SUZANNE FORSTER
Decadent

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

This one is for the wonderful fans and friends

who have done me the honor of becoming

members of my Yahoo Group. You guys are the

best! Thank you for supporting me through even

the toughest times, and know that I will never

forget your outpouring of love and sympathy

when I lost my mother. It meant more

than I can possibly express.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

Coming Next Month

1

RUN, ALLY! Stop staring at him and run. He’s evil. Don’t let him touch you!

But as the forbidding figure moved through the mist toward her, Ally couldn’t run. His physical domination of everything surrounding him in the ancient cemetery seemed to hold her like a net.

She’d heard the tales about the Wolverton legend and the ghost that haunted The Willows, an elegant old mansion. According to folklore, the estate had been stolen from the Wolvertons nearly a hundred years ago, and Micha Wolverton had been killed trying to reclaim it. His dying vow had been to be reunited with the spirit of his beloved wife, who’d taken her life for reasons no one would speak of, except in whispers. But Ally had never put much stock in the fantasy. She didn’t believe in ghosts.

Until now—

She didn’t understand what was happening. The figure had just materialized out of the mist, his body solidifying right before her eyes.

His face was familiar…so familiar. She stepped back as he approached.

“Don’t be afraid,” he murmured. His voice wasn’t what she had expected. It didn’t sound as if it were coming from beyond the grave. It was deep and sensual. Commanding.

“Who are you?” she managed.

“You should know. You summoned me.”

“No, I didn’t.” Two minutes ago, she’d been crouching behind a moss-covered crypt, spying on the mansion that had once been The Willows, but was now Club Casablanca. And then this—

If he was Micha, he might be angry that she was trespassing on his property. “I’ll go,” she said. “I won’t come back. I promise.”

“You’re not going anywhere.”

Words snagged in her throat. “Wh-why not? What do you want?”

“If I wanted something, Ally, I’d take it. This is about need.”

She tried to back away, but her feet were useless. “And you need something from me?”

“Good guess.” His tone burned with irony. “I need lips, soft and surrendered, a body limp with desire.”

“My lips, my bod—?”

“Only yours.”

“Why? Why me?” This couldn’t be Micha. He had wanted only one woman, Rose, and he had died trying to return to her.

“Because you want that, too,” he said.

Wanted what? A ghost of her own? She’d always found the legend impossibly romantic. How could he have known that? How could he know anything about her? Besides, she’d sworn off inappropriate men, and what could be more inappropriate than a ghost? She shook her head again, still not willing to admit the truth. But her pounding heart wouldn’t play along. The mere thought of his kiss, his touch, terrified her. This wildness, it was fear, wasn’t it?

When his fingertips touched her cheek, she flinched, expecting his flesh to be cold, lifeless. It was anything but that. His skin was smooth and hot, gentle, yet demanding. And while his dark brown eyes were filled with mystery and wonder, there was a sensitivity about them that threatened to disarm her if she gazed too deeply.

“These lips are mine,” he said. In truth, it was just that. She couldn’t stop him…and didn’t want to.

“I’ve come back to claim them,” he whispered as his mouth descended onto hers and his powerful arms encircled her body.

If he were to touch her breasts, he would know how hard her heart was beating. She realized that as the promised kiss became a reality. His mouth ravished hers. Not gentle or tender, he kissed her with dark, whispering force, his lips moving over hers, claiming, then taking, brushing and licking, softening her mouth until it could do nothing but respond to him.

With a sigh of resignation, she surrendered to his advances. His hand stole up her body and stroked her breasts. Beneath her clothing, her nipples responded, tightening as he brushed them with his thumbs.

The tingling she felt was quick and sharp, creating a surge of desire.

Was he going to make love to her? She didn’t know. As his kiss deepened, she gave way to the hypnotic power of his spellbinding caresses. Her entire body was thrumming and buzzing. Alive and free again.

Buzzing and buzzing…like…an insect?

It filled her senses, growing louder.

What was that sound? A bumblebee?

Ally’s eyes blinked open, and she smacked her arm with an open palm. Not a bumblebee, a mosquito—a bloodsucking mosquito! She must have dozed off. The seventy-plus hours without sleep had caught up with her. She would never have fallen asleep in a cemetery unless she was exhausted. No one would.

She took a quick look around to make sure she hadn’t been spotted by any of the club’s security guards. She didn’t see anyone headed her way, nor were there any tall, dark figures fleeing the scene.

A dream. Of course, what else? The question she ought to be asking was why she was slinking around an abandoned graveyard on a cloud-swollen, moonless night. It wasn’t the place most women went to look for a man, especially considering why she needed one, but Ally had no choice. Some things had to be done—and in her twenty-eight years of life, little had been more crucial than her mission tonight.

Her younger sister, Victoria, was being held captive in the mansion not a hundred yards from where Ally now hid. Originally, Club Casablanca had been the country estate of the Wolvertons, a genteel farming family. They had it built about sixty miles north of New Orleans where the water table allowed for basements, tunnels and other subterranean secrets. Once a graceful Georgian plantation house, it now reminded Ally of Count Dracula’s castle. In some dark, terrifying way it was even more beautiful than before with its turrets and arches, especially at night. But it was also a den of depravity disguised as an exclusive, private gentleman’s club.

Ally brushed the dirt and leaves from her black suit, a Chanel look-alike with a skirt she’d shortened herself. She planned to say she was job hunting if the guards should spot her. In case the short skirt didn’t convince them she’d make a red-hot hostess, she’d worn a low-cut cream silk camisole under her jacket. Thank God it was spring or else she would have frozen in so little clothing.

She’d chosen the graveyard for her stakeout, knowing the club’s security cameras didn’t survey this area. Actually, there was a lot she knew about Club Casablanca from personal experience, all of which she’d tried very hard to forget. Her sister’s disappearance, however, had made that impossible. Just three days ago, Vix had sent a bizarre e-mail, implying that she was being held here against her will. She didn’t say much more than that, but sirens had gone off in Ally’s head.

Ally had worked at the club as a hostess in her early twenties, and had foolishly let herself be drawn into a destructive relationship with its owner, Jason Aragon. She’d barely escaped Aragon with her life. This e-mail suggested that she may not have escaped him after all. She had little doubt that he was trying to lure her back, using her sister as bait—and her sister was much too young, naive and rebellious to resist the pressures and temptations of such a place.

Just as Ally had been.

She tugged at her skirt, but the hem kept crawling up her thighs and making her feel naked—a nagging reminder of the mistakes of her past. Perhaps her fall had been preordained, given her childhood. Overprotected from the cradle, her life choices rigidly controlled, supposedly for her own good, but she’d felt confined, suffocated. It hadn’t been quite so bad for Vix, but almost.

Ally still went to great effort to keep everything about her past secret, mostly to protect her aristocratic family from any more embarrassment. She and her sister were heirs to a throne that no longer existed. Their mother had been a sitting queen, strange as that seemed in today’s world, and her arranged marriage to their father had been a happy one until the royal couple had been deposed and exiled from the small European monarchy where Ally’s mother’s family had reigned for over a century.

Ally had been thirteen when the family had fled to London. Soon after, she had been sent to America to an exclusive all-girls’ boarding school, but it turned out not to be the move toward independence Ally had hoped for. The bodyguards her family had hired to protect her made her already lonely and isolated life seem like a prison. The last straw had come when she’d graduated Alderwood Academy and learned that her parents were intent on marrying her off to a man she’d never met, a wealthy German industrialist.

That had been when Ally had discovered she had a will of her own—and a wild streak, which Jason Aragon had been happy to help her explore.

A sigh of regret escaped her. There really hadn’t been any other men in her life except a couple of fleeting summer romances with prep school boys. But she’d made up for it with Jason. She’d gone wild, reveling in everything that had been forbidden to someone of her background, and then some. It had been a temporary lapse, but bad enough that she’d disgraced the family name. Now Vix seemed ready to take up where Ally had left off. And Ally felt responsible.

Her sister had lived with their parents in London until four years ago when they’d decided to send Vix to Alderwood, too. The school had a sterling reputation, and Ally had begged her parents to let Vix attend, promising to keep a close eye on her. Ally had seen it as a chance to redeem herself in her family’s eyes and to renew the bond with her younger sister.

Vix had lived at Alderwood, spending weekends and holidays with Ally in her Georgetown apartment in Washington, D.C. If anything, Ally had been overly strict. However, a few months ago she’d snagged a promotion that had made it impossible to keep such close tabs on her sister. About that same time Vix had begun missing classes and staying out after curfew with her latest boyfriend, whom Ally didn’t approve of.

A revving car engine jerked Ally out of her reflections. She peeked around the crypt, reminding herself to keep an eye on the club’s entrance. She’d already used up three days of her personal leave, and she only had a week in total. Her new position as director of development at the Smithsonian involved finding deep-pocketed donors for the institute’s conservation projects. The job was high-profile, as well as high-pressure, but luckily, she’d been there several years and had taken off so little time that her boss approved her request for leave without question. Ally had been on a flight out of Dulles within hours of receiving Vix’s e-mail.

