise her that this young tough had guessed Meredith's occupation with one sweeping glance. In fact, it wouldn't have surprised her to learn that he occasionally acted
as a middleman in negotiations for just the type of services Meredith offered. His thin, pinched face and shrewd, too-knowing eyes hinted at a life on the streets.

“May I borrow fifty francs?” Paige asked, wrapping her arms around her chest to ward off the cool, breezy air in the suite. “Just until I arrange to have my traveler's checks replaced? I promised to pay—”

She broke off, her mouth dropping, as a tall, broad-shouldered figure stepped out from beside the armoire.

Glancing from her to Doc and back again, Maggie couldn't tell who was the more thunderstruck.

“Paige?” he growled.

“David?” she squeaked.

A cheerful young voice broke the stark silence that followed. “Me, I am Henri. Someone will pay me fifty francs, yes?”

S
tunned, Paige stood unmoving.

Some distant corner of her mind registered the whisper of cool air that raised goose bumps on her damp skin. She heard the muted roar of the sea across the street. She tasted the tang of salt as she ran the tip of her tongue along suddenly dry lips.

“David?” she repeated weakly.

He didn't answer, except to stride forward and sweep her into his arms.

With a tiny sob, Paige lost herself in his solid, comforting warmth. Her fingers clutched at the scratchy wool of his jacket, and she strained against him for endless, wonderful moments. Then his hand tangled in her hair. He brought her head back and crushed her mouth with his. For once, he didn't control his emotions.

His rough kiss was all that she'd dreamed of. Hard. Searing. Scorching in its intensity.

And over too soon.

Far too soon.

Paige gasped an indistinct protest as he dragged his mouth
from hers and held her head steady in both hands, scrutinizing her face with narrowed eyes.

“Are you all right?”

Still dazed by the raw power of that kiss, she could only stare back at him. It took her a moment to realize that whatever he'd experienced in that brief, shattering moment, he'd already managed to bring it under control.

While her heart was thudding erratically in her chest, David showed only an icy calm.

While her lips ached for his touch, his were drawn into a thin, tight line.

“Are you all right?” he repeated, his eyes searching hers.

Still unable to speak, she pushed herself a little way out of his arms. Or tried to.

As she stumbled back, the narrow lamé band caught on David's tip clip. To her horror, the fabric dragged downward. She splayed one hand across her breasts and tugged frantically at the soggy band with the other.

David unsnared her and shrugged out of his jacket. “Here, take this.”

Her face flaming, Paige stood rigid as he dropped the worsted around her shoulders. She heard a stir behind her and remembered that there were others present. The heat in her face intensified even more.

She glanced behind her and caught the other woman's eyes. Friendliness shone in their green depths, and a carefully banked curiosity. Paige started to respond to the unspoken question there, and then noticed for the first time Meredith's short dressing gown. The pale lavender silk brushed the tops of her legs. Her very long and very bare legs.

The soaring combination of relief and joy that had swept through her when she saw David faltered.

Meredith moved forward, the silk swishing against her bare skin. “Why don't you bring her into the sitting room, Doc? So we can find out what happened?”

Doc?

The easy familiarity with which this woman addressed David
plummeted through Paige like a stone dropping into a well. Numbly she felt him take her elbow and steer her toward the huge, vaulted room.

Glancing down at the woman beside him, Doc struggled to bring his soaring relief and astonishment under control. His senses were still reeling from the vivid image of Paige standing before him, her green eyes huge in her pale face, wearing only a narrow strip of gold, a pair of red shorts that displayed a good portion of her firm, rounded rear cheeks, and one ridiculously high shoe. He gripped her arm in a tight hold, as if to reassure himself that this wet, unfamiliar creature was actually Paige.

They hadn't taken two steps when a high, piping voice stopped them.

“But first my fifty francs, no? Me, I have business I must attend to.”

Doc turned back, wrenching his attention away from his bedraggled, nearly naked fiancée to survey the boy. The youngster cocked his head and waited expectantly, his thumbs hooked in the waistband of his grubby shorts and a confident expression on his freckled face.

Malnourished, Doc noted in a swift mental list. Undersized for his age, which was about eleven or twelve. A faint scar on his chin that probably hadn't come from falling off a bike. Tough as shoe leather, if the cocky expression on his face was any indication.

