The Paris Caper (27 page)

“But...”

He guided her to the Saab
and opened the passenger door. “You’ve nothing to fear from me,
mon ange
.
If you don’t want me to touch you, I won’t. I promise.”

He met her gaze and
waited for her to make up her mind whether or not to trust him. With a huff she
relented, and at last she slid into his car.

Kneeling down, he snapped
on her seat belt for her. And said, “But if you feel like touching me,
chérie
,
you go right ahead.”

♥♥♥

Ciara was jumpy as a frog
who’d made a wrong turn into La Tour d’Argent restaurant.

“Relax,” Jean-Marc said,
taking his jacket and her purse from her and hanging them in the hall closet.
“There’s a bottle of wine breathing on the bar. Pour us a glass and I’ll start
a fire.”

Arms clamped tight across
her abdomen, she scanned his living room. “Nice digs.”

Jean-Marc’s apartment
occupied half of the penthouse level of one of the few modern apartment
buildings in the Opera district. Actually, it was from the thirties, complete
with sleek curved windows, ship-like balcony railings and stylized cornices. He
owned the whole top floor, but had divided the penthouse into two separate
apartments and rented the other to a divorced government official. He’d bought
the place years ago, at a time when many Parisians turned up their noses at
modern architecture, and had gotten quite a good deal.

Ciara leveled him an
openly suspicious gaze. “I’m surprised a cop can afford this kind of address.”

“Most can’t,” he said,
unperturbed, heading for the fireplace. “Years ago, in my misspent youth, I got
lucky in Monaco. Made several good investments with the winnings. This
apartment was one of them.”

Early on, he’d discovered
that his uncanny ability at math gave him an unfair advantage in card games.
One summer just after applying to the DCPJ he’d decided to test that ability to
its fullest at the blackjack tables all along the Riviera. He’d won an obscene
amount of money—for back then, anyway—before wisely deciding to decamp back to
Paris lest he be thrown out for card-counting and barred from the casinos for
life—not to mention losing his chance with the DCPJ. To this day, he wasn’t
sure how much his winning had been due to skill or just pure dumb luck.

But he had not stepped
foot in a gambling establishment since. He’d decided that was one addiction no
cop needed.

Ciara was looking at him
with an indecipherable expression. “Lucky break,” she said neutrally.

“Nah. My real lucky break
came five years earlier when my math teacher took an interest in me. He yanked
me out of that viper pit called my childhood and showed me there was a
different way to live life. If it weren’t for his influence, when I discovered
those gambling abilities I wouldn’t have stopped. I’d probably be in jail right
now. Or some lowlife barfly hustling people like your friends in Marseille out
of their ill-gotten gains.”

She chuckled and wandered
over to the bar. “Somehow I doubt that.” She picked up the wine bottle he’d
opened earlier and whistled at the label. “You sure you’ve stopped gambling?”

With a smile, he lifted a
shoulder. “Like I said, I made some good investments.”

She poured a glass of
wine and leaned back against the granite edge of the bar, perusing his
expensive but minimalist furniture and bare walls. “A decorator wasn’t one of
them, I see.”

“Smart ass.” He pushed a
button and flames leapt to life behind the glass doors of the fireplace. “My
ex-wife decorated it. When she left she took everything, and I had the whole
place painted white. New décor, new life. That was the theory anyway. I never
quite got around to following through, though”

“How long has it been?”

“Five years.”

She nodded and poured him
a glass of wine as he walked over to her. “You could use some art on your
walls. Liven up the joint.” She held out the glass. “I know where you can find
a Picasso cheap.”

He gave her a withering
glance as he took it. “
Très amusant
.” He tapped his glass to hers and
the ring of crystal tinkled through the room, clear, pure, sweet. “Welcome
home, Ciara.” He bent down and kissed each of her cheeks in the traditional
French greeting.

She stiffened. He was oh,
so tempted to kiss her on the lips, too. If only to rile her even more. But he
resisted. After all, he’d promised no touching.

“This isn’t home,
Jean-Marc,” she murmured, turning away.

He just smiled and drank
to his toast.

