Whirlpool (Cutter Cay Book 6) Page 3

  He'd given her an advisory position because she'd asked for it as part of the deal of cutting him in on a small percentage over and above what the Government would get. Peri had considered it an excellent bargain.

  "If I didn't tell you before, mi amore, you look delicious tonight." He was eye level with her cleavage.

  "Theo-" Peri said warningly as she scanned the room for familiar faces. Cutter faces.

  He gave her a soulful look. "When we're together in a social setting like this it is impossible to remember that we are no longer lovers."

  "I'll keep reminding you," Peri told him dryly, deftly removing that wandering hand again. "I work with you, Theo. And soon everyone here will know it. It would look very bad for the Ministry if we behaved unprofessionally."

  His smile was wistful. "It is not that we are no longer lovers, though, is it?" he said softly, black eyes searching her features. "You were never comfortable with displays of affection unless we were in the bedroom, mi amore. And even then … a man needs to know the woman he's with feels the same heat."

  She'd had no such qualms with Leo. Theo wouldn't have recognized that woman, not in his wildest dreams. She didn't recognize that woman. Peri had never had sex with a man she'd just met, never had a one-night stand. In fact, she'd had more sex that weekend with Leo, than she'd had in her entire life. The weekend in Buenos Aires seemed like a dream now. It was the first time in her life she'd felt totally. . . free. No shackles to the past, no second thoughts, nothing but two anonymous people having glorious sex, then walking away.

  "We make better friends." She took the glass of wine he handed her, plucked from the tray of a passing waiter, her gaze falling on the small, black, swirl tattoo on the web of his right thumb. A whirlpool, he'd told her at the beginning of their relationship. She'd never bothered to ask the significance of it and didn't care now.

  "Even so, you have always been guarded with your emotions. A man looking at you sees fire when there is really ice."

  That stung. "You didn't complain when we were together."

  "I thought I could melt you."

  You couldn't, but somehow a stranger I'd just met, could. "I'm sorry, Theo." He was a nice man. He'd treated her well. But he'd never turned her on. Not the way Leo had. "I told you right from the beginning that I was lousy at relationships."

  He flashed her his flirty, seductive, very Latin smile. Theo could be extremely charming when he wanted to be. "But to tempt a red-blooded man with such a dress. . ."

  Peri had chosen her dress with care. Not to be sexy, but to boost her confidence. The strapless, floaty dress, in shades of red and orange, looking like a column of flame, bared her shoulders, and brushed her toes. This evening she flew her vibrant hair, loose down her back, like a red flag to a bull.

  I'm here! Ignore me now, you bastards.

  How long would it take for them to recognize her? She’d bet less than a minute. She'd mentally rehearsed this momentous meeting- Hell, no amount of rehearsal could possibly prepare her for what was about to happen. Braced and ready, or as ready as she could be in such an unpredictable setting, Peri casually did another scan of the salon.

  Him? No.

  Maybe that guy over there? Damn, she wasn’t sure.

  The brothers might not recognize her face, but her hair was a dead giveaway. They’d know who she was right away. There were a couple of other women here with various shades of red hair, but none so bright, or as long as hers. It was pretty freaking distinctive. Even so, would they identify her without Sea Witch anchored nearby, to make the connection?

  In the years since she'd been stealing from them, she'd never been this close. Peri had gone through several phases of pissed-off-ness in the six months since she'd learned from Theo that the Cutters, too, had staked claims up and down the coast of Patagonia. Her damned claim. All of that pissed-off-ness had led her to this night.

  Reckless, she knew. But she was sick of the cat and mouse game she’d been playing for so many years. During that time, she’d thought she was the cat. It wasn’t until she saw their names on claims she'd discovered that she realized who had been playing whom.

  Damn it. She'd staked her claim for salvage, bought property nearby, and worked her ass off for five freaking years on her wreck, Napolitano. Then, out of the damn blue, they showed up to scoop up the other three wrecks! What the hell were the odds of that happening? But then again, these were the Cutters. Low-down, thieving bastards who had manipulated her family out of fortunes time and again for years.

