Led into Temptation Read online

  A sudden crash from below had him pulling her into his arms and down behind the protection of the stone railing.

  “What?” Her voice was muffled because he’d flattened her tightly against him.

  “Knee-jerk reaction. The more people who know you have a key chain worth millions, the more danger that puts you in.”

  A curse floated up from below.

  “Here, let me help,” a female voice said. Then there was only the sound of cutlery striking against plates.

  One of the waitstaff had obviously dropped a tray. Dane should have let her go then and helped her to her feet. But for a moment, he didn’t. He couldn’t. And it had nothing to do with protecting her.

  Odd. He felt nothing of the heat that he’d experienced every time they’d come in contact before. Just a slowly spreading warmth. Seconds ticked by. He had no idea how many. All he knew was that he could have gone on holding Naomi Brightman just like this for a very long time.

  It was Naomi who finally spoke. “I should show you the key chain.”

  “Right.” Their faces were close enough that he could feel her breath on his skin. But before he let her up, he said, “This is more than lust, Naomi.”

  He watched both uncertainty and panic flash in her eyes. Fair enough, he thought. He was feeling a mix of those very same things. He drew her to her feet. “We can’t talk once we go back in the tower room. Davenport planted two listening devices and I added the one I found out here. Plus, we’ll need a safe room to talk once you retrieve the key chain. I’ve left all the bugs he planted in place just in case we can use them to our advantage.”

  “Got it covered,” Naomi said before she led the way back into the tower. “Follow me.”

  IN THE SHADOWS AFFORDED by a tall hedge, Michael Davenport watched Naomi and the man masquerading as a priest disappear into the tower room. Time was running out on him, and he wanted his money. Both she and the gun-toting fake priest would pay for making him wait like this.

  And for what had happened in the tower room.

  Just thinking about it had his heart rate picking up.

  In the confines of the maze, he’d paced off the icy fear that had paralyzed him for those few terrifying seconds in that room. And he’d finally figured it out. His mind had been temporarily affected by the damn cold and the fact that the money hadn’t been where he’d expected to find it—easily accessible in her rooms.

  Anger had taken hold, and for a moment all he’d known was a blind fury that Naomi hadn’t played her part the way she was supposed to. Even then, he might have gotten himself under control if the fake priest hadn’t come up the stairs.

  The only thing he clearly recalled after that was that he’d picked up the fireplace poker and hit the priest. He remembered the sound, the sight of the man falling. But everything else was all disjointed images. Some were auditory—the scream, footsteps pounding down the iron staircase. Others were visual. There’d been a flash of light that had temporarily blinded him. Then he could picture himself running down the stairwell, through the back exit door and finally into the shelter of the maze.

  But he had the anger controlled now. And it was Naomi who’d made the mistake. He knew her better than she knew herself. For that reason he was sure she’d brought the money to the island. He just had to figure out where she’d put it.

  And there was only one person who could tell him. Once she did, she would pay. And so would the man helping her.

  13

  DANE FOLLOWED NAOMI INTO a room no larger than a closet. Five feet by seven, he estimated. Very tight quarters once the door slid shut behind them. He had to duck his head slightly to avoid the one bare light-bulb overhead. He spotted Naomi’s tote right inside the door, and when he squatted down to pick it up, his head smacked hard into hers.

  “Ouch.” They both spoke at once.

  He grabbed her shoulders to steady her. “You all right?”

  “Fine. You’re the one who got rapped in the head with a poker.”

  “I’m good.” He released her shoulders and began to squat down again.

  This time their knees bumped and they grabbed hands.

  Naomi grinned at him. “There’s got to be some way to do this so that we avoid bodily injury. I don’t want to start your head bleeding again.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Back up against that wall, and I’ll lean against this one. Then we’ll just wiggle down like this.”

  She demonstrated and he followed suit. It took some maneuvering, and he wasn’t as good at the wiggling as she was. When they were finally seated cross-legged, their knees were touching, and they just about filled the space.

  “Cozy,” Dane commented as he glanced around. For the time being, he had to believe that the room provided a safe enough spot for them to talk. The lever had been cleverly concealed—he wouldn’t have thought to even look for it. And he strongly doubted that Michael Davenport had. “What is this place?”

  Naomi leaned forward, kept her voice low. “It’s Hattie Haworth’s secret room.”

  He raised a brow. “I’m a trained investigator. The minute you pulled the lever, I figured out the secret room thing. But why did she need one? And how did you find it?”

  “When my sister Jillian first discovered the place, the whole tower was boarded up. Supposedly because Hattie haunted it. But a few boards and the rumors of a ghost didn’t stop Jillian. She’s always been a fools-rush-in-where-angels-fear-to-tread type. So she tore them down and decided that once the tower was rehabbed, it would make the perfect place for our new home. She was also the one who discovered this secret room.”

  “My brother Ian unearthed some rumors about Hattie haunting the place.”

  “Not just rumors. Hattie is definitely here.”

  “You’ve seen her?”

  “Just the one time.” She shared the details of the day that Jillian had first brought them up to Hattie’s room and what they’d seen for a moment as they’d stood, champagne glasses raised, looking into the mirror.

