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One Treasure…
Some would kill to know what Sophie Kingston knows. Rich and powerful people will do anything to possess the secret, but not even Sophie realizes how much danger she is in—or how far they will go to hunt her down and take it from her. But when she sees a murder no one can prove, the threats to her life keep coming.
One Hunt…
Pietr Sauvage is neck deep in the hunt for The Fortunate Buddha when a lead draws him to New York and thrusts him into the life of art history specialist Sophie. What began as a favor turns into a desperate need to protect the sexy curator from the dark web of deception threatening to pull her under.
Too Many Thieves…
Lost in the shadow of intrigue and danger, Sophie must learn to trust Pietr, a man with an agenda, a man she can’t help but desire, before the ruthless thieves steal their only chance.
Raising the stakes heightens the attraction…
Read the first chapter now!
A sharp crack snapped the silence in half. Sophie
shoved her fist into her mouth, determined to strangle the scream clawing its
way up from her belly. If it had only been just a sharp crack, she could have
dismissed it. The museum’s basement was overpopulated with more artifacts than
three lifetimes worth of curators had been able to catalog. The harsh snap
could have been a displaced shelf, a fallen item, or even the old air recycling
system kicking on.
The body crumpling to the floor shot down any
other reasonable possibilities. Royce Hinkley, curator, art expert and head of
the Seven Fates exhibit lay dead. His empty eyes stared across the open expanse
between the stacks. Sophie tore her gaze away from him and turned it toward the
hard metal support for the shelves housing minutiae from dozens of Egyptian
excavations.
A shuffle step and the man with the gun stood
between her and Professor Hinkley. Sophie shrank against the stacks, holding her
breath. She prayed the shadowy depths of the archivists vault would hold her
secret as deeply as it held the ancients’.
“Non.”
The distinctly melodic French splashed the reality of the situation at her. “He
was trying to double cross us. He did not have the Buddha. Oui. I will check in tonight.”
The Buddha.
Sophie flattened herself against the metal struts,
her pulse hammering her into place. The man’s gun vanished, and he bent,
seizing Professor Hinkley under the arms, and then hoisted him.
Dear God…he killed him already. What more could he
want with him?
Professor Hinkley’s head flopped, bouncing like a
bobblehead as his assailant balanced the corpse’s weight over his shoulders.
Sophie swallowed back the gorge burning up her throat. He turned, heading away
from the Egyptian stacks and toward the Mesopotamian. Sophie kept herself as
still as possible, holding her breath until the last shuffling step faded away.
Only then did she look down at the Buddha peeking
out from the bottom of the cart. The golden man seemed to be winking at her.
***
“Dr. Kingston, I believe you.” Detective Bryant
leaned against the corner of the desk, staring down at her with sad brown eyes
that told a tale of pity and patience. He wore an air of disappointment like a
rumpled, stained tie discoloring his disposition. “I understand what you think
you saw, and I appreciate that you took the time to report it. But our crime
scene unit has been over the vault, we’ve talked to your coworkers, we’ve
spoken to the director. Dr. Hinkley is on a leave of absence. He began it this
morning.”
“Leave of absence?” Since when? Professor Hinkley
had been excited about new possibilities for his Seven Fates exhibit. If he’d
planned a sabbatical, he would have had to find coverage for his projects.
The detective shrugged. “We’re trying to contact
him, but his sabbaticals seem to be something of a legend among your coworkers.
No one else is reporting him missing, and, unless the lab turns up any trace
evidence, I’m afraid there’s not much else we can do.”
Sophie opened her mouth, and then shut it again.
The clock on the distant wall ticked past 8:00 p.m. Twelve hours since she’d
seen the professor’s dead body. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw his
head bounce as the shooter picked him up. She could hear the dulcet French
intonation of the words as the man spoke into a phone.
She’d hidden in the stacks like a coward for more
than thirty minutes before daring to make an escape and call the police.
Despite arriving quickly, sweeping through the vaults, and inspecting the crime
scene, they’d found nothing.
Not even blood.
It wasn’t possible.
She’d seen the professor shot. She’d watched him
crumple to the ground. Sophie swallowed the gorge threatening her once more.
Could I have imagined it?
The thought pinged against her conscience. It
simply wasn’t rational.
