“Jean-Marc...” she whispered, almost desperately.
“Ciara, listen to me very carefully. My men are watching us even now. The casino is surrounded by a hundred local police officers. Should anything at all be stolen here, the thief will not get past the door.”
“Well---” Her voice cracked. She cleared it and tried again. “Then I’m very glad I’m not planning to steal anything.”
The smile he gave her was enigmatic. “
Bon
. In that case I shall relax and play some cards. Stay close,
mon ange
. My men have orders to detain you should you attempt to sneak away from me.”
She squeezed her eyes shut so he wouldn’t see her mounting anxiety, and pressed her body seductively against his side as he took a seat. “How close would you like me to stay,
commissaire
?”
Without looking up, he pulled a large bundle of hundred euro notes from his inside jacket pocket and placed it on the table. He put an arm around her hips and his hot breath tickled her breasts. “Right where you are,” he murmured.
So she stayed there, distracting herself by playing the role of clinging mistress. Savoring, while she could, the feel of her body rubbing intimately against his, the smell of his cologne, the illusion that she was his.
She wanted to kiss him. Wanted to take his chin in her hand and pull his mouth to hers in a long, drugging kiss. Wanted to leave the table and drag him upstairs right now.
But she couldn’t, so she ignored the noise and the card play and thoughts of the future, and contented herself with simply touching him.
Behind his back, every so often she spotted CoCo and Pierre blending in with the growing crowd. And suddenly, there were Davie and Sofie.
Jean-Marc’s watch stared back at Ciara from his wrist.
Eleven forty-six.
All at once he gave a luxuriant stretch. “Think I’ll take a break,” he said, making a signal to the dealer. “Cover me,
s’il vous plais
.”
“No!” she said, instantly panicking. Not now!
He turned to her, brows raised in question. “
Non
?”
“You can’t quit now,” she blurted, hurriedly scanning the table for a plausible reason. If he left the game now, oh God, things would get complicated. “You—” To her shock, she saw a dozen or more large stacks of chips in front of him. “You’re on a roll!” she stammered.
Around them, murmurs of agreement came from the rows of onlookers that had gathered to watch him play. Everyone loved seeing a player beat the pants off the bank.
Rolling his shoulders, he cocked his head at her. “I didn’t think you were paying attention. To the game.”
She felt her face heat. “You know I’m easily bored,” she said with coquettish lightness.
He chuckled. “Most women would enjoy watching her lover win a small fortune for her.”
She started—
for her?
—then covered smoothly. “Darling, it’s only
you
I want. Not a fortune, small or otherwise.” She finally gave in to her longing, took his face in her hands and kissed him.
She sighed with a heartfelt mix of pleasure and pain. This could be the last time...
“A noble sentiment,” he murmured when, too soon, the kiss ended. An unreadable curve bowed his lips. “Shall we put it to the test?”
Puzzled, she answered, “I’m not sure what you mean.”
He waved a hand over his stacks of winnings. “How much do you think I have here?”
“No idea,” she said truthfully. She’d memorized the colors of the standard chip denominations, but his were too many and too varied to begin to count. There were several piles of yellow—each a thousand euros—which alone must have been worth more money than she’d ever see again—after tonight.
“Dealer?” he asked.
The man gave a Gallic shrug, in-between dealing around him. “Four, five-hundred thousand, perhaps.”
Her jaw dropped.
Half a million
... “Good lord,” she breathed.
“Take it,” Jean-Marc said. “I’ll give it all to you, every
centime
.” He paused for the exclamations from the onlookers to die down. “On one condition.”
She went absolutely still. Inside she quailed at the icy chill in his blue eyes.
Suddenly she wanted to kill him. Why couldn’t he have made this offer, along with whatever impossible condition he had in mind, a dozen years ago? When the money would have made a difference, and the condition be a possibility? Now it was too late.
Eleven fifty-four.
Far too late.
“What condition is that?” she asked, her pique cooling to sad resignation.
“You must leave with Pierre. Right now. This very minute. Go straight to Paris, stopping for nothing.”
She stared at him. Somehow sensing the real blow was yet to come. “And you?”
