His One-Night Mistress(7)

He didn't know the first thing about her. Not her name, or her  occupation, not even what she looked like under that glamorous,  all-concealing mask.

The mask she'd refused to remove.

He could scarcely fault her. She'd done exactly what she'd said she'd do-make love to him for one night and then vanish.

As though he'd meant nothing to her.

He dug his fingers into his forehead, forcing himself to recognize the  single, dangerous mistake he'd made, out of pride and overweening  arrogance. All evening and far into the night, he'd been convinced that  he could change her mind. That sooner or later, she'd rip off her mask  and tell him her name.

She hadn't done either one. Instead she'd waited until he was asleep, then fled.

How dare she have left him as though what had happened between them was  of no more consequence than a game of cards or a few drinks at a bar?

He got up, marched over to the windows and ripped back the curtains.  Sunlight streamed through the panes, making him wince. Far on the  horizon, the Eiffel Tower gleamed like a needle in the light.

It should have been raining. A sky dark with thunderclouds, wind scudding through the wet streets.

Sure, he thought, and with the smallest glimmer of humor knew he was  being ridiculous. So she'd gone. So what? She was a woman. Just a woman.  The world was full of them, and he'd never had the slightest trouble  finding one to warm his bed.

But not one of them had ever touched him in the places he'd been touched last night. In his heart. His soul.

He'd never allowed them to. Never wanted them to. But from the moment  he'd seen the woman in the turquoise bodysuit, he'd had no choice. In a  way he didn't understand-and bitterly resented-she'd pierced every one  of his defenses.

And now she'd run away. Leaving him more alone than he'd ever been in his life.





CHAPTER FOUR





SETH hit his palm hard against the window frame, the sudden pain  bringing him to his senses. He was going to shower and get dressed. Then  he'd get on the phone and have her traced, his mysterious lover in the  feathered mask.

She'd have left a trail. Everyone did.

He'd find her. Sooner or later, and he had the money to pay for sooner.  Then he'd tell her exactly what he thought of her for sneaking off under  cover of darkness, like a common thief.

His eyes suddenly widened, his hand gripping the window frame with  vicious strength. Godalmighty, he thought. Protection. I didn't use any.  I never even thought of it.                       
       
           



       

He'd broken one of his cardinal rules.

How many times had they made love? Three? And not once had it occurred  to him to get out the foil packets he kept in his suitcase.

She hadn't mentioned protection, either. In a surge of relief he  realized she must have been on the Pill. Most modern women were. Took it  for granted.

But she hadn't had a lover in three years. Why would she be on the Pill?

She was an intelligent woman, far too intelligent to get into a stranger's bed without taking precautions against pregnancy.

He considered himself of more than average intelligence. But last night  he'd been thinking with his hormones, not his brains. Why should she be  any different?

Again he pounded his fist against the window, trying to stop the  desperate seesawing of his thoughts. He'd just have to pray that she  wasn't pregnant. From the time he'd been old enough to think about it,  he'd never had any intention of causing a child of his to enter the  world. His parents had rid him of that particular desire many years  before.

Along with so much else.

He wasn't going to think about his parents. Not at-he glanced at the  bedside clock-seven in the morning, when he'd had no more than four  hours sleep. Decisively Seth marched into the bathroom, showered the  last traces of the night from his body, and dressed in a pinstriped suit  with a custom-made blue shirt and a silk tie. His Italian leather  shoes, thanks to the hotel staff, gleamed like polished glass.

He was no longer in the garb of a highwayman. Although he still felt like one. Picking up the phone, Seth got to work.

Twenty minutes later, he'd covered all the angles. He'd talked to the  concierge, the doorman and the manager, none of whom had been of the  slightest use. He'd then contacted a professional investigator, ordering  him to alert taxis, buses and the Métro; to phone every last place in  the city that rented costumes; and to advertise very discreetly for  anyone who'd seen a woman on the streets of Paris after 3:00 a.m.  wearing a long black cloak over a turquoise butterfly costume.

