Free Dark Cover (The DARK Files #2) by Susan Vaughan Page B

at the pain Falstone’s over-the-top ideas must be causing. With a sideways glance at Nick’s hard mask, she stepped in and shook her head. She said with Danielle-cool disdain, “Your simplest ceremony will do. No choir.”
    Falstone’s jowls sagged.
    They agreed on a date, Nick signed a contract and they escaped. He’d been right about brevity. The entire process took twenty minutes.
    Only when they reentered the car did she register that during the entire meeting in the funeral home he kept possession of her hand.
    Snow announced, “Street’s quiet. Those guys were religious types handing out tracts to the neighborhood.”
    She could only stare at her hand, now cold and empty.
    ***
    Nick hit the basement gym as soon as they returned to the house. He worked out with weights and the punching bag, then ran five miles on the treadmill. Pent-up frustration sweated out, he showered and dressed for dinner. With Janine here, he and Vanessa would dine together for the first time.
    After the other night, she might still be wary of him, but he wanted her even more. He shouldn’t, but he refused to examine the desire any further.
    Janine would leave soon. He and Vanessa would be alone.
    In the dining room, she and the housekeeper were chattering in French. So perhaps DARK had chosen Vanessa for this skill as well as her red hair and people talents.
    Janine’s daughter Lise slouched in the kitchen doorway. The bored look on her face was an expression only a teenager could affect. She probably didn’t speak her mother’s native tongue and didn’t know what they were saying.
    Nick’s French was rusty, but he understood enough to know the Haitian woman was telling his fiancée about the troubles on her native island. After a hurricane killed her husband, she and her then infant daughter came to the United States, sponsored by a charity organization.
    Vanessa made sympathetic comments as Janine described her homeland’s lack of jobs and her dirt-floored hut with no electricity.
    “ Et votre fille?” Vanessa was asking about Janine’s daughter’s plans.
    “Ici c’est meilleur. L’éducation lui donne l’espoir.”
    Here it was better, she said. Education gave the girl hope. Nick had never seen Janine so animated. Emotion tinged her cocoa-brown face. The linen napkin she clutched rose and fell with the Caribbean lilt of her musical voice.
    With him she was always reserved and deferential. He praised her cuisine and her efficiency and tried to converse with her, but she never shared anything of herself.
    The real Danielle would’ve addressed her only as a servant and elicited no more than a nod. Maybe a damn curtsey. Vanessa opened up the woman in moments.
    He strode into the dining room and wrapped an arm around Vanessa’s shoulders. “Ah, mes belles , about time you met.”
    Lise rolled her eyes. She jerked her shoulders and cocked her hip.
    Expression once again shuttered, the housekeeper folded the napkin and arranged it at one of the two set places on the cherry-wood banquet table. “Good evening, Monsieur Nick. The dinner, it will be ready in a few moments.”
    Eyes downcast, she dashed into the kitchen.
    “She’s still skittish of me. And the daughter doesn’t trust me. Fallout from Alexei’s high-handedness. At least I eliminated the silly maid’s uniform he’d insisted on.”
    “Trust takes time.”
    Tucked under the curve of his arm, she was temptingly close. He brushed a kiss across her soft lips. Even that light touch kindled a flame. “Miss me?”
    “Every minute.” Cheeks pink, she slid from his embrace and fluffed her hair.
    He preferred her thick mane up in the tumble of curls that offered access to her creamy neck. Stepping behind her, he absorbed her scent.
    “Thank you. You’re so attentive tonight,” she said, as he held her chair, to the right of his at the head.
    “Aren’t I always?”
    She merely smiled at him and spread her napkin on her lap. Dressed for a casual evening, she wore