see the scar.
“Danny Gabriel? What are you doing?”
The very slowness of Gabriel’s smile made it seem sinister. Tess sprang up to get the driver’s attention, but Gabriel blocked her. He clamped a hand over her mouth and pulled her back with him, mauling her in a way that would have been quite obscene, if not for the quilted coat.
“The Marquis Club,” he told the driver. To Tess he said in a low, mock-menacing voice, “You’re coming with me. Don’t say a word, and you won’t get hurt.”
Tess pried his hand off her mouth. “You’ve been watching too many movies. All I have to do is scream, and the driver will call the police.”
Gabriel shook his head in slow motion. “Not after the wad of cash I gave him. Besides, I told him we were regulars of the club, and we’re playing out a little fantasy. It happens all the time.”
It was beginning to dawn on Tess that this had to be a joke. Coworkers didn’t take each other hostage in taxis in the middle of the night.
“The Marquis Club?” she said. “That’s at the Marriott Marquis Hotel, right? On Forty-second Street?”
Danny just laughed. “Sweetheart, it’s marquis as in Marquis de Sade, and it’s the perfect backdrop for the Faustini campaign.”
“But that sounds like—”
“An S&M club. You’re going to love it. But don’t feel like you have to thank me. We all work for the same agency, right?”
“But we’re not all on the same team. How did you know I was working late? Are you spying on me?”
“Mmm.” His voice dropped low. “Your every move.”
Okay, maybe this wasn’t a joke. Tess weighed her options. She didn’t lack nerve. She’d moved to New York on her own, but going to an S&M club with him was about as safe and sane as flipping off a cabdriver. In other words, not.
“Pull over,” she told the driver. “I’m getting out here.”
The driver glanced into the rearview mirror, apparently humoring her with his quick nod and smile. He did not pull over.
“He thinks it’s part of the game,” Gabriel said.
“Well, game’s over!” Tess tapped at her watch. “Do you realize what time it is? I scheduled a run-through with Erica Summers tomorrow at eight-thirty.”
“That’s why we’re hitting the club tonight. You have to see this place to believe it.”
“Hey, I already have the concept for the ad, and I’m not changing it. I want to go home and sleep.” She shot him a hard stare. “Why do you care what I do with the Faustini account? Unless you want me to make a wrong move and fall on my face.”
“That’s cold,” he said. “The account was supposed to have been mine, and I put in a lot of time thinking about it.”
“Sounds like a reason to want to sabotage me, not help me.”
“It would be, if I worked that way. This is a concept you might have learned in kindergarten, Tess. It’s called sharing.”
Conviction again. And it was very convincing when he decided to turn it on. A shock of dark hair had worked its way free from his ponytail and was flirting with his jawline. He didn’t bother with it. She wanted to. It was difficult not to wonder what he’d look like with his hair loose and flowing. Way out of style these days, but probably wildly sensual on him. The man could have invented sex. It was that bad.
“Okay, maybe I shouldn’t accuse you,” she said, hoping to appeal to his sense of honor. Ha! “But some other night, okay? You can take me to the club and punish me for being bad.”
“You said it. I’m not letting you out of this cab, though.”
“That’s abduction, Danny.”
“You called me Danny.” He said it as if that had some kind of special significance to their situation. “And no, it’s not abduction in the criminal sense. It’s a great sexual fantasy being played out by a man and a woman, whom everyone will believe are two consenting adults. I could throw you over my shoulder and carry you into the club kicking and screaming. No one would say a word.”
“That’s evil.”
“Yeah, it is. You’re going to love the place.” His smile was panic-inducing. Probably that damn scar.
“I’ll love it some other time.”
“Come on, check it out. What are you afraid of, Tess? That someone else might have a good idea? Or that you might like the club?” He lifted a dark eyebrow. “You’re a freak at heart?”
“You wish. How do you know so much about this place?”
“Mitzi, of course.”
“Mitzi’s freaky?”
“She’s adventurous, which is more than I can say for you.”
Tess heaved a sigh. Clearly, she wasn’t going to talk him out of it.
“I’ll take a look,” she finally said. “Fifteen minutes, and then I’m out of there, with or without you, agreed? Those are my conditions, but only if you pay the cabbie in advance to wait outside, all night, if necessary.”
“Not a problem. I already have the cab for the night, the entire night.”
Moments later, the driver pulled into an underground parking garage and stopped in front of an elevator bank. Graffiti marred the garage walls, making it look more like a tenement than an upscale club. Tess didn’t have much hope for the place, and she was more suspicious of his motives than ever.
She’d locked most of the materials for tomorrow’s run-through in her desk drawer at the office, but her sketch pad didn’t fit in the drawer, and at the last minute, she’d crammed it in her tote bag. She didn’t like the idea of leaving the tote in the cab, but it was probably safer than taking it into the club, so she put the bag on the floor, hoping the driver wouldn’t realize it was there. As she and Danny got out of the car, she noticed a symbol painted on the wall above the elevator. It looked like a snake, curled in a perfect circle and swallowing its own tail. How reassuring.
The elevator rose to an unmarked floor and the doors opened to oceanlike darkness. Things slithered and swam in front of Tess’s eyes. Light and shadows? Living beings? She couldn’t tell.
She didn’t move until Danny took her hand. “Come on,” he coaxed, leading her out of the car and onto a path illuminated by red votive candles with white flames. “I’ll protect you.”
She didn’t miss the irony in his tone, but Tess wasn’t so sure she wouldn’t need protection. Muted screams drifted up from some lower floor. The club probably had a dungeon. Tess imagined floggings and body parts being stretched. But probably it was nothing more than tattoos and piercings being done without benefit of anesthesia.
They’d
