What are you doing, Alec? I said to myself.
I don’t know if it was because I was worried for Alec or for the old man, or if I was just tired of all the secrets. But before I thought twice, I was out of the car, running in my torn dress and knock-off heels over the patchy grass toward the stairs. I took them one at a time, shoving my hair back. At the top of the stairs were two doors, the paint peeling off both. Light peeked from beneath the one on the left.
I stood before it, gathering my courage. From inside came a man’s voice, older than Alec’s, and tired.
“For Christ’s sake, just make it stop.”
I should have gone back to the car, but a morbid curiosity had been piqued. I had to know what kind of man Alec Flynn was.
With a shimmer of fear, I inched open the door.
Twenty-nine
The bell that rang overhead made me jump. I glanced up, cringing. It was fastened to the doorframe above the entry, triggered to sound every time the door was opened. So much for being stealthy.
A second later, a dog began to bark.
The old man yelled a command I couldn’t distinguish just as a white-faced golden retriever came barreling around the corner.
“Who is it, boy?” asked the man. “Who’s there?”
Well, there was no going back now.
I leaned around the corner, peering into the narrow kitchen that dead-ended at a small dining room. Right in the center of my view was Alec, shirtless and mouthwatering, standing on a chair. He was reaching overhead into a small white plastic box, showcasing every glorious section of his abs.
A mechanical chirp came from the smoke detector, then a long, piercing beep.
“Alec, who is it?”
The old man appeared between us and, apart from being thin and walking with a slight hunch, he was undeniably handsome. His thick coffee-colored hair was highlighted with strands of white and gray, and curled down past his ears. But it was his eyes that caught me. They were light blue, nearly translucent, and he stared at some point in the distance, unfocused.
The dog immediately took his place beside him.
Alec was replacing the batteries in a blind man’s smoke detector. I’d wanted to see what kind of man he was. I guess this answered that question.
“Hey,” Alec said to me, concern flashing over his face. “Just one second, all right?”
“A woman?” said the man.
Alec snorted. “How can you tell?”
“Behind this handsome face is a brilliant, deductive mind.” He scratched a hand over his broad, familiar cheekbones and a square jaw, covered by a layer of scruff. A flannel shirt covered a worn green tee, and he smoothed it down, standing a little taller.
“I’m sorry to barge in,” I said, feeling like the world’s biggest idiot. “I’ll wait in the car.”
“Oh my,” said the man with a smirk I’d recognize anywhere. “She sounds lovely.”
“Take it easy.” Alec closed the box and stepped down to the floor.
“You’re Alec’s father,” I said, slightly baffled. He’d made it sound as if he didn’t know his father, that Maxim Stein had filled that role in his life.
“Thomas Flynn.” Alec’s father reached out his hand, and I crossed the kitchen and took it, wishing I’d thought to dry off a little before coming into the apartment. His grip was warm and steady, and took away some of my chill.
“And this is my dog,” he added.
I glanced down. The golden retriever was seated politely beside his owner in a very un-Mug-like manner.
“Does he have a name?” I asked.
“Ask ’em,” said Thomas. Behind him, Alec muttered something I couldn’t make out.
“Umm.” The retriever looked up at me expectantly. “What’s your name?”
The dog’s tongue lolled out the side of his mouth.
Thomas threw his head back and laughed, bringing a blush to my cheeks.
“The fool named his dog Askem,” explained Alec, “just for moments like this.”
“It never gets old,” said Thomas. He raised my hand to his lips and left a long, lingering kiss there. I shook my head, and couldn’t help but smile.
“Jesus,” said Alec. “She gets the point.” He wedged between us in the narrow kitchen and pulled me back a step. “Dad, this is Anna.”
“Anna,” said Thomas with a dazzling smile. “You’re very beautiful, I can tell.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I like a man who can appreciate a woman without any teeth.”
Thomas’s brows shot up.
