by Nora Roberts
“About. It was ugly, humiliating, and illuminating. Eve was angry with him, but she was every bit as angry with me. She thought I was jealous—and maybe I was. I got a bloody nose, a few sore ribs—”
“They hit you?” she interrupted in a voice sharp with appalled shock. He had to grin.
“Babe, you don’t train apes to play patty-cake. It could have been worse—a lot worse, as I was doing my best to get my hands around the bastard’s throat. You might not have heard I have a sporadic affection for violence.”
“No,” she said calmly enough, even while her stomach churned. “I hadn’t. Was this, ah, episode, the reason Eve broke it off with Delrickio?”
“No.” He was tired of talking, tired of thinking. “As far as she was concerned, her relationship with him had nothing to do with me. And she was right.” Slowly, as if he were stalking, he moved toward her. And, like all things hunted, she felt the quick tremor of alarm that kicked her heart rate from slow to racing. “Do you know how you look just now, sitting with you back straight in that chair, your hands neatly folded? And your eyes so solemn, so concerned?”
Because he made her feel foolish, she shifted. “I want to know—”
“That’s the problem,” he murmured, bending over to take her face in his hands. “You want to know when all you have to do is feel. What do you feel now when I tell you I can’t think of anything but peeling you out of that proper little dress, of seeing if that perfume I watched you spray on hours ago is still clinging to your skin—just there—under the curve of your jaw.”
As he ran his fingers along the line, she moved again. But rising was an error in judgment, only bringing her up hard against him. “You’re trying to distract me.”
“Damn right.” He tugged down her zipper, chuckling as she tried to wriggle aside. “Everything about you has been distracting me from the moment I met you.”
“I want to know,” she tried again, then gasped as he jerked the dress down to her waist. His mouth was on her, and his hands, not gently, not seductively, but with a possessive fervor that edged toward frenzy. “Paul, wait. I need to understand why she ended it.”
“It only took murder.” His eyes blazed as he dragged her head back. “Cold-blooded, calculated murder for profit. Delrickio’s money was on Damien Priest, so he eliminated the competition.”
Horror widened her eyes. “You mean he—”
“Stay away from him, Julia.” He dragged her against him. Through the thin silk she could feel the heat that poured from his flesh. “What I feel for you, what I might do for you, makes what I felt for Eve all those years ago nothing.” He caught her hair in tensed, fisted fingers. “Nothing.”
Even as she shuddered with excitement he pulled her to the floor and showed her.
Tucked into her robe, Julia sipped a brandy. Her body was heavy with fatigue and sex. She wondered if this was what it might feel like to find herself tossed up on a dry shore after a wild battle with a violent sea. Drained, exhilarated, dazed, because she had survived the violence and the uncanny beauty of something so primitive and so ageless.
As her pulse leveled and her mind cleared, the word Paul had spoken before dragging her into that turbulent sea echoed in her head.
The word was murder.
She understood even though they sat close together on the sofa, the silence between them intimate, that this balance between them could be so easily skewed. However frenzied their mating, it was here, in the quiet after, while the air cooled and thinned again, where they needed to reach each other. Not just a hand linked with a hand, but again, that small, vital matter of trust for trust.
“As you were saying,” she began, and made him smile.
“You know, Jules, some might call you focused. Others might consider you just a nag.”
#x201C;I’m a focused nag.” She laid a hand on his knee. “Paul, I need to hear this from you. If Eve has any objections to what you tell me tonight, it stops there. That’s the agreement.”
“Integrity,” he murmured. “Isn’t that what Eve said she admired in you?”
He touched her hair. They sat like that for a moment before she spoke again, quietly.
Shaken, Julia rose to pour more brandy. She’d said nothing throughout Paul’s story of how Damien’s competitor had died, Eve’s suspicion it was murder—-murder ordered by Delrickio.
