Lynn Harris - The Devil's Heart

“You can’t force me to go with you,” she said, throwing one last desperate statement into the air between them.

“I will carry you onboard myself, Francesca, if you insist on acting like a child.”

“I’ll scream until someone notices—”

“And sentence your Jacques to certain death? I think not.”

“I hate you,” she whispered, turning to watch the city slide by before he could see a tear fall.

His voice, when he finally spoke, was as soft as satin, as hard as the Corazón del Diablo. “Then perhaps we understand one another after all.”

Francesca closed her eyes. She understood, all right. Understood that she’d just sold her soul to the devil.

By

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LYNN RAYE HARRISread her first Harlequin Mills & Boon® romance when her grandmother carted home a box from a yard sale. She didn’t know she wanted to be a writer then, but she definitely knew she wanted to marry a sheikh or a prince and live the glamorous life she read about in the pages. Instead she married a military man, and moved around the world. These days she makes her home in North Alabama, with her handsome husband and two crazy cats. Writing for Harlequin Mills & Boon is a dream come true. You can visit her at www.lynnrayeharris.com

To my agent, Karen Solem, whose awesome advice and unwavering support are so very much appreciated. Thanks for everything.

Centuries-Old Missing Treasure Resurfaces

Washington, D.C.—Last night onboard his yacht anchored in the National Harbor, Massimo d’Oro hosted a party for his daughter. Francesca, the youngest child of the Italian businessman, celebrated her eighteenth birthday in a style to which lesser mortals can only dream. The party was attended by many of Washington’s social elite, and the birthday girl’s dress was rumored to have been custom designed by the House of Versace. The party is said to have cost Mr. d’Oro over one hundred thousand dollars.

Most spectacular of all was the gift Mr. d’Oro bestowed upon his daughter: a ninety-carat diamond necklace, the centerpiece of which is the fifty-five carat flawless yellow diamond known as El Corazón del Diablo (The Devil’s Heart). This gem, once belonging to the Kings and Queens of Spain, was last known to have been in the possession of the Navarre family of Argentina; it has been lost since the 1980s.

Eight years later…

“I BEG YOUR pardon?” Marcos Navarre stared at the slight figure dressed in dark clothes. The gun pointed at his heart never wavered.

“I said move .”

This time the voice was less gruff. Marcos stepped away from the hotel room door, hands up just enough so this intruder wouldn’t think he was about to do something crazy.

Like lunge for the gun.

If he could get close enough, he would do just that. This wasn’t the first time he’d been on the business end of a weapon, and fear was not what motivated his seeming compliance. He’d become inured to violence during the years he’d spent living in South American jungles with a guerilla army. He knew without doubt there was always an opportunity, in situations like this, to gain the upper hand. So long as his hands were free, there was a chance.

No, fear was not at all what he felt. Rage was the word he was looking for. Bone deep rage.

The person facing him was small, though he knew better than to mistake small for weak. Darkness shrouded the room and he couldn’t make out any details about his visitor. But Marcos had several inches of height, and many more stones of weight to his advantage.

The moment he had an opportunity, he would act. The key was to remain free, and to keep his senses on high alert. He refused to consider what he would do should this intruder attempt to restrain him in any way. Memories flashed into his mind: a dark room, the sharp odor of sweat and rage, and the feel of his own blood dripping down his wrists.

No. Focus.

“You are wasting your time,” Marcos said mildly. “I am not in the habit of keeping large amounts of cash in my room.”

“Shut up.”

Marcos blinked. The gruffness in his intruder’s voice was gone. The person holding a gun on him so coolly was most definitely a woman. He relaxed infinitesimally.

Dios mío.

Who had he offended this time? Which of his exlovers was so incensed as to carry her desperation this far? Fiona? Cara? Leanne?

He was generous with his mistresses, yet there were those who refused to accept his decision to end the relationship when the time came. Was this a jilted lover—and why couldn’t he place her immediately? He was not so callous as to ever forget a feminine body or voice when they gave him such pleasure.

No, not a jilted lover then. Unless he was growing forgetful. Marcos frowned. It did not seem like ly. He’d had a lot on his mind lately, yes, but surely not so much as to render him incapable of remembering a woman he’d been intimate with.

He kept his hands in her sight, moving carefully into the middle of the room to await instruction. She shrank back when he passed by, then righted herself boldly as if irritated she had done so.

Several moments passed in complete silence but for the whisper of the ceiling fan overhead.

“Retrieve the jewel,” she said, all pretence of being a man gone from her voice now. So she’d made a decision to give up that deception, had she?

Bueno. It would make it easier for him to learn her identity.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She growled impatiently. The gun gleamed bluish in the moonlight shafting into the room. He noted that she’d added a silencer. The thought did not give him comfort.

