Carnal in Cannes (18 page)

“Delora dispatched a PI to Haiti this morning.”

“Fuck. Martine"s papers were perfect. Even Delora"s lawyers couldn"t fault them. How the hell did she cotton on to this so fast when I"ve only just figured it out myself?” Harry"s jaw clenched as he sifted through the last twenty-four hours, hunting for strange coincidences and found two. “Austen said he thought I"d been set up. It has to be the matchmaker. Ten selected candidates, nine nonvirgins.”

“The matchmaker?” Suresh asked. “I don"t get it. You think she set you up?

Why?”

“I don"t have time to go there. I need eyes on the ground in Haiti. Today.”

Harry lifted his face to the sun centered halfway to a high-noon position in a cloudless sky.

“I have a friend in Miami who runs an international security company. I"ll text him right now and cc your info.”

“Thanks. I have a couple of special-ops contacts in Florida. I"ll call in some favors.” Harry studied the dappled surface of the canal, tracing a line of seaweed as the brown fronds dunked a merry hide-and-seek with the wake of a putt-putting dingy. “Geoff dealt with the matchmaker. I"ll have him check into her. But it"s too pat. I"m missing something.”

“What about Martine? What"re you going to do?” Suresh asked.

“I"m meeting with Casmir after this. Martine worked in a bistro in the Quartiers Nord. I"m putting him on her case. I want to know how she got here, and I want every move she"s made since she got here.”

“Good call. He has sources everywhere.” Suresh pushed a morsel of tomato around his plate with his fork. “What made you come to the conclusion that she"s from Haiti? It could be Algiers.”

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“She mentioned the Gulf of Gonâve once. And she spoke about a Mother Superior. And you just confirmed it with the news about Delora.”

“You can"t just ask her outright about how she got here?” Suresh added a cube of sugar to his café latte.

“She"s been flogged. With a whip. Recently. Within the last three months. A whipping that could"ve taken down a man my size. She"s not inclined to talk about anything.” Harry drummed his fingers on the table. “She"ll skip if I push her too far.”

He"d never seen Suresh Singh flummoxed before. The novelty once would"ve made him howl with laugher. The young technology mogul snapped the stem of the crystal water goblet he held.

“Fuck,” Suresh growled, his dusky complexion taking on a waxy shade. “Who?

Why?”

“Won"t talk about it. I tried to question her this morning, but she clammed up.”

A ship"s horn rang out, and Harry glanced in the direction of the blare. “It could have happened in Marseille. She could have done it for money. Hell, she married me for a million euros. Where else would an illegal woman from Haiti get the money for the designer duds she wears?”

“There"s another scenario,” Suresh mused. “Delora could have hired Martine and the matchmaker.”

“That doesn"t add up. Delora would never hire a woman of mixed descent. Her brothers dragged a black man through the back roads of Texas for five miles. His name was Silas, and he was a hand on our ranch. He made the mistake of looking too long and hard at Delora. Believe me, she instigated the whole incident.”

“More and more I understand why your stepmother"s earned your total contempt.” Suresh rolled a shoulder. “I"ll play devil"s advocate here. It isn"t stretching the imagination to consider that Delora could"ve hired Martine.”

“No.” Harry gritted his teeth so hard he expected enamel to chip at any second.

“I"m going with my gut on this one. Martine"s not Delora"s pawn. You saw her at the medical exam.”

“I did, and I must admit if she faked those reactions, she should be awarded an Oscar.” Suresh set down the fork he"d been threading through a few squished olives.

“You do realize her being here illegally negates the marriage?”

“Duh-uh. I"m a fricking Rhodes scholar, and I was special ops. Give me some credit.” Harry dragged his hands through his hair. “I have this waiting-for-an-ambush hunch that Martine being illegal is the tip of the iceberg.”

Suresh shoved his chair back and took a sip of his café latte before he replied,

“My guy in Miami will come up with something.” His iPhone dinged, and he studied the screen. “Speak of the devil. That"s him now. He"s waiting for your call.”

Harry spent the next ten minutes in conversation with Suresh"s security tycoon.

