CHAPTER SEVEN #2
It was a miserable and rotten day because his best agent had screwed up and Maclean had stolen the damned page right out from under their noses.
He’d waltzed into Hemmer’s that morning, dismantled not just the alarms and locks but all of their surveillance equipment, apparently with the blink of an eye, and then Sam had lost him in the ridiculous car chase—which happened to be the first time she’d ever shown shitty judgment in the field.
Now, they didn’t know where the fuck the page was.
His agents had already checked out every possible art dealer and gallery from Montauk to Allentown. So it was time to widen the loop. The page had to be carefully maintained. It couldn’t be just anywhere—or could it?
And that was one of the problems. The experts at Sotheby’s claimed it had to be in a carefully controlled environment. Nick wasn’t so sure. After all, the page had survived over centuries—or it might have survived traveling through time at the speed of light. He just didn’t know.
And if it could survive the leap, then Maclean could have it stashed anywhere, in any time.
Nick decided it was time for him and Ian to have a little not-so-friendly chat.
His computer chimed three times.
Nick leaned forward. The alert indicated he’d received an e-mail from Big Mama. He couldn’t believe it, but she’d responded to his inquiry. The e-mail read: Coincidental between Aidan of Awe and Rupert Hemmer. A document was attached.
Nick couldn’t imagine what kind of involvement there could be between the Master and the modern billionaire. He opened the attachment.
It was a news article with a photograph, dated twenty-eight years ago.
Rupert Hemmer was on a podium, shaking hands with someone who seemed damned familiar somehow.
Nick was certain he knew him—even if they’d never met.
Both men were identified in the caption below.
The stranger was the international mogul, Robert Moran, who resided in New York.
Warning bells rang. He punched in a search for Moran on HCU’s database. The response was instantaneous.
Robert Moran was none other than the demon who had terrorized the world for centuries, the demon once believed to be immortal, the terrifying and legendary Moray.
SHE WAS IN BED with Ian Maclean.
Sam was so shocked that she did not move. This was impossible.
He caught her waist, held her still, and moved his mouth lower and lower, taking his time. Sam moaned, long and low, writhing sensually. He slid his knee between her thighs, pushed up hard, and paused, looking at her. And he smiled…
You bastard, she said, but she was smiling, too.
Sam hit the Pause button.
What the hell was this?
She breathed hard, gripping the edge of the desk, trembling. She was in bed with Maclean. She exhaled. No. It was a fake. It had to be. She’d never been in bed with Maclean—she’d never been in that bedroom.
But she couldn’t breathe properly. Her mouth was dry. She couldn’t stop seeing him there at the foot of the bed, pausing between her legs, so hard and aroused. She hadn’t missed that steel ring, either.
He’d never smile at her like that.
Sam looked at the screen, wetting her lips.
That was Maclean, there was no doubt about it.
She told herself not to hit the Play button. She reminded herself that it was a fake as she did so anyway.
Suddenly he moved over her, sliding slowly into her. His massive entry seemed to take forever. And the whole time he watched her and she stared back, breathlessly, until she exploded. As she wept he paused and murmured to her.
She meant to hit the Stop button, she really did. Instead, she tried to breathe, staring helplessly at his lean, hard body, every inch sculpted and chiseled, slick and wet. He was playing her, slow and teasing, and she was undone. He was giving—she was taking. He was in control—she was not.
Sam leapt to her feet, turning her back on the screen. The sound of her deep and throaty cries followed her. Suddenly she heard him gasp, the sound male and sexual.
She turned. She was on top of him now, smiling down at him triumphantly—but there was far more to her smile than that. She did not know what that smile meant. Worse, he gazed up at her, gasping in his pleasure, and their gazes stayed locked.
“Let go,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes, moaning…
Sam hit the Stop button, hard.
She still couldn’t breathe. Worse, she was on fire. Just then, if Maclean walked into her loft, she’d be all over him.
Sam walked over to the kitchen and splashed water on her face. She started to breathe more normally, and she started to think.
How could that be her—and him? They hadn’t slept together—not yet.
If they ever did, the sex would be hot and rough. They would not be two lovers who seemed to have feelings for one another!