“Hungry?” he asked. “I
stopped at Fauchon for a little something for lunch. Figured you’re probably
sick of macaroni and cheese.”

“Pretty sure of yourself,
aren’t you,
flic
?”

“I usually get my way,”
he said with a modest smile. “Now, would you like to eat before or after your
bath?”

Her glass stopped dead
halfway to her mouth. “Excuse me?”

“Whenever I’ve been to
prison,” he said, strolling over to the windows, taking in the incredible view
over the rooftops of Paris, “in a professional capacity of course—the first
thing I do when I get out is take a nice relaxing bubble bath. Relieves the
stress of all that noise and ugliness. I imagine you’d like to wash away your
whole experience.” He knew that she hadn’t had anything untoward happen to her
in prison—he’d made sure of that with several well-placed bribes. French
women’s prison wasn’t exactly Sing-Sing, but it still couldn’t have been
pleasant.

She stared at him as
though he’d lost his mind. “You honestly think I’ll take my clothes off in your
apartment?”

Again he shrugged. “Keep
them on, then. But I just want to remind you that getting wet jeans off can be
murder. Bring your wine,” he said, and walked the length of the living room
into the master suite without looking back. She’d follow. It might take a
minute or two, but he’d been inside enough times to know she’d probably kill to
be able to scrub the prison stench from her skin and hair.

He went into the master
bath and turned on the taps that filled water into the luxurious spa tub like a
waterfall. “Vanilla or jasmine?” he called, pausing over a couple of ornate
bottles of bath beads he’d picked up yesterday. “I have some of my usual citrus
blend left, too.”

He sensed her in the
doorway. “You take bubble baths often, Lacroix?”

“Comes from having spent
much of my childhood fetching water from an apartment down the hall, I guess.”
He smiled wryly. “Our landlord wasn’t terribly responsive. Of course, who could
blame him when my mother was always a year behind on the rent?”

She studied him silently
for a moment, then said, “Jasmine, please.”

A tiny curl of victory
spun through him. He poured the sweet-smelling beads into the steamy, roiling
water. “I’ve set out towels and a robe for you.” He nodded to a tall pile of
white fluff on the counter. “Take your time. Lunch will wait.”

She nibbled on her bottom
lip and he nearly weakened. Damn, he wanted to be in that tub with her! But he
just smiled and closed the door behind him as he went out.

After half an hour of
putzing around the kitchen getting the lunch things together, he picked up the open
wine bottle and headed for the bathroom. On second thought, he set it down,
unbuttoned his dress shirt, rolled up the cuffs and pulled the tails from his
waistband. Then he grabbed the wine bottle again, knocked on the bathroom door
and went in without waiting for an answer.

Ciara was stretched out
in the tub under a mound of bubbles, her head resting on a plastic pillow, her
wet hair curled in a tangled halo about her face. Her eyes popped open,
startled, when he walked in.

Before she could react,
he breezed over and picked up her wineglass. “Brought you a refill,” he said,
pouring. “How’s the water? Still hot enough?” He handed her the glass and
dipped his fingers into the bubbles. She gasped. But he was careful not to
touch her. “Feels good. But don’t stay in too long or you’ll turn into a
prune,” he warned with a smile. “Though, I’ll admit I’ve always been partial to
prunes.” He winked. “Especially when they’re soaked in wine.”

Her eyes widened even
further.

He stood and set the
bottle on the sink. “You don’t mind if I change, do you? I thought we’d eat in
front of the fire and I don’t want to get carpet lint on my suit.”

“As a matter of fact—”

But he’d already peeled
off his shirt and was tossing it into a hamper hidden under the sink. Her words
cut off when he unbuckled his belt. He unzipped his trousers. From the corner
of his eye he saw her take a large gulp of wine.

Hiding a smile, he opened
the door to the large adjoining walk-in closet and went in. There he stripped
off the rest of his clothes, set the shoes in their place on the rack and hung
the trousers on their hanger. Picking up his discarded things, he walked back
into the bathroom. Naked.

He heard her intake of
breath and the splash of water as it sloshed onto the marble floor. “Jean-
Marc
...”
she said in a warning tone.

