Читать книгу The Prince Next Door - Sue Civil-Brown - Страница 11

MARCO, STILL CLAD in his obscene Speedo, was indeed in the parking area beneath the condos. On the coast like this, buildings were elevated on stilts to avoid flooding during severe storms, and the area beneath was quite handily used for parking.

He was busy applying a thick coat of something milky to the lovingly preserved red paint of his Ferrari. He smiled when he saw Serena. “This is so important to preserve the finish in this climate,” he explained.

Thinking of the condition of the paint on her four-year-old car, Serena was inclined to agree. Between salt and sun, a car didn’t stand a chance. “Have you met our new neighbor?” she asked Marco.

He paused and straightened. “No, I don’t think so.”

“He lives next door to me. He drives a Ferrari.”

Ariel snickered quietly, and Serena shot her a warning glance.

“He does?” Marco’s face, usually quite happy, brightened even more. “He appreciates fine workmanship and speed, no?”

“Actually,” Serena said, “I don’t know what he appreciates. All I know is…Marco, I think he may be up to no good.”

Marco’s expression sobered. “Why you say that?”

Ariel beat Serena to the punch, in her usual, tactless and straightforward way. “Serena thinks he might be a drug dealer.”

Marco’s face darkened. His chest swelled with ire and he spouted something in Italian that definitely sounded threatening.

“Now wait,” Serena said hastily. “I don’t know anything for a fact.” Then she shot a glare at Ariel. “Don’t make mountains out of molehills.”

“I thought that was your job,” Ariel agreed sweetly.

Marco, meanwhile, had let his chest sag once more. “Why do you think this?”

“Because…because he dresses oddly and claims to be an international art dealer. I mean…” She was starting to feel foolish, but Marco saved her.

He nodded. “International art dealer? Here? Hah!” He made a gesture that Serena had never asked the meaning of and suspected she really didn’t want to know. “So what do we do?” he asked.

“Well…” She didn’t feel quite so foolish anymore, now that Marco, a man familiar with a more cosmopolitan world than this part of Florida, found it absurd that an international art dealer would choose to live here of all places. Oh, there were some fine-art museums in the Tampa Bay area, and even the famed Dali Museum in St. Petersburg. But enough business to keep a major art dealer busy? Not likely.

“Yes?” Marco prompted.

“I thought…perhaps….well. Since you both have Ferraris, I thought you might be able to strike up a conversation and learn more about him.”

“Sì.” Marco nodded once, then vanished into his own Italianate thought. After a few minutes, during which time Serena hardly breathed, he nodded again. “Yes,” he said. “I will be a spy. I have grandchildren visit here. No drug deals in my building!”

For an awful instant Serena wondered if she was being too hasty. Then she remembered the weaselly visitor, and the threatening words he had spoken, “We have your mother.” Surely that was a sign of some illicit deal gone bad.

“But,” she said, having a final twinge of conscience, “we don’t know for sure anything’s wrong with him. We just need to find out.”

“I’ll find out.” Marco beamed. “No one can resist my personality.”

“No?”

“No.”

Serena had her doubts, considering how she had been clock-watching—or rather timer watching—just a little while ago. “Just don’t go overboard, Marco.”

He smiled. “Trust me. We will become bosom buddies.”

ARIEL LICKED the last bit of stickiness from her fingers as she and Serena rode the elevator back up to the eleventh floor.

“I wish,” Serena said, “that you wouldn’t be so…”

“Brutally honest?” Ariel asked. “It’s just the way I am. Besides, you wanted Marco to help, didn’t you? So why beat around the bush and waste time?”

Serena didn’t have an answer for that.

“Anyway,” Ariel continued blithely, “I hope you realize you may just have totally slandered an innocent man.”

Serena’s heart thumped. “I didn’t say he was a drug dealer. You did.”

“But it was your idea.” Smiling, Ariel got off the elevator ahead of her. “I hope you have a good lawyer.” Then she skipped down the balcony toward her own unit like a gleeful child.

Serena stared after her, thinking that while Ariel might be an adult by law, she was awfully immature in some ways. Sometimes it didn’t seem to Serena that the young woman ought to be living on her own.

But then, she thought with painful honesty, she could probably say the same about herself.

What had she just done?

SERENA’S SINUSES HURT. Guaranteed there was a storm coming. Her sinuses were a better predictor than the weather service. Certainly better than that dweeb on TV, who one day had stood talking about clear skies while it was raining everywhere, including on his own building.

