Teresa Medeiros (23 page)

But the betrayal that haunted his eyes told her that nothing had ever been right again after that moment.

She reached to touch him anyway, but her hand froze an inch from the page as she recognized the spattered stains on his shirt and hands. Blood. Dark, profuse, and damning.

Her hand trembled as she withdrew it.

Beware the warlock
.

As the stranger’s cryptic warning echoed over the strident wail of the orchestra, Arian crumpled the page in her fist.

Hadn’t she, too, been the victim of gossip and slander and false accusations? She would never convict Tristan without a trial. She would seek him out and ask him to explain what terrible crime that dazed, shackled boy could have committed.

She rose, stuffing the sheet of paper and all of its ugly insinuations into her purse.

*  *  *

Arian was forced to battle her way through the crowd. The steady flow of champagne had loosened both tongues and inhibitions. Someone had dimmed the chandeliers, enticing the dancers to bob and jerk to the throbbing beat of the orchestra. Shadows contorted their faces into writhing masks and a thin haze of cigarette smoke hung over the room, stinging Arian’s eyes.

She bounced up and down on tiptoe, then clambered up on an abandoned chair, but still could not distinguish Tristan, Sven, or Copperfield from the seething mob.

Her foot smashed a miniature pumpkin as she jumped down and began to elbow her way through the crush, repeatedly asking, “Excuse me, but has anyone seen Mr. Lennox?”

Her plea earned her nothing but disinterested shrugs and pitying smiles. She’d barely traveled three feet before a trio of squat men blocked her path.

“Trick or treat, honey!” bellowed a balding, rotund reporter with an equally fat cigar dangling from between his lips.

Tristan had called the man by name, Arian remembered through a haze of desperation. They had even shared a joke. Perhaps the man was a friend of Tristan’s.

She clutched the sleeve of his jacket. “I’m looking for Mr. Lennox. Have any of you gentlemen seen him?”

“What do you need a stiff like Lennox for when you’ve got me?” The man’s fetid breath made her nose wrinkle. She was doubly horrified when he wrapped an arm around her waist and dragged her into a sweaty bear hug. “How ’bout we go back to my apartment for an interview? You could give me a little exclusive … or something?”

If Arian could have reached her amulet at that moment, she would have given the wretch something he wouldn’t have soon forgotten. As it was, she could only stomp his toes with the heel of her slipper in helpless outrage.

He released her with a startled yelp. His companions howled with laughter.

As Arian turned to flee, the man covered his embarrassment with an ugly snort. “I wonder how the little witch got her start—performing tricks or turning them? She must be damn good. Even for Lennox, a million dollars is a lot to pay for a whore.”

Arian froze, her blood chilling to ice. The laughter and music faded to a dull roar in her ears.

Had Tristan’s attempt to protect her misfired so miserably? Was that what they were all thinking? That she was nothing but a conniving harlot who had seduced him into surrendering the prize?

Suddenly she wanted Tristan with an intensity that shook her. Not to confront, but to touch. She wanted his arms to shield her from the darkness as they had the night of the blackout. She wanted his kiss to wash the bitter taste of the reporter’s slurs from her mouth.

A crisp breeze cut through the haze of smoke, rattling the sheaths of leaves and cooling Arian’s burning cheeks. Her gaze shifted to the open balcony doors and all they promised. Fresh air. Escape. Freedom.

Painfully aware of the leering eyes gnawing at her spine, she straightened her shoulders and marched through the doors, the skirt of the Givenchy gown billowing behind her like a sail.

Later she would have good reason to be thankful she wasn’t touching the amulet, for at the precise moment she saw Tristan devouring the lips of the woman in his arms, she wished herself anywhere else in the world, even at the bottom of that murky pond in Gloucester.

