One Stolen Kiss (4 page)

“
Have you been thinking of me?” he asked, bluntly. “To you, I was innocent, yes? I was your ‘mark’ as they say?”

As his hand traced the slow line between her ankle and knee, Christie wondered if he planned to do everything to her that she’d done to him on that occasion.

“I asked you first…” she managed to say, before the tips of his fingers brushed along the upper edge of her other stocking, summoning up goosebumps where they almost met the surface of her skin.

“
Did you kiss all of your marks goodbye?” he asked.

Christie gasped as his fingers traced higher, directly onto the soft skin of her inner thigh above the stocking, his thumb toying with the second fastener.

“Be careful, if you decide to say anything,” Adrik continued, leaning closer. “I may already know the answer.”

She was biting down on her tongue now, her mind a whirlpool while her body did its best to betray her. His hand made one more journey down to the tip of her toes, and back up again, teasing her mercilessly.

Don’t say it,
she repeated over and over to herself in her head.
Don’t say anything.

He circled the fastener several times as before, then hooked one finger behind the elastic connected to it, running the back of his knuckle up and down her bare skin, causing her skirt to hike up and expose the restraining button. Christie tensed, certain she was seeing more stars than physically appeared through the grass roof. If she had dared, she would have closed her eyes to see if they were all real, or in her mind.

“Do you have dreams about me?” he whispered. “Because I dream about you.”

“
I think I’m in one right now,” she blurted out against all better judgement, gritting her teeth.

He grinned, sliding his hand down to grip the fastener.

“I should put you out of that misery.”

Leaning down, he closed his mouth over the button in a kiss – and popped it apart with his tongue.

The stocking drifted off as the first one had, unheeded. The night air rushed in to envelop her instead, like a rippling tide.

“
Was that a shiver?” He left a second soft kiss on her thigh before straightening up again, and pocketed the stocking along with its partner. A low chuckle followed. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

Christie waited for the stars overhead to stop pinwheeling, and wondered if she could get away with that.

“You do have a blister,” he announced, matter-of-factly, warming her now bare feet between his hands, and tutted. “One on both heels.”

How long had it had been since she dared to breathe? Her lungs felt ragged as she filled them, tentatively.

“I don’t think you will be running very far tonight,” he added, smoothing along her shin in a soothing manner.

He’s not kidding.
Thankfully, the teasing appeared to have stopped. She was going to need help standing if she had to, never mind running. And not due to the blisters.

“
He doesn’t do…” she began, backtracking to the subject she intended to keep at the fore of the conversation, but struggled to make what she wanted to say heard while the sky was still spinning. “Anything… God,
wrong.
He doesn’t do anything wrong. That’s what I meant to say.”

“
He sounds like Mr Perfect,” Adrik replied, dryly. “Is that perhaps why he is so wary of you?”

“
What?” A brief chill above her knees made her notice her skirt was slightly awry, and she straightened it with an angry wriggle, attempting to sit herself upright against the cushions. “What a ridiculous thing to say! Why would he be wary of me?”

“
You know my opinion – I think all men should be wary of you.” Adrik reached down to pick up her phone as it hummed yet another countless time, and handed it back to her. “Someone so perfect who never does anything wrong in the eyes of the world? He would be the most wary of all.”

“
He’s not wary!” Christie fumed, and if her heels had been less sore she would have been tempted to kick them hard into his lap, right where it would hurt most. But she didn’t trust her still-dizzy muscles to respond either. “He’s a decent, sensible man. Just cautious, that’s all… I mean careful… oh, I know what I mean, never mind…”

She opened the notifications on her phone again. Lots of Paparazzka portrait bids. Lots of requests for lunch. Nothing from Derek.

“It appears he is certainly very cautious,” Adrik remarked, at her disappointed scowl. “Unless of course something has happened to him and he is in a hospital somewhere.”

Christie’s wallowing feelings of self-centred pity were immediately replaced with one of vague horror. It did not go unnoticed.

“You should perhaps go and check up on him yourself,” Adrik told her. He removed her feet from his lap and deposited them gently and somewhat regretfully back onto the floor. “That would be decent and sensible. Where does he live?”

“
He’s at his place in the Hamptons this week.”

“
Then go to see him. Your mind will be at rest, and you can do likewise for his.”

“
What on Earth am I going to tell him? It must be all over the NYC networks already. And he always checks the London news sites before bedtime. Never misses a headline.”

“
A fascinating insight into his life that I’m sure I did not need.” Adrik took out his own cell phone and tapped on it. “Tell him nothing, if you wish. Or tell him you are leaving him for me. Or tell him that we have only a business arrangement. I am not in charge of how you handle your previous baggage, no more than you are in charge of mine. Zory gave me your cell phone number. You will take my number, and you can call me tomorrow. We will discuss the trip to Italy.”

“
Italy?” Christie echoed. Her phone lit up with an unrecognised caller, and her heart leapt as she hit
Connect
. “Hello?”

“
Hello,” Adrik teased, and his voice also echoed in her ear. “I believe we have an important engagement in Lake Como to attend.”

Christie groaned and threw a pillow at him, before disconnecting the call and adding him to her contacts list.

“How much baggage do you have?” she asked, in a hope to see him squirm in turn.

“
Suitcases on every doorstep,” he reminded her.

* * * *

One of Doug’s limousines was summoned, and while Adrik was obliged to mingle with his newfound Art fanatics at the club, Christie made an excuse regarding the gallery, and endured a long drive to East Hampton.

