Ben watched Chloe and Gavin disappear into a dark hallway where Ben knew vampires would be feeding. He gripped the stem of his champagne glass, reminding himself that this was the plan. Everything was going according to plan.

“Mr. Vecchio,” crooned a nearby guest. “You must introduce us to your friend.”

Ben turned to see Emilie standing near a vampire couple. Emilie looked confused but not suspicious, so Ben smiled and walked over. The female vampire’s accent was eastern European and Ben thought she was an earth vampire, but that was all. He’d met her last year but couldn’t remember her name. The male was Ennis O’Brien, Cormac O’Brien’s problematic little brother. He was tall and thinner than his brother, with dark Irish looks and the vivid green eyes shared by most of his clan.

Ben turned on the charm. “This gorgeous woman is Emilie Mandel.” He tucked her arm into his. “A brilliant designer and good friend of mine. We didn’t meet in school though.” The mention of school, combined with a meaningful look at the vampires, let them both know Emilie was not aware of the other world she was visiting.

“She looks delightful,” the female said, batting her eyes at Ben. “Emilie, my name is Natia. Ben is just too polite to tell you he can’t remember.”

“Of course I did,” Ben said. “Emilie, I met Natia at the symphony last year when my uncle and aunt were visiting New York.” That much was true.

Emilie smiled. “That sounds lovely. My grandmother loves the symphony, but we never go. I should take her this year.”

“Ennis,” Ben said. “Good to see you. This is a wonderful event. Did you and Cormac both sponsor it?”

“My idea.” Ennis spoke in the haughty accent of New York society, which he’d been cultivating for a hundred years. “Making Cormac entertain is like pulling teeth. He’s not as cognizant of our family’s social responsibilities as I am.”

Social responsibilities like lining your pockets? Ben didn’t know how, but he’d bet that Ennis was making money on this gala. Ennis didn’t participate in anything without looking for a cut.

Ben took another sip of champagne and caught Natia’s eyes locked on Emilie’s neck. He cleared his throat to catch Natia’s attention while Emilie made conversation with Ennis about the art hanging around the gala. Ben gave Natia a reproachful shake of the head. The vampire smiled and winked.

All part of the game, her expression said. “Emilie, how did you and Benjamin meet? He’s quite the celebrity tonight. Everyone in our little scene knows his uncle, but most only know Ben by reputation. He’s never come to one of our parties before.”

And I doubt I’ll make a habit of it. Ben put his arm around Emilie. “She saw me on the street a few weeks ago and took pity on me. I bribed her with gala tickets so she’d keep seeing me.”

Emilie said, “I kept him for pity, but he’s also very decorative.” She winked and smoothed his collar. “Not many men own custom tuxedos anymore. He’s the perfect accessory with this dress. The designer in me approves.”

“I have to keep my game up when my date wears vintage Chanel.”

“See?” Emilie turned to Natia. “He knows vintage Chanel. How could I not keep him?”

The clutch of vampires and their human companions twittered with laughter. Ben could hear the predatory mirth behind it, but Emilie was amused.

“Benjamin, she’s delightful,” Natia said. “Emilie, feel free to examine my dress in detail.” The vampire glanced at Ben. “It belonged to my grandmother originally. She had it made in France.”

Ben had no doubt that Natia was the original owner, but Emilie and the vampire happily started chatting about their favorite places to shop in Paris.

“Mr. Vecchio”—Ennis lifted his champagne and sipped it—“have you visited Paris recently?”

“Not lately.” Not since his uncle’s only ally in Marseilles had been killed for smuggling vampire drugs. Immortal politics in France were… complicated.

“I heard your name when I was there,” Ennis continued.

“Oh?”

“It seems you’re building quite the reputation in the…” Ennis glanced at Emilie. “Art-collecting world. Who knows? We might have cause to work together in the future.”

Oh that I should be so lucky. Ben locked his eyes on Ennis. “My partner and I have a varied clientele. I wouldn’t want to commit to anything without talking to her, of course. You know Tenzin, don’t you?”

Was it Ben’s imagination, or did Ennis look nervous?

“Of course,” he demurred. “Of course.”

Moments after that, Ennis drifted into the crowd.

The gala had been subdued so far. It was a mix of humans from the art world—curators Ben recognized from the Met and MoMA, gallery owners, and a few artists—and vampires connected to the O’Briens and those visiting who needed to be impressed. The gala consisted of dinner followed by dancing. Ben could see the champagne working its magic, and buzzed humans put vampires on the prowl. The dancing was getting more risqué. The jokes louder. The predatory glances lingered longer. Some of the more conventional humans had already left.

