by Lynne Silver
“Lance,” Arianna gasped.
Lance frowned at her. “Don’t be too softhearted, Ari. He’s lucky I’m not going to call the police.”
There was a soft exhalation from Kevin’s mom in the corner.
“I’m sorry about your father, Kevin, but there’s never an excuse for taking the law into your own hands.”
“Lance.” Ari whirled to face him, upset by the harsh tone in his voice. Why was he being mean to the poor boy?
“Apologize to Ms. Rose for the damages and terror you caused her and let’s figure out how you’re going to pay. You don’t have the thousands to reimburse her for her new window or a new convertible top, do you?”
“We’ll pay it back,” Kevin’s mom said. “Summer vacation is coming up and he’ll get a job.”
“No, that’s not necessary,” Arianna said. God, how could she add to their financial burdens when it was her family who’d put them there in the first place? “I don’t need the money.”
Lance’s hand squeezed her shoulder in a death grip, and Kevin suddenly stood about two inches taller in the face of Lance’s authority. “I’ll pay it back,” he promised.
Lance clapped him on the shoulder. “Of course you will, and you can start right now.”
Ari shot him a curious look. “How?”
“Yeah, how?” Kevin asked, all suspicious youth again.
“Here,” Lance said. “Ms. Rose is moving today. I could use some extra muscle.”
“I’m pretty strong.”
“Good,” Lance said.
Arianna was hit by a stab of an unidentified emotion deep in her belly at seeing Lance act so…so…dad-like with a needy youth. Lord, he’d be a great father and husband someday. He deserved a loyal wife who would be a great mom. A woman who knew how to handle a kid like Kevin, or cook, or fill out a mortgage application. It wasn’t her. Lance claimed to love her, but how could he?
“I’m going upstairs to finish packing.” If she hadn’t already packed up her potter’s wheel, she’d go throw a pot or two to center her thoughts.
Lance spared her a quick glance. “Wait a sec, I’m coming up with you to get dressed.” Then he turned to the boy’s mother. “Leave Kevin here and you can pick him up around five,” he instructed.
“Kevin?” The mom checked in with her wayward son, but he was already in Lance’s thrall, another minion to add to his ever-growing train, which now firmly included her. Oh, man, was she in trouble; moving in with a guy who’d professed to love her. What was scarier: that he loved her or that she might love him back? She didn’t wait for him but hurried up the stairs.
For once she didn’t dally over her clothing choice and yanked on an old pair of jeans and borrowed one of Lance’s white undershirts. It hung nearly to her knees but she knotted it up at the waist and got ready to work.
“Are you going to run?”
She whirled around to face Lance, who stood in the doorway with an inscrutable expression.
“What do you mean? I have to pack. Where would I run?”
“From me.” His hands hung on the door molding above his head, framing his face between his taut biceps. The towel was knotted low on his hips. “I told you I loved you and you couldn’t escape the bed fast enough.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said in a false cheery tone and turned her back to him as she started pulling piles of clothes from shelves and tossing them into an open suitcase. “I didn’t run. I went to answer the door.”
“Ari. Stop packing for a second. Look at me.”
“No time. I need to be out of here. The movers will be here soon.”
Lance left his perch in the doorway to stalk over to her, his jaw clenched tightly. He still wore only the white towel, but somehow it looked masculine. Ari allowed herself one admiring glance at his chest, then turned back to folding t-shirts. His hard hand squeezed her upper arm and froze her in place. “Lance, stop. I’m trying to pack.”
“Packing can wait a damn minute.”
“And you can’t—”
“No, I can’t.” Palpable frustration rolled off him. “Can you give me something? Anything? At least tell me if I freaked you out when I said I loved you.”
She turned and collided into his hard chest, sending the stack of t-shirts in her arms flying. “Crap.”
He held her in place when she went to pick up the fallen clothes. “Ari, stop packing for one second.”
“You want me to stop packing?” She stood and pushed back at his shoulders to gain some breathing space. “Fine. I stopped packing. What do you need, Lance? You told me you love me. Do you need me to say it back? I can’t.” Her curls brushed her shoulders as she shook her head. “I just can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at her.
Damn him for being too perceptive. She collapsed onto the bed and leaned into his warm body when he sat next to her. His hands rubbed long, warm strokes up and down her back. His bare chest radiated heat and smelled of their combined sweat from their recent bed play.
“Can’t. Won’t? I don’t know.” She swallowed back her tears. “I’m not a relationship kind of girl. A few months ago I might have been willing to try, but now? Now I’m too scared. My dad opened my eyes. I trusted him. I loved him, and if your own father can hurt you that badly, I don’t dare take that kind of risk with a virtual stranger.”
