It was nearly 9:30 a.m. by the time they left BDI. After the fifth floor meeting, everyone adjourned to the fourth to eat a big catered breakfast together. Sobol, Tommy, and Marco cooled their heels in the detention facility, and the Feds prepared to raid Steve Gorky’s Star Island retreat in Miami.
Jace and Maddy took Colt and Angie back to his place. He hadn’t driven and his SUV was still in the driveway. A team from BDI had removed a tracking device from the bottom of the vehicle. The electrician at Jace and Maddy’s was on Gorky’s payroll. He’d called Marco, who’d swung by with Tommy to attach the tracker yesterday.
Colt hated that he hadn’t looked for a device, but Ian had taken him aside and told him that everything—absolutely everything—was working out the way it should. If not for the device, if not for Angie being kidnapped, if not for the frantic search and a million other things, they’d have less on Steve Gorky than they did. They wouldn’t have Sobol or Tommy or Marco either.
Perspective. It was all about perspective.
Colt tried to remember that as he and Angie walked into the house. Ian had sent a team to clean it, naturally. They’d swept for bugs, found none, and cleared up anything broken or upended. Angie had her bag with her laptop and phone. Colt had his gun. It was like none of it happened.
Except the part where Angie smiled at him and his world melted into a million bright shards of color.
“Come here,” he said, opening his arms. She walked into them and put hers around him. He pressed her head to his chest, stroked her hair. “I love you, Angelica Turner.”
“I love you too, Colton Duchaine.”
“I want to take you to bed right now—” She gazed up at him. He grinned. “And catch up on our sleep.”
She laughed. “Honestly, so do I. But if you wanted to make love first, I’d have agreed to that too.”
“I always want to make love to you. But I’ll do a better job when I get some sleep first.”
They fell asleep tangled together, and everything was right.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Paris, France
1 week later
Colt held Angie’s hand as they exited passport control at Charles De Gaulle Airport. His heart rate was a little faster than normal, but he knew what he was doing was right. He’d spent the past week with Angie, loving her, being loved by her, knowing without a doubt that she was the one and only woman for him.
Yet he still experienced mild anxiety about the one thing he hadn’t told her yet. His family. What had happened.
He knew she wasn’t going to care. He knew it, and yet he had to give her the chance to refuse.
She’d been so patient. She was still patient as he flagged a taxi and gave the driver the address. They drove through the streets of Paris, and Angie marveled at the sights. Colt’s gut tightened the closer they got to his apartment.
The car pulled up to the building, a marvelous eighteenth century structure in the heart of the city. It had somehow escaped much of the ruin that befell other buildings of the period. It had passed through various hands before become part of the Duchesne estate.
“This is a hotel,” Angie said as Colt paid the driver and they exited the car. “I thought you said you had an apartment.”
“It’s on the top floor,” he said, ushering her toward the doors.
The doorman in his livery straightened and snapped a salute. “Monsieur le Comte. Bonjour.”
“Bonjour, Michel.” Colt asked after the man’s family, and Michel replied they were well.
Angie was watching them carefully. “This is Michel,” Colt said. “He’s worked for my family for twenty-five years. Michel, this is Angelica Turner.”
“Mademoiselle,” Michel said, bowing.
Colt led her inside. The reception was much the same, with several people coming out of the woodwork to greet him. The foyer was rich with antiques. Paintings, rugs, statuary. There was a front desk, and there were guests. Thank God. Colt was beginning to believe he should have told her another way.
By the time they exited the elevator—operated by a liveried attendant—into the top floor apartment, which was accessible only by a special elevator, Angie looked shell-shocked. She turned to him when the elevator closed. The apartment was filled with more antiques, more paintings and rugs. It was lush, rich, nothing like the rental house in Maryland.
“Um, Colt. What is this?”
He took her by the shoulders, turned her toward a painting that hung in the foyer of the apartment.
“That’s you,” she said.
“No, it’s my grandfather.”
She walked over to the painting. Peered at the plate attached to the frame. “Maxence d’Duchesne, the ninth Comte de Duchesne.” She turned. “What is a comte?”
Colt spread his hands. “It’s a title, Angie.”
Her eyebrows rose. “First of all, I got that. Second of all—what kind of title? Translate, please.”
“It means count. The Count of Duchesne.”
“The Count of Duchesne,” she repeated.
“It’s like an earl. A British earl?” He said it as a question because she looked so dumfounded.
“I know what an earl is. I read plenty of historical romances growing up.” She folded her arms. “What you’re telling me, Colton Duchesne, is that you’re a count. A French count, which is like an earl.”
He nodded. “That’s right.”
She went over to a chair—an original Louis VI chair—and sank down on it. “Well, I’ll be damned. Why didn’t you tell me? Why did we have to fly all the way to Paris for this?”
He shrugged, feeling a little embarrassed. A lot uncomfortable. “Because it’s impossible to explain. I’m the tenth Comte de Duchesne. My real name is Maxence Colton Francois Duchesne. Colt Duchaine is an alias I use, but not my legal name. My mother insisted on the Colton part, in case you couldn’t tell. But I’m a fraud, Angie. I don’t own anything except this building. I have no fortune, I’m not involved in the family business,
