ItTakesaThief (14 page)

Fingers white-knuckled, she gripped the sheet and tried to
pull it over her head. Grabbing her wrists, he forced them to her sides. Pinned
beneath his powerful body, aware of the rage rippling through his every muscle,
an unexpected weakness invaded her. Excitement and need pooled low in her belly
as she stared up at him, fascinated by the arrows of utter blackness in his
dark eyes, by the way his eyelashes spiked at the tips, by the slash of his
eyebrows across his forehead.

She wanted to kiss the frown from his face, to sip from his
lips the coffee and brandy she could smell on his breath, to take the heat
pouring from his body into hers and turn fury into passion.

Other than moistening her lips, she lay perfectly still. She
wasn’t afraid of him, but she was afraid of herself and of the lust pounding
through her like relentless waves against a rocky coast.

“The ‘item’ was, of course, Isabella’s Belt,” Damian gritted
out, his rage boiling when Tiffany continued to stare at him as if she wanted
to gobble him up. Did she not realize how serious her situation had become?
That this evidence could convict her as surely as if she had left her
fingerprints at the scene of the murders?

“Was it?”

Her stretch pressed her hips to his groin. Sweat popped out
on his forehead. “And the mailing tube contained blueprints of the Luxembourg
museum.”

“Did it?” she purred, her fingers flexing like a kitten
kneading a quilt.

“Complete with security plans for the exhibit,” he added as
he climbed off the bed before he succumbed to her. His anger had faded, but
lust had replaced it. He wanted those curling fingers in his hair, her nails in
his back.

“Proposed plans.” After a long moment, while the passion
faded from her eyes, she got out of bed to don a robe. Giving him a considering
look, she finally said, “Had those plans been implemented no one could have
stolen Isabella’s Belt. At least not from the Luxembourg.”

“Which is why you had to act quickly.”

“Yes.”

“Dios, Tiffany! How do you expect me to help you when you
insist on lying to me?” Raking fingers through his hair, he glared at her. “You
leave me no choice.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning I am placing you under— What the hell?” He found
himself held at bay by a gun, a Derringer judging by the way it fit her hand.
If she fired, the shot probably would not kill him, but, with so little
distance between them, it could slow him down long enough for her to escape.
“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I don’t want to go to jail. Because if you arrest
me now, we’ll never find out who stole Isabella’s Belt. Because I’m not the
only one around here who’s lied.”

Willing his tense muscles to relax, Damian stood his ground,
his gaze never leaving her face. Her eyes would tell him if she meant to shoot
him. “I have told you as much as I can,” he said in a reasonable tone.

“I know you have.” A grim half-smile playing at the corners
of her lips, she stared at him for a long moment, then slid the gun into the
pocket of her robe. She kept her hand in her pocket, destroying Damian’s
momentary relief.

“Now I’m going to tell you something you don’t know, that no
one knows but me and, possibly, the murderer of those two people.”

A sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Damian said,
“You broke into the bank.”

“Not exactly.”

Closing his mouth on a bellow of rage only lasted the time
he took to open it again. “What do you mean, ‘not exactly’? You either stole
Isabella’s Belt or you did not.”

“Pardon me?” Tiffany said, uncovering her ears, letting her
hands fall to her sides. In a softer voice, Damian repeated himself and was
confronted with, “Fine, have it your own way then.”

With a long-suffering groan, he lifted his hands and eyes to
the heavens and muttered a prayer for patience. “Let us, please, begin again.
Did you steal Isabella’s Belt?”

Shrugging, she flung herself onto the chaise and smiled up
at him before saying cryptically, “If you consider intent, yes, I did steal
Isabella’s Belt.” She held up a hand that made him choke on his exasperation.
“If, on the other hand, you examine what I took from the bank, no I didn’t.”

“I give up.” He sank onto the bed and buried his face in his
hands. He should leave. If he stayed he either would throttle her or make love
to her until she was too exhausted to dance around his questions.

“Ian? Don’t you want to know?”

Lifting his head he saw her concerned face, mere inches from
his own. Drawing a deep breath, he inhaled her scent, Emeraude according to the
bottle he had found in her bathroom, and warm flesh. He clenched his fists,
barely managing to keep from touching her. “There is only one thing I want to
know. Did you kill those men? Yes or no.”

“No.”

“Thank God.”

“But I think—”

He gathered her into his arms, inhaled the fragrance of her
hair and savored the warmth of her body as she burrowed closer.

“I do not care if you are Dizzy Borden or Jacqueline the
Ripper. I could not care less if I am the biggest fool on God’s green earth. If
I must, I will run with you, hide with you, lie for you.” Despite his
exhaustion, his yawn caught him off-guard. “But it will have to wait until
morning. I cannot take any more of your—how do you say?” He wove a serpentine
with a hand that shook. ”Twisted logic.”

“Convoluted? You’re calling my thought processes
convoluted?” TC jerked her arms away and surged to her feet. Ian flopped onto
the bed with a boneless grace that set a match to her temper. How dare he! Just
when she was about to lay her life on the line, bet the farm on his trust in
her and hers in him, bare her heart and soul and tell him everything, the lout
had the nerve to fall asleep!

