CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Maxim slept in fits and starts. Having Finley’s bare, beautiful body draped over him should have been like something out of a dream. A blissfully perfect fantasy. He’d wanted this since the moment he first set eyes on her.
But that wasn’t quite true, was it? He’d dreamed of Finley before they’d even met. He’d thought the vision of her he’d had in the hospital had been a sign.
It hadn’t. He knew that now. The dream was turning into a nightmare. Memories were dancing on the perimeter of his mind, and those memories had voices. He could hear them as clearly as if someone were standing beside him, whispering in his ear.
Her name is Finley Abbot. She’s an assistant curator at the Louvre. American.
He’d discussed Finley with someone, but he couldn’t remember whom. Right here, right now, with her sleepy head resting on his chest and her willowy legs intertwined with his, the unknown person’s identity hardly seemed to matter. Maxim was far more worried about his own role in the memory than anyone else’s.
He’d known who she was. He’d known about her job at the museum. And the picture his subconscious had been clinging to was just that—a photograph. Not a memory. Not an actual encounter he’d had with Finley that she’d somehow forgotten, but a picture in the newspaper.
Maxim squeezed his eyes closed and prayed he was wrong.
But no amount of willful denial would change the memories that were rising to the surface like cream. He’d waited weeks for this. He’d been so desperate to remember, and now he just wanted to forget.
Finley’s picture had been on the front page of the Arts section of Le Monde. He remembered sitting at an outdoor café as he’d read the accompanying article. He remembered the bitter taste of the espresso he drank, the feel of the newsprint against his fingertips.
But what did the memory mean?
Maxim didn’t know, and he didn’t like it.
He should have known better than to let himself believe in fate. He should’ve taken a long, hard look at the fresh scars on his body and realized what they represented. Trouble. Reality.
Was he a victim, as he’d considered himself all along? Or had he been complicit in what had happened that night at Point Zero? The policiers certainly thought so. Maybe they were right.
Maxim could find a way to live with himself if he was some kind of criminal. It would be hard to accept, but he’d manage. What he couldn’t live with was the idea that he’d been targeting Finley and her exhibit in some kind of con. That couldn’t be true. He refused to believe it.
Finley stirred in the darkness and made a tiny, kittenish noise. Her foot made a slow, sultry glide up the length of his calf. Maxim’s body responded at once. Arousal moved through him, a softly burning fire, and before he could stop himself, he was sliding his hand up the back of her thigh and pulling her to sit astride him.
“Hello there, Monsieur Romanov.” Her voice was low, soft. Laced with sleep and dreams.
She bent to kiss him, and her hair fell around them in a curtain of spun-gold waves.
They shouldn’t be doing this. Not after what he’d remembered. But she tasted so good, so sinfully sweet. And when she reached for his erection and guided him toward her entrance, he was powerless to stop her.
He’d left the hospital wanting only one thing—to figure out who and what he was. But somewhere along the way, the search for his identity had become less about himself and more about her. He wanted to make her proud. He wanted to be a good man.
For Finley.
She smiled down at him as she took him inside, and whatever part of him that had remained whole after his beating shattered into a million shameful pieces.
What had he done? Why?
He groaned as she clenched around him, hating himself more and more with each rapturous grind of her hips. His eyes drifted closed as he thrust up into her. Harder. And harder still, as if he could lose himself once and for all. As if her goodness could swallow him up. Light devouring darkness.
But the voices were back, whispering things he didn’t want to hear. He couldn’t make them stop. The past was unraveling, spilling its secrets like pearls falling from a string.
You knew this was the plan all along.
His eyes flew open.
There’d been a plan, and he’d been part of it.
“Maxim.” Finley murmured his name with the reverence of a prayer, like it was something holy and pure.
He wanted to weep. But his hands were cupping her breasts now, and he was pinching and rolling her perfect rose-petal nipples while she moved over him, crying out in the darkness.
He wasn’t ready for whatever was coming. He railed against it, even as his body barreled toward release. These past few days had been a journey of discovery. Just when he thought he could see a palace on the horizon, the mist of illusion was falling away and he knew now there was nothing but ruin at the end of the road. But he refused to let the journey end, because the truth of the present was just as real as the truth of his past.
This was more than sex. He could deny it all he wanted, but he was beginning to have feelings for Finley.
“That’s it, darling,” he whispered, reaching to touch her where their bodies were joined.
Her head dropped back, and for a moment, he was spellbound by the elegance of her slender neck and the utter grace of her orgasm. His mind went blissfully blank. No more voices. No more memories.
