Reckless Night Read Free Page A

party you’d organized.” Grace smiled. It was true—to her astonishment. Being able to put people at ease was this strange new ability that had just… materialized.

    She’d spent her entire life feeling completely estranged from everyone—an alien in human skin.
    A struggling artist in a world that cares nothing for art, incapable of playing the games other New Yorkers found so integral to their lives.

    Somehow, Drake had changed all that. He loved her as a woman and an artist, loved her exactly as she was, and it was as if his love had shattered iron shackles, setting her free. She found it easy to relate to people now, even though she and Drake led very private lives.

    “We didn’t have wild boars,” she chided gently.

    Though judging by his wariness that first hour, there might as well have been. Drake had been stiff and formal, and the whites of his eyes had shown. He’d all but rolled them in his head like a pony’s sighting a rattlesnake. Then he’d settled down. Had actually disappeared with his chief pilot for half an hour. She’d suspected them of smoking a cigar but they passed the sniff test.

    She stroked his shoulder. “We had perfectly nice people over for dinner with no agenda other than to have a good time. And—” she dropped the little bomblet casually, “become friends with us.
    With you.” Her husband was the most controlled of men. If she hadn’t had her hands actually on his shoulder, she wouldn’t have noticed the little jolt at the word friends.

    The notion of having friends was still something that rocked his world.

    She nuzzled his neck, never tiring of the feel of him.

    They’d met in violence and tragedy. He’d killed four men under her eyes before she knew his name. But from the first moment, he’d thrown a mantle of protection over her. Though he looked frightening and was frightening, he’d never frightened her. Not for a second.

    She would never tell him and was ashamed to admit it, even to herself, but she’d fallen in love with him the instant she’d seen him. She’d been taken at gunpoint to the alleyway outside a gallery showing her paintings and had seen a powerful man, not tall but immensely broad.

    He was facing three armed thugs and he hadn’t looked frightened at all.

    He’d looked dangerous.

    And she’d fallen.

    But that was another time and another continent and another life. She shivered, as if to shake the memories off.

    Her husband was uncannily perceptive. “What’s the matter, my love?” he asked gently.

    Grace didn’t answer, but turned the question around.

    “What were you and Mike doing when you were gone so long? Were you smoking cigars? That’s what I suspected but you didn’t smell of cigar smoke. Were you smoking?” She fisted her hands on her hips and tried to look ferocious.

    Her amazing husband, the strongest man she’d ever seen, a man who could never be bested in combat, a man who could outshoot any sniper, threw up his hands in mock terror.

    “Never!” He gave an exaggerated shiver. “Would I risk your wrath? I tremble at your feet. You barely let me eat meat. God only knows what the punishment would be for smoking a cigar!” Grace narrowed her eyes. “If I caught you smoking a cigar, my revenge would be swift and merciless.”

    “Voilà!” he cried. His dark eyes gleamed. “Behold an obedient, completely smoke-free husband!” She laughed. Getting him to eat a healthy diet was an ongoing struggle. In New York he’d lived like the Sun King and had eaten like the Sun King, too. He’d had a rotating staff of top chefs on the floor below his penthouse and they sent up elaborate four-star meals three times a day that were the equivalent of mainlining cholesterol.

    Now she fed him fish and fruits and vegetables and he grumbled about having to obey the food police, but she knew he was feeling better.

    “So, don’t change the subject. Where did you two go off to?” This time the smile was sly. “A h,