The Cherbourg Jewels (19 page)

“No, Sébastien, they’re not.  Don’t you see?  We’d be leading a killer into a museum full of people.  Are you really prepared to do that?”

“I don’t know,” he said, dropping her gaze.  

But the tone of his voice told her that he did. 

Ella grasped the edge of the bedspread and held it up over her chest.  She was beginning to feel like she made a terrible mistake.  This Sébastien didn’t seem like the same man who’d made love to her last night.  Or the one she’d thought she understood while looking at his books in the library.  When she looked at the man beside her, it felt like she didn’t know him at all. 

Despite the fact that her body was still humming for his touch and his kiss, she couldn’t ignore the fact that things had changed.  There was a dangerous lunatic on the loose.  She couldn’t ignore it.  And he shouldn’t, either.  Not for the first time, she wondered what the hell she’d gotten herself into.

“You want to keep going, don’t you?” she asked.  “You’re going to lead someone who’s willing to kill straight to a crowded museum.  Sébastien, there are probably going to be families and children present.”

She could see the storm gather in his eyes.  He was angry.  And part of that anger was now directed at her.  “What choice do I have?” he growled.  “I can’t stay here, a prisoner in my own home!”

“You don’t have to call the exhibition off,” she said.  “Just postpone it.  Or call the police.”

He sighed and shook his head.  “So we’re back to that.  Ella, I thought you understood why I can’t do either of those things.  You told me you understood.” 

His piercing olive gaze struck her with the force of a hammer blow.  Ella felt tears prick her eyes.  “I do understand!  But Sébastien, understanding doesn’t change what’s right or what’s wrong.  How would you feel if someone at the museum died because we didn’t tell them what was going on?” 

She reached out to touch his cheek, but he turned his head away.  “Sébastien, please,” she said.  “Don’t do this.”

“Don’t do what?” he snapped.

“Don’t shut me out.  Not now.  Not after what we’ve gone through.”

He bared his teeth, but he wasn’t smiling.  He was like an animal, lashing out to protect himself at all costs.  “I’m not shutting you out, Ella.  You’re the one shutting me out, or had that slipped your mind?”

Her heart sank like a stone, thrown into a rushing river.  “What do you mean?”

“I know you took this job just so you could get in my vault and see if I own any of the pieces stolen from your father.”

She gasped. 
No!
she wanted to cry.  But it would have been a lie
.  He
was right.  That had been her reason for taking the job.  She never told him about it, not once in all the chances she’d had. 

She became conscious of a raw, sick feeling in her stomach.  After all those wonderful, sheltered hours in his arms, it was all slipping away from her.  The worst part of it was that they were both right.  He had every right to fight for his family’s honor, just as she did for hers.

“Sébastien, please, let me explain.”

His olive eyes glittered with emotion he was trying so hard to hold back.  She could see it in the stiff line of his jaw and the set of his shoulders.  “You lied to me, Ella.  What is there to explain?”

“I didn’t lie!”

“You sure as hell didn’t tell me the truth.”

“Neither did you,” she snapped back.  “How long have you known that’s why I came here?  How long have you known without telling me?”

“I had my private investigator check you out,” he said.  “I had to know who you were, Ella.  I had to make sure you weren’t the one who robbed me.”

A shock wave rocked her to her core.  “I would never steal from you, Sébastien.”

“I know that now,” he admitted.  “But how could I have trusted you the first day I met you?  I’m a Cherbourg, Ella.  People always tell us what we want to hear so we’ll give them money.”

She swallowed heavily, not wanting to face the dread rising from the pit of her stomach into her heart.  “So you won’t believe me just because I’m not a part of your family?  You were never going to trust me at all, were you?” 

Sébastien studiously avoided her eyes.  “You don’t understand how hard it is.”

Oh, I’ll tell you what it means to understand
, she thought.  A flare of anger lit up inside her.  “Oh, poor Sébastien, it’s so terrible to be rich!  So many problems, it’s all just too much for you, isn’t it?  Well, I don’t know anything about that.” 

She jerked the top sheet off the bed and wrapped it around her.  “I respect you for fighting for your family, Sébastien.  They’re lucky to have you, even if they don’t realize it.  But I can’t respect a man who is too stubborn to admit when he’s wrong.  And I can’t respect a man who would willingly put innocent people in danger.  Going ahead with the exhibition is selfish.  You’re putting innocent people in danger and you know it.”

Ella clasped the sheet to her and slid off the bed.  Walking away from Sébastien made her heart ache.  She wanted nothing more than to crawl back in bed and have him kiss her with all the passion he’d revealed when they cast away their inhibitions. 

But she couldn’t be a part of putting others in danger.  She’d never be able to live with herself if she did.  She trudged toward the stairs and then turned for one final word.  “I’m going to get my computer and submit my report.  Then I’m going to say goodbye to Frau Müller and Dr. O’Malley.”

She picked up the sheet and started going down the stairs, hoping he would say something to stop her.  She was even careful to move as slowly as she could, as if the next second would be the one where he realized he was wrong.  But he didn’t say anything.  He sat there, bare-chested and gorgeous enough to make her body second-guess her mind.

She hung her head in defeat. 

If I’m taking the high road
, she wondered,
why does it feel like I’m the one losing?
 

When she reached the lower level of his bedroom, she pulled open the door and gasped.  Frau Müller was standing on the other side holding a tray of food. 

“Miss Wilcox,” the housekeeper said, backing up to keep from spilling the contents of the tray.  “Where are you going?”

Ella mustered all the dignity she could—not much when all she was wearing was a sheet.  “I’m going home,” she said.  “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.  Thank you for being so kind.”

The older woman looked confused.  She tilted her head as a pained expression crossed her face.  “But why?” she asked.  “What has happened?”

