Forbidden Kiss (5 page)

Chapter Six

“Jule, you need to get laid,” Natala Casale told her sister. Sitting cross-legged on Jule’s bed, Natala flipped through the pages of a recent issue of
Lucky
magazine. “What about that dark and dangerous type that was here earlier?” Natala said lustily, stopping to inspect a nail cuticle. She had bumped into Montgomery as Jule escorted him out the front door after an eventful and disturbing evening.

Jule backed out of her walk-in closet to glare at Natala. “Right. Should I just ask him nicely, ‘Excuse me Mr. Montgomery, I haven’t had sex in over a year, my vibrator is broken and I’m really desperate’?”

Natala fell back onto the stack of pink, chintz-covered pillows laughing. “I would pay to hear this conversation!”

Jule threw her flats into the bottom of the closet and dug around for the mate to her house slipper. “Seriously, Natala, he’s shockingly good looking, but way too secretive for my taste. And he’s done business with Pio. That association is enough to throw him into the don’t-touch-with-a-ten-foot-pole category.”

Natala clutched the forgotten magazine to her chest and sat up. “What kind of business?” The youngest of the Casale daughters, Natala harbored strong feelings of dislike for her father’s oldest and dearest associate. Whatever Pio was “cooking in his kitchen” didn’t smell right to Natala. And she should know, she was a chef.

“Real estate,” Jule’s muffled reply drifted from deep inside the closet.

Giving up on the tangle of shoes, belts, and discarded purses, Jule sat back on her heels to see Natala. “I feel like I was conned tonight. At first Montgomery didn’t want to help me and then he couldn’t wait to come over and look at my prints to see if he could provide information.”

“So what did this Rom say?” Natala said.

“Well, now that I think about it, he didn’t say a whole lot. Just brooded. And generally made it clear he thought I was irritating.” Jule spilled her guts at Natala’s look of frustration. “Okay. He’s extremely hot and very intimidating and I was flustered. There. Are you happy?” She crawled back between the open bi-fold doors to shield her discomfort over the truth. Admitting someone—some man—had gotten to her, emotionally and sexually, was a news flash in the Casale household.

“Yes, actually I am. It’s about time you got over your ex and started getting back out there again.” Natala tossed the magazine onto the floor with a sigh and picked up the stack of glossy photos lying on Jule’s bed. She shuffled through the images, pausing here and there for a longer look. “He’s hot. Do you mind if I ask him?”

“What?” Jule crawled out of the closet with the missing slipper, her eyes wide in shock. “Ask if you can sleep with him?” She threw the slipper at her sister. “You’d better not sleep with Rom Montgomery and I mean it.”

“See. I told you. You’re totally into him,” Natala said, choosing a picture from the stack and leaning towards the bedside lamp. Jule recovered the slipper and crammed it on her foot.

“Wow. This is pretty cool. Is this the one you’ve been working on?” Natala held up the eight by ten for Jule to see.

“Yeah.” She plopped down on her bed, sighing at the end of what had been a very long day.

“And was he any help?”

“Somewhat.” Jule thought about their meeting for the one hundredth time since Montgomery had left. Who was she fooling? He’d given her zip.

“Not really. He was all cryptic and secretive. I couldn’t get him to talk.”

“Well, keep after him. And use the opportunity to get to know him. I got a good vibe from him.” Natala and their Mamma shared one thing in common and it wasn’t marinara sauce recipes.

Mamma would be happy to know Natala was predicting Jule had a future with a man who wasn’t her ex, Blake. She might not end up a divorced museum spinster as their poor mother feared.

Natala set the stack of photos aside, but kept the one, examining it up close.

“You know what was really weird?” Jule relaxed into the pillows next to her younger sister, her slippered feet crossed and slowly moving to strains of classical music drifting upstairs from her parent’s sitting room.

“Hmm?”

“He didn’t have a bed in his bedroom.”

“What?” Natala turned to face Jule, surprise raising her ebony brows. “You were in his bedroom, for Christ’s sake? Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

Jule felt a flush creep into her cheeks. “I was looking at his painting. It was completely appropriate.” She suddenly found a pill on her wool skirt fascinating.