Her mind truly came to life. Was the woman a double?
She didn’t think so. But with the right makeup, the right haircut, it wouldn’t be so hard to find a good double.
Especially as the camera wasn’t in close and never zoomed in, even though the shots had changed.
Sam decided that a handful of cameras were in that bedroom, and someone had edited the various tapes.
Her insides vanished all over again. This time, there was a sick dismay.
Damn it, that woman wasn’t a double. That was her face—her voice. And Maclean was obviously the real deal, too.
Her mouth became dry all over again, as she envisioned his gorgeous face and equally gorgeous body—and that gleaming steel ring.
She closed her eyes, shaken now. The hot, sexy images replayed in her mind, again and again. She had to think! Sam finally walked over to the kitchen counter to pour a double shot of vodka. “Good job, Rose,” she said grimly to herself. “He wins—twice over. Jerk!” She was referring to herself.
He’d turned her on when he was with another woman, which was inexplicable enough.
But he also turned her on when they were arguing, when he was smug, arrogant and annoying.
He’d turned her on during that suicidal car chase, and after she’d seen him crying on his knees.
The damned attraction had even been present when he was furious with her for her snooping on his PC and butting into his life.
And now, damn it, he turned her on in a sex tape.
“Stay clinical, damn it,” Sam told herself. The tape had to have come from the future, she thought grimly. And Hemmer had been the one to deliver it.
She went very still. That thought almost had the ability to douse the desire throbbing in her. She knew Hemmer had watched them and enjoyed it.
And now, she guessed what he intended. He wanted a partnership with her. Clearly, he meant to use her against Ian. He intended blackmail.
The urgency was under control now. War came first, always.
“Bring it on,” she snarled.
HIS LIFE WAS a war of survival. He had no family, no friends and no allies. Everyone was his enemy—and now his enemies knew his worst secrets.
There was outrage, but mostly, he was horrified.
Gerard met him as he entered the marble foyer of his Park Avenue home, closing the front door behind him. “Sir? Is there anything I can get you?”
Ian barely heard him, he was so sickened. They had a file on him. They knew about the years of captivity.
How much did they know?
Were the cops out there on Park Avenue laughing at him even now?
Was she laughing at him?
He was having difficulty breathing. Did they know what that boy had suffered, exactly? What was in that file?!
“Open the windows and turn on the air,” he said tersely, jerking at the soft cashmere of his sweater. He pulled the V-neck lower, as if it were constricting the passageways to his lungs. He was sweating, as if he’d run uptown.
Gerard hesitated. “Sir, it’s still almost ninety degrees outside.”
He couldn’t get enough air. He couldn’t quite breathe. He was panting like a frightened, trapped animal. “Turn the fans on high,” he snapped.
But Gerard knew. “Yes, sir, and I’ll open the windows, as well.”
Maclean rushed to the elevator, then knew he couldn’t go inside. Not just then, with the images rioting in his head.
You lived through sixty-six years of hell. And that makes death acceptable!
She had discovered the truth so quickly! He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall by the elevator, his knees weak, shaking like a leaf. Damn her for daring to understand him, for daring to unearth his secrets! What else did she know? Suddenly he recalled the maze.
He kept running and running, desperate to find freedom.
He was running into walls and dead ends, the maze endless, treacherous.
And when he turned at a dead end, a demon awaited him, a beautiful blond human-looking demon who was reaching out…
Or he’d turn the corner to find a monster with claws and fangs, drooling in anticipation…
Ian seized his head, moaning. The monk had devised the maze on their first New Year’s Eve together and it had become a tradition.
He’d been promised his freedom if he could find the one way out.
It had been the cruelest game of all, because he’d never found his way out.
Instead there had been demons and beasts, eager to get their hands on him.
The game would last days, even weeks. And when they were done with him, he was so ill that the monk would bring in a white Healer to heal him.
He hadn’t thought about the maze in a long time and he wished he hadn’t thought about it now.
It was one of his worst memories, the most frightening one.
It made him sick with fear, even now. But it felt as if he was back in it and this time, the prize wasn’t his freedom.
If he could navigate his way through the corners and halls, he would keep his secrets.
How could they have a file on him!
Had she seen it?