His eyes met hers, black and remorseless. “You’ll never see me again.”
The crowd gasped theatrically. Hollywood stars and moguls of the silver screen, confronted by genuine drama.
Ciara straightened. And lifted her chin.
She didn’t know what hurt more, the thought of never seeing Jean-Marc again, or the knowledge that he must think so little of her.
“An interesting offer,” she said. “But why not make it even more interesting? Double or nothing.”
He frowned. “What?”
“Bet it all,” she said, gesturing back at the game, struggling not to let the deluge of emotions show. “Everything on one hand. If you win, I get both you
and
the money. If you lose, I leave, never to darken your door again.”
His eyes flared in shock. “You’d risk that?”
“No risk,” she said, throat aching. “Right now I have neither you nor money. What do I have to lose?”
He didn’t answer.
They both knew he had the power to throw this hand by choice. Winning was less certain, but his record so far was testament enough to his skill at swaying the odds in his favor.
Which would he choose?
Eleven-fifty-seven.
“
D’accord
,” he said, face impassive, and turned back to the table. He nodded to the dealer. “All of it. Double or nothing.”
The crowd cheered madly. The casino manager and pit boss, as well as two security guards descended to stand behind the dealer. The manager looked grim.
Ciara could barely focus as the cards were dealt, let alone have a prayer of counting up Jean-Marc’s—even if he showed them to her. Which he didn’t.
The onlookers groaned as the dealer turned up his cards. A four and a three. What did that mean? She squeezed her eyes shut. Hell. Why hadn’t she paid more attention to the rules?
When it was his turn, Jean-Marc gave the signal to pass. Stone-faced, he watched the rest of the players complete the round, ending with the dealer, who turned up a five. The crowd groaned louder.
She tried to add up four plus three plus five, but her mind froze. Twelve? Thirteen?
Did it matter?
The dealer reached for his next card. Everyone held their breath. He turned an eight. A chorus of ambiguous exclamations came from the throng.
Ciara resorted to her fingers. Did that make over twenty-one? She couldn’t think.
One by one, the other players showed their hands, winners happily, losers tossing them down in disgust.
All attention turned to Jean-Marc.
She couldn’t bear it. “Please, for the love of God, turn them over,” she pleaded.
The crowd hushed.
Eleven-fifty-nine.
He lifted his cards and started turning.
Abruptly, an earsplitting whistle shattered the silence. A claxon sounded, and a shout was heard. “The Egg! The Faberge Egg! It’s gone!”
Another yell came immediately after. “The Monet! It’s also been stolen!”
Jean-Marc’s hand froze in mid-air. His head whipped around and his eyes lasered in on hers. “
Non
,” he growled. “I don’t believe it.”
“Jean-Marc, I—” Her chest constricted with pain. She wanted stop the flow of time. So she could explain.
Then all hell broke loose. From nowhere, dozens of uniformed men appeared, converging on the nearby display area. The crowd roiled, straining at once to see Jean-Marc’s cards as well as whatever was going on.
And still Jean-Marc’s eyes drilled into hers, throwing sparks of fury. She shook her head.
“Pierre!” he yelled.
“
Oui
?” Pierre elbowed his way through the churning mass of humanity to his side.
Jean-Marc tossed down his cards, face up, then jabbed a finger at her. “Do
not
let her out of your sight.”
Then he was gone, the multitudes parting in his path as though for Moses.
Pierre gave Ciara a hard look. She cringed. And noticed that everyone else was staring at her, too.
Suddenly she remembered.
His cards
...
She spun. Looked at the two cards sitting alone on the table.
And her heart stopped.
Chapter 29
Suddenly, CoCo appeared at Ciara’s side.
“Go! Go!” she whispered urgently, then launched herself at Pierre, spinning him around. “Omigod, baby, this is too exciting! I want a drink!”
Ciara was still rooted to the spot. But at CoCo’s frantic shooing motion, her wits returned and she slid away into the crowd. Straining against the rush of curious people, she worked her way to the other side of the room.