***
The six-floor climb had never seemed as long as it
did tonight. Sophie’s legs burned with each floor, the fatigue dragging her
under like a riptide off a summer beach. She’d declined the walk to the door
from the detective, all too aware of the sympathetic glint in his gaze. She’d
answered his questions for hours, but with no success. No body, no crime.
A bang behind her sent her pulse rabbiting. Sophie
looked over her shoulder to see Mrs. Bruno tugging her over-packed, two-wheel
shopping cart up the stairs, one thump at a time. Keys looped over her fingers,
Sophie pivoted and darted down the steps to grab Mrs. Bruno’s cart before it
overbalanced and carried the old woman and her groceries down the stairs.
“And where is your grandson?” she asked in lieu of
a hello. Mrs. Bruno’s well-lined face wrinkled up into a smile.
“He had a hot date with Eppsie’s granddaughter!”
She huffed a laugh, leaning against the wall to catch her breath before
charging ahead. Freed of her burden, her fifth floor neighbor was quite spry.
Sophie put her back into it and tugged the
shopping cart behind her. “I thought she was dating the Lemmons’ grandson.”
“Oh, she was.” Mrs. Bruno paused at the fourth
floor to let Sophie catch up. “But he’s going off to college in California next
year and told her they should date other people to experiment.”
Laughter burst the sick bubble of exhaustion
souring Sophie’s stomach. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. So my grandson called me and said he’d
asked her out and she said yes. He didn’t want to give her a chance to change
her mind or for her stupid boyfriend to wise up.” Mrs. Bruno’s eyes twinkled
cheerfully. “My grandson is smart, like his grandfather. You don’t hesitate
when a lady says yes. You hesitate, you lose.”
“Well, I hope it works out for them.” They’d
reached Mrs. Bruno’s floor, and Sophie tugged the cart over to her door. “Do
you need some help putting groceries up?”
“No dear. You need to go upstairs, shower, freshen
up, and take yourself out to Tony’s. Or you can head over to Popa’s by NYU to
catch one of those professors.”
Sophie did not roll her eyes or snort. Mrs. Bruno
meant well. She had been trying to fix Sophie up with a nice young man for
eighteen months, ever since Sophie moved into the walk-up. Mrs. Bruno had lived
here for forty years and often boasted 608 was the lucky number. She’d found a
match for ten occupants. She planned to make Sophie number eleven.
“No, I’m good. If your grandson has a date the
next time you have to shop, call me. I love shopping with you.”
“I’ll be baking on Sunday.”
Mrs. Bruno’s version of thank you always involved
fresh blueberry muffins and cranberry scones. Sophie gained five pounds after
every favor. Fortunately, the muffins were worth every pound.
“Great! Have a good night, Mrs. Bruno.” Sophie
leaned one foot onto the stairs heading up to the sixth floor but waited until
Mrs. Bruno closed and locked her door. When the third dead bolt slid into place
with a snikt, she relaxed the false
cheer in her smile.
Exhaustion crept up her limbs as she continued her
climb to her floor. The image of Royce Hinkley’s face swam into her exhausted
vision. The cops said he wasn’t dead. They hadn’t found any evidence of his
death. She couldn’t have imagined the gunshot. Her passion was the past, not
cops and robbers or gun battles at the O.K. Corral.
Sophie slid her key into the locks and undid them
one at a time. Tears burned her eyes and a sob stuck in her throat. She hadn’t
liked Dr. Hinkley, but no one deserved to be shot.
Was he shot?
The last lock gave and Sophie leaned on the door
and opened it. Her bag weighed heavy on her shoulder, and all she could think
about was a shower or a bath and a good night’s sleep. Then back to the museum
to her archive and to making sense from chaos. Dr. Hinkley could come back from
his sabbatical, and it would turn out to just be too many episodes of her
favorite crime shows infecting her with their gestalt.
She pushed inside, purse sliding down her arm and
dropping on the floor. Hitting the lights with one hand, she shut the door with
the other and snapped the locks into place, one at a time. It took her a moment
to focus, to see the man sprawling on her sofa, his ankles crossed one over the
other.
Dark hair tumbled over a ruggedly good-looking
face of chiseled features under a growth of stubble. His eyes were soft amber,
like fine liquor, and his lips were full and even as they spread into a smile.
Sophie gaped.
“Bonjour,
chérie.” The lilting French rolling off his tongue sounded as sexy as it
was unexpected.
She opened her mouth and screamed, scrambling for
the door locks, but, just as she wrenched open the door, he leaned past her and
pushed it closed.