If Ben and Tenzin hadn’t needed to wait for Chloe and Gavin to search the house, he’d leave with Emilie before things got stranger, but he didn’t have that luxury. He had to remain visible until they returned. Ben’s absence would be suspicious if anything went wrong.

He searched the ballroom for Tenzin but didn’t see her.

Typical.

Ben turned to Emilie. “Do you mind if I—”

“What did I miss?” Tenzin asked, appearing at his side. It had to have been as abrupt to Emilie as it was for Ben.

Emilie looked around. “Where did you—?”

“I needed to find a drink,” Tenzin said. “I was… parched.”

Ben lifted an eyebrow, but Tenzin’s eyes were wide and innocent. A sure sign she’d been causing trouble.

Parched? Had she been drinking from strange humans? That wasn’t typical, but Ben didn’t want to examine the burning sensation he felt in his belly when he thought about Tenzin feeding, so he shoved it back.

“Did you say hello to Cormac so I don’t have to?” Ben asked under his breath.

“Yes, but you should save a dance for Novia.”

“Already planning on it.” He heard the music change and turned to Emilie, but a human trailing after Natia had already asked Emilie to dance. She gave Ben a little wave as she wandered off.

The band had switched from classical dances to big band as the gala went on.

“Did you see them leave?” Tenzin asked in Mandarin.

“I did. Did Gavin tell you how he—”

“He liberated a copy of the blueprints for the building after he received the invitation,” Tenzin said.

“Such a responsible thief.”

“Isn’t he?” Tenzin continued to scan the room. “It was a good idea bringing him in to this.”

“Yes.”

“He might be useful in the future. He’s trying to be more honest, but honesty bores him. Bored vampires are dangerous.”

Ben nodded and smiled at an older vampire connected to the O’Brien clan. “I’ve noticed that.”

The band finished the Duke Ellington standard they’d been playing and slid into the familiar notes of “La Vie en rose.” Turning to Tenzin with a smile, Ben held out a hand.

She narrowed her eyes. “It’s an Édith Piaf song.”

“It’s Louis.”

“It is…” Tenzin trailed off when she heard the familiar trumpet solo. “Fine.”

Ben smiled and took her hand, putting his hand at her waist, finally touching the purple silk that had taunted him all night. He swung her onto the dance floor where couples were pressed together, swaying to the music. Ben saw Emilie across the dance floor in the arms of an older gentleman Ben recognized from the European paintings collection at the Met.

“She’s having a nice time,” Tenzin said.

“I think so.” He sank into the song, relishing the brush of Tenzin’s legs against his as they moved. She was an ornery dancer, letting him lead with just enough resistance that he knew it was her choice—always her choice—to let him guide them around the dance floor. Every now and then, when they’d dance alone, she floated off the floor and he’d spin her out like a top while she laughed and laughed and laughed.

“Do you like my hair?” Tenzin said, her head cocked to the side like an inquisitive cat.

“I don’t know yet.” He pulled a strand from her forehead and ran it between his fingers. “I like to see it long when you fly.” He ran his fingers along the velvet hair at her nape where the stylist had shorn it close to her skull. “I like this. But I’ll miss your braids.”

“Hmm.” She looked up. “It’s just hair. It grows.”

“Slowly.”

“Are you planning on going somewhere?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “That’s always the question, isn’t it?”

* * *

The knot in the pit of Chloe’s stomach didn’t ease. She followed Gavin as he explored the richly appointed rooms of Rothman House. She couldn’t figure out what it was. A house? A club? As far as she could tell, the rooms weren’t laid out with any rhyme or reason.

Narrow, mazelike hallways twisted from studies to servant quarters to cozy dining rooms to music rooms. There were more entertaining spaces than bedrooms. In fact, they’d only run across three bedrooms in the whole mansion. And there was not a single window. Chloe tried not to let it creep her out.

“Gavin?” she whispered.

“Hmm?”

“Do we have any idea what we’re looking for?”

He cast an annoyed look over his shoulder. “A very large painting in a very large house.”

“Oh.” She started walking the length of the wood-paneled room they were searching.

“Stop walking,” Gavin said. “Wait in the corner by the door.”

Chloe bristled. “Why?”

“Because when you walk, you make noise. We don’t want to make noise. Also, in the event we’re interrupted and we have to pretend to be lovers who’ve scampered away from the crowd, I can move like this”—in a blink, Gavin was beside her, looking down with unearthly focus—“and you cannot. So stay still.”

The knot had moved from her stomach up to her throat. “Oh.”

“Wait by the door.”

She whispered, “Fine.”

She wanted to tap her foot on the floor, but she couldn’t do that either. Gavin wasn’t just looking at the walls, he was tapping softly on the paneling, pulling back drapes, and searching under tables.

“Tables?” she whispered.

