THE RISK OF LOVE AND MAGIC (23 page)

“They make it look so easy,” she said with admiration, watching another couple clear the floor with their moves as Magnus swung her into the dance.

“They’ve been practicing for years. You’ll learn faster than they did. You move beautifully,” he assured her, feeling her hip sway beneath his hand as he led her backwards, remembering what her curves had felt like naked.

She beamed up at him and added extra sway.

The crowd parted to give another talented couple room. Recognizing the spotlight-hugging pair, Magnus cursed. Nadine peered over his shoulder to see what had set him off.

“Oz and Pippa,” Magnus told her. “They hired the driver and knew where we were going. Want to leave?”

She turned in his arms to watch his brother show off. In this position, while wearing stolen high heels, she danced with her ass nearly at his groin. “Why leave?” she asked.

“For their own damned safety, for starters,” he grumbled. He’d have to buy her a pair of heels and replicate this experiment sometime when they had a life of their own. “There’s a reason they live in the mountains behind fortress walls.”

“Oh?” she inquired. “Is Pippa a prisoner? Or Oz?”

Magnus didn’t explain. That was Pippa’s story to tell. “Pippa has issues. If she’s agreed to take this risk, her curiosity must be stronger than her fear.”

“Her mother is a Malcolm, that much I know. Having psychic gifts is not the same as being Frankenstein’s monster.”

“It can be,” he argued, knowing Pippa’s story.

“She’s beautiful and a really good dancer.” Nadine tugged him to a halt to watch. “Oz isn’t bad, but he’s not in your league. Go tap your brother on the shoulder and see what happens.”

Magnus gave her glossy brown spikes a look of incredulity. “You want to get me killed?”

“Jealousy is a product of insecurity. Your brother does not strike me as an insecure man,” she said with confidence.

“You’re loco,” he informed her, but the devil was in him now. He entered the circle and tapped Oz on his outrageous Hawaiian shirt. “You asked for it,” Magnus told him, grabbing Pippa’s hand and swirling her away when Oz stepped back in surprise.

***

Nadine grinned as the Maximator and Pippa practically shut down the dance floor with their moves.

It didn’t take Oz long to locate her. The man had a sophisticated movie star/surfer dude thing happening that had feminine heads turning.

“Wanta dance?” he asked grumpily, looming over her.

Once upon a time, she’d dreamed of a handsome man sweeping her onto the dance floor. Tonight, she shook her head no. “I do, but not with you. I’m inexperienced. Max is a patient teacher.”

“Max?” He eyed her skeptically.

He probably wasn’t used to rejection and had reason to believe her nuts. Nadine brushed off his skepticism and nodded at the dance floor. “He wasn’t happy with you following us here. He needs to blow off steam. Your wife’s a better dancer than I am.”

She didn’t mind the looks Oz attracted, not in the same way it annoyed her when women eyed Magnus. The Maximator could have any woman he wanted, and he didn’t even notice.

It seemed strange that he’d want chubby, nerdy her.

“Magnus needs an engine to tear apart, not a dance floor,” Oz corrected. “He hasn’t built any assault weapons yet, has he?”

Nadine sent him a look of amusement. “He simply needs an outlet for all that energy. You
are
seeing the same man I’m seeing out there, aren’t you?”

As far as she could tell, Magnus applied the same intensity to his dancing as he did his lovemaking. He was magnificent, all smooth moves and grace and fluid steps, one with the music and sexy as hell. Maybe she’d leave the music on when they went to bed next. She sure hoped there was a
next.

“I see my brother making a spectacle with my wife, who seems to be enjoying the show they’re putting on. Pippa doesn’t get out much, so I guess I won’t beat him to a pulp. Yet.” Oz crossed his bronzed arms and scanned the crowd. “Keep an eye out for paparazzi. We don’t need our faces on YouTube.”

“Did you come here just to harass Magnus or for another reason?” she asked as the DJ finished with a flourish and called a recess.

She watched as Magnus blocked his tall, but rail-thin, sister-in-law from the press of people as they made their way through the crowd. He had his hand at Pippa’s back, but his gaze was completely focused on Nadine. A pool of molten lava settled in her lower belly at the heat in his eyes.

“Pippa wanted to meet you,” Oz said. “As far as she’s concerned, you’re family. She doesn’t have much family, and she’s convinced all of you need to stick together.” Oz nodded at Magnus and Pippa as they arrived. “And Pippa thinks Oswins are bullies, right?”

