by Madeleine Oh
Flicking on the light, reaching for the keypad, stopping when she saw the blinking green light. She frowned. Had she forgotten to set her alarm?
The scent of roses reached her nose and her stomach churned. A feeling of dread washed over her body.
“Good evening, Gia.”
As if in slow motion she turned. A stranger stood in the living room doorway. In one hand he held a dozen pink roses and in the other was a gun pointed directly at her chest.
* * * * *
Drake was disappointed to wake up alone. Overhead, moonlight streamed in through the skylights and the sheets next to him were cool. He rolled over and buried his face in her pillow, inhaling the intoxicating fragrance of her hair. His cock stirred. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep but with all the nocturnal activities of the past two days, there hadn’t had much time to sleep.
A slow grin spread across his face. Gia was intelligent, funny, sweet and beautiful. In short she was everything he’d ever imagined and more. Just thinking about her made him want her beside him. He raised his head.
Now, the question was, where was she?
He rolled over and sat up on the edge of the bed. The studio was dark with the exception of the light spilling from an open doorway. It was the room where Gia’s sculpture resided.
Damn.
He rose and walked toward the smaller room, mindless of his naked state. He knew he should’ve told her about the project. She was probably in shock and thought he was some freak like the one who’d been tormenting her. How he’d like to get his hands on that one. He’d gladly tear the bastard limb from limb for even thinking of hurting or scaring his woman. He still needed to call his cousin in the morning and put him on the case.
Drake pushed open the door and blinked against the glare of the fluorescent lights. A quick glance told him the room was empty. He frowned. Where was she?
Roses were scattered across the floor and he walked toward them. What was going on? A few feet away was a photograph of Gia that had been torn from the board. A feeling of foreboding spawned in his stomach. She wouldn’t even begin to understand—
He turned away when he saw the knife sticking out of the sculpture’s chest. A chill crept across his skin.
She had misinterpreted what he was doing. No doubt she’d decided in the face of this damning evidence that he was just another person who’d wanted to steal a piece of her soul. He reached for the knife. All of this because he’d fallen asleep and failed to have the conversation he knew they’d needed to have. Gently dislodging the knife, he allowed it to fall to the table. He’d have to go after her, to explain what was really going on with the statue.
He could only hope it wasn’t too late to salvage their relationship.
Chapter Ten
How could she have been so wrong?
Numb, Gia sat on her couch, her nails dug into a pillow on her lap. Across from her sat the man who’d tried to kill her once before and was now back to finish the job. In that moment, she knew that thirty years on this earth wasn’t enough. There was so much she wanted to do, to see, to accomplish.
And just when she’d met Drake.
Her heart constricted. How in the world she could’ve mistaken Drake for this man, she’d never know. He was at least four inches shorter than her lover and at least fifty pounds heavier. His dark hair was overgrown and thick stubble marred his chin. He wore blue jeans and a white button-down shirt that was stained with something on the front that looked suspiciously like blood.
“I’ll bet you never thought this day would come, did you, Gia?” His voice was low and it sent chills over her skin.
Mute, she shook her head.
“I have dreamed of this moment.” His smile was slow, unpleasant. “At night when I lay in my bed and I think of you, I fantasize about what it would be like to sit with you, to touch you.”
He rubbed the side of his gun against his thigh and her knotted stomach tightened even further. The roses lay on the coffee table between them, the scent from the half-opened buds making her nauseous.
“H-h-have we met before?” Her nails dug deeper into the pillow.
“Not really, not like this at least.” His smile remained in place. “I’ve been in the same room with you on many occasions but a dancer of your caliber would never have paid attention to a prop man such as myself.”
“P-p-prop man?”
He nodded, still stroking the gun against his thigh. “I worked with you on Romeo and Juliet as well as several others.” His smile faded. “At least until I was fired. It almost killed me knowing I wouldn’t see you anymore, be able to hear your voice…”
Gia swallowed hard. Madness glimmered in his eyes and her muscles tensed. As he spoke, his expression turned distant. Her gaze darted around the room looking for anything to aid her escape. The security keypad with its green light mocked her from across the room. It was too far away and she’d never make it before he’d shoot her in the back.
Her gaze darted toward the fireplace. Another possibility was the poker, which was certainly much closer. Her cane was also beside her but would the slim ebony stick be capable of inflicting enough damage to enable her to get away?
“Gia, are you listening to me?” His voice was soft, crooning.
She forced a pleasant smile. “Sorry, I was thinking about having to go to the bathroom.” She pushed the pillow onto the couch and got to her feet. “If you will excuse me—”
“I think I will accompany you, if you don’t mind.” He rose.
“I really don’t think that is necessary—”
His smile was cold. “I insist.”
With shaky knees, she began walking toward the front hall. With her cane clutched in her hand, she leaned hard upon it as if she were more dependant upon it than she really was. With every step the front door grew closer and she knew if there was ever a time to try and make her escape, she had to seize it now. All she needed to do was get him behind her then strike from the left which meant he would fall to the right and it would buy her a few more seconds to get away.
