No. Not quite. They’d fucked this morning, he thought with icy precision, but he’d deliberately kept that from happening this time.
The desire to protect her vanished.
The elevator doors started to close. He moved forward quickly and jammed his hand between them.
“I believe you were waiting for an elevator,” he said calmly.
Cheyenne’s eyes flashed with fire. It made her even more beautiful. He wanted to drag her into his arms, carry her into the car and finish what he had started.
Instead, he smiled politely and motioned her forward.
For the first time in his life, he understand that old expression, if looks could kill. If they could, he’d be dead on the spot.
Head high, she swept past him into the car and pressed the button for the lobby. The doors closed. He took a steadying breath before he turned around.
The man and woman were watching him the way snakes might watch a mongoose, fully aware that polite appearances could mask the worst possible intentions.
“Enjoy your evening,” he said pleasantly, and he opened the door to the fire stairs and took out his phone as he started down.
“Aldo,” he said brusquely. “The brunette. When you flag her a cab, give the driver a couple of hundred dollars. If she won’t let you do that, drive her home yourself. What do you mean, what if she protests? She will protest, Aldo. You are to ignore that and see to it she gets safely home. Do you understand?”
Halfway down the stairs, he paused. Her purse. Was it still lying on the table in the ballroom? Surely, her keys were in it.
He thought of going after it…and then he remembered the morning, how she’d used him, how she’d treated him tonight, as if he were part of an unfortunate memory she preferred to forget, and he kept going, straight to the lobby.
Wherever she lived, he thought coldly, she had a doorman. A superintendent. A building manager. Someone would let her into her apartment. Besides, it wasn’t his problem.
When he reached the lobby, he was still telling himself that he’d done nothing more than Cheyenne had deserved.
Then why was a voice deep inside him whispering liar?
CHAPTER SIX
Aldo and the black Mercedes were waiting at the curb.
“I take it the lady wouldn’t let you drive her home,” Luca said as he got into the rear seat.
Aldo nodded, checked his mirror and pulled into traffic.
“That is correct, sir.”
Luca sat back, arms folded, mouth thinned. Of course, she wouldn’t let him drive her home. No surprise there—but her reaction to the offer irritated him, which was ridiculous. Why would anything she did irritate him? Wasn’t he supposed to be feeling good at having evened the score?
“So, you saw her into a taxi instead.”
His driver hesitated. “Not exactly.”
“What does ‘not exactly’ mean?”
“She refused to go with me, or to get into a taxi. She said she was perfectly capable of walking.”
“Walking?” Luca’s voice rose. “Walking where?”
“To wherever it is she lives, Mr. Bellini,” Aldo said uncomfortably. “She didn’t say.”
“And you let her go?”
“Sir, I couldn’t stop her.” The driver cleared his throat. “She was—she was very determined. What she said…What she said made that clear.”
“Dammit, I’m not in the mood for games. What, exactly, did she say?”
“She told me precisely what I could do with my offers. What you could do with your offers. She said I was to be sure and give you that message.” Aldo’s eyes met Luca’s in the mirror, then skidded away. “Sir.”
Luca almost laughed. He suspected her message had been crisp, clear and to the point.
Still, this wasn’t a laughing matter.
She had left without her purse. He’d known women who tucked a couple of bills into their bras, but she hadn’t been wearing a bra.
She hadn’t been wearing anything under that gown.
Just her lush body.
And then, his caressing hand.
Luca felt his throat constrict. If he shut his eyes, he knew that he’d be back in the hallway. That he’d know the sweet taste of her mouth. The feel of her body pressing against his. The heat of her burning against his palm.
He shuddered.
This was not a time to turn himself on.
It was a time to wonder how the woman he’d forced into the night without so much as a penny was going to get home, because one way or another, he had forced her out of the hotel; there was no getting around the truth.
And he didn’t even know where ‘home’ was.
Two blocks away? Ten blocks? For all he knew, she lived in the financial district. Or in Brooklyn. He thought of her in that gown, her body so elegantly outlined, and then there were those icepick heels, sexy beyond belief, but impossible if you had to manage a purposeful stride, and a purposeful stride was what you needed to guard against the predators that hunted on some of the city’s streets.
She was alone and vulnerable, and it was all his fault.
Idiota, he thought grimly, and he leaned forward.
“Did you see the direction in which she went?”
“She headed downtown. At least, I think she did, but there was a lot of traffic and—”
“Turn around. Go back to the hotel.”
“Sir?”
“I said, go back to the hotel. Immediately!”
Aldo glanced in the mirror, saw his employer’s face, nodded, and all but stood on the brakes as he turned the wheel. Horns bleated as he made a U turn across two lanes of traffic.
When they reached the hotel, he pulled the Mercedes to the curb. Luca was out of the car before it had stopped.
One of the Skytop elevators was waiting in the lobby.
“Miracle of miracles,” he muttered, stepping quickly into the car and jamming his finger against the up button. “Come on, come on,” he said as the elevator made its climb. The doors slid open and he hurried into the ballroom and started across the dance floor.
“Luca!” Alene Beresford stepped away from her husband and caught hold of Luca’s arm. “Are you having a good time?”
“Alene. I’m very busy right now.”
“I hope you and Cheyenne are getting along.”
“Yes. No. We are…” Luca cleared his throat. “Do you know where she lives?”
“Cheyenne?”
Cristo, he had no time for this!
“Yes. Do you have her address?”
“I don’t, no. She lives downtown somewhere, I think…or maybe in midtown. Why not ask…” Alene gave a sly laugh. “Oh, I get it. You want to send her flowers as a surprise. Really, that’s so charm—”
“Excuse me, Alene,” Luca said, pulling his arm free of her hand. “I’m in a hurry.”
“You still haven’t told me how the two of you are—”
Luca hurried to his table. Everyone looked up and smiled.
“There you are,” one of the shrinks said pleasantly. “We were beginning to wonder what—”
“Sorry,” he said, though he knew that the way he scooped up Cheyenne’s purse and ran back the way he’d come made it clear he wasn’t sorry at all.
The elevator was still there.
He got in and opened the bit of silk as the doors closed.
Cash. A tube of lipstick. A comb. A set of keys. A phone. That was it. Nothing else. No I.D., no driver’s license—
Wait.
He turned on her cellphone, pressed a button and brought up her phone number, but what good was that to him? It was virtually impossible to associate cellphone numbers with addresses.
Perhaps she also had a landline. Lots of people had both. He did. He could only hope that she did, too.
Through the lobby. Out the doors. Into his Mercedes, where he dropped her phone in his pocket and took out his own.
“Where to, Mr. Bellini?”
Luca shook his
head. Dialed 411. Telephone information. Asked for a phone number for a Cheyenne McKenna in Manhattan.
He waited. And waited.
“Operator?”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”
Luca felt his heart sink.
“How about trying C. McKenna?” He knew that women often didn’t use their full names for telephone directories on the assumption the ruse offered some protection. “Or try Brooklyn. Or—”
“There is a Manhattan number, sir. But it’s unlisted.
“Unlisted?”
“Yessir.”
Luca all but pumped his fist in the air.
“Well, I need it. The address, not the number.”
“Sir. Unlisted numbers are—”
“Did you hear me? This is an emergency.”
“I am not free to give you that information, sir.”
“I just told you, this is—”
Click. The line disconnected.
Luca glared at the phone as if the fault were its and not his.
Now what? He had an attorney on retainer; the attorney surely could recommend a private investigator who could get him Cheyenne’s address. Or Matteo could recommend someone. He was certain that all lawyers had such connections—but by then, hours would have passed.