“No, he didn’t. I hit something when he pushed me into the van.”
The savagery didn’t abate. If anything, it flared hotter and fiercer. “Good thing the bastard’s in police custody.”
Sarah struggled to get the discussion back on track. “Lefèvre doesn’t matter, Dev.”
“The hell he doesn’t.”
“Listen to me. What matters is that I didn’t know Alexis had sicced a photographer on us. But even if she hadn’t, some other magazine or tabloid would have picked up the story sooner or later. I’m afraid that kind of public scrutiny is something you and whoever you do finally get engaged to will have to live with.”
“I’m engaged to you, Sarah.”
“Not any longer.”
Shoving her misery aside, she slid the emerald off her finger and held it out. He refused to take it.
“It’s yours,” he said curtly. “Part of your heritage. Whatever happens from here on out between us, you keep the Russian Rose.”
The tight-jawed response only added to her aching unhappiness. “Our arrangement lasted only until you and Girault signed your precious contracts. That’s done now. So are we.”
She hadn’t intended to sound so bitter. Dev had held to his end of their bargain. Every part of it. She was the one who’d almost defaulted. If not personally, then by proxy through Alexis.
But would Dev continue to hold to his end? The sudden worry that he might take his anger out on Gina pushed her into a rash demand for an assurance.
“I’ve fulfilled the conditions of our agreement, right? You won’t go after my sister?”
She’d forgotten how daunting he could look when his eyes went hard and ice blue.
“No, Lady Sarah, I won’t. And I think we’d better table this discussion until we’ve had more time to think things through.”
“I’ve thought them through,” she said desperately. “I’m going home tomorrow, Dev.”
He leaned in, all the more intimidating because he didn’t touch her, didn’t raise his voice, didn’t so much as blink.
“Think again, sweetheart.”
Left alone in her misery, Sarah opened her hand and stared at the emerald-and-gold ring. No matter what Dev said, she couldn’t keep it.
Nor could she just leave it lying around. She toyed briefly with the thought of taking it downstairs and asking Monsieur LeBon to secure it in the hotel safe, but didn’t feel up to explaining either her bruised cheek or the call from Brigade criminelle.
With an aching sense of regret for what might have been, she slipped the ring back on her finger. It would have to stay there until she returned it to Dev.
She was trying to make herself go into the bedroom and pack when a loud rumble from the vicinity of her middle reminded her she hadn’t eaten since her breakfast croissant and coffee. She considered room service but decided she needed to get out of her room and clear her head. She also needed, as Dev had grimly instructed, to think more.
After a fierce internal debate, she picked up the house phone. A lifetime of etiquette hammered in by the duchess demanded she advise Dev of her intention to grab a bite at a local café. Fiancé or not, furious or not, he deserved the courtesy of a call.
Relief rolled through her in waves when he didn’t answer. She left a quick message, then took the elevator to the lobby. Slipping out one of the hotel’s side exits, she hiked up the collar of her sweater coat. It wasn’t dusk yet, but the temperature was skidding rapidly from cool to cold.
As expected this time of day, the sidewalks and streets were crowded. Parisians returning from work made last-minute stops at grocers and patisseries. Taxis wove their erratic path through cars and bicycles. Sarah barely noticed the throng. Her last meeting with Dev still filled her mind. Their tense confrontation had shaken her almost as much as being snatched off the street and tossed into a delivery van like a sack of potatoes.
He had every right to be angry about the photographer, she conceded. She was furious, too. What had hurt most, though, was Dev’s assumption that Beguile had staged the kidnapping. And that Sarah was part of the deception. How could he love her, yet believe she would participate in a scam like that?
The short answer? He couldn’t.
As much as she wanted to, Sarah couldn’t escape that brutal truth. She’d let Paris seduce her into thinking she and Dev shared something special. Come so close to believing that what they felt for each other would merit a padlock on the Archbishop’s Bridge. Aching all over again for what might have been, she ducked into the first café she encountered.
A waiter with three rings piercing his left earlobe and a white napkin folded over his right forearm met her at the door. His gaze flickered to the ugly bruise on her cheek and away again.
“Good evening, madame.”
“Good evening. A table for one, please.”
Once settled at a table in a back corner, she ordered without glancing at the menu. A glass of red table wine and a croque-monsieur—the classic French version of a grilled ham and cheese topped with béchamel sauce—was all she wanted. All she could handle right now. That became apparent after the first few sips of wine.
Her sandwich arrived in a remarkably short time given this was Paris, where even the humblest café aimed for gastronomic excellence. Accompanied by a small salad and thin, crisp fries, it should have satisfied her hunger. Unfortunately, she never got to enjoy it. She took a few forkfuls of salad and nibbled a fry, but just when she was about to bite into her sandwich she heard her name.
“Lady Sarah, granddaughter to Charlotte St. Sebastian, grand duchess of the tiny duchy once known as Karlenburgh.”
Startled, she glanced up at the flat screen TV above the café’s bar. While Sarah sat frozen with the sandwich halfway to her mouth, one of a team of two newscasters gestured to an image that came up on the display beside her. It was a photo of her and Gina and Grandmama, one of the rare publicity shots the duchess had allowed. It’d been taken at a charity event a number of years ago, before the duchess had sold her famous pearls. The perfectly matched strands circled her neck multiple times before draping almost to her waist.
“The victim of an apparent kidnapping attempt,” the announcer intoned, “Lady Sarah escaped injury this afternoon during a dramatic rescue by her fiancé, American industrialist Devon Hunter.”
Dread churned in the pit of Sarah’s stomach as the still image gave way to what looked like an amateur video captured on someone’s phone camera. It showed traffic swerving wildly as Dev charged across two lanes and planted himself in front of oncoming traffic.
Good God! The white van! It wasn’t going to stop!
Her heart shot into her throat. Unable to breathe, she saw Dev dodge aside at the last moment, then leap for the van door. When he smashed the driver’s face into the wheel, Sarah gasped. Blobs of béchamel sauce oozed from the sandwich hanging from her fork and plopped unnoticed onto her plate. She’d been in the back of the van. She hadn’t known how Dev had stopped it, only that he had.
Stunned by his reckless courage, she watched as the street scene gave way to another video. This one was shot on the steps of the Palais de Justice. Henri Lefèvre was being led down the steps to a waiting police transport. Uniformed officers gripped his arms. Steel cuffs shackled his wrists. A crowd of reporters waited at the bottom of the steps, shouting questions that Lefèvre refused to answer.
When the news shifted to another story, Sarah lowered