Cleopatra's Perfume

For my husband, Len, who took the journey with me.

And never looked back.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

War is hell. Ask anyone on the front lines. The fighting, the bombing, the killing. But there was another kind of war fought during World War II. A war behind the scenes in elegant hotels, loud cabarets and dark alleys. Brave men and women standing up to Hitler’s war machine and giving everything they had to keep the world free.

A few years ago I found myself in the Latin Quarter in Paris on a cold winter night, the chilly wind whipping my coat around me, footsteps behind me seemingly coming out of nowhere. I looked up and saw a plaque on the wall of a building proclaiming that on this spot two French Resistance fighters lost their lives fighting against the Nazis in 1942. I shivered, their presence very real to me. As if it was their footsteps I heard and they still guarded this spot. I knew then in my heart I wanted to tell a story about the intrigue of that war and the lives that were changed forever.

I became fascinated with the men and women who dared to take on the dangerous job of working for the underground. I pored through first-person accounts, letters, newspapers, magazines, history books and newsreels of spies, Resistance fighters, downed pilots and ordinary people who gave up everything they held most dear to fight against the Nazi invasion. I thank them for their sacrifice and dedication to freedom.

I also wish to acknowledge the tireless efforts of my editor, Susan Swinwood, who gives me the freedom to explore my worlds and who guides me with her expertise. And finally, I wish to thank my wonderful agent, Roberta Brown, a classy lady in any era and my dear friend, for her encouragement and for staying the course with me.

1

A secluded lake outside Berlin

April 29, 1941

Blondes always did get him in trouble. This one could get him killed. Tall, statuesque, with big breasts and a seductive walk that communicated with the world in a way he’d never seen. Slow and easy, with just enough wiggle to let him know she was all woman.

This blonde also had a sharp-nosed Nazi squeezing the soft flesh of her arm in a tight grip.

“Strip her!” the German officer yelled, pushing the woman toward him.

“I don’t assault women.” Even if she is a fraud and a liar, he finished silently. A strange, hot light burned in the SS officer’s eyes, sending a driving itch up his backside. He stood his ground, his legs spread apart, his hands on his hips, though he longed to overpower the man.

“I said, strip her. Now!” The sun-bleached blond Nazi cracked his whip so close to his skin it scorched the hairs on the back of his neck with heat. He swallowed, choking on his own saliva, a rotten taste in his mouth turning his stomach but not his courage. No doubt the German fueled his obsession with power with cruel, lascivious acts, setting up a bitter rivalry between the two of them, but why? And who would win?

“Since you’re so reluctant to do what the Nazi officer asks,” she said, her voice calm and precise, “I’ll show you how to undress a woman.”

She unfastened the ornate buttons on her dress then slid her fingers across them as if wiping off the sticky sweat. Then she wiggled out of the blue silk garment, kicked off her Sunday-white pumps and removed her sheer silk stockings and garters. Underneath she wore nothing but a nude-colored slip. Her breathing ragged, her eyes squinting against an approving sun overhead, she waited for him to say something.

“You want me to fuck you,” he said, disbelieving.

“Yes.”

“Then why this silly game?”

She smiled. “It makes it more interesting.”

“You’re crazy.”

“You’re crazy if you don’t take advantage of the situation.”

“I don’t get it. After what happened in Cairo when I—”

“That’s in the past.” Her eyes warned him not to say anything more, though her lips invited his touch when she moistened them with her tongue. He reached out to grab her, but before he could wrap his hands around her waist, she raced over to the edge of the lake and climbed up on a large granite rock.

Poised on the edge like a mermaid, the platinum beauty wiggled her firm breasts and smiled, coy, teasing, as if she were about to divulge to him a hidden entry into her. He smiled. Soft and wet and smelling of the salty sea, he had no doubt he would fuck her before this strange scenario came to an end.

She stretched her arms over her head as if reaching up to rip through the dark clouds of war overhead. He was in too deep now to retreat, escape. Only by the whim of a forgotten water nymph had peace survived in this tranquil setting. But not for long.

A flash of red sparked from the huge ruby and pearl ring she wore on her forefinger, guiding his eye in his appraisal of her, up and down, in and around every curve, as if she were already nude. The slip fit so tightly around her body he swore it was a second skin.

“I must warn you,” cooed the audacious, powder-white blonde, pushing down a thin strap over her pure ivory shoulder. “Contrary to what the Nazi believes, I’ve never met a man who could satisfy me.”

“I remember the first time I heard you say those words. I proved you wrong then and I’ll prove you wrong now.”

“Will you?”

The other strap came down next, her gesture deliberate and slow, gauged to make him sweat. Tempting him like an odalisque, but every inch a female with her own mind, she pushed her breasts together to emphasize her ample cleavage. He went numb, his emotions shaken, knowing what he did about her. How she used men to satisfy her lust.

Anger rushed through his veins like quicksilver, the foul taste of her perversities lingering on his lips, but he remained silent. Instead, he let out a low whistle, making her smile. Without so much as a hint of embarrassment at the boldness of her statement or her actions, she went one step further with her challenge.

“Many men have tried to tame my hunger, including you…” She paused, the faint memory of a hot night in a smoky nightclub sparking both their imaginations, then it was gone. “But none have succeeded.”

“I don’t get it. What the hell kind of game are you playing?” He pulled in his breath, then before he could reach out and grab her she slid off the rock with the grace of a mythical water creature and, as if by fairy-tale magic, stood before him on two beautiful bare legs. She turned around, her back facing him.

