Page 85 of Dark Lover

He poured himself another drink. “But ye’d visit if ye could go back.”

Sam looked at her scotch. “Yeah, I would.” She looked up. Their gazes met.

“Have Nick send ye,” he said abruptly.

Nick wanted her to work Ian and locate the page, at least. Sam finished her drink and handed him her glass for a refill. Their fingers brushed. She shivered, tightening. Tonight was going to be off the charts, she thought, and she was glad she hadn’t brought up the sore subject of the monk to blow it. She smiled slowly at him.

He smiled back.

“I do have a question,” she said. “Why haven’t you tried to use the power of the page of illusion to fight our enemies?”

He was unsmiling now. “Ye like warring with evil. I don’t.”

“You lured the demon off the Internet so you could kill him for preying on kids. I think it was revenge. I think it was about what they did to you.” The moment she’d spoken, she wished she hadn’t. They were having a quiet drink. It had been a hellish day. He was hot and so was she. Sex was imminent. She didn’t want to awaken the tiger.

But he didn’t take the bait. He sipped. “Ye can think whatever ye wish, Sam. I only want sex. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, from that day in Oban.”

Her tension was different now, as if it were dismay. But that made no sense. Sex was all she ever wanted from a guy, anyway. Wasn’t it? “And now you have what you want, don’t you?”

“I have everything I want,” he said, nodding at the expensively furnished room.

Sam drained her scotch, suddenly feeling empty and deflated. Wanting more from Maclean was insane. “Is the page safe, Ian?”

“Am I a fool?”

“Will you still hold that auction Friday?”

He looked at her. “I meant what I said earlier. I’m going to make some calls later and find a buyer. The page will be history by dawn.”

She trembled. He intended to cut and run. “Can you please tell me where it is and reconsider this insanity?”

“So ye can tell Nick?” He laughed and poured them both refills.

Sam had had enough. She pushed the drink back. “I don’t get it. You’re not evil, so it’s not the power, and you don’t need the money. You have enough wealth to go around for a few lifetimes.”

“No one ever has enough power or wealth,” he said flatly.

What the hell did that mean? “You never cease to amaze me, Maclean. Those layers keep peeling away, and I never find what I expect. How much wealth and power do you want?”

“He thinks that with enough wealth he will be able to keep his freedom,” Rupert Hemmer said.

Sam turned and her heart stopped.

Rupert Hemmer stood there and he wasn’t alone. The monk of Carlisle was with him.

She glanced at Ian as she leapt to her feet. He was pale, but his eyes blazed with fury. She did not have her messenger bag with her. She had a minidisk strapped to one wrist, and a small dagger in her boot. There was a tiny razor in her bra. That was it.

She looked at Ian again. He was angry but there was fear in his eyes.

Ian, she thought. We can do this.

He didn’t look at her but he flinched as if he’d heard her.

Hemmer walked inside first. “Did you really think to get away with all that you have?” he asked both Ian and Sam. “I did warn you about my special friends. But I forgot to add that I am never crossed.”

Ian trembled visibly. His face was so hard and set now, it looked as if it might crack. Sam stepped closer to him. She looked back and forth between Hemmer, so suave and urbane in his suit, and the monk in his dark robes. “I don’t recall crossing you, Rupert. Last I recall, you were threatening me.”

Hemmer seemed delighted. “Actually, I was threatening him.” He nodded at Ian. “And to make good, I asked Carlisle to come play with us.”