French Kiss Part 19

"I didn't have a choice. The buyer has to fly back tonight. Something unexpected came up in Baku."

With a sigh, Raf reached for his shorts. "After this job, we're done-right? Because I've got better things to do."

"This is our last a.s.signment here." Yuri smiled. "Consider it part of our internship."

"Consider it part of your internship. For me, it's a pain in the a.s.s."

"Look, we're just paying our dues." Yuri had a modic.u.m more responsibility than Raf, or maybe he was just more fearful of his father's wrath. Either way, he took the role of leader.

"I don't have to pay my dues. The business will be handed over to me regardless." Raf had a supremely indulgent father, an even more indulgent, equally connected mother, and as an only son, both a pe rceived and real sense of ent.i.tl ement.

"Then you'd better make sure you have some d.a.m.n good lieutenants."

Raf smiled. "I have twenty-two cousins. All loyal. Throw me my shoes, and we're out of here."

Minutes later, they were being driven to the Ritz.

"I don't suppose the girls will still be at the hotel." Raf offered Yuri a drink from his wine bot tl e.

Yuri waved off the bottl e, his gaze scornful. "Since they bolted and then drove off with Johnny Patrick, I doubt it."

"Okay, okay, it was just a thought. I like Chantel."

"So go see her. You have her number."

"I might. What about you and Lisa?"

"There never was a me and Lisa, and even if there'd been, she's on my shi tl ist now. She tried to walk away with fifty of my black pearls. The b.i.t.c.h thinks the world is one big comp for her. I doubt she's paid for anything in years."

"Whatever," Raf said. "She is a d.a.m.ned fine actress."

"So? How does that affect me?"

"Don't blow smoke up my a.s.s. You like to be seen with her. We both know that."

Yuri shrugged. "There are other actresses."

Raf let it drop, because he and Yuri had been friends a long time and despite Yuri's nonchalance, he knew Lisa Jordan rang all his bells. And it wasn't just her A-list celebrity and dazzling looks. She and Yuri were both strikingly similar-in their self-love and swaggering egos , in their fondness for the spotl ight. Soul mates as it were in the glossy world of sw.a.n.k and strut. "Those other actresses are probably better in bed, too," Raf noted. Yuri had always complained that Lisa liked drugs more than s.e.x.

"Anyone's better in bed than her," Yuri muttered.

"Once we're done with this delivery, let's go to England for a change of scene. My sister and her friends are partying at some country house. We could do some shooting there."

"It's a thought." Yuri liked the English custom of shooting on private estates. He enjoyed the wholesale slaughter of game birds.

Raf lifted his brows. "So where are we supposed to meet this buyer?"

"Outside the Madeline."

Ten minutes later, Yuri was swearing so loudly, Raf shut the door to the bedroom so the Ritz security wouldn't come running.

"The f.u.c.king ring is gone!!! That b.i.t.c.h had to have taken it!! I'm going to STRANGLE her with my bare hands!"

The bellowing invective continued unabated, as Yuri tore the bedroom apart looking for Catherine the Great's emerald coronation ring, which they were supposed to deliver in an hour.

Pawing through the disarray of clothing on the floor, he gla red at Raf. "I could use a littl e help here, dammit!"

Raf looked up from the bed where he'd been lounging, his wine bottle still in hand. "You've emptied the safe, upended every drawer, and ripped apart the closets. Where would you like me to look?"

"f.u.c.king up your a.s.s might be an idea!"

"If only," Raf calmly replied. "Look, the ring is obviously gone, along with the ladies and their luggage. You can tear this place apart, but Lisa must have watched you open your closet safe. The jewelry wasn't in your luggage with the pearls. You and I both know it. But she didn't take it all-just the ring; it could be worse." Ignoring Yuri's incredulous look, Raf said, "It's true. What if she'd taken the entire set of emerald jewelry? Look, just give the buyer a call, postpone for a day or so, and we'll go and get the d.a.m.ned ring. If you think Lisa really has it."

"If f.u.c.king if? Who the h.e.l.l else would have taken it! Mercenary b.i.t.c.h!"

"Okay, then. Call your guy. Tell him you have to postpone."

"Jesus," Yuri muttered, suddenly faced with cold reality. "My father's going to s.h.i.t. It wasn't just the ring." A look of fear crossed his face. "The key to our Zurich safe deposit box was under the lining of the ring case. I thought it would be extra safe there."

"Jesus." Even Raf who never worried about anything sat up and set the bottle down. "That key could be worth a lot to the wrong person."

"You think?" Yuri snapped.

"Especially if they know it's yours."

"Especially if Lisa hands it over to some of her druggie friends who always need money and aren't above ransom demands."

