MOONLIGHT ON DIAMONDS (12 page)

As he struck a match
and watched the flame sizzle and burn for a moment before lighting his
cigarette, he pondered what exactly the two of them wanted from each other.
Surely, Monroe was there in some sort of professional capacity—probably as a
bodyguard. It had looked, however, from Veronica’s red-hot dress and the even
hotter look in their eyes when they stared at each other, as if there were more
to it than that.

Dornal smirked.
Veronica wasn’t exactly known for fraternizing with the help, let alone
sleeping with them. She was rumored, in certain circles, to have other, more
intense, obsessions.

Dornal flicked his
half-smoked cigarette into the gutter and turned to go. In the end, it didn’t
really matter why John Monroe and Veronica Rossmore were shacking up. Before
this was all over, Monroe would be dead and Veronica…

Well, he’d just have
to think about what he could do with the lovely Veronica Rossmore.

****

John had picked out a
cozy Italian place with dark red walls covered in grainy black-and-white
photographs of the old country. Big mirrors reflected the glow of softly lit
lamps, which were set out on tables draped in checkered cloths. Wine bottles
hung from the ceiling and the tender voice of Corelli crooning a Puccini aria
played in the background.

Veronica smiled as
the short, stout maitre d’ escorted them to a black leather booth and
dramatically fluffed a napkin in the air to lie on her lap. Their waiter
recited every dish on the menu with the passion of an ardent young lover
pontificating on the curve of his lady’s derrière. Veronica ordered the
eggplant parmesan and a glass of merlot. John got the lasagna and a soda.

She looked around the
room. “I was right. You’re a complete cornball.”

“Why? Because I’m not
too cynical and jaded to enjoy a blatantly romantic atmosphere?”

“Are you calling me
cynical and jaded?” she asked.

“I don’t know, you
tell me.”

“I can respond to a
romantic atmosphere as well as the next girl—if I’m with the right man,” she
said, her eyes sparkling wickedly.

The waiter set their
drinks down on the table and disappeared into the kitchen.

“Don’t drink?” she
observed, looking him up and down like she was trying to figure him out.

He held her stare.
“No, I don’t.”

“Why not?” she asked,
running a finger around the rim of her wine glass.

“The Irish really
shouldn’t,” John replied with a smile.

She smiled, too. “I
hope you don’t have any objections to my…” She pointed to her glass.

“On the contrary, I
think you should get good and soused. It’ll give me an advantage over you.”

“You’ll need it,” she
replied, with a self-satisfied smile.

“Don’t be too sure.”

“You know, it’s
probably not right for me to have asked you out,” she said. “It probably would
make my father angry.”

“Is that why you did
it?”

“No.” She took a sip
of wine.

“Then why did you?”
he asked seriously.

She gave him her Mona
Lisa smile. “Maybe I wanted to get to know you a little better.”

“Why?”

“Because I think I
might like you,” she admitted. “I think you’re a nice, honest guy. There aren’t
many of those around.”

“You don’t really
know me,” he said, dropping his eyes. All the terrible, low, cowardly things
he’d done in the past flashed before him; the lies he’d told, the money he’d
borrowed, the people he’d let down before he got sober.

“Why don’t you
drink?” she asked him for the second time.

He looked up and saw
sincere interest in her eyes. She wasn’t playing games. She really wanted to
know.

“Because I’m an
alcoholic.”

“Why?” she asked, and
now there was intense interest written all over her face.

“Why?” he asked
confused.

She leaned in closer
to him. “Yes, why?”

“I don’t know,” he
said, fiddling with the breadbasket. “It’s just one of those things. You either
are or you aren’t.”

“So nothing happened
to you? Nothing made you like that?” She seemed cagey and desperately curious
all at the same time.

He looked at her more
closely, but he still didn’t get why she was asking. “My father was an alcoholic
and they say it runs in families. He died when I was seven.”

She sat back and
nodded her head slightly, like she had found what she’d been looking for. Then
she said quietly, “My mother died when I was twelve. I don’t like to talk about
it.”

“I don’t like to talk
about my dad, either,” he said, and their eyes met. They understood each other
perfectly. They both knew what it was like, that hopeless grief and the lost
feeling of things no longer being okay in the world—that they never would be
again. They both had the raw wound still open, like it was only yesterday when
their childish worlds had shattered. In just one glance, they understood that
about each other.

She took a sip of
wine. “Tell me a joke.”

John searched his
mind. He knew a million of them. That’s all they did at AA meetings, stand
around smoking cigarettes and telling jokes like it was one big cocktail
party—minus the cocktails.

“Okay,” said John. “A
panda walks into a bar, sits down, and orders a sandwich. He eats the sandwich,
pulls out a gun, and shoots the waiter dead. As the panda stands to go, the
bartender yells, ‘Hey, where the hell do you think you’re going? You just shot
my waiter and you didn’t pay for your sandwich!’ And the panda yells back, ‘Hey
man, I’m a panda! Look it up!’ and storms out of the bar. Well, the bartender
grabs his dictionary and looks up ‘panda’ and it says:
A tree-dwelling marsupial of Asian origin, characterized by distinct
black and white coloring. Eats, shoots and leaves
.”

It was the first time
he had ever seen her really laugh, and he decided he liked the look of her eyes
crinkling up and the sound of her low voice rising like a musical scale. For a
moment she looked truly happy, and he was glad to be the cause of it, if only
for a moment. She arched her brow and said, “Eats, shoots and leaves, ha? That
how you like to do it?”

John grinned. “Not
always.”

