Love Beyond Loyalty (9 page)

"
Oui
, yes, I did."

Confident he wasn't going to be immediately dismissed from the room he stepped forward and sat down in the chair opposite the dean.

"It seems crazy, I know. But I am determined to find the location of this man."

Goodman leaned back in his chair. "I didn't lie to you, sir. I don't know where Leonardo is. He applied for emergency leave. The man had never so much as taken a sick day, so when he said he needed it, we granted it to him. That was the last I saw of him, and it was six months ago. I haven't gotten so much as an e-mail since." Goodman sighed and ran a hand over his face to finally scratch his chin. "But, then again, I told you that on the phone, yet you are still here."

"I am." He nodded. "Did you know Dr. Gregan at all? I mean personally."

"Leonardo Gregan is one of the most private people I've ever met. To be honest, I'm shocked that he even got his position here. I've never known anyone who could play the political games of academia less well than Gregan did."

Goodman laughed, a wheezy, sad sound. Christophe knew immediately that in addition to having thirty pounds on him that he shouldn't have he was also a smoker. He hoped the man sought out medical help soon. There was something about his energy that made Christophe uncomfortable. It was as if he knew the man would be travelling soon and not from one place on earth to another. No, he'd be leaving the earth all together if he didn't seek attention for his breathing problem.

Christophe opened his mouth to speak and closed it again. No one thanked you for saying odd things like that, even if you were correct. And, God forbid, you were right. Then they started seeking you out like you were some kind of prophet.

"All right, can you tell me anything?" Christophe tapped his hand on the desk. "I will not be leaving this country until I locate Leonardo Gregan." Which was, he had to admit, becoming more and more unlikely.

"Does he owe you money or something?"

"No, nothing like that. It is a personal matter."

Goodman raised his eyebrow. "Screw with your sister?"

"What does that phrase mean, 'screw with'?" He spoke almost perfect English. Every once in a while, however, he did run into something he didn't know. This was one of those times.

"Did he hurt your sister?"

"Ah… no. I have no sister."

Goodman smiled a mirthless grin. "You're going to be deliberately evasive about this."

"I realize it makes little sense." Christophe shifted in his seat. "I am here asking you for a favor, and yet I want to tell you nothing. I apologize for that, of course."

That didn't, however, mean that he was going to tell the man anything.

Goodman sighed. "Okay, all I know is that Leonardo grew up with several cousins, kind of like a big family compound somewhere north of here. He occasionally got phone calls from them and used to joke about weak New York City winters being nothing compared to anything that took place six hours north of here."

Well, that was really something. Now all Christophe had to do was get online and do a search to see all the places that were six hours north of New York City.

A knock sounded on the door, and a woman walked in before Goodman could give her permission.

Thin and waif like, she had short blonde hair cut close to her head with her bangs swooped to the left giving them the look of feathers. She had a long neck and high cheekbones. Dressed in a smart black pants suit, she had her collar turned up so that it lay against her neck. Her white blouse, displayed under the jacket of the suit, was low cut, treating Christophe to a view of some rather large cleavage for a woman her size.

Immediately, his balls got tight and his groin hard and uncomfortable.
Merde
, he couldn't remember that ever happening before. While others in his classes growing up had found themselves embarrassed, Christophe never had. Often, he wondered if his strange condition of appearing and then disappearing had somehow altered his libido. He let his gaze travel quickly down her long legs to her feet where he was treated to the spectacular view of her open toed shoes displaying toenails painted the color of strawberry ice cream.

He groaned aloud before covering it with a cough. The woman was so hot she practically sizzled.

"Ah, yes, Dr. Brannon, I imagine you're here to remind me not to be late to the faculty finance meeting." Goodman gave her a tight smile. "I was just finishing up with Dr. Roux. I will be on time."

She arched an eyebrow. "That's great. I wouldn't want a repeat of last time where I was left standing at the front of the room holding my chalk with no one there to speak to."

"Just a little good natured hazing. You know, we have to give it to the new 'guy' so to speak."

