Take Me Two Times Read online

  “But I’m going to be the man’s son-in-law,” Liam reasoned. “Surely he’d cut me a break?”

  “Not a chance,” said Avy. “Don’t delude yourself. We have to rid you of anything to do with your past, now, or he will use it against you.”

  She strained to lift her leg, puffing a bit. One couldn’t blame her after walking the entire grounds loaded with service for twenty-four. “Only you,” she growled again.

  Sexy little growl, that.

  He caught her foot and caressed it lovingly before pulling on the boot to get it off. This resulted in a faint clanking noise. “And only you, my darling, have the muscle required to gracefully walk that silver all over the grounds of Cheverny and up a flight of stairs.”

  The boot slid off her leg at last, baring her skin to the cold winter draft. Goose bumps popped up all over her leg as Liam plunged his arm into the still-warm leather shaft to retrieve the fish forks. “You’re done with the coat? You got everything out of it?”

  Avy nodded. They’d each worn coats that concealed more of the haul, and her fashionably large leather bag had hidden the rest.

  “Voilà!” Liam said, brandishing the forks in their felt wrappers. “Into the sideboard with them. Excellent.”

  Outside, someone pulled on the door handles. “These should not be locked. Why are they locked?” a man’s voice said in French. “Call someone and get them opened immediately.”

  “Oh, dear, is the room still closed?” This voice was the middle-aged Chicago woman’s. “The man outside said that a lady had fainted. . . . I hope she’s all right.”

  Avy grabbed her boot from Liam, and they both looked toward the glass terrace doors. She stuffed her foot inside the shaft, worked it down, and then frantically began helping him unroll the fish forks from the flannel. One of them fell on the floor with a clatter.

  “Who is in there?” the male voice asked suspiciously. “Open the doors!”

  “Coming!” Liam dashed to the sideboard and loaded his share of the forks. Avy followed. She looked at the terrace doors again and they exchanged a glance. No way—they were probably rigged with an alarm of some kind.

  “I demand zat you open these doors!”

  Liam seized Avy, smeared her lipstick, and messed up her hair. He pulled half her tailored shirt out of the waistband of her skirt. He adopted a dazed, stupid, sexed-up look and dragged her to the door. She rolled her eyes at him. He grinned.

  Then he unlocked the doors, looking sheepish. Avy smeared her lipstick even more, stuck out her hip, and adopted an annoyed, sluttish expression.

  “I beg your pardon,” Liam said to the outraged château employee. “We couldn’t help ourselves.”

  The group of tourists took in their disheveled appearances with varying degrees of disapproval.

  “Well, I never!” said Mrs. Chicago. “Shame on you for telling fibs.”

  “Get a room,” Mr. Chicago told them.

  “A most excellent idea.” Liam beamed at him, then turned to Avy. “Come along, my love.” He grasped her hand and towed her from the room.

  The man who worked for the château glanced quickly around to see if they’d stolen anything, but nothing appeared out of order. Liam waggled his fingers at him and winked.

  Avy said, “You have a real nice day, okay?” and gyrated her hips as they walked down the stone hallway, her boot heels clicking seductively.

  What a woman. Liam thanked God, not for the first time, that he’d managed to steal her from all other men.

  As they strolled out of Cheverny and onto the pebbled path that led to the old stables, Avy’s cell phone rang. She dug it out from the depths of her cavernous bag and went a little pale when she glanced at the caller ID.

  “Something wrong, my darling?” Liam asked.

  “It’s my dad again. I don’t know what to say to him—and he’s going to know something’s up, because I’ve been avoiding his calls.”

  Papa apparently had very stodgy, inflexible ideas about truth and morality. A pity, that.

  “Why are you so afraid to tell him that we’re engaged, Ava Brigitte? You’re a grown woman leading your own life.”

  Avy sent him a speaking glance as she pressed the on button. “Avy Hunt. Oh, hi, Dad. Sorry I haven’t called you back—I’ve been up to my neck in work. Listen, can I give you a jingle in the morning? This is a really bad time—I’m about to go into a meeting.”

