Her legs felt numb, the ropes had all but cut off her circulation. But she needed to get out of here before she suffocated. Determination entered her eyes. “I’ll crawl if I have to.”
“Then let’s get out of here.”
Reese took her hand. London winced involuntarily. He looked down and saw that there were red, raw lines around her wrists where the ropes had bitten into her flesh. It wasn’t difficult to guess why. London had tried to work the ropes off her wrists.
A rage bubbled up inside him.
The next moment London was yanking on his arm, pulling him back from the entrance.
Her eyes were huge as she stared past his shoulder.
There, in the doorway, was Wallace.
Chapter 16
His plans were being thrown all awry.
Bendenetti, always Bendenetti. Why couldn’t the bastard just stay away?
The expression on Wallace’s face was one of sheer malevolence. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he demanded, his bulk blocking the only way out.
Reese’s hand tightened on London’s in silent reassurance. “Get out of the way, Grant. The police will be here any minute.”
A look Reese couldn’t even begin to describe entered the bodyguard’s eyes. The man looked enraged, deranged. Reese moved his body in front of London.
“The hell they are.” As his own words echoed back to him, Wallace’s eyes shifted toward London. For one slim second a contrite look passed over his face. “Sorry. I shouldn’t curse in front of you.”
“You shouldn’t stalk her, either,” Reese told him angrily.
The hatred returned in flaming sheets of rage. He’d always hated pretty boys. The ones who were better at things than he was. The ones who had all the advantages he never had. Wallace curled his fingers into his palms, trying to contain the rage.
“It wasn’t stalking, it was courting,” he spat out. “I had to do something. She was going to talk her father into dismantling security, into sending me away.” Forgetting Reese, Wallace looked at the only person who mattered in this. London. “Don’t you understand? I have to be near you. You’re all I think about, London, all I want.” His eyes pleaded with her to understand. “I’ll be good to you, I swear. You’ll never want for anything, never feel afraid again. I’ll protect you.” The emotion in his voice swelled with each word he uttered. “And I won’t ever, ever leave you.”
He knew her fears, her thoughts. London felt violated, as if he’d found a way to crawl into her mind.
It was hard to keep the revulsion from her face.
“I know all about the way you feel, about being abandoned. I was, too.” Wallace was sure that if he just kept talking, she’d see that they were soul mates. He had to make her understand that they belonged together. “I grew up in an orphanage. Don’t you see, we were meant to be together.” His eyes, soft only a second before, hardened as they shifted toward Reese. “And no one else is ever going to have you.”
Numb, incredulous, London stared at Wallace, saying nothing.
His patience at an end, Wallace suddenly reached past Reese, shoving him aside. He grabbed London’s arm. “Let’s go.”
London literally dug in her heels, but even so, she could offer little physical resistance to the big man’s strength. All she had was her own strength of will. He wasn’t going to do this, wasn’t going to take her again. She couldn’t let him. “No!”
Reese grabbed his other arm, trying to pull him away. “Let her go, Grant.”
In response, Wallace swung around and hit Reese’s jaw, hard. The force sent Reese flying head first against the wall. The blow to his head jarred his teeth and very nearly rendered him unconscious as he crashed to the floor. For a moment his body was too stunned for him to collect himself.
“I haven’t got time for this now, London,” Wallace told her, scooping her up into his arms. “This is for the best, you’ll see. I promise.”
Doubling up her fists, London beat on his chest. Though she was no weakling, it was like a fly assaulting a rhino.
“Wallace, put me down!” she ordered. “You can’t do this. It’s not right.”
“You’re wrong. Nothing’s ever been more right,” he said.
His arm tightening around her, he turned toward the entrance. His car was parked just outside the building, and they could still get away. He could marry her later, but he had to save her for himself now.
Behind him he heard Bendenetti moan. The only fly in the ointment. As long as the other man was alive, he would never completely possess London. Bendenetti had to be eliminated.
Holding London against him like a doll, Wallace pulled out the gun he had tucked into the back of his pants with his free hand. “Cover your ears, London.”
London’s heart stopped when she saw the weapon. He was going to kill Reese. “Wallace, please,” London begged. “Don’t do this. I’ll do anything you want, just don’t kill him.”
Anything he wanted. Which meant she loved the other man. “I have to. He’ll come after you and he won’t stop.” Cocking the revolver, he took aim.
“No!” London screamed, grabbing his arm. She jerked it upward, and the shot went wild, going through the ceiling. Wallace cursed loudly. The next second London dug her nails into his eyes, and he screamed in pain.
Still dazed, his own vision double, Reese scrambled to his feet. He nearly tripped over the bull cutters. Picking them up, he held them with both hands and swung the heavy tool with all his might at the back of Wallace’s head.
The big man crumpled to his knees, then fell on top of London. She screamed.
His head still spinning from his contact with the wall, Reese managed to roll Wallace off London and pull her up to her feet.
She threw herself into his arms.
“Are you all right?”
They asked the question in unison, then laughed with the giddy relief that came from having survived something deadly together.