Tapping her openly displayed foot, the woman who had just become Christophe's ultimate sexual fantasy didn't smile. "Funny, I'm not a
guy,
and I didn't find it amusing. If I'd wanted such antics, I would have joined a sorority when I was an undergraduate. As it is, I'm a PhD, and I don't have time for nonsense from my colleagues. I was assigned this role as Faculty Liaison to the board; I did not ask for it, but I will do it well nonetheless."

"Of course, you will." Goodman looked at him and raised his eyebrows as if he suddenly remembered Christophe was there. "Excuse my rudeness. Dr. Brannon this is Dr. Christophe Roux, head of the department of Natural Sciences at the Paris-Sorbonne University. Dr. Roux this is Dr. Ruby Brannon. She took over for Leonardo when he abruptly left. She was brought in from a rival school in California." Goodman looked back to Ruby Brannon. "Dr. Roux is here looking for Leonardo."

Christophe stood and shook her hand. As he stood, using the American system of measurement, at almost six-foot two-inches he towered over her. At best guess, she was maybe five-feet tall. Tiny, but gorgeous.

He smiled, holding her hand longer than he should, unable to stop himself from stroking her knuckle with the pads of his fingers. "I am a lover of rubies, Dr. Brannon. That is my field. While it is true I head up the Natural Sciences, as you call it 'Department', gemology is my specialty."

She pulled her hand out of his, but not before he noticed the redness that appeared on her cheeks. Despite her outside veneer of cool, calm, and collected, she was clearly not unaffected by him.

"If you find Leonardo, Dr. Roux, do tell him that I couldn't make heads nor tales of his notes, and that I'm doing my own syllabus because of it. If he doesn't like it, he can reappear and take back his job."

Nodding to both men, she turned on her heel and stalked from the room.

Interesting. Very interesting
.

"Dr. Roux, if I can persuade you to give up your Leonardo-hunt, I have to tell you that due to a recent, shall we say, uncomfortable situation between a married faculty member and a freshman undergraduate, we find ourselves in need of a professor." Goodman laughed. "I don't suppose you'd be interested in teaching Earth Science 101 to students studying Arts and Humanities. I could introduce you to the Dean of the Science Department."

Christophe looked back at Goodman. "Can he see me right now?"

* * * *

Leonardo sat in the hallway, tapping his foot. He could feel Jason fast approaching. Even if he couldn't sense his energy, the man whistled when he was happy. It seemed to him that since Jason and Charma had found each other and were blissfully content Leonardo was going to be forced to listen to the noise all the time. No one but Leonardo seemed to obsess about the upcoming war.

Jason turned the corner, and Leonardo spoke.

"Will she live?"

Jason scowled at him. "Damn it, Leonardo, don't do that. At least make your presence known before you speak."

"I'm sitting in the hall. I didn't jump out at you. I don't see why I have to make a racket. Maybe if you paid attention to where you were going, you wouldn't get caught unawares."

His fellow Outsider had the gall to smile. "Sorry, you're right, I was just thinking about Gabe and Loraine."

"Really?" That was unusual. "I would have guessed you thought about Charma all the time."

"Nope." Jason shook his head. "Just ninety-eight percent of the time. The other two percent I can still think about other things."

"Okay. So tell me about her. Will she be okay?"

Jason nodded as he stepped forward to look over the edge of the balcony to the floor below. "She's been through an ordeal, and they're still pretty raw with each other. I would guess, though, that in a not too short period of time you will have another soul mated pair on your hands."

Leonardo supposed it was good news. That's what they needed. Only he'd felt in his dreams that his soul mate had given in to evil. Was maybe even in cahoots with the demon.

How on earth could he help to fulfill the prophecy when he knew he'd never get to live up to his own part of it? At the end of the day, there would only be eight joined pairs.

His other half was lost to him—to them—to everyone.

