Her Unforgettable Royal Lover(40)
Every one of his instincts screamed no. She couldn’t have faked the panic and confusion he’d glimpsed in her eyes. Or woven a web of lies and deceit, then flamed in his arms the way she had. The question now was whether he could trust his instincts.
“Dom? What do you want me to do?”
He went with his gut. “Hang loose, Andre. If I need more, I’ll get back to you.”
He disconnected, hoping to hell he wasn’t thinking with the wrong head, and made a quick call to his downstairs neighbors.
Ten
Natalie was still hard at it when Dom went back upstairs. Her operation had spread from the desk to the armchair and the bed, which was now neatly remade. With pillows fluffed and the corners of the counterpane squared, he noted wryly. He also couldn’t help noticing how her fingers flew over the laptop’s keyboard.
“How’s it coming?” he asked.
“So-so. The good news is I’m now remembering many of these details. The bad news is that I went through the Canaletto folder page by page. I also searched its corresponding computer file. I didn’t find an entry that would explain why I drove down from Vienna, nor any reference to Gyür or Budapest. Nothing to tell me why I hopped on a riverboat and ended up in the Danube.” Sighing, she flapped a hand at the stacks now spread throughout the room. “I hope I find something in one of those.”
Dom eyed the neat array of files. “How have you separated them?”
“The ones on the chair contain paper copies of documents and reports of lost art from roughly the same period as the Canaletto. The ones on the bed detail the last known locations of various missing pieces from other periods.”
“Sorted alphabetically by continent and country, I see.”
She looked slightly offended. “Of course. I thought I might have stumbled across something in reports from a gallery or museum or private collection that gained a new acquisition at approximately the same time the Canaletto disappeared from Karlenburgh Castle.”
“What about information unrelated to missing art treasures? Any personal data in the files or on the computer that triggered memories?”
“Plenty,” she said with a small sigh. “Apparently I’m as anal about my personal life as I am about professional matters. I’ve got everything on spreadsheets. The service record for my car. The books I’ve read and want to read. Checking and savings accounts. A household inventory with purchase dates, cost, serial numbers where appropriate. Restaurants I’ve tried, sorted by type of food and my rating. In short,” she finished glumly, “my entire existence. Precise, well-organized and soulless.”
She looked so frustrated, so dejected and lost, that Dom had to fight the urge to take her in his arms. He’d get into the computer later, when she was asleep, and check out the household inventory and bank accounts. Right now he was more interested in her responses to his careful probing.
“How about your email? Find anything there?”
“Other than some innocuous correspondence from people I’ve tagged in my address book as ‘acquaintances,’ everything relates to work.” Her shoulders slumped. “Is my life pathetic, or what?”
If she was acting, she was the best he’d ever seen. To hell with fighting the urge. She needed comforting. Clearing the armchair, he caught her hand and tugged her into his lap.
“There’s more to you than spreadsheets and color-coded files, Ms. Clark.”
With another sigh, she laid her head on his shoulder. “You’d think so.”
“There are all your little quirks,” he said with a smile, stroking her hair. “The lip thing, the fussiness, the questionable fashion sense.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Then there’s your rapport with the Agár.”
“Ha! I suspect he bonds instantly with everyone.”
“And there’s tonight,” he reminded her. “You, me, this gasthaus.”
She tipped her head back to search his face. He supported her head, careful of the still-tender spot at the base of her skull.
“About tonight… You, me, this place…”
“Don’t look so worried. We don’t have to analyze or dissect what happened here.”
“I’m thinking more along the lines of what happens after we leave. Next week. Next month.”
“We let them take care of themselves.”
As soon as he said it, he knew it was a lie. Despite the mystery surrounding this woman—or maybe because of it—he had no intention of letting her drop out of his life the same way she’d dropped into it. She was under his skin now.
That last thought made him stop. Rewind. Take a breath. Think about the other women he’d been with. The hard, inescapable fact was that none of them had ever stirred this particular mix of lust, tenderness, worry, suspicion and fierce protectiveness.