Sighing, she pulled back the drapes, stretching out the morning stiffness and looked through her glass doors. Her sinuses were right. They were pounding like a tympani because the sky was leaden, the gulf was gray and white-capped, and the only thing missing was the rumble of thunder.

No morning run. She’d lived her entire life in the lightning capital of the world, and she knew better than to get down there on the beach and trot along the water’s edge when there were clouds visible, even at a distance.

As if in answer to her thoughts, a purple-blue-red bolt suddenly shot out of the heavens and appeared to hit the water near shore. It was followed by an eerie green halo that seemed to hang in the air like a huge ball of plasma…which it probably was.

Curious, she stepped out on her balcony—not the wisest thing but she wasn’t always the wisest person, as everyone acquainted with her knew—and glanced down.

“Oh my God!” The words escaped her as she saw what appeared to be two men dragging a third person out of the water. Idiot tourists. Someone else was running toward the beach bar at a mad dash. Probably to call 911.

Serena was a dermatologist, but she was also a medical doctor. Grabbing a blanket and the CPR kit she was never without, she dashed out of her condo. The elevator would be too slow, so she ran down eleven flights of stairs, bursting out onto the beach and churning up gouts of sand behind her.

People were crowded around the person lying on the sand. “I’m a doctor,” got her right through until she could look down on the body.

“What happened?” she demanded as she dropped to her knees.

“Lightning,” said a man.

Serena bent forward, putting her ear to the man’s mouth to listen for breath as she also felt his carotid artery for a pulse.

Neither.

She tipped the man’s head back and used her fingers to ensure his air passage was clear. Then, holding his tongue with her thumb so it wouldn’t fall back in his throat, she applied the breathing bag.

“Can someone use this bag?” she asked. “Like this? While I try to resuscitate his heart.”

“I will.”

She suddenly found herself looking in the brown eyes of her mysterious neighbor, who knelt across from her. She didn’t have time now to think of that, though. “Like this,” she said. “Every time I tell you.”

“Got it.”

She began compressions, timing them, leaning fully into them with all the weight in her body, while her mysterious neighbor pumped air into his lungs as ordered. Every five compressions, she paused to listen.

Then she heard it, the thud of a heartbeat. Then a weak lub-dub.

“Stop for a second,” she said, and put her ear to the man’s mouth. A shaky breath. Another, deeper. Feeling the carotid, she found a pulse. A little irregular, but recurring.

“Thanks,” she said to her neighbor.

He nodded, his dark eyes grave. “It’s the least I could do.”

But the danger wasn’t past. In the distance she could hear the wail of approaching sirens. She looked along the length of the man’s body and realized his swim trunks were shredded, and a zig-zaggy burn, almost like a lightning bolt itself, marked his left side and left thigh.

She grabbed the blanket and spread it over him. “Elevate his feet with my bag,” she said to one of the people in the crowd.

Then she returned her attention to her patient’s face. His color was improving, he was still breathing. Thank God. She touched his cheek, shaking his head gently. “Can you hear me?”

A moan escaped him.

“Does anyone know his name?” she asked.

“It’s Jack,” said a woman.

“Jack. Jack! Can you hear me? Open your eyes!” Much to her relief, his eyelids fluttered. His eyes were unfocused, but they were open. “Stay with us, Jack. Stay awake. Help is coming.”

He moaned again, but his eyes stayed open.

“I told him,” said the woman. “I told him not to go in the water! But no, he’s a tough macho idiot…” Her voice trailed away in sobs.

“Nobody ought to be on this beach,” Serena said firmly. “Nobody.”

“But it’s our vacation,” some man argued. “Damn it, I paid a fortune…”

“You’ll pay even more in hospital bills,” Serena said shortly, trying to pick out the speaker from the crowd. “This place isn’t known as the lightning capital of the world for nothing.”

As if to back her up, another bolt sizzled and crackled downward, farther out in the water.

As if on cue, the curious began to hurry away.

Then, other than the woman who was Jack’s companion, Serena and the mysterious neighbor were alone with the patient. She couldn’t avoid his eyes then.

“Thank you,” she said again.

“You saved his life,” he said, and smiled.

God, it was a devastating smile. Things inside her went all fluttery and soft, and she wanted to kick her own butt. She cleared her throat and shrugged. “I’m a doctor.”

