January 5th

The Pavilion lunchroom

Portland

 

So…” Claire said, and sniggered. “You’re married. You were single, not even dating, last time I looked. I turn my head for one second and bam! You’re married without even an engagement in between. That was quick.”

Claire studied the enormous diamond wedding ring on Suzanne’s left hand, a different shape and a different setting, but just as beautiful and overdone in its way as her own engagement ring had been. She ruthlessly repressed that thought. For all the good it did her. She thought of Bud about 23 hours a day. The other hour she slept. Badly.

“It was quick.” Suzanne looked at the ring, too, in bemusement, and threw Claire a helpless how-did-this-happen? look. “I don’t know, Claire. It’s all sort of a blur. First I’m running for my life, then I’m holed up in a mountain cabin somewhere, then I’m surrounded by FBI agents and then the next thing I know I’m in the registrar’s office, getting married.” She looked slightly shell-shocked. “Whenever I imagined getting married, I always thought it would be after a long, calm engagement, where I got to know the man well. We’d have similar tastes. Take a trip or two together to see if we’re compatible while traveling. Maybe even live together for a while. I never thought I’d find myself married to a man I’ve known…” Suzanne counted the days off, the wedding ring casting blinding lights as she moved her hand, “… fifteen days.” She looked appalled as she met Claire’s eyes. “I’ve only known John for fifteen days. And we’ve been married for six of them.” Suzanne shook her head helplessly. “Amazing.”

“Are you happy?” Claire asked bluntly. She had no business commenting on Suzanne’s marrying John after only knowing him a few days. She herself had become engaged forty-eight hours after meeting Bud.

“Oh, yes.” Suzanne lost that bemused look. Her beautiful face glowed. “Oh, absolutely. John’s a wonderful man. A very loving husband. Very, uhm…” a light blush crept up under the glow. “…very…loving.”

If John was anything like Bud, Claire had a good idea what the blush and the glow meant. She’d met John once, over dinner at their house, which doubled as headquarters for John’s security business and Suzanne’s office as a designer.

John didn’t look like Bud but he had the look of Bud. As if both of them came from the same planet, a different one from here. One where they grew the men stronger and bigger and tougher. John even had some of Bud’s mannerisms—a quiet watchfulness, a keen awareness of his surroundings, an overprotective manner.

A sigh escaped her before she could stifle it.

“How about you, honey?” Suzanne asked gently. She covered Claire’s hand with hers and both of them had to look away from the intense glare of her wedding ring. “You’re looking tired and sad. Is it because of Bud?”

“Absolutely not,” Claire replied. “I’m fine. Fine.”

“Because he’s certainly looking tired and sad,” Suzanne continued. “We saw him the other evening and he didn’t look well at all.”

“He didn’t? How did he…” Claire suddenly shut up and set her mouth. “I don’t care.”

There was a little silence. Claire pushed around the bits of excellent fish she hadn’t managed to choke down. Suzanne calmly ate her own fish with every sign of enjoyment.

“So…how sad and tired?” Claire asked finally.

Suzanne waved her fork and gave a dainty shrug. “You don’t care, remember?”

There was a long silence, a tribute to Claire’s complete and utter indifference to anything Bud might be doing or feeling. She pushed the fish around and around, bit her lip and finally gave in. “Okay, okay. How sad and tired?” she repeated in a mumble.

“Very.” Suzanne leaned forward. “Oh, honey, if you could just see how miserable he is and like the lunkhead that he is, he can’t even express it. He just walks around with these tight lips and red eyes and white face. Not talking.” She wrinkled her nose. “Not shaving, either. He looks like a wreck.”

Claire put her fork down with a clatter. “He deserves it,” she said hotly. “I won’t be treated like a child. A sick one, at that. It was already coming to a head before he had me carted away and locked up. I couldn’t sneeze, I couldn’t cough without him going into nurse mode. He was constantly checking to see if I’d eaten, asking me if I’d slept. Saying I was working too hard. It was like having a nanny instead of a lover. I’m not a child and I’m not sick. I’m fine.”

“He loves you,” Suzanne said gently. She watched Claire’s face. “He wants to keep you safe and healthy. And you love him.”

Claire shrugged angrily, swiped impatiently at her eyes. More tears welled. Throughout the long, painful years of her illness, she’d never cried. Not once. Crying would have spelled defeat, a weakness she couldn’t afford. Here she’d cried more for Bud in the past few days than she’d cried in her whole lifetime. It seemed that she spent all her time lately with her eyes leaking. She hated that.

