"On the morrow's eve," he said, widiout looking at her.
Chloe gaped. So soon? Tomorrow her grand adventure would be over? Though only yesterday she'd tried to escape him, she felt oddly deflated by her encroaching freedom.
Freedom didn't seem so sweet when it meant never seeing him again. She knew all too well what would happen: He would disappear from her life, and she would return to her job at The Cloisters (Tom would never fire her—not for missing a few days of work—she'd think of some excuse), and each time she looked at a medieval artifact she would think of him. Late at night, when she awakened filled with that terrible restlessness, she would sit in the dark, holding her skean dhu, wondering the worst question of all: What might have been? She would never again be wined and dined in a luxury penthouse on Fifth Avenue. Never again be looked at in such a way. Her life would resume its usual stultifying cadence. How long before she would forget that she'd once felt intrepid? Felt so briefly and intensely alive?
"Will you be coming back to Manhattan?" she asked in a small voice.
"Nay."
"Never?"
"Never."
A soft sigh escaped her. She fidgeted with a curly strand of hair, spiraling it around a finger. "What kind of curse?"
"Would you try to aid me if I was?" He looked up again and she felt a tension in him she couldn't fathom. As if her reply was somehow critical.
"Yes," she admitted, "I probably would." And it was true. Though she didn't approve of Dageus MacKeltar's methods, though there was much about him she didn't understand, were he suffering, she wouldn't be able to refuse him.
"Despite what I've done to you?"
She shrugged. "You haven't exactly hurt me." And he'd given her a skean dhu. Would he really let her keep it?
She was about to ask him that when, with a swift flick of his wrist, he tossed the envelope from the travel agency at her. "Then come with me."
Chloe caught the envelope by one end, her heart skipping a beat. "Wh-what?" She blinked at him, thinking she must have heard him wrong.
He nodded. "Open it."
Frowning, Chloe opened the envelope. She smoothed the papers wonderingly. Tickets to Scotland, for Dageus MacKeltar… and Chloe Zanders! Just seeing her name printed on the ticket gave her a little chill. Departing tomorrow night at seven o'clock from JFK. Arriving in London for a short layover, then on to Inverness. Within less than forty-eight hours she could be in Scotland!
If she dared.
She opened and closed her mouth several times.
Finally, "Oh, what are you?" she breathed disbelievingly. "The devil himself, come to tempt me?"
"Do I, lass? Do I tempt you?"
On just about every freaking level, she thought, but refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing that.
"I can't just up and travel to Scotland with some… some—" She broke off, sputtering.
"Thief?" he supplied lazily.
She snorted. "Okay, so you returned those things. So what? I hardly even know you!"
"Do you wish to? I'm leaving on the morrow. 'Tis now or never, lass." He waited, watching her. "Some chances come but once, Chloe, and swift are gone."
Chloe stared at him in silence, feeling utterly divided. Part of her was resolutely digging in her heels, ticking off on her fingers a thousand reasons why she absolutely could not do such a crazy, impulsive thing. Another part—a part that both horrified and intrigued her—was jumping up and down, shouting, "Say yes!" She had the sudden, strange desire to get up and go look at herself in the mirror, to see if she was changing outside as well as in.
Dare she do something so patently outrageous? Take such a chance? Put everything on the line and see what came of it?
On the other hand, dare she go back to her life the way it was? Go back to living in her tiny one-room plus bathroom-the-size-of-a-matchbox efficiency, making her solitary way to work each day, gaining solace only from playing with artifacts that would never be hers?
She'd tasted more, and—damn the man—now she wanted it.
What was the worst that could happen? If he had any intention of physically harming her, he could have done so long before now. The only real threat he posed was one she controlled: whether she would let him seduce her. Whether she would risk falling for a man who was, without question, an inveterate lone wolf and bad boy. A man who made no apologies and offered no comforting lies.
If she didn't fall for him, if she was a smart girl and kept her wits about her, pretty much the worst that could happen was that he might leave her stranded in Scotland. And that didn't strike her as completely unpalatable. If he did, she was confident that, with her waitressing experience in college, she could get a job in a pub over there. She could stay awhile, see her grandda's homeland, her trip over paid for. She would survive. She would more than survive. She might finally live.