“We never spoke of it again,” Paul had ended. “Eve refused to. Priest went on to win the title, then retired. Their divorce caused some commotion for a while, but that died down. After a while I began to see why she had handled it that way. Nothing could have been proven. Delrickio would have had her killed if she’d tried.”
Now, before trying to speak, she sipped and let the hot punch of liquor steady her voice. “Is this why you were against the bio? Were you afraid Eve would tell this story and put her life in jeopardy.”
Paul looked up at her. “I know she will. The right time, the right place, the right method. She wouldn’t have forgotten; she wouldn’t have forgiven. If Delrickio believes she’s told you and you’re contemplating printing it, your life won’t be worth any more than hers is.”
She watched him as she took the seat beside him. She would have to go carefully here. All the years she had been on her own, making her own decisions, following her own code made it difficult to explain herself. “Paul, if you had believed, really believed that going to the police would have brought justice, would you have walked away from it?”
“That’s not the point—”
“Perhaps it’s too late for points. It comes down to instinct and emotion, and that infinite gray area between right and wrong. Eve believes in what she’s doing with this book. And so do I.”
He grabbed at a cigar, struck viciously at a match. “Putting your life on the line for someone who’s been dead for fifteen years doesn’t make sense.”
She studied his face, shadowed by the lamplight and smoke. “If I thought you believed that I wouldn’t be here with you. No,” she said before he could speak. “What’s between you and me isn’t just physical. I understand you, and I think I have right from the beginning. That’s why I was afraid to let anything happen. Once before I let my actions be swayed by my feelings. I was wrong, but since the result was Brandon, I can’t regret. This …” She laid a hand on his, slowly linking their fingers. “Is more, and less. More important, less superficial. I love you, Paul, and loving you means I have to trust my instincts, and respect my conscience—not only with you, but across the board.”
He stared at the glowing tip of his cigar, more humbled by her words than he would have thought possible. “You don’t leave me much room for arguments.”
“I don’t leave myself much room either. If I ask you to trust me, it means I have to trust you.” She lifted her gaze from their joined hands to meet his eyes. “You haven’t asked me about Brandon’s father.”
“No.” He sighed. He would have to back away from his objections for now. It was possible but unlikely that he would have better luck with Eve. That Julia would volunteer to talk about Brandon’s father meant they had scaled one more wall. “I didn’t ask because I hoped you’d do exactly what you’re about to do.” He grinned at her. “And I was arrogant enough to be sure you would.”
She laughed, a quiet, homey sound that made him relax. “I’m arrogant enough not to have told you if you had asked.”
“Yeah, I know that too.”
“It isn’t as important as it once was to keep the circumstances private. It’s become a habit, I suppose, and I’ve thought, still think, it’s best for Brandon that it not be an issue. If he asks, and one day he will, I’ll tell him the truth. I loved his father, the way a girl of seventeen loves, idealistically, rashly, romantically. He was married, and I regret the fact that I let my emotions gloss over the reality of that. At the time we became involved, he was separated from his wife—or so he said. I was all too eager to believe it and to delude myself that he would marry me and, well, sweep me away.�
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“He was older.”
“Fourteen years.”
“Someone should have tied his dick in a knot.”
For a moment she stared, then the crudity of the remark issued in that smooth elegantly accented voice sent her off into peals of laughter. “Oh, my father would have liked you. I’m sure he would have said very much the same thing if he’d known.” She kissed him, hard, then settled back as he continued to glare into the shadows. “I know it was more his responsibility than mine. But a girl of seventeen can be very persuasive.”
Quietly, thoroughly, she told him about Lincoln, about the heedless rush of feelings that had pushed her into an affair, her fear of the resulting pregnancy, her grief at Lincoln’s defection.
“I doubt I would change any of it. If I had it to do over again, I still wouldn’t tell my parents and risk layering another level of hurt on my father. He thought of Lincoln as a son. And I certainly wouldn’t have changed that awkward tumble on the couch, or there would be no Brandon.” When she smiled, the expression was serene, confident. “He’s given me the best ten years of my life.”