She’d debated calling the New Orleans police, not sure they would investigate based on one vague e-mail. In any case, Vix’s e-mail had asked her not to involve the police. So Ally was on her own.

Her first task had been to set up a surveillance plan. Now she needed to get inside the club. For that she had to have an escort, a member of the male-only kind. Women were welcome, only as guests of members or as club employees. That was the tricky part. If she approached the wrong man in the wrong way, both she and Vix might be put in grave danger.

She continued to peer around the crypt watching cars pull into the club’s crescent driveway. She was looking for one in particular, and hoped she hadn’t missed the mystery man who drove the sleek black Porsche Targa.

Ally glanced at the luminous dial of her watch—8:58 p.m. If he kept to his routine, he should arrive in the next two or three minutes. When it came to punctuality, he was as reliable as a Swiss timepiece. Still, over the course of the last seventy-two hours—long, exhausting hours in which she had attempted to stalk his every move—she’d become convinced that he wasn’t just another member of the club. He was up to something clandestine.

She’d singled him out the very first night, after watching dozens of men arrive and leave. It didn’t hurt that he was tall and ruggedly built. She’d had a gut feeling about him, and that was as precisely as she could define it for now. That was when she’d begun tailing him as he went through his daily routine, which was anything but routine.

Twice a day he’d left his hotel to take walks, and his destination was always a different pay phone where he would place a brief call. Obviously he didn’t feel safe using the phone in his room. Who was he calling? He could be a private investigator, an undercover cop or an FBI or CIA agent, calling in from the field. He might even be a master thief planning a heist of the club’s valuable art collection.

How would a master thief make love to a woman?

The thought came from out of nowhere. She tried to force her attention back to the cars pulling into the club, but it refused to stay there. Apparently it still craved the thrill a man like that could give her, pleasure at any cost. That alone should have appalled her. One silly second of fantasizing about a gorgeous man’s hands wandering like a thief’s over her body, stealing her will to resist—to deny him anything—and she was on the brink of losing it.

Pathetic. She had clearly gone way too long without sex. But Ally Danner didn’t do those things anymore. She didn’t lust after inappropriate men, and this guy couldn’t be more inappropriate. Cop? FBI or CIA agent? Thief? Probably he was a straying husband. The possibilities were endless, and she had to know exactly what he was up to before she made her move.

She crouched even lower, moving clear of the crypt for a better view. He’s clever and dangerous, she told herself. Don’t forget that. And you—

You haven’t had sex in a very long time.

Ignoring the hot little tingle in her gut, she moved on. Last night he’d left the club at eleven, and she’d followed him in her rental car to the oak forest behind the club. She’d lost him though when she had to turn off the car lights to avoid being spotted. He and his black Targa had melted into the moss-draped trees, and she’d held back, fearing a trap. Instead she’d returned the next day, and searched the area on foot.

She’d been ready to give up when she came across a path of beaten-down underbrush leading to an abandoned car in a clearing. She’d searched the interior and found nothing. When she opened the hood though, she’d discovered the car had no engine. The space was filled with surveillance equipment that looked designed to pick up long-range audio signals, possibly through the spiral rod that emerged from the opening where the radio antenna should have been.

At that point she’d made a decision. If he were trying to infiltrate the club, that might mean they could help each other. She needed an escort—and she had insider information that could be useful to him. If he were acting privately, she had a better chance of striking a bargain with him than if he were law enforcement, but she had to know which it was, and that brought her to the riskiest part of her plan. Unmasking him.

Strange as it seemed, the only thing stopping her now was his face. The first time she’d seen him, she’d had a nagging feeling of déjà vu. And then, tonight, this dream. Something about the ghost had brought about that same feeling. Not that they were the same man, necessarily, but something.

She was beginning to wonder if her erotic dream had been a warning from her subconscious. Was it signaling that she had something to fear from this man, that he was a danger to her?

She knew what went on inside the mansion walls. The upper floors resembled a lavish Monte Carlo casino. The subterranean level catered to darker, more exotic tastes, to put it mildly. It was accessible only to platinum key members, hand-selected by Jason, who were willing to undergo a deep background search, and of course, to pay a small fortune in membership fees.

Was her man one of those? Did he have such exotic tastes? Maybe that was what the dream had been trying to tell her?

If I wanted something, Ally, I’d take it. This is about need.

Another growling car engine brought her back to the present. She glanced up to see a Targa pull into the driveway. A tuxedo-clad man exited the front door of the club and rushed down the white marble steps, ready as the car roared to a halt. Ally didn’t recognize the valet from her time with Jason, but she knew his résumé would have included thug, bouncer, and perhaps even worse, right along with valet. Most likely he was armed.

Ally watched as her man emerged from the car. She was about a hundred yards away, not close enough to see him clearly, but she knew his features, detail for detail. He was six feet plus with thick, dark blond hair and skin so tawny she was reminded of windswept deserts. Even his eyebrows had a dust-covered look that she found annoyingly irresistible. As the valet drove off in the Targa, her subject snapped his black leather jacket into place, and then casually adjusted his tan slacks, as if the drive had somehow left him a bit out of order down there. It wasn’t a crude movement. If anything, it was gracefully sensual in a male sort of way.

And it sent Ally’s stomach spinning, along with her imagination.

She didn’t even know this man. Why was she reacting to him this way? Unless she did know him.

He checked his watch, possibly to disguise the fact that he was subtly scanning his surroundings as he made his way up the steps. If he held to his routine, he would be inside for at least two hours, maybe longer, and that was more than enough time for her to carry out her plan.

Then he stopped midway—and Ally’s heart stopped with him.

He turned and looked straight at her.

He couldn’t see her in the dark, could he? She was down on her knees. Fear set fire to her lungs as he strode back down the steps. She inched back toward the stone, certain that she’d been spotted. There was nothing she could do now but hug the ground and beseech the heavens. If she moved, she would give herself away.

She heard footsteps coming her way, and felt the ground shake.

“I’d heard the club was haunted,” said a faintly sardonic male voice. “Instead of a ghost, I find a beautiful woman crawling around the graveyard. Obviously you’ve lost a contact lens, right?”

Ally felt something inside her go cold as she looked up at him, and it wasn’t just fear that silenced her. It was the odd sense of recognition she’d experienced before. How strange that he’d mentioned the club was haunted, and just now for a second she’d thought she was staring into the eyes of a ghost. Her ghost. The one she’d dreamed about. Too weird. It was fatigue, stress.

“You can’t speak?” he teased.

She never got a chance to try. The guards were shouting at him from the entrance.

“Need any help?” one of them called out.

“Did you find anything over there?” the other yelled.

“Looks like I caught a little cemetery mouse,” the man told them, still gazing down at Ally so intently she didn’t dare move. She’d gripped a handful of leaves, and she couldn’t let go of them. They were crumpled in her fists.

What was he going to do?

“It’s probably a freaking rat,” the first guard said. “I’ll take it out.”

Ally peeked around the man and saw the guard draw his gun. He started toward them, and she let out a tiny squeak of alarm. She was going to be shot.

“Too late,” the man said. “I scared it away.”

His gaze commanded Ally to get back behind the stone, yet she couldn’t move. The guard broke into a jog, obviously relishing the chance at some action even if it was a measly rodent. He was just ten feet away when the man wheeled around and walked straight at him, stopping him in his tracks. The man’s voice was hard enough to dent steel.

“Put it away!” he ordered the guard.

“Absolutely, sir, sorry!”

While the guard struggled to holster his weapon, Ally crept back behind the crypt. She nearly collapsed with relief as the two men returned to the club. Close call. Much too close. She had no idea why the man had given her a break. This well might be her only chance to escape. Her car was parked on the other side of the cemetery, far away from the club’s entrance, and she wasn’t sure she could make it.

Sheer nerve and adrenaline drove Ally to her feet. When she looked back at the mansion, the man had just entered the club and the valet was busy helping guests out of a limo. Both guards were engaged in conversation, probably about the rat that got away, which meant Ally still had time. All she had to do was find her way through the graveyard.

She hadn’t gone far before it became apparent that she was trying to outrun a storm. The tumultuous night sky promised to become violent. She moved faster. He’d diverted the guards when he could just as easily have turned her in. What did that mean? She could only speculate. Was he playing with her? Did he have some plan to trap her?

She would have to take that chance. Her gut was still telling her this was her man. She’d already determined that he wasn’t an established member of the club, with an allegiance to Aragon. The valets were trained to recognize members on sight, and none of them had recognized this man. They’d each given him a claim ticket when they parked his car. Even more significant, he was spying on the club himself.

With luck, she could be back in New Orleans in less than an hour. And with a little more luck—and a key card obtained from a surprisingly helpful young hotel maid—she would be searching the man’s hotel room. If her search proved what she already suspected—that he was trying to infiltrate the club’s inner circle—then she could be of help to him. More than anything she needed this stranger to be the right man, and so far it looked good. He had already accomplished what she could not accomplish alone. He had entered the belly of the beast.

