TEN DAYS Read online

  "Why?"

  "Jealousy."

  "So why aren't they now?"

  "Because they only see a beautiful young woman dancing with a notorious womanizer. Nothing strange there."

  This time a chill replaced the warmth.

  "Your picture will be everywhere tomorrow—maybe tonight. With every headline you can imagine."

  Because I had no idea what else to do or say, I shrugged.

  He nudged me closer, held me tighter. "The thought doesn't intimidate you?"

  Don't forget who I was—who he was. Already I knew that was the most important rule of all.

  "I wouldn't be here if it did," I said as something inside me shifted. I'd done interviews before. I'd done investigations. I'd dug deep. But never with a man like Aidan, someone I once watched from a distance, who went out of his way to make sure no one ever got any closer.

  "My turn."

  The slow quiet of his voice had me tilting my fact to his. "What?"

  "You asked me about my book. Now it's my turn to ask you."

  I kept moving. I kept dancing. I kept letting him lead. Because I knew I had to. I had to, even as everything inside me tensed.

  "That's not usually the way an interview works," I said.

  "I'm not a fan of the usual anything."

  "I'll keep that in mind," I assured while more rules whispered through me.

  Don't forget what we both wanted.

  ...how different the two were.

  And would always be.

  "Tell me what you know," he said, guiding me closer to the edge.

  Slow. His steps were so slow, the way his body led mine. Steady. Methodic. "That's not a question."

  His smile was automatic. "It's how you asked about Crimson."

  So it was.

  "Know about what?" I asked.

  "Me."

  We were at the edge now, as far from the onlooking mob as possible. On some level I was aware how odd that was, that no one joined us. Later, I would realize it wasn't odd at all. But scripted. Demanded.

  His grip on my hand tightened, ever so slightly. "How much research have you done?"

  She was still there, the woman in the stunning gold sheath dress and the deep purple mask. Still watching. "Who is that?" I asked.

  "Who?"

  "Her," I said, gesturing—

  But she was gone.

  "Good try," Aidan said. "But that's not an answer."

  No, it wasn't. "I know enough," I told him, "to know you haven't granted an interview in five years." Not to the newspaper. Not on television. Not even to promote his new books.

  "Do you know why?" he asked.

  "I can guess."

  "That's not what journalists are supposed to do. You need facts."

  Already they were beginning to form, in ways and intensity I'd never imagined. "Then tell me."

  "There," he said. "You did it again."

  I narrowed my eyes. "Do you always do that?" I asked. "Talk in circles?"

  Through the slits of the mask, his eyes gleamed. "Have you read any of my books?"

  The urge to laugh was strong. Instead, I kept all emotion from my face. "Not recently." But once, many years before, I'd stayed awake deep into the darkest hours of the night, consuming every single word, until there were no more left. But even then, after turning the last page, I kept my light on. And my eyes open.

  "You know that I don't do book tours," he commented.

  "Or, I thought, book signings," I countered.

  "Things change."

  "Why?"

  "They have to."

  "You don't like people," I blurted. He'd said it earlier. He didn't like living like an animal on display in a cage, no matter how beautiful the illusion was.

  He moved fast, straightening his arm to spin me out, before twirling me back close. "There you go, guessing again."

  "One man's guess," I countered, "is another's deductive reasoning."

  The soft glow of lights again yielded to shadows. "You know that my wife died."

  "Yes." The wind was still blowing. I knew that. And music still played, from the band inside and the city below, but more of a whisper now.

  We weren't moving anymore. We were standing there, alone among hundreds, in the only corner untouched by light.

  "You know there are those who think I was involved."

  "Yes." The police detective so eager to talk with me insisted Aidan had done far more than simply find his wife in the bathtub.

  That he'd been there when she took her last breath.

  That he was the one who slipped her face beneath the water.

  And held her there.

  He was still holding me, one hand curled around mine, the other against my lower back. "And that eighteen months later, my lover vanished."

  Completely matter-of-fact. No emotion. No change in his body language. I noted all that, noted and knew I couldn't let mine change either. "Yes." Detective Marc Edwards had his theories about that, too.

  "And yet you're here anyway."

  "Yes," I said again. My uncle insisted the accusations were false. That Aidan was innocent.

  That there was nothing to worry about.

  "Because you want to save me," he said.

  I stilled. My body. My breath.

  But he didn't. He didn't still. And he didn't stop. He pulled me closer, his thumb feathering along the back of my hand. "Because you think you can." He kept moving, releasing me then, releasing me as he stepped back. "Because you think I'm still Nicky."

  Before I could say anything else he was gone, returning to his adoring mob inside and leaving me standing there, alone in his shadows.

  Save him.

  Except even then, after only a few hours, I was beginning to suspect the only person who could save Aidan Cross...was Aidan Cross.

  If he wanted to.

  The stories begin

  Through the soft glow of light inside, I looked for him. I wanted to see what he was doing, who he was with. If he was talking, or listening. If he was smiling, or frowning. If he was alone, or surrounded. Or maybe one-on-one with someone—the woman with the purple mask.