“I’m sorry, Professor Kingston, I didn’t mean to
startle you.” The heat of his body burned into her as he pressed her against
the door.
Sophie stared at him. The shooter from the
museum’s French washed over her. But this man was taller.
Much taller.
“What are you doing in my apartment?”
“I need your help.”
“Breaking into my apartment is a bizarre way to
ask for help.” How do I sound so very
calm? Her heart beat against her ribs like a hummingbird desperate for
escape.
“Oui.”
Tall, Dark, and French had the grace to look abashed. “My apologies. I waited
at the museum for a few hours, and then outside your apartment building. I
admit, I got a little tired. I came inside to see if you’d gone out of town,
but, fortunately, here you are.”
Sophie’s mouth fell open farther. Her heart
stuttered over his grin but quickened at the sense of outrage.
“Are you going to let me go?”
“Are you still going to scream?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Well, then, I shall hold you here until you have
considered the options. Oui?”
“My options?” Sophie’s eyebrows climbed. Was this
man for real? Outrage smothered fear. “My options? You broke into my apartment.
You’re holding me against my will. You just confessed to stalking me. And you
want me to consider my options? Are you out of your mind?”
The bastard grinned. Grinned! A broad, toothy,
flashing grin that sent shivers up her spine. Her stomach flipped over. He
brushed so close the scent of his aftershave tickled her nostrils. She fought
the urge to take a deeper inhale, to taste the flavor of the man on her tongue.
“I’ve been accused of worse, chérie. Fortunately for you, I am not insane. But I do need your
help, and I do need to talk to you without you screaming for help and putting
us through a long night of uncomfortable questions.”
“I suppose you have a counter offer?” Had she gone
completely insane? Imagining a coworker felled by a bullet? A day of bad coffee
and questioning at the police station? She was hungry. She was tired. Maybe
that explained why she would entertain this lunacy.
“Of course. Dinner. Some wine. A conversation.
After which, I go away and you get some sleep.” Her uninvited guest trailed a
finger down her cheek, sending shivers radiating across her flesh. “And forgive
me, chérie, but you look very tired.”
“I’ve had an abysmal day. I am not in the mood for
entertaining, much less having a meal with someone I don’t know who broke into
my apartment and is currently threatening me.”
“I am not.”
“Yes. You are.” Sophie punctuated the words with a
hard shove against his chest. To her surprise, he stepped back, nimble as a
cat, and held his hands out wide.
It was her chance. She could slip out the door and
make a run for it. If nothing else, she could yell her lungs out. She knew all
of her neighbors. Valorie across the hall with her five kids would call the
police in a heartbeat.
But Sophie didn’t yell.
She didn’t yank the door open.
She didn’t bolt.
“What’s your name?” Sophie asked instead.
“Then we chat? Perhaps over wine?”
“No, then I check your references and perhaps we
meet tomorrow for coffee.”
He laughed a long, inviting, and warm chuckle beckoning
her to abandon caution for the sheer exhilaration of leaping.
“I am not sure what references you intend to
check. Is there a database for cat burglars?”
“Is that what you are?”
“An outdated term to be certain, but I rather
doubt you will find me listed under some typical B&E reference of a library
database.” His too-sexy mouth twitched. He seemed to enjoy the banter.
Call me crazy, but so am I.
“Then maybe Interpol would be a better reference
point.”
“You wound me, little bird. Interpol is extremely
low brow for someone of my caliber.”
“And I only have your word for that,” Sophie
countered.
“True.” He stepped back, giving her more space,
and, still, Sophie didn’t make a run for it. Despite her better judgment, the
Frenchman intrigued the hell out of her tired mind, arousing her curiosity. He
aroused a lot more than her curiosity, but she ignored the traitorous thought.
Sophie studied the man standing in the middle of
her living room. Surrounded by the muted, antique colors of soft golds and
browns, he was a splash of color, vibrant, alive, and very raw. The twinkle in
his eyes teased her, dared her.
“Why are you here?”
“Existentially?”
“No. Physically. Here. My apartment. Why are you here?”
“Honestly?”
“Call me quirky, but I think that’s exactly what
this situation calls for.”
His laughter washed over her. The corners of
Sophie’s mouth tugged wider. She loved the sound of his laughter.
“My name is Pietr Sauvage. I am here because I
need your help.”
Love the cover!!
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