“I hid a stolen Van Gogh very successfully under the kitchen table in a house for several years,” he said, walking back to her and reaching for her hand. “At one point, the owner joined me for dinner and we ate coq au vin on top of it.”

Chloe let him lead her into the next room. It was a bedroom, and it was massive. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”

Gavin offered her a rare smile. “Immensely.”

The search continued in the bedroom. Something about it, maybe the quality of the air or the slightly misaligned furniture, told her it was a bedroom in use. “Who lives here?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I have a feeling from the security”—he swung the door shut and pointed to the numerous and complicated locking mechanisms on the back of the door—“that these are guest quarters of some kind. This could be a safe house the O’Briens maintain to offer shelter to visiting immortals.”

“Why all the locks?”

“Most vampires are not like Tenzin. We’re vulnerable when we sleep.” Gavin got on the floor and scooted under the large four-poster bed in the middle of the room. “So our rooms are designed to be impenetrable when we lock them from the inside.”

“So I guess vampires don’t have slumber parties,” Chloe said, idly paging through a coffee table book on a high table by the door.

“That depends on what you call a slumber party.” Gavin rolled out from under the bed and locked his eyes on Chloe. “Are you offering?”

“What?” Her face went hot again. “No.”

“Let me know if you’re curious.” He came to his feet. “And if you want a job.”

“Why do you want to hire me?”

“Because you’re smart and beautiful. And I think…” He stopped in the middle of the room, cocking his head toward the doorway.

Chloe opened her mouth again, but Gavin was in front of her before she could speak. He whipped them around, pulling Chloe against his body and hiding them behind a tapestry hanging on one wall. She heard the sound of footsteps just as Gavin’s mouth landed on hers.

Oh hell. She heard the slight whimper that escaped her throat as he kissed her.

Gavin didn’t need amnis to make her head swim. Not one little bit.

She didn’t want it to be good, but it was. His lips were firm and full, meeting her own in soft, hungry bites. The kiss might have been a sham, but it didn’t feel like one. One hand pressed to the small of her back and the other softly gripped her neck, angling her mouth for Gavin’s taking.

He was delicious. Sweet and smoky with a hint of tobacco on his tongue. Her head fell back when his mouth landed on her neck.

He wasn’t going to…

Was he?

Did she want him to?

It was just for show.

What would it feel like?

The sounds of passion in the hallway filled her mind, but she realized it was her own gasp of pleasure others heard when the tapestry flipped back and Gavin lifted his head from her neck.

“Gentlemen.” His voice was low and imperious. “Is there a problem?”

“I apologize for interrupting, Mr. Wallace, but you are not allowed in these rooms.”

“They are for guests, are they not? Am I not a guest?”

Chloe blinked but didn’t turn around. She didn’t want any of the cold voices she was hearing to see her face. She stood frozen in Gavin’s arms, the rumble of his brogue vibrating against her breasts. She blinked, trying to understand what it was she was seeing in the dim light of the candlelit bedroom.

“This chamber has been reserved for a specific guest, sir.”

Gavin waved a hand. “Tell him I’ll—”

“It’s for the Lady, sir. She is quite particular about her chambers and will be unhappy if she finds you here.”

“The lady?”

Chloe ignored the quiet debate behind her. Gavin was acting the offended guest and the guards were trying to cover their asses, clearly knowing they’d messed up that Gavin was even in their wing of the house. But Chloe’s eyes were locked on the signature she saw just under the edge of the tapestry.

She wasn’t an expert, but from the edges of the frame she could see and the size of the tapestry covering it, the painting on the wall was a very large canvas.

A canvas signed in a careful hand by one Emil Samson.

Chloe’s heart raced—she wanted to shout—but there was no way of telling Gavin without giving themselves away.

“Sir, we’ll escort you—”

“I’ll walk behind you,” he said, irritation coloring every word. “My companion has no desire to show her face to hired security. Walk ahead of me and we will follow. Do you understand?”

Chloe could tell by the pause that followed that the guards were pissed off.

“Do you understand?” Gavin asked. “Or do I need to contact Mr. O’Brien myself?”

“Very well,” a guard said. “But we’ll have to report—”

“Report whatever you like,” Gavin cut him off. “She’s just a human. You doona need her name.”

The “just a human” stung that time. Gavin pressed Chloe’s face into his jacket and kept his arm around her waist. She walked with him, glancing one last time at the painting behind the tapestry.

Emil Samson.

A gap-toothed imp crouched over the artist’s signature, its frog-like face laughing at her as she slipped away.

* * *

Ben saw Gavin and Chloe emerge from the hallway, followed by two of Cormac’s men. Chloe’s face was tucked into Gavin’s neck, and he was speaking softly to her. She clutched his jacket and kept an arm around his waist. To anyone looking, they appeared to have just returned from one very passionate liaison. Gavin wore a self-satisfied smirk, and Chloe’s cheeks were flushed, her mouth bitten red.

