Mission: Irresistible (3 page)

A sudden thought occurred. Could Adam Grayfield be the mummy? He’d told her he would be wearing a special costume. Was he playing flirtatious games with her? Or did he have an urgent message to relay?

“Well?” Phyllis demanded.

“Hmm?”

“Have you heard from Dr. Grayfield or not?”

No point putting the woman in a snit before there was something to snit about. “I heard from Adam.”
Last night
, Cassie mentally added. “Everything is on schedule.”

“He better be here by eight.” Phyllis tapped her watch again. “Because if anything goes wrong tonight—”

“Nothing,” Cassie interrupted the curator, “is going to go wrong.”

“Then do me a favor and put my mind at ease. Locate Dr. Grayfield.”

“Okay, fine.”

Jeez Louise, don’t get your panties in a bunch.

“Go. Now.” Phyllis made shooing motions.

“I’m going, I’m going.”

Cassie started after her purse, where she’d stashed her address book. She had taken only a couple of steps before Lambert dropped the nuclear bomb.

“Oh, and Cassandra,” Phyllis called after her.

Cassie forced herself not to sigh. She turned around and plastered a perky smile on her face. “Yes, Phyllis?”

“If you return without Dr. Grayfield and the remainder of the exhibit, you can kiss your coveted recommendation to the Smithsonian good-bye.”

CHAPTER 2

D
r. Harrison Standish hated parties.

No,
hated
was too mild a word. He loathed them, despised them, abhorred them. He would rather have a root canal, a major tax audit, and a prostate exam—all on the same morning—than attend one of these exorbitantly expensive, butt-kissing cultural affairs.

He’d already scoped out every exit so he could make a quick and clean getaway as soon as feasibly possible. He never went anywhere without an escape route mapped out.

Worst of all, it was a masquerade party. How pathetic—a group of grown people dressing up in silly costumes, pretending to be some ridiculous characters from history or literature. And as the icing on the cake, there in the center of the room, glomming on to attention, was the flamboyant Cassie Cooper. Looking as if she owned the world in her regal Cleopatra costume, heavy eyeliner, and thick dark wig. The kohl made her big eyes look even wider than they were, emphasizing that compellingly innocent-yet-naughty quality of hers.

Harrison was irritated with himself because each time she sashayed by, every intelligent thought bounced right out of his head, to be replaced by a drooling, Cro-Magnon, monosyllabic beat.

Me want.

This wasn’t like him at all, dammit. But whenever Cassie appeared he could not seem to stop himself from fantasizing about her. And he hated his unexpected weakness almost as much as he hated this party.

He had to stop thinking about her because she was, quite frankly, the most mesmerizing yet infuriating woman he had ever met. He could not afford the luxury of falling under her spell. However, it was far more than her fair complexion, light-colored eyes, and voluptuous figure that drove him around the bend.

Her scattered thought processes made no rational sense. Just when he thought he had her figured out, she would do something totally illogical. Harrison suspected the woman possessed a serious case of adult attention deficit disorder.

She strutted across the room, hips swaying with primal rhythm. In his head he heard the hissing whispery sound of metallic brushes whisking over brass cymbals, reverberating with each roll of her fabulous ass.
Tss-tta-tss-tta-tss.

A guy could get whiplash from watching her.

The woman was nimble. He would give her that. She was Lepidoptera
Danaus plexippus
, flashy, colorful, flitting from flower to flower. Here, there, everywhere. Never lingering in one place, always on the move.

Working with her over the course of the past nine days had been a royal pain in the butt. Whenever she wanted to get her way on an issue, she would ply her womanly wiles. Flirting, teasing, cajoling.

Harrison had pretended to be underwhelmed by her charms, even though he was as bedazzled as the stammering college students helping them set up the exhibit. But he refused to let her know the extent of her power over him. He’d learned from hard experience you couldn’t trust lust.

Face it, Standish, it’s just been too long since you’ve had sex.

The pressure of celibacy, that’s all this was. Because he and Cassie were total opposites in every way imaginable. She was a bubbly optimist. He was an eternal pessimist. She was sensual. He was cerebral. She was a romantic. He was a cynic. She was laid-back. He was tense. She sought the silver lining. He was always waiting for the other shoe to fall. And whenever he looked into her eyes, he could tell exactly what she was thinking.

