“He dragged my panties down and shoved his fingers in. Hard.” She covered her crotch with both hands. “No one had ever . . . and his fingers were so big. His nails were sharp.
“I started to cry, so h-he took his fingers out and pulled the T-shirt off my face. And he said . . . he said to get used to it, because I was sixteen now, old enough, and better than the dishrag downstairs. And then he stuffed the T-shirt in my mouth.
“I hadn’t even thought about screaming, I don’t know why. But when he did that, I sucked in a big breath, and I sucked the shirt down my throat. It stuck there and I couldn’t breathe. And God, oh God, there’s nothing worse.”
She clutched her chest. “I lost my mind, completely. He wasn’t expecting it. He was pulling down his pants and I just whipsawed my whole body, like a convulsion, because I was panicking, suffocating, and I caught him in the stomach with my knee. He let go of my arms and I pulled the shirt out of my mouth and I was just so glad to breathe.”
She sucked wind as if was happening again.
“And then he came back at me, and, Jesus, I saw his hard-on sticking out.” She covered her eyes but couldn’t un-see it. “He was between me and the door, so I went for the window above my bed. It was August, it was open. He was trying to grab me. I dove through the screen headfirst.”
She cradled her arm. “I fell two stories, snapped the bone clean in half. The last thing I remember before the pain put me under is him leaning over me, telling me if I said one word, I’d never see Lucy again.”
There. It was over. Surely now Adam would see that she was all kinds of unworthy. Her bloodline was polluted, and she was obviously toxic herself to have made her own father lust for her.
Then, “Maddie,” he said, his voice raw with emotion, “I’m sorry beyond words that you had to endure that. And I’m so very glad your father’s not dead, because I’m going to kill him.”
Her head came up. “You are not.”
“I am, an inch at a time, while I explain to him why I’m breaking his arms, crushing his larynx—”
“No.” She clutched his hands, balled into fists. “No, you can’t.”
“But I can. I will. Look how he hurt you. He warped your whole life.”
She shook her head, kept shaking it.
“Don’t deny it,” he bit out. “You blame yourself for what he did that night. It’s in every choice you’ve made ever since.”
“Of course it is. There’s a kernel of truth there. I did wear short skirts. And high heels to look taller—”
“Goddamn it!” He caught her shoulders. “I won’t listen to you blame a sixteen-year-old child for that animal’s perversion. I’ll put him down like a rabid dog, and you’ll dance on his grave in the highest heels I can buy you.”
He was serious.
The nerve.
She bucked up. “Listen, Lancelot, I don’t need you riding to my rescue. I’ve got issues. Who doesn’t?”
“Yours run deeper than most, and for good reason. But you weren’t responsible for his atrocities, Maddie. It’s time to accept that and move on with your life.”
“I’m fine with my life. You’re just mad because I’m not going along with your plans for it.”
His jaw went hard. He started to say more, to raise his voice. But he bit it back, took a deep breath and let it hiss out through his teeth.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I’m venting my temper on you, when it’s your bloody father I want to rage at.” He took her hands, brought first one wrist to his lips, then the other. “Darling, you’re the bravest woman I know.”
She goggled at him. “How do you get brave out of that story? I told you, I crept around like a mouse for years. And that night I just lay there. If he hadn’t suffocated me, I would’ve kept lying there while he raped me. What’s brave about that?”
“You were a child, Maddie. You’d belittle yourself for doing what you had to do to survive? And it’s not true anyway. You drew his fire away from your sister. And my God, you dove out a window headfirst!”
“That was fear, not bravery. When I got home from the hospital, I bought a wedge for my door and hid in my room for two years. And the minute I graduated high school, I ran away and never went back.” She hugged her stomach. “Don’t you get it, Adam? I left my baby sister there with that monster. I left Lucy.”
With those words, two decades of guilt steamrolled her. “I left her.” It trickled out, a thin wail. “I left Lucy behind.”