“Would you mind?” she said, her voice hot and breathy. A long, delicate zipper snaked up and down her spine, tempting him. She’d issued him a challenge, knowing he couldn’t resist taking her up on it. The thought of bringing the blonde to her knees had obsessed him since the moment he saw her in Cairo two years ago. A beauty with a cold heart, he knew, and he hated her for it. She proved it to him again when they met up in London a few weeks ago. He shivered, a cool breeze rising off the lake. He remembered they weren’t alone. A pair of flickering silver-blue eyes, cold and hungry, watched everything they did, no matter how intimate. And waited.

“My pleasure,” he said, drawing down the finely sewn zipper in one pull. “And yours.”

She turned around and moved in a manner he could only describe as a shimmy. Down came the slip, sliding over her breasts then down around her hips and off, forming a satin puddle of expensive femininity at her feet. She stood tall, though she was barefoot, with shapely legs he ached to wrap around his waist. She stepped out of the slip and posed for him. Hands on her hips, legs crossed, one foot in front of the other, she pointed her right toe and dug it into the soft brownish-colored sand at the base of the rock as if drawing a line and daring him to come closer.

He held in his breath. She was nude. Big, beautiful breasts curved and round. Large nipples, pointy and brown. Slim hips, flat stomach. She tilted her head toward him in a coy manner, something she did often, he remembered, and gave him a look that said his reaction pleased her. That look aroused him more, heightened his desire in a manner he’d never experienced. He always thought of sexual desire as a summer storm, created by combustible changes in the atmosphere, and just as unpredictable.

Not this time. She could make a man stay hard. With her long wavy hair curling over the curve of her shoulder, the blonde had a seductive way of carrying herself, her gestures light and graceful, like the girls he’d seen strutting across the stage. Saucy, nude, except for the fan-blown feathers covering their breasts and buttocks, they ignited a man’s desire for the forbidden, though the woman they desired existed only in front of stage lights and soft halos.

This girl wiggled her shoulders toward him in a similar manner, and he swore a luminous essence sparkled off her pale skin, making him squint, as if an invisible spotlight popped on and made her center stage.

He prepared himself for a leisurely pursuit of his female prey. So what if they were standing next to a lake under the watchful eye of the SS? Dark woods surrounded them, no one to disturb their elaborate game of sex and deceit. The secluded area had once served as a naturist camp in the days of the Weimar Republic, before the Brownshirts and swastikas put an end to all the fun.

“Now it’s your turn,” she said, putting her hands on his shoulders. Again the huge ring on her forefinger caught his eye, reminding him of that night in Cairo, making him wonder about the poor bastard who gave it to her. He never did find out. Acting on hot-blooded impulse, indulging his hunger, had he succumbed to her challenge, only to fail? Then putting the blame for his failure on her? Did she drive all men to ruin?

Or just him?

A chance meeting had led him here. Slouched in a chair, trying to evade capture, he’d recognized her coming down the elegant stairway at the main entrance at the Hotel Adlon in Berlin. When he confronted her about their liaison, she claimed to be American. Mistaken identity, she insisted and left. She had no idea he was in danger of being picked up by the Gestapo, tortured, killed. Would it have mattered to her? He doubted it. Later, he found her drinking in the bar with the SS officer. When he confronted her again, she covered herself by convincing the German he was her American lover and she must get him out of Berlin before her fiancé arrived from Stockholm and discovered her indiscretion.

Why not go to the American embassy on Pariser Platz? the SS officer wanted to know.

He can’t return to the States, she insisted, pushing out her breasts straining against the buttons on her formfitting blue silk dress. She bent over to straighten her seams, exposing a tight derriere, and explained to the Nazi it was a matter of a murder rap on his head. The SS officer turned and looked him up and down, a curious smile curving over full, pale lips. He almost believed the Nazi seemed more interested in him, but it must have been his imagination. What mattered to the German was that from what she told him her fiancé had ties to the iron-ore industry and his reputation must be protected for the sake of the Reich. Yes, he could be persuaded to use his influence as an officer from the Foreign Office to secure an exit visa for him from the Argentinean embassy if the American woman was willing to play his game.

American? She was a British subject. Why the masquerade?

Chuck Dawn knew her to be an Englishwoman with a title, a cold, calculating creature who took as many lovers as her sexual appetite could handle. All she knew about him was that he was an American flier who hated her guts. It hadn’t always been that way. She couldn’t wait to fall into his arms, naked and wanting, when he saw her in that club of supplicants hidden on a backstreet in Cairo. But all that changed when he’d been accused of the heinous crime of murder. He did it to save her, but the police didn’t see it that way. Now his own life was in jeopardy. Though his better judgment warned him to put aside his personal vendetta and get the hell out of Berlin before the Gestapo found him, he didn’t. He wanted to know more about her, and if he dared admit it, he wanted her. Again.

So he had agreed to her game. An exit visa for an afternoon of sex. The perfect way out and right under the nose of the Abwehr, German intelligence. Before he knew it, he was on his way to a secret nudist retreat nestled among the many lakes outside Berlin. Surrounded by forests, the idyllic lakeside beach with grass growing out of the water was difficult to find. Earlier they’d driven down the dirt road behind the post office of a nameless village, all the windows open, dust blowing in their faces, then they turned right at an outdoor fruit stand before the official black Mercedes with the Gestapo license plate passed under a bridge then through a barbwire fence. The SS officer ordered them out of the car and their clothes. The Nazi insisted Chuck was lucky he was so agreeable to such a diversion. Many people trying to get out of Berlin ended up in Gestapo headquarters. Not a pleasant place if one had something to hide.