A cool breeze brushed her on the side where Lance had sat, but he now stood glaring down at her. “A stranger? You think I’m a stranger. Christ, Ari. I’ve revealed bits of myself to you that no one knows. Hell, I offered to get you a loan from my parents. I’ve never done that for a woman before.”
Tears now flowed freely down her face. “Which is why I could never take it. It would ruin things between us.”
“My parents’ money won’t ruin things between us,” he said coldly. “You’re determined to do it on your own. Don’t shut me out, Ari.”
“Shut you out? I’m moving in with you, Lance. How am I possibly shutting you out?”
“Lance?” Kevin’s voice called from the bottom of the stairs. “I finished putting the files in boxes. What should I do now?”
Talk about timing. Ari lifted a brow at Lance. “Better go, we don’t want to leave the delinquent alone downstairs. He may have more spray paint.”
Lance turned to pull on faded jeans and a gray t-shirt. “This isn’t finished. We’ll talk more at my apartment tonight.”
Once dressed, he strode out of the room, leaving her no chance to tell him she’d changed her mind and was going to a hotel.
Chapter Thirteen
I cleaned out some drawers for you.” Lance yanked on a wooden knob, chattering like an idiot to fill Arianna’s noticeable silence. After a long, sweaty day of packing, they’d made the last of several trips to unload her clothes and junk at his apartment.
“I’m not staying. I’m going to a hotel. Can I keep a few boxes here until I find another place?” She picked at a loose thread on his navy plaid bedspread.
He hated her low, flat tone. It was unlike her usual musical cadence. He was starting to regret ever having the balls to admit he loved her. “Your stuff is welcome here, but I’d prefer the owner to stay with her stuff.”
The look on her face cracked his heart a tiny bit.
“Lance, don’t do this to me.”
“Don’t do what? Help you pack? Tell you I love you?” Anger mixed with pain. “Fine. Stay, leave. Your choice, but at least be honest enough to admit you’re running out of fear. Have you ever let anyone other than Valerie inside your walls?”
She shook her head. “It’s true. I hate it, but I know.”
“Why? Don’t you trust me?” He swallowed down any guilt he had about his deal with Sullivan. He had yet to report anything about Arianna to the FBI. Hopefully, he’d never have to.
She looked stricken at his question. “I don’t trust anyone right now, least of all myself. Please let me go.”
He grasped despe
rately to keep her here longer and guided her to sit on his bed before sitting next to her. “What does that even mean, Arianna? Why are you so scared?” The movers had arrived in the midst of their conversation, and the time for intimate revelations disappeared: there had only been time to pack in a flurry.
He breathed in deeply as Arianna scooted closer and put a hand on his thigh, enjoying the subtle scent of her even through the grime and sweat from the day’s hard work. He kept talking with all senses focused on the gentle touch of her delicate, manicured hand. The pale pink nail polish color was pretty, sweeter than last week’s lurid turquoise.
“You keep telling me to trust you, but do you really trust me? You were barely able to tell me about your dinner with your dad. I got steak, salt, and the Palm. That’s it, Lance. Maybe the question is, have you ever let anyone inside your walls?”
He covered the back of her hand with his own callus-roughened one. “You want pieces of me?”
She met his gaze. “Yes. No, I don’t know. What would it help?”
“Maybe it would help you realize that there are people in this world who have your back, people you can trust. You don’t trust your parents, I get it. I really do. Did you know that when I entered the service training program, my dad handed down an ultimatum to join MarketFresh or get cut off from the family money? At first I thought they were kidding, you know? It sounds like a bad movie. ‘Follow in my footsteps or I’ll cut you out of the will.’”
She flipped her hand so their palms kissed and interlaced their fingers. “Wow, really? I’m now even more impressed that you followed through. I would have caved. You turned your back on a lot of money; I don’t know many people with that level of integrity.”
He squeezed their hands tighter and gave a small grin, not daring to question her sudden affection when five minutes ago she was ready to run from him. As long as she was willing to stay next to him, he wasn’t fighting it. “I don’t know if I’d call it integrity. Maybe I wanted permission to shoot bad guys.”
“Don’t make light of it. You went after your dream and paid a high cost, figuratively and literally.”
It was hard not to bask in her praise, but if she wanted pieces, he’d give her pieces. “About two years ago, my father had a minor heart attack.”
“Oh, no,” Ari murmured.
He shrugged. “Well, it was crystal clear to him that it was the perfect time to step down as CEO and install me in his place.”
“But I thought your sister…”
“Yeah, Lisa thought so too. She waited until Dad was home from the hospital for exactly one day before she went on the warpath and made a case why she should be MarketFresh’s new leader, complete with PowerPoint and everything.”