  There was a pause as she listened. Then she swallowed hard. “Um . . . well, yes. I do, uh, have a boyfriend. Dad, I have to go. The meeting starts in two minutes. Yes, he’s British. Why?” She sighed. “Liam. Liam James. He lives in London. Mmm-hmm. He’s nice.”

  Ha. An outrageous lie. Liam knew very well that he was many things, but nice wasn’t one of them.

  “We have a lot in common. He’s an art”—she glanced quickly at Liam, panic rising in her eyes—“an art dealer.”

  Liam grinned. Quite true. He did deal in art. He just didn’t necessarily pay for what he acquired. The grin faded. Right. But that was all in the past.

  “Dad, why the third degree? Of course you’ll meet him—if things ever get serious.”

  Liam narrowed his eyes. If? This was veering toward insulting.

  “No, no. I told Mama that because she was trying to set me up with an acquaintance’s son who lives in Coral Springs.”

  This was news to him. “Avy, bellissima,” Liam said. “We are quite serious. Marriage serious. Children serious. White-picket-fence serious.”

  Be quiet! she mouthed. She hunched her shoulders, and Liam didn’t think it was because of the brisk breeze. “Dad,” she said, a note of desperation now in her voice, “I will call you in the morning. No, I’m out tonight. Business dinner. Okay? Okay. Love you. Bye.”

  She turned the phone off and picked up her pace, her shoulders still nearly level with her ears. She dug her hands deep into her coat pockets and refused to meet Liam’s gaze.

  “Avy,” he said, his voice as pleasant as he could make it. “What the devil was that?”

  “You don’t know my father,” she said.

  “True. However, since I’m going to be his esteemed son-in-law, I should like to know him. Don’t worry, my love. We’ll get along like the proverbial house on fire.” He smiled at her reassuringly.

  Avy closed her eyes. When she opened them, she still insisted on gazing straight ahead, looking for anything to distract her from the topic at hand.

  Her boots crunched faster on the gravel as she made a beeline for the seething mass of black, brown, and white ears and tails inside a concrete holding pen. The baying of Cheverny’s hounds was an aural assault.

  Liam frowned. Going straight to the dogs, were they? That didn’t suit him at all.

  “The poor things!” Avy exclaimed. “They don’t have any room in there.”

  The closer Liam got to the pen, the more he regretted it. Cheverny’s hounds were in dire, dire need of baths. He clapped a hand over his mouth and nose.

  “I’m sure that they get plenty of exercise when all the tourists have departed,” he said. “The grounds of this old pile are enormous.”

  Avy looked dubious.

  “My darling, I do hate to be a spoilsport, but we should be on our way. Who knows when the silver will be rediscovered, and we weren’t awfully inconspicuous. May I add that the canine fumes are commencing to asphyxiate me?”

  She rolled her eyes at him.

  “And I do believe that we have quite a row ahead of us, for which we will need our oxygen.” He bared his teeth.

  “Liam, I don’t want to fight. I just don’t know how to tell my father that I’m marrying a burglar! Can’t you understand that?”

  He pursed his lips. “Somewhat. But lying to him is only going to make it worse. And besides, I’m retired now. I’m making restitution. I’m a solid citizen.”

  Avy started walking toward Cheverny’s exit. “No, Liam, you’re not. Not until everything’s been returned and you’ve worked a little harder
at redeeming yourself with the law.”

  “It’s only a matter of time, Avy. I swear to you.”

  “He’s going to think I’ve lost my mind. He’s going to think I’ve ignored every value he’s tried to instill in me. He’s going to be—”

  “What?”

  She whispered the words. “So disappointed in me.”

  His chest tightened. “Yes, well.” Liam took her elbow solicitously. “My father’s been disappointed in me for almost twenty years. One lives, you know.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  “You know very well how. It isn’t as if you and your father were close. My dad and I did everything together.”

  “It seems to me that your dear old dad engaged in a lot of extracurricular activities without you, Avy.”

