Private Games by James Patterson Page B

said in a very small voice. ‘Can you come, Peter?’
    Knight felt horrible. ‘Mother, I desperately want to, but I’ve lost another nanny and …’
    She snorted in disbelief. ‘Another one?’
    ‘She just up and quit on me half an hour ago,’ Knight complained. ‘I’ve got to work every day of the Olympics, and I don’t know what to do. I’ve used every nanny agency in the city, and now I’m afraid that none of them will send anyone over.’
    There was a long silence on the phone that prompted Knight to say, ‘Mother?’
    ‘I’m here,’ Amanda said, sounding as composed as she’d been since she’d learned of Marshall’s death. ‘Let me look into it.’
    ‘No,’ he protested. ‘You’re not …’
    ‘It will give me something to do besides work,’ she insisted. ‘I need something to do that’s outside myself and the company, Peter, or I think I’ll turn mad, or to drink, or to sleeping pills and I can’t stand the thought of any of those options.’

Chapter 31
    AT THAT SAME moment, inside the British Museum, upstairs in the reception hall outside his new exhibit about the ancient Olympics, Dr James Daring felt like dancing to his good fortune as he roamed triumphantly among the crowd of London’s high and mighty gathered to see his work.
    It has been a good night. No, a
great
night!
    Indeed, the museum curator had received high praise from the critics who’d come to see the installation. They’d called it audacious and convincing, a reinterpretation of the ancient Olympics that managed to comment in a completely relevant way about the state of the modern Games.
    Even better, several impressed patrons had told him that they wanted to sponsor and buy advertising on
Secrets of the Past
.
    What did that dead arsehole Sir Denton Marshall know? Daring thought caustically.
Absolutely nothing
.
    Feeling vindicated, basking in the glow of a job well done, a job that had gone better than according to plan, Daring went to the bar and ordered another vodka Martini to celebrate his exhibit – and more.
    Much more.
    Indeed, after getting the cocktail – and fretting sympathetically yet again with one of the Museum’s big bene factors about Marshall’s shocking and horrible passing – Daring eagerly cast his attention about the reception.
    Where was she?
    The television star looked until he spotted a delightfully feline woman. Her hair was ginger-coloured and swept above her pale shoulders, which were bared in a stunning grey cocktail dress that highlighted her crazy emerald eyes. Daring had a thing for redheads with sparkling green eyes.
    She
did
rather look like his sister in several respects, the curator thought. The way she tilted her head when she was amused, like now, as she held a long-stemmed champagne glass and flirted with a man much older than her. He looked familiar. Who was he?
    No matter, Daring thought, looking again at Petra. She was saucy, audacious, a freak. The curator felt a thrill go through him. Look at her handling that man, making what were obviously scripted moves seem effortless in their spontaneity. Saucy. Audacious. Freak.
    Petra seemed to hear his thoughts.
    She turned from her conversation, spotted Daring across the crowd, and flashed him an expression so filled with hunger and promise that he shuddered as if in anticipation of great pleasure. After letting her gaze linger on him for a moment longer, Petra batted her eyelids and returned her attention to the other man. She put her hand on his chest, laughed again, and then excused herself.
    Petra angled her way towards Daring, never once looking at him. She got another drink and moved back to the dessert table, where Daring joined her, trying to seem interested in the crème brûlée.
    ‘He’s drunk and taking a taxi home,’ Petra murmured in a soft Eastern European accent as she used tongs to dig through a pile of kiwi fruit. ‘I think it’s time we left too, don’t you? Lover?’
    Daring glanced at her. A freak with