“Well?” Suresh asked when Harry ended the call.

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“He"s sending a two man team by private jet to Port-au-Prince in an hour.”

“Perfect.”

“I gotta get going.” Harry glanced at his phone"s display. “Martine and I are meeting with a real-estate agent later. I"m buying her a place.”

“You"re taking this arranged marriage more seriously than I expected,” Suresh said. “Why?”

“Beats me,” Harry quipped but then added, “I found food in the sideboard drawer after she left his morning. Rolls from the dinner we"d had here last night.

Guillaume did a tasting menu for us. She cleaned every plate. And I mean cleaned, even ate the garnishes.”

And nearly had me coming at the table the orgasmic way she ate.

“Your wife sounds as if she"s known hunger intimately.” Suresh glanced at a twenty-foot schooner with furled faded blue sails trawling the middle of the bay.

“I"ve seen this before.”

For the first time since Harry"d known Suresh, the other man"s gaze didn"t have the ever-present humorous twinkle he"d come to expect. Instead Suresh"s black eyes held nothing but sorrowful pity.

“I"d give you any odds that the bread disappeared into her purse during the meal. Kids who grow up not knowing when or where their next meal is coming from hoard obsessively.” Suresh leaned back in his chair and linked his hands above his leather-belted waist. “Even here in Europe I see the same habits with the kids in the foundation.”

Harry shook his head. “She didn"t have a purse—shit. She was cold, so I gave her my jacket. And the bread was replenished once.” He slapped a palm to his forehead. “Damn it.”

“What?”

“A whole lotta dice just rolled craps. Martine got real nervous about her suitcase. I figured it was because she didn"t want me to know how little she had.”

Harry couldn"t prevent a rueful grin. “She"s got this amazing pride. And her courage?” He shook his head again. “Rivals any special-ops team member I"ve worked with.”

“I was there for the medical exams, remember?” Suresh twisted his lips. “I think you"ll find that she"s the type of woman who, once she gives her loyalty, never wavers.”

“The notion she"s snitching food just in case. It drives me nuts.” Harry waved at the basket of garlic toasts on the table. “I don"t want my wife feeling that she has to steal so she won"t starve.”

“That"s not why she does it now,” Suresh explained. “Street kids learn survival instincts, and ingrained habits are hard to eradicate.”

“How do you help your foundation kids understand they don"t have to worry about finding food?”

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“It"s a combination of things.” Suresh took the napkin from his lap and placed it near his plate. “She needs to feel secure not just physically but emotionally too.

First comes the physical. Make sure there"s always food around for the taking.

Fruit, bread, cheese. With our kids, we assign them chores for which they receive an allowance. Each kid has a piggy bank built into their bedside table, and they"re the only ones with the key. We have no rules about what they can do with the money.”

“And?”

“I haven"t met a single kid who blows the money. They scrimp and save, and when they finally begin to believe they don"t have to worry about the future, they"ll splurge on something small, usually food or clothing. Occasionally their own soccer ball.”

Harry knuckled the bridge of his nose. “Does it ever leave them? The insecurity about food and money?”

“Eventually.” Suresh tapped a finger on the metal table. “You can terminate the relationship and find someone else. It"s calling it close—”

“No. I"m in this for the duration.” The words popped out of his mouth without prompting as a vision of Martine saying “
it is overwhelming this f—, um making-love business
” swamped his mind. The puzzled surprise in her wide eyes had winded him like a sacked quarterback, his hands fisted.

“Are you certain?” Suresh"s thumb traced the circumference of his chin dimple.

“You do have options. And now that you"re going to attack the will from a different angle…”

“Stow it, Suresh. Like I said, I"m in this for the duration. Let"s move on.” Harry flexed his fingers. He took a deep inhale and wrestled his temper under control.

“What do I need to do?”

Suresh studied him for long seconds before shooting him a wry smile. “Never thought I"d ever see you smitten.”

“Trust me, the mood I"m in—you don"t want to go there. I"m looking to go a few rounds with someone, and you don"t want to be the de facto choice.”