"Okay, okay, we have to stay calm. We're just going to have to postpone until we figure out what to do. There's no other choice. Look, I'll call my dad, and he can call yours. That way you don't have to talk to your old man, and we'll buy ourselves some time."

Dropping into a chair, Yuri ra n his fingers through his four- hundred-dollar haircut and nibbled on his lower lip. He had a diminishing array of options. His father was not a reasonable man, although reason wouldn't get you very far in the Russian mafia. Violence and fear, dog-eat-dog vengeance was the orthodox model. "What the h.e.l.l are you going to say to your old man if you call him?" he muttered.

"I'll say the b.i.t.c.h stole the ring and we're going to get it back. I won't mention the key. It should be simple enough to get them both back. It's not as though Lisa can refuse to give them to us." Raf's smiled tigh tl y. "Especially with an automatic pointed at her head."

Yuri's frown eased. In dread of his father's fury, he'd panicked. But if Raf's plan succeeded, they'd have a few days to turn this fiasco around. "Okay. Call your father. Tell him we're on our way to get the ring. Tell him all the other jewelry is accounted for. In the meantime, I'll check with Lisa's friend Martine who lives in Malibu; she and Lisa talk to each other a dozen times a day. She'll know where the b.i.t.c.h went." With his spirits reviving, Yuri gave a thumbs up. "Thanks for the cool head."

"You've saved my a.s.s often enough. I'll tell my father it might take us a couple days and have him reschedule with the buyer." Raf grinned. "It'll be more official if the call comes from my father. And what the h.e.l.l, I've never been to Baku. I hear it's hot this time of year."

A short time later, the buy had been rescheduled for Zurich, since the buyer would be there next week. Raf's father had been amenable as usual, and Martine had helpfully informed Yuri that Lisa and Chantel were flying back to L.A. on Johnny Patrick's jet. To Yuri's heated query about whether Johnny was aboard, she'd been able to a.s.sure him that her friends were flying back alone.

Yuri checked his high-end watch, which colorfully displayed three time zones with or without alarm options. "They're four hours ahead of us, probably more like six by the time we get our plane off the ground. That's not bad though. We'll be in L.A. by midni ght. An hour to her place and th en"-his smile was malicious-"we'll see how go od an actress Lisa really is..."

Twenty-eight.

While Yuri and Raf were getting bent out of shape at the Ritz, the small party on the beach in Nice was enjoying the conviviality of good wine and pleasant company.

Vernie entertained them with stories of her travels, her position as nanny having taken her around the world several times. She'd been everywhere and seen everything. Jordi and Marie sat at her feet, enthralled by her descriptions of temples in Thailand and safaris in Africa, o f the time she was flooded in V enice, or when she'd dined with an ex-ruler of Timbuktu.

During her narrative, Johnny and Nicky sat side by side on chaises and tried very hard not to look at each other.

And only partially succeeded.

But Nicky was cognizant of Johnny's relationship with his daughter and perhaps slightly intimidated by Vernie as well. She tried really hard to behave with discretion and tact.

Meanwhile, Johnny was hard pressed to keep from spiriting Nicky away. Only sheer will and the constant reminder that at ten o'clock-give or take-he would be rewarded for his well-mannered restraint, kept him in check.

It was a taut and strained interval before dinner for two of the five people in the cabana. Fortunately, the other three seemed not to notice, engrossed as they were in the tales of Vernie's world travels. Or perhaps, Johnny and Nicky's acting abilities were demonstrably better than they thought.

Needless to say, dinner was equally difficult to pull off in terms of projecting the appropriate demeanor. Especially when the third bot tl e of wine was broached at dessert.

Nicky refused more wine at that point, even though it was a golden muscat she loved. If she had another drink, she couldn't guarantee her behavior. Johnny looked way too luscious, lounging in his chair at the head of the table-all tanned and virile in his cream silk, open-necked shirt, dark as sin and handsome as a G.o.d. And it didn't help that he casually handled the role of host as if to the manor born. He was gracious, charming, and affectionate to his daughter, erudite and discerning when it came to practically any topic. Although, the fact that he was a world-cla.s.s stud seriously trumped even the most masterful of hosts in her current hot and bothered mood.

All Nicky could think of was s.e.x, s.e.x, and more s.e.x. Overcome with an almost overwhelming need to touch Johnny, she flexed her fingers against the silky skirt of her green dress, which looked as good in Nice as it had in Paris. It would have been easy to reach out; he was so close. But she had to wait, she warned herself-for numerous reasons... most having to do with not embarra.s.sing herself in public.

Maybe she should have a few quick cups of coffee. They might help mitigate her all-consuming, ravenous urges-further enhanced by alcohol, no doubt. Perhaps caf feine would a.s.suage the need-an- o.r.g.a.s.m-right-now mantra running through her brain and make her less inclined to throw herself at Johnny and plead for s.e.x.

