Nightshine: A Novel of the Kyndred (13 page)

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Authors: Lynn Viehl

Tags: #Romance, #Paranormal, #Fiction

BOOK: Nightshine: A Novel of the Kyndred
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“Mommy?”
The low, sweet voice grated against Randa’s ears, and she had to take a moment to compose her expression before she turned to look at her daughter. “Emily, you’re supposed to be asleep by now.” A resentful corner of her heart added,
And you weren’t supposed to be so big, or dark, or whiny.
“I know.” The six-year-old hung her head. “But no one came to kiss me good night.”
“Daddy and I have been busy.” Randa rose, absently smoothing down the folds of her dress before she picked up the house phone and pressed nine. When Emily’s nanny answered, she said, “Mary, Miss Collins has come downstairs. She needs to be taken back to the nursery.” She ignored the nanny’s hurried apology and replaced the receiver.
Brent walked over to crouch down in front of their daughter. “We didn’t mean to forget you, sweetheart. Mommy and I just . . . needed to talk about things.” She slipped into his arms and buried her face against his neck. “Did you have another bad dream?”
Under his chin, her untidy black mop moved from side to side. “Miss Mary is upset. She’s going away in the morning.”
“What did you say?” Randa’s heels made sharp sounds as she strode across the imported marble and grabbed Emily by the arm. “Did she tell you she was leaving?”
“No, Mommy.” Her daughter cringed. “It was the fairies again. They told me she was.”
“For God’s sake.” She let go of Emily with a contemptuous fling of her hand. “I’ve told you a dozen times, there are no such things as fairies.”
“Randie.” Brent looked up and shook his head a little. To Emily, he said, “You just stop listening to those fairies and go to sleep like a good girl, all right?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
The disheveled nanny came through the doors and hurried over to take Emily’s hand. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Collins. I thought she was already asleep. I did check on her before I went to bed, and—”
“I’m sure you did. That will be all.” Randa gave the door a direct look.
When the nanny began walking Emily out, the little girl dragged against her arm and looked back at her parents. “You’ll come up to tuck me in, Daddy?”
Brent smiled. “In a few minutes, sweetheart.” As soon as the child and the nanny left, his expression faded into bleakness. “We’ll have to call Chicago first thing in the morning.”
“I already did,” Randa told him. “They won’t take her back, not now. They’ve destroyed the paperwork, but we have to deal with getting rid of her.” She might as well tell him the rest. “I called an adoption attorney, and he’s been looking for a girl her age. He says he can place her with a wealthy couple in Mexico.”
“My God.” Brent whitened. “Randa, she’s just a little girl. None of this is her fault.”
Randa knew her husband. Brent, an only child, had been worshiped by his parents since the moment he’d been yanked from between his mother’s legs, and after they died he’d gone looking for new groupies. She’d been happy to cater to him for the duration of their courtship, but she’d never been interested in wasting her life playing his adoring fan. A child had been the logical answer, but rather than destroy her body she’d arranged Emily’s adoption.
Randa didn’t care what happened to Emily now, but she had to think about her future. “Darling, it’s better this way. I’m sure she’ll be well treated by these Mexicans. After all, they’re probably her people.”
Brent began to pace. “We’ll turn her over to the authorities. They’ll put her in foster care here in the States.”
“You mean, drop her off at the nearest police station?” Randa felt a surge of bitter amusement. “I think they’ll want to know who you are and where you found her. Are you going to tell them how we bought her, or why you can’t take care of her anymore?”
His expression turned stubborn. “It doesn’t have to be me. I’ll pay Mary to take her to them after we leave in the morning.”
She rested her head against her hand. “Where do you think we’re going, lover? The money’s gone. Our friends are wiped out. At least Howard only swindled you. If you’d been in bed with him, they’d be coming after you now.” She saw his expression and shot to her feet. “Oh, for God’s sake, Brent. How could you be so fucking stupid?”
He hung his head. “Howard needed more investors, and I had the connections. He made me a partner and tripled my percentage. It shouldn’t have fallen apart so quickly. He swore to me—”
“Swore to you?” she shouted. “Don’t you see, you idiot? Howard is dead, and Ron is testifying. That leaves you to be the fall guy. They’re going to come after you for all this now. You’ll be the one they splash all over the papers and parade on television and drag off to prison.”
Brent wouldn’t look at her. “It doesn’t have to be like that for us.”
Time to cut her losses. “It won’t be for
me
.” She looked around. “Where is my purse?”
“I was wrong.” Brent strode over to her. “You aren’t leaving me and Emily now. We’re a family, and whatever it takes, we’re going to stay together. We need you. We love you.”
Randa closed her eyes briefly before she smiled at him. “Darling, this may come as something of a shock, but I don’t need you. Or your shit. Or that little monkey-faced bitch.”
He hit her, his open palm slamming into her face, and Randa stumbled away as she pressed her hand to her burning cheek.
“I’m your husband. Emily is your daughter,” he told her as he took hold of her arms. A strange calmness seemed to settle over him, erasing the lines of strain from his face and most of the emotion from his eyes. “You can’t abandon us.”
She had never loved him, but now she hated him. “If you try to stop me, I’ll testify against you.”
“You’re still my wife.” Brent’s eyes grew sad. “Emily needs her mother.”
Randa would have laughed at that, but her husband’s slim hands encircled her throat, choking off her voice and then her breath.
“You can’t leave us,” he whispered again into her ear. “We’re a family. We have to go together.”
Chapter 7
 