“Don’t you?” Suzanne angled her head to meet Claire’s eyes. “Don’t you love him?”

Claire bit her lips not to say the words, a tear coursing slowly down her face.

“You know, John is wildly overprotective, too.” Suzanne dabbed daintily at her mouth and sipped her glass of white wine. “It gets very annoying, let me tell you, particularly if you’ve been independent as long as I have. He won’t let me drive if it’s raining or snowing or even threatening bad weather. You can imagine how much fun that is in Portland, in winter. He deputizes one of his men to drive me and they are not what I’d call great conversationalists. If he’s free, he insists on accompanying me anywhere I have to go. Actually, having lunch with you on my own is a minor miracle. He’s in Salem for business today. It’s all a little overwhelming and I’m hoping that with time, he’ll tone it down. But…” she smiled, “it’s because he loves me. And I guess it’s a price I’ll just have to pay. To tell you the truth, I pay it willingly, because I can’t imagine ever loving another man the way I love him.”

Claire blinked. Her eyes burned. There was a huge hot rock lodged in her throat.

“They’re not easy men to love,” Suzanne went on. “Bud and John are hard men who’ve spent their lives in dangerous jobs, with not much softness in their lives. I think perhaps they’re not used to loving someone. So it’s hard for them, you know? To know how to draw the line, to know when to step back. John finds it enormously difficult to find that line between being caring and being…well, obnoxious and suffocating. I find myself having to nudge him back over that line every once in a while. God knows what he’ll be like as a father. Probably freaking out every ten minutes.”

Claire straightened. Father. Children. Oh, God. She wanted children, but now she’d never have any because she was mad at Bud, who was the only man she could ever marry.

“Life is short,” Suzanne continued. Tears suddenly appeared in her eyes, too. “Think of Todd. Think how quickly people we love can be taken away from us. Love is fragile and precious and should never be thrown away.”

The two women held each other’s hand tightly. Claire was crying openly. She looked at Suzanne in dismay. “What am I going to do?” she whispered. “I can’t go forward and I can’t go back. I can’t go back to things the way they were, but I can’t stand the thought of never seeing Bud again.”

Suzanne squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry, sweetie. I have a feeling it will all work out.”

January 5th

437 Rose Street

Late evening

 

Suzanne smiled as she heard the living room door close. John was finally back from his business trip. She was seated at her bedroom vanity, combing her hair, in her brand new, very pretty, very sexy peach silk nightgown.

Hearing the door close was a new thing, quite an achievement for her. John was a former commando, a warrior. He’d been trained to move stealthily, without noise. It was eerie how a man as big and heavy as he was could move with such silence. He’d frightened the life out of her more than once as he suddenly appeared before her, like a big, dark, powerful wraith. He was under strict instructions now to make a noise when he came home or entered a room she was in.

There he was at the door and she watched his reflection in her vanity mirror, heart pounding. Everything about her husband excited her and her heart still soared whenever she saw him suddenly.

Maybe the excitement would wear down eventually, as time went on. Though she doubted it.

He met her eyes in the mirror, gaze dark and intent. Silence reigned in her pretty bedroom. John only slept here, and hadn’t made his mark. Luckily, he was neat and tidy, a relic of his navy days, she supposed. The four big rooms across the hallway where he worked were bold and masculine, imprinted with his personality, but her rooms, where they lived, were pretty and feminine. John seemed to find the contrast amusing and, at times, exciting.

“Welcome back,” she said softly, watching him in the mirror as he moved toward her with his lithe walk. “I missed you.”

“Nice nightgown,” he replied, his voice a deep growl. He had a look in his gunmetal eyes that she had come to know very, very well. “I missed you, too.”

Deep inside her body she was already opening for him, already excited by his mere presence. But before he made love to her and she forgot her own name, they needed to talk.

Suzanne swiveled in her chair, rose and moved toward the window. She had to be out of his physical grasp. One touch and she’d go up in flames. She held up her hand and he stopped obediently, eyes gleaming.

“John, I need to ask a favor of you.”

“You got it, darlin’.” His eyelids lowered. “Anythin’ you want, you can have. Jus’ name it.”

Oh, God. Suzanne locked her knees before they buckled. When he used that smoky tone with the faint Southern accent, she knew mind-blowing sex wasn’t far behind. She usually heard that tone rumbling in her ear as he was making love to her, thrusting hard and fast and for hours. She had to concentrate here or she’d be on her back before she knew it.

“You know how miserable Bud looked the other night when we had dinner together?”