  I did my best to be discrete. I lost myself among the party goers. I didn't want him to see me, watching him. But everywhere I turned, I found only strangers. Laughing. Drinking. Dancing.

  The signing table sat deserted, only one short pile of books remaining. A line still snaked from the far side of the room around the back and out into the lobby, mostly female. An agitated woman with short black hair and stylish black rim glasses stood tapping her finger against her leg, obviously waiting for Aidan to return. I could only guess she was from the publishing house.

  But no Aidan.

  The soulful singer kept singing. Waiters kept carrying trays of hors d'oeuvres and champagne. Everything continued, a party without the main attraction. Even my uncle was nowhere to be found.

  "You are far too beautiful to be all by yourself."

  I knew it wasn't Aidan even before I turned. The voice was too smooth, more like velvet than sandpaper. And the words, the laughable pick-up line. Aidan Cross was many things, but a spewer of purple prose wasn't one of them.

  The man stood there, like some kind of modern Nordic pinup, tall and blond, his hair long and sleek and secured elegantly behind his neck, his cheekbones wide and high, eyes narrow and deep-set, green maybe, but the dim lighting stole that kind of detail. But not his smile. His smile was wide and playful, as much from his eyes as the curve of his closed mouth.

  I'd been prepared to cut him a sharp look and walk away, but my own smile just kind of happened, an unwanted but automatic response to his.

  "Oh?" I asked. "And what makes you think I'm alone?"

  He motioned for one of the servers, a young man with a well-groomed goatee and a tray of champagne flutes, and snagged two. "Because I've been watching you."

  An immediate, almost automatic rush shot through me. Normally, I was more aware. Normally, I noticed, could feel w
hen I was being watched.

  I didn't like being caught off-guard, even though there was absolutely nothing normal about the past few hours.

  "Then you'll realize I was looking for someone," I said, taking the glass he offered. Smoothly, I took a longer sip than was customary.

  "Yes," he said. "Him."

  Maybe it was the way he said it, that one word: him. Or maybe it was the subtle shift in his expression, the way his face closed, darkened, but in that moment, that one word—him—stabbed through me, stabbed hard and deep, and I knew, I knew that yes, he really had been watching, and he really did know.

  "I saw you with him on the patio, dancing."

  My fingers tightened against the fragile crystal stem. "Yes."

  "You made it impossible to look away."

  I had no idea what to say to that, so I said nothing. Sometimes that was the better response.

  "But he's gone now and you're all alone," the man said, "and I'm here instead."

  I laughed. "Now that we've got that settled—"

  "Sloan," he said, extending his right hand toward me. "Sloan Rivard."

  Instinctively I returned the gesture, watching in fascination as he took my hand in his and drew the backs of my fingers to his mouth for a feathery kiss.

  "This is when you tell me your name, too," he drawled, his accent thicker than before.

  Again, I laughed without thinking. "Kendall. Kendall Lawrence."

  He lowered my hand from his face, but did not release his hold. "Why have I never seen you before?"

  I had a quick decision to make, and made it. Keeping my eyes on his, I fought the urge to glance around and see if Aidan had returned.

  "Maybe you just didn't notice," I said, not wanting to tell him too much about who I was and what I was doing. A name. That's all I had on him. Beyond that, I knew nothing. Except that he was a sweet-talker.

  "I would have noticed," he said, continuing to watch me in that one-man, one-woman way of his. "This is a definite first."

  The awareness hit me hard, like a fist to my gut. Breathe, I told myself. Breathe. But for a moment, everything was locked, locked tight—

  "Kendall?"

  From the open doors, a warm breeze whispered against me, forcing me to realize I still wore his tuxedo jacket. Aidan's. Twisting, I glanced toward the balcony—

  Nothing. No reporters. Not the the purple-masked woman. Not even strangers dancing in the night.

  "If you were here with me," Sloan said slowly, "I would never leave you alone this long."

  At the signing table, the line finally moved. Glancing forward, I saw him, saw Aidan seated with a book open in front of him. "I'm not with him."

  "But you were."

  "Not like that."

  Sloan laughed. "You forget, I saw you dancing."

  I returned my full attention to him. "What does it matter?"

  "It matters," he said, his voice quieter now, far more serious. "It matters a lot."

  "Then tell me."

  "Aidan Cross has a thing for beautiful women, and they for him. It's the mystery about him, the wounded hero."

  The music still played. I knew that it did. But standing there, it was like everything else stopped.

  "They want to fix him," I offered, dangling the bait.

  "They do," Sloan agreed. "But they don't."

  A quick wash of cold slipped through me.

  "They can't," he went on. "Because he won't let them."

  I held myself very, very still. This was important. "I'm not here to fix him."

  Not really, anyway. Not him.

  Only his reputation.

  "One thing you need to know," Sloan rolled on, "and it's important. Aidan Cross...he's a storyteller."

  My mouth curved. "I think that's pretty clear."

  "No. This...all that you see tonight," Sloan said with a wave of his hand, "it's about being an author. About books. What I'm talking about is stories. His stories, the ones he tells—creates. Lives. He knows how to use words. And he knows how to make people believe."

  Sloan Rivard was not on my list. But clearly he needed to be. "Believe what?"

