were good intentions behind it. What exactly did Belle hope to gain?
'Are the mermaids ready?' he asked.
'They've been ready for a week. They're bored stupid.'
'They are boring and stupid,' Pietre corrected her, 'but they're your heiresses, and as such I will tolerate them.'
She smiled acknowledgment, a mere flick of facial muscles. 'Then you'll move her?'
He looked back to the screen, manipulating the controls to gain maximum enlargement of the frames taken while Wendee had been swimming.
The anguish on her face as she'd swivelled back into view had startled him. He'd imagined her to be settling in, enjoying herself. The thought had given him pleasure and he was upset to have had that pleasure replaced by concern. He wasn't accustomed to concerning himself with other people's contentment. Yet this Wendee had engaged his emotions, or at least was unwittingly sharing her own with him.
It was disconcerting and he should dismiss them, dismiss her. Yet he did not. He welcomed the unsettling intrusion into his ordered life and in the deepest part of his psyche, felt a certain rightness to it. Why?
'So. The mermaids?'
He dragged his attention back to Belle. Deliver her to the mermaids? He tried to weigh up the pros and cons but there was no rationality where Wendee was concerned and analysing his motives was like wading through treacle. It drained him. It also made no sense. He fell back on instinct.
'Very well,' he said. 'You can take her to them in the morning. When she's rested.'
' Moi?' Belle touched her chest in disbelief. 'You want me to go into that stuffy dungeon and — '
'Please,' Pietre interrupted softly. 'Introduce her to the mermaids. Stay with them a while.' He let his eyes stray over her body, encased in a cloud of white chiffon — a risque wedding cake ornament. 'Be Tinkerbell for her.'
She mellowed, smiled.
'Are you free tonight?' He changed the subject before she could change her mind.
'I may be,' she replied, all aloof courtesan now. No more the insecure pixie. 'What did you have in mind?'
'An amusement.'
'Dangerous?'
'Undoubtedly.'
'Then I'm free.'
They exchanged a knowing smile. 'A Russian ballerina is to be killed tonight by the FBI. In Auckland. She's a spy.'
'And…?' Her arrogance was breathtaking.
'I want you to seduce her. Keep her backstage. Let the understudy take her place.'
'The FBI agent?' Belle purred.
'You know me too well, Ma Chere,' Pietre said, offering her a bland smile. 'A menage a trois?'
'Absolutely.' Her parting glance, before she turned away, was heavy lidded. 'Give me an hour, I want to dress.'
'Not this?' He fingered a translucent strip, imagining the frothy concoction on someone statuesque. Someone like… Wendee? On her it would barely cover from nipple to pubis, and instead of crawling across the floor, the train would cascade down behind those long, long legs to settle in an adoring pool at her feet.
'I think not,' Belle chided, stepping away. 'Something with a little more subtlety.' Her stiletto mules clicked up against her heels as she stalked off.
The strip of nothingness slipped out of his hand but Pietre didn't look up. The door shut behind Belle and still he stared at his fingers where the fabric had lain.
He wanted to touch Wendee.
The thought came to him out of nowhere and he was bewildered by it. More than bewildered. Stupefied.
For the briefest of moments, as he'd pictured her swathed in chiffon, he'd seen himself abased before her, licking her feet and sucking her toes with rapturous abandon.
Leaning back in his chair, he flexed his fingers, imagining what her skin might feel like — taste like. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. This was not a subject on which he normally dwelt. It was unsettling.
Then another flash of imagery beset him, and no hazy fantasy this time. This was a crisp vignette with all the clarity of a real memory.
Inside his mind he saw his own hands reach towards a drunken Wendee. They grasped the front of her dress and re-covered the breasts her struggles with Mr Black had released. And in doing so, the backs of those fingers touched her skin.
Smooth skin, and cool. The nipples hard, not scratching, but making their presence known as his knuckles passed over them. And then, as casually as though he touched people every day, his hands returned to the warmth of his coat pockets.
The replay halted there, as though cut off, and vaguely, Pietre realised his eyes were closed. He opened them. Blinked.
He'd touched Wendee.
He'd stepped close enough for her to be inside his personal space and he'd touched her. Incredibly, it had seemed natural, necessary. Yet more frightening, somewhere between the performance of that incredible feat and when they'd left the nightclub, the memory had been erased.
How?
The chill spectre of hereditary madness haunted him momentarily before he cast it aside. He was too young. Too strong to go that way.
Traumatic amnesia? He considered the possibility seriously. It had been fifteen years since he'd touched another human voluntarily. The shock of over-riding his own inhibitions might have created a wall around the incident.
But did it then follow that there might be other forgotten incidents? Other surprises?
Alone in the quiet room, he shook his head. No. Surely only this one. But why now? And why had he touched this particular woman?
Was it a portent?
At a subconscious level he'd felt a connection between them. Even without Belle's jealousy to highlight his preoccupation, he'd noticed he was inordinately interested in this particular player.
He had two facts then. She fascinated him. And he'd touched her. But which had come first?
Had the fascination been at-first-sight? Had she drawn his touch by some bewitchment of his mind? Or had there been no fascination before the act? That being the case, the actual act of touching would have been the catalyst for focusing his attention on its random recipient, hence his subsequent interest in her. Neither answer seemed plausible.
He closed his eyes, determined to recall every nuance of their meeting.
It had been early morning, perhaps 3am when she'd staggered into the nightclub with the prostitute Roc. Immediately Pietre had been impressed by her sensuality — her glossy tousled hair, the pouting too-red lips, the animal glow to her skin that spoke of a rapacious appetite well sated.
Her intoxication hadn't been at issue. He'd already known he was seeing the real Wendee, the Wendee he could take with him if he chose. And he had chosen. Or at least he'd thought the decision had been his. Now, he wasn't convinced.
Pietre placed no God above himself, but he did believe in fate.
Was it possible that his 'accidental' intimacy with this woman had been no accident, but the subconscious recognition on his part of the other half — the fulfilment of his destiny.
He'd always hoped there'd be one who would awaken the sleeper. One he could let in.
When he'd first found Belle he'd thought… But she wasn't the one. He could tolerate her near him, even accept her touch, in all its forms. But touch her? It was beyond him. The capacity had been lost.
He'd thought.
But he had touched Wendee.
Distress warred with exultation as the impact of his actions permeated deep. He wanted to go to her, to test