John froze. Suzanne could almost see the wheels whirring in his handsome head. Was this a trick question? Was this a trick question that involved emotions?

“Yeah?” he said warily.

“Well, I had lunch with Claire and she was looking just as miserable. They’re both going to stay miserable on either side of the fence they’ve erected between them, the idiots, unless someone does something. Both of them have heads as hard as concrete and neither of them are willing to give in first, so they’ll both be miserable forever. John, we have a responsibility, here.”

“No we don’t.” John held his big hands up, palms out. “No way. Bud’s having a hard time, yeah, I can see that, and I’m sorry if Claire isn’t happy, but that doesn’t have anything to do with us.”

“Of course it does,” Suzanne said sharply. John was amazingly intelligent about a lot of things, but absurdly obtuse about others. “Bud and Claire are our friends. Their happiness is absolutely our concern.”

John blinked at the idea. He opened his mouth to object when Suzanne continued.

“Their paths don’t cross, ever. How could they? Bud’s a police officer and Claire works for an ad agency. Unless someone throws them together, they’re just going to stay quietly miserable forever. And Bud’s beard will reach his chest-bone. That won’t do.” She smiled persuasively at her husband. “But I’ve got a plan.”

John wisely kept his mouth shut. Still, she recognized that mulish cast to his jaw.

Suzanne gave her husband her most winning smile. “You know the opening of the show at the Parks Foundation we’re invited to on the 15th? ‘The Jewels of the Czars’? The one where you keep complaining about having to wear a tux?”

“Fuck, yeah,” John said, then winced. “Sorry. But I hate formal dos, you know that. Plus you insist that Kowalski and I have to attend unarmed.” John looked aggrieved. “What’s with that? I’ll feel naked.”

“Well, you have to attend because I designed the jewelry display cases and they’re brilliant if I do say so myself. And you and Douglas will be unarmed because the idea of carrying guns into the Parks Foundation is ridiculous. Nothing violent could ever happen there.”

And also, Suzanne thought, John’s new partner, former Senior Chief Douglas Kowalski, looked frightening—like a dangerous thug. He’d be frisked for weapons immediately by the security company of the jewelry show.

“Can’t you convince Bud to attend, too?” she asked.

John looked astounded. “Why the fuck—why the hell should Bud come? When he’d have to wear a tux? What does he care about Russian jewels?”

“He cares because Claire will be there.” Suzanne refrained from rolling her eyes.

“Well, I sure can’t force him to come to the opening. And if he’s smart, he’ll stay far away.”

“No.” Suzanne took a deep breath. “That’s not good enough. We need to be certain Bud will come to the opening.”

“There’s no way I can promise you that,” John said.

Suzanne smiled. John was a strong-minded man, with a will of iron. What saved her from being brow-beaten by her own husband was that fact that he had a very strong sense of justice and fairness. And the fact that she had a secret weapon.

She reached to her shoulders to unleash that secret weapon. Slowly, Suzanne slipped the straps of her nightgown off her shoulders and felt the gown slide silkily and sexily to her ankles. She was naked except for her kidskin mules.

John’s eyes widened and his nostrils flared. He stepped forward, big hands reaching for her.

“I’ll talk to Bud tomorrow,” he said hoarsely.

January 15th

Parks Foundation

Opening ceremony of the ‘Jewels of the Czars’ Show

 

“No, I guess I missed the Tibetan Music Festival. What a pity.”

Claire smiled insincerely, evaded the groping hands of Professor Smith Bogdanovich, Emeritus Professor of Musical Ethnology and drone extraordinaire, and moved on to the next stuffy blow-hard with an avid desire for a Parks Foundation study grant. She’d met them all and been on the receiving end of thousands of monomaniacal rants on their obsessions. Tibetan Music. Medieval incunabula. Etruscan tombs. 17th century Neapolitan dance. Maghrebian foodways. All interesting in and of themselves, but not in the hands of fanatics.

Boy, was Claire glad she’d quit working at the Foundation. She’d been making polite conversation with a concentration of all of Portland’s bores for the past hour and a half, remembering how often she’d had dealings with them and how tedious she’d found them all. Working at the Foundation had been hell. She’d hated every minute of it.

Depressed as she was, Claire had decided to forego the gala opening tonight, though Suzanne had designed the display cases and Allegra was providing the music. Much as she loved her two friends, she had zero desire to make polite conversation when all she wanted to do was sink her head in her arms and cry with despair. Then her father had come down with a mysterious virus a few hours before the opening and she’d had to do the family honors. Which, she thought with a sigh, consisted mainly of making sure there were enough canapés and champagne for the crush and keeping from yawning.