As planned, Valois was waiting for her at the elevator, holding the door open with a metal attaché case. They went quickly to the second floor and hurried toward the Palm room, where Villalobo was waiting.
“Any trouble getting in?” Ciara asked.
“No. Ricardo was at the catering entrance just as arranged. The diversion went well, I saw.”
“Better than expected,” she muttered, slowing her pace a bit for the old man. The Palm room was one of the furthest away in the huge upstairs labyrinth of private banquet and gaming rooms, and he was already getting winded. “Remind me to tell you about it sometime.”
“Sounds ominous.”
She refused to think about any of that right now. If she did she’d— She ruthlessly cut off the thought. “The room should be right beyond this—”
As she went around the last corner, she was forced to an abrupt halt. By a man in a tuxedo. Holding a large gun.
♥♥♥
Jean-Marc stalked grimly over to where the Monet and Faberge Egg were on display. Correction:
had been
on display.
Now, the ornate gilded frame was graced by one of Sofie’s charming, but hardly masterful, stylized copies of Monet’s water lilies.
He had to hand it to Ciara and her accomplices. The switch had been brilliantly executed. Not a soul had observed who the culprits were, and they’d gotten clean away. He thought with annoyance of his own unintended cameo role in their distraction.
Merde
. What would they have done if his blackjack game hadn’t turned out quite so...fascinating? No doubt they’d had an excellent plan. Ciara always had an excellent plan.
The guards and casino manager crowded behind him, all talking at once. The owner was running around pulling his hair. Jean-Marc couldn’t hear himself think.
“Silence!” he roared above the din. “And somebody shut off those damned alarms!”
Steeling himself for the worst, he peered closely at Sofie’s Monet. The steel coil of panicked uncertainty in his stomach unwound slightly. Unlike with the Picasso, the fake Monet hadn’t been stapled to the rear of the frame. In fact, it appeared to be sitting loose on top of it, just overlapping the inside edges. He reached up and yanked it off.
The men behind him gasped.
“
Voilà
,” he said with an acute rush of relief.
They gasped again.
The real Monet in all its glory sat placidly in its frame. Unharmed. Untouched.
“
Alors
,” he said, passing the fake canvas to one of his men. “And the egg?”
The group of security guards herded him over to a beautiful chest-high pedestal of clear fluted crystal, topped with an acanthus leaf capital and small square platform. On the platform sat a clear box, presumably of some bulletproof, tamper-proof polymer. Inside, photos of the egg had been inserted to line each side and the top of the box. A crude, but effective illusion. From a distance, the egg appeared to be there. Upon closer inspection, it was obviously photos.
Davie’s
photos.
“Hmm.” He gingerly touched his finger to the box. Then smiled and whipped it off. “
Et, voilà
.”
The alarms suddenly stopped. The idiotic guards gasped again into the vibrating silence.
The real box, with the Faberge Egg intact, was right where it should be. The false box in his hand had merely been slipped over it. He gave it to another one of his men.
After a few stunned seconds, the manager erupted in an angry diatribe at the guards, who all started defending themselves at once.
Jean-Marc suddenly glanced at his watch. Five minutes after midnight. Why hadn’t Pierre called? Had something gone wrong?
“You’re in charge here,” he told his ranking officer, who stood close by.
Then he made a beeline for the kitchens, taking off his tuxedo jacket as he went. A dozen armed, uniformed officers waited for him in the kitchen.
“Where’s
Lieutenant
Rousselot?” he asked the cop who tossed him his shoulder holster and weapon, which he quickly slipped on.
“Followed the suspect upstairs, sir,” the man replied.
He slid his jacket back on. “No one came in here looking him?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. Send a man to see that the woman he was with stays in the casino. I don’t want her showing up unexpectedly.”
“Will do, sir.”
Jean-Marc hated that he couldn’t be upstairs for the sting. But he couldn’t take the chance of blowing it. Ciara knew him too well. Even Beck would recognize him in an instant—almost breaking a man’s nose would do that. For that matter, Villalobo may also; Jean-Marc’s face was not exactly unknown on television and in the papers. So he’d had to send Pierre in his place.