“She’s fucking with you,” Alec said. “She’s gorgeous.” He turned away to grab a dish towel off the oven rack and handed it to me without meeting my eyes.
Thomas barked out a laugh. “I see how it is.”
“You started it,” I said.
“I’m making dinner,” said Thomas. “We’re celebrating.”
“Oh,” I glanced at Alec. “I can’t stay.”
“Nonsense,” said Thomas. “It’s my birthday.”
I winced.
“It’s not his birthday,” said Alec.
“It’s Alec’s birthday.”
“Nope,” said Alec. “That’s not right either.”
“You’re really something,” I told Thomas.
“You’re the first woman he’s brought home,” said Thomas. “So we’re celebrating.”
“Sure. Whatever you say,” I said.
Thomas smiled. Alec inhaled, pushing his hands into his pockets. Side by side, they were clearly cut from the same mold. The same mold, apparently, as Greek gods and the male models that graced the covers of romance novels.
“Wait,” I said. “Is that true?”
“We can’t stay, Dad.”
“I am sort of hungry,” I said. It was true; I hadn’t eaten anything other than last night’s ice cream and was starting to feel a little light-headed. But more than that, maybe if we stayed, Thomas would let me in on a few more secrets about his son. It occurred to me that Alec may have asked me to stay in the car for this exact reason.
“You want to stay?” Alec asked, as if I were joking.
I shivered. The A/C was blasting from a vent directly overhead.
“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”
“Come on.” Alec pulled me out of the kitchen to a short hallway. As soon as we were around the tight corner, he released my forearm, breaking our brief contact. I rubbed my arm, feeling the traces of heat fade away.
The apartment was small, the floors clean, the walls bare. Simple, like he’d told me he was used to the first night I’d stayed in his place. From what I could tell, there was one bathroom and two bedrooms. Alec pushed through the door into a small space with a single bed against the wall and a simple oak desk in the corner. Above it was a bulletin board smattered with a few papers. I wandered in that direction while he dug through the sparse closet, and I was wondering how he could let his father stay in such a sketchy area when he lived in a bay-view high-rise.
A photograph caught my eye first. It was the same picture I’d seen framed in Maxim Stein’s office. A young Alec, with that secretive expression, and Maxim, his arm over Alec’s shoulders.
Just below it was a college diploma from Florida State. It wasn’t framed, but simply tacked to the board.
Alec Flynn had a bachelor of science in engineering.
“Here.” Alec was standing behind me, holding a dry T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. He had another shirt for himself and pulled it over his head. I would have been lying if I said I wasn’t sad to see him cover up.
“Who are you?” I looked back at the degree.
He took a deep breath. “You’re shaking. Put on some clothes before you freeze.”
I faced him, aware of how close the walls were, and how he’d shut the door behind me. We were alone, and the tension had become a heavy, palpable thing between us. I shivered. My skin alighted with goose bumps. My nipples were so tight, they were painful. Every part of me was straining to
move closer to him, to share some of his warmth.
“Tell me something real,” I said. “At this point, I don’t even care what it is.”
He stepped back until his calves hit the bedframe, then sat on the worn denim comforter, elbows on his knees. Fatigue weighed him down.
“I grew up in this neighborhood,” he said. “Just my dad and I. He wasn’t always blind—he has macular degeneration. It was diagnosed early when he was in his twenties. He’d been working in maintenance at the airfield, but when he lost his sight, he lost his job. A hiccup in insurance and just like that, he was on the street.”
I turned away, intrigued by Alec’s past, but feeling suddenly self-conscious changing in front of him. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen me naked before, but something about right then made me nervous. Facing the wall, I kicked off the ruined shoes and pulled down the zipper on the back of Amy’s tattered dress.
“Keep going,” I prompted.
“I . . .”