  She cast a furious glance at him. “Stop it, Liam. I mean that he taught me how to ride a bike, how to shoot, how to sail—”

  “Yes, yes. And how to parachute, hang glide, dive, and ski double blacks. You’ve told me all of this. You adore your father. You don’t want to upset him or displease him. Perfectly natural. But I was—forgive me—under the impression that you were quite infatuated with me. You did promise to marry me, and you must have known then that Papa Hunt wouldn’t like it.”

  “That’s the understatement of the year,” Avy said, brushing strands of her hair out of her eyes.

  “You’re so worried about disappointing him. Have you ever told him how much he disappointed you?”

  “No. He has no idea that I know about his affairs. I don’t plan to enlighten him. That’s not a conversation I will ever have with my father. It’s not right.”

  Liam noticed, out of the corner of his eye, someone running from the main entrance of the château. A person who looked like an employee. “My darling, it’s time we went on our way,” he said, hurrying her across the parking lot to the gray compact they’d rented from Eurocar. He produced the keys, unlocked and opened her door, and stuffed her into the passenger side.

  He checked to make sure the piece of cardboard he’d taped over the license plate was still there. And then he dove into the driver’s seat and torpedoed the little car out of the lot.

  “A change of chariot becomes necessary,” he murmured. “What do you say we go for a Jaguar?”

  “Fine—if you can get that Bernini bust into the trunk.”

  “Ah, the Bernini. One does hate to let it go. . . .”

  “Yes, but one is retired now, remember?”

  Liam sighed. “How can I forget?” He pulled over into a copse long enough to remove the cardboard from the license plate. Then he climbed into the backseat and lay on the floor while she tucked her hair up into a dark, bobbed wig. Within five minutes they shot onto the A10, headed northeast toward Orléans.

  chapter 12

  “Just keep denying everything,” the man said to Angeline Le Fevre over a secure line, while he typed one-handed on his computer.

  He heard her exhale a lungful of smoke. “I am telling you, she doesn’t buy it. She’s inexperienced but not stupid. How did I let you talk me into this, you canard?”

  He snorted. “Talk you into it? As soon as I mentioned the Borgia piece, you salivated like one of Pavlov’s dogs. You jumped at the chance.”

  “The copy was supposed to be foolproof. I can’t have this getting out. I will be ruined.”

  “You knew the risks.” His tone was callous, but he didn’t care.

  “I truly did not think they’d test.”

  “Your problem, not mine.”

  “Well, you must be feeling very clever yourself,” she said waspishly, “since your target and her fiancé are vacationing in Europe while your plans and your money circle the drain.”

  Rage, not acid reflux, burned a trail from his gut right up to his esophagus. He didn’t like being reminded of his failure. He would put an end to Avy’s little vacation, but he still had to decide how and when.

  “Careful, Angeline. You’d do well to treat me with the utmost respect, or I will send the police to your doorstep. Forget ARTemis.”

  “I would return the favor.”

  “You have nothing on me, Angeline, while your own hands are dirty. What did I contribute but an idea?”

  “And thousands of dollars! Your half. There’s a money trail.”

  “Ah. That’s where you’re wrong. Wire transfers of under ten thousand, all made from an anonymous Swiss account. Opened under an alias and now closed.”

  “The Velasquez brothers—”

  “Won’t be a problem. And neither will you. Do you understand?”

  Silence.

  “Do I make my meaning clear, Angeline? Or must I spell it out for you?”

  She drew in a sharp breath.

  “Smart girl. Now why don’t you go find another stud to bend you over your desk, mmmm?”

  “Bastard!” she hissed.

  He laughed. “That skirt of yours rolls up every day, like a window shade.”

  She slammed down the phone.

  chapter 13

  Gwen fought consciousness and the alarm. Quinn was inside her and she was close, so close. . . .

  Beep-beep-beep! Her eyes flew open, forcing the realization that she was alone, without a big, handsome bed buddy to bring her off. And she remembered what she’d said to Quinn the night before. I want you in my body, but not in my life.

  Was she a bitch? A liar? She didn’t know.

  She’d hurt him. She knew that. Why? Because of the past, or because she wanted to ensure they had no future?

  If she let Quinn into her life again, he’d smother her. Mess with her freedom. Get in her way. Bring back memories and pain she wanted nothing to do with.

