Gabriel braced himself.
In a fake, squeaky voice that went badly with her willowy frame, she said, “Oh, Mr. Security Man, you’re so tall and strong, won’t you make my dreams come true?”
“You’re jealous that she didn’t come on to you.”
“No.” She dropped back into her usual low, sexy voice. “Glory alternates between dumb and crazy, and I can’t handle that.”
“Glory?”
“That girl.”
He glanced toward the open door. “You know her?”
“You don’t?”
“I’m supposed to?”
Susan sighed deeply. “She’s the hot singer du jour, a sex symbol since she was thirteen—”
“Ick.”
“—And currently living with her record producer who is wayyy too old for her.”
Gabriel jerked his head toward the house. “Is that him?”
“That’s him. Steve Chapman.”
“Must be why she’s shopping, and why he’s worried.” He glanced toward the line of cars snaking their way up the drive; he could finally see the end. For two hours they’d been arriving, and he was ready to go inside and . . . see Hannah.
As soon as he allowed himself to think of her, the memory of her self-induced pleasure flooded his mind. He had watched her imagine a lover and, at the peak of her climax, heard her groan his name. He had observed her long after she’d turned off the light and gone to sleep, and even now, the remembrance made his body tighten in anticipation.
After last night, he definitely wanted to see Hannah.
“It looks like the worst is over,” Susan said. “Why don’t you go in and check out the party, boss?”
Gabriel turned his head and looked at Susan. “Why?”
“For one thing, you’re not slated to be on duty. Good thing. You seem distracted. Maybe there’s someone inside who’s caught your interest.” She smiled in a way that told him that, in her estimation, there was no maybe about it.
He had been concentrating on his job . . . but Susan had a way of observing people, a gift that he respected, because she didn’t just observe—she interpreted their actions and speculated, usually correctly, on their motivations, their plans, their intentions.
Tonight, she had seen something different about him. Something more.
She had seen his obsession with Hannah Grey.
But he wasn’t going to admit to anything. If she found out he had taken all the shifts on this job so he could watch their prime suspect brush her teeth, Susan would never let him hear the end of it.
“Fine. I’m going to make my rounds. Inside. Call Mark if you need him.”
“Right.” Susan placed her black Stuart Weitzman flats firmly on the step, put her hands behind her, and observed as another beautiful young thing, accompanied by another old codger, got out of a car. “It’s a parade,” she muttered.
With a nod to the ever-vigilant Nelson, costumed like an eighteenth-century footman, Gabriel walked through the large double doors.
He couldn’t believe how the place had been transformed. Every crystal chandelier, every marble floor, every swirl on the antique furniture had been cleaned, polished, waxed. The decorations had been created with a professional hand. Draperies of black and purple silk, billowing beneath the slow breath of well-placed fans, created a cavelike entrance, which funneled the guests toward the ballroom, where the band played big-band tunes from the forties, music that lured the guests to the dance floor, and waiters circulated with champagne and appetizers.
There the draperies changed, became velvet painted to resemble castle walls that mounted all the way to the second-story ceiling. Real roses with real thorns climbed the velvet panels, and here and there, red and purple silk swayed like dancing skirts.
Yep. This was Sleeping Beauty’s castle, all right. Even if Gabriel hadn’t recognized it, Mrs. Manly’s costume would have provided the final clue.
She sat smack in the middle of the longest wall, on an ornate throne on a raised dais, wearing a black cape with a purple silk lining and a headdress with two pointed black horns, and she held a staff with a glass ball at the top and a stuffed raven atop that.
The costume was a genius of camouflage. Mrs. Manly had aged since her last public appearance—there was no concealing that—but the throne gave her a seat as she greeted her guests, the faint green tinge of her makeup hid the pallor of her skin, and her stooped shoulders seemed like part of her evil character.
Come to think of it, it wasn’t so much a disguise as a revelation.
Gabriel glanced at Carrick, standing at his mother’s right hand, and approved his costume—a long black cape with a stand-up collar worn over dark trousers and a white ruffled shirt. Except for the ruffles, he didn’t look like an ass, and no matter how you cut it, most of the men in here did.
Gabriel watched some guy dressed as a condom walk past. Okay, he didn’t look like an ass. He looked like a prick.
At last, Gabriel allowed himself to look at Hannah.
She stood behind and to the left of Mrs. Manly’s throne, and even though it was obvious she was Mrs. Manly’s companion, she attracted almost as much interest as the elusive Mrs. Manly herself. Maybe it was because word of her notoriety had preceded her. Maybe it was because Mrs. Manly introduced everyone to her as they came through. Personally, Gabriel thought it was because she was so sexy, he broke a sweat just looking at her.
She wore a nurse’s costume, a white dress belted at the waist, with a knee-length skirt, long bloused sleeves, and a tongue depressor and a small flashlight in her breast pocket. Her cap sat perkily atop her blond hair. Her stockings were white, with a seam up the back, and how she kept them up, he couldn’t imagine . . . here. If he stood here and imagined what she wore under that dress, he would be unfit for duty, because she wore a nurse’s costume . . . just for him.
She made him want to fake an illness so she would put him to bed.