As she drove through the night, she went over what she knew about him, gleaned from the hotel staff where he was staying. He was said to be a corporate raider of some sort. Supposedly wealthy. He loved high-stakes gambling. He didn’t have a woman with him. And his name was Sam.

2

SAM SINCLAIR had a woman on his mind. Too bad it didn’t happen to be the attractive security guard creature in the form-fitting uniform busily frisking him. Her happy little fingers delved inside his jacket, playing patty-cake with his pecs and abs. Roaming upward, she smiled at him as if this were all in a day’s work for her, which was pretty accurate from what he’d observed.

“You have thirty minutes to stop that,” he said as she dropped to her knees and proceeded to pat down his privates. Nothing very private about the way she fondled him, although it was certainly thorough.

So, with all this attention coming his way, why was he fantasizing about his dark-haired stalker out there in the graveyard? If he’d had his choice of a woman down on her knees in front of him, it would have been her.

He could still see her big bright eyes peering up at him in dismay. She’d looked a little dazed and disheveled, her mouth open in surprise. Call him a perverse bastard, but that had struck him as incredibly sexy. Even now, the image of her parted lips elicited a warm, full sensation in his groin, and he warned himself to be careful. He wasn’t carrying a weapon, but the security guard might soon have reason to think so. He’d be as primed and ready as the gun he kept concealed in his car. At least it had a safety switch. Somehow his dark-haired stalker had unlocked his.

From the moment he’d spotted her following him three days ago, she’d had his attention beyond the obvious professional concerns. It was personal, although he hadn’t yet figured out why. Maybe he liked the idea of being tailed by a beautiful amateur. Or maybe he just hadn’t had enough tail lately. How long had it been?

“You’re good,” the security guard said, glancing up at him from her kneeling position at his crotch. “To go,” she added with a wink.

“Sorry to hear that.”

He was now free to enter the club itself. Provisional members were subjected to full body pat-downs until they’d been approved. No one seemed to object especially since the pat-down crew were all women. But Sam knew it was a serious search. If he’d resisted, she would have called for backup, and he would have been escorted out by several hulks in tuxedoes.

The anteroom, where he’d been detained, was octagonal, gilded in gold and adorned with erotic murals. Sam smiled inwardly at the thought of Micha Wolverton’s reaction to the orgiastic scenes. Legend had it that Micha roamed the grounds of the club, trying to reclaim the mansion—and the wife—that had been stolen from him a century ago by a forebear of Jason Aragon’s. Aragon took great care to keep that information under wraps.

A set of ornately carved mahogany double doors opened into the main foyer. The attractive pat-down artist slipped around Sam and placed her hands on the gleaming brass doorknobs. “Enjoy,” she said.

“How could I not?”

“Ah, Mr. Sinclair, how nice to see you again.”

Angelic Dupree, the club’s manager, greeted him as the doors opened to a huge, breathtakingly beautiful foyer. The slight, sweet-faced young woman, gowned in chiffon and feathers, ran the club herself, and apparently with dainty fists made of iron. She’d been the manager when Aragon had taken ownership, and he’d kept her on. She oversaw everything from the finances to the mint julep toothpicks used at the bar.

Sam took her extended hand. As was the custom at the club, he bent and kissed it. He thought he heard her purr, knowing it was simply for effect. Angelic might look like a wide-eyed kitten, but a man would be wise not to casually turn his back on her.

Her long, flowing white slip of a dress complemented the caramel latté tones of her skin. No one knew much about her background, except that she’d been raised in poverty in a shanty not far from where they now stood. Sam didn’t know the details of the history between Angelic and Aragon. He imagined it would make one hell of a story. He wondered what price she’d paid for Aragon’s kindness. Aragon did nothing for free.

“Thank you for the warm reception,” Sam replied.

“Our pleasure. Mr. Aragon will be with you soon. He’s looking forward to meeting with you tonight. In the meantime, please accept our hospitality. I believe we have your favorite drink on the way. Beefeater on the rocks with a twist, isn’t it?”

Sam smiled, and she inclined her head slightly, her golden eyes never leaving him. “I’m told you’ve been asking about our ghosts.”

Interesting that it had gotten back to her so quickly. Sam made a mental note of that. Evidently all roads here led back to Angelic.

He decided to come clean. “On a tour of the club, one of your hostesses warned me about the master bedroom in the east wing. She said it was original to the house, and the woman who died there haunts the room.”

Angelic smiled. “Not just the room. The White Rose haunts the entire house, though that’s where she does most of her mischief. Her real name was Rose Wolverton. Those who’ve glimpsed her say she wears the same sheer white nightgown she wore when she took her own life in that east wing bedroom.”

“Took her life?” Sam probably knew the story better than Angelic did, but he had reasons for keeping that to himself. He also had reasons for wanting to know how the White Rose supposedly haunted the place now. Her “mischief” could prove to be an excellent cover for some of his plans.

“It’s really quite sad,” Angelic said, though the sparkle in her eyes revealed she enjoyed the scandalous gossip. “Rose and her husband, Micha, had two children. She wanted more, and for some reason he didn’t. They say she was unstable and so outraged at his refusal that she allowed herself to be seduced by his business partner, hoping to become pregnant anyway.”

She raised her lovely eyebrows, as if to suggest that the good part was coming. “Only Rose didn’t get pregnant, and the partner used blackmail to force her into more sex. She became extremely distraught. It was Micha she loved, and she knew it would kill him if he ever found out, so she killed herself—in quite a horrible way.”

Sam didn’t need Angelic to tell him how horrible it was—or what had happened after that. Rose had stabbed herself in the chest—in the heart, to be exact. Micha had found her that way, and had never recovered. Despondent, he drank and gambled everything away, eventually losing even the house and the business to his partner in a poker game.

“His business partner sounds like the real villain,” Sam said, curious how Angelic would react.

Her eyes gleamed. “Yes, Jake Colby. He actually told Micha about the sex, gloated over it. Micha tried to kill him and was sentenced to ten years in prison. It was terribly sad. The children were sent away to live with an aunt.”

Sam nodded. Angelic was well-informed, but apparently even she didn’t know that Colby’s only daughter had married an Aragon, and that was how The Willows had come to be a gentlemen’s club, decadent and corrupt to the core.

Angelic’s sigh sounded sincere. “That’s why Rose weeps. I’ve never heard her, but people say you can, if you listen. And you can always tell when she’s near by the rose-scented perfume she wears.”

“And the icy cold breeze?”

“Yes, how did you know?”

Sam shrugged. “Don’t all ghosts usher in icy cold breezes?”

“This one also slams doors on fingers and drops light fixtures on your head. Rose isn’t a happy ghost. And neither is Micha. People say the pounding is him, trying to get back in the house to her.”

The way Sam had heard it, Micha had tried to break into The Willows when he was released from prison, and he was shot by Colby in the graveyard, which was just under the bedroom window where Rose looked out.

“I’ll stay clear of the east wing,” Sam promised.

“Please.” Angelic glanced at her jeweled watch. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you to await Mr. Aragon.”

The sparkle was gone from her voice as she said goodbye and glided off in the general direction of the club’s ground-floor lounge, chiffon fluttering behind her.

Sam would almost have thought she believed the ghost stories. He hoped she did. The more people who believed them the better, given what he had in mind. Tonight though, his primary concern was making Jason Aragon believe that he was the perfect candidate for membership.

Sam had made several visits to the club in the two weeks he’d been in New Orleans. He’d known there would be extensive background checks that included his finances and anything else they could dig up, but “Sam Sinclair” looked good on paper. Of course, it was all fake documentation, a cover, but an impenetrable one. The people he worked for didn’t miss a trick. His real surname wasn’t Sinclair.

He was well-prepared. Nonetheless, the wild card in the deck was Aragon himself. It didn’t matter how well-prepared you were. If you didn’t pass muster with Aragon personally, you weren’t invited into the inner circle.

Tonight he would meet the man, face-to-face. Meanwhile, he would do a little harmless browsing. Gleaming black-and-white marble stretched before him as he entered the seemingly endless foyer. Some fifty feet away, twin staircases, dressed in royal blue carpeting with elaborate gold borders, curved like a woman’s hips to the second floor. Between them stood an ornate wrought-iron cage that served as an elevator.

The female operator was the sole exception to the smiling hostesses and security guards. She didn’t look as if she’d so much as consider cracking a smile. This one was all business, and that made sense for she was the first line of defense on the journey to the restricted lower level.

As he considered his opulent surroundings, a woman in black drifted by on the arm of a member. Her revealing sheath and sequined mask made Sam think of his very determined shadow. He wondered if he’d scared her off, or if she was still outside, perhaps watching from her rental car. Amazing that the club’s security system hadn’t spotted her yet. Maybe Aragon needed to be wised-up. His legendary Ziploc perimeter was being threatened by a baby Femme Nikita in black with the sexiest red valentine of a mouth Sam had ever seen.

