The Charmers (24 page)

I lay back against the pile of sumptuous pillows, softer surely than any I had known before. If riches meant you could have pillows like these then I would like to be rich.

Of course, it also meant you could own a guesthouse like this, a small villa in its own right, and far larger than most New York or London apartments. At the windows, thin white curtains swayed in the breeze, and the pale travertine floors were scattered with rugs of modern design. A white sofa and a huge chair were in front of the stone fireplace already set with kindling and a couple of small logs, in case, I guessed, I felt the need. Or simply wanted that comforting glow.

I was lying dead center in a bed so large it must have been made for giants. Perhaps for the Boss himself, who was a bit of a giant, with his great height and his broad shoulders, though I could not imagine him liking the silken sheets in a pale peach color. I scrunched them in my fingers. Were they really silk? I had never known anyone in my life who had silk sheets. Never would again either, I guessed.

I wanted to move, to get up, walk around but that weight seemed still on my chest and there was a definite buzz in my ears. Or was it in my head?

I also wanted badly to cry but my eyes were so dry I could not. There was a knock on the door. I was afraid to speak, to say, “come in,” because I had no idea who might be out there.

The door pushed slowly open, and then Chad Prescott put his head around it and said, “Hi, are you awake?”

Oh God, I was so awake at that moment I almost could have leapt out of bed. And not only that, behind him came the Colonel. Later, I wondered if I could be in love with three men at once. The Colonel, the Boss, and Chad Prescott. Surely that was not normal. A girl fell in love with one guy and that was that.

Nevertheless, being a fair person, I gave both men equal smiles, or something I hoped approximated a smile. Recalling the cheating husband, I reminded myself warily, this was my own life I was talking about. One mistake was enough.

Then the Boss came in and I had all three charmers.

The Boss came and stood possessively at the head of the bed. He threw me a smile of such tenderness, I melted all over again. I wished I had lip gloss and a spray of that lingering Evening in Paris. One day I was going to find out who that had belonged to, who had lived here, who had left her reminder for me to enjoy.

Why, I wondered, had it taken this terrible experience to discover what life and love were all about, when women like Mirabella seemed simply to know it all by some feminine instinct that perhaps I did not possess?

It was the Boss I saved my special smile for, though. The big, handsome hero with his dark hair swept back from his forehead, his deep dark eyes that took me in as though he owned me; his cool hand that gripped mine as if he never wanted to let me go. When a man feels like that about you and lets you know it, subtly, but overwhelmingly, most women are sunk. I know I was. Right there and then. All over again.

But yet there was also my Colonel, my other hero. The family man, the one I knew I should fall for, not the bad boy I knew the Boss was at heart. Or even the beauteous Chad. But anyway Chad was spoken for, by Mirabella. Good luck to her. I was going to take what I wanted, and right now, it was the Boss, who had saved me, rescued me, looked after me like he loved me. How could I not?

Yet, somebody had also wanted to kill me, and I was afraid. I felt myself drifting backward again, into that dark place, where I did not have to deal with life and love and reality.

Somehow it was safer there.

 

48

Paris

Mirabella

In Paris, I wasn't surprised to bump into Chad Prescott. When I saw him, I felt that dangerous flutter in my stomach I recognized as a prequel to falling in love, a seemingly necessary process the body goes through to let you know, in your brain, where you're at. Or at least where you're going, because when that moment hits you, there is no going back.

“What a surprise,” I'd said, though why I was surprised I did not know, since I was sitting at one of the overly small tables outside the Café de Flore at the corner of Boulevard Saint-Germain, where everybody in the world passes by at some time or other. Or so it appeared to me, a woman who had spent many happy hours there, over a glass of this or that, making a tiny bowl of peanuts last longer than anyone ever thought possible. I love the Flore because they never hurry you, and the waiters never give you that stare, unless you are the worst kind of tourist, the ones sneaking smartphone shots of celebrities or of quirky folks. The Flore is tailor-made for the quirky, and even in winter, it's the place to go.

