Killing Time (31 page)

It was quite distinct and I’d grown up with an ear for it since my father spoke Bavarian, Alsatian and French to us as children though neither Trésor nor I cared to learn Bavarian therefore my knowledge of the language only extended to a few pleasantries and that was it.

I ran to the double doors and opened them before I greeted Severin with a kiss to a cheek and ushered him inside.

His right hand grabbed my left arm and he frog-marched me to the guest suite as soon as the front doors closed.

I snatched my arm from his grasp and turned to him as he gently closed the door. “What the hell is this about and who do you think you are treating me like one of your slaves?”

“Don’t play stupid with me,” he hissed. “Kaysa had help and I know it was you! Did you help her get away?”

“Is that what this whole melodramatic episode is about?” I inquired. “Yes, I did help her. She asked me to meet her for lunch. We dined at Café Boulud and she proceeded to tell me she couldn’t take it anymore. I felt bad for her and so I gave her some money. She still had her German passport—why is that? I assumed Jason would have taken it from her for that very reason.”

Severin stood against the door and watched me with cold blue-green eyes. “He did . . . but our safe word
was
her German passport. I accompanied her down to the Consulate myself and we got it replaced. I vouched for her and told the Consulate people it was stolen. The passport Jason has isn’t valid so it makes no difference and no way is the German Consulate going to give him any information on one of
their
citizens, regardless whether they were married or not.”

“She didn’t go back to Germany.” I looked away from his gaze. “Kaysa didn’t tell me where she was going and I didn’t ask. I just gave her a few checks from different bank accounts. She cashed them and disappeared. I received a text from her when she was at the airport awaiting her flight but that’s it.”

“I really don’t care she’s left Jason. He’s an incorrigible bastard and the poor woman wasn’t getting any younger. He planned to have her sterilized next week after yet another ‘oopsie’ on his part.”

I finally met his eyes. “She’s pregnant?”

“Yes, but the baby isn’t his—it’s mine.”

I gripped my right hand in my left fist to prevent myself from showing any unnecessary emotion. “I . . . I can’t tell you where she is but she will be in contact with a bank account I can wire money. If . . . I mean, I don’t know if you trust me but . . . I would give anything you gave me to her and I wouldn’t keep any of it—”

“Don’t worry about Kaysa, she has a fund I’ve kept for her and I will allow her access when she decides to contact me. You tell her to call me and she will follow your instructions. She’s in love with me and has been for a very long time. She also knows I wouldn’t dare force her back into a situation that has made her uncomfortable. It isn’t my style.”

I walked toward him though I stopped several feet away. “Why did you act so angry with me if you . . . approve of what I have done?”

Severin shook his head. “I don’t approve of
anything
—it’s a one off situation. You can’t become some kind of savior to these women, Aurélie. This is the life they have chosen for themselves and you’re no Mother Teresa. I allowed you to get away with it this time because of the mitigating circumstances but if you do something like this again, there will be no mercy for you . . . and remember, with me you don’t
have
a safe word.”

“Are you threatening me?” I wondered in a cool tone.

He laughed out loud as he opened the door and we both faced Rory, a concerned look marred on his handsome features.

“You two okay in there?”

“Just fine,” Severin said before he walked by his brother and strode to the sitting room.

Rory walked over to me and handed a champagne flute to me. “What was that about?”

I walked over to the elaborately made-up bed I had never slept in and patted a spot beside me as I sat down. He strode over and proceeded to sit next to me. Our thighs touched and I could feel the heat reverberate through his body.

“Listen, I don’t want this to come between us so I am just going to tell you now.” I paused and decided to keep the USB flash drive Kaysa had given me to myself. “I had lunch with Kaysa today at Café Boulud and she . . . well, she seemed extremely depressed and close to losing a firm grip on reality. Her frame of mind was downright suicidal and she couldn’t stand being with Jason for another minute. I gave her six thousand dollars to get away and she left right after our lunch date. I know where she went . . . vaguely but . . . I can’t tell you that.”

Rory gripped my free hand, meticulously studied it before he bent down and kissed my beautifully naked fingers. “Well, you did what your conscience told you to do and that is always a good thing. What’s wrong and why do you feel like you’ve done something unsavory?”

I looked into his warm aquamarine eyes. “I don’t feel like I have done anything wrong but Severin disclosed to me she was pregnant. Jason planned for her to have an abortion . . . and a tubal ligation next week. Severin also told me the baby she carried—sorry, is carrying—belongs to him. He’s the father of her unborn child.”

Rory stared back at me and a ripple of dissatisfaction passed through his face before it disappeared. “Well, that’s certainly interesting. I didn’t realize they were getting together for old time’s sake although . . . she was his slave before Jason made an honest woman out of her. Plus the man wasn’t exactly the most careful with whom he allowed to fuck Kaysa when they had their numerous orgies—it doesn’t surprise me.”

“Aren’t the couples required to use protection?”