Adam took her shoulders again. “Stop it! You won’t punish yourself for this, not while I’m breathing.” He shook her. “What were you supposed to do? Tell me that.”
“Take her with me!” Guilt ate a hole in her stomach. She covered it with her hands like a wound to keep her guts from leaking out.
“A four-year-old? He’d have taken her back. And then what? He told you he’d disappear with her, didn’t he?”
She nodded. Tears rolled like rain.
“Then stop this.” He released her shoulders, drove his fingers through his hair. “My God, Maddie, I don’t know which is worse, blaming yourself for his perversion or torturing yourself for doing the only thing you could do.”
He stood up, paced the floor. Turned to stare at her. “You contacted her, didn’t you? Warned her, and gave her the means to get away if it came to that.”
She nodded again. She’d done more than that. She’d hotlined him, anonymously. But her father was a pillar of the community, her mother a useless mess. And Lucy had nothing to tell social services when they asked, because he hadn’t touched her yet.
He didn’t, until her sixteenth birthday. Then Lucy didn’t waste time with the system. She ran straight to Maddie. And since Maddie was a federal prosecutor by then, their father hadn’t dared to come after her.
“You took her in,” Adam said, “changed your life to give her all you could. You’re doing it still, slaving for that she-wolf. Letting me use you like a pawn.”
His own words sank in. Agony contorted his face. “I’m no better than he is, bullying you for my own amusement.”
“No!” She leaped up, wrapped her arms around him. “You’re nothing like him, Adam. I hate him. And I love you.”
He went rigid. So did she.
Oh God!
She shifted into damage control. “I meant . . . I meant . . .” She drew a blank.
And then it was too late, because he kissed her.
Oh, how he kissed her, framing her face with warm hands, angling his head, taking her lips, her tongue, gentle but not soft, sweet but not easy.
There was possession in that kiss, and reverence, and passion. And love.
Yes, love.
His and hers. Unexpected, unfathomable. No warning, no net. Just a long, weightless tumble into uncharted space.
Falling. They were falling in love.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Vicky: I promise not to go to bed
mad or walk away from an argument
without listening to your side.
Maddie: But either way I’m getting
the last word.
“THANKS FOR COMING.” Maribelle’s smile seemed genuine. “Dom’s thrilled.”
“Thanks for the invite.” Maddie glanced around the living room. It should feel weirder to hang out with Adam’s ex now that they were—gulp—in love. “Adam’s got some boring dinner thing. I guess being a honcho’s not all fun and games.”
Feet thundered on the stairs. Dom streaked into the room. “Maddie!” Throwing his arms around her waist, he stole her breath with his reckless affection. At her feet, John did his welcome dance. Her heart rolled over. Emotion clogged her throat.
Just a week and so much had changed. She’d found John and Dom and even Maribelle. And last night she’d laid down a burden she’d carried alone for almost twenty years. Just laid it down at Adam’s feet, and they’d joined hands and walked away from it.
And today, well, today was the first day of the rest of her life.
<
br /> Cor-ny! But she’d never felt happier.
Dom tugged her hand. “Come see what’s for supper.”
He led her out on the terrace, where Gisele was slicing a piping hot pizza with everything. Maddie let out an appreciative whistle.
Dom beamed. “I knew you’d like it, so I asked Gisele to make it.”
Her heart, so long underused, did another happy roll. “Thanks, kiddo. You did good.”
Dinner was fun, cheerful. Dom chattered his way through the pizza with blow-by-blows of John’s hopeless attempts to catch a ball, a Frisbee, or even a biscuit.
But as the meal wound down and dessert came and went, he fell increasingly quiet.
When the last plate was cleared, he addressed his mother solemnly. “May I show Maddie my room?”
Maribelle seemed surprised. “Sure, if it’s okay with her.”
“You bet.” Maddie ruffled his hair. Who didn’t like frogs and goldfish, baseballs and dog bones?
But Dom’s mood grew more somber as they climbed the stairs. At the end of the hallway, he stopped outside a door, shuffled his feet.
