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Soon it would turn into the same raging headache he always got when he had to suppress his anger.

He was angry—furious—because Aldiri had hired someone to shoot a guest on his estate.

And he was also angry at himself for not anticipating that a man with Aldiri’s reputation might try something like this.

“Before you dispose of the shooter,” Carlo said into his microphone, “I want to know how he got past my security system.”

“Yes, sir.”

Carlo let his gaze sweep the room again.

“And about the other matter, sir?”

A couple dressed as Oliver and Hardy had slipped into his gallery fifteen minutes ago and were currently making love. Carlo knew from an earlier report that the couple was Steven Bradford and Calli. Thanks to his security staff, he knew the identity of every person in the main salon.

He also knew about Calli’s striptease. Evidently, Bradford and Calli weren’t as upset by the shooting as he was. His gaze rested on Risa Manwaring and Armand Genovese.

They’d arrived together as Napoleon and Josephine, and currently they were dancing.

As far as he knew, they’d met each other for the first time at dinner last night. Had they teamed up to buy the diamond? That would surely make tonight’s auction more interesting…and profitable.

Carlo rubbed at the back of his neck again. Part of his tension was due to the fact that he still wasn’t sure if one of his new guests was Chance Mitchell.

“Should I send someone into the gallery, sir?”

Carlo dragged his attention back to the voice in his ear. “You haven’t lost the audio in the room?” he asked.

“No. They’re getting that loud and clear.”

Carlo bit back a smile. He could imagine that the volume was turned up high in the security room, and there must have been a loud groan of protest when they’d lost the video. For a moment, he debated whether or not to send guards into the gallery. Doing so might embarrass the couple, and they’d already been shot at today.

Glancing at his watch, he said, “I’ll handle it in about fifteen minutes. But let me know if you lose the audio.”

“Yes, sir.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lisa approaching with Hassam Aldiri at her side. So the man had tried to kill the competition. On one level, Carlo could understand and admire that. He wouldn’t forget that the attempt had been made on his estate, but for tonight, he’d concentrate on business.

Turning, he smiled as Aldiri reached him.

“Ms. McGill tells me that you will be auctioning the jewel tonight?” Hassam said.

Carlo glanced at his watch again. “In about two hours.”

“I will top any offer that you receive,” Aldiri said. “I want that diamond.”

A man who didn’t mince words, Carlo thought as he watched Aldiri move away. For the first time all evening, Carlo felt some of his tension ease. If the price went up high enough, perhaps he could forgive Aldiri for trying to shoot one of his guests. Turning to Lisa, he said, “It promises to be a profitable evening.”

CHANCE MOVED as swiftly as he could along the wall of the villa. The clock was ticking.

The tape he’d set in the gallery would last for ten minutes—if Carlo let it run to the end.

Flowering trees grew so close that now and again, he had to lift them away so that he and Natalie could squeeze by. Taking the path through the gardens would have been quicker, but he had no way of knowing how many security men were monitoring the cameras or how often the various sites rotated on the monitor screens. He wasn’t taking the chance of letting one of those cameras pick up anything suspicious. The longer they kept their attention focused on the gallery, the better.

Just ahead, a palm tree butted up so close against the house that he ducked low and drew her around it. They had about one hundred yards left to go before they reached the courtyard near Carlo’s office.

Natalie followed quietly behind him. She hadn’t said a word since he’d touched her. He’d already asked himself what he’d been thinking. But he hadn’t been thinking at all.

Bringing her to orgasm certainly hadn’t been part of the plan. They’d had a recording that they were going to play for the benefit of the men looking at the monitors. His job had been to place the listening device while she opened the safe. But the moment she’d started stripping, something had come over him.

She’d
come over him. His mind should have been totally focused on the job. Instead, it had been focused on her. It was Natalie’s tug on his hand that made him stop. When he turned, she whispered, “Here.”

He glanced at the top of the wall and spotted the camera. It was aimed into the courtyard.

If she hadn’t spotted it, he wouldn’t have stopped, and they’d have gone past Carlo’s office and then wasted some of the precious moments they had by backtracking. Later, he promised himself. Later he would sort out what had happened to him in the gallery. Right now, he had a job to finish.

Pulling the tranquilizer gun out of the pouch he wore around his waist, he handed it to her. If they were lucky, the guard would be stationed on the patio. It would take less time to put him out of commission if they didn’t have to lure him out of Carlo’s office.

Leaning down, he cupped his hands. After she placed her foot in them, he gave her a moment.

“Ready,” she whispered.

He straightened and boosted her up the wall.

NATALIE DUG her fingers into the crevices in the wall as she shifted first one foot and then the other onto Chance’s shoulders. When she was sure she had her balance, she moved her hands to the top of the wall and slowly straightened until she could see over the edge. The patio was dim, illuminated only by the light spilling out from the office. But the French doors were open.

And then she spotted the glow of a cigarette. The guard was standing in the shade of a palm tree three feet to the left of the open door. She could hardly make him out, and she was only going to get one shot.

Heart hammering, she reached into her belt and pulled out the tranquilizer gun. Drawing in a deep breath, she aimed it in the direction of the palm tree. All she could see was the glow of the cigarette, and it wasn’t moving. Impossible to tell if the guard was standing to the left or the right of that glowing circle of light. Was he sitting or standing?

She picked up a loose stone from the top of the wall and pushed it onto the patio. The guard moved toward the sand, stepping out from beneath the palm. Natalie aimed and fired.

“What the—”

She saw him raise a hand to his shoulder, then fall to the ground. Chance’s hands gripped her ankles, lifting her until she could work the top half of her body over the wall. While Chance climbed up the wall to join her, she crawled over to the security camera and pointed it out at the gardens. If they were lucky, the guard watching the monitors wouldn’t even realize that it had been shifted.