The footmen opened the big doors behind her and another gust of gelid winter air billowed in. Claire had to work not to shiver. This dress was a big mistake. Red, strapless, form-fitting and slit to mid-thigh, it didn’t offer much cover. She’d bought it in a vain attempt to cheer herself up.

It didn’t work. All it did was make her feel exposed and chilled. Coupled with the red satin Gucci stiletto heels, she managed to be both cold and unsteady on her feet.

Still, she mingled and shivered and tottered until she made her way to Suzanne and heaved a sigh of relief. “Hi,” she murmured. “Congratulations on the display cases. They’re gorgeous. Almost as beautiful as the jewels themselves.”

“Thanks, sweetie.” Suzanne swirled a lock of dark blonde hair behind an ear. “I worked hard on them. It was a pleasure and a privilege. The jewels are truly exquisite.”

Suzanne had been receiving compliments all evening, but she wasn’t getting much of a chance to mingle with the crowd and do a little PR work for her budding designer studio. Her husband, looking handsome in a black tuxedo but with a grim off-putting scowl, seemed surgically attached to her side, never more than a hand’s span from her. His expression discouraged conversation. And the man with them looked positively frightening.

No. Not frightening so much as…dangerous. Predatory. Ferocious. Claire gave up trying to describe him to herself. Huge and hard, fierce-looking and battle-scarred, he wasn’t a man anyone would strike up a conversation with. Not at the Parks Foundation, anyway. Maybe on the waterfront. If you were looking for a contract killer.

Suzanne was doing her best to be sociable, though. “Claire,” she said with a forced smile and a small sigh at the intractable male material she had to work with. “I’d like to introduce you to Senior Chief Douglas Kowalski. He’s John’s new partner.”

Claire blinked. John’s new partner. John’s office was in the same building where Suzanne lived. Suzanne was going to have to live in the same building as him?

Manners had been drummed into Claire. She knew perfectly well she should offer her hand and make some polite comment. Steeling herself, she stretched her hand out gingerly, wondering if she’d get it back. “Senior Chief Kowalski.” She tried to smile into the man’s eyes but they were way way up high, dark and scary-looking. “N-nice to m-meet you.”

Damn! She never stammered. And she was the hostess, after all. It behooved her to be gracious.

“Ma’am.” The big man engulfed her hand in his for just a moment, squeezed gently, carefully, then let go. His hand was hard, callused and huge. “My pleasure. This is a very beautiful building. My compliments on the show.”

What he said was perfectly ordinary, but his voice made her shiver. He had a basso profundo voice, the deepest voice she’d ever heard. Deeper even than Bud’s.

Oh, God. Don’t even think of Bud.

Allegra started singing and Claire nearly closed her eyes in relief. She didn’t have to make polite conversation with Suzanne’s husband, who was tugging at his collar and looking like he’d rather be anywhere but here, or with—God!—his dangerous-looking partner. When Allegra sang and played, people listened.

Silence fell over the room, guests turning in surprise. Allegra was on a raised dais, in a gorgeous dress of green taffeta, brilliant red hair streaming in curls down her back. She was playing her harp and looked like a fairy angel, come down to console poor mortals.

It was Allegra’s first concert in public since she’d been assaulted. No signs remained of the trauma on her beautiful face, but Claire knew what it cost her in her heart to be out in public.

Allegra’s voice soared, high and pure.

Everyone turned to the dais, a few voices murmuring in the crowd. Some quietly commenting on the music, some on Allegra’s beauty.

Claire took the moment to gaze around and check that was all running smoothly. She froze at the look on John’s partner’s face. What was his name? Kowalski? He had turned stiff, huge frame still and focused on Allegra, like a hunting dog. Oh, God. She couldn’t read his expression at all. She couldn’t figure out what the expression was, except he was raptly fixated on her friend. He looked frightening and dangerous. Was he dangerous to Allegra? Surely Suzanne wouldn’t allow a dangerously violent man in her home?

While she contemplated what the man’s intense interest in Allegra might mean, another gust of chill air made her shiver and raised goosebumps.

“What the fuck are you doing dressed like that in sub-zero temperatures?” a deep furious voice from behind her demanded. “You’re half-naked!”

Claire turned in surprise.

Bud.

Bud looking wonderful and tired and lean and angry. Handsome and tall and frowning and delicious in a tuxedo. Her heart—her treacherous treacherous heart—took a huge leap of joy in her breast before she remembered that she was angry with him. Before his words had a chance to sink in.

