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  She watched him in the mirror, saw something shift in his face. After a moment, he took a step backward, then disappeared into the bedroom. She moved that way, too, then stopped, unsure of what she should do.

  He was staying. And, so help her, even though she knew he’d be the distraction from, well, hell, she couldn’t deny the fact that she wanted him to.

  A little surge of anger burst through her. This was part of the test. That had to be it. It made perfect sense that her father was trying to up the ante.

  After all, hadn’t her father offered her the keys to his kingdom in exchange for one simple assassination? Never mind that it wasn’t nearly as simple as it had been decades, or even centuries, ago. The point was that he’d placed in her lap a test that she couldn’t help but win.

  And although she might be his favorite, she knew that her father didn’t work that way. It simply wasn’t in his nature.

  Which meant that this man must be part of the test. That was the only explanation. Her father knew the kind of man who could distract her, and he’d thrown him directly into her path. Of course a simple assassination would be too easy. Hadn’t the old devil said he’d tested the boys? And as much as she liked to believe that Jack, Nick, and Marcus had failed because they were incompetent playboys, Lucia knew the truth. They were all very competent in their own ways. If they’d failed, it was because they’d been faced with a true test of their worth.

  Clearly, that was what was happening here.

  Well, that was just fine. She could handle whatever he threw at her. She was a professional. She could work in the face of distraction.

  She moved back to the mirror, inspecting her reflection as she tried to calm herself down. She used the edge of her thumb to fix the stray bit of eyeliner, but really it was all distraction. A delay before she turned back to look at him. At the man that, just hours ago, she’d wanted gone from her life.

  Now, she had to admit that she wanted him to stay.

  Dear Hades, could her father actually be doing her a favor?

  She considered the possibility, then tossed it aside. No. That wasn’t like her father at all. For that matter, maybe her father had nothing to do with this man at all.

  Maybe, instead, it was a gift. Not from her father, but simply from the universe. Karma. Fate. Whatever you wanted to call it.

  So few genuinely nice things had happened to her in her life. And, honestly, she hadn’t expected them to. Why would she? Considering her heritage, warm fuzzies were hardly the norm.

  But with the man in the other room . . .

  She stifled a shiver. Now that she had the chance for affection, no matter how fleeting, she could hardly walk away.

  More, she didn’t want to walk away.

  And that, ultimately, was the deciding factor.

  Test or gift or simple coincidence, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she wanted him.

  She closed her eyes, taking deep breaths for strength, and then she turned to face the open door to the bedroom. She moved to the threshold in three long strides, then saw him there, standing by the window, nothing more than a towel around those perfect hips.

  But although his stance was confident, the face reflected in the glass told a different story. And looking at that expression, she felt both power and shame. Power that she could invoke such a longing in a man. Shame that she had taken so long to make her decision.

  He turned around, his expression blank except for the hint of a question in his eyes.

  She smiled, hoping that if the simple gesture didn’t soothe him, that her words would. “Hi,” she said. “My name is Lucia. And you still owe me dinner.”

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  Chapter Six

  Lucia. He’d been saying the name all day, albeit quietly to himself. He could still feel the tremor of pure joy that shot through him when she’d smiled, said her name, and tossed their dinner plans into the mix. She’d had a point; he never had bought her dinner. But that was an oversight he intended to remedy this evening.

  They’d parted ways with a kiss and a promise, and although his body had ached for more sex, his heart ached to romance her. Never before had he reacted so strongly to a woman, either physically or emotionally. Had anyone cornered him yesterday and told him that his heart would soon be twisted into knots by a lithe brunette with a devilish gleam in her violet eyes, he would have announced to anyone listening that the speaker was clearly nuts.

  Now he was the one who was nuts, and he couldn’t have been happier about it. The only downside, in fact, to his newfound infatuation was that he couldn’t devote his time to Lucia 24/7.

  Because although he’d never expected himself to say it, in these particular circumstances, his father really did come first.

  Assassination.

  Could it really be true?

  He couldn’t imagine why his father would lie, and yet at the same time, he couldn’t imagine why his father would be at the dangerous end of an assassination threat. Jacques Moreau had offended quite a few people in his time, sure. But in the end, he was nothing more than a businessman. He wasn’t destroying rain forests. He wasn’t putting people out of work. Just the opposite, in fact. Moreau’s hotels and casinos provided jobs and insurance to thousands who’d worked for minimum wage before the Moreau empire had moved into their town. He donated a huge percentage of his profits to charities, putting Moreau’s name at the top of most philanthropic charts.

  Not exactly the kind of man against whom most people held a grudge. Dante being, perhaps, the sole notable exception.

  Even he, however, didn’t want his father dead. At most, he wanted to go back in time and teach the man how to be a parent. At worst, he wanted to be left alone to live his own life.

  Neither was going to happen, and now he was here, in Monte Carlo, trying to decide if his usually sane father had dipped into paranoia.

  The door to the conference room opened, and Linus stepped in. “Find anything?” Dante demanded.

