Take It Down

A shiver of awareness, anger and anticipation racked her body even as she jerked her arm from his grasp. He easily let her go.

Elle schooled her features and looked up into his face. “Then it’s going to be a boring week for you.”

“For your sake, I hope so.”

2

ZANE WATCHED AS THE WOMAN walked away. The taunting swing of her hips and the way she tossed her red hair behind her as she threw a knowing half smile over her shoulder made his fists clench.

He stomped down the hall after her. Not to bring her back, but to give Simon a piece of his mind. He was pissed, and someone was going to get the brunt of his anger.

His knock on the suite door was perfunctory to say the least. He didn’t bother waiting for Simon to acknowledge him before he pushed into the other man’s domain.

The living area before him was immaculate, not a single thing out of place. Of course, that had absolutely nothing to do with Simon and everything to do with his efficient director. He and Simon had shared an apartment during college, so he had firsthand knowledge of the man’s messy gene. Not that he’d cared much back then. They’d both focused on women, partying and studying, in that order. There’d been little energy left over for domestic things such as scrubbing toilets or washing dishes.

Luckily Simon had an entire staff to do those things for him now.

Zane strode into the lion’s den. That’s what everyone liked to call it behind Simon’s back.

Very few people ever saw the inside of his sanctuary. Simon liked his privacy, and Zane understood why. However, at the moment, the last thing Zane was worried about was protecting the sanctity of Simon’s hidey-hole.

“Simon!” Zane bellowed walking into the center of the room.

“Took you longer to get here than I expected.”

Simon’s slow drawl came from behind. Zane spun in surprise and immediately felt his body falling into a fighting stance. He was going soft, if Simon could startle him.

“What the hell are you doing? She started a false fire alarm. She might not have stolen anything—yet—but she did break into several guest rooms. And you’re rewarding her with an upgrade? I can’t do my job if you countermand every decision I try to make.”

Simon walked across the smooth wooden floor to a bar set into the far wall. Leaning over and reaching behind it, he pulled out two glasses and a bottle of brandy. “Want some?”

“No, I do not want a drink!”

He shook his head, frowning and said, “You really should relax more, Zane. You’re going to have a heart attack before you’re forty.”

The dark amber liquid splashed into the bulb of the glass. “As we speak, her bags are being transferred to the Crow’s Nest, where you can look through them before sending them to her new room. And I’m surprised you haven’t realized that the room I upgraded her to happens to be located in a corner and covered by two more cameras than her previous location.”

Simon looked up at him, narrowing his eyes over the edge of the glass as he took a sip. “You’re welcome. Hey, look, I managed to play the good cop to your bad cop. Without any training, too.”

Great. He’d gone from working for the CIA to playing cops and robbers with a man who had a Peter Pan complex. Never mind that Simon had made a smart move. One Zane should have thought of. He really was getting soft.

Simon clapped his hand on to Zane’s shoulder. “Give it a rest, man. Didn’t your mom ever tell you not to frown? Your face could stick that way.”

“I’m not frowning.”

“The hell you say. I’ve known you for how long?”

“Too long,” Zane mumbled.

“Exactly. I can tell the minute you start castigating yourself. You get this really ugly furrow in the center of your forehead. Used to get the same thing when I went after some girl you liked at the bar.”

Zane growled deep in the back of his throat. A warning they both knew Simon would ignore. Their relationship had always been complicated. They annoyed the hell out of each other, had always been competitors for everything and each would take a bullet for the other without a second thought. Neither of them had siblings, and Zane often thought they filled that role for each other.

Simon pulled no punches, and Zane trusted him to tell the truth…whether he wanted to hear it or not.

Zane turned to leave. He was halfway out before Simon’s voice stopped him.

“Let me know if you find any red lace panties. I could use a little distraction right now. That woman is quite a firecracker, and I wouldn’t mind getting a little singed.”

Zane’s hands wrapped into fists as he spun on his heel. Simon lounged against the bar, a taunting half smile and a twinkle in his eye. Zane relaxed his body again.

“Bastard.”

The man had always known which buttons to push.

ELLE RUMMAGED FRANTICALLY through her luggage, looking for the picture she’d torn from the magazine. She’d been staring at it every night for the past two months and now that she couldn’t find it, panic began to rise in her chest. She needed that picture. It held the only clues she had to finding her grandmother’s painting.

She tore into her suitcase, flinging clothing every which way, hoping that she’d simply missed it the first time.

She never should have let them touch her things!

A warm wave of relief flooded through her. There, placed neatly at the very bottom of her suitcase sat what she was looking for. Picking it up, Elle ran the pad of her thumb across the glossy image. How had she missed it the first time?

The picture was fairly large, taking up most of the space on the page.

She had to admit, the ad had done its job. She’d wanted to come to Escape even before she’d noticed the painting hanging on the wall in the background.

The vista the camera lens let the audience into was just as breathtaking as the lush tropical surroundings that stood outside the walls. The angle the photographer had chosen accentuated the perspective, elongating the lines of the comfortable living room, through what she assumed was a bedroom and out the floor-to-ceiling windows to the ocean beyond.

All of the furniture was heavy wood, looking as if the pieces had stood there through years of love and use. Tranquil blues and greens decorated the walls and dotted every surface. And in between two towering bookshelves hung the painting of her grandmother, somehow even more lavish surrounded by the tropical beauty outside.

The artist in Elle could appreciate the composition and structure of the photograph. The way the photographer had staged the shot to convey a feeling of lush peace and beauty. The little girl she’d never really got to be wanted the only memento of her grandmother back so desperately her lungs tightened with the need to run screaming through the place, ripping doors open until she found what she’d come for.

But that would just land her back inside the dank, cramped space with Officer Zane standing over her, asking questions she really didn’t want to answer.

Instead, she concentrated on trying to find some clue within the picture. A clue she hadn’t found the hundreds of times she’d stared at it before.

The entire resort had a sort of lived-in feel, as if you were vacationing with a long-lost aunt who just happened to be a billionaire. Each of the guest rooms that occupied the French plantation house was decorated differently…which should have made her search easier, but so far hadn’t. Yes, she’d been able to glance into each of the rooms she’d seen and know whether or not it was the one. But there were so many of them and she had no way to narrow down her search. Not to mention that once she had searched the rooms inside, she had to cover all of the bungalows reserved exclusively for couples, the common areas and the restricted spaces.

She hadn’t gotten into nearly enough rooms today. And to make matters worse, she had no doubt that Zane had been telling the truth and would be watching her every move now.

Elle sighed, mentally rearranging her schedule in her head. She had a couple of commissioned paintings she should be working on, but both clients could be put off for a little while. An Atlanta gallery had expressed interest in a showing. But that was months away. Really, there were worse places on the planet to be stuck than an exotic Caribbean island.

The place was stunning. And her upgraded room had a killer view.

Unfortunately, it didn’t contain her grandmother’s painting, either. That would have made her life too easy.

Flopping back onto the bed, she let her body sink into the luxurious comforter. She stared up at the beautiful crown molding that ringed the ceiling and, for the first time, admitted she hadn’t exactly planned. She could hear her dad’s voice in her head now. “You went off half-cocked again, didn’t you, girl?” Even in her own brain, the stern voice couldn’t disguise the indulgent humor beneath.