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Adrienne forced herself to turn away from theAs she padded across the roo across the faded Oushak rug, where it clunked to a rest against the wall

Adrienne glanced at it and flinched It was a piece from Eberhard’s chess set, the one she’d swiped frootten all about it after she’d moved in She’d tossed it in a box--one of those piled in the corner that she’d never gotten around to unpacking Perhaps Moonie had dragged the pieces out, she

She retrieved the piece she’d kicked and rolled it gingerly between her fingers Waves of eer and humiliation, capped with a relentless fear that she still wasn’t safe

A draft of air kissed the back of her neck and she stiffened, clutching the chess piece so tightly that the crown of the black queen dug cruelly into her palic insisted that the s behind her were shut--she knew they were, still--instinct told her otherwise

The rational Adrienne knew there was no one in her library but herself and a lightly snoring kitten The irrational Adrienne teetered on the brink of terror

Laughing nervously, she berated herself for being so ju her this way She would not succu a backward glance, Adrienne scooped the scattered chess pieces into a pile She didn’t really like to touch them A woman couldn’t spend her childhood in New Orleans--much of it at the feet of a Creole storyteller who’d lived behind the orphanage--without becoinal Viking set; an old legend claih The only reason she’d pilfered the set was in case she needed quick cash Carved of walrus ivory and ebony, it would command an exorbitant price from a collector Besides, hadn’t she earned it, after all he’d put her through?

Adrienne muttered a colorful invective about beautiful men It wasn’t morally acceptable that someone as evil as Eberhard had been so nice to look at Poetic justice demanded otherwise--shouldn’t people’s faces reflect their hearts? If Eberhard had been as ugly on the outside as she’d belatedly discovered he was on the inside, she never would have ended up at the wrong end of a gun Of course, Adrienne had learned the hard way that any end of a gun was the wrong end

Eberhard Darrow Garrett was a beautiful, wo the black queen tightly she o out with a beautifulas I live and breathe I hate beautiful men Hate them!"

Outside the French doors at 93 Coattail Lane, a man who lacked substance, a creature manmade devices could neither detect nor contain, heard her words and smiled His choice was made with swift certainty--Adrienne de Si for

CHAPTER 3

ADRIENNE HAD NO IDEA HOW SHE ENDED UP ON THE MAN’S lap None

One moment she was perfectly sane--perhaps a bit neurotic, but firmly convinced of her sanity nonetheless--and the next round disappeared beneath her feet and she was sucked down one of Alice’s rabbit holes

Her first thought was that shesubconscious foray into a barbaric nightmare

But that didn’tMoonshadow or doing … so … what? She couldn’t have just fallen asleep without even knowing it!

Maybe she’d stumbled and struck her head, and this hallucination was the dreamy result of a concussion

Or maybe not, she worried as she looked around the cavernous s a ue

You’ve done it now, Adrienne, she e, heels still kicking Adrienne struggled to focus her eyes, which felt strangely heavy Thebeast with thick aro she’d been in her library, hadn’t she?

A greasy hand squeezed her breast and she yelped aloud Bewildere when his hand deliberately grazed the crest of her nipple through her sweater Even if this was a dream, she couldn’t permit that kind of activity to pass without redress She opened her , but he beat her to the punch His pink led mass of hair expanded into a wide O Dear heaven but the , and no wonder--his few re teeth were stumpy and brown