Author: Tiffany Reisz

But the stars hadn’t been the only witness.

Marie-Laure sighed heavily, angrily.

“I knew then that I had been lied to, that I had been betrayed even worse than I’d thought. It should have been me underneath him that night, not you. I am his wife, not you.”

“He thought you were dead. You can’t blame him.”

“He killed me,” Marie-Laure said, her voice so flinty with bitterness Nora could swear she saw sparks coming off her words.

“You killed yourself. You ran away.”

“I had no choice. I loved my brother. I wanted him to be happy. I was in the way of that happiness.”

“You didn’t want him to be happy. If you did, you would have gotten the marriage annulled or gotten divorced and gone back to France or even stayed married, taken the money and run. You had a thousand options that would have let Søren and Kingsley be together, be happy. You took the one option guaranteed to break them up. You wanted to punish Kingsley because he made the mistake of being the one Søren was in love with, not you. Don’t act like you faked your death for some noble purpose. You wanted to destroy their relationship by making them think they killed you.”

“I did destroy their relationship,” Marie-Laure said with pride. There it was. Nora saw it. The real motive coming out. She’d been right and Marie-Laure wasn’t going to deny it. She’d faked her death to punish Kingsley and Søren for daring to love each other. “I know what happened. Kingsley quit school and joined the French Foreign Legion right after I died. My husband went to Rome and began training for the priesthood. That kiss of theirs, the one I witnessed, it was their final kiss.”

And Marie-Laure grinned so wildly Nora wanted to rip it off her face with her fingernails. And she’d do it, too, but not with her hands—she had a much better weapon at her disposal.

“You didn’t destroy their relationship, though, despite a very good effort on your part.”

“Don’t lie to me. I know my husband. I read your file. You’re the only person he’s been with sexually since becoming a priest.”

“Kingsley writes the files and he’s a very unreliable narrator. He decides what goes in, what stays out.”

Marie-Laure narrowed her eyes at Nora, and despite the fear in her heart, Nora refused to look away.

“What do you mean I didn’t destroy them?”

Nora searched deep within herself for the courage she needed. She searched for it and she found it. She gave Marie-Laure a smile of her own.

“Let’s just say that tonight, if you want it, I’ll have one hell of a bedtime story for you.”

18

THE KING

Kingsley drove through the dark all the way to Elizabeth’s house in New Hampshire. He drove alone and took no calls. He needed the company of his thoughts to plan his next step. Søren had forced a promise out of him. He could try to get Nora out of the house if Kingsley swore he would kill no one in the process. He knew Søren couldn’t care less if Marie-Laure’s compatriots ended up with their brains on the carpet. But the priest didn’t want him killing his own sister. A nice thought but Kingsley had seen battlefields and bloodshed of the kind Søren had never even dreamed. He’d made the promise and had no intention of keeping it. No room for sentimentality on a battlefield, not if Søren wanted Nora back.

By dawn Kingsley arrived at the house and parked the car in the woods off the road. He slipped through the trees, a high-powered rifle strapped to his back. Would the children of his kingdom even recognize him now if they saw him? Gone were his Regency- and Victorian-era suits and military coats. Gone were his riding boots. Gone was the roguish smile that seduced all comers. He’d changed into jeans, a black T-shirt, pulled his hair back into a low ponytail to keep it out of his face. He left his shoes in the car, far preferring the sensitivity and silence of bare feet. And instead of a smile he wore a look of grim determination.

He saw the house through the trees. Ducking down behind thick branches, he pulled out a spyglass and studied the windows. Laila had said she and Nora were held in the library. With all the curtains closed he couldn’t see anything, not even the hint of movement.

His sister...what the hell was she doing? She had to know taking Nora was simply a slower form of suicide. Did she think she would get her revenge against them and live to enjoy her victory? No, of course she didn’t, and that’s what scared him most. If Marie-Laure had no intention of surviving this gambit, then she had nothing to lose. If she wanted to die, planned to die, there would be no stopping her from taking Nora and anyone else with her to the grave.

If he tried to get Nora out and Marie-Laure caught him, there would be no more nights with his Juliette, no more days. He’d never see her again. And the last time he saw her, they’d fought over his insistence she leave him. Now he couldn’t be more grateful for what seemed like paranoia at the time. And yet, what he wouldn’t give to have another chance to look in her eyes and tell her how much he loved her.

“Ah, Jules...” he whispered to nothing and no one, a smile flitting across his face, “your timing is atrocious.”

If only he could tell her how sorry he was that it had come to this. His Juliette, his Jules, his Jewel... He’d dreamed all his life that he would find someone like her, someone who understood who he was. Not only did she not judge him for what he was, she loved him for it. What they had, he treasured it above all things and for that reason alone he’d sent her away. A week ago she accused him of overreacting, of letting his fears for her get the better of him. But still, she submitted to his wishes and had flown to Haiti where she still had family, where she could disappear, blend in and be safe. Now he thanked God he’d had the foresight to send her away. If Marie-Laure had stolen Søren’s most precious possession, no doubt she considered stealing his, as well. Sister or not, if Marie-Laure had laid a hand on his Juliette, his lover, his property, his...

