The Devil's Touch (15 page)

He knew sleep would not come then so Lucien showered, standing under a blast of scalding water until his skin stung and the fatigue had been pounded from his bones. He toweled dry and fetched his robe from the end of the bed, belting it tight around his waist.

Unbidden, an image of his father flashed into Lucien’s mind and he began to pace across the room, remembering the Old Man – the way he had lived his life, and the way he had died.

Alone.

Suddenly Lucien realized how alone he was.

Alone and lonely.

The realization disturbed him for he had always believed himself to be a loner. In fact he had gone to great lengths to avoid friendships and intimacy. Now the thought that he was becoming like his father left him troubled and unsettled.

* * *

Angelica sat upright with a low moan and grabbed painfully at her hip. It was morning. Weak, watery light filtered through the curtained window by the fire escape, and the sound of traffic rising up from the street was a dull persistent rumble.

She stood up from the sofa stiffly and arched her back. She felt bones move low down in her hip and then a sound like knuckles cracking. She sighed small relief and then began to re-acquaint herself with her new surroundings.

To call Lea Foglesong’s apartment ‘shabby chic’ would be generous. The building was old and Lea’s fourth-floor one-bedroom home reminded Angelica of the glorious vintage houses she had once dreamed of owning; it oozed character, but needed repairs.

The pale striped wallpaper had lifted in the corners and it was only where old paintings had been removed from the walls that the original colors still showed. Angelica shook her head in dismay. Lea had bought the apartment at a bargain price, her keen interior designer’s eye recognizing the potential. But Angelica didn’t envy her friend the long hours of renovation that lay ahead.

She took a moment to fold the rug she had slept under – and then without warning – a sudden wave of despair overwhelmed her. She began to sob, her shoulders began to shake. And then she was crying uncontrollably, tears streaming down her cheeks and dripping from her chin.

Lucien’s face came to her and her memory was vivid in every detail. She felt herself teetering on her feet and tears blurred her eyes. She dropped back down on to the sofa, put her head in her hands, and let the misery and grief and the hurt overwhelm her.

Lea heard Angelica sobbing. She came from her bedroom wearing paint-spattered jeans and a t-shirt. There was an empty mug in one of her hands.

“You’re up!” Lea said brightly, making it clear that she was determined to ignore Angelica’s despair. “Sleep well? I’ve been working since eight. Already stripped the wallpaper off two walls.” Lea poured herself coffee and then stared fixedly across the room at Angelica’s bowed head.

After a minute she lost patience.

“Enough!” Lea snapped. She sat on the edge of the sofa and put her hand gently on Angelica’s shoulder. “Honey, you’re starting to piss me off.”

It was said so sweetly and with such tenderness that for a moment Angelica was unsure if she had heard correctly. She choked back fresh tears and turned her face towards Lea in dismay. She sniffed loudly and smudged away tears with the palm of her hand.

“You’re feeling sorry for yourself. That’s totally understandable. But the truth is that you’ve got no one to blame but yourself,” Lea said.

Angelica shook her head in disbelief. “You don’t know what happened. You don’t know what he did.”

“Then tell me.”

Angelica tilted her head back and blinked rapidly to dry her tears. Lea saw a crumpled tissue on the floor and she handed it to Angelica, but instead of dabbing at her welling eyes, she began to tear the tissue anxiously into a hundred pieces as she launched her bitter attack on Lucien.

“That woman Duncan has been having an affair with is someone Lucien Lance planted inside the bank to seduce him – just so Lucien could get information about a company he wanted to buy.”

Lea pouted thoughtfully. “So she drugged Duncan and then photographed them in bed together so he could be blackmailed?” her tone was ironic.

Angelica frowned. The question was nonsensical. “No, of course not,” she sniffed. “She seduced him.”

“But he could have said ‘no’,” Lea pointed out sweetly. “Dear old Duncan could have taken this woman aside and declared his undying love for you. He didn’t have to be seduced. You can’t blame Lucien Lance for your boyfriend cheating on you. What sort of boyfriend is he if he isn’t devoted enough to resist temptation?”

