Paris Love Match - By Nigel Blackwell Page 0,55

nothing I can do. You can’t be serious.”

“I think you will find I am quite serious.” Brunwald rapped his knuckles on the dumpster. “I would suggest you ask the previous people we dealt with on this issue but, of course, they are unavailable for comment.”

Sidney squirmed away from the gun in her throat. “You bastard.”

Brunwald laughed. “If, by that, you mean you have been foolish and gullible, and have undermined anything you and lover boy might have achieved together, my dear, you are correct. Your information has been invaluable. You were easily manipulated, but don’t think badly of yourself. I have manipulated better people than you just as easily.”

Brunwald’s Mercedes tore down the street, J-turned, and came to a stop beside him. Kuznik forced Sidney into the back, and Brunwald seated himself in the front.

Sidney leaned over Kuznik and looked up at Piers. She was biting her lip and tears streamed down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean … I didn’t know …” She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “You must hate me.”

Piers’ mouth hung half open. His face felt numb. His eyes were frozen, staring at her, yet almost unable to see her. “No. Not hate. I didn’t . . .” He shook his head and forced his jaw to move and his voice box to speak. “I didn’t do this . . . any of it . . . not because I hate you.”

Her lower lip trembled. He reached for her and she stretched out her hand, but Kuznik yanked it back and closed the window. Piers watched Sidney dissolve into tears.

Brunwald tapped his watch. “Midday,” he flicked a card out of his window. “Don’t be late.”

Piers glimpsed a phone number as the card fluttered to the sidewalk, and the car raced away.

Chapter 22

Piers paced away from Notre Dame. People veered around him as if his shock was somehow contagious. He crossed two roads without looking before a car’s horn pulled him up. He stood in front of the vehicle, gawping as the driver waved his fist at him. He stumbled back onto the sidewalk as the car screeched away, and stood on the curb, oblivious to the traffic inches from him.

They had taken her. Pushed her into their car and driven her away. Had she been working for Brunwald all along? Had she been playing him? The smile, the hugs, the moments in the shower? Was it all part of a plan that he had been stupid enough to fall into? Or had Brunwald used her as he was trying to use them both now? If you could call threatening her life using.

He sighed. He remembered the moment in Place des Vosges when she stepped out of the dressing room wearing that dress. How it shimmered and danced around her figure. How she embraced him as they hid from the police behind the umbrella. He let out a single breathy laugh, but felt like he had been punched in the gut. She had been maddening, infuriating, moody. Yet, she had been exciting, vibrant, and thrilling. She was heartbreaking, and heartbreakingly beautiful. He should have said as much to her. He should have told her of his feelings. He should have risked that embarrassment. But he hadn’t even known his own feelings. Not then; only now. But nothing mattered now. They had taken her. She was gone.

He leaned against the window of a store and rolled his head back. Shit. They’d found the painting and still Brunwald had taken her. Somehow, he’d duped her. Her text messages must have been reporting their progress. That bastard must have known everything. He’d had the upper hand all the time, and Piers hadn’t even known he existed. He had even waited until the mob to showed up, so he could dispense with them without a second thought. Piers swallowed. He didn’t want to find her body in front of Notre Dame.

A fine drizzle misted his face. The drops glittered in the street lamps, a sparkling carpet in the air. The foot traffic on the streets was thinning, the evening rush hour waning. Fewer people for him to hide among, fewer people to spot him. He walked toward the river, head down, sheltering from the rain.

His only way to get her back was to find the money Morel was going to hand over for the painting. But how? What clues did he have?

He crossed another street, barely looking at the traffic.

There was always the police. Even though Brunwald