He stared long and hard, secure in the knowledge that his eyes were hidden behind his mask, but then . . . she must have felt his stare, because she looked around. He couldn’t see her eyes, and she couldn’t see his, but for the first time, they were looking directly at each other.
Just as he had predicted, she recognized him.
Was this what he had hoped for? That music would swell and birds would sing? That they’d see each other across a crowded room and know that they’d found true love? That he’d know without a doubt that she was innocent of all the sins with which she’d been charged?
It was goddamn romantic. It was also goddamn stupid, lusting after a black widow that caught her victims, sucked the life out of them, and tossed their lifeless husks aside.
Still . . . he was not a victim, and he was forewarned. He could handle this. He could handle her.
Mrs. Manly looked between the two of them, then spoke to Hannah, who started and turned her attention to Mrs. Manly.
The connection between Gabriel and Hannah was broken.
Good. Good, damn it. He had work to do, and it would be better to let Hannah wait.
He slipped away to the back of the ballroom to check on his men, make sure there was no trouble, that they were following orders.
They were. The guests were confined to the ballroom, the corridors, and the restrooms that had been set aside for their use, and while a few had grumbled when turned away from self-guided tours of Balfour House, they were easily distracted when steered to the dining room, with its heaping buffet table.
Pleased, Gabriel paused to watch the company, and as he stood there, over and over he heard the recurring theme.
“What do you suppose is going to happen with Nathan Manly’s widow?”
“What do you suppose she’s going to tell the feds?”
“Do you really think all the money is still around?”
“Nathan spent it.”
“The government wouldn’t waste their time. They know something.”
“Then why didn’t they call he
r in sooner?”
“They’ve got new information, of course.”
Gabriel thought that the senator who said that probably had a valid point, one worth investigating.
From his point of view, the party was a success. There were no incidents of violence, no obvious drug use, and no one who needed to be ejected. He thought Mrs. Manly also would consider the party a success: power players from all over the world were here, they were having a good time, and wine and gossip were flowing freely.
Which was why he was surprised when Nelson touched his arm. “Mr. Sansoucy?”
Not Gabriel Prescott, but Trent Sansoucy. “Yes.”
“Mrs. Manly wants to speak to you.”
Gabriel looked across the turbulent ballroom toward the elevated throne. Carrick had disappeared into the crowd, but Mrs. Manly still sat there, with Hannah on a stool beside her. “Thank you,” he told Nelson, and walked through the dancers toward them.
When he got close, Mrs. Manly gestured him over. “Are you Eric’s boy?” she asked.
“Yes, Mrs. Manly.”
Hannah took an audible breath, and slid her stool back an inch.
Yeah, honey, I’m a guy who’s not sick and not easy to kill, not bald, not fat, and not short. I’m your worst nightmare.
Carrick wandered over, a drink in his hand. “Can I get you anything, Mother?”
“Don’t be irritating, Carrick. When I want something, I’ll send Hannah,” Mrs. Manly said with crushing finality.
“Right.” Without visible sign of hurt, he turned to Gabriel. “How about you?”
“He’s in charge of security.” Mrs. Manly thoroughly looked Gabriel over. “Although I would have never guessed you were Eric’s son. You don’t look at all like him.”
“I think he does,” Carrick said.
Yeah, you’d better step in here, bro.
“Maybe . . .” Mrs. Manly still stared. “He does remind me of . . . someone. I suppose it must be Eric.”
“Genetics are a funny thing,” Gabriel said in a low, hoarse voice. He had listened to a recording of his own voice as it came through the changer. It was higher than normal, with that nasal East Coast accent, and he had practiced it until he was satisfied he could fool Hannah—if he didn’t say too much.
Mrs. Manly drew back. “You have a cold?”
“Laryngitis,” he answered.
“That’s not contagious, is it?”
“Not this kind.” As long as he concentrated, he sounded pretty good. Like he belonged in the Northeast.
“Fine then. Enough of that. This is Hannah.” Mrs. Manly waved her hand at her nurse. “You’ve been talking to her on the phone. Stop drooling at her and take her out and dance.”
“Mrs. Manly!” Hannah looked everywhere except at him.
“Thank you, Mrs. Manly. I’ll do that,” Gabriel said at the same time. Reaching out, he presented Hannah with his outstretched palm.
She looked at it, then looked at him, refusing his silent demand.
He smiled, a slow curl of the lips that mocked her hesitation. “Mrs. Manly commands. We both obey.”
“Put like that . . .” She placed her hand in his.
His fingers closed around hers.
And the air around them sizzled.
SEVENTEEN
Hannah watched his smile fade. He looked down at their linked hands, then up toward her face.
She couldn’t see his eyes. His mask covered his forehead and cheeks, and slithered over his nose and down one side to his chin. Yet she knew he saw her better and more completely than any person had ever seen her before.
She waited, breathless, for him to speak, to flirt, to say the things he’d been saying all week on the phone—the things he had said last night.
“Dance?” he asked.
That was brief.
“Only because Mrs. Manly ordered me to,” she answered.
He chuckled, a slow rumble of amusement that mocked her hesitation, and tugged her, hard and fast, into his arms. “You like that.”
