Keeper of the Shadows. Alexandra Sokoloff

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      “Good thing you didn’t, then.” She twinkled at him. “It will be our little secret.”

      As she was turning away from him, she heard footsteps and an already achingly familiar voice speaking behind her. “Ah, there you are…darling.”

       Darling? And what’s with the British accent?

      As she turned, Mick Townsend was at her side, taking her hand, lifting it to kiss her fingers.

       Whoa!

      Even as desire rushed through her bloodstream at the feel of his lips on her skin, Barrie was reeling with confusion. What is this?

      Mick gave her a look that sizzled through her to her toes as he spoke. The British accent was perfect, one of her perpetual downfalls, as intoxicating as catnip to a kitten. “I’ve just been telling this gentleman about our dilemma, and he’s been kind enough to find us a suite for the night.”

      Barrie realized that the desk clerk was hovering behind him, and from the look he gave her it was clear the glamour she’d put on was still working.

      She tried to focus and sort out what was going on. Our dilemma? A suite? Even as she wanted to rip into Townsend for whatever game he was playing, her intuition was telling her to go along with him, at least until she knew what was going on.

      “It’s a bungalow, darling,” Mick said pointedly, and stroked her cheek, making her pulse skyrocket. “Pool-side.”

      Bungalow. Mayo died in one of the bungalows. Her eyes widened, and although she kept her thoughts to herself, she saw Mick give her the barest nod. Can he really have talked his way into Mayo’s suite?

      “That’s so very lovely of you,” she told the desk clerk, smiling as sweetly as she could. “We were—”

      “—not looking forward to spending our wedding night at the airport,” Mick finished for her smoothly, his fingers now tracing an erotic pattern on her forearms.

      Wedding night? Now, that’s just too much. She shot Mick a blistering look, and he smiled at her with mock adoration. “I explained all about the flight delay, our bags being held hostage. But none of that matters tonight. We have this beautiful place, we have each other… .”

      He bent suddenly and kissed her. A lingering, promising, maddening touch of that full, firm mouth. Barrie felt the ground cartwheel beneath her.

      Mick drew slowly back, his eyes on hers…then slid his fingers down her arm to take her hand and turned her so they both faced the desk clerk. “May we see it?”

      Mick steered her after the desk clerk, and Barrie followed along in shock, down an abbeylike hall toward a set of heavy wooden doors. “He’s really putting us in Mayo’s room?” she whispered to Mick. It was a crime scene, or at least under investigation. She couldn’t imagine how he’d managed it.

      “Not exactly,” he said, barely moving his lips.

      She opened her mouth again, and when he put a finger on her lips to silence her, she could feel the tingle start from somewhere in her core. He nodded toward the desk clerk, and she went along in silence.

      The clerk held the door open for them and they stepped outside into the junglelike plaza. The landscaping of the Chateau was lush and tropical—with tiny lights sprinkled in the trees for a fairy-tale glow—and designed for maximum privacy; as they followed the clerk, Barrie could barely see the outlines of the bungalows down the paths that curved off into the foliage. She was hyperconscious of Mick’s hand closed warmly around hers, his thumb stroking her fingers with a light, sensual touch…and hyperconscious that he was one of the most beautiful men she had ever seen. He carried himself like a rock star. She might have put on an artificial glamour, but there was a natural glamour about him that was almost hypnotic. She felt like the mistress of some exotic celebrity, suddenly transported into a Hollywood fantasy.

      Ahead, the shimmering water of the pool glowed blue and inviting in the center of the buildings. The lights, the softly rippling water, the light breeze on her skin, the heat coming off the gorgeous man beside her…Barrie was having all kinds of ideas she didn’t want at all. Mick glanced at the pool and then at her face, and she suddenly had the uncomfortable feeling he knew exactly what she was thinking.

      They had turned down one of the pale curving paths, and the desk clerk stopped in front of a bungalow that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. There was an arched door with windows on either side completing the curve, white roses and lilies in the planters beside it wafting an intoxicating scent. “Here we are,” the clerk said, and glanced at Barrie. Mick nudged her, and she gave the clerk a big smile.

      “Gorgeous,” she said. “We’re so very grateful.”

      The clerk opened the door, and she and Mick stepped into an elegantly retro cottage, low lights revealing clean lines and lots of windows with gauzy curtains, and everything impeccably decorated in old Hollywood style: Art Deco mirrors and tile, low curved couches, a small kitchen. Through a half-open door, Barrie caught a glimpse of a bedroom with a four-poster bed.

      To her mortification, Mick caught her look and held her eyes before he turned to the desk clerk.

      “It’s perfect, my man. We’re going to name our first child after you,” he declared, whipping out what Barrie was sure was a hundred-dollar bill, even as she was blushing as crimson as the desk clerk at the idea of a first child.

      “There are robes in the closet, and…well…” The clerk cast around for something safe to say. “Enjoy.”

      He backed out with one last furtive look at Barrie as he closed the door behind him.

      “Beautiful,” Mick said, looking straight at her with a heart-stopping intensity, and for a moment she wondered if he meant the success of their ruse—or her. She was suddenly regretting changing into jeans and a hoodie. And then she realized where her thoughts were going and ordered herself to focus.

      “Was this Mayo’s suite?” she demanded, moving farther inside, partly to get some distance from Mick, who was radiating way too much…everything. In every way.

      “No. Two bungalows down,” he said, and she was infuriated to see he was holding back a smile that seemed all-too-knowing in the circumstances. “I saw the crime scene tape,” he added.

      “What are you planning to do, break in?”

      He turned his hand over and displayed a key in his palm. “Grabbed it from behind the desk while he was ogling you.”

      Damn the man, he thought of everything.

      “You can drop the accent now, you know,” she told him. It was making her want to sink into that four-poster bed and do unspeakable things to him. Or let him do unspeakable things to her. Or…

      Stop that.

      She had to keep her head.

      “Oh, of course,” he said in his normal voice. “If you insist. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

      He stepped to the front door and opened it a wedge to look out onto the dimly lit walkway, then nodded to Barrie. She moved past him through СКАЧАТЬ