The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [84]
He said urgently, “Did anyone see you go into his office? Or leaving?”
“Two women in the elevator going down. I don’t think they noticed anything. Just that I was in a hurry.”
She buried her face in his chest, crying quietly, and Valentin sighed as he put his arms around her. He wondered who had gotten to Markheim. And why? Either Markheim had accepted a bribe, told who the buyer was, and then been eliminated so he could not tell anyone else, or else the buyer himself had seen Markheim as a weak link and killed him.
“Genie,” he said calmly, “what about Ferdie Arnhaldt? Did he buy the emerald?”
She sat up, dabbing at her face with a tissue he gave her. “I’m not sure. He certainly knew something about it because he reacted so violently when I mentioned it. He practically threw me out. He said he wasn’t interested in emeralds and rubies.” She glanced up at Valentin. The brandy had warmed her. She felt calmer now that she was with him. “Arnhaldt had been doodling on his notepad. It was right there, next to the telephone. Valentin, he had drawn the emerald and the Ivanoff tiara.”
“You have done well,” he said, sitting beside her again. “I’m sorry about Markheim. Believe me, Genie, when I say I would not have sent you had I known there would be violence.”
She nodded. His deep, dark-gray eyes that seemed to know so many secrets were absorbing her. She could not look away. She leaned toward him, drawn by his glance.
“And would you believe me, Genie, if I said I missed you?” he asked, taking her hands in his.
She nodded again.
He held her closer and her mouth parted under his as he kissed her; his hands were in her hair, caressing the nape of her neck, and he was stroking her tense aching back soothingly. And soon Markheim and Arnhaldt, Russia and America, were forgotten as he made love to her.
Much later, she lay curled beside him while he slept, feeling his breath on her cheek and the security of his arms around her, thinking about what she had heard about love at first sight. People always said it could happen, and maybe now she believed it.
Istanbul
A car was waiting for Leyla at Ataturk Airport. “Welcome home, Miss Leyla.” The chauffeur beamed. “Kazahn Pasha is expecting you. I am to drive straight to the Kazahn yali.”
Leyla smiled, thinking it was typical of Michael Kazahn to expect her to obey him to the letter and be on the next flight from Paris. And of course he had been right. But she was surprised they were going to the yali: These days it was used mainly as a summer house. Both Michael and Ahmet had built spacious modern houses atop a steep hill at Yenikoy, where the double-height windows gave a dramatic view of the Bosphorus far below. She guessed the meeting must be a very important one since Michael believed that all walls except the yali’s had ears.
The journey from the airport seemed endless, and her stomach churned nervously as the chauffeur threaded his way slowly through the usual traffic jam at Eminonu and across the Galata Bridge leading from the old city to the new, driving at the usual Turkish breakneck speed along the shores of the Bosphorus toward Yenikoy.
It was a bright, cold day but she stared without noticing at the sun sparkling on the water. They passed Bebek, where she had gone to school, and the ancient castle at Rumeli Hisari, then through Emirgan, where the cliff sloped steeply up to beautiful Emirgan Park.
The old ugly docks at Istinye had been cleared away, leaving the beautiful sweep of the bay uncluttered, and now only a tiny shipyard remained with a few ships dry-docked undergoing repairs. A vast red-hulled tanker displaying the Russian hammer-and-sickle insignia on its funnel and looking as big as a hotel lay in the deep-water mooring. Leyla glanced at it speculatively as they passed. The enormous superstructure