“Mine,” he whispered. You are mine. The need to possess her, to know her every thought, to fulfill her every desire was overwhelming. Wes didn’t believe in love, let alone love at first sight, but he believed in obsession at first sight. And he was obsessed with Callie.
He took a few more steps to the side of the bed. A small pattern of goose bumps on the flesh of her arms and a little shiver caused him to frown. The open windows let in a chilly breeze and she’d probably been too tired to notice. Wes retrieved a thin afghan blanket from the closet and gently draped it over her. She didn’t stir even when he caressed her cheek with his knuckles. He was satisfied she would be all right to rest a few more hours, before he woke her. The trick with international travel was to sleep only a short time to recover from jetlag.
He paused in the doorway, gazing at her. “Le monde vous attend, mon petit chef-d’oeuvre.” The world awaits you my little masterpiece.
While she slept, he would see to a few things in his office. Wes went back downstairs to his study and took a seat behind his desk. The old gallows writing table was fashioned from myrtle burr veneers with herringbone and a black leather inlay top, turned legs, and brass drawer pulls and castors. It was a solid antique he had found hidden away in the dusty storage room of an old antique shop in Montmartre, the artist district. The seller hadn’t known the desk’s value but Wes had. It had required a fair amount of restoration work, but now it was a fine desk. He smoothed his fingertips over the polished wood. How many great men had lived their lives at this desk?
As his laptop buzzed to life, Wes leaned back in the leather desk chair and checked his phone. A few texts from Royce, most of it unimportant, except for the last text.
Royce: Mortons have FBI video footage back. Sent it to your secure e-mail.
Finally. He had been waiting for the FBI to return the footage on the robbery of the Goya and now he had a chance to see it for himself. Royce would have informed him of any arrests or progress in the case if the FBI or the Mortons were aware of anything.
Keying in his password, he accessed the secured private e-mail he used and found Royce’s e-mail with a zip file. As it downloaded, Wes waited, oddly a little nervous. Stealing a painting was dangerous and hard. Whoever had achieved this was not a low-level smash-and-grab-type thief. The man was methodical and precise. His only mistake was the slight damage to the original frame. A detail overlooked because it was so small and the thief’s focus had no doubt been primarily on the Goya.
The video opened and began to play. The white-and-black screen contained a shot of the hallway of the main collection. Many of the guests weren’t in that portion of the gallery. It was a secluded area. Suddenly a woman appeared on the screen, leading a man by the hand. The man laughed, stumbled, and caught the woman about the waist. He pressed her against the wall, far too close to the Goya as he kissed her. The Goya’s small frame was to the far right, just at the edge of the camera’s view. The Mortons had a lapse in complete viewing of their gallery on camera. That was a risk that would have to be rectified immediately.
The man in the video moved his face away as he bent to put his mouth on the woman’s neck. Her face turned toward the camera, the light illuminating her clearly.
Corrine Vanderholt.
What a naughty girl. He almost smiled, distracted by her ruthless seduction of some poor partygoer. The man had no idea what a viper Corrine was. Forcing his attention away from Corrine’s indiscretions he looked back to the right, searching for the edge of the Goya.
His heart beat hard and he blinked rapidly. A flash of movement. Like the picture frame tilted slightly.
The Goya was gone. In that brief moment, the switch had been cunningly and quickly made. Wes rewound the frames and slowed down the speed. To the left, Corrine was throwing her head back as the man thrust a hand up her dress and kissed the top of her breasts. It was distracting. Damn distracting, but not in a good way. He used a notepad from his desk and covered the left side of the screen, and then he studied the edge of the Goya’s frame. It moved, slower this time as the frames relayed the picture on the screen. The thief removed the piece and put the forgery in its place. The Mortons security system didn’t have wall sensors, only cameras. The Goya was small. It could be removed and rolled and put in a small bag. Plenty of women had brought handbags to the party.
“Fuck,” Wes muttered. The Mortons didn’t have any other camera angles. There was no way to tell who had pinched the painting. He spent the next hour watching the guests leave through the front door, eyes trained on the ladies’ bags. None of them were big enough to carry the Goya.
Another dead end.
He e-mailed Royce, telling him to get the security at the Morton house reassessed and pointed out several other key weaknesses. Royce could cover and walk the Mortons through the needed changes.
The rest of his inbox was full of e-mails from clients and industry contacts. An avid art buyer and close friend, Dimitri Razin, was going to be at the Louvre tonight and wanted to meet Wes for dinner before they took a look at the piece Dimitri was considering purchasing. For security reasons, it was being analyzed and stored at the museum rather than at an auction house. Razin always used Wes to consult on pieces and examine their provenances. Wes replied to the e-mail, letting Razin know he’d meet him at Fouquet’s on the Champs-Élysées at seven thirty and then they could go to the Louvre.
A smile curved his lips. It would be fun to take Callie to the Louvre at night. The lighting of the glass pyramid after sunset was stunning. And she could get a good taste of the Louvre in a very private, exclusive way.
After a quick glance at his watch, he realized it was nearly lunch time. Callie should be getting up soon. If she slept too long her internal body clock would never adjust. He shut his computer down and went back to the kitchen, to brew some coffee, a Parisian blend Françoise knew he favored. When he heard soft footfalls on the stairs he grinned.
* * *
Coffee.
Callie could smell it. Warm, dark, sinfully good. Like the taste of Wes, exotic, wild, and a promise of dark eroticism. The scent of the delicious brew pulled her out of a heavy sleep. Bleary-eyed she peered down at the light blanket covering her. She didn’t remember that on her bed when she’d decided to take a quick nap. Had Wes found her napping and put it over her? The thought of someone caring for her made her entire body warm up and it felt fuzzy in a strange and pleasing sort of way. She lifted her left wrist and checked the time.
Noon.
She’d slept for two hours. Callie tossed the blanket aside and got out of the bed. She moved to the bathroom and then through Wes’s room. When she reached the top of the stairs, the coffee scent hit her with full force. She followed the tantalizing aroma into the kitchen. Wes was resting against the granite-topped island, a mug in his hand. When she drew closer, he held out the mug for her.
“Here, this will wake you up.” He pressed the cup into her hands and then reached behind his back and retrieved a white plate with what looked like soft baguettes flicked with dark spots.
“What is that?” She took the plate and eyed it curiously.
He chuckled. “I promise you’ll like it. I ran to a patisserie while you slept. It’s brioche au chocolat. Basically it’s sweetbread with chocolate baked into it.”
Callie’s mouth watered at the description and she set her coffee down on the counter. She took a nibble of the bread, and its sweetness hit her with an explosion of taste. The dark chocolate added to the flavor but tamed the sugary bread to perfection.