“Okay, okay, I get the message,” Suresh said, holding up both hands in surrender.

“Back to Martine,” Harry insisted. “What do I do?”

“You have to start making her feel secure. I"d suggest setting up a generous allowance in such a way that
she’s
in control. You have to convince her that the money is hers, that you won"t have anything to do with how she spends it. Give her all the necessities—food, clothing, travel. We give all of our kids a monthly bus and train pass—limited, you understand, not enough for the bullet train to Paris but enough to get around locally.”

“You don"t worry about them not coming back?” The notion of Martine leaving him had Harry as jittery as oil in a hot frying pan. Whatever. He"d just find her and bring her back. She belonged with him.

Fuck. Where did that come from?

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“Sure we do. But the kids have to learn to trust. And you know that saying—„If you love someone, set them free." It works the same way with trust.”

“This conversation"s given me food for thought, pun intended,” Harry quipped as he scrubbed a hand over two days" worth of stubble and slumped into the back of the chair.
Damn it, I should have shaved before I touched her last night.

“She also needs to feel useful, Harry. Is there some way she can help on the
Glory
? Maybe be your hostess or something?”

Harry remembered the expression of longing Martine hadn"t been able to mask when he"d offered her a house and mentioned the country. “No, she"s not the social-butterfly type.” The exact opposite of Delora. How could he have fallen so hard for two such different women?

Fuck. Fallen
? He went from slouching to standing at attention in one second.

Suresh, facing the other direction and occupied trying to capture a waiter"s eye, didn"t notice Harry"s reaction, thank the bejesus. A portly waiter with a long white linen cloth draped over one shoulder glanced their way. Suresh tapped his water goblet.

The man dipped his chin, his bald head glistening with beaded sweat, in silent acknowledgment of Suresh"s request. Satisfied, Suresh swiveled back to Harry, who"d resumed his previous pose.

“Time for me to head out.” Harry threw his napkin on the table.

“There"s one more thing that puzzles me. Martine"s a beautiful, sexy woman.”

Suresh shoved one hand through his hair. “Why wasn"t she raped?”

“Been worrying about that myself,” Harry replied. “I"ve been over everything a million times, taking apart all her reactions. She knew the basic facts of life, but no one had ever touched her before, sexually, anyway. I think it may have been a woman who beat her. Maybe one of the nuns at the convent.”

“With all the news from Rome lately”—Suresh gave a par-for-the-course shoulder lift—“I can see why all roads point to the convent.”

“Don"t matter to me. Male or female. He or she can"t do much beating if they can"t breathe.” Harry stood.

Suresh remained sitting. “I"ll take care of the check.”

“Not necessary. I have a standing account here. Later.”

During the brisk walk to the yacht, Harry debated different tactics for interrogating Martine—seduction, threatening her with the information about Delora"s PI, or the possibility of their marriage being illegal.

Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Can’t take the chance she’ll run.

Not a crewmember occupied the main deck of the
Glory
. All Harry"s senses backfired. Fifteen minutes later, his head throbbing and pounding like a damned herd of stampeding buffalo, Harry gripped the
Glory’s
aft railings, imagining Austen"s neck under his tightening fingers. Not a single human being was on board the boat, and he couldn"t raise a soul on the phone.

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I should’ve asked Austen for Yvonne’s number. It’s too early for them to be
shopping. None of the stores will open for another hour.

And he"d agreed to meet Casmir at one p.m. Harry checked the hour on his cell"s screen. He had enough time to buy Martine a cell phone. After purchasing an exact duplicate of his iPhone, he walked to his and Casmir"s prearranged meeting place, uncharacteristically clumsy as he texted every crew member, and then, in a fit of piqued temper, he phoned the crew and left voice mails that would leave them wondering about their job security.

He"d chosen Café Diwano, a bar on the fringe of Marseille"s immigrant slums, for the meeting with the Gypsy, Casmir. Walking into the bar proved akin to going from a blazing noonday sun to a midnight devoid of moon and stars. The sooty smoke haze competed with the sparse wall lamps and won. The customers seated at tables appeared as if viewed through a curtained fog.