Only pleasure.
Only this.
In the moment before his climax, he closed his eyes, willing it to last, fighting for a way to postpone the inevitable. But there was no stopping their breathless conclusion.
He came hard, spilling himself into her, holding her tight.
Hating himself just a little bit more.
“WAKE UP, LOVE. IT’S morning.” Maxim swept the fringe from Finley’s eyes and trailed his fingertips down the side of her face, cupping her cheek.
He’d been awake and dressed for hours, rehearsing what he might say to her when the sun came up. The gala was tomorrow night. Father Kozlov had already called to let Maxim know his DNA test had been arranged for nine in the morning at Hôpital Hôtel-Dieu. After the endless days of living in a haze, wondering where he’d come from and who he was, everything was suddenly moving ahead at warp speed. Too damn fast.
“Mmmm.” She stretched her arms over her head in a movement of languid, feline grace while her eyes fluttered open. She took in his buttoned shirt, fastened belt, and the Windsor knot in his tie, and her smile faded. “You’re dressed.”
She gathered a blanket around her body, covering herself. Maxim balled his hands into fists to prevent himself from pulling it away.
He wanted to look at her.
He wanted a lot of things he knew he had no business wanting now.
His jaw clenched. “Father Kozlov called.”
“Has he scheduled the DNA test?” She sat up straighter and grinned from ear to ear.
Maxim looked away, pretending to study the time on the clock hanging above the piano. “It’s in less than an hour.”
He’d seriously considered skipping the test altogether. After the things he’d remembered, he suspected it would be negative.
You knew this was the plan all along . . .
He’d clearly been posing as someone he wasn’t. Was everything in the notebook a fake? Had he been building a case to make it look like he was a Romanov, when in fact he was just a Laurent? A nobody?
His memories had failed to come together with any kind of clarity, even after wrestling with them most of the night. Maxim couldn’t catch a glimpse of the whole story, and when the bells of Notre Dame rang in the dawn, he finally wished he could. If he could no longer forget that he’d been involved in some sort of mysterious plan, he wanted to remember all of it. How could he fix things if he hadn’t known precisely what he’d done?
Finley reached for him, running her fingertips along his brow, touching him with the familiar ease of a lover. “You look worried, and you shouldn’t. We know who you are.”
“Do we?” Did it even matter anymore? He was a fraud of some sort, no matter what his family tree looked like.
“We do.” The bracelet on her arm jingled. Maxim stared at the tiny ruby egg charm, red as wine against Finley’s fair wrist. “I do.”
Maxim took a sharp inhale.
He had no explanation for the bracelet. Or the photograph of his grandmother that the Louvre had identified as Anastasia. Those things were real. They’d been part of his life since he was a boy. He knew that for a fact.
Even if the finest museum in France was wrong, and the girl in the picture wasn’t Anastasia, Father Kozlov was still convinced Maxim was a Romanov.
Maxim wished he could go back to last week—back to the days when no one believed him. There had been no one to disappoint then. Just him.
“Finley . . .” he forced himself to meet her gaze. How could he do this? How could he tell her that he suspected he’d been part of a hoax when he’d been inside her just hours ago? “I . . .”
Downstairs, a door opened and closed. “Bonjour, mes amis.”
Merde.
Finley’s eye widened. “Scott’s here.”
She leapt out of the bed and began throwing on her clothes.
Maxim had missed his moment.
His head ached, and his throat burned with the words he hadn’t been able to make himself say. “Does he always get here so early in the morning?”
“I’m not sure. He was pretty early yesterday morning, too. But I don’t exactly make a habit of spending the night here.” Finley stretched an arm over her head, twisting to reach the zipper on the back of her dress.
“Here, I’ve got it.” Maxim placed his hands on her waist and gently spun her around.
The lacy edge of her panties was barely visible. Maxim cleared his throat and somehow stopped himself from running his fingertips along the dainty fabric. He held his breath and concentrated on not getting aroused, but her silky dress was like water in his hands and when she peeked over her shoulder at him, he felt the heat of her gaze everywhere. Most notably, his groin.
“Everything okay back there?” The corner of Finley’s mouth lifted into a naughty grin.
Hell no. Nothing was okay. “Fine.”
His hands shook as he moved the zipper upward, just slow enough for him to memorize every inch of her spine. Maxim wouldn’t have thought dressing a woman would be anywhere near as sexy as undressing her.
He would have been wrong. So very wrong.
“Finished,” he said through a clenched jaw.
“Thank you.” She smiled again.
