Author: Tiffany Reisz

“He does not hurt children,” Kingsley said in a voice as cold as winter, as sharp as a knife. “Eleanor Schreiber was never his victim. And for the record, she was never really a child. I’ve known her almost as long as he has.”

“So what? She was a flirt as a teenager? So she deserved to be seduced by an older man? By her priest?”

“Nora Sutherlin, Eleanor Schreiber, whatever you call her or however you know her…you must know one and only thing about her. She seduces. She does not get seduced.”

Suzanne took a deep breath and met his eyes in the dark.

“I don’t know why I need to know. But I have to. He…” She stopped speaking and searched for the words, any words, to explain what she felt, what she wanted. “I believed in him like I once believed in God. I don’t want to believe in either of them…unless I should.”

Kingsley exhaled heavily as he pulled a booted leg into his chest and draped his arm over it casually.

“To believe or not to believe…only you can answer that question for yourself,” he said as the Rolls pulled in front of an elegant black-and-white town house. “But I can help you on your quest. I can point you in the right direction at least. Come.”

The door opened and Kingsley left the car. She smoothed her blouse and skirt and followed him through a wrought-iron gate and up the stairs.

As they hit the third floor, the most stunningly beautiful woman Suzanne had ever seen in her life appeared with a cup of tea in her hand and a smile on her face. Almost as tall as Kingsley with ebony skin, charcoal eyes and a playful smile on her full lips, the woman seemed both graceful and severe to Suzanne.

“Aah…my Jules. I’ve missed you,” Kingsley said as he saluted the woman on each cheek with a kiss. “This is Suzanne Kanter, a reporter friend of mine.”

“Bonjour, mademoiselle. Tea?” the woman who Suzanne surmised must be Juliette, Kingsley’s private secretary, asked. Like Kingsley, she too spoke with a rich accent. But Juliette’s sounded different, more Caribbean. She must be from Haiti, Suzanne decided, recognizing the accent. A black Haitian woman working for a rich, white, French man.... Kingsley really was the most arrogant man alive.

“She can’t stay.” Kingsley took a sip of his own tea. “She’s merely here for a file.”

“Which one, monsieur?” Juliette asked. “I’ll fetch it.”

“The mistress…her medical file.”

Juliette’s dark eyes went wide for the barest hint of a second before she composed her face once more into the mask of the perfect submissive secretary.

“Oui, monsieur.”

While Juliette disappeared into a room, Suzanne looked around. So strange. Kingsley’s headquarters seemed as if they’d been transported from another place, another time. She saw huge black rotary phones on the large art deco desks. Wooden filing cabinets, Tiffany lamps…and no computers in sight.

“Such a Luddite,” Suzanne said, taking it all in.

“I’m simply old-fashioned,” Kingsley said with a wicked glint in his eyes.

Juliette returned with a thick black file folder fastened with a burgundy ribbon. Kingsley held it out and Suzanne reached for it, but he pulled it back to his chest.

“For you and you only, mademoiselle, I had a dear friend of mine send this to me. You will be allowed to keep this file for one day. It must be returned to me by this time tomorrow night. Nothing in this file can be recorded or photocopied in any way. No one but you may look at it. I will know if you have disobeyed any of these conditions. The consequences for disobedience will be severe. Do you understand me?”

Kingsley said the words with a conversational air but the threat in them was unmistakable.

“Yes, sir,” she said. “Je  comprends.”

Kingsley raised his eyebrow at her before passing her the file.

“Now I’ll have my driver take you home.”

Suzanne headed down the stairs and Kingsley followed. Not twenty minutes ago, he’d been buried inside her body. Now he barely spoke to her, although she saw him watching her out of the corner of her eyes. On the first-floor landing he stopped and gestured for her to go on without him.

“Good night,” she said, clutching the file to her chest. “I’ll drop this off tomorrow, I promise.”

“Bon.” He nodded.

Apparently good-night kisses wouldn’t be forthcoming. Suzanne nodded back and headed toward the front door where Kingsley’s chauffeur waited in silence.

The chauffeur opened the door.

“Mademoiselle?” Kingsley called out and Suzanne turned around and looked up at him. “One more piece of advice on your quest.”

“Yes, please? What?”

“Go see the sister. Talk to her.”

Suzanne blinked.

“Sister? Like a nun? Which nun?”

Kingsley laughed then—an amused, arrogant, infuriatingly French laugh.

“No, Suzanne. His sister.”

“That’s right,” she said, a memory clicking into place. “He has three sisters, doesn’t he? Which one?”

“The one you don’t want to see.”

“I don’t want to see any—”

“And one final thing,” Kingsley said, all mirth and seduction gone from his face and his tone. “About the file in your hands…”

“Yes?”

“It was mine.”

“What was—”

“Au revoir, Suzanne.”

Before Suzanne could ask another question, Kingsley turned on his heel and headed up the stairs.

Suzanne watched him until she could see him no longer.

Holding the file to her chest, Suzanne followed the driver back to the Rolls Royce.

“It’s all right,” Suzanne said, making a sudden decision. “I’ll walk home.”

The chauffeur only looked at her before curtsying and heading back into the house.