Nerd. Dork. Geek.

Harrison knew, without a word being said, what kind of man she normally went for. Suave, debonair, charming dudes with expensive sports cars, ostentatious wardrobes, and toothpaste-commercial smiles.

Guys like his devilish half brother, Adam. Who upstaged him at every turn. The way she had gone on and on and on all week, chattering about how excited she was that Dr. Grayfield was coming to the Kimbell, really stuck in his craw. What was he? Chop suey? He was so irritated by her obvious adoration of Adam that he hadn’t even told her they were brothers.

Harrison ground his teeth. He was trying to suck up his disappointment and be the bigger person. So what if Cassie seemed enamored of his half brother? So what if Adam had found Solen before he did? No big deal. Adam and his gregarious personality had been able to raise the financial backing while introverted Harrison had not.

Story of his life.

But he was suspicious of his brother’s financial support. Although Adam’s father, Ambassador Tom Grayfield, was rich, Adam, forever the rebel, raised his own money so he wouldn’t have to do things his father’s way. In the past, Adam hadn’t been too choosy about where he got his funding, often running afoul of loan sharks and other unsavory characters.

Harrison would hate to see his younger brother in trouble again. Because as much as they disagreed, they did share an unbreakable bond. They’d both survived a nomadic childhood with Diana Standish.

Besides, he didn’t care about the fame that came with finding Solen. The discovery was what mattered. Not their sibling rivalry.

Where was his brother, by the way?

He glanced around the room. Adam should be making his grand entrance anytime now. He was all about grand entrances and grand gestures and grand romances that flared hot but never lasted.

All style and no substance. Come to think of it, Adam was essentially a masculine version of Cassie Cooper.

Harrison snorted. What a spectacular pair those two would make.

The yin and yang of glitz and flash. If Adam and Cassie ever hooked up, it would be like spring break, New Year’s Eve, and Mardi Gras all rolled into one. Of course, when reality reared its inevitable head, bye-bye hot tryst. Neither one of them had the staying power for cleanup after the party was over.

“Excuse me, young man,” said an elderly woman with an Isis headdress. She was peering at the display of an ancient Egyptian battery found in Kiya’s tomb. “Do you know what this is?”

“It’s called a
tet
or a
djed
.” He pointed to the label mounted on a plaque above the display. “A wireless battery.”

“They had batteries in ancient Egypt?”

“Yes, ma’am, they did.”

“What did they use them for?”

“We don’t know for sure, although there’s a lot of speculation. Some believe it was for religious rituals, others think it was used for medicinal purposes.”

“Really?”

Harrison’s personal theory was that the ancient Egyptians used the djed as a transmitter of electromagnetic waves. He’d been very excited about finding one in Kiya’s tomb and had even constructed a miniature replica of his own so he could test his theories. “Would you like to see a reproduction?”

“Why, yes.” The aged Isis peered at him curiously as Harrison placed his homemade djed in her hand.

“It has a bit of a phallic appearance, doesn’t it?” Isis ran her hand along the tube.

“Uh, yes, ma’am.”

The woman gave it back to him and winked. “Very interesting.”

He pocketed the djed and decided to move away from the exhibit to forestall future questioning. He strolled over to the central display, eyeing Kiya’s sarcophagus and the amulet. Ahmose Akvar, exalted son of a former Egyptian prime minister and himself a high-ranking official with the Ministry of Antiquities, moved to stand beside him.

Ahmose wasn’t much older than Harrison, and while they possessed similar olive-toned complexions and were about the same height and build, the resemblance ended there. The Egyptian’s features were much more patrician than Harrison’s, and he wore tailor-made silk suits and expensive Italian shoes. Ahmose was there to make certain nothing happened to Kiya. Over the years, many precious relics had been stolen from the Valley of the Kings, and the Ministry of Antiquities took their artifacts very seriously.

Ahmose shook his head. “You know, Dr. Standish, I am worried about the lax security.”

“Lax security? There are armed security guards posted at every exit.”

“Yes, but I did not realize the amulet would be displayed right out in the open. It should be in a locked case.”