The first time she’d seen him in weeks and he reprimanded her. She’d cried her eyes out over him. In her heart of hearts, deep in the sleepless wee hours of the night, she’d pined for him.

And the first thing he did when he saw her again was criticize, try and make her feel like a hapless child.

She wanted to cry and scream and shout. She wanted to throw herself into his arms. He roused roiling emotions in her she couldn’t begin to handle without screaming like a banshee at him. Not here. Not now.

She wanted to open her mouth to give him a gelid reply. Maybe something along the lines of—”Hello, Tyler. It’s nice to see you, too.” But if she opened her mouth, she’d start crying.

Claire couldn’t handle it. She turned on her heel and stalked off.

A big hard hand cupped her elbow. “Oh, no, you’re not running off,” Bud said from between clenched teeth. “You’re staying with me and we’re going to talk. But first you’re going to get something to cover your shoulders with. You’re chilled and you look like a hooker.”

Claire opened her mouth in outrage, ready to blast him, but she didn’t have any breath to do it. He’d grabbed her upper arm and was propelling her through the crowd, out of the Hall of Columns and down the immense hallway leading to the back of the building. He was walking fast. With those long legs of his, she had to run to keep up with him. She wanted to wrench herself out of his grasp but it was ridiculous even trying.

“You’re hurting me,” she tried to say coldly, but it came out as a gasp. It was hard to speak coolly and calmly when running in stilettos.

“Am not,” he ground out from clenched teeth.

There were very few people out here in the back. Bud turned right, into the high, narrow corridor that ran the length of the back of the building. There was nobody here. The kitchen and service rooms were on the left flank. Five rooms down the empty corridor, he wrenched open a door. Claire knew the building inside out. This was the library, an enormous room with bookcases stretching to the high ceiling. Propelling her in, he followed and slammed the door closed. He flipped a switch and a Murano chandelier lit up, casting a brilliant glow. More than enough light to see that Bud was furious.

Fine. So was she.

“How dare you manhandle me,” she said, her voice shaking. “You have no right to touch me or tell me what to do.”

“The fuck I don’t,” he growled. “You’re mine.”

Claire sucked in a breath to tell him off and he kissed her. One of those tongue deep in her mouth, fingers digging into her back and backside, hips grinding into her kisses. Violent and passionate and out of control.

Bud was back.

Claire could hardly breathe, Bud was holding her so tightly. His mouth moved hard over hers, sucking and biting at her lips. Hard. Everything he was doing was hard. Kissing her hard, fingers digging into her hard. His penis was rock-hard. He ground against her and it was as if he sparked off a conflagration inside her.

She was mad at him. This was her cue to tell him off, tell him he couldn’t order her about, tell him she needed to be treated like a full-grown adult woman.

Though he was treating her like an adult. There wasn’t a woman in the world who wouldn’t go up in flames at being kissed like that.

Bud lifted his head a breath away from her mouth. “Goddammit,” he breathed. “I wasn’t going to do that. I was going to talk to you, reason with you, but then there you were in that fuck-me dress…”

“Shoes,” Claire murmured. “Only shoes can be fuck-me.”

“No, that dress is definitely a fuck-me dress.” Bud leaned his forehead against hers. Claire had hooked her arms around his back. He felt leaner, as if he’d lost a lot of weight in the past two weeks. He was actually trembling. Deep down, she’d known how much he loved her, and this was the proof. Tough, combative Bud didn’t tremble easily. “I missed you so much, Claire,” Bud whispered.

Claire bit her lips. Her eyes filled with tears. If she moved, if she so much as breathed, they would spill down her cheeks. She clutched his back harder, hoping he would get the message.

Me, too. I missed you, too. So much.

A rasping sound and she felt air at her back. Through the teary emotions wracking her, it took her a second to realize that Bud had unzipped her dress. He stepped back just enough so that it could slide down to her ankles. His big hands moved from her back to her hips, sliding her panties down her legs and there she was—naked except for stockings and heels.

He was looking down at her, eyes golden hot. “Just like in the police station,” he whispered. “I wanted to do you so hard that day. We couldn’t do it there. Then…things happened. I’ve been walking around with a hard-on since then.” His gaze went lower, so intense it was almost as if he were touching her with his hands. Her nipples rose to hard peaks at the expression in his face as he stared at her. One big hand slid around her hip to reach between her thighs. “Open.” It was a rough command.

She obeyed and they both sighed as a big finger touched her sex. Bud didn’t have to comment on how wet she was. She knew.