That’s it. Gavin was going to die.

“Ben?” Emilie was at his side. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Gavin scanned the ballroom, searching for him. When their eyes met, he gave Ben a subtle nod, but he was distracted by Chloe, who lifted her head and said something quietly in his ear.

The look on Gavin’s face stopped Ben in his murderous tracks.

Well, hell. Maybe Gavin wasn’t dying after all.

The look his old friend was giving the top of Chloe’s head was almost tender. The hand at her waist didn’t grip, but it was firm. He nodded and brushed his lips across Chloe’s wiry curls in an unconscious gesture of affection, a smile lingering at the corner of his mouth.

Ben hadn’t see Gavin treat a woman that way since…

Hell.

“Ben, why do you look like you want to murder Gavin?” Emilie said.

“I don’t.” He looked down. “I don’t. Just feeling protective is all.”

She smiled and her dimple peeked out. “You know, I have to say he’s a little brusque, but he does seem sincere. I liked him.”

“It’s too soon for her,” he said. “She just left a relationship that wasn’t the greatest. Hence my Neanderthal attitude with her.” He bent and kissed her cheek. “I promise that’s all. She’s an old friend. I’m worried.”

Emilie shrugged. “If it’s not the right time for her, he’ll wait until it is. If he’s not willing to wait, then he is not the right man for her.”

Ben smiled. “You’re so smart.”

“I know. Now dance with me,” Emilie said. “This night is nowhere near over.”

Ben took Emilie’s hand, moving toward the dance floor where he saw Gavin and Chloe headed. The song was a quiet jazz tune led by a sleepy clarinet, the perfect piece to wind down a party.

As Ben led Emilie toward Gavin, he saw Tenzin at the edge of the crowd, listening in on Cormac’s conversation with one of the guards who had walked out of the hallway with Gavin. Tenzin’s eyes met his for a brief second before they moved back to Cormac.

Gavin and Chloe danced nearer. Ben dipped Emilie and lifted her as she laughed.

Chloe caught his eye, and most of his concern fled.

Same Chloe. She looked slightly flustered at Gavin’s proximity, but her eyes flashed when he said something she didn’t like. No hint of amnis or confusion.

“Chloe found something,” Gavin said as they passed.

The steps led them away, but both Ben and Emilie were listening when they came back.

“… know what I saw. I don’t know why you—”

“So you’re an expert on authenticating signatures, are you?”

Neither Ben nor Emilie could get a word in before the other couple danced away again. Emilie looked up at Ben, her lips pinched together, clearly trying not to laugh.

“If it was a forgery,” Chloe hissed as they came within earshot again, “why hide it behind a tapestry?”

“Watch your volume,” Gavin said. “If it was the original, why was it in a guest’s room?”

Ben said, “I take it you found something?”

Ben had led them to an isolated corner with more humans than vampires, hoping to gain a little privacy. Gavin and Chloe circled them; both couples were still dancing slowly.

Gavin said, “She saw something while I was talking our way out of… a certain compromising position.”

“Don’t put it that way,” Chloe said. “You’re purposefully phrasing it that way to make it sound like we were…”

“We were snogging, dove.” Gavin sounded far too smug about that. “Don’t you remember? Do I need to remind you?”

“No!” Chloe said. “And it was for show, and I saw a painting, Ben.” She looked at Emilie. “The same size as the others in the museum. Same color palette from what I could tell.”

Emilie gasped.

Ben asked, “You didn’t see the whole thing?”

“Well, Gavin was hiding us behind this tapestry so the guards could find us and think we were… you know. And I didn’t see the whole thing, but I saw the signature. Emil Samson. Clear as day.”

Ben looked at Gavin. “You didn’t see it?”

“I was talking to the guards,” he muttered. “Back to the wall. I dinna see it.”

Ben fell silent. He didn’t want to say more—not at the gala—but he could feel Emilie’s excitement. She was almost vibrating with it.

“Let’s go back to my place,” Ben said quietly. “I want to talk this over with Tenzin.”

Gavin said, “Done. Chloe should leave with me.”

“What?” she whispered. “Why?”

“Because we were caught snogging in a back bedroom. If I let you leave with Ben, it would spoil the illusion.”

“He’s right,” Ben said. “Cormac is still watching you two.”

The music died down, and the crowd clapped politely as the band announced a break.

“Let’s head to the loft,” Ben said. “We’ll get Tenzin and meet you there.”

Chloe glared at Ben, but she left holding Gavin’s hand. Ben looped his fingers around Emilie’s and headed toward the door.

Emilie was right. The night was far from over.