Immediately to Sam’s left was the portal leading to the Gentlemen’s Lounge, a dark, intimate setting housing a thirty-foot mahogany bar and a sumptuous buffet. There was also a five-star restaurant for serious gourmands. Sam had no time for food at the moment. He strolled to his right and entered the Grand Salon, a ballroom that featured several of the club’s unique perks.

The first thing that caught his eye, as it did every time he came here, were the two life-size Victorian-style birdcages hanging from the ceiling. Inside each gold-plated cage sat a feathery clad woman, perched on a swing. He knew from experience that if he came within three feet of either cage, the captive inside would softly and seductively promise him anything if he would only release her. The offers were tempting but, unfortunately, only fully pledged members were allowed keys to the locked doors. With a little luck, he’d have one of those keys in his pocket tonight.

Naturally, he’d envisioned a sneaky little brunette cooing to him from one of the cages. Not a bad idea, actually. Lock her up until she sang. He’d find out what she was up to and determine the level of threat she posed. How would she look in feathers? Better yet, out of feathers. Would she crack if he plucked them one by one, then tickled her slowly and mercilessly with her own plumage? Would she crack if he teased her entire body with the tip of his tongue, starting with her naked mouth? God, how he would love to indulge in those lips of hers at his leisure.

Hell, do you want to find out what she’s up to, or do you just want to see the woman crack?

The breath he released was as heated as his thoughts. He could feel blood rising feverishly to the surface of his skin. The tension in his groin was rising, too. Interesting that a woman could infect his thoughts that way, like a virus. That hadn’t happened in a long time.

The hostess who appeared with his drink was a welcome distraction. She was costumed like a thirties movie siren, as were all the other hostesses. Greta Garbo had nothing on any of them. Their shoulder pads were ample, their necklines deep and their cloche hats had sheer black veils that covered their faces. It wasn’t complete anonymity, but it was close. Silky, seamed stockings and platform heels finished off the look.

The overall effect was highly erotic, but Sam sure as hell wasn’t going where his mind wanted to. God, no, he wasn’t going there. His fantasy stalker had made enough costume changes for one night.

“Can I get you anything else?” the hostess asked as Sam took his drink.

He shook his head, wanting her gone, along with the image of the woman she’d stirred. “Nothing, thanks.”

She smiled, slyly taking in his physique with her lingering gaze. “If you need anything later…anything at all, just ask.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.

“Mr. Sinclair.” Sam turned to face the baritone voice that had just spoken his name, Jason Aragon. Angelic Dupree was at his side.

“We are so happy to see you,” Aragon said, extending his hand.

Jason Aragon was every bit as impressive as his club. At six feet plus and solidly built, he didn’t just stand in a space, he occupied it. Even dressed as he was tonight in a tux trimmed with black satin, he seemed formidable. His short-cropped hair was as white as snow and his eyes as shockingly blue as an Icelandic lake in winter. He was not the sort of man you messed with and lived to tell about it.

A hostess appeared magically to relieve Sam of his untouched drink.

“Thank you for the invitation,” Sam said as he clasped Aragon’s hand. His grip was firm but not forceful. Controlled was the word that came to Sam’s mind. Even Aragon’s gaze fell into that category. It was focused, yet friendly. Sam knew he was being sized up.

“Join me,” Aragon said, indicating the interior of the spacious room. The two of them walked side by side, Angelic falling behind.

“The club seems quiet tonight. Is that normal?” Sam had been told that certain platinum key members, otherwise known as the inner circle, met in great secrecy one night a week to discuss world economic events. He imagined they were probably being briefed on the latest international financial data, undoubtedly picking up insider tips, as well as discussing the imminent rise and fall of various world markets. Sam’s interest was limited to how Aragon made it possible for them to hide vast sums of money.

“As I’m sure you now realize,” Aragon said, “most of our clientele are men of some stature, and without being too simplistic, such men have problems to solve. The ability to concisely solve a complex problem is the first trait of a superior mind. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“One of them, certainly,” Sam said.

“And what’s another?” Aragon asked.

The unexpected question made Sam wonder if this was a pop quiz. He should have brushed up on Nietzsche’s Superman theory. “In my line of work, solving problems is essential,” he said, “but preventing them is better. I’d say foresight is the most important trait of a superior mind.”

Aragon smiled, clearly pleased with Sam’s answer. He held his hand out and Angelic placed a platinum key in his palm. “I’m afraid we don’t stand on ceremony here,” he said. “Once a person has been approved for membership, it’s simply a matter of giving him his key. You now have free and unrestricted access to all levels of the club.”

Aragon flourished the glimmering bauble before he offered it to Sam.

“Honored,” Sam said, accepting the key. It was ceremonial more than anything else, but the symbolism was obvious. Aragon giveth, and Aragon can taketh away.

“I know how selective you are,” Sam said, “and how discreet.” He glanced at Angelic, and Aragon picked up on the signal instantly.

“That will be all,” Aragon told her.

With a slight nod of her head, Angelic turned and left. Sam wondered again if her docility was an act. If so, she was good. Aragon seemed to be watching her, too, though without a hint of lust in his expression. Maybe they weren’t mixing pleasure with business?

“I’d suggest a glass of champagne to celebrate,” Aragon said, “but I have a plane to catch tomorrow, and some pressing things to finish up before I go.”

Aragon was leaving? Now or never, Sam realized. “I have it on good authority that your contacts in international financial spheres are vast,” he said. “If that’s true, there’s a certain problem you may be able to advise me on.”

Aragon’s ice blue eyes warmed a little. “Would that be the four hundred and seven million dollars you funneled from Tricon Electronics—or the one hundred and nine million from Laurent Enterprises?”

“Both.” Sam nodded. “And my compliments to your people.”

“There’s very little we don’t know about you,” Aragon said. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.”

The two traded glances. Somewhere in the exchange a silent agreement was made that this conversation would continue in the near future.

“I have business in Paris,” Aragon said. “I’ll give your problem some thought. I’m sure we’ll come up with some intriguing options. Meanwhile, I insist you take full advantage of what our club has to offer.”

A shapely hostess breezed by Sam, and he could have sworn she patted his butt. “I think I can keep myself entertained,” he said.

They exited the lounge, and Aragon led the way to the waiting elevator. “This is Monique,” Aragon said, indicating the unsmiling woman Sam had seen on his way in. “She controls access to the lower level, but there’s just one more requirement.”

“Something else?” Sam had hoped to see the lower level tonight.

Monique gestured for him to enter, and then she instructed him to place his hand in a luminous dark green square next to the control panel. “Palm flat,” she said.

It was a palm scanner.

“Once we have your biometrics logged into the computer,” Monique said, “you’ll be allowed to come and go as you please. It shouldn’t take more than twenty-four hours.”

Sam wasn’t pleased, nor was he buying her biometrics gobbledygook. They were probably going to run a fingerprint check on him, too, which rarely took more than a few minutes, if you had no criminal record. For some reason he was being stalled; still there wasn’t much he could do about it now.

With one bright flash of the scanner, Sam was done. He stepped out of the elevator, and Aragon stepped in, probably intending to visit his office, said to be on the lower level. “We’ll continue our chat when I return,” he said. “Until then, enjoy. Any special requests, ask Angelic.”

As the doors closed on Jason Aragon, Sam nodded a warm and friendly farewell, all the while thinking, it won’t be long now, you arrogant bastard.

ALLY HESITATED in the lobby of the Hotel Lafayette, wishing she could turn and leave as swiftly and silently as she’d entered. She’d come to search a man’s room, yet that wasn’t what had stopped her. It was her memories of this place. She’d been here just the day before to set up this mission, but she’d been able to keep the past at bay until now.

The lobby buzzed with elegant guests. Its marble pillars and domed ceiling had always reminded her of the rotunda of a state building. However, today its grandeur made her feel disheveled and dirty. Her skirt was off-kilter, and she’d just noticed a smear of red clay ground into the hip.

She took cover near a potted palm and brushed at the fabric, trying not to be too obvious. Her best suit! She’d ruined it. The emotions flooding her had little to do with her clothing. This was the hotel where her mother and father had stayed when they’d come to New Orleans to save her from a fate worse than death—ruining the family name.

“Miss, is there something wrong? Can I help you?” a perturbed young man in red livery asked her. Although he had enough brass on his uniform to command an army, he was likely just a hotel clerk.

“No, I’m fine,” she said, hoping her nerves didn’t show. “I have a spot on my skirt. Is there a ladies’room nearby?”

He looked as if he wanted to hustle her out the back door. He obviously thought she was an interloper, maybe even a hooker. She’d love to tell him who she really was and blow his mind, but he’d never believe her. She was wearing a dirty suit with a miniskirt and a plunging neckline—of course, he wouldn’t believe her.

“Down that hallway to your right, miss.”

“Thank you.” Ally squared her shoulders, proceeding with as much dignity as she could muster, which should have been considerable. Grace under fire had been drilled into her as child. In her parents’ eyes, decorum was everything, as important as breathing.