“You are,” the tall redhead said without inflection. “It’s part of your charm. Glad to finally meet you, Nadine.” She held out her hand. “And thank you for loaning me your date. Magnus is a superb dancer.”

“And I’m not?” Oz growled, appropriating his wife with a hand at her back, elbowing Magnus away.

Elegantly slim in her off-the-shoulder silk gown, Pippa leaned in and nibbled her husband’s ear before replying. “You’re a good dancer but you have more interest in the people around you than in the music. Magnus is on a mission when he’s on the floor, a tonal difference you won’t understand.” She patted his broad shoulder sympathetically.

“I like your family,” Nadine decided, taking Mad Max’s arm as they returned to their table. “I like the way you look out for each other.”

“Genetic flaw,” he muttered. He swigged his beer and eyed his brother with disfavor. “I don’t owe you for the car and driver if you used him to find us,” he told Oz.

“As I heard it, you’ve already agreed to pay with some new invention,” Oz said without inflection, signaling a waitress. “Would you deny Pippa her fun?”

“At my expense? Yep.”

Nadine elbowed him. “What about for my sake? Isn’t that how this started? It’s not as if you had any interest in dancing.”

“I did,” Magnus said solemnly. “I’ve been told I’m very good at it.”

Shouldering a dazzling purse that probably cost a small Lexus, Pippa took Nadine’s arm. “C’mon, let’s find the little girl’s room while the oafs take a few verbal slugs at each other.” She steered her toward a side corridor.

“Serious case of testosterone poisoning in adolescence?” Nadine inquired innocently.

“I think they brush their teeth with it. If you haven’t killed Magnus yet, you have the patience of a saint. Although he’s not as bad as Conan. I have to push Conan in the pool every time he comes over. He may get married in a wet tux.”

Nadine laughed at the idea of this polished woman shoving anyone in a pool. Over the chattering crowd, she heard a shout but thought nothing of it until Pippa tensed.

She turned to make certain they weren’t being followed. A flash nearly blinded her.

Without warning, Pippa grabbed Nadine’s arm and shoved past the line waiting for the restroom.

“The general didn’t send photographers after me,” Nadine protested.

“Not the general. They’re after me.” Ignoring cries of objection from the women waiting in line, Pippa pushed through the door of the ladies lounge and looked frantically around. “Trapped,” she concluded. “Go back out and pull a fire alarm.”

Her elegant new friend really did have the terrified look of a trapped rabbit. Nadine responded instantly to her panic. “I have no idea what this is about, but there’s a painted-over window on that wall. Will that do?”

Pippa eyed the paint warily. “Even if we can pry it open, I can’t fit through that.”

Women maneuvered around them to reach the sinks and mirrors. More women pressed inside. Nadine heard a cacophony of excited shouts in the room beyond, but no one seemed in any particular danger.

“How important is it to get out?” she asked, eyeing Pippa’s fancy silk gown.

“I just told you to pull a fire alarm. That’s my level of panic. Maybe I can hide in a stall until you fetch Oz.” Pippa seemed prepared to do battle as the next woman shoved past her to grab a stall door before she could.

“Okay, got it. Let’s avoid fire trucks and the mass hysteria of trying to smuggle a man in here.”

Holding Pippa’s arm, Nadine worked her way back to the wall. She studied the window, found the lever, and wacked it with a martial arts chop. The paint cracked. The window probably did, too, but it was hard to tell beneath the paint. All that mattered was that the lever moved.

Pippa gasped at Nadine’s brute reaction. Not raised on nicety, Nadine grabbed the pricey shoulder bag from Pippa. Wrapping her hand in the cloth, she slammed her fist against the lever again, this time pushing it outward.

Miraculously, the window swung open.

Nadine scrambled up on a sink, worked her shoulders through the opening, and deciding the drop to the ground was safe, wriggled through until she could throw her leg over the edge. She couldn’t see Pippa’s expression from the other side of the painted glass, but she wished she had a camera anyway. There had to be gawking going on.

With a painful wriggle that probably ruined her one dress, Nadine was sitting on the window ledge. She leaned back in. “If I can do it, you can, but I advise going legs first.”

“This is insane, but I like it,” Pippa said from near the window. “I’m coming through. Get down.”