Back in the day, I would sit inside on a red banquette with the snow fluttering against the window, knowing my flight out to wherever was doomed by the weather, making more than the best of it, nibbling on the tastiest herb omelette in the world, good eggs scattered with thyme, rosemary, and lavender. Hot from the pan, it slid down the throat like manna from heaven. Who cared about a missed flight when you were already in Paris and eating like a king?

“So,” Chad said now, coming up sneakily from behind and putting a hand on my shoulder. “What brings you here, Miss Mirabella?”

That hand gave me a little shiver of pleasure and I gave him a quick once-over. Even better than I remembered: tall, tan, and lived-in, that's how he looked. Could I be getting the wrong message, or was that instant chemistry floating in the air between us? If so, why had it waited so long to happen? Not that I had seen that much of him, but because of Verity our lives had become entwined.

He asked my permission to sit and of course I said yes. Then he went over Verity's story, shocking me so that I forgot all about myself, my own feelings, his attraction. I told him I was on my way back, waiting for the flight to Nice, and he told me he was on the same one.

“We might even get seats together,” he said. “I'll see what I can do.”

He wandered away, mobile phone in hand. He had a lazy walk that at the same time contained more energy than any man I've ever known, as though he were ready for anything. Because of his jungle experiences, I guessed. In that deep dark world anything might happen and usually did. In fact, he was probably lucky to have survived this long without getting a poisoned dart in the back of his head from some hidden jungle warrior.

When he returned, with new reservations for side-by-side seats, I told him exactly what I had been thinking.

“It's not as exciting as you imagine,” he said. We were crammed into uncomfortable chairs at a too-small café table, surrounded by Parisians who as always, were so into each other they had no time for mere mortals such as us. And we had no time for the Parisians either. I no longer cared to note what they were wearing that looked so much better than my own usual sweater and skirt, though, under Verity's surveillance, I had abandoned the T-strap black leather shoes in favor of a pair of heeled suede booties with a bit of fringe around the ankle. Quite becoming, though I say so myself, and they definitely made my legs look longer. Actually, longer than I had ever thought they were, which just goes to show we girls should take stock of what the mirror tells us, look longer, see what we can do.

Verity always said that, anyway. But then, she was gorgeous with her young-girl blond looks. How she ever got involved with the cheating husband, I'll never understand. Still, that's being taken care of right this minute, as I speak, in fact, by my trusty lawyers. Before she knows it, Verity will be a free woman. But now, I'm listening very carefully to what else Chad has to tell me.

“Verity is enamored of the Boss,” he said, as casually as if it were an everyday experience she went through.

Stunned, I took a slurp of my vermouth cassis, a tall, shocking-pink drink crackling with ice I had recently become enamored of. I said, “Verity and men are not good news. Especially with a powerhouse like the Boss.”

“I warned you. And I warned her against him. He's all charm and generosity, but there's something lurking under that handsome face. And anyhow, where
did
he get all that money?”

“Does anyone ever know where rich men get their money?” I asked the question, knowing the answer. “No, we do not. “They just have it, that's all. And some of them lavish it around, like the Boss, all show-offy, while others keep it quiet and do good deeds. Of course,” I added, “that doesn't mean he's not doing charitable things, in fact I've heard of some of them.”

“Those charities are reported, very carefully in press releases, from the Boss himself. I told you before, Mirabella, and I'm saying it again now, I don't trust him. There's something in his eyes, the way he looks at a woman, that too-intense stare as though he would like to get into her soul.… Ah, I can't describe it, it's simply something I sense.…”

Despite his not being able to describe it, I knew exactly what Chad meant. In my bones, I knew. And yet, I had danced happily in the Boss's arms, thinking how wonderful he was, throwing a fantastic party for all his friends. But were we really his friends? Did we really know him? The person he was? I was merely an acquaintance, as was Verity, until he rescued her, the mermaid from the sea. He'd taken pity on her youth and vulnerability.…

“That's exactly it,” I said to Chad. “Her youth and vulnerability.”

“Her youth and vulnerability,” he repeated. “And, she's there, alone in his guesthouse.”

