Authors: Lisa Marie Rice
Tags: #Contemporary, #General, #Romance, #Adult, #Erotica, #Fiction
Reckless Night
Reckless Night
A Dangerous Passion Novella
Lisa Marie Rice
Excerpt from DANGEROUS PASSION
Excerpt from DANGEROUS SECRETS
RECKLESS NIGHT
Malua, Sivuatu
Oceania
December 23
M
anuel Rabat opened his present with a heavy heart, knowing it would be absolutely perfect because his absolutely perfect wife, Victoria, was a world-class artist.
Even the fucking wrapping paper was perfect.
Handmade wrapping paper. Florentine-style marbleized paper in brilliant swirls of turquoise and emerald green.
A work of art in itself, something his brilliant wife probably shot off casually on some morning in which she had a little spare time.
But the gift, ah. The gift was not something shot off casually. It was the work of many painstaking hours of labor that his wife had put in because… she loved him.
It still astonished him.
He looked down at the small square canvas.
A portrait of his hand. His right hand on a table, a small vase of flowers in the background. He stared. It was utterly perfect. He had big, strong hands and she captured that strength, the raised veins, the scars, even the yellow calluses on the side of his hand from a lifetime of karate.
His hand wasn’t beautiful, but it was large and powerful and she caught that perfectly, and set it against the delicate crystal vase of flowers in the background, the flowers at the edge of maturity, just ready to drop their petals. The contrast between the powerful male hand and the delicate bouquet was stunning.
The canvas looked ancient, like some Renaissance painting by one of the old masters that had time-travelled to their home, the dark background and earth tones of his hand offsetting the pale pastels of the flowers.
He pointed to the vase of stunning flowers. “What are those, my love?” His wife smiled. “Peonies.”
They looked like roses, only fuller, even more beautiful.
And the perfect finishing touch, giving it a patina of ancient mystery—gilt flourishes around the edges, making a golden frame within the carved wooden frame.
And… if you looked closely, the perfectly symmetrical pattern revealed itself to be tiny interlinked “d’s”. Her secret signal to him, the only time she allowed herself to even think his name.
Because his name wasn’t Manuel Rabat, not at all.
In a previous life, what felt like a century ago, his name had been Viktor “Drake” Drakovich. A name that had been feared and envied in many places and hated everywhere.
A name that even now would bring hit men out of the woodwork if there was even a hint that he was alive.
Criminals from all over the world would come crawling out from under rocks to travel to Oceania to have the privilege of killing him.
Drake had died back in New York in a conflagration, leaving his billion-dollar arms empire behind. He had no idea if someone had stepped into his shoes, and he didn’t give a fuck. That was another life.
He had enough money for ten lifetimes and above all, he had Grace, who was now Victoria.
Grace—Victoria—never ever made a mistake, not even in private. She did everything she could to keep them safe.
It was only in her many stunning handmade gifts to him that she allowed herself their secret code. A tiny “d” somewhere in the gift. Sometimes it took him an hour to discover it.
“This is beautiful, darling,” he said, cursing his inability to express fully what he felt. She’d created a masterpiece, something that, if it didn’t go onto the wall in his study, would be in a museum.
Beautiful was a stupid word, an inadequate word, a nothing word.
But it made her glow. She smiled and kissed his temple. “You like it? Once—” That was her code word for the short time they’d lived together in his penthouse atop the Manhattan skyscraper that had gone down in flames.
Once. “Once I saw your hand on your desk and there was a vase of flowers. Lilies of the valley because it was winter.”
It had been snowing the day they made their escape.
Sleet and snow falling heavily from the sky, together with shards of rotor blade from the rooftop helicopter his enemy had shot down. “I was so struck by the juxtaposition of your hand and the delicacy of the flowers, I knew I would paint it one day.” She kissed him again. “So happy birthday, darling.” Happy birthday.
Drake had no idea whether December 23rd was his birthday or not. It had been on the passport of one of his identities while operating in West Africa as a Belgian, Hugo Van Hoof, and he’d simply retained it.
Who knew what day he’d been born? Or even what year? His earliest memories were of being a street rat on the streets of Odessa. He had no idea who his parents had been.
“My birthday,” he said sourly. “And now Christmas is coming up.” She laughed because she knew perfectly well why the idea of Christmas coming up made him so exasperated.
Because she’d give him a perfect Christmas present, something so unusual he wouldn’t even think of needing it until she gave it to him and he’d give her—what?
It’s not as if he didn’t have the money to buy her things. He could probably buy her a whole country if she wanted one, albeit a small one. Maybe Andorra?