She knew the clerk was watching her, and fortunately, the ladies’ lounge was out of his eyeshot. Unfortunately, there was an attendant on duty in the lounge, and the woman’s reaction was even more disapproving than the clerk’s. Her grimace made Ally cringe.

Ally had planned to clean herself up at one of the sinks, but instead she locked herself in the nearest stall and used water from the toilet. Not one of her finer moments. As she dabbed the clay specks from her skirt, she almost wished the clerk had tried to throw her out. Maybe then she would have told him that her parents had once been guests in the presidential suite, and if pedigree mattered so much, he might like to know she was actually a princess.

Of course, he might not be so impressed with a royal family who’d been exiled and had their holdings seized by a cabal of despots. If Ally’s parents hadn’t had Swiss accounts, they would have been destitute. As it was, they’d been able to live a comfortable life and set up trusts for both their daughters.

The attendant knocked sharply on the stall door. “What are you doing in there?”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Ally bent over and flushed the toilet to make her point. The attendant retreated, and Ally did the best she could with her outfit. Moments later, armed with a haughty look, she came out of the stall, gave the woman a five-dollar bill and told her to keep the change. She swung through the lounge door and strode across the lobby, making sure the clerk saw her leave. She didn’t stop walking until she was out of the hotel and in the parking lot, safe from prying eyes.

Okay. Now what, genius?

She was trembling by the time she got to her car. She couldn’t very well have gone up to Sinclair’s room after drawing so much unwanted attention. And if she’d had a choice, she would have been on a plane back to her apartment in Georgetown that night. The hotel brought back the all-night ordeal with her parents, every heartrending moment of it. They’d begged her not to tarnish the family name by getting involved with someone as notorious as Aragon. Their real mission, however, had been to persuade her to return to London and marry the man they’d chosen for her, a wealthy industrialist who could restore the Danner riches and their position in society.

The pressure on Ally had been intense, and it had started when she was seventeen and about to graduate from Alderwood. Her father had called, insisting she leave school and come to London to plan her own wedding. The prospect had struck horror in her heart, but she’d promised to return if he would let her graduate. He’d agreed, and she’d returned, prepared to do her duty, but she hadn’t expected her betrothed to be an overbearing man in his midfifties, whose ideas about marriage were even more antiquated than her parents, and who would furtively grope and paw her under the table on their first dinner date. The bastard had wanted some return on his investment before the deal was done.

Ally pleaded with her father to call off the wedding, but couldn’t make him understand that such an arrangement would never work for her. Desperate, she ran away, back to the States, where she worked her way through college by waitressing, and then, to ensure that she could never be forced into marriage, she devised a plan to “ruin” herself and become unacceptable to anyone else her father might choose. Jason Aragon had proved to be the perfect choice. She’d met him in New Orleans during spring break, never suspecting that he would become an even more dangerous trap than the one she’d escaped.

And now he had her sister.

Vix was paying the price for Ally’s mistakes, and Ally had to get her back safely. She couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t, but how could she get up to Sinclair’s room? She remembered a back elevator to the presidential suite that might open up on the other floors as well. The staff used it to deliver room service or whatever was needed to the suite. Now, if she could just find it without being spotted.

3

ALLY COULD SEE the headline now: Jail time for princess nabbed for breaking and entering. Glancing down at the stain on her skirt, she saw that she’d rubbed bits of white toilet paper into the red clay. Charming. All she needed was an ankle tattoo. Maybe a coiled snake or some lovely barbed wire.

Was she really going to do this?

She’d entered the hotel through a back entrance and found the staff elevator without being noticed. As she rode up to Sinclair’s room on the fifth floor, doubts assailed her. She hadn’t broken any laws yet. It wasn’t a crime to follow a person as long as he didn’t slap a restraining order on you. But breaking into his hotel suite while he was away?

Her mouth tasted gritty. Her nerves had been a jangled mess for days, and lack of sleep didn’t help. Worrying about Vix had kept her awake all night. She didn’t know where or how her sister was being held, whether she was being abused, or even if she was alive. Ally had checked her e-mail on her BlackBerry several times, but there’d been no messages from her sister.

Vix had been traveling on her own since she was a child. A short hop to New Orleans was nothing to her. She’d made the trip to check out Tulane University’s undergrad program, and she’d been gone overnight when Ally had received that ominous e-mail from her. Ally had immediately called the hotel where Vix had planned to stay, but she hadn’t checked in. There wasn’t even a reservation for her.

Then Ally had called Vix’s close friends in Georgetown, being careful not to alarm them when she asked about her sister. None of them had heard from Vix since she’d left. Reluctantly, Ally contacted the rock musician her eighteen-year-old sister had been dating, only to learn that he’d received an e-mail from Vix the same day Ally had. He’d revealed that Vix’s e-mail had been upbeat and cheerful, and she hadn’t mentioned any concerns beyond her choice of schools. Ally had doubts about her sister’s boyfriend, but she had no reason to think he would lie about something like that. That was when Ally had decided to fly to New Orleans to check things out for herself.

Ally feared Vix might have gone to Club Casablanca out of curiosity. It was only a short drive from Tulane. She suspected her sister was fascinated with Jason Aragon because of the stories Ally had told her. She hadn’t been trying to intrigue her sister, just the opposite. She worried that Vix would make the same mistakes she had, and she’d wanted her to understand that impulsive decisions could do lasting damage. But her impetuous sister had found Ally’s walk on the wild side highly intriguing, and Vix had a rebellious streak, too.

She knew Jason Aragon to be capable of many things, but she didn’t believe him evil enough to kill or even to take sexual advantage of her little sister. It was much more likely that he was using Vix as a means to an end, and that end was Ally, herself. Ally was the catch, Vix the bait.

He’d become controlling and obsessive, refusing to let Ally go when she wanted out of the relationship. At first she’d found his fast-paced, sexy lifestyle exciting, but it had frightened her when his physical desires began to darken, and she never got used to the leering club members who considered the hostesses free game. Not her, of course. She was Aragon’s woman. No one touched her. But she didn’t want Vix exposed to any of that.

When the elevators door opened, Ally took a moment to orient herself. The first thing she had to do was find the chambermaid she’d persuaded to help her. Ally had offered the young woman cash, but she’d refused it. She hadn’t agreed to help until Ally disclosed that her sister was missing, and she was afraid for her safety. The chambermaid had lost her own sister to guerrilla forces in Guatemala, where she was born, and she’d been touched by Ally’s plight.

Following the room numbers, Ally quickly located the one she wanted. She was relieved to see the maid already there, industriously polishing the brass doorknob and escutcheon. She spotted Ally, gave her a nod and opened the door to Sinclair’s room.

“Hurry now!” the woman whispered as Ally slipped into the room. “You have five minutes, that’s all. If anyone comes in, I’ll lose my job, and you’ll go to jail.”

“Five minutes, and I’ll be out,” Ally promised, easing the door closed behind her. They’d agreed that the maid would remain outside to head off anyone who might show up, whether the hotel staff or Sinclair himself.

Ally swept the sitting room area, going through the drawers of the entertainment unit and the desk. She found nothing except the usual hotel stationery and sightseeing guides.

Next, she went through the entry closet, checked the guest bath and wet bar, and then lifted all the furniture cushions. As she worked, she noticed that every light in the place was burning. Sinclair hadn’t bothered to turn them off. She made a mental note to keep her hands off the switches—she didn’t want to give away that someone had been there.

Another thing she noticed as she moved through his suite was that other than a few toiletries and the expensive clothes hanging in the master closet, the place was as spartan and spotless as if unoccupied. That didn’t make sense. You couldn’t stay for any length of time in a hotel and not leave some trace of your presence—a scribbled note by the phone, an appointment book on the desk, pictures of family by the bed, a pay stub in the trash can. Something!

Unless you didn’t want anyone to know who you were.

The maid had told her Sinclair’s name, as well as ferreting out a few other details, like his profession. Ally needed more information. Much more.

She checked her watch as she entered the bedroom. The closet door was open, the light burning inside. As she darted over there, she had the craziest thought. Was this man afraid of the dark? Or was he expecting someone?

She fished through the pockets of the suit jackets that hung in the closet. Her efforts produced two sticks of Dentyne and the princely sum of forty-eight cents in loose change. She felt an odd tingle in the pit of her stomach and realized it was the gum. She would have thought it was nerves, except that the scent of cinnamon always reminded her of Red Hots candy, which had the strangest effect on her. Her first summer crush had been eating the candies when he kissed her mouth and a few other places, too. He’d left hints of the spicy scent on her breasts, and it had sent shivers through her days later. She’d refused to shower.

Ally figured that had to be the reason, but whatever it was, Red Hots made her hot. She held the gum to her nose and breathed in. Quickly she put the gum and the money back and cleared her thoughts. There was still work to do here. Her time was almost up, and she needed to know who Sam Sinclair was. In the most basic terms, was he a good guy or a bad guy? Could he be trusted? Would he help her or would he rat her out to Aragon? Those were the questions. But there were no answers in this suite. She stepped out of the closet, jerking her hand back seconds before she touched the light switch.