I turned around and caught him blinking, then rubbing his jaw. He didn’t look away as I stepped out of the dress. By now he would have seen I wasn’t wearing a bra—the dress had been so formfitting I hadn’t needed one. I pulled his T-shirt over my head, feeling the soft cotton brush against my nipples.
“Focus, Alec.”
“Right.” He cleared his throat. “One of the men my father had done work for heard what had happened and paid the deposit on an apartment, then hired a nurse to get him back on his feet. That man was Gregory Stein, Max’s father.”
Since my panties were soaked as well, I slipped them off as discreetly as I could and kicked them under the dress. Then I pulled on his sweatpants. They were huge, and I rolled them up at the ankles.
“Okay,” I said.
“The nurse was married with three kids, and my dad, well . . . you’ve met him.”
I smiled. “Incorrigible?”
“She ended up pregnant,” he said flatly. I moved to the bed and sat beside him, far enough away that I could keep my brain working. I leaned back against the wall and hugged my knees against my chest.
“Her husband gave her an ultimatum. She left the baby—me—with my dad and moved with her real family to Miami.”
Her absence bothered Alec; I remembered he’d told me he wouldn’t leave the way she had.
“Have you ever met her?”
“She sent a card on my birthday each year. When I was fourteen, I caught a ride down to Miami and looked her up. She wasn’t exactly thrilled. I didn’t get a lot of cards after that.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “Dad and I didn’t get along so well when I was growing up. He drank away his disability checks, and I figured out fast that selling drugs was a pretty effective way to supplement an income. I fell in with some guys I probably shouldn’t have, and he was too drunk to notice.” Alec faced me, holding my gaze. “I sold whatever they gave me, took whatever I could skim, and got picked up more than a few times. I didn’t want to tell you after you told me about your mom.”
I nodded, chest hurting for the boy who was forced to make ends meet. Part of me wanted to tell him it was okay, I understood, but the other part didn’t want to slow his momentum. He’d told me more in the last five minutes than he had in our entire relationship.
“When I was fifteen, Dad got evicted while I was in juvie, and I didn’t have enough money to get the apartment back. He’d told me about Gregory Stein, so I went to look for him, to see if he could fix things. It ended up he’d died a few years before, but his son Max had taken over the business. He told me he’d help me out on one condition: I get clean and work for him.”
It was difficult to imagine the Maxim Stein I knew offering to help a boy from the wrong side of town. He must have seen something in Alec, even then.
“He showed me my first plane, a Force 170, and it blew my mind. I’d never seen anything like it.” He smiled down at his open hands. “I wanted to know how it worked, what made a twenty-ton piece of metal stay up in the air.” When he hesitated, I glanced at his degree. Was this why he’d majored in engineering?
“Max set me up to learn the business along with his nephew—the heir to Force. Robert Calloway. Bobby.” He sighed. “In exchange, Max paid me enough to get our apartment back.”
Bobby was Maxim’s nephew—who Alec had thought should replace him in New York when we’d gone. I hadn’t gotten the impression at the time that Maxim thought too highly of his nephew. Not that I blamed him. I wouldn’t trust Bobby as far as I could throw him.
“Max paid for a tutor to get me through high school. Then he paid for college. I respected him, followed his rules. No drugs, no selling. I helped Dad find a sponsor, and he got cleaned up. Things were good.”
“And then?” I prompted, sensing this wasn’t all.
Alec put one hand on my foot. I didn’t know if he was even aware he’d done it, but he kept it there, running his thumb over my instep as if he needed the contact.
“I was nineteen the first time he sent me to collect on some debts. I didn’t think anything of it until the guy pulled a gun on me. I was quick enough to get out, but Max was shocked I hadn’t finished the job. I went back with Bobby, who showed me how it was done. The man filed a report in the hospital.” His thumb began to tap on my foot. “I hadn’t touched him, but Max asked that I fess up. He said his lawyer would get me out.”
“You took the fall,” I realized.