“Ask Sébastien,” she said.  She was too upset to go over the destruction of the fragile, beautiful relationship she thought she’d been building.  “I have work to do.”

Ella padded back down the hall to Honorée’s old room.  Gertrude had washed her dirty clothes and folded them, placing them in a neat pile at the foot of her bed.  Her red coat lay folded on top of the entire stack. 

She picked her beloved coat up and held it up to her face. 
What am I doing?
she asked herself. 
How did I get here?  This isn’t me, is it?

The memory of Sébastien’s kisses on her skin, the weight of his body on hers…it made her shiver with desire, even now.  She couldn’t control her body’s response to him.  It was as if
they had been made for each other.  Their bodies had fit together so perfectly it seemed a waste not to entwine them on a regular basis. 

But as perfect as it had felt, Ella couldn’t turn her brain off.  That was the problem.  If her body were all she considered, she’d run back to Sébastien’s room right now and let him cover her skin with his lips, warming her with the force of the fire burning behind his eyes. 

Why can’t it be easy?
she asked herself. 
Why is it so hard to do what’s right?

Ella dropped the sheet and flung it over Honorée’s bed.  She put her own clothes back on and felt both relief and despair.  Relief that she was no longer responsible for French couture and despair that she was herself again
. 

In the Cherbourg dress, she’d felt worthy of attention.  In her own clothes, she was just Ella.  A murdered man’s daughter who might never find peace or absolution.  She looked at herself in the mirror and realized she didn’t look like someone Sébastien might escort to a fancy restaurant.  She didn’t belong in his world any more than he belonged in hers. 

As she studied her reflection, she realized she’d forgotten her necklace in Sébastien’s room.  Her heart clenched at the thought of leaving the Cherbourg mansion without it, but she couldn’t face going back up there.  Not right now.  Maybe not ever. 

“I’m sorry, Dad,” she whispered.  “I just can’t do it.”

Ella made a mental note to ask Gertrude to go back and find it for her later.  Or, she realized, she could always sneak back up when Sébastien wasn’t there.  She felt naked without the thin metal bands that symbolized her parents’ love, but since her own love life was so tangled up, she knew she had to deal with one problem at a time.

First things first
, she thought. 
Submit that report and get the hell out of here.

She searched the room for her computer and realized she’d left it in the library.  She remembered Sébastien’s head of security asking them to leave the first floor so they could secure it.  But surely they wouldn’t mind if she just went downstairs for a moment to retrieve her laptop?  She hadn’t even taken it out of its case, not once she’d gotten absorbed in the jewelry book.

Well, I can’t submit my report without that computer.  I’ll just go get it
, she thought.

She slipped out of her room and crept downstairs, keeping an eye out for the black-uniformed security guards who patrolled the lower story of the Cherbourg mansion. 

No one stopped her as she slunk down the marble staircase and into the library.  She crept inside and retrieved her laptop and its case from the large mahogany reading table. 

Ella tried to keep her eyes away from the hole in the window, but it drew her back to it like a magnet.  She stared at it and shivered. 
That could have been me
, she thought, looking at the tiny hole in the glass. 

But instead of feeling afraid, she remembered how Sébastien had clung to her after the attack.  How it had taken fear to bring out any expression of emotion between them.  Why did it have to be that way? she wondered.  Why did fear push through boundaries pride couldn’t budge? 

She wondered if she could push through those boundaries on her own, to see if Sébastien truly cared about her.  If there wasn’t a psycho on the loose trying to kill her, could he still find the strength to tell her he cared?

Stop it
, she told herself. 
Stop trying to build something out of nothing.  Just get your job done and get out of here.

Ella zipped her computer back into its case and hurried out into the hallway, out of sight of the library’s broken window.  While she was wondering where to set up shop and complete her report, she heard a pair of footsteps clicking on the tile floor.  As they rounded the corner towards her, she held her breath. 

If one of Sébastien’s guards found her, he might forcibly escort her back upstairs—and closer to Sébastien’s bed.  She couldn’t let that happen.  Being so close to him affected her behavior and her thoughts.  Even though part of her wanted to be forced back next to him, she knew it was a wasted effort.

But as the footsteps came closer, she realized it wasn’t one of Sébastien’s security team members.  It was Dr. O’Malley.  The white-haired doctor was carrying his black leather bag and suddenly she wondered if someone else had been harmed.  “Dr. O’Malley!” she called.

He looked up sharply at the sound of her voice.  Before he recognized her, his soft features had been hardened into a mask of intense concentration.  Then, once he realized it was her, he forced a smile to his lips.  “Miss Wilcox,” he said.  “You shouldn’t be down here.”

“Has someone else been hurt?” she asked, pointing at his bag. 

“No, no,” he said, reaching forward to pat her arm.  “I just thought I’d have a look around myself.”

Ella frowned.  The old man’s eyes weren’t focusing on her.  They kept darting behind and around her, like he expected someone else to be there.  “Dr. O’Malley, are you all right?”

“I’m fine.  But you look quite distressed.  Did something happen?”

Ella shook her head.  “I’m fine, too,” she said.  She didn’t trust herself to say another word without breaking down. 

“I don’t believe you,” O’Malley said, shaking a finger at her.  “Are you sure there isn’t something you want to tell me?  I’m a very good listener, you’ll find.”

Suddenly, she thought of all the things she did want to say.  She wished she could ask someone why her father’s death never seemed to get any farther away, no matter how much time went by. 

She’d never told anyone how hard it was to keep looking for her father’s stolen jewels instead of seeking out a life of her own.  For a few deluded minutes, she thought Sébastien might be part of that life.  Until she ruined it all by holding back the only secret that could tear them apart.