Would it hurt to get shot?
He fell into step behind her and together they walked into the entry. Her grip tightened on the cane, and just as she was about to make her move, a loud knock sounded on the door.
* * * * *
Gia’s scream sent Drake headlong through the door. His boots skidded on the polished tile and his heart almost stopped when he saw his woman fighting with a strange man who was at least double her weight. The other man hit her hard on the jaw and she fell back with the man on top of her.
Drake lunged as she went down and slammed into the stranger, to send him flying off her with two hundred pounds of enraged, territorial male on his back. Drake heard Gia scream something but the only word that registered was “gun”. Beneath him the man twisted and fought like a tiger. His arm came up and Drake snagged his wrist.
“You bastard,” the other man screamed. “You can’t have her, she’s mine.”
“Over my dead body,” Drake snarled.
“That can be arranged.”
Leaning his considerable weight onto the man’s upper body, Drake slammed the other man’s hand against the marble floor in an attempt to break his grip. The man roared and Drake repeated the movement, slamming his hand harder. He felt the other man’s grip tighten just seconds before the sound of the semiautomatic report rang out.
Stunned, Drake felt something wet hit him in the face and the man went limp.
Slowly Drake rose, taking the gun from the stranger’s hand. The man lay still on the marble floor, a slowly spreading pool of blood around his head in a macabre halo. Moving forward, Drake leaned down and checked for a pulse.
There was none.
Straightening, he saw Gia standing near the door, a look of horror on her beautiful face. To his relief, she appeared to be unharmed.
“Gia, are you okay?” he asked.
Slowly, as if in a dream she looked over at him. Blinking several times, she f
inally nodded. “Sí.”
Not wanting to think about how close he’d come to losing her permanently, he wrapped his arms around her, grateful to hold her once more.
* * * * *
The sun was high overhead and Gia tipped her head back to enjoy the warm rays on her face. She was weary to the bone and while she longed to sleep, every time she lay down and closed her eyes, she saw his face.
A shiver ran down her spine.
In the meadow, children were playing a lively game of Frisbee. With their brightly colored clothing and infectious laughter, her gaze was drawn to them over and over. A fuzzy dog resembling a pile of dirty cotton balls ran from child to child barking and leaping like mad. Gia couldn’t help but smile at the animal’s antics.
On the bench next to hers was an older woman feeding the birds and chipmunks while a homeless man lay asleep on the grass under a tree just a few yards away. Only in Central Park could one see both ends of the human spectrum within a few hundred yards of each other.
Even in the bright light of day, Gia still couldn’t wrap her mind around what had happened last night. Her jaw ached from le bastardo hitting her with a right hook, and her shoulder throbbed from landing on it when he’d tackled her. If it weren’t for Drake’s timely arrival, the outcome would have been so much worse.
She tilted her head and rotated it, trying to relieve the tension in her neck and shoulders. Her nightmare was over and her tormentor had bled to death in her foyer. Her stomach churned. She’d never be able to sleep there again. Movement to her right caught her attention and she saw a man walking toward her. Black boots, worn jeans and a plain white T-shirt accented his broad shoulders. His dark, wind-ruffled hair was loose and he walked with a swagger that Gia recognized well.
Drake.
Dark sunglasses shielded his eyes and his jaw was set. Her heart sank. She’d let him down. She wouldn’t blame him if he’d followed her to the park to dump her for acting like a ninny. He’d been nothing but upfront with her and she’d run away at the first misunderstanding. Her head dropped and she focused her gaze on her shoes.
At the sound of footsteps, every hair on her body leapt to attention. Dark boots stepped into her line of vision and stopped directly in front of her.
“I let you down.” Her voice was soft.
“You think?”
She looked up at him, squinting against the sun. “You don’t?”
“I don’t.” He dropped onto the bench beside her. “Regardless of what happened, the reality is that we barely know one another.” He shoved his sunglasses up onto his head. “With everything that has happened to you where that freak is concerned, I don’t blame you for running away from me. In your shoes I might have done the same thing.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Gia exhaled loudly. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Even though I left, you were there for me when I really needed you.” Her voice trembled.
“And I will be in the future if you’ll let me.” He reached over and brushed her tangled hair away from her face. His fingertips gently touched her forehead. “Are you okay?”
“When I couldn’t dance anymore, I thought I’d lost everything I’d ever wanted in life.” Her lips trembled and she gave a jerky nod. “I defined myself by my ability to get up on the stage and command an audience.” She shook her head. “I sat there on that couch across from le bastardo and all I could think was that I wasn’t ready to die yet. That there were so many more things I wanted to accomplish with my life, and in that moment I wanted to live so badly, more than I’d ever thought possible.”
He smiled and the corners of his eyes crinkled with laugh lines. “I’m glad.”
“Yeah.” She smiled. “Me too.”