  Still, it was damn hard to justify her annoyance when she'd been pilfering from them as well. And it wasn't as if they could possibly know that the Koúkos Corporation, the one that had claimed Napolitano, was also Persephone Case.

  The minute they saw her, they'd realize their lives were about to get a lot more interesting. And if Peri had her way, this dive was going to serve their cockiness and bravado back to them, on a silver platter, carved and ready to eat.

  She could describe each man's ship to the last rivet, but she wasn’t sure she could pick any of the brothers out of a lineup. She'd watched them through her binocs, she'd seen their pictures in various international news outlets. But had never been close enough to touch.

  Being a fly on the wall to see their response first hand was going to be freaking epic. Like walking a tightrope over rocky, shark-infested waters, but fun nevertheless.

  Peri had always known that, like a house of cards, the whole mess would come tumbling down at some point. Even though the house she’d built with cards of deception was an architectural masterpiece, if she did say so herself. Better to control the fallout than be taken unaware.

  The weekend she had spent with Leo had been incredible. Magical. But that Sunday morning eight days ago, as she’d anticipated joining him in the shower, she knew she didn’t want to maintain one more lie. She was already juggling several layers of deception. The Cutters didn't know the identity of the owner of Sea Witch. Yet. They sure as hell didn't know that the pirate on board Sea Witch was related to their nemesis, Rydell Case. Her brother.

  Tightrope. Sharks. Rocks.

  THREE

  Ankles crossed, Finn leaned against the rail on the aft deck of his ship, Blackstar, which was anchored forty miles off the coast of Patagonia. Nearby, Blackstar Two, his dive ship, lay in position over the wreck of the galleon, Nuestra Señora del Marco. He and his partners, the Cutter brothers, had started the salvage two days earlier.

  He had zero patience for waiting. Each hour of his day was planned for and filled to capacity. Just the way he liked things.

  Now he waited for word from his private investigator.

  Eight days had passed since the anomaly in Buenos Aires, and he couldn't stop thinking about the incredible redhead and those thirty-seven intense, heart-pounding hours they’d spent together. He'd returned after a solo shower on the third day to find the room empty. She'd left nothing behind but the faint, evocative scent of lilies on the still warm sheets to remind him of something he'd never forget.

  No note, no goodbye.

  Fake first name, no last name.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  "You look cheerful." Nick Cutter came outside carrying two beers. He handed a bottle to Finn. "You remember this is a celebration, right?"

  Finn drank, giving his friend the evil eye. "You bet me they'd all be gone by eight."

  With a grin, Nick shrugged. "I owe you ten bucks."

  "Should've made it a thousand," Finn laughed. "I knew you'd lose your ass on that bet, you lying sack of shit."

  "Whatever the bet," Zane said as he, Jonah and Logan joined them at the rail. "I'm in."

  Nick took a canape off the platter Zane held, and said around a mouthful of bruschetta crostini, "Yeah, well since you actually like people, you weren't included in the bet."

  Finn had first invested, on a calculated whim, in one of Zane's dives a decade earlier. He'd doubled his money. Then met, and became friends with, middle brother Nick and old
est brother Logan. Jonah had come on the scene later. The brothers had a close bond and had included Finn into their tight-knitcircle. The Cutters had become good friends and damn good business partners.

  Now, surrounded by his friends, and the lively sounds of a party going on inside, Finn wondered what she was doing at nine P.M on this Monday evening. Was she looking at the same lavender and apricot sky he saw shimmering off the still water, and reflecting the dying sun over the Atlantic Ocean?

  Where the hell are you? How the fuck do I find you?

  Around them, the lights of various ships, boats, tenders, and assorted seaworthy craft, huddled together, having deposited smartly dressed guests to drink his booze and eat his food. Good publicity. What they salvaged from the three wrecks would be sold to the highest bidders.

  "See that heavyset guy?" Logan indicated, with a jerk of his shoulder, a guest standing inside, visible through the window. "He’s the buyer for that Saudi Prince with serious bank who put the ten million in escrow for the chance at right of first refusal. The blond woman to his left is head of the Major Acquisitions committee at DC's Smithsonian Museum of Natural history. The other blond is a reporter for Quaternary Science Review."