Maxim nodded. He needed to leave. He couldn’t tell Finley the truth—not now—but that didn’t mean he could stand there and act as if he were the same man she’d made love with the night before.
“I should go,” he said. “Scott’s here, and I need to get to the hospital.”
“Also, Scott’s here.” She giggled.
“Exactly.” He pasted a smile on his face.
Scott would murder Maxim if he hurt Finley. Not that Maxim much cared what happened to himself at the moment.
Still, he couldn’t deal with Scott right now. Thoughts and memories were spinning around Maxim’s head at such dizzying speed, he could barely fake his way through a rational conversation with Finley. Her best friend would see right through him.
Finley slid her feet into her stilettos, one at a time. “I’ll see you back here tonight, Monsieur Romanov.”
Monsieur Romanov.
Maxim’s stomach turned.
He nodded. “Ce soir.” Tonight.
They’d agreed to hide at Shakespeare and Company until after the gala at the Louvre. Once the exhibition was safely underway, they could go back to normal life.
Normal felt like a far-off fantasy right now, a place and time he’d never see again. It crept closer when Finley wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him good-bye. So close he could almost see it beyond the fog in his head. It beckoned to him until he closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers. Desperate.
Desperate to stay.
He straightened, determined to go while he still could.
“Wait.” Finley unclasped the bracelet from her wrist and let it drop into a dainty coil of glittering gold in her palm.
Maxim stared at it. “What are you doing?”
“You take it. I can’t wear it to work, obviously.”
Obviously. “Oui.” He picked it up and tucked it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. Pressed against his heart, it felt heavier than it should have.
With each downward step of the Shakespeare and Company staircase, it grew weightier. He did his best to forget it was there as he bid Scott a wordless good-bye and made his way outside.
Across the street, a group of tourists had descended on the Point Zero marker. Maxim watched them spin around and point in different directions, attempting to differentiate north from south.
For the most part, he’d avoided the spot and its copper plate since he’d left the hospital. He didn’t want to relive whatever terrible thing had happened to him there. He didn’t want to picture the grooves in the cobblestones overflowing with blood—his blood. That’s what he’d been telling himself, anyway.
Now he realized his reasons for staying away ran deeper. Seeing the geographic marker, even from a distance, brought his memories into sharper focus. He could hear the voices more clearly.
You knew this was the plan all along.
April 20.
It’s time.
Maxim’s gut churned. Today was April 19, which meant April 20 was the date of the Louvre’s opening gala for the Romanov exhibit.
From his trouser pocket, his cell phone rang. Its ringtone pulled Maxim back to the present and offered blissful relief, however temporary.
He glanced at the display. Banque de France. “Allô?”
“Maxim, c’est moi. Gregory.”
A bad taste rose to the back of Maxim’s throat at the sound of the voice on the other end of the connection. It no longer sounded like the voice of his closest friend. Instead, it had the same sinister undertone as the voices in his head.
Memories were rising to the surface faster than he could process them. Bits and pieces, here and there. Snippets of conversations that made little sense. He was desperate to understand it all . . . desperate to believe he wasn’t the kind of person who would take advantage of anyone, especially someone as special as Finley.
“Salut, Gregory.” He managed to force the words out of his mouth. He felt sick. Sick enough that he needed to brace himself against a nearby café table.
“Listen, I need you to come into the office this morning. It’s urgent. We need your signature on some of the paperwork for your disability insurance.”
Maxim detected a hint of tension in Gregory’s words. He had no idea if his friend was lying or not. It sounded like a legitimate request, but why would the vice president of Banque de France bother with doing such mundane paperwork?
Wasn’t that the sort of thing he’d delegate to an assistant?
Not that it mattered. Maxim needed to see Gregory again. He needed to look him in the eye and try to make sense of the things he remembered.
April 20.
It’s time.
Maxim squeezed his eyes closed. He’d wished so hard to remember, and now he just wanted to go back. He’d give all he had if he could turn back the clock to the night before and stay in that red-velvet bed with Finley until the world disappeared.
Instead, he was standing on the sidewalk in the cold light of day while the world crashed down all around him. “I have an appointment this morning, plus a few urgent matters that need my attention. Perhaps we can meet later this evening?”
“That’s not ideal, but it works. Shall I come by your flat? Maybe we could grab a drink,” Gregory said.
“No. Let’s meet tonight on the Left Bank.” Maxim glanced across the street again and shielded his eyes against the sliver of sunshine glinting off the bronze star embedded into the cobblestone by the steps of Notre Dame. “At Point Zero.”
He hung up without waiting for a reply.