LITMIR.BIZ

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in for eighteen very long, very cold months.

      When he paused under a grand arch between the two rooms, he saw her. She stood at the edge of a group of people engrossed in something he couldn’t see. And he had the distinct impression she felt as alone in the crowd as he did.

      * * *

      Tarot junkies crowded around Madam Wong as if she held the winning lottery numbers. Evangeline La Fleur was neither a junkie nor one to buy lottery tickets, but people were always amusing. Madam Wong turned over another card and the crowd gasped and murmured. Evangeline rolled her eyes.

      Her neck prickled and she sensed someone watching her.

      The guy from the hall.

      They locked gazes across the room, and she gave herself a half second to let the shiver go all the way down. Delicious. There’d been something about the way he talked to her, as if truly interested in what she had to say. About Vincenzo’s stupid phone party, no less.

      Lately, no one was interested in what she said, unless it was to answer the question, “What are you going to do now that you can’t sing anymore?” They might as well ask what she’d do after they nailed the coffin shut.

      Hall guy’s suit was well-cut, promising what lay underneath it might be worth a peek or two, his lips below the black velvet mask were strong and full and his hands looked...capable. The man trifecta.

      The music faded into the background as he strode purposefully toward her without so much as glancing at what he passed. Every bit of his taut focus was on her, and it had a powerful effect, way down low in places usually reserved for men she’d known far longer.

      Boldly, she watched him approach, her gaze equally as fixed on him.

      Bring it, Tall, Blond and Gorgeous.

      The mystery of his masked face somehow made him more attractive. That and the fact he couldn’t possibly know who she was behind her mask. This...pull was all about anonymity, and she’d have called anyone a dirty liar who said she’d like it. But she did. When was the last time she’d been within a forty-foot radius of someone who wasn’t aware of how her career had crashed and burned? Or the number of Grammys she’d won, for that matter.

      For a time, she’d dwelled in the upper echelon of entertainers—so successful she didn’t require a last name. The world knew her simply as Eva.

      Then she was cast aside, adrift and alone, with no voice.

      “There you are,” he murmured, as if afraid to be overheard and determined to keep things between them very private. “I’d started to think you’d flown away.”

      She laughed, surprising herself. Laughter didn’t come easily, not lately. “The wings only work after midnight.”

      “I’d better move fast, then.” The eyes on her were beautiful, an almost colorless, crystalline blue that contrasted with the black border of the mask. “My name is—”

      “No.” She touched a finger to his lips. “No names. Not yet.”

      As he looked very much like he wanted to suck her fingertip into his mouth, she dropped it before she let him. This stranger was exciting, no doubt, but she had a healthy survival instinct. Vincenzo’s friends were a little on the wild side. Even for her.

      Yet she’d been following Vincenzo around Europe for a couple of months and couldn’t seem to find anything better to do. She wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to. But what?

      “Are you seeking your fortune, then?” He nodded to Madam Wong and the crowd parted.

      Madam Wong shuffled her cards. “Come. Sit.”

      Tall, Blond and Gorgeous pulled the brocade chair away from the draped table. Evangeline couldn’t see a way to gracefully refuse without drawing unwanted attention, so she sat, extremely aware of the capable hand resting on the back of the chair inches from her neck.

      When Madam Wong shoved the deck across the table, Evangeline cut it about a third of the way down and let the fortune-teller restack the cards.

      After that quack doctor butchered her vocal cords, Evangeline had spent three months searching for a cure, eventually landing on the doorstep of every Romanian gypsy, every Asian acupuncturist and every Nepalese faith healer she could find.

      No one had a way to restore her damaged voice. Or her damaged soul. In short, this wasn’t her first tarot reading, and she had little hope it would be any more helpful than all the other mumbo jumbo.

      The only positive from the nightmare of the past six months came from winning the lawsuit against the quack doctor, who no longer had a license to practice medicine, thanks to her.

      The costumed crowd pressed closer as Madam Wong began laying out the spread. Her brow furrowed. “You have a great conflict, yes?”

      Oh, however did you guess? Evangeline waited for the rest of the hokey wisdom.

      The withered old woman twirled one of the many rings on her fingers as she contemplated the cards. “You have been cut deeply and lost something precious.”

      The capable hand of the masked stranger brushed her hair. Evangeline sat up straighter and frowned.

      Cut.

      She had been, in more ways than one.

      “This card...” Madam Wong tapped it. “It confuses me. Are you trying to conceive?”

      “A baby?” Evangeline spit out the phrase on a heavy exhale and took another breath to calm her racing pulse. “Not even close.”

      “Conception comes in many forms and is simply a beginning. It is the step after inspiration. You have been inspired. Now you must go forth and shape something from it.”

      Inspiration. That was in short supply. Evangeline’s throat convulsed unexpectedly. The music in her veins had been abruptly silenced and she hadn’t been inspired to write one single note since the surgery from hell.

      Madam Wong swept the cards into a pile and began shuffling. “I must do a second spread.”

      Speechless and frozen, Evangeline tried to shake her head. Her eyes began to burn, a sure sign she’d start bawling uncontrollably very soon. It was the wrong time of the month for this sort of emotional roller coaster.

      She needed a code word to get her out of this situation. Her manager had always given her one, so if the press asked a sensitive question, she’d say it and he’d rescue her.

      Except she had no manager and no code word. She had nothing. She’d been rejected by everyone—music, the industry, fans. Her father.

      “I believe you promised me a dance.”

      Tall, Blond and Gorgeous clasped her hand and pulled her out of the chair in one graceful move.

      “Thank you,” he said to Madam Wong, “but we’ve taken enough of your time. Good evening.”

      And like that, he whirled her away from the table, away from the prying eyes.

      By the time he stopped in an alcove between the main dance floor and the back room, her pulse had slowed. She blinked away the worst of the burn and stared up at her savior. “How did you know?”

      He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “You were so tense, the chair was vibrating. I take it you don’t care for tarot.”

      “Not especially. Thanks.” After a beat, when it became apparent he wasn’t going to ask any questions—which almost made her weep in gratitude—she made a show of scouting around for a nonexistent waiter. “I could go for a glass of champagne. You?”

      The thought of alcohol almost made her nauseous, but she needed a minute alone.

      “Sure. Unless you’d rather dance?”

      “Not right now.”

      Actually, she was thinking seriously about ditching

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