Christophe caught her hand in one of his, raised it to his lips, and kissed her palm before she could snatch her hand away. She had to fight herself not to give him the satisfaction of rubbing her hand against her pants to make the tingling feeling go away. His smile told her he knew anyway.
Damn the man.
“Look. Why don’t we all calm down? I don’t want to hurt anybody,” Christophe said. “We both want the Siren. I happen to represent . . . a consortium of very wealthy investors who will be happy to pay. So we steal it together, I get the Siren, I give you the money. Minus a certain finder’s fee for myself, of course.”
He poured himself a cup of chocolate, bold as brass, while she and Hopkins stared at each other in stunned disbelief. Disbelief being the operative word.
“What possible incentive could you have for giving us all the money? We weren’t born yesterday,” she pointed out.
Christophe put his cup down and flashed that wicked smile at her again. “No, but the gods clearly blessed whatever day you were born. As to incentive? I’m in the mood for a little challenge, and may Poseidon himself strike me down if that’s not the truth.”
Oddly enough, the man paused and looked to the windows for a moment before continuing. “I don’t need money, and clearly you don’t, either, from the looks of this place. So we both do this for the fun of it. Why don’t we have a little fun together this time?”
The double entendres in every sentence out of his sinfully gorgeous mouth was sending little shock waves through her nerve endings. Have a little fun together, indeed. She’d like to have naked fun with him . . . Oh. No. She was doing it again. She clenched her fists and tried to remember all the reasons this was such a bad idea.
“I don’t trust you,” Hopkins said flatly, aiming his deadliest stare at Christophe. “I wouldn’t trust you with the good silver, let alone a priceless jewel from the British royal collection. Certainly not with Lady Fiona.”
“Right. Patriotism?” Christophe rolled his eyes. “From the man who was obviously helping her steal the Siren from queen and country in the first place? Try again.”
“We’re going to do it,” Fiona said. “I’ll be your partner, for this one time, and one time only.”
Hopkins jerked his head to stare at her in disbelief. “But—”
“We have no options. He will promise never to disclose my identity if we do this, correct?”
Christophe tilted his head and considered her for a long moment, then nodded. “Yes. You have my word.”
Something changed in the air—a tingle of power washed over Fiona and she shivered. Words had power, and perhaps his words had more power than most.
Hopkins narrowed his eyes, studying Christophe, but then he slowly shook his head. Fiona knew he must be using that extra sense he had—a super-hyped sense of intuition—that let him read people and their intent. “No. I don’t care if you believe you won’t hurt her. I can’t trust—”
In a flash of movement far too quick for her eyes to follow, Christophe was at Hopkins’s side, twin daggers raised, one to each side of her butler’s throat. “I respect your need to protect Fiona, but do not question my word, or my honor, as I accord you the same.”
Before any of them could move, Christophe sheathed his daggers and bowed to Hopkins. “I give you my sworn oath that I will not cause harm to come to her, nor will I allow any other to harm her.”
That sense of power was back, but more than a tingle this time—more of a jolt. Fiona noticed that the hair on Declan’s head and arms was standing straight up.
“Perhaps, since we’re no longer actually living in the time of William the Conqueror,” she said, in case they didn’t understand her point, “you might address any promises about me to me.”
Christophe swung around to face her and strode across the space between them with the arrogant confidence of a conqueror himself. “And so I should. I give to you, my ninja, my sworn oath not to lay a single hand on any part of your extremely luscious body.”
She blinked. “Well. Right. Then let’s—”
“Until you ask me to.” He bowed again, to her this time, and she stared down in disbelief at his lowered head and his broad, muscled back. As he straightened, she considered whether or not it was bad form to shoot the man. Again. He had the nerve to grin at her and she dove for her tranq gun.
Declan pulled her back and put his arm around her shoulders, probably sensing her need to do violence. “Should we start planning?” he asked. “I can work on a longer time-out for the cameras, but they’re going to be tougher to crack now that they caught us.”
“We can discuss plans tomorrow. It is very late, and Lady Fiona must make an appearance in the morning. Preferably without bloodshot eyes from lack of sleep,” Hopkins said, taking charge of the room the way he’d done since she was small. “Have you forgotten the Charing Cross Children’s Books reading and signing?”
She had. Somehow this infuriating criminal had driven all rational thought from her mind. Ask him to put his hands on her. The cheek of the man.
“Of course not,” she lied. “The store owner has been lovely to me; she has nearly two hundred copies of The Forest Fairies already purchased and ready for me to sign.”
“The what?” Christophe leaned against the wall, his powerful arms folded across that muscular chest, dangerous even at rest. “Did you say forest fairies?” He grinned and some no doubt evil thought lit up his eyes with amusement.
“Fiona’s the best author and illustrator of children’s books in all of Europe, maybe the entire world,” Declan boasted.
Fiona felt her cheeks heat up again, although she’d have thought she was too tired for even embarrassment. “Let’s not get carried away. The Forest Fairies is my newest book. It’s a retelling of a rather grim Scottish fairy tale.”
“Aren’t most fairy tales grim? If you’d ever met any of the Fae, you’d understand why. Vicious bastards, most of them,” Christophe growled. “Especially the Unseelie Court.”
Declan laughed. “Unseelie Court? Isn’t that a myth?”
“Sure, that’s what they’d like you to think,” Christophe muttered. “Then they murder you and steal your child.”
“You’ve met Fae?” Fiona found it hard to believe. Certainly, since the vampires and shifters had announced their presence, there had been rumors that other, more publicity-shy supernatural beings existed, but she’d never known anyone who claimed to have met one of them.
Declan piped up: “There’s a new course on the Fae in next year’s Oxford catalog.” When Fiona turned to look at him, surprised by his first mention of Oxford, his cheeks flushed bright pink. “Not that I’m planning to go to university just yet. You need me here.”
“I most certainly do not need you here, you idjit. You and that giant brain of yours are going to school. You need to meet girls and go to pubs. Experience the life of a college man,” she said firmly.
Christophe grinned, and she shot him a warning glare. Family business was none of his. He raised his hands in an “I surrender” pose and said nothing.
Hopkins, however, was family and had no such restraint. “Ah, yes. The ‘pints and birds’ lecture given to generations of budding young Oxford men. A model of decorum, he’ll be.”
Declan’s face flushed even hotter, if that were possible. “I’m not—”
“Having this argument now, yes, I agree,” Fiona interjected smoothly. “In front of our new partner.”
“Don’t mind me,” Christophe said. “I don’t have any brothers or sisters, so I’m finding this all pretty interesting.”
She put her hands on her hips, ready to give him a piece of her mind, but she noticed that his smile was looking strained around the edges and he’d gone a little pale under his rich golden-brown tan. Guilt raised its head again. She’d shot the man full of drugs only hours ago, for Saint George’s sake.