Deadly Little Secrets Page 0,56

look was back, and the hand he’d casually slipped behind her in the booth now toyed with the loose tendrils of hair at the back of her neck. The roller-coaster ride of her emotions took another startling dip and rise. He was putting on the serious flirt again, but it was far more than a surface thing. This was real, important, and that scared her to death.

“That’s quite the uh, recommendation.” She was having a hard time concentrating on the slim folder. His touch was so sure, so sensuous; she wanted to arch into his hand, purr like her cat, Lancelot. Where was her control? Where was the reserve, the shell that had served her so well since Rome?

Gone. Gone like the block that had kept her tears from flowing. Washed away by the spate of weeping.

She was still staring blindly at the menu when Prinz bustled back to the table.

“Here we are, wine and water. Essential to life, both of them, of course.” He beamed, pouring a taste for Gates.

“No need for formality, Mr. Prinz. I know it’s wonderful, so pour out.”

“Of course, sir.” He poured out and bustled off again.

Gates let the menu fall so he could pick up his wine without stopping his assault on her senses, as he continued to stroke her neck under the fall of her heavy hair. He was a dangerous, dangerous man.

“I think we should get our orders settled, discuss some business, and then I can have dinner to just enjoy your company. Does that work for you?” Gates said, watching her with just the hint of a smile.

“Of course.” She returned to the consideration of her own menu as if he’d said nothing out of the ordinary. The list of luscious dishes blurred before her tired eyes, and all she could focus on was the feel of his stroking fingers. “That would be fine,” Ana said, trying once more to resurrect her equilibrium.

She felt idiotic. Then again, the last time she’d been on a date, it had been with an all-hands octopus of an Italian in Rome, just before the bombing. She’d been trying to get back on the proverbial dating horse. It hadn’t worked. Certainly, the sensation of Gates’s featherlight touch on her neck was nothing like the ham-handed grabbiness of the Italian guy.

“Ana?”

“Sorry,” she said, distracting his all-too-sharp gaze by tapping the menu. Trying for normal conversation, she asked, “What do you think is involved in bourgeois steak with potato frites and greens? How does one make a steak bourgeois?”

She fell back on the agent’s rule of thumb: When in doubt, ask questions.

“Ah, bourgeois? I have no idea, but this chef is legendary for unusual dishes. If it sounds intriguing, it probably is.”

“Intriguing. Do I want to eat intriguing food? It’s been a rough enough day already,” Ana said, feeling every bit of that statement in her bones. Rough didn’t even begin to describe how she was feeling.

“You’ll enjoy it, trust me. It will be great. Here, have a glass of wine and get out your notes. Let’s dig into this so you’ll have something solid to occupy your mind before you wig out.”

“Wig out? Nice. Thanks.” Ana accepted a filled glass and reached into her briefcase for a writing pad and one of the files. How could he know that the work would steady her? For now, she didn’t question it. However it worked, it would help her, so she went with it.

Gates topped off his own glass and took a set of folded papers from the breast pocket of his coat. Scrawled writing filled the pages, with a variety of boxed comments and underlined sentences with question marks.

“Interesting notes,” Ana said as she opened her own folder.

“Ideas. Searches I’ve pulled recently on the art,” he dismissed the notes. “Nothing turned up on the two databases we discussed. So,” he leaned into the banquette, wine in hand. “Talk to me.”

“It started with this,” Ana began, pointing to the original search she’d done when she reviewed the case for the first time. By the time they came to the dessert course, Ana had to admit that the chef was a total genius with food. Between the food, the wine, and the stimulating company, Ana felt more alive, more in the groove than she had for over a year.

“See here?” She pointed out the terms of the latest search she’d run. “This is where things began to happen.”

Gates looked at the page where Ana was pointing. As much as her