He raised his head, shook it, seemed to come to his senses. He looked down at her, gaze circling her face. “Can’t like this,” he muttered. “Make up. Hair.” He glanced around. “There.”

This was the Bud she’d missed. The one who got so excited he could barely speak.

He picked her up and carried her a few paces to the Empire marble-top hall table that had been a recent Foundation acquisition. He turned her around and pushed gently against her back until she was bent over the table. The marble felt icy cold against her nipples and belly, in exciting contrast to the heat coursing through her.

Bud tugged at her hands, curling them around the edges of the marble. He pressed with his hands on hers and she understood the message—stay.

The zip of his pants was loud in the silent room. Not a whisper of sound from the Hall of Columns or the corridor outside penetrated. It was as if they were all alone in the building. His knees opened up her thighs to him. His big hands, hot and hard, gripped her hips.

“This is what I wanted to do that day,” he muttered. His penis nudged her. “God, I wanted to do you…so hard.” He slid into her in one long strong stroke, touching her womb. Claire clutched the cold edges of the marble top, electrified to feel Bud in her once again, when she thought she’d be empty there for the rest of her life.

He bent over her, hands still clutching her hips, crushing her against the marble with his weight. Claire loved it. Loved the heavy feel of him against her back, his hot steely penis deep inside her. She even found it exciting that he was dressed and she was naked. The only place skin touched skin was his hands on her hips and his penis buried deep inside her. Then he licked her ear and she shivered. Her womb pulsed, a short sharp contraction.

He wasn’t moving, wasn’t talking. She couldn’t move, either, completely immobilized by his heavy weight, his legs holding hers far apart. They were in some sharp-edged limbo, Claire shaking, so completely possessed by Bud her world was reduced to her breasts, belly and vagina.

Bud’s fingers flexed and he tightened his grip. It was almost—but not quite—painful. She could feel his leg muscles move against hers as he pressed in harder, more deeply, and rotated his hips.

It was enough to set her off. With a wild cry, Claire climaxed. Bud jolted on top of her and it was as if her climax were his cue to move. His heavy thrusts moved her back and forth across the cold marble top, the movement keeping her climax going for so long she thought she’d pass out. Just when she thought she couldn’t take any more, Bud gave a loud groan, swelled even further inside her and ejaculated. She could feel his semen filling her in long jets, almost in complete synchronicity with her contractions.

She came again, right at the end of her first orgasm.

It was so intense everything went black. She clung, shaking, to the table’s edges.

There was a loud bang and the ground shook. Far away spitting noises.

Her head swam, her heart thundered.

Bud pulled out immediately. Claire was vaguely aware of the fact that he zipped up.

“Jesus Christ!” Bud swore in the dense darkness. “That was a flashbang. And AK-47s. At least three. They took out the lights.”

Claire was dizzy, lying prone on the marble top of the hall table. She heard Bud’s words but couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying. Her body was still climaxing, vagina still pulsing. She couldn’t move, could barely breathe. Her body had taken over completely and she couldn’t stop the pleasure coursing through her.

Dimly, she was aware of the fact that Bud had left the room after muttering something about her staying put. The door had quietly opened and closed. Only by the faint noise of the door could she tell Bud had gone. The lights in the hallway had gone out, too. The room was pitch black. Claire lay stunned in the darkness, blind and confused, rendered helpless by her body’s satisfaction.

The lights came back on just as her climax finally wound down.

Claire blinked, shaking. She was spread-eagled across a table, naked. She blinked again as nerve endings sprang to life and consciousness returned. Awareness rippled out in waves. She was clinging naked to a table while something had happened in the Hall of Columns. Someone had doused the lights. And Bud had disappeared.

Confused, she got up and shakily made her way to where her dress was pooled on the floor, looking for all the world like a little lake of blood. She was very wet, Bud’s semen trickling down her thighs. She was still so sexualized the world felt far away, the only reality the piercing sensations of her body. Her hands shook and it was hard to concentrate. She stared at her dress for a long moment, then stooped. A shake and a shimmy and her dress was up.

She looked around. Bud was still gone.

Faint noises carried from the front of the building. Cries and shouts. Claire couldn’t quite make them out, but there was distress and pain in the air.

She stood up straight, finally inside herself, finally in control. Something had happened at a Parks Foundation ceremony. An accident, maybe. A fire that had taken out the electricity, or…or something. Whatever had happened, she was Claire Parks and this was her responsibility.

Moving swiftly now, she opened the door and froze.

