Dread slicked down her spine. “What?”
“It’s Tansy,” he said, his grip relenting, hands stroking up and down her arms. “I have to take you to Mona’s.”
She shivered, afraid to ask. “Why? What’s happened?”
Armand’s face hardened. “Lucas Walker has her.”
Mona heard the key in the lock and sought to gather her wits. She’d worn a hole in the rug, pacing. Panic wouldn’t help; it was up to her to handle this, all of it. Her father was useless, and Carlton too arrogant. Tansy deserved someone without an agenda.
“Des?”
For a second, they stood there, the air between them filled with history and hope and accusations. She should play it cool. Be strong and sure.
Instead, she flew across the room into his embrace.
When they closed around her, the arms that had been all she’d ever experienced of home, Mona felt something inside her ease, something that had been coiled and tight and strained since the night he’d left. “Oh, Fitz,” she sobbed.
“I’m here, babe,” he soothed, his voice the slightest bit unsteady. “I’m here.” He tightened those strong arms around her, clasping her hard against him. As she sobbed, he swayed in a comforting rhythm, one hand cradling her head against his broad shoulder. “Sh-h, sweetheart. We’ll get her back, I promise. Sh-h…”
She started to tell him thank you, but her words were swallowed up in his kiss. The kiss went on, and it was like dying and being reborn, like losing everything and finding it again, like the breathless ascent from hell to heaven. She attempted again to speak. “Oh, Fitz, I’m so sorry. I miss you so much—”
He took her words into him as though she were the essence of life itself. His free hand roamed her body, giving and seeking comfort. Heat and hunger and love and memory clashed and coalesced, swirled around them.
The hard shell of her resistance cracked. Nothing in her life matched this man in importance. He was her soulmate, her other half. Surely there had to be a way for them to find the path back to each other.
Fitz cupped her face in his hands and rested his forehead against hers. “We have to talk about Tansy, but I can’t wait to say this.” He retreated a little, his gaze boring into hers. “I love you, Des. I’ve missed the hell out of you. I’m half-alive without you.”
She could barely speak, but she had to try. “I love you, too. Fitz, there’s so much I have to tell you.”
His thumbs stroked over her cheeks, soaking up her tears. “I know, sweetheart. I pushed you too much—” He stopped, all the love in the world in his eyes as he shook his head. “We have to talk, but tell me about Tansy now.”
He led her to the sofa, one eyebrow cocked as he saw the bed she’d made there because their bed was too full of memories for her to sleep.
“I couldn’t—”
Fitz smiled. “I haven’t slept worth a shit since I left.” He brushed the bedding to one corner and sat down with her, keeping her close. “Lay out for me the facts you have.”
The doorbell rang, and Fitz rose to answer. When Kat and Armand entered and sat down, Mona began to explain.
Chapter Seventeen
Lucas felt Tansy shiver against him as they stood in shadows across the street from Al’s. He tightened his arm around her shoulders and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, but he never stopped scanning the street even though he wasn’t sure what to watch for. He was almost certain they’d lost their pursuer after ducking into a market around the corner from Tansy’s. He wished to God he knew more about this cloak-and-dagger stuff.
Tansy leaned against him in a posture of absolute trust that scared the hell out of him. They had jumped from the frying pan into the fire, no question. It was too late to stop. He’d never see Tansy again if he let her go now.
The time for doubts was past. He would have to make his sketchy plan work. Somehow.
First things first. Settle Tansy in his basement room. Get some sleep to clear his head. Then start seeking someone to believe him.
“Where are we?” Tansy asked, looking up with those blue eyes that reached all the way down into his gut.
“Over there.” He gestured. “It’s not much, Tansy. Just a room in the basement beneath a topless bar.”
“What’s a topless bar?”
He paused, not sure how to explain.
“Oh.” Her eyes widened. “Where women…”
“Only one,” he said. “It’s not a very successful place.”
“Is she nice?”