Angelica went suddenly still. She had stopped crying, although her breath still came in spasmodic shudders.

“But he lied to me.”

“How?”

“He should have told me, Lea! He should have been honest.”

Lea nodded. “But when you turned up on my doorstep last night you said Lucien had called this woman when he realized Duncan was your boyfriend, and he ordered her to end the relationship with Duncan so you could make a choice. I’m not sure that makes him honest, but it makes him fair.”

Angelica had sprinkled her lap in a confetti of tissue paper. Now she could feel tears welling again, choking lumpen in her throat. “You think
I’m
in the wrong for leaving?”

Lea nodded again. “Yes,” she said. “I think you behaved like a spoiled child. You knew what kind of man Lucien Lance was,” she ticked off the points on her fingers, “you deliberately went out to sleep with the most dangerous man you could find. You got exactly what you wanted – but because the woman your ex-boyfriend slept with happens to work for Lucien Lance, you’re crying foul, as though you have been lied to and betrayed.”

“I have!”

“Yes, you have. But not by Lucien Lance. It’s Duncan who betrayed you, and it’s Duncan who lied to you for a month. Lucien just used you for sex – just as you used him,” she reminded Angelica. “And from what you told me in the restaurant about the Devil’s Touch, you’ve even been getting the better share of that arrangement!”

Angelica pushed herself to her feet and a snowstorm of tissue shreds fell around her legs. She hugged her arms about her shoulders and paced across to the window. She was angry. She had expected Lea to offer her a sympathetic shoulder to cry on, not that she would defend Lucien Lance.

Angelica stared down at the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the street below the building and then said softly, “He scares me, Lea. Lucien scares me. Yesterday he destroyed a man; took his company from him and left the man broken. Then he celebrated. He’s absolutely ruthless.”

Lea Foglesong shrugged. She went back to the kitchen and sipped her coffee. “Then you have three choices,” she said logically. “You either separate the man from the businessman, or you get the businessman to change the way he does business – or you spend the next six months sleeping on my sofa and helping me to renovate the apartment.”

“He’ll never change.”

“Then I’ll get a paintbrush for you. You can start in the bathroom.”

Angelica would have laughed – but there was a sudden loud knock at the door. She looked to Lea in alarm. “Are you expecting anyone?”

Lea shook her head.

“If it’s Duncan again, send him away. I can’t deal with any more of his pleading right now.”

Lea nodded again, but stopped before she unlocked the door. “But if you want your old life back…?”

Angelica’s mouth became a pale determined line. “I don’t.”

Lea opened the door and took a small step backwards. Lucien Lance stood in the hallway.

She had seen photos of him occasionally in a newspaper, but those grainy images were no match for the impressive aura of the man. He was tall – and from within him seemed to radiate a force of masculine sexuality that Lea had never known before. He was wearing an immaculate steel-blue suit and grey tie. He stood, his shoulders hunched, hands deep inside his pockets, and when he looked into her eyes, Lea felt a flutter of breathtaking reaction that snatched the air from her lungs and robbed her of her senses.

She stood, holding the door open for long moments, before she managed to speak again.

“Hi.”

“Hello,” Lucien was accustomed to the effect he had on women. “My name is Lucien Lance. I’m looking for Angelica.”

Angelica saw him and she stood completely still, startled and uncertain, as she stared at his silhouette in the doorway. Lea stepped aside, and Lucien entered the apartment, seeming to fill the room with his brooding presence.

“What do you want?” Angelica’s voice was small and faltering. Lucien saw the redness of her eyes and knew she had ben crying.

“You,” he said.

“How did you find me?”

Lucien shrugged enigmatically. “I can find anyone.”

Angelica paused. It was a reminder of who this man was – how powerful he was.

“Are you here to apologize?” Her expression was confused, but there was a hardness to her voice. She turned to stare at him, lifting her chin in a small gesture of challenge.

“No.”

Angelica’s chin dropped. The expression on her face flickered and then her eyes filled with turmoil.

“I’ve come to tell you I am flying to L.A. in an hour. I won’t be back until next month. I want you to come with me.”

“To live with you?”

“Yes.”

