Carnal in Cannes (14 page)

Lips twitching, Harry exited the room, ambled down the hallway, and up to the second deck to find Austen piloting the boat. “What"s up?”

“Delora"s filed a complaint with the local authorities on behalf of herself and her lawyers. Claims you destroyed her laptop and cell and her lawyers" phones as well.”

Harry flexed both shoulders. “She can"t prove diggidity doo-doo. Water off my back. That"s what you disturbed my honeymoon for?”

Austen flicked a couple of the switches on the instrument panel above the throttles. “Here"s a present from Casmir.” He dropped a black USB into a built-in tray to the right of the yacht"s wheel.

“When did he stop by?” Harry picked up the device.

“About ten minutes before you two got here. Why would Casmir want to know our next port of call?”

“Who knows what schemes the Gypsy thug"s hatching? Isn"t he supposed to report for duty soon?”

“I"ll eat my hat if his Royal Marine orders ever come in.” Austen shook his head. “I"ve got that back-of-the-neck feeling that the shit"s gonna hit the fan soon.

Something"s not right.”

“I reckon he"s kept a copy of the picture of me and Martine, and he"ll milk me for as long as he can.” Harry shrugged. “I"m heading to the study. If Martine comes up, keep her occupied, will ya? I ordered a background on her earlier, and the PI"s report came in. I"ll be in the study going through it.”

A strident breeze tempered the heat of the midafternoon sun and whipped the sea"s surface to form a series of rippling Black Forest cake frosting peaks. Wisps of translucent cumulus clouds streaked the azure sky. Harry lifted his face to enjoy the warm rays as he strolled to the stern stairs, refusing to allow his banked fury to surface until he could find a punching bag. Or a boxing partner. In the distance a line of iron cranes used in offloading cargo ships glinted a metallic rusty color.

When he reached Terry"s study, Harry plopped onto the couch opposite a mahogany desk and made a face at the brown legal-size envelope lying on the coffee table. Sighing, he untied the string wrapped around a button-tab and emptied the contents—three loose sheets of white paper—onto the glass surface. European PIs were fond of old-fashioned paper.

It didn"t take him long to read through the report, and by the end he had more questions than answers about his new wife. No official record of her entry to France, Spain, or Portugal existed. Three months ago she had turned up working at a bistro favored by local fishermen, dockhands, and petty criminals. The room she rented Mediterranean Mambo: Carnal in Cannes

67

was located near Marseille"s worst dock slums. Harry memorized the address of both places.

Who had given her the money to buy the designer duds? The bistro didn"t have her listed as an employee and must have been paying her under the table, which meant she received slave wages, not enough to rent even a toilet in Marseille"s Quartiers Nord slums. Had she supplemented her income sexually?

Yet she"d been a virgin; he"d torn through her hymen himself. Of course, a fake hymen was a simple but costly gynecological procedure. He snorted. She hadn"t even known how to kiss.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut, but that didn"t stop the images of the crisscrossed welts on Martine"s back from flooding his brain. He"d caught the scantest glimpse of her back as she"d entered the bathroom. The pink tinge of the tissue and the pattern were from a recent flogging. Bile coated his tongue, and he shuddered, knowing only too well the kind of pain she"d suffered.

Marseille"s S&M dives boasted the depraved specialties of an international port with influences from every culture on the planet. Martine had sold him her virginity; had she accepted money for the flogging? The acidity in his stomach spiked, and he rejected the notion.

Clanks and the grinding of metal gears—the sounds of Marseille"s docks and harbors—sifted through the study"s open doors. Mingled aromas lingered on a sluggish waft of air. Fish, charcoal, turmeric, gas, and petroleum fumes all twisted into a disharmonious foul odor. Harry reached over and hit the switch to close the study"s three portholes.

Propping his elbows on his knees, Harry considered his options for obtaining more information about Martine short of sexually torturing it out of her. Not that that wasn"t an appealing idea, but Delora would have started a massive investigation of his new wife, and he needed to get the information first. Her papers had to be forged if she"d been paid under the table, but they"d passed the lawyers"

inspections. Forgeries of that quality didn"t come cheap.