“Fifty francs?” Doc asked. “For what?”

“For fishing
mademoiselle
out of the sea.”

At Doc's quick frown, the boy gave a little wave of one hand. “She wades ashore some distance from here, you understand, and I bring her to the hotel. Fifty francs is a small fee, no? For such a service?”

Reaching into his pocket, David withdrew his wallet and pulled out a hundred-franc note.
“Merci.”

To his surprise, a white-faced, trembling Paige pushed his hand away before he could pass the bill to the youth.

“No.”

Her voice wavered and almost broke on the single syllable.
His protective instincts soaring, David moved to take her into his arms again.

“No!” she repeated, backing away.

Sudden, swift fear curled in Doc's belly. Although she appeared unhurt and had walked into the suite unassisted, something must have happened to make her shy away from him like that. Exerting immense control, he remained still. “What is it? What's the matter?”

“Before I let you pay my debts for me, I think you'd better explain—” She swallowed and darted a quick look at Maggie's bare legs and scantily clad body. “I think you'd better explain what you're doing here, in this woman's suite.”

Cursing to himself, Doc realized that he'd made a tactical error. He, the precise, flawless engineer, who always thought problems through step by step before acting, who never made mistakes, had screwed up. Royally. He'd let his concern for Paige drive clear out of his mind the fact that she had no idea why he was here, in “Meredith Ames's” suite.

And he couldn't tell her.

He met Maggie's eyes in swift, silent communication and gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head, determined not to involve Paige in this any more than she already was. Still, the agent in him had to draw whatever she knew out of her.

“We'll talk about what I'm doing here later,” he said. “Right now, you need to tell me what happened.”

“No, I think we'd better talk about it now,” she insisted, squaring her shoulders under the gray wool suit coat.

Despite himself, Doc felt heat spear through his belly as her small movement threatened to dislodge the thin strip of gold once more.

Rigidly he controlled the urge to reach out and tuck the folds of his jacket across her front. He'd seen Paige in less than she now wore, he reminded himself. He'd caressed and kissed her soft flesh a number of times in the past year. Not as often as he'd wanted to, but he'd deliberately held himself back. He hadn't wanted to overwhelm her, to frighten her with the passion
he kept ruthlessly in check. She was so shy with him, so delicate in her responses.

Yet seeing her there, with that barbaric band around her breasts and her eyes flashing a challenge he'd never seen in them before, he had difficulty remembering that this was Paige. Sweet, shy Paige.

“I can't explain it,” he replied in an even tone. “Not now.”

Henri gave a small, derisive snort and lifted one red brow. “Me, I can.”

“Keep out of this, half-pint,” Maggie murmured, jerking at the back of his ragged, less-than-pristine navy sweater.

Doc ignored the two of them. “You'll just have to trust me,” he said quietly.

When she hesitated, her eyes searching his with desperate need, he smiled reassuringly.

“Come on, sweetheart, we'll sort this out later. Right now we need to talk about what happened.”

Ever afterward, Paige would wonder what might have happened if he hadn't used just that tone with her, as though he were speaking to a recalcitrant child.

If he hadn't assumed she would meekly comply with his soft but unmistakable order.

If she hadn't seen the swift, silent communication between David,
her
David, and this sophisticated, elegant…female.

It galled Paige no end that she'd actually liked Meredith! That she'd come to her for help after losing her passport and her money. That she hadn't wanted to contact David, because she hadn't been ready to face him yet.

She was ready now. Jerking her arm out of his hold, she lifted her chin defiantly.

“I'd like an explanation, David. Now.”

He blinked, looking as surprised as if a pet kitten had suddenly arched its back and dug its claws into his hand. Over her head, he sent Meredith a quick, puzzled look.

When she saw the exchange, hot, fierce jealousy seared through Paige. It was emotion she hadn't ever felt before where
David was concerned. In its wake came another, even more shattering emotion. Pain. Pure, unadulterated pain.

She'd been right.

In those moments perched high above Cannes, in that little turnout, when she slipped her engagement ring from her finger, she'd been right.

She wasn't woman enough for this man.