Paul wanted to understand but couldn’t get beyond the rage in his gut. She’d been a child, a child who had handled her responsibilities with more care and dignity than a man nearly twice her age.
“He doesn’t stay in touch with you, or with Brandon?”
“No, and at this point of my life I’m glad of it. Brandon’s mine.”
“A pity,” he said mildly. “It would be so satisfying to kill him for you.”
“My hero,” she said, and slipped her arms around him. “But not for me, Paul. That was yesterday. I think I have all I need today.”
He cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs tracing the line of her jaw. “Let’s make sure of it,” he murmured, and kissed her.
It was so good to be home that Eve even looked forward to a session with Fritz. The fact was she’d missed the doses of sweat and strain more than she would ever admit to her trainer. She’d missed Travers’s grousing, Nina’s obsessive organization. Julia’s company. It struck Eve, not altogether pleasantly, that she must at last be getting old if she had come to hoard in her heart like a miser the everyday things she’d once ignored.
The location shoot had gone well. Certainly better than she’d anticipated. She could credit Peter for much of that—not only for the bouts of good, solid sex, but for his patience and enthusiasm on the set, his sense of humor even when things were at their worst. Years before she might have made the mistake of stringing their affair out, of pretending, at least to herself, that she was in love with him.
Or, she certainly would have used whatever means at her disposal to tip him over into love with her. Good sense had prevailed, and they had agreed to leave the lovers in Georgia and come back to the West Coast as friends and colleagues.
Now, lowering thought, maturity offered perspective. She realized Peter reminded her of Victor, of the vital, charming, and talented man she had fallen so helplessly in love with. Of the man she still loved. Oh, God, she missed him. Of all her fears, the greatest was that they would waste what time they had left together.
Julia entered five minutes later. She was out of breath because she had hurried, had felt the need to hurry. The moment she saw Eve, bent low in a hamstring stretch, her tall, lush body unbelievably stunning in a snug sapphire leotard, she understood why. She had missed her, Julia thought. Missed Eve’s acid comments, her stingingly honest memories, the outsize ego, the arrogance. All of it. She laughed to herself as she watched Eve switch her weight.
At that moment, Eve glanced up, caught Julia’s smile, and returned it. Fritz looked over, his eyes moving from one woman to the other. His brows raised speculatively, but he said nothing. Something passed between them in the silence, unexpected by both. As Eve straightened, Julia felt an urge to walk to her and embrace, knowing she would be embraced in turn. Though she did cross the room, she only held out both hands, her fingers linking with Eve’s in a quick, welcoming grip.
“So, how was the swamp?”
“Hot.” Eve searched her face, pleased with what she saw there. Relaxation, a quiet contentment. “How was London?”
“Cold.” Still smiling, Julia set her gym bag aside. “Rory sends his regards.”
“Hmm. You know what I really want is an opinion on his new wife.”
“I think she’s perfect for him. She reminds me a bit of you.” She swallowed a chuckle as incredulity shot into Eve’s eyes.
“Darling, really. There’s no one like me.”
“You’re right.” The hell with it, she thought, and went with instinct, wrapping her arms around Eve in a tight, affectionate hug. “I missed you.”
Now it was tears that glittered in Eve’s eyes, quick, unexpected, and difficult to control. “I would have liked you with me. Your cool observations would have livened up the hours of boredom between takes. But I have a feeling you enjoyed the company in London.”
Julia stepped back. “You knew Paul was with me.”
“I know everything.” Eve flicked a finger down Julia’s jaw line. “You’re happy.”
“Yes. Nervous, dazzled, but happy too.”
“Tell me everything.”
“Work,” Fritz interrupted. “Talk while you work. You can’t just exercise your tongues.”
“You can’t talk and do crunchies,” Julia complained. “You can’t even breathe and do crunchies.” He only grinned.