The urge to shake him dissolved into the need simply to
touch him. There was something deliciously forbidden about touching a man while
he slept. Smiling, suspecting she looked like a lovesick teenager but not
caring, she brushed back the errant lock of thick, silky hair that, as usual,
had mated with his eyebrows.

Tenderness, that’s what she felt. Not the sinking, desperate
emotion that, with William, so horribly resembled pity. Not the watchful,
constant monitoring of a mother guarding her infant. This was something
different. Something that filled her with amazement. Something wondrous and precious.

She wanted to share these feelings with Ian, but despite the
bubbling happiness coursing through her veins, his falling asleep had revived
her normal cautiousness. She knew so little about him, but she trusted her
instincts. Just as she hadn’t told him the complete truth about herself, he
hadn’t told her the complete truth either.

Nor was she totally convinced that he was innocent in the
attempts on her life. And what did he hope to gain from that blather about a
telegram? She would never incriminate Sir James or herself in such a blatant
way.

She swiped at an unexpected tear, sniffed away self-pity
before she trapped herself and wallowed in the emotion. Loneliness was a
familiar companion, one she had learned to tolerate if not to welcome.

Brushing a kiss on Ian’s beard-stubbled jaw, she left the
bed. She knew of one way to test his truthfulness. And if they both survived
the adventure, she’d tell him all about herself.

But when she awoke in the morning, Ian had gone to Medellin
to pick up his “sort of agent” friend.

Chapter Nine

Stupid, TC thought the next evening, turning from a
spectacular sunset to resume pacing her bedroom at Emilio Santana’s compound.
First she had been dumb enough to let her hormones get the better of her common
sense and had had sex with Ian Soria. Not satisfied with that piece of
insanity, she had confessed that she worked for Bijoux as more than an
appraiser. Not a smart move if Ian was in any way involved with the law. And
now, compounding her stupidity, she had let Ian call in his own reinforcements.
Reinforcements in the form of a “sort of agent” who probably had orders to
arrest her on sight.

“Do not fash yourself, Tiffany love.”

Whirling at the unexpected sound of Ian’s voice, TC snapped,
“Don’t you ever knock?” Taking a deep breath—only to steady her nerves, she
told herself—she glanced at him. She took another deep breath to calm her
galloping heart.

Dressed again in unrelieved black, looking dark and
dangerous, Ian leaned against her doorjamb and raked her with a hot, predatory
gaze. She had never seen him look so savage. So male. So sexy.

“Miss me?” he challenged with a boyishly charming grin that
belied the primal heat blazing in his dark eyes.

“Why would I miss you? You’ve only been gone,” she glanced
at her watch, “eight hours, twenty minutes and fifteen seconds. I guess I did
miss you.”

“My plane was late,” piped an unfamiliar voice.

Convinced whoever belonged to that crisp British accent was
about to arrest her, TC gulped and clasped her hands behind her back.

Adding to that conviction, Ian said, “Got ‘em?”

“Right here in the kit.”

An innocent-looking duffle bag preceded a young blond
surfer-type into her bedroom.

“There is a God,” TC mumbled, almost convinced that this
cherub could no more arrest her than she could fly.

Ian had stepped aside to admit his friend. Now, back at his
station with the door shut behind him, he renewed his predatory scrutiny of her
body. Though completely covered by a demure black linen sheath she’d donned for
dinner with the Santanas, TC felt naked. And hot.

“Use the bed.”

“Uh, sure. I’m Nick Troy,” the cherub said, sticking out a
large, well-manicured hand.

“TC,” she said, shook his hand, then quickly withdrew hers.
She wasn’t about to let him hang on long enough to cuff her to the bedpost. She
wasn’t that convinced his intentions were honorable.

“Tiffany,” Ian corrected in a bored voice, “thinks you’ve
come to arrest her.”

With an unreadable glance in her direction, Nick carefully
placed his bag on her bed. The zipper rasping open sounded like a buzz saw and
grated on her already frayed nerves. She retreated to the French doors, only to
find Ian looming.

Removing paraphernalia from his kit and placing it on the
bed, Nick asked, “Has anyone been in here since the, uh, incident?”

“Only the maid that I know about.” Folding her arms over her
chest, she meandered toward the hallway door. “Will you stop hovering?” she
complained when Ian again appeared at her side.

Instead of answering, he scooped her into his arms and
settled in a wingback chair with her in his lap.

Smothering a need to shriek in frustration, TC fought his
grip on her wrists and, squirming, struggled unsuccessfully to get to her feet.
Feeling a warm, hard pulsing against her bottom, she went utterly still.

“Guess you can feel how much I have missed you,” Ian
whispered in her ear.

Casting an embarrassed glance at Nick, she murmured an
objection. To no avail. Ian claimed her lips in a searing kiss that left her
breathless and too weak to protest when he kissed her again.

“Pardon me.”

“What is it, Nick?”

“I’m finished.”

“Already?” Ian drawled, but she felt his body tense.

“No prints, just a slick little mechanism set to work the
second time the shower was turned on.”

