Kristoff’s lips moved on mine, his tongue gently probing and tasting, his body hard as he pulled me closer, his fingers biting into my hips. I wanted to capture that moment and hold it, unchanging, forever, a perfect state where passion mingled with desire and need and the beginnings of something I really didn’t want to name. How on earth could Kristoff believe I preferred Alec to him? How could he not understand?
You said you were his Beloved. You wanted to see him, not me. How could I think otherwise?
CHAPTER 5
You talked to me!
“I don’t know, Christian. They’ve been apart for two whole months. I think they deserve a little reacquaintance time.”
You did the mind thing!
“I’m not disputing their need for time together, my love. I simply would prefer that we finish up here before they indulge in acts better suited to a more private situation.”
Of your own free will you mind-thinged me!
“Might I point out that you are the one who detained Kristoff? Personally, if I were Pia, I’d jump his bones right in front of you just to make a point, but she appears to have more dignity than I do. That really must be one humdinger of a kiss, though. I haven’t seen them stop even once to breathe.”
Kristoff’s sigh was a mental one, brushing around in my mind with a disturbing sense of intimacy.
Why did you not tell me you didn’t want Alec?
I broke off the kiss, moving back a few steps, my fingers touching my still-burning lips. He might be easier in his mind now that he knew I wasn’t secretly pining for Alec, but that hadn’t really changed anything between us. He was still mourning the loss of his love, and there wasn’t anything I could do to change that.
“I’m sorry,” I said, turning around to apologize to the vampires. Allie grinned at me. The others had less pleasant expressions.
“If you’re quite through?” Christian inquired politely, his eyebrows raised in gentle chastisement.
“We haven’t seen each other in a while,” I said lamely, waving a vague hand toward Kristoff. “Obviously, there are some issues we still have to work through.”
“Ones I trust you will discuss at another time,” he said with a pointed look at Kristoff.
“Assuming you allow Pia the opportunity to visit me while you have me incarcerated, certainly,” Kristoff answered with no little sense of irony.
“Nice one,” Allie said, nodding approvingly, adding, “What?” when her husband turned a frown on her. “I can root for both sides, you know.”
“You’re supposed to be on my side,” he said with a touch of indignation.
“Only when you’re right, my little mashed potato of love,” she answered.
Christian’s expression bore an uncanny resemblance to the one I’d seen on Kristoff’s face, but it slipped away quickly enough when he glanced back toward us, eyeing me a moment before saying, “Your argument, albeit out of place, was regardless convincing. I admit to finding it confusing as well.”
“Confusing how?” I asked, waving toward Kristoff. “He was sitting right next to me when I told Alec that he and I had spent the night together-”
“You can’t possibly blame me for thinking that you only did that to steal my thunder, not that I was going to tell Alec,” Kristoff interrupted me.
I rounded on him. “How was I supposed to know that? You told me you were dumping me on Alec, and that I was his problem!”
“You just had to set that off, didn’t you, Mr. Trou-blemaker?” Allie said, laughing at her husband.
Christian sighed and, before Kristoff could protest, said quickly, “If we could refrain from continuing the ‘I said, you said’ argument and stick to the facts.”
“You know, you guys sound just like Christian and me on a bad day,” Allie said in a confidential tone.
Christian took exception to that. “They do not! We never argue!”
“In your dreams we don’t! What about last week, when I wanted to send Josef to a nursery school for some socialization, and you had that great big scene where you ranted and raved about him mingling with mortals?”
Sebastian snickered. It distracted Christian from the retort he was clearly about to make, but it didn’t stop him from sending his wife an annoyed glance. “We have strayed from the point again.”
“I’ve told you I’m innocent of your ridiculous charges,” I said-somewhat snappishly, it was true, but I was beginning to feel the effects of jet lag. “I don’t know anything about Kristoff’s financial status, but I’m just about willing to guarantee he hasn’t done any embezzling.”
“ ‘Just about’?” the man of my dreams asked, obviously outraged.
“We haven’t known each other very long,” I said in a soothing voice before turning back to Christian. “Just exactly what proof do you have that either one of us committed such atrocities?”
“There are financial records,” Christian said, gesturing toward a file folder lying on the table.
“I’ve seen them. They’re clearly false,” Kristoff said. At a nod from Christian, I shuffled through the paperwork. Most of it was financial statements and transaction logs, showing sums of money in various currencies being moved from one account to another. “Easily created, but not so easily proven.”
“There is the matter of your own personal account,” Christian said as Sebastian held out a single sheet of paper.
“What about it?” Kristoff asked, his brows pulling together. “I gave you the access information for my account so you could see for yourself that I do not have an inordinate amount of money.”
“I printed this balance statement for your account this morning,” Sebastian said, offering Kristoff a sheet of paper.
He took it with a swift intake of breath. I peered over his shoulder to read it, my eyes widening as I did a swift mental exchange-rate calculation. “Holy moly. It’s too bad we really aren’t married-you could really keep me in style with that metric butt-ton of money.”
“Pia, my dear, I may not have known you for long, but as you are a friend of Allie’s, I feel I can offer a little morsel of advice-a lady never refers to a gentleman’s holdings except in the most obscure terms, and never as a metric butt-ton,” Esme chided.
“Sorry,” I said, amused.
“That isn’t mine,” Kristoff protested, shoving the paper back. “I don’t have anywhere near as much money as that.”
“And yet, the money was transferred to your account two weeks ago, just about the time that Alec disappeared,” Sebastian said. “You’ll notice that the amounts deposited over a five-day period correspond exactly with the funds withdrawn from the trusts set up to provide for the families of those slain by the reapers.”
“It’s not mine,” Kristoff repeated with stubborn finality.
“You know, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how to transfer money to someone else’s account. Someone is setting Kristoff up.” I felt obliged to point that out, since it obviously hadn’t occurred to anyone else.
“Why would anyone want to do that?” Rowan asked. “The money has gone to him. No one else would benefit from that.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said in a tone lighter than the way I felt. I held his gaze firmly. “I can see someone who hated Kristoff going to all sorts of lengths to get revenge. Someone he thought of as close, but who turned out to be a traitor.”
Rowan leaped to his feet and was over the table before the last word left my mouth. Instantly Kristoff was between us, his hands fisted as he scowled at his cousin.
“Oh, my!” Esme said, clutching the belt of her tattered bathrobe. “Fisticuffs!”
“Your Beloved is ill advised to speak thusly to me,” Rowan spit.
“And you dare much to threaten her, cousin ,” Kristoff answered, making me look at him in surprise. His lovely lyrical, Italian-accented voice was thick with anger. It warmed me that he’d be so protective, even when his