“What the hell! You were in his bedroom, but it never occurred to you he wanted to have sex?” Natala threw her hands up in exasperation. “Jesus, Jule. Get with it. Of course he was interested.”

Jule meet her sister’s gaze. “Do you think?”

“Yes. Now if I were you, I’d call this Romeo tomorrow and set up a dinner date.” Natala shook her head and rolled her eyes, her attention drawn back to the photo. “Wait. What do you mean he didn’t have a bed? If there wasn’t a bed, how do you know you were in his bedroom?”

Natala narrowed her eyes at her older sister. “It has been a while,” she stated for the record.

“God, you make me sound like a nun. I may not know when a guy is coming on to me, but I know what a bedroom looks like.” Jule stared at the ceiling. “We walked through his loft. I saw the living area, the kitchen and a bedroom with a dresser, closet and en-suite bath. I’m not a realtor, but those three things usually indicate a bedroom.”

“Okay.” Natala gave up the argument. “Maybe he slept somewhere else. Or maybe he’s a vampire and sleeps hanging from the rafters. Who knows?” She shrugged her shoulders and returned to the photo, the mystery of Montgomery unsolved.

Jule was so the junior sister when it came to romance and sex. She’d been married to her college sweetheart and had only slept with one other man besides him. Pathetic, but there it was.

Jule drifted, the music and her sister’s even breathing lulling her.

“What’s the deal with this rose? Is it some kind of totem or symbol? It seems so out of place.”

Jule lifted her head to look at the photo, although she knew what Natala was pointing at: the red rose, its first petal flush with dew, opening to the light.

“I don’t know. Ever since I saw Montgomery’s painting tonight with a similar rose—same place, same color, only more petals and wilted, I’ve wondered the same thing.”

“Weird.” Natala’s breath fogged the glossy print as she held it inches from her eyes. “If you’re into conspiracies like me,” she said, her eyes narrowed in amusement above the top of the photo, “you might say that the fold on this rose petal looks like the Roman numeral one.”

“Let me see,” Jule said, trying not to hurt her sister’s feelings over such an amateur theory. Ever since the
Da Vinci Code,
people claimed to see hidden clues in art.

Natala handed the photo over, moving on to another in the stack with a shrug of her shoulders to say, “whatever. You’re the expert.”

The rose looked no different than it had an hour ago when Montgomery stood staring at the same image. Jule tilted the photo slightly down and forward where the lamp light hit it dead on.

The shadow in the velvety dip of the petal indeed resembled a number: one.

“See, I’m not such an idiot,” Natala declared, making Jule crinkle the photo in surprise.

“I don’t think that at all,” Jule replied, guilt making her avoid her sister’s all-seeing gaze. But dang if Natala’s idea didn’t spur more theories. “Grab my bag off the floor there, will you?”

Jule pawed through her bag, grabbing her notebook. She searched for a rough sketch she’d made while at Montgomery’s, one of the rose in his painting. Three distinct petals lay open, but age and darkness had wilted the rose and it hung facing down at an awkward angle.

“You don’t have glossies of this painting?” Natala asked.

“No. And I don’t think I’ll get the opportunity either. My sketch will have to do. For now.” Montgomery would be seeing her again, probably sooner that he’d like.

Natala tapped her lips with an index finger, thinking so hard the air almost crackled with the energy.

“So the first painting has the same rose with one petal unfurled. This painting, which you think is by the same painter, has a similar rose with nine petals. Too bad I can’t look to see if there’s a hidden number nine in the shadow. But I think you’ve got a message here indicating there are nine of something.” Proud of her summation, Natala turned a bright smile on her sister.

Nine of something. Nine paintings in a series? It wouldn’t be unheard of. Jule tried to see the paintings with fresh eyes. If Jule had the first painting in the series and Montgomery the last, then there were seven unaccounted for.

Seven unknown works of art out there, waiting for Jule.

“Oh my God.” Her shoulders arched back with the revelation.

Natala jumped at the unexpected outburst. “What?”

“Holy crap. I think you’re right. I think whoever painted this wanted it known there were nine in the series. And it was important that whoever they were intended for knew in what order they belonged.”

Natala rolled over onto her knees, catching Jule’s excitement. “So who were the paintings intended for?”