Her first criminal act was a bust, she realized as she returned to the living room. Worse, she didn’t know where to go from here. She couldn’t approach Sinclair knowing so little about him. But right now, she had to get out of the suite unseen. With the maid acting as lookout, that should be the easiest part of the night.

Voices? Ally crept into the foyer to listen. It sounded as if the maid were talking to someone outside. Ally hoped it was another hotel employee.

“How are you, Mr. Sinclair?” the maid said, speaking loudly enough for Ally to hear her. “I was just going to turn down your bed. I’m afraid we forgot to do that this evening.”

“Thanks,” Sinclair said, “but I’m exhausted.”

“It’s no problem, Mr. Sinclair. Really.” The maid was nearly shouting now, and Ally had already backed out of the foyer.

“No thanks. I’ll take care of it myself.”

Ally’s heart lost a beat when she heard Sinclair’s reply. A second later the doorknob jiggled…then turned.

SAM DETECTED a faint scent the moment he opened the door to his room. Not perfume exactly, but intuition told him it was feminine essence. Light floral tones with a note of something else. Cinnamon? Maybe that determined little brunette who’d been following him for days had finally decided to sneak into his room. He’d left the lights on for her—that was a courtesy. He’d also moved his documents and his laptop computer to a safe place. That was a necessity.

As he slipped his key card into his pocket, it occurred to him that he could flush her out in ways that would probably blow her mind. But she wasn’t a pro, he was certain of that, and there didn’t seem any reason to scare the hell out of her. He’d already done that in the cemetery. Nor would he retrieve the small-frame 9 mm automatic he’d taped under the coffee table. It was there if he needed it.

Sam glanced around the living room as he headed for the bedroom. The lamp on the desk sat a few inches off, one of the sofa cushions was out of place, and he could see the indentation in the carpet where the trash container had been moved and resettled. Not bad for an amateur. It was a reasonably clean and thorough search, but a search nonetheless. But what was she looking for? And more importantly, who did she work for?

It was possible Aragon had sent her in to check him out. She might even be the reason Sam had been stalled in his access to the lower level, although Aragon wouldn’t have been likely to use an amateur. Sam could feel his neck tightening at the thought of this woman in Aragon’s employ. And it wasn’t pleasure burning in his gut. No woman should be at the mercy of that bastard, and this woman didn’t strike him as the type who’d let herself be at anyone’s mercy. Maybe that’s what drew him. Her nerve.

Hell, she was stalking him. That alone was pretty gutsy.

He couldn’t think who else might want to investigate him at the moment, so the odds were with Aragon. This might be another test of Sam’s suitability for membership, and he couldn’t take the chance that it wasn’t. Other than his uncle, no one knew about his personal reasons for being here, so she couldn’t possibly be connected with that mess. If nothing else, he would get some answers out of her tonight.

Sam removed his leather jacket, threw it over the back of a chair and walked into bedroom. “Well, well, well,” he said, eyeing his visitor.

Finding her had never been in question. Finding her draped across his king-size bed, her shoes kicked off and her chin propped up in her palm…now that was a bit of a surprise.

“Mr. Aragon sends his regards,” she said, allowing a seductive pause before adding softly, “and me.”

“Does he now?”

She nodded, her dark eyes sparkling as seductively as the tiny smile on her luscious lips. “I found my contact lens, thank you.”

Sam made his way slowly to the side of the bed. “I’m glad to hear it.” When he looked down, he spotted her high heels lying on the carpet, where she had kicked them off. “And just what am I supposed to do with you?” he asked. He leaned against the dresser and crossed his arms over his chest. He gave her his best disarming smile as he cocked his head appraisingly.

“Anything you want.”

“Now that’s what I call a generous offer.”

His focus narrowed on her face as he searched for something that he had seen a thousand times on a thousand different faces. It was called a tell, and every one had one. It could be anything—a tick, a cough, a certain glance, a gesture.

The woman on his bed locked stares with him. He wouldn’t have called it a poker face, but she wasn’t giving anything away. Or was she? His gut caught the nuance more than his eye. It wasn’t much, a slight challenging rise of her left eyebrow.

“You’re under no obligation,” she said smoothly. “If you prefer to be alone, that’s fine, too.” She moved to sit up.

This was the preamble to her exit line, Sam knew. He pushed himself off the dresser and sat down on the side of the bed, deliberately taking in a long, leisurely eyeful of her. Her short skirt revealed a lot of leg, probably more than she wanted. But everything about those legs was sexy and nice, from her trim ankles to the curves of her calves and thighs. Even the goose bumps.

She was either cold or frightened. Probably both, he imagined. Personally, he liked it cold. It kept him sharp.

“No,” he said, “I think I’d like you to stay a while. After all, it’s rude to refuse a gift offered in friendship.”

Sam rose and placed his hands on her shoulders. He gently pushed with one hand and pulled with the other, pivoting her around on her bottom until he had her positioned just so. He urged her back until her head rested on the thick, fluffy pillows. A strained smile fluttered across her lips as he brushed the hair from her forehead.

“So, how long have you worked for Mr. Aragon?” he asked. He kept his voice soft and nonthreatening.

“A while,” she replied.

“Do you like your work?”

“Sometimes.”

“Have you lived here long?”

“Not really.”

Sinclair grinned. “You’re just a font of information, aren’t you? You sound a little dry. Would you like something to drink? Water, wine?”

She shook her head.

“Good, let’s talk.”

“About what?”

“I have to admit I’m curious about what took you into the cemetery late at night.”

“Just taking a walk. I needed some air and I like dark places.”

“I see,” he said. “This walking through graveyards on your hands and knees…is that something you do often?”

“Not unless I lose a contact lens.”

She compressed her lips in an effort not to smile that struck him as charming. “But you found it?”

“My brown eyes are blue tonight, aren’t they?”

“Oh, yes.” Another challenging tilt of her eyebrow. Possibly she was enjoying this match of wits as much as he was.

“You shouldn’t sneak up on a girl like that,” she said. “You startled me.”

“And that’s why you tried to hide from the security guards?”

Her brows knit. “I wasn’t hiding, Mr. Sinclair. I was…I was startled. You frightened me, popping up out of nowhere like that. You shouldn’t do that. In some circles it would be considered very rude.”

“You seem pretty good at popping up out of nowhere yourself.”

Her response was one of the best I-have-no-idea-what-you’re-talking-about expressions he’d ever witnessed. And he’d witnessed a few.

Sam allowed silence to fill the seconds as he leaned toward her lips. “I’m going to kiss you,” he said. “Is that all right with you?”

Her breath was warm on his cheek and smelled faintly of peppermint. But the tantalizing hints of cinnamon swirled around him, too. Was that her makeup? Her lipstick? He took in a deep draught, savoring its essence. She had to be one of the more enticing women he’d ever had on his bed. Too bad this was all just a setup on his part, a prelude to his interrogation process.

Her lips trembled slightly as his descended toward them. Sam took his time, and sweet time it was as he slipped his right hand under the fold between the pillows and the comforter. His fingers touched a cool, hard cylinder just as his lips touched warm, soft flesh. She moaned softly into his mouth, and Sam wasn’t sure if it was protest or surrender.

He noticed she kept her hands at her side, her palms pressed tight against the bed as her entire body stiffened, becoming as rigid as a wooden plank. Before freeing her mouth completely, Sam indulged in a tiny nibble of her bottom lip. It was succulent and moist, sweet and lickable. Everything a bottom lip should be.

The sigh that slipped out of her was hot and breathy, almost a moan. Sam knew if he didn’t stop this he’d have his own wooden plank to worry about. The sensations stirring deep in his groin were all too familiar. Warmth and fullness. Rising male pleasure.

“Let’s play a game,” he whispered in her ear.

“Ga-ame?” Somehow she’d managed to stretch the word into two complete syllables and make it sound cute in the process. His wait for the proverbial gulp went unrewarded, however. All he got was a dry click from her throat. It would have to do.

He placed his left hand next to her right arm, letting his visitor know that he could easily pin her to the bed under him. As it was, they both understood that she wasn’t going anywhere.

“It’s been my experience that women either love this game or hate it,” he said. “Nothing in between. What do you say? Don’t want to disappoint Mr. Aragon, do we? Not when he was kind enough to send such a generous and alluring gift.”

She kept trying to smile, and failing. “I suppose not.”

“Good girl,” Sam said. With that he pulled the cylinder from beneath the pillow, leveraged it with his knee and expertly ripped off a strip of silver tape, one-handed.

“What’s that?” Ally asked.

She barely had the question out before her wrist was wrapped in silver. He held up the roll of duct tape for her to see, and she edged away from him.

“What are you going to do with that?”

It would have amazed her to know all the various uses a man like Sam had for duct tape, including de-linting his clothes and flinging it like a Frisbee to startle intruders. Right now, he had something more interesting in mind.

“I have enough of this stuff to wrap your entire naked body,” he told her. “Quite a gift you’d be then, hmm? Can you imagine what that would feel like, especially when I unwrap you?”

