The Megiddo Mark, Part 1 Read Online Free Page A

intend to go higher.”
    “She refused? Then how do you plan to change her mind?”
    “I think she’ll be more amenable to the offer after she’s had a bottle of wine and a nice dinner.”
    “Hmmm.” She walked back and forth in front of his desk, her bare feet not making a sound on the tightly woven carpet. “Really? You think that’s wise? Combining business and pleasure always backfires on you.”
    “And if that doesn’t work, I have a back-up plan.”
    She paused. “I don’t like the sound of that . . .”
    “If you’ve learned anything about me over the past year, you know I protect what’s mine. That book belongs in my family. By Sunday it will be mine again.”
    “Brilliant. Tell me your plan isn’t illegal?”
    He paused a second too long. “If you have enough power, you can pretty much do anything you like these days.”
    She squinted, peering at him then opened her eyes wide in chastisement. “Doesn’t make it right, though.”
    “I’ve worked too long and hard to let a random bidder practically steal my mother’s book from me for a thousand pounds. I want that book back. Ms. Alexander won’t sell it to me. I’m not beyond using other means to get it, but I’m hoping my rugged charm will do the trick.”
    “Can I get back to you on that one?” She ducked through the door. “Seneca says the powerful man is the one who has power over himself. Maybe you should practice that philosophy for a while instead of exerting your power over a poor helpless woman who squeezed you out of a bid. Wrong is still wrong.”
    “Are you finished with the sermon?” He felt momentarily pained. He hated when Sienna took it upon herself to act as his conscience. If she wasn’t his best friend’s daughter, he’d have fired her long ago. “I also need you to research a book called the Vitae Lux for me while I’m in Aphrodisias. I found a reference to it in one of my mother’s journals. She owned it for a while. But it’s not in her collection. Might be a volume my father sold when he unloaded the family pile in Cornwall after my Mum died. But I can’t find any paperwork.”
    “Why can’t you just ask him?” she called from the other room, then poked her head around the doorjamb. “Might do you good to have a civil conversation with your own father for a change. Give you an excuse to call him.”
    His father had remarried six months after Juliana Wade’s death. Nathan Wade had quickly moved on with his own life, building an empire he planned to leave to Cullen. Not that Cullen wanted his father’s legal practice. But he could admire the hard work and determination that kept him at the top of his game at sixty.
    What he could not admire was that he’d stolen Cullen’s fiancée a month before their planned wedding. He hadn’t quite forgiven his father for the incident two years ago. Nathan Wade kept Veronica around for about six months before he’d gotten tired of her. He’d paid her off to get rid of her. It looked like Veronica had finally spent through the money.
    “You have something more to add?”
    “Sure, I guess . . . I’ll see what I can find out about Ms. Alexander, but I don’t like it.”
    “I don’t pay you to like your assignments. I pay you to complete them.” Cullen’s conscience nudged him. He hoped the seduction worked because if it didn’t, Sienna wouldn’t like the consequences.
    Yes, he did, sometimes, well, use sleight of hand to trick his opponents out of valuable purchases. Cullen rather admired the Alexander woman’s initiative earlier today. Too bad he couldn’t hold on to his objectivity where the book came into play, otherwise, he might be able to laugh at her stunt. But the book was too important. He needed that copy of poems.
    He’d never had to go this far, though.
    Flights of Fancy would be his. If there were any clues in the book about his mother’s reason for suicide, he’d find them. Then he’d board a plane for Turkey without looking back.