It was like a tableau from a thriller, the kind she’d read all her life. Three protagonists at a climactic moment. Young woman dressed in red outlined against a doorway. Criminal with ski mask and submachine gun turning in her direction. And last—the action figure. Bud, who’d been sneaking up behind the criminal to knock him out.

Time speeded up, flowed tragically in the wrong direction.

Bud’s eyes widened when he saw her, saw the masked man moving. He shouted, attracting the masked man’s attention, rushing forward. Claire heard the gun shots, felt the reverberation of the gun’s reports. But she wasn’t the one who felt the bullets.

Bud was.

Blood bloomed on his chest and he crumpled as the stench of cordite rose sharply into the air. He lay still on his back, blood pooling bright red and running in little rivulets. The masked man moved toward him, machine gun at the ready, waiting for Bud to show a sign of life so he could get off the death shot. But Bud lay deathly still.

Afterward, Claire had no idea how she’d gotten from the doorway to the man’s back. She had no clear memory of that moment and it would remain forever befogged in sorrow and rage in her mind.

Claire knew the Parks Foundation building like the back of her hand. She’d grown up there, knew every nook and cranny. Knew, particularly, where the fire extinguishers were kept. In a rush of crazed grief, she wrenched the extinguisher from the where it was hidden in a niche in the wall and ran full tilt toward the masked man standing with his back to her, ready to finish Bud off.

No. No way. As Claire had fought with all her strength to live, she would fight with every fiber of her being for Bud’s life.

The intruder must have sensed her behind him. He was turning, lifting the machine gun, Bud was rising horrified on an elbow, shouting to attract the man’s attention, when Claire sprayed extinguisher foam directly into the man’s face.

With a cry of pain, he bent over, trying to claw at his eyes. Claire took the steel cylinder in both hands and swung it upwards into his face with all her strength.

The man fell like a slaughtered bull, without a sound.

“Bud!” Claire slid to her knees, already ripping at her long skirt. Oh, God! Bud had lost so much blood. She was kneeling in it, kneeling in his life blood, the color of the material she was frantically trying to wrap around his chest. He was so deathly pale her heart hammered.

“Claire.” Bud’s voice—normally so strong and so deep—was weak. “Go away. Get out of here.”

On a sudden horrified suspicion, Claire studied his chest, searching desperately for signs that his lung had been punctured. There was no sign of bubbling blood, however. Nor was the blood pulsing out of him in spurts. He hadn’t been shot in the lungs and the bullets hadn’t severed an artery. There was still hope.

Bud was trying to rise, slipping slightly in his own blood.

He coughed and scrabbled on the floor until he was holding the masked man’s submachine gun, lifted himself up using the unconscious man’s shoulder for purchase. “Go away, Claire. Get out of here.”

“Bud,” Claire whispered. “What’s going on?”

He glanced toward the big doors leading into the Hall of Columns. “Jewel thieves,” he gasped. “At least five. Armed. They’ve got everybody on the ground. Got to help.” By some superhuman effort, Bud started staggering toward the big doors. He was panting, face utterly white with exertion.

But his hands on the gun were steady.

In an electric moment, Claire realized he was going to go in and face at least five armed men alone and wounded.

“No!” She knew enough to keep her voice low. The man she’d felled was obviously a guard and who knew how many others were around. The last thing she wanted to do was attract the attention of another masked man with a submachine gun. But damned if she was going to let Bud walk to his own death. “Stop! What can you do on your own?”

He wasn’t even listening. He was moving slowly, steadily towards the doors, face white, trailing blood.

Claire rushed forward, clutching his elbow.

He gritted his teeth, the jaw muscles moving. “Get out of here. Move! In a few minutes there’ll be shooting. I want you as far away as you can get.”

There was no stopping him. Claire understood that, in an electric moment of clarity. He was going to sacrifice himself in an attempt to save the hostages on the floor of the Hall of Columns. She realized that he understood he wouldn’t survive the attempt. But he was going to make the attempt anyway.

She had to think fast. Bud was five feet from the doors and his own death. She had to do something to give him a chance. “Listen Bud,” she said desperately. “Where’s John? Do you remember what his position was?”

Suzanne’s husband was a former commando. If there was anyone who could help Bud, it was him.

“Under the big mirror. On the left hand wall.”

Under the ornate baroque mirror. Perfect.

“Listen to me,” she said urgently. “There’s a little service door not five feet from there. It’s almost invisible and it’s hidden behind a big palm, anyway. I’m going to go into the kitchen and get some knives and see if I can sneak through the door get them to John. Can he throw a knife?”

