Provenance
A burst of automatic rifle fire in the grand ballroom shattered the band's bright dance music like a crow-bar smashing glass figurines from a shelf.
People screamed. Men in tails and white ties and women in elegant evening gowns threw themselves to the floor or clung to each other and trembled. Heads turned to stare at the half-dozen black-hooded men in loose green-and-black camouflage-pattern clothing who had burst in like wolves among pheasants.
And here I am practically naked in this ridiculous dress, Annja Creed thought, arched over backward with her hair almost brushing the elegant blue-and-gold carpet and only Garin Braden's strong right arm keeping her from falling.
SHE HAD THOUGHT the evening had started inauspiciously.
"How good of you to join me," Garin murmured when she presented herself at his table. Actually, she was presented by a bowing and scraping steward who acted as if he were giving a supermodel as a gift to a maharajah. Except a maharajah would probably not have received quite such deferential treatment.
Annja felt eyes sticking to her like clammy clumps of seaweed. She felt exposed in the clinging sheath of flame-colored silk he had picked out for her ... read full excerpt from: Provenance ebook