It had occurred to her, in a moment of hopeful madness, that if something had indeed happened to Derek to conveniently incapacitate him for a few hours or hospitalise him overnight (just for observation of course, not put him in intensive care) he might have missed the news. She tried to avoid calling his number too frequently on the way, but hoped to ensure that if he was at home, he would still be awake when she arrived. None of her calls were picked up.

Which gave her plenty of time to worry about Adrik Maksimov.

Adrik still had her stockings in his pocket. Of all the things that could be bothering her about him, why was that obstinately at the forefront of her mind?

How had he managed to show up here – was it really just a coincidence that Zory Tamarkin had sent him? What was she going to do about this Paparazzka mess, now that the news and the interest in the paintings had gone viral in a matter of hours?

Never mind the totally insane business of their surprise ‘engagement’ – what about the other rumours she’d heard over the last eleven years? The one about the Russian Mafia? Was that a reality – or another psychotic PR stunt?

Why was he still trying to track down those diamonds? On whose behalf?

The heating in the car was keeping her from the cold, but she couldn’t stop thinking about that moment with her feet in his lap, while he slowly peeled off her stockings…

“We’re here,” the driver announced.

The lights lining the driveway were on, and in the distance through the trees, Christie could see the house was also illuminated. But the gates, as always, were closed.

“He’s not answering the phone,” Christie said, an uncomfortable lump now rising in her throat. “I’ll have to try the intercom. Will you wait, please?”

“
I’m not going anywhere, Ma’am.” He got out to open her door for her.

Risking the high heels again on her feet, which she had treated to some ice from the limo’s refrigerator on the drive over, she headed determinedly for the locked gates and pressed the entry-phone buzzer.

Silence. She waited patiently for a full two minutes before trying it again.

“
Come on,” she muttered eventually, as the buzzer remained stubbornly unanswered.

“
Someone’s here to take a look,” reported the driver from beside the limo.

A figure was advancing down the long driveway, dimly illuminated by the pillar lamps. He was a broad shape, too broad to be Derek – carrying something flapping and indistinct in one hand, the leash of a Doberman in the other.

“Miss Harding?” the unknown security guard hailed as he approached.

“
Yes,” she said, relieved. “Is Derek – Mr Goldman expecting me?”

The guard reached the gates, but instead of unlocking them, he reached through the bars. He was holding out a dark grey garbage sack.

“The housekeeper said you’d be here for your things,” he replied. “Sorry they’re not properly packed, but it’s technically her night off so she was heading out. Mr Goldman went round the place himself earlier and tossed it all in here.”

Stunned, Christie accepted the trash bag. She was amazed that Derek had found anything of hers even to return. Leaving any of her stuff with him was against his rules. But as she peeked inside, mystified, she saw a denim jacket she had forgotten about months ago, a crochet purse – ditto – a pink and grey cotton Victoria’s Secret nightshirt, a small bottle of Chanel perfume, a Carmex lip balm and a disposable plastic toothbrush that he might as well have thrown in the actual trash. If he wasn’t so paranoid about curious people rummaging through it.

“Thank you,” she said at last, a sense of horrible numbness crawling over her.

“
Welcome.” The security guard tugged at the Doberman’s leash, and ambled away back up the drive.

The cold ocean breeze would have had Christie’s teeth chattering and knees knocking together if she hadn’t been rigid with shock.

So that was it. She was officially in the Goldman PR relationship dumpster. Along with all the other failed players – the
Goldman-Diggers,
as he called them – who had tried to win him over.

“
Uh-huh…” Doug’s driver cleared his throat, tactfully. “If you have a pair of gloves in that bag there, I have some bolt-cutters and an AK-47 in the trunk. No questions asked.”

“
Tempting,” she admitted. Her eyes began to smart, and she sniffed against the cold. “But not today, sadly.”

He held the door open.

“Best get you back to town, then.”

Christie curled up on the nubuck leather, too numb even to cry as the car glided onto the main road again.

She tried his number one more time, and an answering service picked up before it could even ring. Her heart sank completely.

‘
Your number has been blocked as unrecognised,’
the digital recording informed her, and cut her off.

If Derek wasn’t prepared to so much as speak to her, then in his eyes that made her the worst type of Goldman-Digger. The ones who had not only outstayed their welcome in his company, but gradually began to find themselves unwelcome elsewhere, while the top-secret Goldman-grapevine filtered them out of all the best acceptable company.

Christie put her cell away, blinking back the tears that forced their way through her lashes. She suspected at least one award-winning actress of having fallen victim to him, after the woman had hinted to a journalist that they were together at an Oscars after-party. Derek had blanked the story and the actress entirely. For some mysterious reason, no film offers were made to the recent divorcee in the months that followed, and she had left Hollywood and taken up with some unnamed rancher in Wyoming.

The future of
Harding’s
, as a Manhattan gallery and as a name to be attached to, looked very precarious indeed.

The limo driver turned his music down to take an incoming call on his headset.

“Homeward bound, boss,” he confirmed. “Riding shotgun in the back. Affirmative. I’ll tell her.”

He turned his head slightly and patted the headrest of the seat in front of Christie, to get her attention.

“Your phone is about to ring,” he called over his shoulder.

Bemused, Christie pulled it from her pocket, just as it lit up.

ADRIK Calling…

A strange stabbing hit her from inside her chest. She sniffed again and rubbed her eyes on her sleeve firmly.