In her heart, she believed David,
her
David, had some logical explanation for being in this suite. In her soul, she knew he wasn't the kind of man to dally with one woman while he was engaged to another.

But that quick glance, that unspoken communication between the two of them, told Paige that David shared a special bond with Meredith Ames. She was a part of his life Paige hadn't known about, for some reason. A part of himself she'd often sensed that he held back. A part that, despite the fierce, searing kiss of a few moments ago, he still kept separate from her.

“Paige…” he began, once more in that placating tone she suddenly despised.

“Never mind! It doesn't matter anymore.” Blinking furiously to dispel a sudden sheen of tears, she lifted her chin. “I'm sorry I arrived in Cannes early and disrupted your…your business conference. I'll let you get back to it.”

Spinning around on her one platform heel, she limped toward the door. “Come on, Henri. I'll get the francs to pay you from the American Express office.”

“Dammit, Paige! Wait!”

She flashed him a furious glance as he planted one big hand against the painted door and prevented her exit.

“Get rid of the kid,” he instructed Meredith tersely, then took Paige's arm in a hold that wasn't quite as gentle as before.

She started to resist, but one look at his face quelled her brief spurt of rebellion. She'd never seen David look so hard. Or so determined. Biting her lip, she allowed him to lead her a little way into the suite.

“Here, Henri.” Meredith shoved a bill into the boy's hand and gave him a little push toward the door.

His birdlike black eyes darted from one adult to the other, then fastened on Paige. “I am often at the telephone kiosk at the corner of the Croisette and the Allées de la Liberté. The kiosk is my headquarters, you understand. You will find me there, yes? If you need me.”

Paige swallowed. “Yes. Thank you.”

He lifted his hand and rubbed the bill between his fingers. “I thank you,
mademoiselle.
”

With a wide grin and another quick glance at Meredith's legs, he was gone.

For a long moment after the door closed behind the boy, no one moved. It was as though they were all measuring each other, mentally adjusting to the unfamiliar personalities that had just emerged.

David, as Paige might have expected, recovered first. His hand gentled on her arm, and his gray blue eyes shaded with concern as they swept over her.

“Sit down, sweetheart, and tell us what happened.”

Mutely Paige sank down on a damask-rose satin settee swirling with ornate curves and exquisite detailing.

David sat beside her. Reaching out, he took her cold hand in both of his and began to rub some warmth into it.

Meredith curled a leg under her and occupied a rose-and-green patterned armchair.

Confused, hurting, and close to the tears she'd held at bay until this moment, Paige stared down at David's large, square hands. Those blunt-tipped fingers had worked such magic on her body. Those palms had shaped her breasts and her waist and her future. Now she had no future. Not the one she'd envisioned with David, anyway.

With a fresh wave of pain, she tried to tug her hand free. David's fingers suddenly tightened on hers.

“Where's your ring?” he asked. His face subtly altered, taking on stark planes and rigid angles. “Did those bastards take it?”

She blinked, startled by the savage fury in his voice.

“Did they hurt you?”

“Did who hurt me?”

His jaw worked. “You can tell me, sweetheart. What did they do to you?”

“They?”

“Let her tell us what happened, Doc,” Meredith interjected.

The quiet words tore at Paige's soul. If she'd needed any proof that the man she loved and the woman she'd admired during their brief encounter in the boutique shared a special bond, that casual nickname was it. She couldn't imagine any of David's associates at the engineering firm where they both worked calling him “Doc.” His impressive credentials and professional stature were such that everyone, from suppliers to the president of the firm, regarded him with a respect bordering on awe.

As chief of the technical library, Paige had been more than a little intimidated the first time she'd been summoned to David's office. Especially since she'd overcharged his department by several hundred dollars for a publication he'd requested.

She'd been equally overwhelmed when he followed up that first meeting with several visits to her crowded little work center. So overwhelmed, she hadn't even realized he was asking her to dinner one drizzly Saturday morning, until he tilted her chin and smiled down at her in a way that made her stutter in confusion.

Correctly interpreting that stammering reply as an affirmative, he'd picked her up that night. And the next. Shortly afterward, he'd begun a slow, measured courtship that left Paige simmering with anticipation for each new plateau in their relationship and aching with loneliness during his frequent business trips abroad.