He gave the tape around her wrist a tug, and then ripped it free. She winced, but held his gaze like a trooper. Still she was nervous now, and that was just where he wanted her. It was nothing personal. Situations like this demanded that he press his advantage.

“Is this a bondage game?” she asked. “I don’t normally do the kinky stuff. I could get someone else for you, though. Just let me make a phone call, and I’ll take care of that right away.”

Sam smiled down at her as he stood up. “Bondage game? No, afraid not, although that might be interesting for later. What we’re about to play is a mind game. And just so you know, there’s a part of this game that some women simply hate.”

Letting that sink in, he added, “I’m going to ask you some questions and you’re going to answer them. There’s nothing to it, as long as you tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. You’re familiar with that concept, aren’t you?”

The last question was delivered with a straight face.

The “ga-ame” had just turned serious.

WHY DID ALLY FEEL as if she’d just been asked the mother of all trick questions? Everything about the situation suddenly seemed like a setup. The lights being on, the absence of any personal items, Sinclair’s unexpected appearance—had he known she would show up here?

Clearly the plan had blown up in her face, and she couldn’t see any way to turn things to her advantage, but she wasn’t giving up. She’d been caught in his suite, trapped in his bed, and she strongly suspected he hadn’t been fooled into believing she was one of Aragon’s women, sent up as a midnight snack. But she was sticking to her story.

“I really do need to make a call,” she said evenly. “If I don’t check in with the club, they’ll try to reach me on my cell.”

“Well, if they do, I’ll answer for you and tell them you’re much too busy to be disturbed. Now…for our little game.”

Sinclair bent down, picked up one of her high heels and held it up to the light, as if to examine it. She’d chosen the sexiest shoes she owned. They were open-toed with a cap heel and delicate straps that crisscrossed her ankle. But now they were scraped and soiled from her adventure in the graveyard.

He cast a quizzical glance her way. “Dirty shoes on an Aragon woman? By the looks of these heels, you must have taken the back way out of the cemetery. Wouldn’t one of the club’s hostesses change her clothes—and shoes—before making her appointed rounds?”

“I suppose I should have, now that you mention it. I didn’t want to be late.”

She didn’t like where this was heading. He seemed to know more than he was letting on, which meant he was playing with her. She had to start planning her next move—out of this place.

Sinclair set down the shoe in favor of examining her ankles. He leaned across the bed and began tracing his fingertip along the tender flesh of her calves. “Goose bumps. Are you cold?”

Ally wasn’t. She had too much adrenaline coursing through her body to feel the biting chill in the room.

“And these red bumps look like insect bites,” he said. “Maybe chiggers? Mosquitoes? Just how long were you searching for your contact lens? Must have been quite some time.”

Ally remembered being bitten by insects while at the cemetery. She hadn’t thought it would be used as evidence against her.

“I’m not having fun,” she said. “I’d like to go now.”

“Oh, but I’m not through with you yet. In fact, we’ve only just started.”

He sat down next to her, his smile fading as his dark eyes drilled holes through her. “I want to know why you’re here and what you’re up to,” he said. “I’m not convinced you work for Aragon, or that he sent you here to please me or to keep me company. The game ends when I have those questions answered, and not a minute before.”

He studied her intently. “And while we’re at it, maybe you can explain why you’ve been following me for the last three days.”

He had known all along. He had been just waiting for the right moment. The adrenaline blast that had cut off her ability to feel cold in the room was now paralyzing her vocal chords. “F-following you? No, I—”

Sinclair rose to his full height, gazing down at her. This time he meant business. His dark gold eyebrows had flattened and his expression was steely.

Ally ran through her options. She could tell him the truth, which was out of the question since she still wasn’t sure who he was. Lie to him, which was tempting except that she didn’t happen to have a convincing lie handy. Or remain silent and tell him nothing.

She went for the last one. Silence. Let him make the next move, she decided. If things got out of hand, she would scream her head off. This was a hotel. They had security.

“I’m waiting,” Sinclair said.

“I must admit, you have me curious, Mr. Sinclair, if I may call you that. The club gave me your name. Maybe we can do some bargaining? I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine.”

Sinclair shook his head. “This is my game, and I don’t answer questions.”

“Then I don’t play.”

He cocked his head slightly. He was appraising her again, but Ally had no clue what was going through his mind.

His voice dropped low. “Remember when I said there was a part of this game that some women hated?”

She managed a weak nod, her heart thrumming wildly as he moved to the side of the bed. He pulled her to her feet, his fingers firmly wrapped around her wrists. “Well, here it comes.”

4

SAM RELEASED Ally almost as swiftly as he’d pulled her to her feet. With a suspicious eye, she watched him reach for the phone on the nightstand.

“What are you doing?”

“Making a phone call.”

He might as well have pulled a gun on her. Who was he calling? The police? Jason Aragon? She couldn’t let him do either.

“Let’s play that game,” she said.

He cast her a quizzical glance. “Now you want to play?”

“I love games. Love, love, love them. Who doesn’t? Put down the phone and let’s play.”

“Oh, but I can’t. The phone call is an important part of this game.”

“How so?” She didn’t like the smile that played at the edges of his mouth. It was too sensual.

Sam tapped the receiver, probably to taunt her. “Ever played truth or dare? Well, this is truth or bare. I ask a question, and you answer it. If you tell the truth, we go to the next question. If I catch you in a lie, you remove one piece of clothing.”

“Truth or bare?”

He rolled right on, ignoring her disbelief. “If you refuse to remove said piece of clothing, I pick up this phone, call Mr. Aragon, and tell him I’m not happy with my little gift.”

He let that sink in before continuing. “There may even be time to return my gift to him personally, if that becomes necessary. Is there any part of the game you don’t understand?”

He held out the phone, and she glared at him until he returned it to the cradle. She watched with annoyance as he fished around in his pocket and withdrew a handful of items. Among the keys and coins was an opened package of Dentyne.

Clearly the man had a bad gum habit.

Then she noticed the sparkly thing in his palm. Nestled next to the Dentyne was a small single key. She would have recognized it anywhere. The platinum key was the club’s most coveted symbol of privilege. He now had access to the lower level, and that meant she needed him more than ever.

She hoped the urgency she felt didn’t show. He’d done it. Somehow, he’d worked his way into the dark heart of Aragon’s club. Keep a cool head, she told herself. Get some answers.

“First question.” Sam returned the odds and ends to his pocket and popped a piece of the gum into his mouth. “What’s your name? Your real name. The one on your birth certificate.”

He seemed to be very intently searching her features. Let him look. She could bluff with the best of them. She’d lived in a fishbowl as a member of the royal court. A trip to the store had been a public appearance. She’d smiled and been gracious, always, even when she was coming apart inside.

Sinclair might think he had the upper hand with his duct tape and superior strength, but she knew more about him than he knew about her, which gave her the edge. Besides, she could say anything. How would he know she was lying? And the first lie had to be her name. She couldn’t reveal her true identity to him as long as there was a chance he’d call Aragon.

“Diana Kelly,” she said, stringing together the names of the last century’s two most well-known princesses. She thought it was rather clever, but Sinclair was already shaking his head.

“That will cost one piece of clothing,” he said. “I’ll let you pick it.”

“Gee, thanks. What makes you think that’s not my name?”

“You hesitated before you said it. How many people hesitate when asked their name?”

“I wasn’t sure I wanted to reveal it to you.”

“That’s another lie.” He moved toward her.

“It is not!”

He kept coming. “And another,” he said.

“All right, stop it now. You couldn’t possibly know whether I’m lying or not.”

She threw up her hands, but he stepped right past her barrier. “I not only know,” he said, lightly stroking her eyebrow and the outline of her lips, as if this were show-and-tell, “I know it before you do. People who are about to lie glance to the left before they speak. You’re textbook. You do it every time.”

Ally felt as if the floor had given way beneath her. He was too close and too good at this. He didn’t seem to know the meaning of personal space, and she couldn’t stop him from invading hers. Look at how he’d just helped himself to her mouth, as if it were a serving of dessert. Kissing it, touching it. What was he going to do with it next? Her lips felt hot and tender.

What had that damn ghost said? The ghost with his eyes. These lips are mine? Ridiculous. Who said things like that anymore?

Ally met his dark, burning gaze. She wouldn’t let herself look anywhere else, but it was almost painful. It probably made sense that he knew how to spot a liar. He was a high-stakes gambler, and they won or lost on their ability to recognize a bluff. That might account for his skill, but he was much more than just a gambler.

This wasn’t the time to confront him with her suspicions, she reminded herself. She had proof that he was running surveillance on the club, but she still didn’t know whether he was a good guy or a bad one. If it was the latter, and he decided she knew too much, she might never have the opportunity to glance to the left again.

“Are you going to strip?” he said. “Or should I start dialing?”

Her silence prompted him to pick up the phone and tap out the club’s numbers. “Angelic?” He spoke into the receiver. “This is Sam Sinclair. Would you be good enough to put me in touch with—”

“Okay, okay. You’ve made your point.” Ally snatched the phone out of his hand and hung it up.