  The techie shook his head. “I’ve got filters searching all the back traffic over the incoming and outgoing servers, and I’ve got a team watching the actual security footage. I don’t see anything related to a threat, and I don’t see anybody on the premises who looks suspicious.”

  “Nobody?”

  Linus lifted a shoulder. “A few. But they checked out with Tibor. You want me to pull the tapes for you?”

  Dante considered that. Tibor had been his father’s chief of security for years, and the man knew his stuff. If Tibor said the suspicious folks weren’t suspicious, then they weren’t.

  Still . . .

  Dante wasn’t about to let anything get by him on this one. No matter what personal issues might exist between him and his father, there was no way he was going to slack where a death threat was concerned. Even one that he still believed might well be imaginary.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Pull the tape. And Linus, I want to talk with your team, too. Directly, I mean.” He saw the hurt and confusion pass over the tech guru’s face. “It’s not personal. It’s my dad.”

  A pause, then Linus nodded. “Sure. Of course. You won’t find anything, though.”

  “I know,” Dante said. Linus was one of the best computer security geeks in the business, and if he said the communications were clean, then Dante believed him. “But I have to look.”

  “Anything else you need me to do for you?” Linus asked, everything about his posture and tone of voice suggesting that he understood completely where Dante was coming from. Maybe he’d been offended for a moment, but the moment had passed, and they were on firm ground again.

  Dante smiled and shook his head, grateful to the younger man.

  “No, thanks. Just send in Tibor when you leave.” Linus nodded, then turned to leave the room, snagging a croissant from the buffet Dante had ordered three hours ago. The wares had diminished significantly as the casino’s team members had flowed in and out of the room, but Dante had yet to take a bite of anything.

&
nbsp; “Linus,” Dante called, as the other man’s hand closed over the knob. “Everyone is clear on the rules regarding me, right?”

  “Same as always, boss. You’re our security consultant. Nothing else.” His face lit into a mischievous grin. “You’re sure not the spoiled son of one of the world’s richest men.”

  “I sure as hell am not,” Dante said, but with a smile.

  “Don’t worry. We know. And under the circumstances, we all know how important it is for you to keep your cover. Mr. Benton-Smythe,” he added, stressing the name with which Dante had grown up.

  Dante nodded acknowledgment, then waved the man out of the room. His cell phone rang, and he checked the ID, then flipped the phone open. “Any word on our missing little ones?”

  At the other end of the line, Thomas Murchison let out a low whistle. “I’ve got this end covered. But you need to bring me up to speed on you. Don’t think you can get away with leaving messages as cryptic as that on my office voice mail.”

  Dante chuckled. “Sorry. Didn’t have the time.” He brought his partner up to speed on the situation with his father.

  “How can I help?”

  “Nothing at the moment. I’m going to continue looking at the hotel guests, and I may ask you to run some background checks, just to keep things off book at this end.”

  “You think it’s someone on staff?”

  He didn’t, but Dante was cautious. “At this point,” he said, “I don’t know what to think. Give me the scoop on your end.”

  Thomas did, telling him all about the file of little Megan Anders, kidnapped by her estranged father and taken . . . somewhere.

  That was the question of the hour, and Thomas had all their resources on it. “Don’t worry about her,” he said, apparently sensing the anxiety in Dante’s silence. “As soon as we have a lead, you’ll be in on the takedown. And there’s no reason to believe she’ll be harmed. The same isn’t true of your father.”

  “I know,” Dante conceded. “So far, I’m coming up dry.”

  “Go get some dinner and start fresh in the morning. If I know you, you’ve been going at this without a break for hours.”

  His buddy knew him well. It was already well past eight, and he hadn’t stopped. Now, though, it was time to get cleaned up. He had a date, after all. “As a matter of fact, I’m just about to go grab a bite.”

  The top was down on the Porsche, and he was racing far too fast for safety along the winding highway that wound like a ribbon through the mountains of Monaco, overlooking the majesty that was Monte Carlo. He had one hand on the wheel and the other on the door frame.

  His eyes were on the road, but he could still see her beside him. A scarf covered her hair, but some still blew in the wind. Her lips were slightly parted, as if she were trying to drink in the beauty of their surroundings. And when she turned to him, her smile wide and bright, he just about drove off the road.

  “I have to confess that I’d expected to eat in one of the hotel restaurants.”

  “Good surprise?”

  “I think so,” she said. “You still haven’t told me where we’re going. But I’ll admit the view’s nice.”

  “That it is.” He cocked his head slightly, indicating the crystal blue Mediterranean, breaking in foamy waves on the beach below them, and causing the boats sitting like gems in the water to bob with the surf. The principality of Monaco might be tiny, but it was outrageously beautiful. And while Dante had never been keen on visiting his father for long stretches in the summer, he’d always considered it a gift from heaven that he’d had the town and countryside to explore.

  He’d always been drawn to the ocean, and he’d explored the countryside above Monte Carlo and the Cote d’Azur for hours, often staying until the sun disappeared and the sea was illuminated only by the sparkle of the casinos.