His wife had worked in a bistro. Casmir had eyes, ears, fingers, and toes in every slum hangout in every coastal city from Portugal to Greece. Freaking hell, another job for the thug. He might as well put the little shit on a retainer.

She"d rented a room in a building. Slum property owners hated divulging information, but money loosened lips.

She"d mentioned coconut ice cream, a Mother Superior, and the Gulf of Gonâve. He stabbed the laptop"s spacebar on the side table and Googled the latter.

Before a map of Haiti filled the screen, his memory kicked in. The Gulf of Gonâve bordered Port-au-Prince. She was from Haiti, then. How many convents could there be in Port-au-Prince?

As he pushed off the sofa, Harry realized every time Martine"d blurted more than she"d intended, it was because he'd rattled her composure sexually. Arching 68

Jianne Carlo

his back Harry contemplated the study"s side wall—faux painted to mimic dawn rising over a shimmering Mediterranean.
I need to keep her off balance sexually.

His mouth curved into a wry smile. Fucking born for the job. How to convince her the scars didn"t matter one whit?

The image of the welts on her back made his mood grow grim. That
asshole
had beaten her. Harry visualized taking the bastard apart limb from limb. He debated the torture techniques he"d witnessed during the war, torn between fingernail pulling and shooting nails into genitals. Why choose?

I hope the fucker who whipped her is still in France.

Shit. If the fucker was still here, ten to one he lived in Marseille.

I’ll have to rope Suresh into helping me make sure she’s never alone.

He pursed his lips sourly when he recognized he"d have to add to Casmir"s coffers and hire a cadre of bodyguards from the Gypsy. He left a voice mail for Suresh and another for Casmir and stuck his cell in his jeans pocket as he stepped onto the
Glory’s
teak deck. He found Martine dressed in a shell pink jersey dress with a scooped neckline and short sleeves, leaning one shoulder into an alcove caged in by the yacht"s exterior wall and the spiral aluminum stairs leading to the top deck.

She didn"t hear his padded footsteps on the wooden flooring amid the cacophony of noise emanating from the piers and boats bordering the canal. Men of every nationality, shape, size, and hairiness littered the alleyways between warehouses. Half-unloaded containers abutted seedy tavern entrances and grimy office buildings. Shouts and coarse, crude bellows punctuated the chugging of luxurious boats slowed to a crawl to navigate the narrow waterway.

Her dress had a fitted waistline, and he automatically snaked his arms around her waist and tugged her back to his chest. She flinched, stiffened, and then tilted her head to the side to peek at him.

“Suresh is meeting us for dinner in about forty-five minutes. I"m going to go and get cleaned up, and then we"ll head out. The restaurant"s about a fifteen-minute walk.”

He glanced at her feet; she wore a pair of strappy, flat Roman-style brown sandals. “I won"t be long,” he said, stroking the underside of her chin, marveling at the delicate texture of her skin. “Don"t leave the
Glory
, Martine. This isn"t the safest part of Marseille.”

“I"ll wait here, Harrison.”

Some nuance in the way she said the words had his gut churning in overdrive.

Too calm, too composed, too determined not to react. He couldn"t allow her to get the upper hand.

He showered and toweled off and halted in the midst of buttoning his khaki pants when he saw her suitcase neatly tucked away between the dresser and the wall. After grabbing his shirt off the bed, he marched over to the vertical alcove, pulled out the Samsonite, and tested the combination lock. The luggage opened. He Mediterranean Mambo: Carnal in Cannes

69

checked the insides thoroughly, going through all the pockets and zippered bags.

Nothing.

Harry scanned the room and found everything in place.

What was in this suitcase? And where the hell did you hide it?

Irritation had his teeth grinding. He stalked to the dresser and opened drawer after drawer to find the last right one held her clothing. The meager contents wrenched his gut. One dress, two matching silk skirts and tops, one pair of threadbare jeans, three faded black T-shirts all a tad on the nubby worn side, the matching bra and panties she"d worn last night, and four pairs of cotton underwear.