By the time he put her on the weights, she was sheened with sweat, but she had her wind. Over his grunted instructions she told Eve about London, about Paul, about all the feelings that were bubbling inside. It was so easy she hardly thought about it. Years before, it had been impossible to talk to her mother about Lincoln. Now there was no shame, no fear.
There were a dozen times when she could have angled the conversation to Delrickio, but Julia felt it wasn’t the time. And with Fritz in attendance, it wasn’t the place. Instead, she tried what she thought would be a less sensitive area.
“I have an appointment with Nina’s predecessor, Kenneth Stokley, this afternoon.”
“Really? Is he in town?”
“No, he’s still in Sausalito. I’m flying down for a few hours. Is there anything you’d like to tell me about him?”
“About Kenneth?” Eve pursed her lips as she finished her leg curls. “You might find him a difficult interview. Terribly polite, but not very expansive. I was very fond of him, and sorry when he decided to retire.”
“I thought you’d had a disagreement.”
“We did, but he was a top-notch assistant for me.” She took a towel from Fritz and blotted her face. “He didn’t have a very high opinion of my husband. Husband number four to be exact. And, I found it difficult to forgive Kenneth for being so right.” She shrugged and tossed the towel aside. “We decided it would be best to sever our professional relationship, and, a frugal soul, he had more than enough to retire in style. Are you going alone?”
“Yes, I should be back by five. CeeCee’s going to watch Brandon after school. There’s a commuter flight that leaves at noon.”
“Nonsense. You’ll take my plane. Nina will arrange it.” She waved a hand before Julia could speak. “It’s just sitting there. This way you can come and go as suits you. That should appeal to that streak of practicality.”
“Actually it does. Thank you. I’d also like to talk to you about Gloria DuBarry. She’s been dodging my phone calls.”
Eve bent down to rub at her calf, so her expression was veiled. But the hesitation, though brief, was obvious. “I wondered if you’d mention your little … altercation with her.”
Julia lifted a brow. “It doesn’t seem necessary. As you said, you know everything.”
“Yes.” She was smiling as she straightened, but Julia thought she detected a trace of strain. “We’ll talk later, about Gloria and other things. I imagine if you try her again, she’ll be more cooperative.”
“All right. Then the
re’s Drake—”
“Don’t worry about Drake right now,” Eve interrupted. “Who else have you interviewed?”
“Your agent, though we had to cut it short. I’m, going to be talking with her again. I managed a brief phoner with Michael Torrent. He called you the last of the goddesses.”
“He would,” Eve muttered, and wished almost violently for a cigarette.
Julia grunted as her muscles trembled. “Anthony Kincade refuses, flatly, to speak to me, but Damien Priest was excessively polite and evasive.” She rattled off a list of names, impressive enough to have Eve’s brows rising.
“You don’t let the grass grow under your feet, do you, darling?”
“I still have a ways to go. I’d hoped you’d help clear the path for me to Delrickio.”
“No, that I won’t do. And I’ll ask you to give him a wide berth. At least for the time being. Fritz, don’t wear the girl out.”
“I don’t wear out,” he told Eve. “I build up.”
Eve went off to shower while Julia suffered through power squats. By the time she was finished, Nina appeared.
“You’re all set.” Nina flipped open a notebook, then reached around to pluck a pencil from her hair. “The studio’s sending a car for Miss B., so Lyle’s at your disposal. The plane will be ready to go when you are, and a driver will be waiting on the other end to take you to your appointment.”
“I appreciate it, but it isn’t necessary to go to the trouble.”
“No trouble.” Nina checked off her list, then smiled. “Really, it’s so much easier all around to have it all set up. Your flight might have been delayed, you could have trouble getting a cab and … oh, yes, your driver in Sausalito is from Top Flight Transportation. It’s about a twenty-minute drive from the airport to the marina. Of course he’ll be available to pick you up again at whatever time you decide.”
“She’s wonderful, isn’t she?” Eve commented as she breezed back in. “I’d be lost without her.”