Seth could have contacted all these sources himself. But he was too well  known, and the last thing he wanted was the press getting hold of this.  It was too private. Too personal. Too close to the bone.

He might be desperate to find her. But he couldn't splash her image over every newspaper in Europe.

Putting down the phone, he scowled at the ormolu clock sitting sedately  on the carved marble mantel. Now all he could do was wait. Wait and  hope.

He left the suite and ran downstairs to the waiting limo. He was going  to focus on the job at hand, he told himself forcefully as he hurried  outside into the spring sunshine. Business as usual.

Some high-powered negotiations, followed by a meeting with his Paris  staff, took up the whole day. Seth finally left the office at  seven-thirty and walked to his favorite café on the Champs-Elysées,  loosening his tie as he went. Snagging a table on the sidewalk, he  ordered coquelet and crème brûlée, two of the house specialties. Then he  took out his cell phone and punched in the investigator's number.

Five minutes later, his face set, he put down the phone and took a big  gulp of an excellent merlot. The investigator had located the shop that  had rented the turquoise costume; but the woman who'd chosen it had been  wearing dark glasses and an all-concealing floppy hat, and had given a  false name and address.

This dead end had been accompanied by many others. No one, it seemed,  had seen anyone in a long black cloak on foot, in a taxi, on a bus, on  the Métro, at an airport or in a hotel. In terms of concrete information  Seth had gained exactly nothing. Rien. Zero. Zilch.

His butterfly had disappeared from the face of the earth.

No, he thought slowly. He'd learned a little more than nothing. She'd  disguised herself and given a false name when she'd rented the costume,  which was well before she'd met Seth. Why had she done that?

She must in some way be famous. Her name so well known, at least locally, that she didn't want her actions traced.

That really narrowed the field, Seth thought sarcastically. Now all he  had to look for was a famous young woman who loved to eat French  pastries at midnight and whose naked body he could have described in  embarrassing detail.

Nothing to it.

One thing was sure. She wasn't after his money.

Which differentiated her from most of the people he met.

A plate of thinly sliced rare meat decorated with julienned carrots and  haricots was put in front of him, and his wineglass topped up. Blindly  Seth stared at the food. His appetite had deserted him; a chunk of ice  had congealed in his gut and his hands were as cold as if this were  winter, not a warm spring evening.                       
       
           



       

What if he never saw her again?





Three weeks later, striding along Broad Street on his way to his broker,  Seth suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. Two men cannoned into him; he  muttered an apology and stepped to one side of the pavement.

That was her-wasn't it?

A leggy blonde in a chocolate-brown Chanel suit had stepped out from  between two of the massive Corinthian columns of the New York Stock  Exchange. Something in the confidence with which she was looking up and  down the street was irresistibly familiar. Then, as if she sensed him  staring at her, she turned around.

Too tall. Too thin. The angle of her jaw all wrong.

She gave Seth the once-over with a calculation she didn't bother to  hide, and said with a smile that masterfully combined interest with  hauteur, "Can I help you?"

"Thanks, no-I thought you were someone else," Seth said.

"Have we met before?"

Oh, yeah, he thought, underneath that patrician glaze you're definitely  interested. "No. My apologies for bothering you," he said, smiled at her  with no particular sincerity and walked away.

He'd made a fool of himself. Again. How many times in the last  twenty-one days had he seen a woman whom he'd been convinced was his  butterfly lover? Who'd left his heart pounding in his chest and his body  irradiated with hope?

The only place it hadn't happened had been on a recent trip to the slums  of Rio de Janeiro. He'd gone there as the new president, treasurer and,  so far, sole member of the philanthropic foundation he was setting up,  as a way of figuring out how best he could give away some of his money.  He'd been too devastated by what he'd seen in Rio to be on the lookout  for a woman of any age or shape.