Tristan Lennox was blushing. He might not have recognized the foreign sensation had it not crept over him with such excruciating slowness. As he met Arian’s accusing gaze, the guilty flush crawled up his throat, over his jawline, and into his cheeks, kindling a fire that refused to be quenched. Arian had no claim on him, yet he felt like a straying husband caught with his pants around his ankles.

Even more damning was his body’s perverse response to her unspoken condemnation. Cherie had been twined around him—soft, yielding, her open mouth requiring little persuasion—and his body had reacted with nothing more than mild interest. Yet there Arian stood, glaring daggers at him, her lips compressed to a line he doubted even his skilled tongue could penetrate, and he went as ramrod stiff as her spine. He thrust Cherie away from him, fearing the sudden violence of his erection would betray him.

The sparkle in Arian’s eyes seemed to have intensified.
“Pardonnez-moi, monsieur
. I did not mean to intrude.”

With a snap of her skirts, she stalked back into the ballroom, flinging a last reproachful glance over her shoulder.

Tristan had never found jealousy particularly arousing before. He had always made it his policy to discourage clinging women or avoid them completely. So why did the flash of temper in Arian’s eyes, so at odds with her prim demeanor, make him long to crush her in his arms, to kiss her until her every breath resounded with his name? He took two steps toward the door, then one back toward his date.

“Go after her,” Cherie said, making shooing motions with her elegant hands. He shot the model a rueful smile, keenly regretting that he hadn’t sent flowers after their last encounter.

When Tristan was gone, Cherie plucked her champagne glass from the ledge and lifted it in a wistful toast. “Good luck, little witch. Maybe you can turn that gorgeous ogre into a prince after all.”

Tristan darted after Arian only to find himself plunged into a nightmarish whirl of motion and noise, underscored by the bass throb of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” In his absence, the party had disintegrated into an orgy of revelry. The writhing shadows robbed him of the advantage of recognition, forcing him to shove and elbow his way through the mob, two steps behind Arian’s determined strides.

They were still separated by a wall of seething flesh when Eddie Hobbes shifted his cigar to the corner of his mouth and called out, “Change your mind, honey? Come on over to my place. I’ll show you a few tricks if you’ll treat me real nice.”

Tristan lunged forward, his hands curled into fists, just as Hobbes’s cigar exploded in his face. Arian never
broke her stride, never spared the man so much as a disdainful glance. The reporter blinked, his startled eyes pools of white in his round, blackened face. His companions thumped him on the back and howled with laughter. Tristan might have found the effect comical as well if icy beads of dread hadn’t just broken out on his brow. For a dangerous moment, he had allowed himself to forget that Arian was perfectly capable of defending herself.

“Arian!”

He shouted her name, but his hesitation had cost him precious seconds. She was already several feet ahead of him. He prayed some irresponsible janitor hadn’t left a mop out. He could only shudder to imagine her soaring between the chandeliers, cackling her wrath like the Wicked Witch of the West. He was less afraid of the havoc she was capable of wreaking than of exposing her extraordinary gift to the media.

“Hey, Miss Whitewood, how about one last head shot?” As if invoked by Tristan’s fears, a freckled photographer thrust his camera into Arian’s face.

Tristan winced as the camera sailed out of the young man’s hands, then went darting back at him, its shutter clicking with wild abandon. The photographer recoiled, blinded by his own flash. Howling with alarm, he stumbled over his own feet and went crashing into a table full of astonished guests.

From the corner of his eye, Tristan saw Sven snap to attention, alerted by the commotion. He gave his bodyguard a terse signal, one also witnessed by Copperfield, who began to work his way toward Arian from the opposite corner of the ballroom.

As Arian sailed past the frozen witch, a network of cracks shot through the ice sculpture, widening until the thing cracked open like an egg, eliciting new trills of alarm from the crowd. The champagne fountain was similarly afflicted by her approach. A golden geyser shot straight toward the ceiling, drenching the shrieking guests. Ducking beneath the effervescent spray, Tristan
made a mental note to rent the film version of Stephen King’s
Carrie
for Arian to watch if he made it out alive.