C
harlotte’s distrust had been difficult enough for Samuel to manage, but her brisk decision to go to bed with him was nothing short of utterly confounding.
“I don’t wish to upset you,” he said as she led him across the deck to the hot tub. “But I believe the stress of our situation has affected your judgment.”
“Alas,
mío
, you believe wrong.” She knelt down to unfasten the cover and glanced up at him. “Will you get the other side, please?”
Automatically he walked around and bent to pick up the edge of the canvas cover, folding it back onto itself before he shifted it away from the Jacuzzi. The water inside the tub was clean and clear and, when Charlotte pressed a button on the tub’s console, began to bubble rapidly.
“I don’t think we’ll need the heat.” She slipped her legs over the edge and lowered herself into the tub until the water reached her waist. “Nice and cool. For now, anyway. Get in.”
He tried not to look at how her sarong soaked up the water. “I should go and collect something for us to eat. You must be hungry.”
“You can’t be shy.” She held out her hand. “Come on. I won’t bite. Unless you want me to.”
Samuel sat down on the edge of the tub, intent only on persuading her out of it. He didn’t expect her to pull him into the water, or to wrap herself around him as soon as he planted his feet.
“There,” she said, linking her hands behind his neck. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”
“It feels amazingly good.” So did she, and he gave himself a moment to enjoy the sensation of her voluptuous body pressed to his. “You’ve a generous soul, Charlotte, and I am beyond flattered, but—”
“You are gorgeous, but you talk too much.” She leaned close to kiss his cheek, and whispered, “There’s a man hiding in the brush about thirty yards off the deck to your right. Don’t turn your head when you look.”
Samuel spotted the shadowy figure at once. “I see.”
“The sun will set in a few minutes, and then I’ll be able to do my thing,” she said. “The closer he is, the easier it’ll be for me to read him. So let’s give him a reason to stay there, all right?”
Taske should have felt relieved, but he was too furious with himself and their captor. “I could go and have a few words with him.”
“He could be armed, and I don’t have any more blood to spare.” She drew him back to the wide bench seat under the water, reversing their positions and pushing him down so that his back was to the man watching them. “Take off my top,” she murmured, “and throw it on the deck.”
Taske did as she directed, his anger making him tear the lacy fabric in the process. “Forgive me.”
“No, that’s good. Very convincing.” As she straddled him, she brought her face close to his, keeping their lips only a whisper apart, but looked to the left of him. “He’s moving closer,” she breathed against his mouth. “Now pretend I’m a skinny little heiress and tell me how much you want me.”
“Why would I do that?” He put his hands on either side of her waist, both to steady her and to keep her from rubbing against the erection straining under his shorts.
Her smile tightened. “With how I look I know it’s a stretch, but try.”
“I meant, why would I pretend you were someone else?” He threaded his fingers through her thick hair as he looked all over her face. “Seeing you, I understand why some men invaded countries and defeated armies and conquered emperors to have one woman. Helen of Troy must have been as strong and fierce and desirable as you.”
“Oh, she was?” Her expression turned ironic. “In all the movies I’ve seen about Troy, Helen is a gorgeous little blonde.”
“Helen’s legend was born in the Mediterranean,” he told her. “Even today, most of the natives of that region are black haired and have dark complexions. In the art of her era, Helen is portrayed as a statuesque brunette. It was only much later that artists began painting her as a petite woman with fair hair and white skin.”
She seemed amused. “That’s what most men want.”
“Most men are fools,” he assured her.
She ran her hands over his shoulders. “At least guys never have to worry about it. The bigger, the better.”
“On the contrary.” It infuriated him to think the men in her past had made her feel unattractive. “Despite the strapping heroic figures that regularly grace the covers of romance novels, in reality most women find men built like me quite intimidating.”
“Then most women are idiots,
mío
.” She glanced past him and said in a louder voice, “I’m glad you don’t mind my size. Even big girls like me need love.”
He knew she was only playing to their voyeur, but the fact that she considered herself unattractive infuriated him. “How could I mind having you in my arms? Since the first moment I saw you, I’ve thought of little else.” He stroked his hand down her arm. “Seeing you makes me believe in things I know to be impossible. Answered prayers. Granted wishes.” He traced the outline of her lips with his fingertips. “Wildest dreams.”
“Keep talking like that,
mío
,” she said, her voice shaking a little, “and you’ll break my heart.”
He dragged her hand from his shoulder to his chest, pressing it over the heavy throb beneath his skin. “Then you can have mine,
mía
.”
She closed her eyes as she took in a sharp breath, and Taske brought her parted lips to his. He felt her jerk beneath his kiss, but she didn’t pull back, and then she was opening for him, her mouth sweet and hot. Suddenly he didn’t care about the man watching them or what he thought. Putting on a show didn’t matter, and merely tasting Charlotte wasn’t enough. Taske wanted more, he needed more, and she gave it to him, caressing him with her lips and gliding her tongue against his.
Far too soon she tugged her mouth free of his, and Taske saw she was frowning. “Charlotte, what is it?”
“Nothing.” She closed her eyes briefly before she murmured, “I’m not getting anything from him.”
Although the sun no longer appeared in the reflection on the glass wall of the villa, Taske could see some light on the horizon. “Give it a few minutes.”
“Let me try something.” She rested her hand against his neck. “Think of your favorite color.”
“Done.” Taske watched her eyes widen as she brought her fingers to her lips, and knew she had heard his thoughts. “What is it?”
“ ‘Kissed by a Rose’ is the name of a song,” she told him, “not a color.”
The blush that darkened her cheeks, he decided, would be his second-favorite color. “But that’s what your mouth feels like.”
She looked as if she meant to argue, and then she glanced to the right and sighed. “Looks like our voyeur took off.”
“Did you pick up any thoughts from him?”
“Not one,” she said. “I don’t understand it. I can read anyone, but that man . . . Sam, it was like he wasn’t even there.”
“But you’re certain that he’s gone.” When she nodded, he cradled her face between his hands. “Kiss me again, Charlotte.”

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