was desperate enough to hitch-hike.
He flicked back through her credit card records. Neverin his life had he seen anyone so respectable. College, work, travel for work, virtually nothing else. Everyone had secrets. Hell, he had some humdingers himself. But Sinead’s life appeared to be pristine. If Mother Teresa was a museum curator, she would have a record like this.
The only odd thing was regular payments for more dance classes than he would expect from someone so buttoned down, but he supposed it was her alternative to sweating it out in a gym.
While he continued to search, an alert came in from one of his team of geeks that someone else was searching for Sinead. He checked it out.
Fuck. The information request had come from Blackstone’s head of European ops. Why was that bastard looking for Sinead?
Ever since he’d found Darren Hall on top of an unwilling woman in Iraq, he’d hated the bastard. Not that he’d had much time for him before that. He seemed to think that being a former US SEAL made him a minor deity, and his opinion of women had turned the stomach of every SEAL who had ever served under him. And they were a tough bunch of men.
Hall had barely escaped a dishonourable discharge from the SEALs. Now, he was working for Blackstone, a shadowy security company that was prepared to break the law if that’s what it took.
If Hall was searching for Sinead, something was going badly wrong. In fact, something already was. Sinead had a $50 million ruby stashed away somewhere. The museum director wasn’t the only person who would want to get his hands on it. The chances were that every bad guy inEurope was after it. And Hall was one of the nastiest scumbags around. He didn’t play nice when it came to getting what he wanted.
Niall needed to find her before Hall did.
As the taxi picked its way through the rain-soaked Paris streets, Sinead couldn’t get Gabriel’s words out of her head. Spank her? He wouldn’t dare.
‘Nervous,
chérie
?’
The amusement in his voice made her yearn to slap him. Maybe she had sadistic tendencies after all. She hoped that Roisin was the same. ‘I’m fine. So what’s the plan when we get there?’
‘We will make a little tour, let people know that you have arrived and then we will go to the bar and wait.’
‘Wait for what?’
‘For one of your sister’s playmates to come to us.’
The taxi pulled up outside the neon-lit theatre. Gabriel paid him and they stepped out of the car. A burly security guard nodded to him and they passed the queue of customers and were ushered into the lobby.
Sinead had been expecting something seedy – she had performed in her own share of dumps when she was starting out as a dancer, but this place was more like a five-star hotel. A matching pair of cantilevered staircases led to a bar on the upper level, while the ground floor entrance to the circus ring was flanked by midnight-blue velvet curtains.
A bare-breasted woman on a unicycle distributed glasses of champagne. Sinead nodded her thanks and swallowed hers in two gulps.
She might have been wearing more clothing than some of the other women, but her waist-length red hair, which Gabriel had insisted she tie up in a long ponytail, was attracting attention.
‘Come,
chérie
,’ he whispered. ‘Let’s see what’s going on in the ring.’
A masked Pierrot drew back the curtain and they moved inside.
Sweet Sodom and Gomorrah. Sinead bit her tongue to stop herself whistling. She had been to plenty of burlesque clubs, but this was like no circus she had ever seen.
Above the crowd, two naked men and a woman performed a trapeze routine. In the centre of the performance area, a ringmaster displayed a skill with a single-tail whip that was mesmerizing. Instead of bursting the strategically placed balloons around a naked woman, he struck the woman while avoiding the balloons.
An announcement came over the PA and the crowd cheered. ‘You’ll enjoy this,’ Gabriel
He flicked back through her credit card records. Neverin his life had he seen anyone so respectable. College, work, travel for work, virtually nothing else. Everyone had secrets. Hell, he had some humdingers himself. But Sinead’s life appeared to be pristine. If Mother Teresa was a museum curator, she would have a record like this.
The only odd thing was regular payments for more dance classes than he would expect from someone so buttoned down, but he supposed it was her alternative to sweating it out in a gym.
While he continued to search, an alert came in from one of his team of geeks that someone else was searching for Sinead. He checked it out.
Fuck. The information request had come from Blackstone’s head of European ops. Why was that bastard looking for Sinead?
Ever since he’d found Darren Hall on top of an unwilling woman in Iraq, he’d hated the bastard. Not that he’d had much time for him before that. He seemed to think that being a former US SEAL made him a minor deity, and his opinion of women had turned the stomach of every SEAL who had ever served under him. And they were a tough bunch of men.
Hall had barely escaped a dishonourable discharge from the SEALs. Now, he was working for Blackstone, a shadowy security company that was prepared to break the law if that’s what it took.
If Hall was searching for Sinead, something was going badly wrong. In fact, something already was. Sinead had a $50 million ruby stashed away somewhere. The museum director wasn’t the only person who would want to get his hands on it. The chances were that every bad guy inEurope was after it. And Hall was one of the nastiest scumbags around. He didn’t play nice when it came to getting what he wanted.
Niall needed to find her before Hall did.
As the taxi picked its way through the rain-soaked Paris streets, Sinead couldn’t get Gabriel’s words out of her head. Spank her? He wouldn’t dare.
‘Nervous,
chérie
?’
The amusement in his voice made her yearn to slap him. Maybe she had sadistic tendencies after all. She hoped that Roisin was the same. ‘I’m fine. So what’s the plan when we get there?’
‘We will make a little tour, let people know that you have arrived and then we will go to the bar and wait.’
‘Wait for what?’
‘For one of your sister’s playmates to come to us.’
The taxi pulled up outside the neon-lit theatre. Gabriel paid him and they stepped out of the car. A burly security guard nodded to him and they passed the queue of customers and were ushered into the lobby.
Sinead had been expecting something seedy – she had performed in her own share of dumps when she was starting out as a dancer, but this place was more like a five-star hotel. A matching pair of cantilevered staircases led to a bar on the upper level, while the ground floor entrance to the circus ring was flanked by midnight-blue velvet curtains.
A bare-breasted woman on a unicycle distributed glasses of champagne. Sinead nodded her thanks and swallowed hers in two gulps.
She might have been wearing more clothing than some of the other women, but her waist-length red hair, which Gabriel had insisted she tie up in a long ponytail, was attracting attention.
‘Come,
chérie
,’ he whispered. ‘Let’s see what’s going on in the ring.’
A masked Pierrot drew back the curtain and they moved inside.
Sweet Sodom and Gomorrah. Sinead bit her tongue to stop herself whistling. She had been to plenty of burlesque clubs, but this was like no circus she had ever seen.
Above the crowd, two naked men and a woman performed a trapeze routine. In the centre of the performance area, a ringmaster displayed a skill with a single-tail whip that was mesmerizing. Instead of bursting the strategically placed balloons around a naked woman, he struck the woman while avoiding the balloons.
An announcement came over the PA and the crowd cheered. ‘You’ll enjoy this,’ Gabriel
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