“I heard.” He extended his hand. “Darius Maxwell. Art dealer.”

“Hi.” She had to drag her gaze away from him and return her attention to Jack, who was beginning to actually focus his eyes. They found her and he said thickly, “You’re an angel. Oh, God, I’m dead.”

“No you’re not,” the sobbing woman said, “but you damn well oughta be.”

Jack actually smiled.

Serena was saved by the arrival of the paramedics. She gave them a crisp, professional report and let them take over responsibility. Her specialty didn’t involve caring for lightning victims…until they wanted scars removed. “Take care,” she said to Jack and his wife.

Then she gathered up her things and headed back toward the building while another crackle of lightning sizzled behind her.

“Excuse me!” Darius Maxwell caught up with her.

Who was following whom? “Yes?” She didn’t want to look at him. Absolutely not. He was too…too…attractive.

“Listen, since we’re neighbors…can I buy you dinner?”

Her instinct was to refuse. After all, what did she know about this man? On the other hand, getting to know him would be a wonderful way to find out what he was up to.

Uh-uh. Moth, flame, singed and all that. “I don’t think so. But thank you.”

“I understand.” They had reached the shelter of the parking garage, safer from the lightning, which was now forking across the sky like Thor’s own fireworks show. “You don’t know a thing about me.”

She darted a glance at him, hoping he was about to spill the beans. He disappointed her.

“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll order takeout and we can eat at my place or yours.”

Serena didn’t know if that was much safer. She hesitated before the elevator door. On the one hand, here was a sterling opportunity to learn something about this man and his evil doings. On the other, she’d be about as safe as a lamb in a cage with a tiger. Or so she wanted to believe.

“Compromise,” she said finally.

“Yes?”

God, his smile was just too inviting. “I’ll ask Ariel to join us. You know Ariel?”

“Of course. The lovely young woman who lives at the other end of the wing. That would be delightful.” His dark eyes creased at the corner.

Damn, he was oozing warmth. She wondered if she was going to get a sunburn standing here.

“One more condition,” she said.

“Yes?”

“We eat inside if it’s still storming.”

He laughed. “Of course. Say seven?”

The elevator door opened, and she didn’t know whether to be grateful or disappointed when he didn’t join her.

“I’ve got an errand to run,” he said pleasantly. “See you tonight.”

The door closed. Errand? He probably needed to deliver some dope, she thought sourly.

That’s when she realized that she was looking forward to the evening with entirely too much excitement.

Idiot.

“WHAT DO YOU need me for?” Ariel wanted to know. “I’m too young to chaperone someone your age.”

Serena tried not to grit her teeth. “I don’t know anything about him! I don’t want to be alone with him.”

“I thought that would be exactly what you’d want. So you could tie him to a chair and threaten to beat him with a kitchen appliance until he tells you the truth.”

Serena rolled her eyes. “Traitor.”

Ariel frowned. “No, he might like that.”

Serena gasped. “What do you know about such things?”

Ariel only laughed and winked. “A bullwhip would be better. You know, some leather, handcuffs—”

“Stop it!” Serena’s cheeks were so hot she felt she could illuminate the darkest night. All too often, Ariel seemed to read Serena’s mind.

Ariel just laughed. “Okay, I’ll be good…”

“Good!” Serena replied.

“…and you can be good at it!”

With that, the young woman dashed out of reach and into the kitchen, leaving Serena to consider what she would wear for this soiree. Shorts and a halter top were out of the question. Her eyes flicked over the leather corset she kept folded and hidden in a corner of the closet shelf, and her cheeks reddened again. Damn you, Ariel!

Finally she settled on her favorite sundress: light yellow, cotton, sleeveless. It was comfortable, casually attractive without going overboard. Most of all, she felt confident wearing it. And she had a feeling she would need all the confidence she could muster.

When she emerged from the bedroom, Ariel had already set the table, complete with rose linen napkins and a set of burgundy candles that Serena had forgotten she had.

“Do you like digging through my cupboards?” Serena asked.

“Of course!” Ariel replied, as if poking around in someone else’s kitchen were the most natural thing in the world. “You’d have used paper plates and napkins. And that would not do…not for an international art dealer. So I decided to give you some class.”

“Ummm, thanks. I think.”

“You’re welcome,” Ariel said, her eyes suddenly deep as the Marianas Trench. “You’re very welcome.”

What did that girl know?