  "These people aren't just here to drink your booze and shoot the breeze. They're here to claw their way into position to be the first; to buy, to scoop, to report."

  "Making nice is how our bread is buttered and thickly layered with honey," Zane added.

  "I like the honey just fine," Finn said with a smile. He knew how to play the game even if having all these people tromping all over his ship was annoying. "Any sighting of Dr. Núñez and his sidekick? I presume the Argentinian government doesn't expect us to house this oversight person for the duration, right?" Finn took a slug of his beer. He glanced at his friends, none of whom looked happy about the prospect. "They're aware this salvage could take twenty years, right?"

  "Fifty, if we're lucky," Jonah said with a wide grin. "Come on, we'll smoke Mel Fisher's Atocha salvage. Thirty-two years, and still going strong? Almost five-hundred million so far?"

  "We'll beat that." Zane clicked beer bottles with his brother as if they'd already won the race. "Fuck, we have five dive boats and three wrecks. Slam dunk."

  With the Cutter’s track record, and the artifacts and coins they'd retrieved just in the last two days, probably. "Estimated five hundred-mil." Finn was assured his investment would have a healthy return. Didn't mean he wanted to stick around and watch each real brought to the surface. "The thought of staying put that long gives me heartburn."

  Like a shark, he liked to keep moving.

  "As long as Blackstar Two stays right there," Nick indicated Finn's two-hundred-foot dive boat anchored nearby with his glass of soda. "we’re good."

  Finn smiled. "Now I feel like a twenty-dollar whore."

  "Try a twenty-million-dollar whore. Take the money and run, Rocketman." Jonah placed his bottle on a nearby table. "But you'll at least hang for a few weeks, right? Or are you off to scale another mountain? Or build a high-rise on the moon?"

  "For the Moon, we'd need to invoke in situ resource utilization. Supplies - oxygen and water - would have to be manufactured on site before anyone could live there. Easier on Mars. The polar ice caps can be melted for water, and oxygen can be extracted from water electrically. The moon has nothing and would be harder. You can't fit enough oxygen and water for a colony in a supply rocket." He looked around at the smiling faces of his friends. "TMI?"

  "Always interesting, but that question was rhetorical," Jonah smiled. "Is there a minute of any day that you're not thinking about space?"

  "I'm thinking this better be the last party I have to host," Finn said without heat as the sound of voices and glasses clinking spilled outside.

  "We have to make a decision before the oversight guy shows up," Logan reminded them. "He's not going to commute from the mainland every dayfor a four-hour round trip. One of us is going to have to play innkeeper."

  "He could come once a week," Jonah said. "Then we wouldn't need to waste a bunk." He brightened. "Even once a month..."

  It wasn't unusual for a local government to keep an eagle eye on their percentage of salvaged treasure. It was part and parcel of treasure hunting. But none of them particularly wanted a stranger on board, monitoring their every move for the unforeseeable future.

  Jonah tried again. "Maybe we could switch every couple of weeks? That seems fair--"

  "I should be exempt." Zane shot his oldest brother, Logan a hopeful glance. "Trust me, other than my lovely bride, no one in their right mind would want to stay on board Decrepit for weeks on end. Worse if it turns out he's a woman."

  "First, we don't know if Andersen is a man or a woman, and we've been through this," Logan said. "None of us wants anyone looking over our shoulder 24/7. Five of us. Five straws. Winner is the short straw, losers pay him five grand a piece. Who wants to go first? "

  Like himself, the Cutters thrived on competition. Even straw pulling. Finn eyed the toothpicks fanned out like porcupine quills in Logan's fist. "Seriously?"

  "You've known us for a decade." Zane's distinctive blue eyes twinkled. "When have we not taken a bet seriously?"

  "Art form." Finn agreed, plucking his broken toothpick and palming it.

  "What if this Andersen's some six-hundred-pound guy who smells like garlic?" Zane pulled out his toothpick.

  "You'll have to suck it up, buttercup." Nick's Cutter-blue eyes held a devilish glint, as if he knew something the rest of them didn't. "If you pull the short straw you'll have to learn to live with whatever the guy smells like."