“I’ll put your clothes in
the wash with mine, eh?” he said, and grabbed her jeans and T-shirt from the
floor.

“That’s not necessary,”
she protested, but again too late. The things were already in the washing
machine, which was conveniently located in a recessed alcove with folding doors
between the bathroom and closet.

He spun the dial. “Fresh
clothes, fresh start,” he said, and leaned casually against the polished stone
vanity counter.

“You’re just full of
pithy little sayings, aren’t you?” she muttered, avoiding looking at his body.
She sighed. “Why are you doing this, Jean-Marc? Why did you bring me here?”

He, however, had no such
qualms. She’d sat up when he’d walked in, exposing her breasts above the water.
Her plump wet flesh was rosy from the heat of the bath, her cheeks flushed from
the wine—or maybe it was from the sight of his body?—and trails of soap bubbles
trickled down over her lush curves. A blob of white had fastened to one nipple,
looking so much like whipped cream he had to physically restrain himself from
licking it off.

He felt his cock rise.

“Look at me, Ciara,” he
ordered softly.

Grudgingly she did so.
Her gaze wavered at his growing erection, then rose to his eyes. “You have to
be out of your mind.”

“Possibly,” he admitted.
“But I still want you. You’ve got a clean record now, you’ve paid your debt to
society. There’s no reason we can’t be together.”

Her mouth dropped open.
Then it snapped shut and she shook her head. “You really
have
gone over
the deep end.”

“Surely, you’ve forgiven
me by now. I never made it a secret I intended to put you in jail.”

She gave a humorless
laugh. “True. But I have to hand it to you, Lacroix, your method of closing the
case was ingenious. Your seduction was singularly effective.”

He frowned. “You surely
can’t mean— If you think I used our relationship to—” He ground his jaw. “For
the record, I had nothing to do with your arrest. I didn’t even know about it
until minutes beforehand. If it had been me—”

He cut himself off before
he blurted out that he’d have waited to arrest her until they had solid
evidence on
all
her thefts, so she’d have spent a whole lot longer than
eighteen months in jail. Unless she’d turned herself in, as he’d implored her.
In which case he’d have done everything he could to help her plead out and come
back to him as soon as possible.

“Yes, I know,” she said
quietly. “But for the record, I really didn’t steal those rubies. Beck had them
stolen and planted in my purse, to frame me. I’m sure of it.”

He sighed. “I figured
that out, too, eventually. The whole thing was just a little too convenient.”

“Not that it matters,”
she said even more softly. “I was guilty of all the rest. I am a thief,
Jean-Marc. I am
le Revenant
. Which is reason enough we can’t be together.”

His breath caught in his
lungs. It was the first time she’d admitted her guilt out loud to him. Admitted
who she’d been.
But no more
.

“You
were
le
Revenant
,” he corrected firmly, pushing off the counter. “But
Le
Revenant
is dead and buried now in a closed case file at the bottom of a
locked cabinet in the basement of
36 Quai des Orfèvres
.
Your slate is clean, Ciara. You can do anything you want with your future.”

She looked unconvinced,
but didn’t say anything as she watched him slip on a pair of black linen
drawstring pants.

“
Viens
,” he said.
“I’m starving, and that water’s got to be stone cold by now. Hop out and let’s
have some lunch.”

He swiped up the wine
bottle and wagged a finger at her. “Five minutes,
chérie
. Then I’m
coming back to get you.”

♥♥♥

He wasn’t serious. He
couldn’t be.

Clean slate. Right. Who
was he kidding? If
Commissaire
Lacroix took up with her, a convicted
felon, the DCPJ would fire his ass so fast it wouldn’t be funny.

Still, he looked so
sincere...

He probably just wanted
to fuck her again.

Hell. She was tempted to
let him.

Except he’d no doubt end
up fucking her
over
again.

Ciara didn’t know what it
was about the man, but every time she got within five meters of Jean-Marc, her
brain seemed to vaporize.

Every time she told herself,
don’t listen to him, don’t let yourself fall for his pretty promises
.
But every damn time she ended up in the same damn place. Under him with her
legs spread.

Last time she’d believed
his promises she’d also ended up in jail.

So, no. Not this time.