“The second time?” she echoed. “But I took two showers the
day I arrived and one the next morning. What’s going on here?” she demanded of
Ian.

“Well, the sludge could have slowed it down. Made it
happen…” Nick cleared his throat, retrieved his bag from the bed and backed
toward the door. “Later.”

“Oh, no you don’t, Nick Troy,” TC hollered. She sprang from
Ian’s lap and put herself between the cherubic imp and his goal. “And don’t you
dare laugh, Ian Soria, or I’ll punch your lights out.”

“Bloodthirsty little thing, is she not?” Ian said with a low
chuckle.

“I wouldn’t call her little,” Nick replied, veering toward
the balcony, looking as if he might jump off if she came any closer. He must
believe she had murdered those men in Paris, that she would murder him if he
let her close enough.

“Look, Nick,” she said, halting in the middle of the room
and holding out her hands like a magician with nothing up her sleeves, “I’ll
stop chasing you if you’ll tell me the truth. How could I take two, maybe as
many as four showers and not trigger the mechanism?”

“Ian,” Nick pleaded.

“I did warn you about her tenacity.”

Nick’s silence had given her his answer. Someone had been in
her room. Letting her hands fall to her sides, TC paced away.

“Holy shit,” Nick said with reverent awe as he watched TC
walk away with boneless grace.

“Amen,” Ian agreed.

“If you two are through ogling me, maybe one of you can
explain how, despite Santana’s vaunted security, somebody planted that bloody
damn mechanism in my shower two days after I arrived?”

“Articulate, too.” Ian grinned at her.

“Damn you, Ian Soria, what the hell do you expect me to do?
Cry? Have hysterics? Throw things?”

“I want you to do exactly what you are doing, only louder.”

“I beg your pardon.” She glared back.

“I want you to make a scene. Throw a tantrum. Pitch a fit.”

“Why?” If he didn’t tell her right now, she’d choke it out
of him. Seeing Nick out of the corner of her eye, she’d need to scare him away
before taking on his partner.

“Because I want you out of here and the only way to do that
without arousing suspicion, is for us to have a fight. You pack and Nick will
take you out.”

“And what are you going to do?”

“I shall stay for a few days, see if anybody tries to pump
me for information you might have given me… That kind of thing.”

“Lord, you’re a miserable liar! You’re going to let this
baby-faced agent arrest me.”

“Baby-faced?” Nick interjected.

Ian stood, retrieved her suitcases from the top of the
armoire and tossed them on the bed. “Pack,” he said in so low a voice he might
have whispered.

“You jerk!” TC shouted, flinging clothes into her cases. She
muttered under her breath, shrieked and then muttered again. When she had
finished, Ian pulled her into his arms, kissed her and then pushed her toward
Nick.

“See you in Bogotá,” Ian said. Then he pinched her bottom.

“I’ll see you in hell first.” And she almost meant it.

Back and forth they went, alternately shouting and
whispering all the way down the stairs. Thoroughly confused, Nick followed and
was soon joined by the entire Santana family. En masse they went out the front
door. Chattering like magpies, they circled Nick’s rented car while he stowed
TC’s luggage in the boot. Finally, with TC seated beside him and still cursing
Ian in the most colorful yet ladylike manner Nick had ever heard, he pulled
away. His passenger fought her seat belt and turned to shake her fist at the
assembled crowd.

Resettling, she grinned at him. “Well, wasn’t that special?”
she said in a perfect impersonation of an American comedian whose name escaped
him.

Startled by her smile and the incredible change in her mood,
Nick smiled back. Gunning the engine, he maneuvered the car into a hairpin
turn. Oncoming lights on high beam blinded him and he swerved to the right,
taking them to the edge of a sheer drop before he finally brought the car to a
stop.

“Where did you learn to drive?” TC demanded.

Taken aback by her belligerent tone, Nick took refuge in
dignity. “In London, of course.”

“And how many times have you driven abroad, Mr. Troy?”

“Outside the Commonwealth? Just this once, Miss Cartierri.
In Paris I use taxis or the subway. In New York City taxis are far safer than—”

“Limousines are the only safe mode of transportation in the
world. You, on the other hand, are hazardous to my health.”

Unbuckling her seat belt, his passenger forced him out of
the car. He fully expected to be set afoot, stranded, left to freeze in the
cold mountain night. To his astonishment, he found himself ensconced in the
passenger seat while his friend’s lady drove them through hill and dale. With
the aplomb and expertise of a Grand Prix racer, she smoothly executed every
twist and turn.

Near dawn they reached the road to the Colombian capital,
but the lady continued toward Medellin.

“Miss Cartierri, Dam—Ian ordered us to meet him in Bogotá.”

“Hang what Ian ordered, Nick. We’ll hook up with him in due
time. First we’re going to Medellin. I want to visit Suramericana de Seguros.
See if Bijoux’s counterpart has heard anything about the Belt. Then we’ll go on
to Muzo.”

“Muzo?” Nick repeated, feeling like a parrot.

“The Emerald Highway, Nick, begins at Muzo. That’s where
we’ll begin the search for Isabella’s Belt.”