Even with three gla.s.ses of wine under her belt, she understood that doing that was strictly verboten.

Suppressing a shiver of desire, she stealthily glanced at her watch. "s.h.i.t." Oh, jeez, she'd said it aloud. "Sorry," she muttered to the table at large, everyone's gaze having swiveled in her direction. "My watch battery's worn out again."

"Doesn't that always happen when you're miles from a store," Vernie said, sympathetically.

"We'll get one in the morning," Johnny offered. "Let me take a look."

As she held her wrist out to him, he leaned over, whispered, "Hang in there, babe," as though he was a mind-reader. Unbuckling the band, he slipped her watch into his pocket, and said, "Let's take our coffee and dessert out on the veranda."

It wasn't a casual suggestion. With his erection becoming more and more difficult to restrain, he needed to get away from the bright lights in the dining room. The ca ndle-lit veranda would better s uit his need for concealment.

He wasn't usually so impatient. He must have had too much wine. Or maybe s.e.x-on-demand was more of a constant in his life than he'd thought. Perhaps, Nicky simply engaged his interest more profoundly than other women.

Not a thought he particularly cared to pursue. But the lights had to go-that he knew. And quickly.

He waved the houseboy over. "We'll take our coffee on the veranda," he said, without waiting for a response from his companions.

"Bring the dessert, too," Jordi said. "Please," she murmured after a look from her father. "And thank you," she added for good measure.

He waited for the rest of the party to precede him, then followed them out to the veranda, grateful for the dusky shadows.

The summer night was ideal-balmy and warm, the stars twinkling in the velvety darkness of the sky, the full moon a brilliant orange above a calm sea.

Over dessert, Jordi and Marie kept up a steady chatter, while Vernie did her share of talking as well. Until, finally taking note of Johnny's desultory replies, Vernie said, "You must be tired."

"I am. I'll go to bed early tonight." He suppressed a smile at the tantalizing thought.

"Why don't I take the girls into town in the morning and let you sleep in?" Vernie suggested. "It's not as though they mind shopping."

"Sounds like a good idea," Johnny replied, when it actually sounded like sheer, unadulterated bliss. He had plans for the night, and Jordi was an early riser.

"Want to go shopping, girls?" Vernie asked, grinning at the raucous response to her question. She glanced at Johnny. "I gather that's a yes." And before long, although it seemed like eons to two adults with s.e.x on their minds, Vernie began gathering up her charges. "We've had a busy day. Say good night, girls."

"Do we have to?" Jordi wailed, looking at her father.

"You two can watch a movie," Ve rn ie offered. "You don't have to sleep. Just get in your jammies."

"Better do what Vernie says," Johnny agreed. "If you wake up early, you can go shopping early. How about that?"

"Can we watch Jaws'! Please, please. Vernie'll never let me watch it. I'm nine now. It can't be that scary." Kids had that sixth sense when they could maybe get by with something.

Vernie looked at Johnny. "It's up to you."

"Why not," Johnny said, glad Jordi hadn't asked if she could watch a slasher film, because with his mind focused on getting Nicky into bed as quickly as possible, he just might have said tempted to say yes.

After good-night kisses were exchanged and several more dispensations had been wheedled out of Johnny, the girls and Ve rn ie left.

Leaving a pregnant silence.

Johnny set down his coffee cup, the sound of the cup striking the saucer ringing like a thunderclap.

Nicky jerked in her chair.

Johnny blew out a breath. "Sorry."

"I'm a little on edge."

"Tell me about it. It seems like months since the beach."

"More like years."

He smiled. "We'll give everyone five minutes, then take the back way up. With this hard-on, I don't want to run into anyone."

"Except me."

"That's m y plan," he said very, very softl y.

"Just a word of warning," Nicky breathed, his plan and hers identical. "I might come the second you touch me."

"I'm about there myself. I almost lost it a hundred times during dinner. You must be some kind of witch," he murmured. "Definitely a good witch, though. Don't get me wrong."

She suspected he'd been the object of adulation so often and with such regularity, she didn't know if she should add her homage to the cast of thousands before her. Although, what the h.e.l.l. It wasn't as though she was planning for any lengthy relationship. "All I know," she said, honest to a fault, "is that you turn me on like no one has ever turned me on. I don't know if it's magic or your talents in bed, but whatever-I'm more h.o.r.n.y than I've ever been in my life. So-has enough time pa.s.sed, or what?"

"Oh, yeah." After that blunt statement, no man in his right mind would hesitate. Leaning over, he took her hand and rising to his feet, pulled her up.