Once alone Suzanne headed down the street until she found what she needed—a bench under a streetlamp.

She opened Nora Sutherlin’s medical file, and began to read. An hour later she knew what Kingsley meant when he’d said, “It was mine.”

19

Wesley drove through the night until he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer and had to stop. Thanks to two years at Yorke, he had friends everywhere between Maryland and Maine. He crashed at his old roommate’s house and had a quick breakfast with him before heading on to Connecticut. By late afternoon he arrived in Westport. For nearly a day now, he’d been running on pure adrenaline, on the need to see Nora face-to-face. As he drove, two words echoed in his mind like the most melodic refrain.

Many waters…many waters…many waters…

Now back in the city he used to call home, he slowed down and had to ask himself exactly what he would do, what he would say when he saw her. His whole body tingled with nervousness as he turned into Nora’s quiet suburb with all the New York City commuters who tolerated their semifamous erotica-writing neighbor with wary amusement. By the time he pulled in front of their house—her house, Wesley corrected, not their house anymore—he could hardly breathe. He didn’t see her car anywhere and his heart plummeted. All he wanted was to look in her face again, into her eyes.

He walked up to the front door and knocked. When he heard no answer he knocked louder. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he felt his car keys scraping his knuckles.

His keys…

Wesley pulled his keys out and looked at them. Surely Nora would have changed the locks after he moved out. Wouldn’t she?

He found the key that he used to call his house key and slipped it into the front-door lock. Pausing, he took a quick breath and turned the key.

The door opened like nothing, as though those thirteen months of hell without Nora had been a dream he’d had when he’d fallen asleep at the school library studying, and now that he’d woken up, he could go home again.

Stepping into the living room, Wesley inhaled stale air. The house smelled abandoned, as if no one had been in it for months. He saw no piles of mail by the door. Were things that serious with her and Griffin Fiske that she’d have her mail forwarded? Griffin Fiske—New York City trust fund baby playboy with a whole lot of bad behavior in his past…and yet Wesley would almost rather find out Nora and Griffin were together than Nora and Søren. Griffin he didn’t like, didn’t know and certainly didn’t trust. But Søren…Søren he hated.

As Wesley wandered the house, memories came back to him. Memories he thought he’d buried…but they rose up with each step, all too easily resurrected. He’d loved studying on the couch in the living room. Nora had to walk through the living room to get to the kitchen, her favorite destination. And she’d always touch him as she walked by. Maybe just a tap on the forehead, a tweak of his nose, a squeeze of his knee or his favorite—a kiss on his cheek. The bookshelves needed a good dusting. Big and brown and carved with weird symbols, the bookshelves had been an estate-sale find of Nora’s.

“I think these bookcases belonged to druids,” Nora had said, running her small hands over the carvings.

“I think the druids existed prior to, you know, bookcases,” Wesley reminded her.

Nora pretended not to hear him, her usual MO when he attempted to bring reason and rationality into her flights of fancy.

“Virgins have probably been ritually sacrificed on these bookshelves.”

“Wouldn’t that be kind of awkward?”

“We’ll figure it out. Here, hop on the top shelf, Purity Ring. I’ll get the butter knife.”

God, what a weird woman he’d lived with. Weird and hilarious and beautiful and amazing… He missed her so much his stomach hurt to even think her name.

They’d been so good together in this house. So happy. Looking back he still couldn’t quite believe that Nora had asked him to move in with her. What was it about him? For days after she’d suggested he live with her and work as her intern, all he could do was stumble through his days asking himself, “But why me?” He’d been a nervous wreck when he’d moved in over that bitterly cold New Year’s Day of his freshman year at Yorke. The reality started to set in as he unpacked his clothes and rearranged the furniture in the room Nora had given him.

He’d wanted to put some posters on the wall but couldn’t bring himself to hammer any nails without asking Nora for permission. That night he’d wandered the house just as he wandered it now. Nora wasn’t in her bedroom, the living room, the kitchen. Finally he’d found her standing on the back porch in her heavy coat and boots. He put on his coat and joined her out in the cold.

For a moment he’d merely watched her in silence as she stood with her eyes closed and her face turned to the bright white moon. Inhaling slowly through her nose, she held her breath before releasing the air out of her mouth in a cloud of steam.

“Aren’t you freezing?” Wesley asked.

“Freezing my ass off. I’m coming in soon.” She opened her eyes and smiled at him.

“What are you doing out here?”

“I thought you might like to get settled in without me hovering over your shoulder.”

Wesley had to laugh at that.

“You remember I’m six feet tall, right? More like hovering at my knees, munchkin.”

Munchkin? He’d actually called the infamous Nora Sutherlin  munchkin?

“I could do that if you want.” She flashed him a wicked grin.

Wesley pursed his lips at her.

“You’re terrible. You know that, right?”

“Actually, I’m pretty damn good at it. Just ask Søren.” She gave him a meaningful wink.

“I wish you wouldn’t talk about him.”

Nora blinked at him. Even illuminated only by moonlight, he could read every little expression on her face. Such a beautiful face…he wished then he knew how to draw or paint or anything so he could do some justice to that face, those big green-black eyes of hers.