“What’s the problem, Dom? You got a dead body in there?”
He shook his head, glumly, and opened the door to a perfectly normal room. Single bed with a toy box at the foot. Kid-sized desk. Books and stuffed animals and Disney crap everywhere. Messy but not a disaster.
She followed him in, shut the door behind her. “Okay, buddy, it’s just you, me, and John. What’s on your mind?”
“Papa came over today. He said I can go to New York and stay with him in his penthouse.”
“That’s good, right? You want to hang with him, don’t you?”
He nodded, but his eyes stayed downcast. “Papa never bothered with me before. Now he does. Is it because of you? Did you make him?”
The kid wasn’t dumb. “I pointed out what he was missing. But no, I didn’t make him. Nobody makes your dad do anything he doesn’t want to do.”
That got a faint smile. “Papa’s the boss of everyone.”
She snorted a laugh. “Not everyone. But he’s the boss of himself, for sure.” She plopped on the bed, but Dom stayed where he was, hand resting on the toy box.
His troubled eyes broke her heart.
“Look, Dom. Your dad’s just a guy. He’s a big, important guy, and he’s super smart and real powerful out in the business world. But he’s still a guy, like you, and he has feelings. In fact, he’s a big softie, even though he acts like a hard-ass.”
She blew out a breath. Child psych wasn’t her field.
“What I’m trying to say is, a long time ago he got his feelings hurt by your mom. And he stayed mad at her for a long time, and that spilled over on you, even though you had absolutely nothing to do with it. You know how that works, right? You get mad at one person and then you take it out on everybody who happens to be in the neighborhood.”
He looked uncertain, and she wondered if maybe that was just her.
“Anyway, he’s over it now. He’s not mad at your mom, and he’s sorry he wasted time he could’ve been spending with you.”
“That’s almost exactly what he said.” He hung his head.
“I gotta say, Dom, I thought you’d be happier about it.”
“I would be. Except when he finds out what I did, he’ll be mad at me forever.” A fat tear hit the floor. “I ruined everything.”
Maddie hopped off the bed, knelt in front of the boy. His tears could have been drops of her blood. “Dom, sweetie, you didn’t ruin anything. Adam loves you.”
“He won’t. Not anymore.”
She tilted his chin. Despair ravaged his little-boy’s face.
“Tell me what you did and I’ll help you fix it. I promise.”
He searched her face, desperate to believe. She firmed her jaw, did her best competent-attorney-who-can-make-your-problems-go-away.
It must have convinced him, because he wiped his eyes with his sleeve, straightened his small spine. Then he opened the toy box, dug around, and came out with a roll of old canvas.
“I stole Papa’s painting.”
“ADAM, YOU’RE A fool. Let the Matisse go.”
Adam flashed Henry a grin. “You said yourself it’s a cakewalk.”
“Oh, you’ll pull it off right and tight. I’ve no worries there.” He tossed Adam a shirt, dull black Lycra like the trousers he’d already skinned into.
“If it’s Maddie you’re fretting about, don’t. She thinks I have a meeting—which I do, of a sort. She’s having dinner at Dom’s.”
Just thinking of her had warmth flooding his chest. Last night at the lake, she’d quit fighting and accepted him. Accepted them. She hadn’t signed on to happily-ever-after just yet, but she’d admitted she loved him.
Driving back to the villa this morning there wasn’t a cross word between them. Not that her tongue had lost its edge. But her jibes were good-natured, and she’d held his hand on her lap, stroking his palm, tugging his fingers, love flowing between them like a current.
He was indeed besotted. And enjoying every minute of it.
“Maribelle’s in on it then?” Henry shook his head in dismay.
“It’s not ideal,” Adam admitted. “But she knows her part.”
He clipped his tool belt around his hips, snuggled it into place, then strode into the bathroom to smear blacking on his cheeks. “I’ve given Maddie the code to the penthouse elevator. And after some gentle persuasion”—holding her orgasm hostage—“she’s agreed to use it.”