  All of Monaco encompassed only a few square kilometers, and Dante had picked over every inch during his youth. He’d quickly found two favorites. The oceanographic institute, which sat like a jeweled palace on the coast. And a small turnoff extending from the main road, hundreds of meters above the city. The place was intended to give cars safe haven to pull over and let others pass, but Dante had found it to be so much more than that. He’d discovered a stone staircase that led from the edge of the graveled area down to a rocky plateau. He’d spent many days there, watching and thinking, and simply enjoying the countryside.

  He’d never once shared the spot with anyone; now, he was taking Lucia. And despite the fact that he’d been on dozens of dates over the course of his life, he was now actually experiencing first-date jitters.

  He glanced over at her, saw her smile in return, and his stomach did a little flip. He gripped the steering wheel tighter, and hoped he was doing the right thing. She was, after all, undoubtedly expecting a restaurant. And the fear of disappointing her was so intense that he almost ignored the turnout altogether and headed on toward a lovely little hideaway he knew about with an excellent menu and wine from a nearby vineyard.

  No. He wanted to share this with her, and so he tapped the brakes, turned in front of oncoming traffic, and screeched to a halt on the dusty pullout.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Welcome to Chez Dante,” he said.

  Her eyes widened, but not with disappointment or irritation. Instead, he saw curiosity. And since he could live with that, he got out, retrieved the picnic basket he’d stashed behind his seat, then opened the door for her. “Do you trust me?” he asked.

  A pause, then a smile that eased into his heart. “Yeah,” she said. “I do”

  “Then follow me.”

  He hooked a leg over the guardrail, then held a hand out for her. She hesitated only briefly, then followed him over gingerly, her linen slacks clinging provocatively to her thighs as she moved.

  They edged along the cliff for a few meters, then he found the stone staircase. He could only assume it was part of an ancient battlement, and he negotiated the steps carefully, turning back often to make sure Lucia was doing okay.

  Considering the nimble way she moved over the weathered stone, he shouldn’t have been worried. But it was the expression on her face that truly lifted his heart. Not concentration, but absolute delight and wonder. And when he took the final step, then edged along the narrow path to the stone plateau, her face lit even more, and he heard her quick intake of breath.

  “It’s not five-star service,” he said, “but I like it here.” He held his breath, waiting for her response, the picnic basket clutched in his hand like a security blanket. Just hours before, this woman had wanted him gone. Now he’d taken her to the most romantic place he could think of. The place in all the world most special to him.

  And he couldn’t help but fear that somehow, he’d overstepped his bounds.

  But when she smiled, he knew that everything was okay. More than okay, even.

  “It’s wonderful,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “You couldn’t have picked a better place.”

  Lucia resisted the urge to hug herself. That he would bring her here—to this exact spot—was unbelievable. She’d been here twice before, the years passed too many to count, and the memories too strong to ignore.

  At the time, a fortress had stood here. A small watchtower raised from stone with three guards assigned to live and die here, their sole job to look out over the sea and watch for invaders.

  She’d known one of the guards, as he’d been a distant cousin of her mother’s, and she’d come here twice before in her life. The first was to beg help from that guard, seeking his aid in getting a message to her grandfather that her mother was dying.

  She’d been thirteen at the time. A woman, by the day’s standards, and she’d been prepared to use whatever womanly gifts were at her disposal in order to ensure cooperation from the unknown relative from whom she’d sought aid.

  Her cousin hadn’t required that of her. Instead, he’d helped, even going so far as to seek assistance from a local healer. It had b
een too late, though, and her mother had succumbed.

  She’d learned of her heritage, then, when her father had come to claim her and revealed the truth. At first, she’d rallied against him, desperately denying what he’d told her about who she was. But she’d ultimately acknowledged it. How could she not, when all her life she’d felt different? As if the hint of badness she’d felt in her soul had ultimately been responsible for her mother’s death. A curse, she’d thought. Punishment from the heavens for being a wild child and thinking impure thoughts.

  Her father had swooped in and taken care of her. And in his training she’d found release for all her anger and fear. She had a home. She belonged. And with every assassination, the praise lavished by her father had kept her going, squarely quelling the sense of loss and desperation that screamed out that there had to be more. That she’d somehow lost so much more than a mother.

  She’d given in only once to those melancholy thoughts. Once in all these years.

  After her first kill.

  It had taken her days to travel back to this spot, but travel she had. She’d needed to come here for the strength to face her future. One last glimpse of pure beauty before the lathe of her destiny broke her completely.

  She hadn’t been back. Primarily because she’d never believed herself worthy to come.

  And yet this was where he’d brought her. In all of Monaco, he’d chosen these few square feet of rock as the best place to bring her for a romantic dinner.

  “Lucia?”

  She jerked her head up, realizing suddenly that she’d been gazing out at the water, lost in her own thoughts. She shook off the melancholy, then took his hand. “It’s perfect,” she said. And so, she thought, are you. Even more so than she’d first believed.

  Dante was the kind of man she could fall in love with, and that thought was a bit more than she could bear.

  So instead of trying to, she took the basket from him and busied herself with spreading out the blanket and uncorking the wine, while he pulled out container after container of fabulous-smelling delicacies.

  “You got the restaurant to fix you up with to-go containers?”