Chapter Seven

Gabriel could drown in the softness of her lips. Or, better yet, he could float away to heaven and never return. She tasted like cherries and apples. Maybe she used some kind of balm but she'd been unconscious for nearly a day so he doubted she'd have any of that left on her lips.

Anyway, he didn't care. All that mattered was that his redheaded goddess of a soul mate made the sweetest sound in her throat and kissed him back like she was as lost in him as he was in her. As she opened her mouth just a tad, he slipped his tongue inside and met hers.

Grabbing onto the front of her shirt, he pulled her closer. He was painfully hard, had been since he'd sat down next to her on the bed. The more he kissed her the more he wanted. Knowing it was important that he not screw things up by moving too quickly, he pulled away, feeling like he was wrenching away part of his soul by doing so.

When he could breathe, he stroked her forehead running his fingers through her soft red hair.

"Any thoughts? Want to answer my question? Who is my soul mate?"

Her cheeks turned pink. He tried not to grin. Clearly, he would always know when she was embarrassed.

Finally, she spoke. "I guess—I hope—that it's me."

He raised an eyebrow. Her uncertainty wasn't flying very well with him. "You think, and you hope? You don't know?"

She picked up a pillow from behind her and covered her face with it. It was endearing but he wasn't going to let her not answer him. He pulled the pillow out of her hands before he spoke.

"Well?"

She bit her lip before answering. "I'm your soul mate."

He moved closer, knowing he invaded her personal space but unable to stop himself. Until she was certain of their status, everything inside of him screamed to get closer to her. Hell, he didn't know why he should be surprised that she was uncertain about him. Other than taking care of Alexa, he'd been alone his whole life. Even she had rejected him and chosen Sebastian—a demon. It would be too much to assume his soul mate would want him unconditionally.

"Why do you say that like you're not sure? Didn't you feel what I felt when we first met? Was I alone in my attraction to you when we were in the car? Did you not feel that way toward me?"

"Look." She looked down as she spoke.

Desperate for her to make eye contact with him, to show him those lavender depths that were so uniquely hers, he hated her not staring at him.

"I was—
am
—attracted to you. However, up until five minutes ago I thought you were with Alexa. I'd all but talked myself out of feeling that way toward you. You're going to have to give me a few minutes to catch up."

He stood and moved off the bed. He stalked quickly to the window where he deliberately turned his back to her. Maybe it was childish, very likely it was, but what she'd just said had him wanting to throw something. He'd always had a fast temper, not a violent one, but it was easy to get his back up.

Realistically, it had probably kept Alexa and him alive while on the streets of New Orleans. Now, however, he didn't want to lose it in front of his soul mate, a woman who had already managed to 'talk herself' out of being his to begin with.

He heard her soft footsteps come up to him. She placed a hand on his arm. Her fingers felt cool on his heated skin. Still, he couldn't look at her. Not while he was so unreasonably angry. Not while they were still brand new and it was unclear if they'd ever, actually,
be
anything.

"Did I say something wrong?"

Maybe it was the quiver in her voice or the sincere way she asked. Or maybe it was the gentle touch of her hand. Most likely it was all of those things and others he couldn't even identify but he was able to take a deep breath.

He kept his gaze focused out the window. "I guess I don't like the idea that you could talk yourself out of wanting me. Seems kind of unfair. Wish I had known you were going to do that. I could have tried to do the same thing instead of, you know, chasing after you down the street and following you to Maine. If I'd known it was the kind of thing I could just decide not to do."

He heard her sigh, but he didn't turn around. "We don't know each other yet so I'm going to be honest with you and tell you that I'm not sure what it is that I said that made you so upset. Maybe if you explain it to me instead of pouting by the window, I can do something to soothe your upset feelings."

That got his full attention. "Do something to
soothe
my upset feelings?"

"You're clearly upset."

He shook his head. "I'm not
upset
. I'm pissed off."

"No, I think you
think
you're pissed off, which, by the way, is a really
charming
phrase. What you really are is hurt by something I inadvertently said. Why don't you tell me what it was that bothered you?"