“Who?”
“The lady who—”
His stomach churned at the thought of Gloria, of how he’d let her—
Hell.
The damn thing was, that’s exactly what Gloria had been: nice. Trying to do something for a friend. He’d laugh, except there was nothing funny about it. “Yeah.” He glanced away. “She’s a nice lady.”
“Okay.” That simple. That readily accepted.
“Tansy, you’re a miracle,” he blurted.
Her smile was sunlight on roses, dawn after dark night. “Why?”
He’d never given her this, never told her what she meant. They’d been young. He’d been stupid, a self-conscious teenage boy, uneasy with words. Fists were simpler. Fights and struggle, he understood. Pretty words were foreign soil.
“Your heart is good. You assume the best of everyone.” He sought for more. “You make me feel as though I could be a prince.”
“Galahad, I told you. And now you’ve rescued me.”
His stomach clenched. He could also be her biggest danger. As soon as possible, he had to turn her over to someone who could protect her as she deserved. For right now, she was stuck with him.
“Have you slept at all?” he asked.
She shook her head, and suddenly, he could see the smudges beneath her eyes, the slump of her shoulders. She was exhausted.
“My place is just one room with a bed. I’ll find someone better to help you soon.”
She clutched his arm. “I don’t want to leave you, Michael.”
He reminded himself that she wasn’t talking to him as himself. Michael was only a name that, for whatever reason, made her feel safe. If only she knew.
She would know at some point. She’d remember. And what happened then?
He had to face the fact that simply being around him might prove the trigger for memories she could not survive. If the knowledge destroyed her, he’d never forgive himself.
A hell of a mess, son. You’ve landed in the middle of something you thought long over. That was okay—except that he’d taken Tansy with him.
He had to discover a path out that would end the nightmare for once and for all but wouldn’t destroy Tansy in the process. Christ, if he could just think, but he was so everlasting tired—
Logic grabbed hold. Nothing to do with what was left of the night but get some sleep. No one would show up until at least noon. For the next several hours, they would hole up and rest.
“Okay, let’s go.” Lucas wished she weren’t wearing the bright green coat, but at least he could pull the hood over her bright hair and hide her face from any passersby. She wouldn’t be going out for a few days, and before then he would locate her some nondescript clothing. Tucking her into his side, he hurried her across the street and opened the door as quickly as possible, then locked it behind them.
He released her and inhaled his first deep breath of the night. For the time being, they were safe. No one would locate them just yet. “This way,” he said, ready to lead her to the basement stairs.
But Tansy had slipped back her hood and was gazing around the room. Lucas wondered how it looked to her. She pointed to the tiny stage. “Is that where—?”
“Yeah. That’s where Gloria dances.”
“Gloria.” She said the name with wonder and began moving past the tables. She came to a stop beside one of the stools arranged around the small runway. One slender hand gingerly touched the wood surface, then jerked back as if it were a hot stove.
Shame washed over Lucas that he’d brought her to a place that stank of cigarettes and beer and cheap sex. “Tansy, let’s go,” he said too harshly.
But when she turned, it was not revulsion he saw but curiosity. “Would it be okay if—” She peered sideways at the stage.
It took him a minute to realize she was asking to get up on the runway. Something in him rebelled. He wanted her to have no connection at all to this dark world. “No. Come on.”
She cast one wistful glance back, then walked toward him, shoulders sinking. “All right.”
Christ Jesus. He had no clue what to do. He felt as though he’d stolen candy from a child. She didn’t know, couldn’t understand that he didn’t want her tainted by his life, that he couldn’t allow her to be profaned by the depths that were his natural element, not hers.
All she wished was to play pretend. She’d always been the most curious person he’d known, and her wings had been clipped for years. “It’s okay,” he forced himself to say. “You’d like to stand up there?”
Eyes sparkling, she nodded.
“Here, let me help you.” Hands around her waist, he lifted her easily.