  They each held up their wooden sticks of various lengths.

  With a grin, Logan gripped Finn's shoulder. "Rocketman it is."

  Eyeing the toothpicks and realizing he had the shortest, Finn shrugged. “Not a big deal. I'll house him on Blackstar Two and pretty much never see him."

  "You really want some government watchdog with that much unsupervised access?" Zane asked.

  "Plenty of security. I'm not worried."

  Privacy was a paramount concern in his life. Even though Blackstar was a three hundred and fifty-foot behemoth, with six decks, more than sixty permanent crew and a full complement of office staff, he didn't want an unknown quantity onboard. Blackstar Two was close enough.

  Finn operated in all his business dealings with fairness and integrity, as did the Cutters. He'd have nothing to hide when they continued pulling ancient relics and valuable treasure from the sea whether a government oversight person was on board or not. No matter what they scored, the Argentinians would get their cut, honestly and fairly.

  Finn had his own team of twelve divers aboard Blackstar Two and had allocated three hours a day to dive with them. He'd be busy morning, noon and night. Perhaps he could juggle his schedule to squeeze in a quick trip back to Buenos Aires and another visit to the museum. . .

  "True." Nick's teeth flashed white as he smiled. "Since you happen to have a ship the size of a fiefdom. More room for her to disappear in. You won't even notice one woman on ..."

  "The six-hundred-pound garlic eater is a woman?" Zane scrunched up his face comically, his distinctive blue eyes alight with mischief. "Jesus, I bet she has a thick black mustache, hairy warts, and ..."

  "Don't make up shit." Logan elbowed his brother. "We don't know if Andersen is a man or a woman yet. Dr. Núñez, head of the agency will introduce us tonight." He glanced inside, through the open doors behind Finn. "They may even be here by now. We should go back in anyway."

  The darkening sky displayed a strip of brilliant orange.

  Delicate and fiery, like. . .

  They'd shared two sunsets, three dawns and only gotten out of bed to shower and eat. The rest of the time they'd made love. For Finn, the experience was like watching the brilliance of a comet streaking through the sky on a clear, ink-black night, knowing it wouldn’t appear again in his lifetime. Weird, because he'd never felt that for a person before. Celestial bodies, yeah. B
ut never a woman.

  You got exactly what you wanted, dickhead. Hot anonymous sex. Foolish to linger over an anomaly. Yeah, the sex had been phenomenal, but it was just pheromones and sexual attraction to the nth degree.

  Just? Jesus. Not just. The entire experience had consumed him. She had consumed him. Wiped his mind clean, exhilarated every cell in his body. Since Buenos Aires, he’d spent an inordinate amount of time remembering details while his people searched Argentina from one end to the other. To find her. She'd been like a potent drug, and his body, usually so disciplined, was in the grip of a powerful withdrawal.

  Annoying and unlike him.

  Shit, for all he knew she could've been specifically sent to lure him to a hotel for some nefarious purpose his security people had, as yet, been unable to confirm or deny. Fucking impossible to find a redheaded ghost in a country with a population of over forty-four million people.

  She could be anywhere. Anyone.

  He didn't do one-night stands- too much of a liability. He enjoyed the personal connection in a relationship. He hadn't had one of those in over a year. He lived onboard his ship. Hard to make connections when he had a strict rule not to have romantic relationships with his staff or his crew.

  "Yo." Nick snapped his fingers under Finn's nose. "Never lose focus with this lot. You'll find yourself accepting a bet to French a Great White by default."

  Drumming up amusement, Finn blinked the brothers back into focus. Damn, he never lost focus. Why did this one-and-done experience in Buenos Aires still have such a powerful hold on him? He heard them with one part of his brain, while he thought about her with the other. Persephone. Queen of the underworld. With her interest in salvaged artifacts, perhaps she would have lingered if he'd told her about this salvage five hundred miles down the coast.

  Several occasions over the course of their short time together, he'd been tempted to invite her onboard. Spend more time with her. . . But he'd been the one to stipulate, no real names, no personal details.