In the background they heard the comforting sounds of police sirens approaching. It was over.
“I guess the superintendent got through,” Reese told her. He continued holding her and didn’t want to let her go. Ever.
A sigh racked her entire body. It was over. Finally over. She was free, really free. Free because of Reese. She owed him everything.
London drew back her head and saw the gash on the side of his forehead where he’d hit the wall. He was hurt. “Oh God, you’re bleeding.”
He touched the area gingerly. It was throbbing and felt to him as if it was three times the size of a normal head. He looked down at the blood on his fingers. “I guess I must have hit my head harder than I thought.”
“Here, lean on me,” she instructed, placing her shoulder beneath his arm.
He looked at her. She looked frazzled and beyond worn-out. This had been some ordeal for her. He should be the one holding her up.
“Maybe we can lean on each other,” he suggested with a half smile.
She could have cried she was so relieved, so happy. “Sounds good to me.”
“Feels like just yesterday that I was here,” London murmured to Reese.
She was sitting up on a hospital bed in the far corner of the emergency room while Alix finished examining her. Refusing to go the usual route and change into a hospital gown, or even be separated from London, Reese was sitting on the chair beside her. The gash on his forehead had long since been attended to and was now covered with a bandage.
Reese laughed shortly. “Feels more like an eternity to me.”
“The truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle,” Alix commented diplomatically, putting down the instrument she’d used to check London’s pupils one last time. “After scads of tests, the good news is that there’s nothing wrong with you that a soak in a hot tub and a good night’s sleep won’t fix.”
London continued to watch the other woman, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “And the bad news?”
Alix laughed for the first time s
ince she’d heard that an ambulance had brought Reese and London in. She’d raced into the E.R. from the fourth floor the moment she knew, determined to be the one to attend them. Reese couldn’t bully her into backing off.
She was nothing if not thorough, despite his protests. It was a relief to discover that neither was seriously hurt. Even Reese’s head wound would heal nicely. There was no evidence of internal bleeding, no concussion. The prognosis couldn’t have been better.
Alix looked at Reese. “It’s obvious she’s been hanging around you too long.” She decided to oblige London and give her a downside. “The bad news is that I think the wedding dress is ruined.”
London looked at the torn, dirty dress draped over the back of the chair. Her mouth turned grim. “Burn it.”
Alix looked from London to Reese. She hadn’t been privy to what had happened just before the ambulance had brought them here, hadn’t really been able to talk to Reese since he’d shown her the ring he was going to give London two days ago.
She glanced at the woman’s hand and saw that there was no ring on the proper finger. Had he asked her and she’d turned him down? Or was he still waiting for the “right” moment? Then why had she been brought in wearing a wedding dress?
Tactfully Alix said nothing. “I’ll leave you two to get ready.” She picked up both charts and made one last notation on London’s. “You’re both free to go.”
London looked down at the hospital gown they’d had her put on. She couldn’t leave in this and she refused to put the wedding dress on again. She turned her eyes toward Reese, a mute supplication in her eyes.
He picked up on it immediately. Even if she had been willing to don the dress again, he wouldn’t have let her. The sooner that was out of her sight, the sooner she would really start to heal.
“Alix, you still keep an extra set of scrubs in your locker?”
Alix thought that an odd question at this time. “Yes, why?” And then she looked at London’s face and understood. Sometime soon, Alix thought, she was going to corner Reese and get some answers. But not this afternoon. “Oh. Okay, sure. I’ll bring them around in a few minutes,” she promised.
Charts in hand, Alix slipped out, pulling the curtain closed around them, giving them a small measure of privacy in a nonprivate environment.
Restless, London laced her fingers together, then unlaced them. “She’s nice.”
“The best.” Because his legs still felt a little wobbly, he remained seated. But he reached for her hand and wound his fingers protectively around it.
She smiled, the simple action warming her. “You two been friends long?”
He was feeling his way around. This was the first real conversation they’d had since he’d walked out of her apartment. “Long enough for me to show her the engagement ring.”
She nodded. That explained the way Alix had looked at the wedding dress. A flood of guilt came over her. Again. Just as it had this morning and the night before. And the afternoon before that.
“Reese—”
“London—”
Their voices overlapped, blending together. London welcomed the reprieve. “You first,” she said.
“Ladies first,” he insisted, stalling for time, not knowing how to form the words that went with the emotions ricocheting around his heart.
He could have lost her today. Forever.
The realization echoed through him, stunning him with its power. It made him determined to put his ego aside and be in London’s life, at least on the perimeter, at all costs.
In a way he supposed he could almost understand how Grant felt. He felt sorry for the man the police had arrested. But not sorry enough to regret that, from all indications, Wallace Grant was going to be put away for a long, long time. He wasn’t going to be a threat to London anymore.
She took a deep breath. Her ribs ached from when Wallace had grabbed her this morning to keep her from fleeing the apartment. She found herself stumbling to get the right words into place.