Kingsley stopped his thoughts in their tracks. He couldn’t think about Juliette now, what she was to him, what the future held. He needed to stay calm, rational, if they were to make it out of this alive, all of them. And they would survive this. He would make sure of it no matter the price to his soul.

For two hours he sat and watched the house, waiting for a curtain to move, a door to open. Nothing happened. Nothing at all. A wasted trip. As Kingsley started to stand, to stretch his legs, he saw something.

Ducking down again, he waited and watched.

At the front of the house on the second floor, a curtain moved. It could have been nothing, the air-conditioning coming on. Or it could be something, someone... He brought the spyglass up and stared.

The curtain parted and a woman stood at the window. Thirty years disappeared in an instant. Long dark hair, bistre eyes, a dancer’s physique...

“Ma soeur...”

Marie-Laure stood staring out the window onto the long driveway. She seemed to be waiting for someone. He knew who she waited for, and as long as Kingsley had a breath left in his body, he’d make sure the person she waited for never came.

He raised his rifle and peered through the sight.

Only Marie-Laure stood at the window, however. And surely she hadn’t executed Nora’s kidnapping alone. If he killed her now, what would stop her henchmen from killing Nora and making a run for it? Nothing.

Marie-Laure stepped away from the window and Kingsley lowered the rifle.

He had no choice. He would wait for tonight, for darkness, and he would go in.

Back through the woods he crept, careful to not be seen or heard. Once in his car he stopped to breathe. Until that moment he saw Marie-Laure in the window, he had cherished a shadow of a doubt that perhaps they’d been wrong, that it was someone pretending to be her to torture them. Now he had no doubts. It was her, his sister, still alive. But not for long.

He started the car and eased back onto the road. Although it had been years since he’d been to Daniel’s house, he needed to consult no maps. He still remembered the way.

Funny how terribly, maddeningly small the world was they lived in. Kingsley had met a beautiful woman named Maggie back in his twenties during a brief trip to New York. Although wealthy and with a high-powered job as an attorney, she craved the domination of powerful men. He’d happily fed her hunger to submit until he had to return to France. Soon after she’d met a younger man named Daniel, a librarian without a penny to his name, and married him. Maggie and Daniel had a house in the country, a retreat a few hours from the city yet less than ten miles from the house Søren had grown up in. Ten miles—close enough to scout out the house easily, far enough away not to tip them off.

As he pulled into Daniel’s driveway he saw Søren’s motorcycle parked near the front door. Kingsley felt a momentary stab of sympathy for the man. He knew Søren hated being anywhere near this part of the world. Even Kingsley didn’t know the extent of what had happened in that house, the house where Nora was being held. Not even to Nora had Søren shared all the horrors of his past. Not to Nora or to him, and for that Kingsley was grateful. He had enough skeletons of his own in his past. He’d run out of closet space for any more.

He glanced up at the colonial manor as he headed to the door. Lovely place—two stories, two hundred years old. Elegant. Tasteful. Stately. And home to one of the kinkier men of his acquaintance.

The door opened before Kingsley even knocked.

“Daniel, get out of this house right now,” Kingsley said without any preamble.

“It’s my house,” Daniel reminded him as Kingsley pushed past him.

“Yes, and I’m commandeering it.”

“You can’t commandeer my house.”

“Fine, then I’ll commandeer your wife.”

Daniel followed Kingsley down the hallway into the library where Kingsley deposited himself on top of Daniel’s desk.

“Kingsley.”

“Daniel.”

Kingsley attempted to stare Daniel down. A bad idea. Daniel’s ability to stare down people was notorious in the Underground. Only Søren had a more vicious glare than Daniel’s infamous unyielding blue-eyed stare. Maggie called it the Ouch and the name had stuck. Anyone on the receiving end of the Ouch would likely be saying “ouch” for the next couple of days.

“Put the blue eyes away,” Kingsley ordered.

“I can’t very well take my eyes out.” Daniel continued to glare. The years had been kind to Daniel. Marriage and children even kinder. In his day the man had been so handsome he’d even tempted Nora from Søren. For only about five seconds, she’d confessed to him, but still, something of a feat. Then again, Nora always did have a bit of a fetish for blonds.

“I’ll do it for you if you don’t stop glaring at me. I told you that I needed your house for a few days. And non, I’m not going to tell you why.”

“I already told him why.” Søren stood in the doorway. He, too, had gone for “business casual,” as Griffin always called it. No collar, no clerics. Black pants, white shirt open at the neck. He never got used to seeing Søren in his collar and clerics. Yet, he never quite got used to seeing him without them on, either. “If we’re stealing his house, he deserves to know why.”

Kingsley sighed. It was for the best. Unless Daniel knew the real danger, he might put up more of a fight about leaving. Thankfully, Kingsley had four little trump cards he could use on Daniel.

“I know about Eleanor. I can’t believe someone would kidnap her.” Daniel glanced between them. “I wouldn’t even borrow a teacup from you two.”

“Is that so?” Søren asked, and gave Daniel the only glare more feared than the Ouch.

“You let me borrow her, remember?” Daniel asked.

“For one week. You’re the one who attempted to convince her to stay.”