“In L.A.?”

Lucien nodded. “And New York – and in London. You’ll come with me wherever my business takes me and you will live with me as my submissive.”

Some of the stiffness went from Angelica’s shoulders. But she took a half-step away from him before stopping again.

“I think I deserve an apology. You lied to me.”

“I never lied to you, Angelica.” He stepped close to her and she trembled nervously. She looked up into his dark eyes and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. “And I won’t apologize. I came here to get you. You’re mine. I want you in my bed, and in my life. It’s where you belong.”

It took every ounce of Angelica’s will power to look away – to look to Lea. Lucien’s gaze was so compelling and possessing she felt herself wanting to lean closer to him.

Lea was still standing in the doorway. Angelica looked at her and her expression was a desperate plea for help and guidance.

Lea smiled. “One of us is going to L.A.,” she said. “If it’s not you, I’m going to beg him to take me. So say ‘yes’ and get out of here.”

* * *

John Darrow sat at his desk. The collar button of his shirt was undone and his tie hung low like a noose around his neck. His shirt was rumpled for he had not changed clothes. He stared at the crystal decanter in front of him and then splashed more liquor into the small tumbler at his elbow. He swallowed it all in a single stinging gulp, feeling the burn of it at the back of his throat.

He had been drinking through the night – ever since he had seen a copy of the email sent from Marvin Skinner and Associates to the Darrow Air head office.

The email from Lucien Lance.

John Darrow had retreated to this room filled with an impotent rage and sick despair.

Now the room was heavy with alcohol fumes and the smell of cigar smoke. A blue haze hung in the air, but Darrow did not notice.

He had drawn the curtains tight against the daylight and he sat quietly, his eyes lingering on the accumulated bric-a-brac scattered across the polished timber surface before him.

Here was gathered the most sentimental reminders of the life he had lived. There was a miniature model of an aircraft on the edge of the desk and he reached for it, his eyes misting with a rush of memories. He lifted the model from its black display stand and turned it over carefully in his hands. In small blue lettering along the fuselage was the Darrow diamond emblem, and the legend, ‘Darrow Air’.

There were other things on the desk that brought back different memories; the tobacco pipe he had been given for a birthday but never used, the ornate pocket watch still in its display case – and then there was the photo. His eyes were drawn back to it again and again.

It was a simple amateur image of himself and his wife standing either side of his son, taken years before when the boy had graduated. They were standing at the top of a staircase, Darrow with his arm around the boy’s shoulder, his smile beaming with pride, while his wife dabbed at a mother’s tears opposite him.

Darrow leaned forward in his chair and reached for the frame, then stopped himself.

Soon, he knew… but not yet.

He pushed himself away from the desk, feeling the heaviness in his bones; a lethargy that was almost paralyzing. He drifted around the room, lingering to run the tip of his finger along the spines of books in his bookcase, and pausing to read a page here and there.

There were paintings on the walls. His favorite was a large canvas that depicted a cowboy leaning out of his saddle to chase down a steer. The artist had captured the moment when the rider was just about to throw the lasso, and Darrow marveled for the last time at the intricate detail in the painting. Then he walked listlessly back to his desk and picked up the photograph.

He ran his fingers across the glass, caressing the outline of his wife and child’s images with the gentle touch of his thumb until the tears finally came, and he knew he could not delay a moment longer. He turned the frame over, removed the photograph.

There was a black marker pen on his desk. He flipped the image and scrawled half a dozen words on the glossy white backing paper.

It was done.

He stood upright and now, suddenly, his body began to fill with new energy and purpose. Carrying the photo in his hand he hurried to the garage. It was fear that drove him; a dreadful clawing fear that all he had worked to build could be lost forever if he didn’t take the last desperate option left to him.

* * *

“I missed you,” Lucien said. “I woke up in the middle of the night and you weren’t in my bed. I didn’t like it.”

Angelica leaned back into the leatherwork of the limousine’s seat and turned her face to his in slow surprise. It had been the Lucien Lance equivalent of a soul-touching confession of undying love.

“I missed you too,” Angelica admitted softly. “Sorry about your face.”