  Gwen wished she hadn’t woken up. She silenced the alarm clock—it said six thirty a.m.—and rolled out of her four-poster bed, leaving the sheets and blankets askew.

  She pulled on some running shorts and a tank, slapped a Marlins cap over her sleep-scary hair, and staggered into the kitchen to make coffee. That done, she jammed her feet into socks and trainers and headed out the door. She locked it with a key that she hung around her neck and then started down the street at what could charitably be called a lope. It didn’t even qualify as a jog. But she’d gain speed after her muscles were warmed up.

  Gwen hated to run, but she did it anyway two mornings a week. She loathed the humidity of the morning air in Miami, which hadn’t abated this winter. Where was the typical four-month break from wet, sticky air? Living in south Florida sometimes felt like being trapped in a fat man’s armpit.

  After a mile and a half through the funky streets of Coconut Grove, she turned for home, a shower, and freshly made coffee. By eight thirty she was fully dressed and headed downtown to meet Quinn at the office by nine.

  She wouldn’t tell him that he’d been the starring stud in her dirty dreams. God, what was wrong with her? Maybe she needed to stop by an adult toy store and buy something to take her mind off of him.

  Gwen pulled into her space in the parking garage. She’d gotten out and reached back into the Prius for her purse and fruit smoothie when the prickle started at her neck.

  She kicked straight back with the silver spike heel of her baby-pink Mary Janes and connected solidly with a padded shin. Cato had struck again.

  She whirled to block his next move, her fists up and ready to batter his chin.

  But a dark green-and-denim blur toppled him, sat on him, and began to beat the crap out of poor Cato. The blur came into focus as Quinn.

  “No!” Gwen yelled. “Quinn, stop it! That’s Cato! It’s all right!”

  But Cato managed to unseat Quinn, and the two rolled around on the filthy concrete, trading blows. Cato’s sun-burst of hair stood up in angry spikes. Quinn’s lips had drawn back in a feral snarl.

  “Cato!” Gwen shrieked, as he landed a punch into Quinn’s face. Blood spurted from over his left eye, but that didn’t stop Quinn from smashing his own fist into Cato’s nose. She h
eard a sickening crunch; then blood gushed from it like a geyser.

  She ran forward. “Stop it, you idiots, both of you!”

  They paid absolutely no attention. Cato head-butted Quinn, whose skull cracked into the cement. But Cato had made the mistake of straddling him, so Quinn knocked him back, then brought his knee up hard into the other man’s crotch.

  With a howl, Cato rolled off him and curled up into a ball like a pill bug.

  Quinn lay prone in a patch of motor oil, panting.

  “Are you deaf?!” Gwen shouted. “Or are you both just morons? What is wrong with you?”

  “He attacked you,” Quinn finally managed. “I wasn’t gonna stand there and watch, for chrissakes.”

  Cato just moaned and rocked back and forth.

  “It’s his job to attack me,” Gwen said, exasperated.

  Quinn squinted at her out of his one good eye. “Huh?”

  “Cato, meet Quinn, my ex-husband. Quinn, meet Cato, aka Armando Romeu. He works for ARTemis. He’s our trainer. He’s also paid to surprise us, keep us on our toes. Well, all except Avy. She broke his hand the last time he tried it on her.”

  “It was an accident,” Cato said weakly.

  “You sure about that? Anyway, I’d like you two gentlemen to kiss and make up.”

  Now they both squinted at her. Then at each other. Then back at her. “No kissing.”

  “Well, at least apologize to each other and shake hands.”

  Quinn sat up with some help from his elbows. Grease smeared his hair. Half his face and his shirt were covered in blood, which had also run into his mouth so that he looked as if he’d just bitten someone. He looked like a character out of Shaun of the Dead.

  Cato rolled onto his knees and gingerly straightened. His shirt was torn and he winced as he put a hand to his pulverized nose. The lower half of his face oozed blood, too. His shirt was soaked with it. He had a contusion on his forehead from head-butting Quinn. Dirt and grease blackened his buff, bare legs. He could have stepped off the set of a Rocky sequel.

  “Well,” said Gwen. “What do you have to say to each other?”