Harrison had similar reservations concerning the display, but Cassie had insisted that the guests, who had paid an excessive amount of money to attend the event, would demand to see the amulet without the restriction of a locked case. Against his better judgment, he’d allowed her to have her way, simply so he wouldn’t have to watch her lips plump up in a pout. Those pouty lips clouded his reason every single time.

God, he was a fool.

“As you know,” Ahmose said, “I’ve never approved of reuniting the star-crossed lovers. What if something unexpected occurs?” The Egyptian’s English was flawless. He held a bachelor’s degree from Harvard and a master’s from Oxford.

“Don’t worry. It’s just a myth. There’s no magic, no charm, no curse. Nothing to be afraid of.”

The furrow in Ahmose’s otherwise smooth brow deepened the longer he stared at Kiya’s sarcophagus. “There are more things in heaven and earth than mortal man understands, my friend.”

Terrific, here was another gullible believer in that idiotic star-crossed lovers legend. “I didn’t realize you were such a sentimentalist, Ahmose.”

“You do not know everything there is to know about me, Dr. Standish.”

Apparently not. Harrison had presumed that Ahmose was a man of science. Instead, he had just discovered he was as susceptible to the ludicrous fairy tale as everyone else.

“No need for alarm,” he reassured the Egyptian. “Everything is under control.”

Well, except for the small detail that his brother had yet to show up with Solen’s remains for the reunification ceremony. What was taking Adam so long?

Ahmose glowered. “For your sake I hope you are correct, Dr. Standish.”

“That sounds like a threat. Are you threatening me, Ahmose?” Harrison squared his shoulders.

“It is not a threat. It is a guarantee. If anything happens to the amulet, the djed, or any of Kiya’s artifacts, your visa will be rescinded and you will never again be allowed inside Egypt.”

Alarm shot through him. Surely Ahmose couldn’t be serious about this.

“Nothing’s going to happen,” Harrison reiterated.

Why was Ahmose acting so strangely? He wasn’t by nature a dramatic man. Usually the Egyptian was quite reserved. His dark mood seemed infectious. The crowd shifted restlessly. People peered at their watches and mumbled negative comments.

“Dr. Standish?”

Harrison glanced over to see one of the young college students who had spent the past week helping him and Cassie assemble the exhibits. The lanky kid’s name was Gabriel Martinez, and he had a rare enthusiasm for archaeology. Harrison had considered inviting the young student to participate in his next dig.

“Yes?”

“A man asked me to hand this to you.” Gabriel passed him a white business-sized envelope with Harrison’s name printed in block lettering. It looked like Adam’s handwriting.

“What man?”

“That dude over there.” Gabriel pointed.

“Where?” Harrison squinted at the crowd.

“In the Indiana Jones hat.”

The Indy hat stood out among the cluster of Egyptian headdresses. Immediately, Harrison knew whose head was under it, because he’d been there when his brother had bought the hat on a trip to London.

But Adam wasn’t hanging around. He was headed for the front entrance at a fast clip.

Where was he going?

Clutching the envelope Gabriel had slipped him, Harrison jostled through the throng. He didn’t want to shout and attract undue attention, but he didn’t want Adam to get away either.

“Excuse me,” he apologized as he careened into Isis, whose oversized headdress bobbled precariously. He’d had his gaze so fixed on keeping the Indiana Jones hat in sight that he hadn’t seen her meander into his path. He zigzagged around her, just as the moving Indy hat reached the foyer.

The crowd was even thicker here because this area was much smaller than the main part of the exhibit hall. He had to move quickly, or his brother was going to disappear. To hell with his dislike for drawing attention to himself.

“Adam!” he called.

People turned to stare. Harrison pretended not to care that he was being watched. He had never been a center-stage sort of guy, and collecting stares made him uncomfortable.

The front door opened.

“Wait!”

The hat disappeared and the door clicked shut.

Harrison was still a good twenty feet and twenty people from the entrance. What parlor game was his brother playing? From the time they were small kids, Adam had had a penchant for pirate treasure maps and secret spy codes and fantasy role-playing.

His fondness for outlandish pranks and schemes lasted into adulthood and frequently plunged him into trouble. One year, when they were collage students on a dig site in Peru, Adam had cooked up a scheme to fake a famous religious artifact. It had started out as a joke. He’d never meant for people to take it seriously.