“What?”
“That you don’t have to make the decision, that she made it for you.” His voice sounded muffled. Muffled, and a little . . . off.
Laryngitis, she told herself.
“Do you flatter yourself I would dance with you without her command?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” He pulled her onto the dance floor and into a slow fox trot. “How big a coward are you?”
She took a quick breath at his clever, rapier-fast thrust, then thrust back. “It’s only a dance.” She waited, pleased with her clever reply.
“And a nuclear explosion is just a big display of fireworks.”
That was flattery . . . but it felt like the truth. “Okay. You won that round.”
“That’s better,” he murmured somewhere north of her head.
“What’s better?”
“You just relaxed.”
“How would you know?”
“You’ve been tense for days.”
“How would you know?”
He swung her in a half-circle, keeping her close, leading so firmly she followed intuitively. “Your voice.”
“My voice was tense?”
“Umm.” His breath warmed the top of her head.
“And now it’s not?”
“Not tense. Aware.” Slowly he swung her in a half circle. “Of me.”
Funny. She felt very tense as she asked, “And you?”
“Very aware. Last night . . .”
She tried to pull back.
He controlled her, kept her close. “Last night, after we spoke . . . did you think of me?”
“Speaking to you was very pleasant.” That sounded dry and cool. “I’ve enjoyed all our conversations.”
She felt his shoulders shake as if he suppressed laughter.
She leaned back and looked up at him. “What?”
“My reaction to our talk last night was more than pleasant. I was . . .”
“You were . . . ?”
“I desired to meet my mystery woman more than anything I’ve desired in my life.”
The way he said desire made her shiver.
He smiled at her, a half smile that told her he’d felt her shiver, and he knew why.
“Are you . . . ?” She paused. Are you pleased with what you see? But no, that wasn’t the question she wanted to ask. “Did I describe myself well enough?”
“I knew who you were as soon as I saw you.”
“Because I was standing next to Mrs. Manly.”
“No.” He hugged her close again, pressed her head against his chest, and said exactly the right thing. “I would know you anywhere.”
“And I would know you.” She listened to his heartbeat, to the rush of breath in his lungs. “Anywhere.”
Beneath the veneer of talk and motion, something was happening . . . to them.
The sounds of the music, the talk and the laughter died away, leaving them alone together in a place where warmth shimmered between them and light made her close her eyes. She leaned her head against his chest. The cool, wild scent of him made her dizzy, and the exercise made her breathless.
Surely it was the exercise.
But how to explain that she seemed to be melting into him? All the parts that touched him grew warm and pliable, and all the parts that touched those parts were losing tension, like steel heated by flame.
She looked off to the side, afraid of what he’d see if she gazed into his masked face. Afraid he’d somehow know what she’d done last night after she’d hung up the phone, that he’d know what she’d imagined . . .
That dance ended, and another began, a swift-moving blare of a fifties tune. She stepped away from him and smoothed her hair, almost relieved to be away from the intensity of dancing with the man who was both stranger and lover. He’d held her close, far closer than was necessary, and she could now testify that her speculation about him was completely off. He wasn’t old or bald or plump. He didn’t wear a corset; th
at was all him under that suit.
Yet at the same time, she still hadn’t seen him. The dim light of the faux castle concealed far too many details, while his mask hid his upper face and distorted even his jawline.
He placed his hand against the small of her back to lead her from the dance floor, and that was too intimate, too commanding, and yet she welcomed his guidance. To have someone of her own, someone to lean against, and to know that someone would walk with her through the loneliness and the danger to a place of safety . . . that had been more than she could ever hope.
They had barely met, and already she trusted him. Already they had been lovers . . . not really, but the sound of his voice had brought her to orgasm.
And he didn’t know.
Thank God.
“I feel like I know you.” He had a quirk in his cheek, like a guy who had already heard the joke—a joke that she didn’t get.
“We have been talking for a while,” she said.
“Am I what you expected?” The quirk deepened.
“Exactly what I expected.” In her best and wildest dreams.
He stopped her at the far end of the dance floor close to the dining room. “I’m going to fill a plate for us to share. All right?”
“Yes. I’d like that.”
He brushed her cheek with his fingertips, turning her face up to his. “You’ll wait here?”
“I’ll be here.”
He left, and she turned toward the queen’s throne, wanting to make visual contact with Mrs. Manly, to make sure she was as well as she claimed to be.
Mrs. Manly wasn’t there.
Hannah jumped as if someone had stuck her with a pin. She walked toward the dais, threading her way through the dancers, using her elbows when necessary to clear the way. The crowd parted, and Hannah spotted Mrs. Manly, standing on the edge of the dance floor, gripping the back of a chair, talking to her son.
No, not talking to her son. Their body language made that clear. She was reading her son the riot act.
Hannah sped up. What had he said to get her up off that throne and standing by herself? And smiling? Mrs. Manly was smiling at her son in a most unpleasant manner. What had he said to make her look at him and smile?
By the time Hannah made it to Mrs. Manly’s side, she was breathing hard from exertion and worry. “Mrs. Manly, how can I assist you?”