“I was going to call you this morning and apologize about the other night—at least explain why I said what I did.” She bit her lip. “I happened to mention to Wallace that you had proposed to me, and he must have panicked.” She would never forget the look in his eyes. Like a child who had had his only toy taken away at Christmas. “He’s been trying to work up the nerve to propose to me all this time.”
How could she have been so blind? London berated herself. How could she not have seen any of this coming?
“He did,” she told Reese in a small voice. “And he confessed about the roses and the notes. He sent them to make it look as if I was being stalked so that my father would keep him on, but he tried to do it so that I wouldn’t be frightened.” Her mouth curved in a sad smile. “He succeeded, you know. I wasn’t afraid.” She couldn’t help it. Now that everything was settling down, she felt sorry for the man. “Wallace was really trying to look out for me.”
There were tears in her eyes. She had an incredibly soft heart, Reese thought. Any other woman would have been full of anger for what she had been put through, not felt sorry for her stalker.
“London, he’s a sick man.”
“I know.” She took another deep breath and let it out slowly. “Funny, isn’t it? The only man who ever promised to stay in my life turns out to be a deranged stalker.”
Reese stood up and came to her. “He’s not the only one who wants to be in your life permanently, London.”
She looked at Reese, searching his face. Trying to find answers to half-formed questions. “You mean you still do, even after all this?”
How could she possibly think his heart was so fickle? “Why would any of this change my desire to marry you? If anything, it just shows me that you need someone in your life to take care of you.”
No, she wasn’t going to be smothered. She didn’t need a keeper. “I don’t—”
“Yes,” he told her firmly, cutting her off, “you do.” This wasn’t a point to be argued. “We all do.” He took her hands into his. “We all need someone to take care of us and to take care of,” he emphasized. “That’s what marriage is supposed to be. A fifty-fifty deal. Sometimes it tips a little one way, sometimes the other, but in the end it levels out. You need someone, London. Let it be me.” He threaded his fingers through her hair, cupping her cheek. “Because I need you.
“I didn’t realize it, didn’t know I was missing anything, until you came into my life and showed me how drab it had been up until then. Until you showed me how good it could be. I want you to keep on showing me, London. Until we’re both very, very old.”
He made her smile. He always did. “Making love into our nineties?” She laughed softly. “They’ll want to study us in a lab.”
He shrugged. Loving her. Wanting her. “Let them. As long as we’re there together, it doesn’t matter where we are or who else is around.” And then he grew serious. “I love you, London. And I want to be there for you. When you wake up in the morning. When you go to sleep at night. I want to be next to you.”
The smile came into her eyes. “Tall order for a physician.”
There were always ways around things. “I’ll get people to cover.”
But she shook her head. “I don’t want you to be any different from the way you are right now.” And then she smiled again. Broadly. “Maybe a little cleaner, but just as dedicated, just as good, just as sincere as you are this moment. Because that’s the man I fell in love with.” She stopped, surprised at herself. “Wow, I said it. I really said it.” She looked at him to see if the significance had penetrated. “I said I love you.”
It was going to be all right, he thought. From now on it was going to be all right. “No, technically you said ‘fell in love with.’ But there’s no penalty. You get a do-over if you want to say it right this time.”
Oh, God, why had she waited so long? This feeling of loving someone, of loving him, was so overwhelming, so wonderful as it rushed through her, freeing her.
; “I want to say it right every time.” She framed his face with her hands. “I love you, Dr. Bendenetti. Very, very much.” She brushed a kiss against his lips. “So much that it scares me. That’s why I said no.”
Amusement entered his eyes. “So if you loved me less, you would have said yes?”
She laughed, knowing she had to sound like a crazy person. But that was okay. Love could make you crazy sometimes and she was ready for that. “No. But if that offer of yours is still on the table, I’d like to take it this time. I’d like to say yes now.”
Definitely all right, he thought, relieved. “It’s still on the table.”
“Yes now,” she echoed, and then laughed. He put his arms around her, and she winced slightly, then shifted. Away from the pain and into him. “New bruises on top of the old ones. I guess the bride’s going to be wearing black and blue.”
He was looking forward to caring for those bruises. “That’s okay. Haven’t you heard? I’m a very good doctor.”
If her heart was any more full, it was going to explode. “Yes, I have heard that.”
He drew her a little closer. “And as long as the bride is mine, I don’t care if she shows up at the wedding in Technicolor.”
“Oh, the bride is yours, all right.” London wrapped her arms around his neck and brought her lips up to his. “The bride is very yours.”
Alix parted the curtain on the side, the scrubs she’d gone to fetch for London in her hand. She stopped short and then quietly placed the scrubs on the bed, fairly certain that her presence had not been detected by either of her two patients. They were very busy wrapped up in each other and the kiss they were sharing.
She smiled to herself as she slipped out. Looked like Reese had finally gotten around to proposing.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6846-7
M.D. MOST WANTED
Copyright © 2002 by Marie Rydzynski-Ferrarella
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.
M.D. Most Wanted Page 18