Rapture's Edge Read Online Free Page A

chair and beamed at her. “You bet your biscuits I can sell it, princess! Same terms?”
    She smiled. “Ten percent. Agreed.” Her smile faltered, and for a moment that old sorrow welled to the surface again. “However…I’d like to take the ten in trade this time.”
    Gregor was intrigued. “Trade for what?”
    She tucked her hand into the pocket of her coat and from it pulled a piece of paper, carefully folded. She leaned across the desk and handed it to him without a word.
    Curious, he unfolded the note. When he read its contents, he was even more shocked than moments before. “Eliana. What the
hell
are you going to do with this many guns?”
    Utterly composed, that terrible sadness still lurking behind her little smile, she quietly said, “What people always do with guns, Gregor.”
    They gazed at each other. Outside in the cold, winter Paris night, it began softly to rain.
    “And the rest of it?” He peered at the list. “Rocket-propelled grenades? Smoke bombs?” He looked up at her again, incredulous. “
Land mines
?”
    She exhaled a long, slow breath and looked away. She removed her gloves, finger by finger, and ran a hand through her thick, twilight-hued hair. He noticed for perhaps the millionth time that she never wore makeup, but he’d never seen anyone who needed it less. Like a firefly, the woman actually
glowed
.
    “Wars can’t be fought with sticks and stones.”
    Gregor jerked forward in his chair, really alarmed now. “Wars? Who you going to war with, princess?”
    She remained silent, gazing at him now with rebuke. There were questions they didn’t ask each other, information that was never exchanged, and they both knew he’d just violated that inviolable rule. But dammit, this was different! If she was in trouble—the kind of trouble that required this much heavy artillery—he wanted to help. He
needed
to.
    “Let me help you. Whatever this is about, I can help.”
    Her answer was swift, cool, and unequivocal. “No.”
    Outside, the rain picked up. It began to beat against the windows in staccato bursts, smearing the city beyond into plots of wavering black and yellow.
    “I don’t like it,” Gregor declared and tossed the note onto his desk.
    Eliana didn’t even blink. “You’re a businessman. This is business. You might not like it, but you’ll do it.” Her head tilted to the side in a birdlike motion he’d seen a million times before when she was puzzling something out, and he knew that something now was
him
. When she spoke again her voice had softened to the consistency of warmed butter, and he knew she had his number: flattery and female helplessness were a potent combination for him, even if both were patently insincere. “Won’t you, old friend? For me?”
    “Stop trying to dazzle me, Eliana, this is serious!” Truly aggravated now, he leapt from the chair and began to pace behind it.
    “Why are you lecturing me, Gregor?” she said, harder now. “If I were a man, would you even hesitate?”
    He swung around and stared at her. His gaze swept the lovely landscape of her body, her bare crossed legs, the perfect oval of her face. “You’re
not
a man. Obviously.”
    By the way her face flushed and she stiffened, Gregor knew he’d offended her.
At last, we’re getting somewhere,
he thought. Maybe that wall would come down after all.
    “So my lack of a penis is the only problem here?” The bitterness in her voice was unmistakable, and surprising. Eliana stood and drew on her gloves, all the while shaking her head and making little noises of disgust. “My entire life I’ve had to deal with that crap from my family. I
will not
tolerate it from my business associates.”
    She looked at him and drew herself up to her full height, which, for a woman, was substantial. At six foot three, he didn’t tower over her nearly as much as he did everyone else.
    “Thank you for all your help in the past, Gregor. I wish you the best. Good-bye.”
    She briskly began to roll up