Nadine leaped into the dirt dividing the wall from the parking lot. Pippa’s long bare legs swung out shortly after. With a far more graceful maneuver, Pippa swung down to the ground using her hands on the window to swing outward. She shimmied her slim gown back into place.

“Oomph, that was fun.
Not
. Oz is going to kill me.” Pippa glanced around. “Do you have a phone on you?”

“Nope. Magnus hogs the phone. You don’t carry one?”

Pippa took back her shoulder bag to rummage through it. “I never go anywhere to need one and keep leaving it on my desk. They’re going to kill us both. Want to run away?”

She said that while lowering herself to a low concrete wall and pulling off her shoes to inspect the heels.

“Tried that. That’s how I wound up with Magnus.” Nadine followed her example and sat down on the wall to watch the front entrance expectantly. “I have every confidence that he’ll figure it out pretty quick.”

Pippa eyed her with respect. “You’ve learned that much about him in a week? You really must read minds.”

“If I did, I’d know what that was all about. Want to explain?”

“Someone thought they saw Syrene,” Pippa said with a shrug. “It’s like yelling Elvis entered the building.”

“Elvis is dead,” Nadine said, trying to puzzle out what a Syrene was.

“Yeah, so is Syrene, but tell that to the paparazzi. If Oz says ‘I told you so,’ can you take him down with that nifty karate chop?”

“Did I just step through some kind of mirror?” Nadine asked. “Is a Red Queen going to chop off my head?”

The flashing cameras and excited screams wouldn’t have stirred Magnus into action, if his big brother hadn’t jumped up, cursing creatively. Magnus wasn’t used to paparazzi. Oz was. His brain instantly switched to protective mode.

Oz brutally shouldered his way toward the restrooms and the line of irritated women, doing his best to block the flashing cameras and phones aimed at Pippa’s escape hatch.

Leaving his brother to act as obstacle, Magnus morphed into a heat-seeking missile in pursuit of Nadine. His job was to keep her face off the Internet and this was not the way to do it—damn Pippa’s recognizable phiz and addled-fan mystique.

He plowed his way through the crowd by crushing anything flashing in his face with his bare hands.

“No cameras allowed,” he told one freak who was apparently taking cell-phone photos of everything in sight in hopes of accidentally capturing anything interesting. Magnus knocked the phone to the floor, stomped on it, and made his way toward the ladies’ room. He couldn’t leave Nadine trapped or let her walk out into this melee.

Oz followed in his path. “Syrene has been off the market for years. What’s with these morons anyway?”

A professional photographer with a real camera around his neck shoved through the crowd on their heels. Magnus turned abruptly, and the jerk crashed into him. Which gave him a fine excuse to chest bump the pricey piece of equipment, knocking its lens askew. “Oops. Let me fix that for you.” He broke the strap holding the camera and twisted off the scope. “Here ya go.”

The photographer screamed bloody murder and swung at him. Grinning, Magnus swung back, propelling the photographer into the mob behind him.

“Oh goody,” Oz muttered. “I haven’t done this in ages.” He kneed the next guy trying to get past him and put up his fists. “Bar fight!” he yelled.

Shouts of “We want Syrene” echoed off the high metal beams of the ceiling. Magnus knew a lost cause when he saw one. Nadine was more important than convincing a crowd that Syrene didn’t exist.

The women waiting in line looked as if they’d like to bar him from their watering hole, but Magnus produced a scowl fierce enough to frighten Maori warriors. When they retreated, he barged into the ladies’ room, scattering screaming women. “Nadine!” he shouted.

No chirpy Librarian replied. The open window at the rear of the room spoke for itself. Counting to ten, Magnus swung around and dodged back to the hall. He grabbed Oz’s collar and dragged him toward the back door while the brawl continued uninterrupted on the other end.

“If she’s gone, I get to murder you, right?” he asked as big brother staggered, jerked free, and punched his ribs in retaliation.

“You need more confidence in your woman,” Oz scoffed as security bore down on them, looking grim.

“My woman?” Magnus pondered that as they retreated.
His woman.
La Loca?

He knew he was in trouble when the idea warmed him with pleasure. With enthusiasm, he punched out a security guard keeping him from reaching
his woman.

***

“So, okay, Syrene is dead to the world, and like a phoenix, Pippa the Philanthropist has risen in her place,” Nadine summarized, chewing on popcorn they’d bought from a vendor while waiting.

“Not much of a philanthropist,” Pippa said dismissively. “I just encourage people to do what they need to do.”