She stood at the end of the runway, grasping the metal pole around which Gloria had posed in a thousand sleazy ways, fueling the tawdry dreams of lonely men. Lucas itched to yank Tansy down, wash her hands, wrap her in cotton and hold this world at bay.
But Tansy paused there, smiling. She loosened the scarf around her hair and shook it out, the pale, shimmering mane. And she began to dance around the pole with the dainty, dreamy steps of an innocent ballerina.
At her feet, Lucas watched, mesmerized, as Tansy cleansed the room of its muck and grime with her shining presence, with the power of the goodness inside her. She was a dream herself, a pure and golden light in the darkness.
He knew in that moment that he would die for her if need be, suffer for her again if that was required. She was the best part of him, his last hope of salvation. He would guard her, not for Juliette but for herself, because no matter that she had been frozen in time, that she wasn’t what the world called normal, she was what the universe needed more of, what it cried out to have. So soft and tender and kind that she could heal the wounds of every soul she touched.
It made him afraid for her. It also made him fierce.
She stopped humming and dancing and held out her arms, sliding into a graceful curtsy, her smile wide and warm and heartbreakingly lovely.
Lucas found a smile and clapped.
She rose and stepped to the edge of the stage, held out her arms and let herself fall toward him in perfect trust.
And Lucas caught her. Arms tight around the woman nestled against him, he closed his eyes and wished the moment would last forever. When Tansy lifted her gaze to him and cradled his face in her slender hands, he did what he’d wanted to do since the first day he’d met her, a lifetime ago.
With reverence and awe and whatever love could find root inside his battered heart, Lucas Walker chastely kissed the woman who was more of heaven than he would ever deserve.
Mona’s eyes were so heavy she could barely keep them open. It was five a.m., and none of them had slept. Armand was on his phone in the kitchen and Fitz paced the living room, talking on his cell to some detective he said they could trust.
At her living room window, Kat stared out at the night beyond. Kat’s sad, she remembered Tansy saying, and Mona could see it again as she had the day before, carving lines of defeat in Kat’s usual careless abandon. She walked over to her sister and placed a hand on her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
Kat shrugged off the hand and stirred, her answer automatic. “Nothing.” But Mona could spot the lie. “It’s just…I’m worried about Tansy. That sonofabitch—” Her voice went low and harsh. “I’ll kill him if he hurts her, I swear it.” Her hands curled into fists.
But it was more than worry for Tansy that Mona saw in Kat’s eyes. “What’s happened with Gamble?”
Kat’s expression went blank. Frost crackled in the air. “It was just…a fling. No big deal.”
“Pretend with other people, Kat, but not with me. What did he do?”
She noted the slump into defeat, the suspicious moisture in Kat’s eyes, quickly masked as her sister turned away. “Kat, sweetie, it’s me. You’re not telling the world at large. We have to be able to talk to each other.”
“Yeah?” Kat swung around. “When did we get to be so chummy, Miss Prim and Proper? When did you forget that you think I’m just a slut?”
Mona was too shaky to defend herself, for once. Their normal thrust and parry hurt too much when she was inches from being a wreck herself. “Don’t,” she pleaded. “Not tonight.” She caught herself just before she blurted out her secret, Fitz’s voice across the room slid into her awareness. She couldn’t tell anyone before him.
She reached for her sister’s hand, the sibling with whom she’d been stranded at Nana’s so very far away from New York. “Kat,” she murmured urgently, squeezing hard. “This is me, remember? We have to stick together.”
All at once, Kat’s eyes filled. “Please…I just—” She blinked fiercely against the tears. “Damn it, I hate crying.” She averted her face, but she held tight to Mona’s hand.
Mona cast a glance back toward Fitz and Armand. Fitz was intent on his call, but Armand was watching, and on his face was naked pain. In that instant, she realized that he loved her sister far past friendship. Their eyes met for one blinding second in which Mona understood that Armand had patiently loved Kat for a very long time. He would be the best thing that could happen…assuming her sister ever woke up enough to see.
