Author: Tiffany Reisz

“A very long week, my Jewel. And it’s only getting longer.”

Kingsley ran a hand through his hair and wished it was Juliette’s hand on him. Søren had destroyed him during their night together. He needed Juliette’s touch to restore him again. But that would have to wait.

“Let me come home. Let me take care of you. It’s my place.”

“You have to take care of yourself now. It’s not safe here.” He wanted to say more, to tell her the truth of what had happened. The risk was too great, however. No woman in the world submitted more beautifully in the bedroom and acted so independently outside of it. If she knew how bad it had gotten, she’d be on the next flight back to the city, his orders be damned. “You can come home when it is safe. No sooner.”

“Is it going to be like this from now on?”

“Oui,” he said without apology.

“Have you told le prêtre?”

“Non. He has too much on his mind now.”

“You try to protect us all,” Juliette said, and he heard the love in her voice—the love and the exasperation. “You must let someone take care of you. Let me take care of you.”

“I’m fine. I am. We all are.”

“Is he? Did Nora come back?”

Kingsley swallowed. He hated lying to his Juliette. She was as much his confessor as Søren was Nora’s.

“He’s been better. And non, she is not back yet. Juliette...” He paused to gather his words. With so many lies he had to give her some truth. “Søren and I, we were together.”

He heard that musical laugh of hers all the way from Haiti.

“No wonder you sound so tired.”

“It’s part of it, oui.” He laughed, too, but the laugh quickly died. “My Jewel, you know—”

“I know,” she said quickly and simply and without the slightest hint of judgment or fear in her voice. “I know you love him. I know he loves you, too.”

“He loves me? From your lips to God’s ears. He loves only her.”

“You forget we love more than one person. You do, she does, he does...I do.”

“You’ve fallen in love already?”

“Bien sûr. You’ll have to share me now.”

“As long as I have you at night.”

He pictured her now, his Juliette, standing on the balcony staring at the ocean, her statuesque beauty, her dark skin glowing in the fading evening sunlight. They’d met on a beach at the edge of the ocean, and he couldn’t see rising water without thinking of her. He’d never forget the first time he saw her. Some children on vacation had been pelting a native bird’s nest with stones. Juliette decided to give them a taste of their own medicine. A grown woman throwing rocks at the spoiled scions of white American tourists. He’d been doomed from the start.

“Every night, my love. All my nights are yours.”

Kingsley heard the front bell at the door and voices in the hall—Griffin and a woman’s voice. A woman’s voice he’d never heard before.

“I must go. No rest for the wicked,” he said.

“Mon roi,” she whispered, and Kingsley’s heart clenched at the name she called him only in their most private moments. “Please, be safe. I need you.”

A thousand times she’d whispered that to him...breathed it across silk sheets as she crawled to him, moaned it into his ear as he entered her. But those words had a new meaning now that had nothing to do with passion anymore.

“I need you, too,” he said. “I need you to do as I tell you. Stay there. Stay safe. You’ll be home soon.”

“Promise?”

He paused before answering. He could promise her nothing now, should promise her nothing.

“I promise.” Sometimes a needful lie was less a sin than the truth.

He hung up the phone and forced thoughts of Juliette from his mind. No time for emotion or sentimentality. No time for love, not when he had a job to do. And while no one on earth admired or adored women more than Kingsley, a battlefield was no place for them and he could not deny that his world had turned into a war zone. He and Søren would find a way to get Nora back. And her fiancé, Wesley, who was young but certainly no coward. Any man who braved the bed of Nora Sutherlin and the wrath of le prêtre could be called many things, but not a coward.

Kingsley stood up straight and took a deep breath. He felt better now. Juliette was safe and far away from all this madness. The three of them—Wesley, Søren and he—would find a way to deal with this crisis on their own. They’d put no more women at risk. He should ban them all from the house for the time being. He would exile them, send them all away. They were too fragile, too at risk in such a dangerous time.

He started toward the door to his office but it opened before he got to it.

A beautiful redheaded woman, her pale skin painted with freckles, swept into the office ahead of Griffin.

“Ma’am, you can’t barge in—” Griffin said, and Kingsley raised his hand.

“Hello,” the woman said, facing Kingsley.

“May I help you?”

“Yes, you can tell me what the hell is going on. Where’s Nora?”

“I would tell you if I knew, madame. Perhaps you could tell me who the hell you are?”

“My name is Grace Easton, and I know that means nothing to you, but I’m friends with Nora. I tried to call her and got Wesley. He told me someone had taken her and...”

She continued speaking in her light and musical accent. While she spoke Kingsley walked over to one of his filing cabinets, opened it and thumbed through files. He pulled one out, walked back over to her and let her finish her speech.

“...and I’m not leaving until someone tells me what’s going on or at least lets me speak to Wesley. I know I seem like a madwoman showing up out of nowhere and you have no idea who I am but I promise—”

“Grace Easton, neé Rowan, age thirty,” Kingsley said, opening the file. “Irish mother. Welsh father. Fluent in Welsh, I see. I think that’s the one language le prêtre doesn’t speak. You’re much more beautiful now than you were back in school, and you were très jolie back in your school days. No wonder Professor Easton deflowered you on his desk. Although had it been me, it would have been the desk, the floor, the wall, back on the desk but from behind...”