Henry’s brows inched higher. “She’s moving in?”
“It’s a process.” Adam wiped his hands. “Maddie doesn’t leap before looking. But she won’t hold out for long. Why would she?”
Henry ran a speaking eye from Adam’s black watch cap to his black leather boots.
Adam laughed, brimming with confidence and high spirits. “Have faith, my friend”—he clapped Henry’s shoulder—“in the awesome power of love.”
IF EVER MADDIE needed a cool head, it was now.
She waited a beat, then pasted on a smile. “Sweetie, your Dad’s not going to kill you. He’ll be happy to know what happened to his painting, and really glad to have it back.”
Dom seemed to think she wasn’t grasping the gravity, because he laid it out for her. “I snuck into his office and hacked his computer. I turned off the alarms and then I took his favorite painting out of the frame and stole it.”
“Yes, honey, and that was quite an accomplishment. Your dad’s going to ask exactly how you got around his hotshot security system, because he’ll want to make sure nobody else can.” She rubbed the boy’s arms. They were stippled with goose bumps. “He’s also gonna want to know why you took it. So do I.”
“So he’d come home.” He snuffled. “Sometimes when he’s home I hide under the bar in his office. I can see him a little, and hear his voice.”
The poor kid was starved for his father’s affection. Now that he had it, he was terrified he’d lose it again.
Yet, even knowing the risk, he’d come forward instead of burning the canvas in the fireplace with no one the wiser.
“You’re very brave to tell the truth, Dom. Your father’s going to realize that and admire you for it.” Or he will when I get through with him.
“I’ve got an idea,” she said. “Why don’t I bring the painting to him and explain the situation?” She checked her watch. Eight-thirty. Europeans ate late; he might not have left for his dinner meeting yet. “If I run, maybe I can catch him.”
Hope bloomed in Dom’s eyes.
Tucking the roll under her arm, she dropped a kiss on his head. “I’ll be back in a flash, kiddo. Everything’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
She took off at a run, down the stairs, through the living room, blowing past Maribelle on the sofa with her laptop. “Be right back,” she called over her shoulder, sprinting out the slider.
Maribelle bounced to her feet, shot out behind her. “Wait! Maddie, no!”
But
she was halfway home by then, eager to end Dom’s misery, determined to persuade Adam to visit the boy before his meeting.
She streaked across the terrace, raced through the villa, zoomed up the stairs. His bedroom door was open. She heard his voice.
“Adam,” she panted, bursting into the room, “I’m glad you’re still—”
She stopped. Running, talking, breathing.
She stopped.
Adam was tricked out like a ninja in head-to-toe black, the only spots of color his startled blue eyes.
“My God. You’re stealing something. Tonight.”
He took a step toward her. “Maddie, listen to me.”
Her head swam, but fury drove blood to her brain. “You lying piece of shit fucking thieving bastard asshole.”
He tried a smile. “I think that covers it, darling, no need to go on.”
“I’m not your darling, you fucking felon.” Ice trickled through her veins, the only movement in her body except for her lips. “You better lock me up now, because if you go out in that rig I’ll drop a dime on your ass and bring the polizia down on this place in a motherfucking heartbeat.”
His smile died. “You don’t understand.” He turned to Henry, standing stoically behind him. “Give us a moment.”
When the door closed, he took another step toward Maddie. “There’s a Matisse,” he said, and she recognized his soothing, trust-me tone. “Some say it’s his best. A man named Rosales bought it last month. He paid for it with blood money.”
“And you’re the superhero who’s going to save the world one painting at a time.” She had to work to put the sneer in her voice, because inside she’d curled up in a ball.
“He traffics in people, Maddie. He sells children to brothels. Boys and girls Dom’s age, even younger.” Fury edged his tone now, directed at Rosales but spilling over onto her.
“Got it. He’s a villain. Which makes you Bruce Wayne. Fredo drives the Batmobile, right? And Henry plays Robin.”
The Wedding Vow Page 27