  Dane nodded, thinking of the expression on Michael Davenport’s face.

  “You don’t seem surprised or skeptical,” Naomi observed.

  “I think Davenport might have seen something just before he screamed. When I first opened the door to the tower, the place was as cold as a meat locker. After he hit me the first time, my back was to the mirror so he was facing it. He saw something, I’m certain of it. If he hadn’t—well, just let’s say that Hattie may have saved my life.”

  She reached out, placed a hand over one of his. “Then we definitely owe her one.”

  “Yeah.” Dane glanced curiously around the small space again. “Do you have any idea what she used it for?”

  Naomi studied him for a moment. “All we found in here was the hatbox.” Lifting her tote off it, she revealed the box.

  Dane studied it. “She used a secret room to hide a special hat?”

  “No. There’s no hat in there. Naomi lifted the box and positioned it between their crossed legs. “See for yourself.”

  Dane read the writing on the parchment.

  Fantasy Box. Choose carefully. The one you select will come true.

  Then, brows raised, he met Naomi’s eyes.

  “We think it might be a clue as to what kind of business Hattie turned to once she established herself here at Haworth House. At the very least, it’s an interesting insight into how she spent her leisure time.”

  Dane glanced down at the box again. “Ian didn’t come up with even a whiff of anything like that. Did you choose one of the fantasies?”

  “We all did.”

  He kept his eyes steady on hers. “What was yours?”

  She lifted her chin. “I didn’t even tell my sisters.”

  He said nothing.

  Annoyance and a hint of defiance crept into her eyes. “I’ll give you one guess.”

  He smiled slowly. “The most forbidden one of all—making love with a priest?”

  “Yes. A
nd once I drew that fantasy out, there didn’t seem to be any escaping it. I think Hattie even left it in the hallway outside my door on the first night I was here.”

  “Only it turns out I’m not a priest. Lucky for us.”

  She folded her arms across her chest and frowned at him. “Lucky in what way?”

  “We’re going to have to talk about that.” And they would. There were several things he wanted to talk to Naomi about.

  For now, he set the hatbox aside and leaned forward to brush his lips across hers. He’d meant it to be a quick, friendly kiss. His intention changed the instant her mouth softened against his. This time it wasn’t warmth he felt, but that sudden flash fire, that electric current in the blood that she’d brought to him from the first moment their eyes had met across that courtyard. Desire lanced through him.

  Kissing her was a mistake. Her mouth was a fever. It was heaven. And it wasn’t nearly enough. Dragging his lips from hers, he took them on a lightning-fast journey across her jaw, down her throat.

  “I thought we talked…” She gasped. “I thought we had our priorities straight.”

  “Yeah.” He nipped his way along her collarbone, then dug his fingers into her waist and dragged her closer. Their knees bumped, and he took an elbow to the ribs before she was finally straddling him.

  “Too many clothes,” she complained.

  Yeah. He seconded that. He might have managed to express his agreement out loud if she hadn’t been moving against him, center to center, heat to heat. The strength drained out of him as quickly as if she’d pulled a plug. Weakness swamped him. No woman had ever made him weak before.

  As his brain cells clicked off, one by one, he was vaguely aware that she lifted herself to her knees, then into a squatting position. And all the time she wiggled out of her shorts and panties, her mouth stayed busy on his, her lips teasing, her teeth tormenting.

  “I don’t understand this. I can’t seem to stop myself.”

  No problem. Once again, he was almost certain he hadn’t managed to say the words aloud.

  Even when she drew back for a moment to fumble with his zipper, he couldn’t find the strength to lift his arms, to pull her back.

  “Condom.” He hoped he’d at least said that word aloud, but he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t have heard it anyway above the hammering of his heart, the pounding of his blood. It wasn’t until he felt her fingers sheathing him in protection that some of his strength finally flowed back into him.

  He gripped her hips and lifted. She sank onto him, closed around him and tightened.

  “Dane,” she gasped his name. “I want you.” Then her mouth sought his again.

  “Take me.”

  He wasn’t sure who said it, him or her. But he didn’t have a choice. He let her rule with her desperation, her greed. He gloried in the sensations as her mouth singed his cheeks, her hands scorched his shoulders. And all the while her hips pumped and pumped and pumped.

  He’d never known it was possible to want this much, to need this much—until he was sure that before she was through with him, he would shatter. And there was nothing to do to stop it. Helpless, totally hers, he felt himself arch.

  Then she rode him until she reached her own release.

  WHEN NAOMI FINALLY FOUND THE strength to open her eyes, she discovered that she was sitting on the floor next to Dane. And she had no clear idea how she’d gotten there. His arm was around her shoulder, their backs were against the same wall and their legs were stretched out toward the opposite wall. His reached. Hers didn’t.

  Angling her head so that she could see him, she noted that his eyes were still closed. As she studied his face in profile, she felt something tighten around her heart for just an instant before it went into free fall. The words he’d said on the balcony came back to her: This is more than lust.

  And in spite of what they’d just done, which definitely had to have a high rating on the lust-o-meter, she was pretty sure he was right. A mix of emotions marched through her with panic in the lead, twirling a big baton.

