Sizzle and Burn (The Arcane Society #3)(49)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

“Perfection wasn’t enough for you?” There was a noticeable edge in Raine’s voice now.

He met her eyes. “Things were just too damn perfect. I finally decided Jenna was a little too good to be true.”

“You tried to find flaws in the perfect woman?”

“Yes.”

Raine sat up, still clutching the sheet. “For heaven’s sake, why?”

“Because at some point I finally acknowledged that I wasn’t in love with the woman everyone said was perfect for me and I had to know what was wrong.”

“With her?”

“No,” he said. “With me.”

“Well?”

“I started looking into her perfect past. When I got beyond the data in the computers, which was pristine, I finally began to spot some holes in the pattern of perfection. My first thought was that she had simply covered up a few secrets.”

“You took that as a good sign?”

“Believe it or not, it came as a relief to know that maybe she was human.”

“What happened?” Raine was looking reluctantly fascinated.

“I was careful but Jenna was a high-level intuitive talent. She began to suspect that I was having doubts about her. She got very worried.”

“Did she confront you?”

“You could say that. She tried to poison me.”

Raine stared at him, dumbfounded. “Are you serious?”

“The only thing that saved me was my talent. She put the poison in a bottle of my favorite scotch, the kind I drink when the visions are really bad.”

“How did you discover the poison before you drank it?”

“She took the bottle down from the cupboard for me that night. There was just something about the way she handled it. I watched her pour the scotch and I knew she intended to kill me.”

“Good grief. I don’t know what to say.” Raine paused, frowning. “What happened when you refused to drink the scotch?”

“She went a little mad. I don’t know how else to describe it. She threw herself at me, going for my eyes with her nails. She screamed she was perfect for me over and over again. I finally managed to restrain her. I called one of the Society’s doctors. He concluded that she’d had some sort of psychotic break. We took her to a private clinic run by the Society.”

“What happened?”

“Two days later she was certifiably insane. She was put on a suicide watch but she managed to kill herself anyway.”

Raine’s eyes widened in horror. “You said that kind of sudden spin into insanity is typical of what happens when someone who is addicted to the formula is deprived of it.”

“Yes.”

“Zack, are you telling me that you were almost poisoned by a member of Nightshade?”

“Nightshade didn’t want to poison me,” he said quietly. “The intent was for Jenna to marry me.”

Understanding dawned on her intelligent face. “Of course. If they could have married off an agent to a member of the Jones family, they would have had the perfect spy.”

“They had prepared a near-perfect cover for her and managed to hack into the arcanematch files to plant it. In addition, they got into the Society’s genealogical database to set up a solid history for her, too.”

“How did Nightshade figure out how to construct the perfect woman for you?” Raine asked.

“They hacked into arcanematch and got my profile out of the database. Then they built a profile for Jenna that appeared to be nearly one hundred percent compatible. Jenna was chosen because she was not only very beautiful, she was an excellent actress. She was also a high-level intuitive talent like my mother. They jacked up her natural abilities with the formula.”

“And turned her into the perfect woman,” Raine whispered.

He folded one arm behind his head. “Until she tried to poison me. Amazing how a little thing like that can ruin an otherwise ideal relationship.”

“Guess there’s just no pleasing some men.”

Her lips twitched at the corners and the tension inside him eased.

“Call me picky,” he agreed.

“You said she tried to kill you because she was afraid you were getting suspicious of her?”

“Yes.”

“What was the point? If the plan had failed, why take the risk of murdering a Jones? She must have known J&J and the Council wouldn’t stop until they caught her.”

“She was desperate. I told you, failure is not an option in Nightshade. The poison she used would have imitated a heart attack. She hoped that if I died of natural causes, her handlers would not hold her responsible.”

“Tough crowd.”

“Very tough.”

Raine pulled her knees up under her chin and wrapped her arms around them. “Does everyone in the Society know what happened between you and Jenna?”

“No. The entire affair was hushed up by the Master, the Council and J&J. The official story is that my fiancée committed suicide.”

“Which is the truth,” Raine said.

“Sort of. As far as I’m concerned, though, Nightshade murdered its own agent.”

Raine studied him with troubled eyes. “You had one heck of a close call.”

He smiled grimly. “Perfection isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“You really didn’t love her?”

“I was dazzled for a while,” he admitted. “But eventually I had to face the fact that there was something missing.”

“It shook your self-confidence, though, didn’t it? Made you question your own intuition.”

“Yes.”

She nodded. “In a much less extreme way, that’s what happened to me after the debacle with Bradley. I keep wondering how I could have convinced myself that he was Mr. Perfect.”

He reached up and caught her wrist. “You’re sure he’s not?”

She smiled. “Not a doubt in my mind.”

He tugged her gently down onto the bed and levered himself up on his elbow.

“No doubt in my mind, either,” he said.

He lowered himself along the soft, warm length of her.

He made love to her slowly in the dawn light, savoring the sheer pleasure of watching her eyes grow hot and unfocused with passion. When she turned to molten fire in his arms he sank deeply into her. Her legs closed around him and the bedroom was suddenly filled with the effervescent energy of life.

Thirty-eight

They ate vibrant red raspberries with their whole wheat toast and peanut butter. Zack made coffee for himself. Raine prepared tea and privately concluded that it was one of the finest meals of her entire life, maybe the best. She knew she would treasure forever the warmth and intimacy that pervaded the kitchen.