A faint smile flickered across Bud’s hard, pale face. “Yeah. John can throw a knife.” He shook himself, obviously only just realizing what she’d said. “Are you crazy, woman?” he demanded, turning to look her full in the face. “I want you far away from here. As fast as you can go. You can’t go into there—no, wait. Claire!” This in a fierce whisper.

But she was already kicking off her shoes and running. She ran straight into the kitchen, slamming open the double doors, realizing too late that there might be guards posted here. There were no guards, but there were dead bodies.

Two men in once-white now-red white jackets, toques grotesquely askew, lay on the kitchen floor, blank dead faces staring at the ceiling. Dominic and Jerry—the chef and sous-chef. Claire raised her eyes and saw four white faces through the little porthole of the meat locker. The intruders had killed the two men, and then herded the others into the locker. There was a big padlock on the door, so there was nothing she could do for them. Either she and Bud and John would be successful or not.

She didn’t want to think about the ‘or not’.

Moving as swiftly as she could, Claire pulled out the chef’s knife set, bound in leather. The set was made of the finest Japanese steel and, she knew, kept perfectly honed to a razor-sharp edge. Keeping his knives sharp was almost a religion with Dominic.

Holding the leather bundle awkwardly, Claire exited from a side door. This part of the building was a labyrinth, a relic of the days when families had an army of servants. It was a warren of small rooms and cubby holes.

But she knew where she was going. In a minute she was at the small door set so cleverly into the wall of the Hall, it was almost invisible.

She dropped to her knees and eased the door open. Keeping a low profile, she quietly slid through. The magnificent royal palm in its huge Chinese vase hid her from view, though she knew that her red dress was highly visible through the leaves if anyone happened to be looking her way. She vowed never to wear red again. Red was danger.

Red was the color of Bud’s blood…

All the guests at the ceremony were on the floor, most against the walls. There were ten women at the front of the room, watched over by an armed man. Clearly hostages in case some of the men decided to rush the thieves. Suzanne was one of the hostages. Allegra was nowhere to be seen.

Four men in masks were systematically smashing Suzanne’s crystal display cases, tossing the priceless jewels into heavyweight gym bags.

Claire saw John sitting with his back to the wall, eyes glittering, gaze locked on the man holding a gun to his wife’s head. Claire scooted forward, using the backs of some of the hostages as screens.

John watched her out of the corner of his eye. She remembered his ability to be aware of his surroundings at all times. He didn’t betray her presence by so much as a twitch of a muscle, but she knew he was aware of her.

Claire reached him, then sat up, her back against the wall like all the others. The guard’s attention was taken with the women hostages. When he turned this way again, he’d simply assume she’d been one of the people in the room surprised by the intruders. She raised her knees and slowly lowered her head, as if in despair. Moving carefully, she slithered the leather bundle over to John.

“There are knives in there,” she murmured, head low so the guard couldn’t see her lips moving. “Bud’s outside with a machine gun he took off a guard. He’s badly wounded. I don’t know if he’ll make it.”

“If he’s alive, he’s coming,” John answered, his voice a soundless whisper.

Claire blinked. He hadn’t appeared to move, and yet the knives were now lined up next to his thigh. He also had a knife in each hand.

The seconds passed, each one an agony. Was Bud outside bleeding to death? Or was he—oh, God!—already dead? Claire pushed that thought away. Should she have…

It happened in an instant, so fast she could barely understand what was going on, though she watched it happen.

The doors to the Hall were kicked open, and a grim, white-faced Bud was through, machine gun firing. John rose and flicked the knives so quickly they were a blur as they flew through the air. The man guarding the women hostages went down instantly, frantically clutching at a knife through his throat. John’s frightening-looking partner appeared out of nowhere, in a deep dive that turned into a roll. When he rose an instant later, he had the downed man’s gun in his hand and was firing. All the masked intruders went down.

Women screamed and men shouted and then the firing stopped, just like that. John was clutching Suzanne tightly, and his friend was holding Allegra.

Claire didn’t see anything else. She was up and running to Bud, stepping on hands, kicking anyone who got in her way.

“Bud!” He looked at her and dropped the machine gun, as if it was suddenly too heavy to hold. Then, horribly, he dropped to his knees, face utterly white.

The tuxedo jacket was glistening, the shirt front a deep red.

Claire skidded to her knees, holding Bud. “Oh, God, Bud!” she sobbed, as she tried to ease him down. “Don’t die on me. You can’t die!”

“No,” he whispered and closed his eyes. “I can’t. You won’t let me.”