“No. You’ve never promised me you won’t ever need that kind of escape again, Chris—but I’m not asking you to. I’m promising you that you won’t. I will be here for you.”

He stares down at me, and that edgy, mysterious Chris is clear and present. “I really have done a damn good job of corrupting you, haven’t I? Straight to hell and the dark side, and asking for more.”

“Yes.” I wrap my arms around him. “Please take me home and corrupt me some more.”

I expect him to argue, to warn me away, but he doesn’t. His hand cups the back of my head and he brings my mouth to his.

“I can’t wait.” Then he kisses me again.

Twenty

An hour later, Chris and I sit on the couch behind his desk in front of the dragon mural, and Rey is leaning on the desk facing us, giving us his perspective on Neuville.

“Finding out if anyone saw Ella with him isn’t going to be a problem,” he assures us, “but inding out details on Neuville’s intimate personal and inancial afairs is another story. His associations have long had him on law enforcement’s radar, but no one has ever been able to connect him to anything illegal.”

“What kind of associations?” I glance at Chris. “What haven’t you told me?”

Chris sighs, casting Rey an irritated look. “Thank you, Rey.”

Alarm bells are ringing. I should have asked why Chris didn’t like Neuville. “Tell me what this is about.” My voice wavers with a hint of demand and dread. I want to know, but already know I’m not going to like what I’m told.

Chris dodges giving me an answer. “Everything is speculation.”

“Stop avoiding a proper answer,” I warn. “Share the speculation.” Chris’s jaw tenses, and still he gives me no reply.

“He’s long been suspected of a connection to the mob,”

Rey supplies.

“A mob connection!” I’m on my feet. “Ella was involved with someone in the mob?”

Chris reaches for my hand. “Sara, baby. Calm down.”

“Calm down? Did you really just tell me to calm down?

That’s not a smart reply at this moment, Chris Merit. Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“I think this is my cue to head out,” Rey murmurs. “I’ll call you, Chris.”

“Coward,” Chris grumbles. “You open your mouth and run away.”

“I’m smart like that,” Rey agrees, and his footsteps soon fade up the stairs.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I demand of Chris again, ignoring their exchange.

Chris stands up, towering over me, his hands coming down on my shoulders. “This is why. Your reaction is exactly what I expected.”

“Don’t not tell me something just because I might not like it. That’s not how we do things. That’s not what I expect of you.”

He shuts his eyes for a moment and then opens them again.

“It’s not fact, and all it’s doing is upsetting you.” He leans me against the desk and I sit on the edge as he continues. “But this is why I wanted you out of Paris when his name came up. Once you insisted on staying, I decided to bring you with me today for two reasons. I wanted him to see that you’re under my protection, and that you don’t know where Ella is, either. So he’ll lose interest in you now.”

A million possibilities ly through my mind about what this means for Ella. “What if she’s—”

“Don’t do that to yourself,” Chris warns. “Neuville doesn’t think Ella’s dead, or he wouldn’t be looking for her. He has a lot of money and so do I. With both of us looking for Ella, the chances of inding her are high. This is good. Not bad.”

My racing pulse slows slightly. “Why would he want to ind a woman, one he just met a month ago, this badly?”

“Sara, a month after we met, I would have spent every dime I have to ind you. We don’t know what happened between them in those three weeks. We don’t know if this is really anything more than a man infatuated with a woman.”

A bit of hope blossoms inside me. “Maybe he really cares for her, and that’s why he wants to ind her?”

“We don’t know,” Chris says. “That’s the point. If his story checks out and she lived with him even for a short time, it suggests a relationship. And if she was in that relationship up until a week ago, we have every reason to believe she’s living a new life and simply left her past behind.”

“She has to go back to America after ninety days from her arrival because of her passport, right? There’s no exception to this.”

“She has to return,” he agrees. “And that’s the way we’ll ind her if we don’t catch up with her sooner.”

The ight in me fades and my voice softens. “That’s late next month.” My gaze falls to his chest. “I don’t know what to do about Ella.”

His inger slides under my chin. “You’ve done everything you can—and Sara, she might be ine and you’re worrying for nothing. It sounds like she is.”

I glance up at him. “I know. I just . . . I have you, but not so long ago I was just like Rebecca. There was no one to look for me if I was lost.”

“Mark would have looked for Rebecca if he’d known she was due back in San Francisco, Sara. He told me he thought she’d blown him of.”