Dazzled by the sudden insight, Mona tried to refocus on Kat. “What did Gamble do?”
“Oh, God, don’t make me talk about it here.”
“They’re both busy. Tell me.”
“I went to see him like some romantic fool. I knew better. I always have. Love—” Brittle laughter crackled in her throat. “Jesus Christ. There’s nothing so pathetic as a fool who believes she’s in love.”
“Love exists, Kat. There’s nothing as wonderful in the world.”
Kat rounded on her. “Yeah, as though you and Fitz are so happy now.”
Mona recoiled, her hand going instinctively to her belly. She jerked it away. “We’ll work it out.” She persisted. “So what happened?”
“He was in bed with someone else.”
“Bastard.”
“It gets worse.” She paused a beat, for effect. “He’s married.”
“What?” Mona goggled, just for a minute. “That snake.”
Kat’s triumph was only a thin film over heartbreak. “Go ahead, tell me I had it coming.”
“No.” She spoke again, emphatically this time. “No, Kat. You deserve better.” Her mind went back to the expression on Armand’s face, and she almost said something about him.
But Fitz ended his call just then. “That’s all I can do tonight.” He crossed the floor. “I’ve got a meeting at ten—until then, I think we could all use a little sack time.”
Mona started to protest that she couldn’t sleep a wink, but her body chose that moment to exert its pull. Suddenly, she was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open.
“He’s right,” Kat conceded. “I’m headed home. You and I can go through Tansy’s room in the morning—” She laughed without real mirth, running fingers through her spiky hair. “Okay, so it’s already morning. Christ—” She rubbed her hands over her face.
“Come, Katharina,” Armand said. “I’ll take you home.”
Kat stiffened. “I’m a big girl. I don’t require an escort.”
“Of course not,” he said, handling her as smoothly as ever. “But my driver’s outside.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Oh, all right.” She turned to Mona. “I’ll meet you at the apartment at eleven?”
Mona nodded. She and Fitz walked them to the door, exchanging handshakes and kisses. The door closed behind them, a
nd all of a sudden, there was too much silence.
Mona was so exhausted she was seeing double. They needed to talk, she knew, but she didn’t have the strength. Still, she had to be fair. He’d rushed to help her without question. She owed him—
“Stop, Des,” Fitz said, a faint chuckle in his voice. “Your brain’s clicking so fast it’s making me dizzy.”
“But we—”
He embraced her, and the feel of him sank into her bones and melted them to honey. “Sh-h…it’s time for sleep. You’re out on your feet.”
Her eyelids were so heavy it would take a jack to lift them. Fitz was so warm. So strong. Just for a second, she let go. She would think in a minute; she would—
And then he swung her up and carried her to their bedroom. “Fitz—” She struggled to find the words.
“Not tonight, babe. I’m going to stay with you, and we can talk tomorrow. For now, just rest.”
They were the last words she heard.
Armand’s driver waited for them at the curb. Armand placed one hand on the small of Kat’s back, guiding her toward the door.
She thought of how she’d fallen into his arms at her apartment. “I think I’ll walk.”
“Don’t be a fool.”
She recoiled. “Don’t patronize me.” Then she thought of his key to her apartment and took refuge in anger, poking him in the chest. “Just where the hell do you get off, not revealing to me that you own my building?” Her gaze narrowed. “You better not tell me I got some kind of special deal.”
His driver watched them both, his demeanor as blank as Armand’s. But she saw the avid look in his eyes. Knowing she could be making fodder for the gossip columns only steamed her more.
Armand, as always, kept his cool. “You’re my friend.”
“Friend? You don’t lie to friends about something like that.” She stuck out her hand. “You give me that key right now.”
“Kat,” he said patiently, “I own the master.” He spoke as if to a child. “There are plenty more where that one came from.”
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