“Since we’re having confession time, I feel the need to confess something to you while we’re at it.”
She gave a startled laugh. “What on earth would you have to confess to me, Drake?”
“A lot actually.” A soft flush moved over his cheekbones.
Wow, this must be good.
“I haven’t been straight with you from the beginning. You and I have met before, when we were children.”
She frowned. “When was this?”
“It was the first summer you spent in the States and you and Con were already bosom buddies.”
“You know Constance?”
“Very well, since she was a toddler.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Go on.”
“You were thirteen and you attended a party on Martha’s Vineyard for the Whitney birthday party. I also attended the party with Con’s brother, Rick. Everyone was playing in the pool and you were standing on the side—”
“Oh no…” Images flashed through her mind of that day. The sickening smell of birthday cake icing melting in the sun, feeling alien because she didn’t speak the language and she’d clung to Connie like a lifeline, and the one boy who had saved her from being tossed in the pool while still clothed in her new party dress. A feeling of unreality crept over her. From the moment she’d met him she knew there was something familiar about it yet she’d never been able to put her finger on it.
Drake had been the young man who’d rescued her.
“Merda!” She slugged him in the shoulder, wincing when the pain shot up her arm and to her sore shoulder.
He leaned away. “Easy now, I’m wounded.”
“Yeah, right.” She rolled her eyes. “If you had been straight with me from the beginning none of this would have happened.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she scowled at him. “You were the boy who rescued me from Whitney.”
“Yes, that was me.”
Her gaze narrowed and his blush rose. “Go on.”
“Well…” He looked away. “I wanted to talk to you so badly that day but I didn’t speak Italian and you didn’t speak English.” He chuckled. “I sure as hell didn’t want to use Con as an interpreter, and I let you get away. Over the years I’ve kept tabs on you through Con and the newspapers. When she said that you were moving to New York, I’d hoped she would reintroduce us but it never happened.
“A few weeks ago she announced you were thinking of getting back out into the dating scene and I knew it was now or never. I created that personal ad on my computer and I convinced Con to read it to you—”
“Connie was in on this too?” Stung, Gia sat up, her back ramrod straight.
“Hey, it wasn’t easy to sway her. It took well over a week to convince her that I wasn’t going to hurt you—”
“You’re hurting me now. It’s so nice to know who my friends aren’t.”
“I’m sorry, Gia. Truly I am. I never should have lied to you.”
She didn’t have to look into his eyes to know that he was telling the truth as sincerity rang in every word. She shook her head. “I don’t understand why you would do all of this.”
He reached over and cupped her cheek, his calloused hand warm and reassuring against her skin. “I knew there was something special about you the moment I rescued you from Whitney. I let you get away that day and I was determined to not make the same mistake again. All these years I’d kept an eye on you from afar and I wanted to know once and for all if there was any spark of attraction, any common ground between us.”
She blinked and in that moment her heart melted. “Really?” she whispered.
“Really.”
A goofy grin split her face. “What do you think now?”
An answering grin curved his mouth. “I think I was incredibly smart even at fifteen.”
“Oh yeah?” She took his hand and pressed a kiss against his palm. “How smart were you?”
“Well.” He looped an arm around her shoulder and she leaned into him, her head coming to rest over his heart. “I was smart enough to have picked out the prettiest girl at the party—”
“And not talk to her.” She giggled and slid her arms around his waist, content to sit close to him. “So where do
we go from here?”
“I’m thinking we’ll head back to my apartment and sleep for many, many hours.”
“Mmm, sounds like a plan to me.” She closed her eyes, comforted by the rumbling of his voice and the steady beat of his heart.
“After that we can have dinner, get to know each other a little better.”
“Fabulous.”
“Then, I will tie you up and paint your body with chocolate mousse—”
She started laughing and raised her head. “How did you find out what Gia Pie was?”
His brow rose.
“Of course, when I make dessert,” she pulled away from Drake and rose, “it wouldn’t be me that was covered in mousse.” Her gaze dropped to his lap before meeting his once more. “If you know what I mean.”
“I think I do…”
About the Author
Dominique Adair is the pen name of award-winning novelist J.C. Wilder. Adair/Wilder (she chooses her name according to her mood—if she's feeling sassy and brazen, it’s Adair; if she’s feeling dark and dangerous, it’s Wilder) lives just outside of Columbus, Ohio, where she skulks around town plotting her next book and contemplating where to hide the bodies (from her books, of course—everyone knows that you can’t really hide a body as they always pop up at the worst times).
Dominique welcomes mail from readers. You can write to her c/o Ellora’s Cave Publishing at 1056 Home Ave., Akron, OH 44310.
Also by Dominique Adair
Holly
Last Kiss
Party Favors anthology
R.S.V.P. anthology
Tied With a Bow anthology
Xanthra Chronicles: Blood Law
Writing as J.C. Wilder
Ellora’s Cavemen: Tales From the Temple II anthology
In Moonlight anthology