Jule met her wide eyes. “That’s the question now, isn’t it?”

…

“Nine paintings of a series?” The news felt like a sucker punch. Rom maintained his usual stoic attitude, even bracing his weight with a hand to the doorjamb, but inside, he gasped for air. Lawrence, the clever old son of a bitch, had been busy the last years of his life.

Hell, he wasn’t even sure what he felt besides surprise. Elation? Completion? Relief? The thought his hell on earth could almost be over staggered him. Brought him to his knees. He wanted to weep. Being able to lie down for the long sleep of death had gone from never-in-all-of eternity to maybe-soon in a matter of seconds.

Rom watched Jule inspect the oil on the canvas.

Her movements were stiff and precise, telling Rom she had much to say, but even more to ask. When she’d knocked earlier, Rom toyed with the idea of simply not answering, aggravated by his body’s sudden surge of pleasure at her silhouetted shape outside his door.

He could control his body. It was the emotional baggage typically following close behind that worried him. He didn’t want Jule Casale in his head, and by God, not in his heart.

But he couldn’t do it, damn it. He couldn’t leave her standing in the cold at this hour of night.

Unfortunately, Mercutio, the relentless, never-sleeping voice of conscience inside his head, wouldn’t let it go.

If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.

Rom’s head jerked up at the sound of Jule’s voice telling him something or other about art history. He’d been slipping more and more frequently into the past and the ease of the transition had him uneasy.

“Series are common. Though in this large a number, not as much.” She warmed to the topic and some of the stiffness melted away into a comfortable air of academia. She was right at home in her patient discussion of theory.

He almost smiled at the little professor, her earnestness sweeping away his dark thoughts.

She talked with her hands, her fingers framing her thoughts as they spilled out one after another. “But what I’m proposing is the painter—whoever our Anonymous is—included a simple legend with each painting.”

Stepping in close to the tomb scene in Rom’s bedroom, she stretched a hand toward the rose, her index finger skimming a shadow on a petal. “Look here. The shadow is actually the number nine, corresponding to the number of open petals on the flower.”

Rom didn’t need to move in for a closer look. Even from a distance her perfume filled his nostrils—a teasing scent that hinted of warm skin.

He could easily see the shadowed number from where he stood, safely back from any contact with Jule Casale.

Damn. Why had he never noticed the symbols she pointed out?

You see only that which you want
, Mercutio whispered defiantly.

Jule pulled a manila folder from her bag at her feet, handing it over. “The rose in my painting has a number one. I think it means we’re looking at the first and last of a series of nine. The first and the last because in my painting the light is that of early morning and the rose is just opening. In your painting,” she turned back to the two dead lovers, “the sun has set and the flower is dead. The series has ended and the story told.”

What story did the other seven paintings tell? And why had it taken him so long to discover more paintings existed? When he found the tomb scene on that long ago summer night in Paris, he never thought there would be more, or that Lawrence’s reach could touch him over so many spent centuries.

But here and now, faced with the old friar’s parting words, Rom wanted to laugh aloud, surprised but yet glad to hear from Lawrence again after so long a silence.

“Do you see the possibilities? There are seven more paintings out there—waiting. Perhaps identified, perhaps not. But I want to find them, Rom. Bring them all together. Will you help me? Will you partner with me?”

He knew it took a great deal of vulnerability for her to ask him. That, and courage.

Rom acknowledged he wanted her. Now, when his world, long and dark as it had been, could soon be coming to end. He wanted to lose himself in her. Bury his face in her midnight hair, kiss her white neck as she arched beneath him and nip the lobes of her ears as he whispered his intent.

He wanted to wake up next to her and take comfort in another human body. Simple pleasures, simple emotions. Feelings tied to the living.

But admitting it didn’t translate to doing it. And wanting it didn’t mean he deserved it. Or her.

Rom pushed off the wall and went to stand in front of the oil version of Juliet. “I wish I could help you. But I can’t.”

Too much at risk.

Turning sharply, he met Jule’s wide eyes, steeling himself for her disappointment. He could handle that. Rom felt it every day.

Jule sucked her bottom lip between white teeth and breathed deep. She wasn’t giving up—yet. She squared her shoulders and dug in her heels.