“That all depends on how you define the word. There’s a worldwide demand for arms, and dealers see themselves as businessmen who are entitled to make a fair profit.”
“At the expense of innocent lives,” Darcy cried.
“In their view no one is innocent, and they are merely supplying a valuable commodity, but I wish Vaughn had contacted me before I’d met you.”
“Wait a minute, when your chauffeur was murdered in Seattle, wasn’t your first thought that Vaughn must have linked you with Interpol, and that you’d be of no further use to them?”
Griffin brought her hand to his lips and kissed her lightly. “Yes, but it was merely a theory and, with no suspects in the crime, there’s no way to know what really happened. Besides, if Vaughn had had a man killed to get to me, he’d not have failed. The mere fact that he sent an attractive woman to issue an invitation makes it unlikely that he had anything to do with a murder in Seattle.”
The gray-green sea stretched before them as far as the eye could see. The waves were high in the storm’s wake, and hundreds of surfers would be streaming into Monarch Bay. While it didn’t follow that great numbers of tourists eager to buy Defy the World’s goods would follow, at that moment, Darcy couldn’t make herself care.
“I’ll go with you,” she exclaimed. “If we appear to be lost in each other, then Vaughn and his buddies won’t be wary, and you’ll be able to gather whatever information Interpol needs.”
Griffin pulled his hand from hers to raise his palm. “Wait a minute, let me get this straight. When I asked you to come to Seattle and Chicago with me, you refused to consider it. Now you’re eager to go to Paris, which won’t be simply fun, but dangerous?”
“Yes! What about our being a team?”
He shook his head. “That’s different. I don’t want you anywhere near Lyman Vaughn.”
“Well, I don’t want you near him either.”
Griffin studied the stubborn set of her mouth. “The answer’s no, Darcy. I’m going alone.”
Her glance narrowed slightly. “People have emergencies all the time, so there must be a way to get a passport in a hurry.” She rose and took a step toward the house. “Come on, I need to get back to town.”
Griffin rose with a weary stretch. “Fine. It will take me a few days to arrange the trip, so I’ll still be able to come into Defy the World tomorrow to help clean up the nursery.”
“No, you needn’t bother. I’ll just hire some of my crew for the day.” She started for the house, but he quickly caught up with her.
“I don’t want to fight with you over this. Go ahead and request a passport, and I’ll be happy to take you on my next trip. But I won’t take you to Paris.”
Unwilling to argue when the matter was settled in her mind, Darcy insisted they wash their dishes. Then she hung up the dish towel and crossed her arms over her chest. “You told me Vaughn travels easily among society’s elite. If that’s the case, then he can’t be murdering people right and left. He would have to behave as a gentleman, not merely dress like one.”
“Whether or not he’s ever fired a shot himself isn’t the issue,” Griffin replied, swiftly becoming exasperated with her. “We’re not talking about some courtly Mafia don, here. The man is pure evil. He prides himself on manipulating world events, and then he capitalizes on the very chaos he’s created.”
“You mean he’ll start a war just to sell arms?”
“Yes, and to both sides. It’s only a matter of time before he gets his hands on nuclear weapons, and terrorists are already among his best customers. Let me put it this way, I want to get in and out without having you there to distract me.”
His sense of urgency warned Darcy of a danger he had yet to explain. “You swore that you just passed along information. Is that true, or do you perform an even more valuable service for Interpol?”
“Such as?”
“Come off it, Griffin, you know what I mean. You joked about piano wire being too obvious, but once you’re inside Vaughn’s chateau, does Interpol expect you to kill him?”
Griffin stared at her, the fury in his dark gaze easily read. “I’m going to say this one last time, no, I’m not an assassin, nor have I ever been. The world is filled with evil men. How many could possibly be such big fans of mine that I could get close enough to kill them? Damn few, I imagine, and even then, if every time I played a concert for a dictator, he died, I’d soon run out of plausible alibis.”
“That’s why you need me,” Darcy announced proudly.
“You’ve seen too many James Bond movies, sweetheart. All I do is play the piano.”
“Like hell, but we can argue later. Just give me a couple of days to secure a passport before you book our flight.”
“Why don’t I just strangle you now and be done with it?”
Darcy braced herself against the counter. “You’re too well-known to travel alone. At the very least, you ought to travel with a body guard.”
“Oh Christ. Do you expect me to hire someone from your father’s firm?”