Page 2 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
Rain held bad memories for her. So did that melancholy hour just after sunset, when the last happy rays of
daylight are devoured by the hungry, spreading gloom of night. So the moment the shop door opened and the little welcoming silver bell sang its merry jingle, all she wanted to do was go home, take a hot bath, and crawl into bed.
She looked up to see who’d come in, and it was as if an invisible hand reached out and seized her heart.
A man stood inside the doorway, shaking the rain from a large black umbrella. He closed it, lowered it into the antique iron stand nearby, smoothed the collar of his beautifully tailored suit jacket, and slowly, deliberately, gazed around the store. Tall and dark-haired, broad-shouldered and substantial yet somehow simultaneously lean and dancer-lithe, he was both forbidding and fascinating.
Assassin, she thought, and a little chill ran down her spine.
It wasn’t his clothing—a tailored charcoal suit that screamed bespoke, black Ferragamo loafers polished to a mirror gleam, a platinum and diamond Patek Phillipe watch she knew from her stepmother’s rotating stable of wealthy boyfriends cost more than she’d earn in a decade—or his quiet confidence, or the way he glided noiselessly as he moved away from the door, those gleaming loafers silent against the floor as if they never touched the ground. It wasn’t even his general mien of elegant, menacing mystery, or the way the air seemed to gather around him, tense and expectant like a held breath.
It was his eyes.
Electric, smoldering, unearthly green, rimmed in the kohl of thick lashes and heavy-lidded as if he’d very recently found his satisfaction in some lusty woman’s bed, his eyes held promises of sin and carnal pleasures. They also held a distinct, ominous, unspoken warning—Danger—which offered an irresistible opposition to their seductive invitation.
His eyes were, simply, stunning.
So was the rest of him, and she wasn’t the only one who thought so. The swath of gaping women he left in his wake as he slowly threaded his way through the clusters of low tables and book displays toward the counter where she stood was ample evidence of that.
Because Ember was the kind of girl who despised the kind of man who reduced otherwise intelligent women to gelatinous puddles of blathering goo, she hated him on sight.
Why should he be prettier than the prettiest woman in the room? And possibly the world? Really, it was indecent. Unless he made his living as a model or an escort, no self-respecting man should pay so much attention to his wardrobe. Or his grooming. His hair, jet-black and glossy, trimmed short on the sides and in back but with a studied bit of tousle up top, was as perfect as the rest of him.
Maybe he’s an actor, she thought, watching him approach, his stride liquid and leisurely. He did have a definite Pierce Brosnan/Daniel Craig kind of thing going on, though he was younger, and infinitely prettier than either. She pictured him jumping from a helicopter to the roof of a speeding train to engage in a fistfight with a knife-wielding psychopath, emerging after it was done without a speck of grime or a single wrinkle on that beautiful suit.
Or maybe he was gay? It was so hard to tell; these Spanish men were much more sophisticated and better groomed than the boys she’d known back home in the States. Ember wished her friend Asher was here to rule definitively on the matter. His gaydar was far better calibrated than her own.
Green Eyes stopped in front of the counter. He looked at her. In a commanding, masculine tenor refined by a cultured British accent, perfectly suited for ordering terrified servants to do his bidding, he said, “Casino Royale.”
Ember almost laughed. Instead she blurted, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Casino Royale? The book that launched James Bond into pop icon status? The coincidence that she’d been imagining him as exactly that was, in itself, incredible. She wondered if Green Eyes was a mind reader. In addition to being a beauty queen.
King. Whatever.
The corners of his full lips lifted, the faintest chagrin. “As it happens, I’m not. I’m looking for a first edition, hardcover, 1953. I was informed this is the best rare bookstore in the city.” He paused, let his gaze drift over her plain brown cable-knit sweater, her baggy jeans, her scuffed running shoes, long faded from their original white to a dingy, dusty gray. When his gaze rested again on her face, he murmured, “Or perhaps I was misinformed.”
Wondering if this was some kind of joke, Ember studied him. Depending on the condition of the book and the dust jacket, a first edition copy of Casino Royale would cost somewhere between fifty thousand and one hundred fifty thousand euro. With the economy the way it was, she hadn’t had a sale like that in…well, too long. She decided to call his bluff.
“No. you weren’t misinformed. It’ll have to be tomorrow, though.”
His brows lifted.
“Storage,” she replied, by way of explanation. Antiquarian Books didn’t keep the rarest and most valuable books on the shelves for the general public to paw over. They were kept in acid-free book boxes, on rust-resistant metal shelves, in a temperature and humidity-controlled storage facility on the outskirts of the city. She was tempted to add a churlish, “Duh,” but held her tongue. “What condition are you interested in?”
“Perfect,” he replied instantly, as if it should have been obvious.
Of course he’d want perfect. From the looks of him, she assumed perfect was all he’d been accustomed to, all his life.
In swift assessment, his blazing green eyes narrowed. “Irritating you, am I?”
That startled her. Ember was certain she hadn’t curled her lip, snickered, or otherwise given physical proof of what she’d been thinking. Though she wasn’t the superstitious type, the vague notion that maybe this pretty, pampered stranger could read minds deepened into something nearer certainty.
“Um, no. Of course not.” She cleared her throat and tried on her best “interested professional” face. He was still a customer after all, and she had to be polite. The bookstore and rare book dealing business her father started had been teetering on the verge of bankruptcy since he died three years ago. Well, technically since he opened it, five years ago. Her late father, an artist and daydreamer who had a fetish for collecting books, wasn’t a very good businessman. And if she was being honest, she wasn’t really up to the task either. She’d inherited both his artistic ability and his lack of business acumen. Music had always been her thing.
Until it wasn’t.
So if Mr. Bedroom Eyes Assassin wanted to spend his money, she’d better be nicer to him. She thought she’d have to warn him, however, just to be fair. “You’re looking at a substantial investment, though. A first edition in perfect condition is likely to run you—”