“Ready?” Chance asked.

Yes,” she said as she began to lower her body over the edge of the wall. They dropped together.

Chance glanced at his watch. “The tape I left in the gallery just ran down,” he said as they moved toward the French doors.

Natalie felt a rush of adrenaline. The clock was ticking now.

Moving quickly, she entered Carlo’s office. The safe was just where she suspected—

behind the painting at the back of his desk.

Her stomach sank. “I’ve never opened this kind of a safe before. Maybe, you should—”

“You can do it,” Chance said.

She took one moment to gather her thoughts and then focused all her attention on the combination.

15

CARLO WAS MORE FURIOUS
than he had ever been in his life. The headache raging behind his eyes only intensified when he walked into his gallery with Lisa and two security guards and saw the scattered clothes and the open window. After striding toward it, he glanced at the ground below.

“They’re not here.” He spoke into the microphone that connected him with his security chief. “Secure the grounds. No one is to leave this estate until they’re found.”

He turned to Lisa and the two security men who’d followed him into the room. “Check the Venetian room and see if they’re there.”

When Lisa didn’t follow the guards, he said, “Go back to the salon. I need you there.”

“What is going on?’ she asked.

“I intend to find out. Go.”

He followed her to the door and locked it behind her.

Then with a sliver of fear skipping up his spine, he went to the column and removed the bronze sundial. His fingers shook as he opened the safe. When he saw the red velvet pouch, his frown deepened. They hadn’t broken into the safe. Otherwise, surely the diamond would be gone. Unless…had they had time to open the safe and discover that the diamond inside was a fake?

Clamping down tightly on his anger, Carlo focused as he surveyed the room again. They’d convinced his security staff that they’d come in here for sex. And the room smelled of it.

So why had they exited through the window? Why not put their costumes back on and rejoin the party?

Or had they simply decided to take their lovemaking to a more private place?

Carlo studied the room. Clothes had been tossed everywhere. Trousers covered the security camera, one shirt hung over the back of a Louis XIV chair, another draped a Chinese vase a few feet from where he was standing. Next to it was the undergarment that had given Oliver Hardy his added girth.

Squatting down, Carlo turned the garment over. No padding. Whatever had been inside was something they’d taken with them. A new costume? Safecracking tools?

Had they come in here merely to throw him off and give themselves extra time to break into his office safe?

His gaze shifted to the window. Once they’d dropped into the garden, they’d only have to circle the house to reach the entrance to his private wing.

As Carlo strode toward the door, his mouth curved in an appreciative smile. Clever, he thought as he replayed in his mind every scene, every impression that he’d taken in since Steven Bradford and Calli had arrived on his estate. They were a couple who couldn’t bear to be parted for very long, who couldn’t keep their hands off one another. And they’d managed to create the illusion that there was more between them than sex.

No one, not his chief of security, and not even
he
had been overly suspicious when they’d sneaked into his gallery for a “quickie.”

Oh, yes, they were much more clever than he’d anticipated. One of them must indeed be Chance Mitchell. It had been a long time since he’d had to pit himself against such a worthy opponent.

A new thought occurred to him. Could he be wrong about Aldiri? Had this “Chance”

arranged for the shooting this morning just to throw him off? If so, he or she was very clever indeed. As he exited the room and relocked the door, Carlo spoke into the microphone that connected him to his chief of security. “Meet me at my office.”

But Chance wasn’t clever enough. The safe in his office wouldn’t be as easy to open as the one in the gallery. It was a new model, and he’d had to practice on it for hours before he’d become sensitized to the fall of the tumblers.

IT’S TAKING TOO LONG. Natalie tried to ignore the nagging little voice in the back of her head as seconds ticked away. The muggy night air defeated the air-conditioning in the small room. She’d taken off her mask, and still she could feel sweat trickle down the back of her neck.

If her fingers slipped at this point… Very carefully, she lifted them from the lock and wiped them on her costume.

“Here,” Chance whispered as he handed her a handkerchief.

“Thanks,” she said. Where was Carlo right now, she wondered as she wiped her fingertips. He’d had plenty of time to go into his gallery, open his safe and see that the false diamond was still there. If the real diamond was here in his office suite, he’d check on it. He could be on his way.

The sound of static drifted in through the French doors, and her heart skipped a beat.

Someone was trying to contact the guard she’d stunned. Time was running out.

She closed her fingers over the lock again. She had three parts of the combination. And she’d only had to try once for the last number. All she needed was for one more tumbler to slip into place. Just one more tiny click.

Chance said nothing, but she could feel him shift behind her so that his back was to hers.

That way he could face both doors. Time was just about up.

She began to turn the lock very slowly. Seconds stretched into minutes, but she heard nothing. An icy sliver of fear slid up her spine, and she lifted her hand again. “I think I missed it. I must have missed it. I have the first three numbers. Maybe you’d better give it a try.”

Chance placed a hand on her shoulder. “Start over if you have to. I fixed the lock so they’ll have to force the door. There’s still time.”

But there wasn’t. They both knew that. Natalie drew in a shaky breath and let it out. “I—”

Chance squeezed her shoulder. “You can do it, Nat.”

Natalie went perfectly still. Later she would wonder whether it was Chance’s belief in her that did it. Or perhaps it was his hand on her shoulder—that simple physical connection.

Whatever it was, she could feel her self-doubt drain away as swiftly as if someone had pulled a plug. Suddenly, her mind was crystal-clear and her fingers felt each and every groove on the lock.

The same thing had happened the first time that she’d opened a safe. From the time she was little, her father had let her play with the one he’d kept in his office. She couldn’t have been more than seven or eight the first time she’d cracked it.