“You know very well what I mean. The Corazón del Diablo. Bring it to me if you wish to live.”

Ah, so now it made sense. He should have ignored the ridiculous claims of the d’Oros and refused to bring the jewel back to America. But his business interests here could suffer if he did not put an end to their fraudulent claims. The courts in Argentina had already ruled in his favor. He did not need an American court’s approval to keep what was rightfully his. What he’d paid for in blood.

Had this woman been sent by the d’Oros? Was the lawsuit merely a ploy to get the stone back into the United States so they could steal it? The old man was dead, but the girls were still alive. He shoved aside the pang of regret he felt when he thought of the youngest d’Oro girl. Why he should still feel regret, when she’d manipulated him as much as any of them, was a mystery.

Part of him insisted she was innocent—and part of him knew the dark depths to which the human soul could travel. Innocence was often a façade for treachery.

“If you shoot me, querida , you will never have the jewel.”

“Maybe I’ll have something far better,” she spat in a low voice.

All of Marcos’s senses went on high alert. Something about that voice…

Something he’d forgotten…

“I’ll take that jewel now,” she continued. “It’s in the safe. Open it.”

Fury began to uncoil within him. Who was this slip of a woman and how dare she try to rob him of his family birthright? She was not the first to attempt it, but she would not succeed.

It was after the jewel had been stolen, when he was only a boy, that the military junta imprisoned his parents. They never returned. They were, like so many thousands of others, among the disappeared , those souls who were taken away by the ruling party and killed before democracy was restored in later years.

He blamed his uncle far more than he did the diamond. If not for Federico Navarre’s ambition and greed, life would have been far different. But the Corazón del Diablo was all he had left of his family, and he would allow no one to take it from him ever again.

“Apparently you have failed to think this through, little one.”

She took a step forward, the gun rock-solid in her grip. And then, as if thinking better of it, she stopped, shook her head so slightly he wondered if he’d imagined the movement. “Shut up and open the safe. Now.”

He stood stiffly for only a moment. “Very well.”

If he were lucky, she’d get too close.

Marcos strode toward the wall that housed the safe. Sliding the wooden panel aside, he flipped the dial in annoyance. Right, left, right. The tumblers clicked into place and the door opened.

“Frankie,” a voice hissed. “Hurry.”

Marcos stilled, straining to pinpoint the source. It had sounded oddly small and disembodied.

“Frankie,” it said again, louder this time.

“Shut up,” the girl said. “I’m working on it.”

Ah, a radio. She was using a two-way radio to communicate with someone outside this room. Odd—and a rather inept choice for a skilled thief. Yet another puzzle piece to consider.

“Step away from the safe,” she ordered, the gun glinting as she used it to motion him away. “And keep your hands where I can see them.”

Marcos backed away carefully, hands at shoulder height. The girl waited until he was nearly against the opposite wall before she moved. A flashlight blazed into life. She swept the interior of the safe, then spun toward him.

“It’s not here,” she said in disbelief. “Where is it?”

He almost felt sorry for her. Almost, but not quite. “There are plenty of other jewels. Take them instead.”

Her voice shook. “The Corazón del Diablo. Where is it?”

“It’s not here,” he repeated.

“That’s impossible. I was assured—” The gun was leveled at him again, her voice full of purpose. “Where have you hidden it?”

“Forget it, Frankie, ” he said smoothly, emphasizing the name the voice had called her. She had been assured? By whom? “You’ve failed. Now take what’s there and go.”

“You aren’t the one in control here, Navarre. You will not tell me what to do. Not ever again,” she added so quietly he wasn’t certain he’d heard her right. Never again?

“Who are you?” he demanded, blazing hot anger sizzling through him like a living flame.

Before she could answer—or tell him to shut up, most likely—he reached over and flicked the light switch.

“Bastard,” she cried, blinking against the light that flooded the room. Yet still the gun was firmly pointed at him.

He didn’t care. The girl, this Frankie, was compel-ling—and he’d never seen her before in his life. Sunstreaked hair was pulled into a tight knot at the base of her neck, its thickness indicating long length when her hair was down. Her skin was pale with a hint of golden color. Her eyes glared at him hot and dark. She was dressed in a workman’s black coveralls, but the garment was a size too small because it clung to her generous curves like a protective sleeve.

She looked furious, determined—but then she bit down on her plump lower lip and he recognized it for what it was: a crack in her armor. A current of desire arced through him at that single display of vulnerability.

Dios , now was not the time to be attracted to a woman. Especially not a woman with a gun pointed at his heart. Marcos clamped down on his wayward libido and tried to memorize everything about her. Should she get away, should she not shoot him in the process, he needed to remember what she looked like.