Liechtenstein?
He could buy her furs, diamonds, Valentino dresses.
By the ton. Chanel handbags and Gucci shoes, by the truckload. Cashmere scarves, gold-plated golf clubs, a collection of gold Rolexes. A diamond as big as the fucking Ritz.
She didn’t want them.
As a matter of fact, in an attempt to keep them low profile, she specifically kept their spending down.
His spending down because she spent almost nothing.
Every single one of the many presents she’d made him had cost very little except time and work; they had been infused with her talent and love for him and were absolutely priceless.
The thing was, Drake was very smart. He knew how to handle money, he knew how to handle weapons, he had run a fucking empire single-handedly. He could defeat more or less any man on earth in close quarter combat.
But he didn’t have a creative bone in his body, not one. When he tried to think of making her a present instead of going out and buying the most expensive thing he could, he drew a complete blank.
He loved her as he had never loved another human being; she was his life, his heart, but he couldn’t think of anything to get her that was an expression of his creativity, which was nonexistent, and not his bank account, which was considerable.
She wasn’t in any way interested in his bank account, which still astonished him.
“Come.” Grace—in his head he would always think of her as Grace—pulled at his hand. “Come look at the table I set for your first- ever birthday party.” First-ever birthday party.
It was true. The thought of organizing a birthday party had never even crossed his mind. And if it had, he’d never had friends before to celebrate with. Only employees and enemies.
Grace had changed that, too. She’d invited his airline’s chief pilot and his girlfriend his driver—who was also her bodyguard though he’d never tell her that,—the mayor of Malua, their new home, and his wife. Plus the president of their bank who already thought Drake walked on water after he deposited one one-thousandth of his assets into the bank. She’d also invited the manager of the art gallery she’d set up in town and his partner.
Acquaintances. Maybe—who knew? Maybe someday friends. A s a matter of fact, without realizing it, they were becoming friends. This had never happened to him before.
The notion felt odd to him, like a new taste. He didn’t even know if he liked the idea of having friends. He only knew he didn’t not like it.
And the thought seemed to please Grace, so that was that.
He’d rarely if ever allowed men into his home, and only after passing three layers of security. He couldn’t do that to people Grace had invited to celebrate his birthday, though he’d tried to suggest… but then Grace put her foot down.
Their guests were coming in through the front door without being patted down or passing through a metal detector. So dictated Grace Law, which was the law of his land.
Still… trust but verify as they said. The door frame of the entrance was a hidden metal detector that gave off a vibration to his cell phone instead of an auditory signal.
He had security guards stationed discreetly, two of whom would be serving drinks on the patio.
Other guards were posted in hidden stations in their extensive garden and on the floor below.
And anyway, Drake had a sixth and even a seventh sense for who might be carrying in his presence. Guns and weapons had been his entire life up until very recently. He’d be willing to bet his life—and more importantly Grace’s life—that he could spot a hidden weapon.
“Close your eyes.” Grace smiled at his expression, reached out with index finger and thumb and closed his reached out with index finger and thumb and closed his eyelids. “Come on. I have something to show you.”
“Another gift?” he asked in dismay. God. Already the painting was perfect. He couldn’t stand another perfect gift.
“Not really a gift.” Drake couldn’t see her, but he knew his wife so very well and he knew exactly what her expression was. Loving, smiling, just a little bit exasperated at her husband who was so competent in so many ways and yet a failure at so many things ordinary people instinctively knew how to do. “Give me your hand.”
He held his hand out and she took it gently, then tugged.
“Come with me. No peeking.”
He resisted for just a second. Giving up control to another human being went against every instinct he had.
A ll of his life had been spent under the constant threat of violence. He was alive today because he had taken an inborn paranoia and turned it into a science. Otherwise that first assassination attempt in Kiev fifteen years ago would have got him, not to mention the twenty others over the years.
He was alive because he trusted no one.
He trusted Grace. With his life. It still gave him cognitive dissonance.
She loved him and she’d saved his life back in New York. The fact that she loved him was proved to him a thousand times a day.
The imperative— trust no one!—vied briefly and violently with the other imperative— trust Grace!—and trusting Grace won, as it always did. But it took a second to overcome long-ingrained instincts.
He was certain that Grace was standing there, patiently waiting while he violently and silently fought with himself, a scenario she’d seen dozens of times over.
To anyone who hadn’t lived as Drake did, alone in the midst of the most violent criminals on earth, he must seem crazy. But Grace understood him, understood him down to his bones.
And loved him, notwithstanding the darkness and danger she knew lurked right underneath his surface.
It never failed to baffle him and thrill him.