He pulled a photograph of a twenty-two-year-old Grace Easton on her graduation day standing with her husband, Zachary Easton, and held it up to her.

She stared at it with wide turquoise eyes.

“My God...Nora wasn’t exaggerating.”

Kingsley put the photograph back into the file.

“Welcome to hell, Mrs. Easton. Now if you wouldn’t mind, get out.”

8

THE KNIGHT

Wesley stood in the bathroom of the guest room Kingsley had escorted him to and pressed a wet washcloth to the back of his head. He’d seen enough head injuries working at the hospital that he knew his was minor enough he didn’t have to worry about it. He needed a Band-Aid, though. Otherwise, he was going to be bleeding into his hair for a week.

What did it matter? Wesley dropped the bloody washcloth into the sink and went back into the bedroom. On any other day he might have admitted to finding the room beautiful, even opulent. Nora had told him about Kingsley’s house—the four-poster beds in every room. Better for bondage, she’d said, and Wes could see the marks on the footboard, remnants of metal handcuffs probably. Silver and pale blue, the room looked like something out of a Founding Father’s house, one he’d visited as a kid on vacation with his parents. Wes’s foot slammed against something under the bed. He knelt down and found a metal briefcase. Curious, he opened the latches and saw a dozen different types of sex toys, plus condoms and lubricant. Behind so much beauty lay so much sin. He slammed the case shut and shoved it under the bed with such force his head started to ring. Forget it. His pain didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except getting Nora back. He couldn’t believe he had to trust her life to Kingsley, the biggest asshole he’d ever met in his life, and to Søren, who was apparently still unconscious. These were the men Nora trusted more than anyone else on the planet? Her judgment was getting worse all the time. Agreeing to marry him might have been good evidence of that.

He sat on the bed and rubbed his aching temples. His hands shook a little. Was it from low blood sugar? Or from the fear, the bitter aching gaping fear the likes of which he’d never felt before? Both probably. He should be planning his wedding right now curled up in bed with Nora. Not here. Anywhere but here.

This was stupid. He didn’t need to be thinking about the future, anyway. Nothing mattered, nothing at all, except for getting Nora back as fast as they could. Every minute that passed put her deeper into danger. He wished he knew where she was. He’d take her place in a heartbeat.

Wesley jumped as Nora’s cell phone started to ring again. He grabbed at it, praying it was the kidnappers with information.

“Yes?”

“Wesley, this is Grace again. I’m in Kingsley’s house.”

“So am I.”

“Good. Could you help me? He’s trying to kick me out.”

Wesley hung up and raced from the bedroom. He didn’t find Kingsley in his office or anywhere on the second floor. Finally in the front room of the house he found a redheaded woman with freckles arguing vociferously with Kingsley.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Wesley inserted himself between the two of them.

“I’m attempting to rid myself of an intruder in my home,” Kingsley said. “I’ve shown her the door. She simply needs to walk through it.”

“I’m not leaving until someone tells me what’s going on with Nora. No, that’s not true. I’m not leaving until I see Nora.”

“I think she means it,” Wesley said, standing at Grace’s side.

“Mon Dieu, the entire vanilla world has taken over my house. Fine. Both of you stay. Have tea. Turn everyone in my house boring. If you need me I’ll be trying to find Nora if only to get rid of you two.”

Kingsley turned and stormed out of the front room.

“Charming, isn’t he?” Grace turned to Wesley. “Thank you.”

“So you’re Zach’s wife?”

“That would be me.”

“I’m Nora’s fiancé.”

The look of shock on Grace’s face prompted Wesley’s first laugh in over twenty-four hours.

“I know. Long story,” he said.

“Nora never ceases to shock me. I’m not even going to ask.”

“Good idea.”

“I will ask this—do you know anything about what’s going on?”

“Really, really long story.”

“I’d like to know it. This may come as a shock to you, but Nora’s about my only female friend in this world.”

Wesley walked over to the sofa and sat down, sinking deep into the black-and-white-striped cushions. He felt light-headed, tired, lost. He knew he needed to eat something, check his blood sugar, take care of himself. But he didn’t have the energy for it, didn’t have the will.

“Nora doesn’t have many female friends, either. She says she scares women.”

“I’m not scared of her. Maybe I should be but I’m not.” Grace sat next to him on the sofa and spun her wedding band on her finger. “When Zachary and I reunited after our separation, my closest friends were furious at me for taking him back. He’d run off to America, had an affair with another woman. I forgave him but they wouldn’t. The only person who seemed to be genuinely happy for us was—”

“Nora.”

Grace nodded. “She’s been a good friend to both of us. I’m sick to my stomach with worry. Zachary’s in Australia at a conference and now the one friend I had in the States I wanted to see is... God, Wesley, what on earth is happening here?”