I froze at the sound of chatter coming from the lobby.
“I locked the door. No one will find us in here,” he said, my skirt now pulled almost all the way up to my hips.
I placed a hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him.
“Where are you from?”
He dove in again, his mouth finding my neck. He was having none of my questions. I was delirious with desire, my instincts beginning to dull because of his talented mouth.
“Dauphine, accept, and I’ll tell you everything.”
“I will accept,” I murmured, eyes closed, “if you tell me … what Step I’m on.”
His eyes searched for my bracelet again, but I’d cleverly tucked my arm behind me.
He straightened up, tugging the cuffs on his sleeves.
“It’s not a hard question,” I said. “Why don’t you check the charm, the one you brought to give me afterwards? That will tell you the answer.”
He paused for a moment, then said, “You know the rules, Dauphine. If you don’t accept, I can’t show you the charm.”
I went over the S.E.C.R.E.T. acronym in my head. He was Compelling, that’s for sure. And this would have been a Romantic, Erotic interlude. Perhaps it would have left me feeling Ecstatic and Transformed. But there was just one problem: I didn’t feel Safe. That was what it all boiled down to. If Step Five was about overcoming my fears, his refusal to answer my questions kept me from feeling that.
“You know the rules too, Dante, or whatever your name is. If I don’t accept the Step, we stop here. It’s over. I’m saying no. Who are you anyway? You sound like you’re from the South—in fact, from Louisiana.”
“Well, now,” he huffed, standing. “For someone who refuses me, you sure demand a lot.”
“It would seem so,” I said, pulling my dress down over my knees. My chignon had fallen out in our brief tussle, so I undid the barrette holding it in place, releasing my hair.
“Red Rage indeed,” he said, admiring my hair, reaching out to caress a tendril. I pulled away. “I would be happy to have my driver take you back to your hotel.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said. “I can make it back on my own.”
“Then … I shall be on my way.”
He stood and walked away, unlocked the door, and quietly shut it behind him as he left. Who in the hell was this man and what had he just tried to pull? I waited a few more seconds before heading back to the theater, where a handful of people still surrounded the painting. Was it too late to rip up the transfer of ownership? I had to try.
The auctioneer was locked in quiet conversation with the banker, Isabella.
“Excuse me,” I said, interrupting them. “Before I leave, can you tell me if it’s possible to stop the transfer? It’s just … I feel I might have made a mistake in selling the painting to an unregistered bidder.”
They looked at each other as though they had been discussing this exact thing.
“The problem is that you would now need his signature too,” said the auctioneer. “He officially owns that painting.”
“And he was a very keen buyer,” Isabella added, in clipped but perfect English. “I did not realize he was unregistered; otherwise I would not have participated on behalf of Señor Castille.”
“Señor who?”
“Castille,” she said. “Pierre Castille. I assume he is well known in your city since his family owns half of it.”
“A small part of this one too,” chuckled the auctioneer.
Pierre Castille? Of course I knew the name. But I hadn’t recognized his face out of context. There weren’t many photos of him; he was private for someone so wealthy, but if you lived in New Orleans, that name was tantamount to royalty.
Why the hell would Pierre Castille, Pierre the Heir, the Bayou Billionaire, infiltrate a private auction, drop fifteen million dollars on a painting, then try to seduce me on a settee in a theater in Buenos Aires? What had I gotten myself into?
I felt the blood rise to my face. Cassie and Matilda were going to hear about this. Perhaps it was a sign. Perhaps stopping at Step Five was appropriate. I asked for directions to the cab stand and made my defeated way outside. I’d conquered enough fears, I thought, glancing down at my bracelet. Even half complete it looked quite pretty as it caught the glare off passing cars in the nighttime.
As I sat in the cab back to the hotel, my heart was still pounding, my skin feeling seared where Pierre Castille had touched me.
15
CASSIE
THE LAST TIME I was invited to the Mansion I was naked beneath a full-length coat and led upstairs blindfolded, where a sensuous feast (and lover) awaited me. This time was a little different. It was Matilda waiting for me, looking somber on the porch in the middle of a hot August Saturday. I already knew what preoccupied her. After I had gotten off the phone with an angry Dauphine the night before, I’d had a hard time sleeping, so I called Matilda and told her about the auction, and Pierre’s stunt.
“I cannot believe Pierre,” I said, greeting Matilda on the porch. “Dauphine’s shaken.”
“I don’t blame her. In the almost forty years that we’ve been doing this, we’ve had trouble with only one man: Pierre. I should have trusted my instincts when he first joined, but we were all dazzled by his charms.”
“Well, there’s one consolation in all of this: his fifteen million will keep S.E.C.R.E.T. running for a long time,” I said.
“If we keep it.”
I had never questioned whether we’d keep the money. But the way Matilda was talking, giving it back suddenly seemed a possibility.
“Anyway,” she continued, “whether we keep the money is a decision for the whole Committee, not just me. I’m heading to Dauphine’s house now.”
“Should I come? Can we postpone this … session?”
“No. This is a job for the head of the Committee and time is of the essence. I may be able to convince Dauphine to stay in S.E.C.R.E.T., but if not, I hope I can at least convince her to accept our apologies. Meanwhile, you, my dear, have an exciting task at hand that also needs to be completed. Are you sure you’re ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Nervous?”
“Yes.”
“Has Jesse contacted you?”
“I’m seeing him tonight.” I couldn’t help but beam a little.
Matilda didn’t echo my enthusiasm; instead, her tone shifted back to one of concern.
“After all that’s happened, and how wrong I was about Pierre, I do hope I’m not wrong about Jesse too.”
“I don’t think you are,” I said, wondering why she continued to plant these doubts about him.
I followed her into the Mansion, up the stairs, then down a long, cool corridor, where she stopped in front of a narrow door. She unlocked it. Inside the small room was a single grey club chair facing a wall of glass. Matilda pulled the chair out for me. The room on the other side of the glass was dimly lit but spectacular, with two floor-to-ceiling windows to my right, draped in thick burgundy curtains, cupids carved into the wooden valences. Ancient oil paintings of beautiful women in shoulder-baring gowns hung along the ivory-colored walls. The bed itself was a piece of art, each poster carved to look like a willow trunk, fronds decorating the oak fascia. In the center of the room sat a tufted chair, armless, with gilt legs, the seat and back embroidered with burgundy roses.
I felt more nervous than I had during one of my own fantasies.
“This is the Emperor’s Room,” Matilda said.
“So this is where the training happens?”