As she stormed through the nearest exit, Sven closed in on her from the left, Copperfield from the right. But Tristan was the only one near enough to sprint through the double doors before they could slam shut in Sven’s startled face.

Tristan skidded to a halt on the marble tiles, realizing that if he didn’t act quickly, Arian might soar right out of his life without so much as a backward glance. “Has anyone ever told you you’re cute when you’re mad?”

Arian shuddered to a halt before swinging around to face him across the chasm of the deserted foyer. “No,” she bit off.

He allowed a mocking smile to curve his lips. “Good, because they would have been lying through their teeth.”

Actually, Tristan was the one not being completely honest. With her eyes darkened to volatile lakes of brimstone and her delicate chin squared in defiance, Arian was not cute. She was breathtaking. But if he had any hope of shaming her into compliance, he couldn’t afford to let her know it.

He jerked a thumb toward the ballroom where the shrill screams and panicked cries were being underscored by the bass thump of fists hammering at the door. Sven’s, he suspected. “That was quite an impressive performance back there.”

Tristan noticed for the first time that Arian was methodically squeezing her necklace in her pale fist. “I’m delighted that you enjoyed it, sir, but it wasn’t intended for your benefit.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, wasn’t it? I was most definitely under the impression it was
my
head you wanted to dunk in the champagne fountain.” Tristan rested his hands on his hips. “Why don’t you stop punishing those innocent people, Arian? Why don’t you turn
me
into a warthog or fry me to a crisp with one of those lightning bolts of yours?”

As Tristan faced her, the taste of another woman still on his lips, Arian’s eyes narrowed to glittering slits, making him believe she just might give him cause to regret his careless challenge.

He pressed his tenuous advantage, crossing to her, slopping near enough to watch the pulse flutter in her throat, to smell the tantalizing fragrance of her hair. “Go on, Arian. Do it. After all …” He gazed down into her eyes. “I’m the one you want.”

Her hand slowly uncurled from the necklace. She lowered her lashes, but not before he caught a glimpse of raw longing followed by a flicker of despair that only succeeded in shaming him instead of her.

The ballroom door behind them shuddered beneath a massive blow. Sven would probably call for a battering ram if the door refused to give way beneath his shoulder.

His anger rekindled by the impossible situation, Tristan seized Arian’s wrist and dragged her toward the fire exit. “They all think I’m a sadistic bastard anyway. Let’s get the hell out of here before they decide this was anything more than just a nasty Halloween prank.”

As Tristan shoved Arian into the waiting limo, the Plaza’s lobby doors burst open, spilling out a torrent of dripping, irate partygoers. Arian caught a brief glimpse of Sven’s frantic face before Tristan slid into the plush seat opposite her and slammed the door.

“Drive,” he snapped.

“Where to, sir?” replied the startled driver, shoving a carton of Chinese take-out beneath the seat.

“Anywhere. Just drive until I tell you to stop.” Tristan leaned over to jab a button, insinuating a wall of opaque glass between the front and back seats.

They rode in frigid silence, Tristan gazing out the tinted windows as if the murky streets beyond represented
his only escape from her. Arian stole a glimpse at his averted profile, her misery increasing with each revolution of the limousine’s sleek wheels. Her temper had bested her once again, making her behave more like a harpy than a witch. She clutched the tiny gold purse in her lap, but both the million-dollar bank draft and the
Forbes
clipping seemed to have faded to insignificance the moment she’d seen Tristan kissing another woman.

I’m the one you want
.

Arian nibbled on her lower lip, haunted by the damning echo of truth in Tristan’s smoky taunt. The vehicle sped up, crossing a bridge to leave behind cramped city streets for rolling countryside.

When Tristan opened the refrigerator to pour himself a generous Scotch, Arian reached past him into the freezer, her fingers closing instinctively around a frosty tub of Häagen-Dazs.