The food arrived,
delicious and steaming hot. They ate in silence, and just as it had been in the
car on the ride down to DC, it was a chummy, comfortable silence. They ordered
cannoli and cappuccinos for dessert. Veronica took a bite of the Italian pastry
and sighed like she was in heaven, licking the extra cream around her lips.
John was torn between watching her movements and staring once more at the fiery
red ruby between her breasts. She fingered the necklace provocatively and
looked at him through her lashes.

“Those rocks real?”
he asked.

“Maybe after dinner
you’d like to examine them more closely and decide for yourself,” she purred in
her low voice.

“I’m no expert.”

“Oh,” she dangled the
jewel along her décolletage, “maybe I could help you out.”

He looked up into her
face and her eyes smoldered under his gaze.

John flagged down the
waiter. “Check, please!”

John and Veronica
walked arm in arm through the Mall admiring the national monuments lit up all
around them. Feeling a slight chill in the air, Veronica put her hand in John’s
pocket.

“Is that a gun in
your pocket or do you just have a thing for tall, pointy monuments?” she asked.

They were standing in
front of the Washington Monument, which seemed to reach up to the stars from
the dark park below.

“That necklace has
got to be worth a couple million dollars and we’re walking through a dangerous
park at night. I better have a gun on me.”

“Oh.” She stopped and
looked down, her voice low and breathy. “I was hoping you’d say it wasn’t a gun
or
a building; maybe you’d say it was
me.”

John lifted her chin
and looked deep into her eyes but couldn’t see what lay in their depths in the
darkness. Was she playing with him?

He didn’t care.

He lowered his mouth
to hers and gently kissed her. The tenderness and shivering passion he felt
coming from Veronica hit him like an electric current. He pulled her closer.
The burning ruby pressed against his heart and his hands were in her soft dark
hair. He could still taste a hint of dessert on her sweet mouth and the scent
of
L’Heure Bleue
filled his nostrils.

It had been a while
since he’d kissed a woman like this. Since it had felt the way it did now. He
didn’t want to let go. If he were still drinking, he would have dragged her
into the bushes and had his way with her here and now. But he wasn’t drinking
any more and she wasn’t quite like any woman he had ever kissed before.

Veronica pulled back.
From this angle, the light of the Washington Monument lit up her beautiful
face. Her eyes blazed with desire.

“Let’s get a cab back
to the hotel,” she whispered.

He nodded and,
wrapping his arm around her waist, led her quickly to Independence Avenue to
hail a taxi.

When they entered
Veronica’s hotel room, without a word, she reached for him.

John grabbed her hips
and held her firmly back for a moment. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

He knew it was stupid
to ask. What if she said no? But somehow he found himself feeling protective of
her. This couldn’t be just some one-night stand. Or could it? His brain wasn’t
working right. There was too much testosterone raging through his system,
confusing him, muddling his mind. The specter of Simon rose up and then
disintegrated. When she pulled him in tight with a soul kiss that reached down
to the very root of him and then wrapped a long leg around his hips, he knew it
was over.

They pulled at each
other’s clothes as they fell down on the bed, the heat between them making
their actions almost violent. All the reserve John had been forced to employ
since he’d met Veronica slipped away as he consumed every tender morsel of her
pampered flesh. His almost brutal passion seemed to awaken a fire that had
burned in Veronica behind her mask of cool beauty. She struggled out of the
tight dress and a low moan of pleasure escaped her lips as John inched down the
red lace bra to reveal her swelling breasts and slipped his fingers beneath her
matching panties. The feel of his sensitive fingers probing her seemed to drive
Veronica wild; she pulled at his shirt, his pants—anything that came between
his flesh and hers.

At last, he felt the
velvet warmth of naked skin on skin and it seemed as if neither of them could
wait a moment longer. Taking charge, John pushed her down on the bed, feeling
her arch up under him as they melted together. She moaned and pulled him close,
wrapping her arms and long legs around his muscular back. His hands were in her
hair pulling her head back; her pink lips parted, her eyes squeezed shut in
pleasure, and the ruby necklace blazed like a supernova against her sweaty
flesh. He’d never seen anything so beautiful.

She squeezed and
pulled him deeper, moaning and crying out with each violent thrust. There was
nothing left of the lofty ice princess he had met three days ago. Veronica
Rossmore had melted into a boiling wet cauldron of fire.

John felt a surge of
lightning run up his spine. He was reaching his peak. “Open your eyes,” he
commanded and relaxed into a slow burn.

Veronica obeyed and
looked up at him, helpless with desire. He kissed her lips and cradled her
flushed face in his hands, their bodies moving like the slow powerful rise and
fall of waves. He looked deep into her eyes; beyond the lust, underneath they were
naked with emotion. The same feeling he had experienced at the restaurant
returned now as their gazes fused and they understood the depths of each other.
Only this time the moment had an otherworldly feeling about it. As if now that
all the barriers had been torn down they gazed upon each other’s souls, as if
they’d reached up and captured a bit of eternity.

The spell was broken
as Veronica cried out and shivered in her final moment. Accelerating their
rhythm, they both surged together in a blinding climax that closed his eyes and
all he could see were the fireworks going off in his head.

****

The next morning when
John awoke, Veronica lay sleeping at the other side of the bed, a little frown
creasing her brow, her dark hair tangled around her pale face. All the rosy
glow from the night before was gone. Now that the smoke had cleared, John
didn’t know what to do. His usual MO was to run like hell the minute he woke up
in a woman’s bed, but he didn’t feel like running this morning. Still, he
didn’t know how she would react to what had happened. He figured he’d handle
anything she had up her sleeve better after his morning prayers and a few
passages from the
AA Big Book
.

John slipped out of
bed and quietly into his clothes. He tiptoed to the door, but as he was pulling
it open, someone twisted the knob from the outside. He opened the door to see
who it was and came face to face with the notorious jewel thief, Nicholas
Bezuhov.