“Sometimes . . . technically, I’m supposed to tell you that safe sex is
always
practiced but human nature, common sense and drugs don’t usually mix. Jason is, more often than not, always high on something. When I first met him, his poisons were marijuana and cocaine. He’s been through various stints of rehab and although he no longer does cocaine, he injured his shoulder playing tennis and the doctor immediately prescribed Vicodin along with physical therapy. I don’t have to tell you how that went especially since the injury happened over eleven months ago and he is still refilling his prescriptions regularly,” Rory explained before he ran his hands through his silky hair.

I leaned over and kissed his lips softly. His fingers circled around my long slender neck and brought me closer to him as he deepened our kiss which just a flicker of tongue. My whole body felt alight and if we weren’t less than twenty minutes from leaving for the airport, I would have allowed him to take me regardless whether Severin waited patiently for us in the sitting room or not.

I broke our kiss and he clutched me to him in a grip that had me spellbound. This man was more than attractive and sexy, he made me feel human in a way no one had done in a very long time. He recognized the spirit inside me that wasn’t much different from his own and somehow, we managed to work. I loved him indescribably and he moved me in so many different ways, I couldn’t list them all.

Yes, he had his flaws but underneath, he was a decent human being and I thanked whatever deity was responsible for bringing us together. Surely we needed each other—now more than ever.

I cleared my throat. “Well, we better say goodbye to your brother before we leave. It’s the least we can do, right? We have plenty of time to explore one another’s bodies one hundred different ways when we get to Paris, don’t you think?”

His slender right index finger traced my jaw. “Absolutely. Let’s go.”

RORY AND I ARRIVED IN
Paris on a cold, December day and a blanket of snow.

The driver packed our carryon into the trunk while we waited in the backseat, clinging to one another, feeling jetlagged and a bit worse for wear. It was an exhilarating emotion to be back in the land of my birth and on home soil. My parents had invited us over for dinner and since it was late morning, we had more than enough time to get settled and rest a bit before that occasion.

We lay back in the private car Rory had hired while he stroked my hair lovingly. “
Liebling
, if I tell you something, will you promise not to get angry?”

“Why would I be upset? If it’s a . . . secret of some kind then we’ll just deal with it together, won’t we?”

“Yes, we will but it’s not that kind of a secret.” He continued to lazily stroke my hair and as I leaned into his body, I couldn’t see his eyes but his body language told me everything I needed to know. He was slightly tense and a bit on edge but nothing earth shatteringly different was wrong with him.

“I’m waiting,” I teased in a low voice.

“I had another autopsy done on Trésor’s body. Now, before you start screaming at me, I didn’t feel like the NYPD did all that great of a job and as the County is overworked, facing budget cuts, and what ever else is happening in the city, I wanted your sister to be checked from head to toe,” he explained in soft, cultured French.

“
Pourquoi serais-je fâché?
” I inquired, slipping right back into my second native language. “You’re just making sure the Medical Examiner’s Office in the States did a decent job—that is hardly any reason for me to be angry or displeased with you.”

“Yeah but . . . they’ve already found things we innately knew. For instance, neither one of us fell for the whole story Trésor killed herself. It turned out she didn’t, not unless she was right-handed and she wasn’t. Based upon the knife wound, the killer was right handed. That comes from a hand expert I attended school with who is consulting on the case.”

I finally sat up and turned toward him to see the worry on his face, etched in strained lines across his forehead and his usually sensual mouth turned down in a look that conveyed worry and concern for me.

“Are they sure? She couldn’t have possibly . . ?”

“No. My expert is ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent sure the scalpel wound was
not
self-inflicted.” He paused and his fingers pinched the bridge of his nose. “There’s also something else.”

“What is it?” I wondered out loud.

“She was . . . pregnant,” he whispered though his eyes didn’t meet mine.

My hands went to his and grabbed them before I squeezed tightly. “My God, Rory, I am so sorry.”

My lover stared at me as a lone tear trailed down his left eye. “What are you sorry over? The baby wasn’t mine. It was Severin’s.”

I clutched my heart as it thundered inside my chest. “What does this mean for us? Do you no longer trust me? Do you think I would do something like that to you too?”

Rory slid his arms around my waist and pulled me close. “Don’t be silly. Nothing changes between us. I don’t even know what the circumstances were behind the pregnancy or what happened. They’re scientists and doctors but they can’t tell us the complete story from tests and DNA samples. To be honest, there are only two people who know what happened and one of them is dead. Severin might be willing to tell but I’m so angry at him right now, I don’t want to know enough to contact him and ask about it.”

I clung to him and inhaled his seductive masculine scent. This could destroy us if we let it but I was determined to hold on just as steadfast as him. How could he have held it together knowing what he knew? It couldn’t have been easy for him and although I wanted to bury any thoughts of the investigation in the back of my mind, it came to the forefront yet again. It widened the net for those who could have been responsible for my sister’s death and Astrid was no longer the lone suspect.

There were so many questions bombarding my brain, and it became crystal clear there was so much more to Trésor’s story than met the eye. In fact, I had a feeling I had barely scratched the surface on my sister’s lifestyle. However, I had a feeling all the answers to my questions were buried right under my nose and within her journals.

Chapter Twenty

ALTHOUGH THE RIDE FROM CHARLES
De Gaulle airport should have been awkward after Rory released his bombshell, it wasn’t.