I felt a sudden claw of anxiety. “I mean, he couldn't, he wouldn't…” I did not want to voice what I was thinking, but Chad knew exactly what I meant.

“We have to get back,” he said. “Lucky I have the tickets. We'll be there in a few hours.”

I hoped it would be soon enough.

And then he got the phone call.

I watched him walk away from me again, mobile clutched to his ear, a concerned frown between his brows as he turned to look at me. He raised an eyebrow, lifted a shoulder in a what-can-I-do shrug. I heard him say, “I'll be there.” And then he came back and put an arm around me.

“An emergency,” he said. “A child, a car accident.”

I nodded. I knew he had to go.

He tilted my chin with a finger, looking deep into my eyes. “I'm a doctor first and foremost. That's the way it will always be.”

I nodded again. Of course it would. He was already shifting his bag onto his shoulder.

I said, “Then I'll go on alone.”

He looked sharply at me. “I can't let you do that. It's dangerous.”

“My friend's in danger. It's what I have to do.”

I probably sounded as though I were putting him on the line for not going, but that was not what I'd intended. “She's all alone,” I said, suddenly remembering how alone Verity had seemed when I met her on that Paris-to-Nice train, when she did not really even know where she was going, and certainly not why. Simply escaping, she had thought, only to end up in more danger than she would ever have faced from the cheating husband.

Chad nodded; of course he understood, and he really wanted to go with me. But he shrugged again. “What choice do I have?”

He sounded resigned, he had to do what he had to do, and right now his priority was to attempt to save a small child's life putting a broken head back together as only a brilliant surgeon like him could.

He grabbed my shoulders, pressing me tightly to him as though afraid I might disappear right that minute and only he could keep me there.

I gently disengaged him, took a step back, gave him a good-bye wave, hoping I was as brave as my words. I was quite suddenly terrified of the Boss, and of the fact that my friend was there alone with him, that she might be in his power, and I was the only one that could help her. Save her, more likely, because I knew somehow that the Boss had the kind of power over life and death that we, mere mortals, do not. I knew in my bones, as I usually did, that behind that charming facade was a man capable of anything.

As though he had read my thoughts, Chad said, “He's capable of anything.” He grabbed my arm again as we left the café and he flagged a taxi down.

We looked into each other's eyes. There were no smiles. Deadly serious, he said, “I'm calling the Colonel. He's the only one that will understand. I'll tell him you're on your way and that he must protect Verity. I don't know what he can do, with a man that powerful. The Boss has committed no crime, there's nothing to accuse him of. I just want the Colonel to be aware.”

With a final hug, I got into the taxi. “You know what?” I said. “I think the Colonel is already aware. He is far more clever than he lets on. He doesn't miss a thing.”

“But I'll miss you,” Chad said.

They were the last words I heard as the taxi sped away.

 

49

The Colonel

The Colonel did not understand what it was that drew him to Verity, but it was certainly more than her blond good looks, her pert nose with the bump in it that made it look a bit off-side, her wide blue eyes, and a mouth that might almost, in another era, have been called “rosebud.” But no, it was too large for rosebud, too vulnerable with its soft underlip that she had the habit of catching in her teeth when she was worried. Which, in fact she'd appeared to be much of the time. And the Colonel believed she had good reason. No one came that close to being eliminated, not once, but twice, within a couple of weeks, without there being good reason. Hers was, he was sure, that she was friends with the wrong people. In particular, right now, the Boss.

His research into the Boss delivered no more than he already knew: that the Boss was a self-made man; that he made his money mostly from property and mostly in far-flung locations, where the rules governing such transactions were not regulated and also where, for certain large sums, men might be bought. The Boss had moved on, of course, to more respectable places and people, and now a sort of cloud of goodwill surrounded him that guaranteed access to solid financial institutions as well as that part of society, that while not exactly “high,” was certainly celebrity- and money driven. You had only to attend his party to notice who was there, and to understand. Money talked, that was why. And this man had more money than Rockefeller, or so it was said.