The torn teddy and shirt lay beneath two sexy pairs of matching bras and thongs.

She"d taken care to fold each item of clothing into perfect neat squares and arranged them in symmetrical rows.

In the closet he found a weathered pair of black work shoes, polished and buffed as much as the old leather allowed, and the high-heeled shoes she"d worn during the wedding ceremony. A quick check of the bathroom revealed a toothbrush, a travel-size tube of toothpaste, a miniature soap bearing the name of a hotel he didn"t recognize, and a round hairbrush missing patches of bristles.

He poured a shot glass of scotch and knocked the liquor back, hoping it would burn away the gnawing in his chest. His wife needed spoiling, badly.

As he bounded up the stairs, Harry cataloged a series of actions. First, arrange an allowance—money of her own—but not enough to allow her to flee. Better yet, he"d take her shopping. Somehow he couldn"t see Martine going wild in an upscale boutique.

Harry found her talking to Austen. The two looked engrossed in their conversation, Martine smiling up at the Bosun and pointing to the different buttons and LCDs on the bridge"s control.

Austen spied Harry and waved him over. “I promised Martine next time we"re out in the open seas, I"d let her take the wheel.”

Twin spots of faint cherry stained her cheekbones.

“She"s my wife.
I’ll
show her how to steer the
Glory
,” Harry muttered as he captured Martine"s hand. “Let"s head out. I have a surprise for you.” Her feet shifted as her knees turned inward, and she almost stilled her sudden flinch at the word

“surprise.” All the women Harry knew loved surprises. Not Martine. Go figure.

Repressing a sigh, he shot Austen a glance. “You"re all duded up. Going into town too?”

“Nah.” Austen"s dark curls took on a raven hue in the sun"s rays. “Yvonne"s bringing dinner. Have fun, kids.”

“Plan to.” Harry rested his palm in the small of Martine"s back, and his thumb traced the hint of an ass dimple. Not wanting to linger near the pungent aromas of trawlers loaded with baskets of catch, he kept their pace brisk until they reached the main drag; then he slowed to a lazy amble and laced their fingers together.

70

Jianne Carlo

He enjoyed how she matched his lengthening strides automatically and the way a stray lock of her hair grazed his ear with every breezy gust. A whiff of honeysuckle teased his nose. “You never did tell me why you smell of honeysuckle.”

“I cleaned rooms for a small family-owned hotel three mornings a week. They let me have the broken soaps.” Her fingers, entwined in his, flexed, the slight twinge almost imperceptible. “The
maman
always ordered honeysuckle soap.”

Harry suppressed the urge to whoop and holler. A truthful answer, no hesitation, no tangling omissions. He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the middle finger"s knuckle. He resisted the temptation to ask more questions. “So, are you starving?”

Her breathing went ragged, and a wave of frustration had him gritting his teeth.
Will it always be like pulling blood from a stone?

“We can eat when you wish to, Harry,” she replied and looked up when they halted at a traffic light. “I haven"t been here before. This doesn"t seem like Marseille at all.” She wrinkled her nose. “That seems so out of place.” She pointed at a modern four-story building. “So like a hospital smell. Anitipeptic? Is that right?”

What do I need to do to make you relax like this all the time?

“I think you want the word „antiseptic." But that"s a perfect way of describing it.” Harry stared at the square, stodgy outlines of the Hotel Le Pharo.

The light went red, and he led her across the street. As they rounded a curve in the road, a gusty wind laden with brine attacked Martine"s curls, whirling her hair away from her face. In profile she proved hauntingly beautiful. St. Pete reared and roared, battling the confines of the cotton boxers, and he was hard pressed to continue walking. She cupped one hand over the bicep nearest the waves foaming against the beach and shivered.

“Here,” he said, shrugging off his jacket and draping the navy blazer to cover her arms. To the right of them he spotted the back of a stone bench at the spot where weeds met the mottled sand of the bay. “Let"s sit for a second.”

When he had them settled on the concrete slats, Harry shifted sideways. “Not too cold?”