“I took the fall. It was just the beginning. There was still the legit business, but there was another side too. Competitors began backing out if Maxim entered negotiations. I didn’t have to do much more than show up.”
I looked at where we connected. “The woman who charged you with assault?”
“I never touched her,” he said. “Bobby picked her up at some club. I found her at the house after he was done with her and took her to the ER. Next thing I know, Max’s lawyer is there, and she’s saying I’m the one who hit her. The charges weren’t dropped until the next day.”
I shook my head, remembering Bobby crowding me at the door near the house. How defensive Alec had been.
“What an asshole,” I said. “You should have turned him in.”
Alec huffed. “Sure. Like anyone’s going to believe me over Maxim Stein’s nephew.”
He had a point. The Steins had money and powerful attorneys, and Alec already had a track record with the police.
“Why didn’t you leave?” I asked.
His finger stroked up my big toe, sending a shimmer of heat up my leg.
“Max dug us out of a hole. I owed it to him to take a few hits.”
“No,” I said. “You’re the one who dug you out of the hole. He used you.”
Alec was scowling. “I didn’t see it that way at first.”
The betrayal was evident in his voice. In exchange for his loyalty, he’d been thrown under the bus.
“What happened with Charlotte?” I asked. “And why was I your assignment?”
“Anna,” he said quietly, rubbing his temple with his other hand. “If Max knew I was telling you this . . .”
“Tell me,” I said. “If it’s about me, I have a right to know.”
He took a deep breath and turned to face me, a grave expression on his face. He reached for my hands, holding both of them together within his and then pulling me forward to press them against his chest. I could feel his heart beating there, hard and heavy.
“I never meant to hurt you,” he said, gaze truthful and soul deep. “If I could take any of this back I would. You’re going to hate me after what I’m about to say, but I can’t let you go. Not yet. It’s not safe.”
Thirty
I pulled back and wrapped my arms around myself, trying to stave off the shudder that had nothing to do with cold. My mouth was dry, and a persistent throb had begun at the base of my skull.
“Dinner!” called Thomas from the kitchen.
Alec glanced at the door.
“What do you mean, i
t’s not safe?” I pressed.
“I slaved over a hot stove!” called Thomas as the microwave began to beep.
“Am I in trouble?” The dread coiled in my stomach. My head was beginning to spin.
“You look pale.” Alec was shutting down, the light dimming behind his eyes.
“Wait. You can’t stop there.” I jolted to my feet. Too fast; the room began to spin, and I caught myself on his shoulder before falling.
In a flash he was up, supporting my weight with his hand beneath my elbows.
“Anna,” he said, inspecting me closely. “When did you eat last?”
I shook my head, clearing my vision. I felt weak, but how was I supposed to eat when Alec had said I wasn’t safe?
“A while ago,” I answered. “Yesterday maybe.”
He grit his teeth. “Eat and I’ll tell you what I can.”
“No!” I shouted, pushing away. I rocked back on my heels, blinking rapidly as my stomach did a slow roll.
“I’m tired of this,” I said. “You’ll tell me everything. If you ever cared about me at all, you’ll tell me.”
His mouth tightened.
“All right,” he said. “After you eat.”
Stubborn mule. I let him lead me back to the living room, where Thomas had put a glass pan of pulled pork on a scratched coffee table in front of his small couch. The cushions had popped a couple stitches, and when I sat I had to readjust my position to avoid some well-placed springs, but the scent of barbecue sauce was enough to make me salivate.
Thomas moved comfortably around the room as if he had perfect vision and then sat beside me, maybe a little too close. He handed me a plate, and the distance by which he overshot my reach reminded me of his blindness.
“Thank you for dinner,” I said tensely. “It smells incredible.”
“The sauce is a secret,” he said, passing a plate to Alec, who had opened a bag of hamburger buns.
“It’s such a secret even he doesn’t know it,” mumbled Alec.
Thomas grinned. “Caught. My sponsor believes food is a suitable replacement for booze.”
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