  "Anything he wants you to."

  The words slipped through me, chilling everywhere they touched.

  "Once you're in his world, you're in his story—that's his gift."

  It didn't sound like a compliment. "Is that admiration I hear in your voice?" I asked anyway. "—or contempt?"

  "He's a very talented man."

  "Whom you don't like."

  His eyes glimmered. "I don't like to see people get hurt."

  He thought I was with Aidan. He thought we were together. That the dance on the patio...meant something.

  I thought about telling him he was so far off-base it was funny. Maybe I should have. Maybe I should have told him who I was and why I was in New Orleans. Maybe that would have been the right thing to do. Maybe that would have made a difference. Even now, I'm not sure. Even now, some outcomes seem inevitable.

  But right or wrong didn't matter, only the curiosity whispering through me.

  "Is that why you're here?" I asked. "At his party? To sound the alarm if you see someone getting too close?"

  "That's not why I came, no. But then I saw you, and I don't want it to happen again."

  Sloan Rivard obviously had something he wanted to tell me, something I very much wanted to know. If he was all kinds of wrong about my relationship with Aidan, about my true intentions...then that was his mistake, not mine. As long as I got him to open up, that was all that mattered.

  "Don't want what to happen?"

  "What always happens."

  "Which is...?"

  The lines of his face tightened. "Just keep your eyes open, Kendall Lawrence." With the words, he stepped close. "And," he added, his voice rasping lower. "Stay out of his story."

  #

  I didn't see him again. Sloan slipped back into the crowd and either kept his distance, or left.

  "Ah, there you are," my uncle said when I made my way back to the table draped in white, where a fresh stack of books sat waiting. "I trust you're having a productive evening?"

  One of the waiters appeared as if on cue, offering me another glass of champagne. "Very."

  "Excellent," my uncle said, sipping his. "Where'd the star attraction go?"

  Against the glass, my fingers tightened. "Aidan?" I asked, glancing around. Thirty minutes, maybe more, had passed since he'd left me alone in the shadows. "I thought he was here, with you."

  Uncle Nathan's practiced smile froze. "He must have...stepped away then," he said, looking beyond me.

  In other words, he had no idea where his client was.

  Just as quickly, my uncle was in gallant host-mode again, reaching out and sliding an arm around the woman I'd seen earlier, with the dark-rimmed glasses. "You spoke with Naomi last week, yes?"

  Aidan's editor. "Yes." On the phone.

  For over an hour.

  "I'm so looking forward to your piece," she said, taking my hand. Hers was cool and thin, but her grip was firm. "Mind if I steal you for a few more minutes?"

  Shadows and Stillness

  Aidan was late on his current book.

  He'd cancelled his last three trips to New York.

  No-showed an afternoon television interview.

  Never answered the phone when anyone from the publishing house called.

  And Naomi was as close to being done as an editor could be with their prized cash cow.

  She was counting on me to fix things.

  Long after her rant and Aidan's driver returned me—and only me—to the quiet Garden District mansion, I stood at the guest room window, watching the light glow from the carriage house.

  Go to bed, I told myself. Call it a night. Start fresh the next morning.

  That's what I should have done.

  It's not what I did.

  Beyond my room, the narrow hallway stretched in both directions, two doors to the right, two to the left, all close
d, exactly as they'd been when I arrived, and when I left for the party. I'm not sure why I stopped outside the nearest room—

  Except that's a lie.

  I know why I stopped.

  I stopped because I was curious. I was curious and alone in his house, and I had no idea if or when I'd have the chance again.

  I stopped because I wanted to know what was on the other side—what Aidan Cross kept behind closed doors.

  With a quick glance toward the staircase, I reached for the clear glass knob—

  Locked.

  So was the second door.

  And the third, this one on the left, next to the room where I was staying.

  They were all locked, even the fourth, all but the guest room. One of them would be his, where he slept. The others....

  A quick little twist went through me.

  Too wired to call it a night, I made my way downstairs. For a glass of water, I told myself, but found myself in the library instead. For something to read, I reasoned.

  Except I didn't reach for the artfully-arranged magazines on the cocktail table. I slipped deeper into the room, toward the leather-bound books lining the shelves.

  But I didn't reach for those either.

  Around me the stillness throbbed, as thick and heavy as the swirl from the endless parade of champagne glasses that had been placed in my hands at the book signing. Without thinking, I went down on a knee and reached for a cabinet door. I wanted to see inside. To paint a sympathetic picture of Aidan, I needed to find those little pieces that humanized him, that he kept tucked away—

  "Looking for something?"

  Low and hypnotic, the voice stopped me cold. A second. It couldn't have been more than that, a second that I hung there, my hand to the knob and my heart racing, before I made my mouth curve as I rose and turned to face him.

  "Aidan," I said with the practiced indifference. "I didn't know you were back."

  "I've been waiting for you."

  Words. That's all they were. I knew that. And they weren't even all that unusual, given my assignment. Of course he'd be waiting for me.

  And yet, the sight of him watching me from the shadows of the arched doorway, the sound of his voice against the quiet of the night, sent something dark and uncomfortable thrumming through me. Awareness maybe. Caution.