She could almost feel the dark smile behind his narrowing eyes.

“That’s more like it,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Britney Spears.” She mentally stuck out her tongue at him.

“I’d say that qualifies as another lie. How many is that? I’ve lost count.” He reached for the phone again, and Ally let out a yelp.

“Hey, I was just kidding!”

“I’m not.” He waggled his index finger at her clothing. His meaning was clear.

Pervert, she thought, taking silent inventory of what she was wearing—a suit jacket and skirt, camisole, bra, panties and hose. That amounted to six lies before she’d be nude, and she wasn’t sure how many she’d told already. But she also had a hair clip, watch and bangle bracelet, which could stretch it out to nine.

If there was ever a time to get good at lying, it was now.

“Okay, I’ll play your silly game.” She removed the hair clip.

“Nice try,” Sinclair said as her hair fell onto her shoulders, “but that doesn’t count. Accessories aren’t clothes. If you won’t pick it, I will. Lose the jacket.”

A moment ago he was a pervert. He’d just been promoted. “Sicko,” she muttered as she took off her cropped suit jacket.

Sinclair shrugged. “I’ve been called worse.”

“I’m sure you have.” She tossed the jacket onto the bed and shivered. She seemed to have lost her immunity to the cold temperature of the room. Her silk camisole felt like ice against her flesh. Thank God she’d worn a bra. The last thing she needed was her nipples reacting to the chill. Now that would be sending the wrong signal.

To his credit—if the man was worthy of any—Sinclair didn’t gawk at her. His dark gaze brushed over her bare shoulders, making her feel as if she’d been illicitly touched. When wasn’t he illicitly touching her? But other than that, he simply folded his arms, and it was business as usual.

“We’ll come back to the name,” he said. “Why have you been following me for the last three days?”

“I haven’t been following you. I don’t even know you. Jason Aragon sent me.”

He chuckled lightly. “I can see this is going to get interesting. Remove something.”

“Why? I didn’t glance to the left.” In fact, she’d glanced to the right, just to be sure.

“You think that’s the only way to spot a liar? There are dozens of nonverbal signals associated with lying, and you’ve had all the clues you’re going to get. May I suggest the skirt?”

He popped his gum, and Ally thought of Red Hots candy. Her lips tingled. Not now.

“What are you, a psychologist?” she said. “A profiler?”

“You have no idea,” he said.

She had an idea. She had several ideas about him—and no intention of taking off any more clothing. Too bad she couldn’t back him off with what she knew about him, but there was too much at stake. She was the only one who knew Vix was missing, so it was entirely up to her. If she messed this up, she didn’t want to think about what might happen to her sister.

Ally could read signals, too, and she was fairly certain sex wasn’t one of Sinclair’s goals in getting her naked. She’d already draped herself across his bed invitingly, but he hadn’t taken her up on it. No, he wanted information, and this was his way of scaring her into giving it up.

Actually, maybe she would give it up—not information or sex, but another piece or two of clothing couldn’t hurt. It would buy her some time and possibly get her the information she needed. And if it got her sister back, she’d undress to the buff and dance a jig.

Let’s see. What could she take off next without giving away the farm? From what she knew of the club, an Aragon girl wouldn’t have all that much trouble stripping, and Ally still had hopes of convincing him she was one of those girls, but she had no desire to get herself into any more trouble.

She glanced his way as she hiked up her skirt to remove her pantyhose. He was watching her with the cool detachment of a poker player, but she still felt vulnerable. He was so much bigger than she was. And meaner.

“You could at least be a gentleman and turn around.”

“Sorry, the last thing I need is you banging me over the head with a lamp.”

“What a brilliant idea.”

Fine, she thought. If he wouldn’t turn around, she would.

She pivoted, giving him the full effect of her haughty stance. As quickly as possible, she shimmied out of her pantyhose. There, that wasn’t so bad. But when she turned around, his skepticism had morphed into dark amusement. He was enjoying this too much.

He snapped his gum, and a blast of cinnamon flooded her air space. So rude. And why cinnamon, the very essence of Red Hots?

“If it hasn’t dawned on you yet, I have far more questions than you have clothing,” he informed her. “It’s going to get awfully cold in here if you don’t start telling me the truth.”

“Bring it on.” She tossed her balled-up pantyhose, and he snapped them out of the air. Excellent reflexes.

“Whatever you say, lady.” He let his eyes drift down her body, lingering on all those places that she most wanted to keep covered. And while he was so casually caressing her with his gaze, he rolled the pantyhose ball around in his palm, squeezing it occasionally.

So obvious. Go ahead, she told him with an expression of casual disdain, feel me up all you want, as long as you do it from over there. You’re not going to rattle me. But she hadn’t planned on having to watch him bring the nylons to his nose, as if he were drinking in the fragrance of sweet woman flesh, and then to his lips, as if he could taste her. And she hadn’t totally accounted for the raking heat of his eyes, either.

She didn’t want to react, but she could feel the warmth invading her skin. Damn, she could. It made her hot just thinking about being naked under his gaze.

Finally, he tossed the pantyhose on the bed, ready to move on to other things, apparently. She refused to flinch when he placed his fingertips on her throat. She could barely feel his touch, but even the feather-light contact had the sizzle and snap of a live wire. And wouldn’t you know the man reeked of Red Hots.

God, how she secretly thrilled to that smell. It made her weak and infused her with energy at the same time. Exciting, but confusing.

“I know what you’re doing,” she said. “You’re taking my pulse, right? This is part of your lie-detecting routine.”

He was focused on her facial features, searching for something, and it wasn’t for one of the signals of deception. In her experience when a man looked at a woman this way, he usually kissed her, and this man wouldn’t stop there, she knew.

“Why are you afraid of Aragon?”

His question didn’t really register. She’d been searching his face as he’d searched hers—and again, a sense of déjà vu had crept in. Was she supposed to know him from some place? She was haunted by a nagging sense that they’d met before—perhaps years before—but the details remained elusive.

“The silent treatment won’t work,” he said. “I asked you why you were afraid of Aragon.”

“He’ll fire me if you call him. You must know how he is.”

“You don’t work for Aragon any more than I do.” He lifted his fingers from her neck. “You’ve done nothing but lie since we started the game. You’re lucky I’m not a hard nose, or you’d be naked by now. Skirt or camisole?”

“You’re not a hard nose?”

“Would you like me to be one? The camisole,” he said. “You take it off or I will.”

“You’re a despicable man.” Ally pulled the camisole over her head and threw it on the bed. “Despicable. I’m not surprised Jason likes you.”

She was now down to her skirt and her bra. Charming.

He gave her cotton bra a long hard look. He was clearly curious, and apparently not bothered that the style was modest by today’s standards. It resembled a sports bra. She wouldn’t have called it sexy by any means, and yet, he seemed to think so.

She heard his deep breath and saw the speed with which his pupils had expanded. His dark brown eyes were turning midnight black.

He cleared his throat and spoke. “All you have to do is tell me the truth, and the game is over. You can get dressed. I’ll help you.”

Was that a note of panic in his tone? Ally wasn’t quite sure what to do. She couldn’t tell him the truth, but he hadn’t missed a single lie so far. He might be bluffing, but even with the best odds, he should have stumbled at least once by now.

She needed to test him, but how?

“Tell me why you broke into my room.”

“I did tell you,” she insisted.

“And you lied.”

Very deliberately—and with no warning or apology—he placed his hand over her heart. Obviously to check the rate. It was exactly where a physician would have placed a stethoscope, but this guy wasn’t a physician, and Ally’s heart happened to be conveniently located beneath her left breast, like every woman’s.

The sudden intimacy of his touch made it hard for her to speak.

“Take your hand off my breast,” she croaked.

He smiled, caressing her with his thumb. “Make me.”

The intimacy was too much, the heat too fierce. She gripped his wrist, and he gripped hers.

“Let go of me,” she whispered.

“The minute you let go of me.”

“This is silly. Count of three and we both let go.”

A slow headshake. “Count to three thousand, if you want. I could do this for hours—and will, unless you tell me the truth.”

“I didn’t break in.” Her voice took on a pleading note. The truth, at least technically. But her damn fluttering pulse didn’t seem to care whether she was being honest or not. And why wouldn’t it with him fondling her breast?

His gaze grew darker by the moment. Whether or not he believed she was lying, he wasn’t letting up on the pressure, either mentally or physically. His eyes searched her, and his thumb feathered her hardening nipple. He was clearly savoring the feel of her.

Now she couldn’t even speak. She released his wrist, and he released hers, thank God. He freed her, but she could feel the imprint of his palm as if it were still there. She could feel his fingers taking possession of her flesh, and her face flushed with awareness.

“It’s basic biology,” he said, putting some effort into keeping his voice unaffected. “Your pulse rate increases when you lie, those pretty little pupils of yours react when you lie and your body temperature fluctuates when you lie. All measurable signals that will be used against you in this game.”

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