He waited until he held her gaze again, and without a word, Spiker promised that he’d had not minded where her focus had been. She lifted the dress like a protective shield and hurried from his room.
The floorboards creaked as she fled. His laser-hot gaze stayed on her back until she dove into her bedroom. Vanka rushed the dress onto a hook and placed the shoes on the dresser. Then, awareness announced itself with a full-body tremble, as though she’d been blind to the last thirty seconds.
What the hell had she been looking at?
Why had Spiker seemed like he approved?
She was mortified and hated the frenzy of her heartbeat. Like a teenager, she leaped onto her bed and buried her face into the pillows until it was hard to breathe.
The old house creaked. The floorboards interrupted her hysterics and paralyzed her like the prey of a wild beast. On the other side of her door, she could hear Spiker cross the hardwood threshold. Millennia passed with each step. Then he stopped at her door. She froze. Even her pulse held its breath as he waited—for what?
As though he had the same thoughts, his weight shifted, and Spiker retraced his steps.
She yanked a pillow from the top of her bed and wrapped herself around it. Even when they wanted to kill each other, they had always been in lockstep. Now, after the course of a few days, a gulf of unsaid-and-impossible had formed between them.
Her cell phone dinged with the tone assigned to Nan, and Vanka had never been so glad to have a well-researched distraction. She swiped open Nan’s message.
The Lacedaemonian Mask
Likely origination: Laconia, Greece
Recorded in Constantinople, early 300s CE, where it remained for ten centuries.
Stolen 1204 during the Fourth Crusade—under the direction of Venetian Enrico Dandolo—and displayed in an Italian church
Stolen by Napoleon’s men—1797—placed in Paris
1819—the French returned the piece to Vatican City as part of a diplomatic effort. Re-displayed at the same church, which had become a basilica.
Sold by the Catholic Church to the Barnard Museum of History.
Stolen 1957—never to been seen again.
“At least until tonight.” She crossed her fingers and thanked Nan.
Nan’s report was exactly what Vanka needed. Sexy man in the next room or not, Vanka’s focus had returned to where it needed to be.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
In the day and age of heart transplants and helicopters on Mars, Spiker couldn't explain why uncomfortable footwear like these designer duds existed. He was confident that Vanka’s choice had been designed to blend in with the crowd more than to torture him. Then again, when it came to his partner, there was no telling.
The heel-toe clip of her approach sounded from the second floor.
"Let's see what you've got, princess," Spiker called as he reviewed the new identification in his wallet and double-checked who he would be that evening. He casually strolled from the living room and stopped dead in his tracks.
Vanka struck a pose midway down the staircase. Black fabric knotted around her neck and poured over her curves as if it were metallic black ink. Her hair had been pinned up high on top of her head and her bare arms left unadorned, as if one loose blond strand or jeweled bracelet would detract from sheer perfection.
He should have let out a low, prolonged whistle that would’ve earned him a verbal slap. Without that, Vanka couldn’t roll her eyes and lecture him on being a chauvinist pig, then inspect his clothes for invisible lint and wrinkles as he ensured her concealed carries blended in.
That was their black-tie routine, and he’d gone off script. He’d remained quiet, and now everything was screwed up.
Her glossy lipstick frown deepened, and she backtracked up a stair. “What's wrong?”
“Nothing,” he managed.
“Something’s wrong.” She scrutinized her shoes and dress and then him. “You don’t have anything to say?”
Absolutely not. Spiker didn’t trust his voice. Instead, he offered a slow clap. Vanka hesitated, then lifted her skirt and cautiously descended the stairs. “Thank you.”
The polite thank you sucker-punched him in the gut. If he didn’t pull his act together, they might as well cancel their plans. They wouldn’t be able to maintain their covers. She stopped on the last step. Spiker cleared his throat and announced, “Ten out of ten.”
With an appreciative glance, she skipped the lecture and walked over. Vanka smoothed her palms over his shoulders and down the jacket’s lapels, and he wondered how he’d never noticed her perfume, and still, the scent was familiar.
Tonight they weren’t armed with anything more than surreptitiously placed digital cameras, and he was grateful she didn’t require an intensive once-over. “We’re good to go?”
“We’re GTG,” she confirmed and headed into the dining room.
Spiker’s blood stopped as if some Cupid-turned-Grim-Reaper had crushed his heart in its hand. Nothing—absolutely nothing—covered her back. The dress was tied at the nape of her neck and disappeared until the swell of her ass. “Have I seen that dress before?”
She glanced over her shoulder and looked up at him through dark eyelashes. “Yes.”
“I don’t remember it.”
She smiled as if the admission pleased her. “That’s the point.”
“If I had made a billion or two in my twenties”—Spiker eased the Maserati off the exclusive road in McLean, Virginia—“I’m not sure that this is the mansion I would’ve picked as my DC metro residence.”
Vanka studied her up-do hairstyle in a small, handheld mirror. “Not everyone has your impeccable taste.”
He grinned and braked, grateful that the night had become more manageable. Spiker liked the sweet ride they’d picked up and, if he was being truthful, he found it hard to gawk at a beautiful woman when her biggest concern was if the McRib sandwiches he grabbed at McDonald’s would stain his tux. They hadn’t, and everything had gone back to normal.
By design, they arrived before the crush of fashionably late guests but had to wait in a short line for a valet. The pause gave Spiker time to assess the mansion’s purplish stone facade. “What color would you call that?”
Vanka unfastened her seat belt and took a sweeping glance out the windshield. “What?”
“Everything.” He vaguely gestured at the expansive house and driveway. “All of the rocks.”
The line of cars progressed as she took her time answering. “Gray.”
“What? No.” He double-checked that she was serious. “It’s like a purple castle.”
Vanka snickered. “That might be the early-evening light playing tricks on you.”
“No way—maybe not every stone. But, it’s not gray.”
She checked again. “There may be a peach or rose undertone in some of the stones, but it’s not purple.”
“I’m going to write tonight’s report and call this place the purple castle.” He eased the Maserati forward and then parked as the next valet neared Vanka’s door.
“I’m sure Buck will be thrilled.”
One more reason to dislike Buck Baer. The asshole never found Spiker funny. Hell, Buck never found anyone funny. Spiker should’ve flagged that as a risk from day one.