  Ruthlessly, she shoved them down. This was no time to sort through what she was feeling. This was not the time to have done what they’d just done!

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  His lips curved as he opened his eyes and turned to face her. “Isn’t that supposed to be my line?”

  “Not this time. I think I just ravished you.”

  “Feel free to repeat the performance. Anytime.”

  She reached down to wiggle into the panties and shorts that were still looped around one of her ankles. “We didn’t come in here for a ravishing. We came here to see if we could find over a hundred million dollars on a key ring I’ve been carrying around for two weeks.”

  “Right.” He reached for her tote and handed it to her. “You can do the honors.”

  But she didn’t reach into it right away. Instead, she said, “I don’t understand what’s happening between us.”

  “You will. When the time is right, you’ll sort it out. We both will.”

  Not exactly the response she wanted. Something tightened around her heart again. What would she like him to say? That he was as uncertain and confused as she was? Perhaps. Or something glib and polished and reassuring—something that Michael would have said? Would she have preferred a lie? Because she couldn’t or didn’t want to deal with the questions right now, she reached into her tote, fished for the set of keys and pulled them out.

  Dane took them and spread the key chain out in his hand. For a moment they studied it in silence.

  To Naomi’s way of thinking, it was ordinary enough in appearance. There was a little crystal heart and a sterling silver key dangling from a stainless steel chain. The ring that held the keys was ordinary enough, too—the kind that you had to twist your keys onto, breaking at least one nail and swearing several times in the process.

  “Tell me exactly what happened the night he gave it to you at the Four Seasons,” Dane said.

  Naomi thought back to the evening that she’d relived in her mind numerous times. “It was a Tuesday so I worked until past seven. I’d walked five blocks toward home when Michael pulled over in a cab and stepped out on the curb.”

  “He didn’t call?”

  She shook her head, met his eyes. “No. He just pulled up. He apologized, said it was a spur-of-the-moment thing, but he’d wanted to see me. He asked me to go to the Four Seasons with him for a drink. I was tired. I might have begged off, but he was already drawing me toward the cab. He had a way about him that was very persuasive.”

  “Did he often do spur-of-the-moment things?” Dane asked.

  Naomi’s brow furrowed. “No. Michael liked to plan everything. But I didn’t think about it at the time because I was tired.”

  “But he would know your routine. You work late on Tuesdays.”

  She nodded. “What are you thinking?”

  “Maybe he did plan it—but he didn’t want to drop by the office or your apartment. He had to have known that his time was running out. What did you talk about in the cab?”

  Naomi pressed fingers against her eyes. “Nothing much. My day—he asked about my day. I’d been working on a case with Thomas Fairchild and he’d been hovering, checking on me every hour or so. Then I asked Michael about his day. He said it had been one of those hectic ones when he’d looked forward to seeing me.”

  “How did Davenport seem? Tense? Out of sorts?”

  “No. He seemed the same. Smooth. In control. That’s the way he always was.”

  “And when you got to the Four Seasons?”

  “He ordered champagne and then excused himself for a few minutes.”

  “What did you do while he was gone?”

  Her brow furrowed again. “I pulled out one of my notebooks and jotted down some ideas I’d just come up with.” She drew her notebooks out of her tote. “I always carry at least one of these because ideas about cases come to me at very inconvenient times. Sometimes even when I’m in court.
That night I thought of something very important about the case I’d been working with Thomas.”

  Dane looked at the notebook. “You haven’t used one while you’ve been here.”

  “No. I brought the tote and everything in it up here because I wanted to make a fresh start. I intended to buy a new notebook in Belle Bay today, but then I got distracted.”

  “How long before Davenport came back?”

  “Five minutes, ten. He’d gone to the gift shop and bought the key chain as a memento of our first date at the Four Seasons.”

  “It sure looks like a gift shop purchase.”

  “He asked for my old key ring and then he insisted on taking my keys off it and twisting them onto the new one. It took a while. I excused myself and went to the ladies room while he was still working on it.”

  “What then?” Dane prompted.

  “When I came back to the table, Michael was talking to Leo King and Thomas Fairchild. They’d stopped by with a client for a drink. When they left, Michael and I toasted with champagne and he told me that he had to go away for a while.”

  Reaching over, she picked up the chain by the sterling silver key and held it up. “He told me that he was giving me the key to his heart.” In the stark light of the bulb overhead, the crystal heart gleamed. “I can’t see anything about this key chain that might be worth over one hundred million dollars.”

  “I have to agree. Are you sure this is the one he gave you that night?”

  She frowned down at it. “It has to be. I’ve had it either in my hand or in my tote ever since. Even during my first interview with the FBI when they went through everything, it never left my sight.”

  “And if it’s been in this secret room almost since your arrival, Davenport couldn’t have found it and made a switch yet.”

  Her eyes flew to his. “You think that was his plan?”

  Dane sighed. “I’m still trying to figure out his plan. What we know is that he took you to the Four Seasons on the spur of the moment the night before he disappeared. Presumably to say goodbye. He also gave you a little souvenir. My gut still tells me he passed you the portable artifact for temporary safekeeping. Let’s see what else you’ve got in that tote.”