Arianna laughed.
“My father agreed, but still has not stopped hounding me. I think secretly he wants Lisa to marry and make babies and for me to sit at a desk and wear a suit every day.”
“You do wear a suit to work.”
“I wear whatever helps me blend in. A suit most days, or jeans, or golf gear. One time, I wore a cap and gown to fit in when the president gave the commencement address at Harvard.”
“I bet all the coeds were lusting after you.”
He dared to plant a quick kiss on her forehead. “My father nearly had another coronary. I was in crimson, and he’s a Yale man.”
Arianna sighed. “Seems we both have problematic fathers.”
He hugged her tightly and breathed more easily when she didn’t bolt at his hug. “Seems so.”
“At least you know where yours is.” She hugged him back, and his groin tightened at the feel of her breasts squashed against his chest.
“I do, but I guess what I’m trying to tell you by sharing about my family is that I get it. I know what it’s like not to trust the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally. Did I want my parents cheering and videoing my Secret Service induction ceremony? Hell yes, but it’s not in the cards, and I’m not going to let their pigheadedness stop me from what I want in life.”
“To be an agent.”
“Yes, among other things, namely you. There are a million and one reasons we make no logical sense as a couple, and one great reason we do.”
“You love me.” Her glowing smile washed over him.
“And you love me.” He said it and held his breath, waiting for her to confirm or deny his bold statement. She did neither, and instead kneeled up to kiss him and straddle his lap.
He held still as she cupped his unshaven cheeks in her soft hands and met her gaze directly. She didn’t say the words, but her expression told him what he needed to know. She was his.
He made love to her sweetly and slowly, erasing all her thoughts of escape.
Chapter Fourteen
Ari glanced at the address on her cell phone screen then up at the numbers on the arched doorway. “Two doors down on the corner,” she said.
Valerie followed at a close distance until they reached another possible location for Ari’s upcoming show. They’d been hunting all morning, pausing only for a quick lunch, then continuing their search. Everything they’d seen was out of her price range or too small to hold more than a few canvases.
One likely possibility required her to sign a two-year lease. Ari refused to commit to anything that long-term when her whole life was in flux. Plus, she still held out hope that she’d somehow be able to gain hold of her former gallery again. Her lawyer, Sean, had cautioned her against that dream, but didn’t deny the possibility.
“Here it is,” she said, knocking on the black metal and glass door of a modern-looking storefront in a newly gentrified neighborhood in D.C. “The manager, Carlos Banning, should be meeting us here. After the Literacy Gala, one of my father’s friends offered the space for a reasonable discount.” They waited a minute until the door was opened by a flamboyant-looking man dressed to kill in a light gray suit and sky blue tie.
“Ms. Rose,” he said, and stepped back a fraction of an inch to let her pass into the storefront. “Ms. Arianna Rose?”
Ari froze in the act of pushing past him and turned to look at him. They were nearly eye to eye and she was no giant. “Yes, Mr. Banning, I’m Arianna Rose. Tell me right now if you have a problem with that, and I’ll leave.”
He grinned and widened the entrance, stepping back a foot. “No, of course not. This neighborhood is full of notorious characters; you’ll fit right in. Please, call me Carlos.” He grasped her by the elbow and leaned in. “And if you want to bring any of your strong-bodied, low-IQ boyfriends along, I’ll lower the rent.”
Valerie let out a peal of laughter and poked Ari in the back. “See, Ari, not everyone who read Sorenson’s interview believed it.”
“Oh, please. I could see right through that load of baloney. No one with your sense of style would choose to be called Anna over Arianna, or…” He turned to Val. “What did you call her? Ari? Perfect.”
Arianna spun around the nearly all-glass room. “A lot of people did believe the lies in the article. I’ve been getting hate emails and phone calls.”
“Ignore them,” Carlos advised.
“Or,” Val said, “arrange your own interview with a reputable journalist. Set the record straight.”
Carlos clapped his hands together. “I love it. Brilliant.”
Val smiled. “Told you. Listen to your friend who works in PR.”
Ari walked to the window and looked out. “My lawyer would have a heart attack.” She watched an eclectic mix of people walk past the store—nannies pushing strollers, teenagers shouting to each other despite their close proximity, and a family of tourists holding a guidebook—while she pondered Val’s idea.
There was some merit to the thought. Valerie had quite a reputation in the industry as the go-to public relations guru when a CEO got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. It was how she’d met Jason. He’d been caught in a compromising situation, and the county had hired her to rehab his and the other firefighters’ images.
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She turned back to face Carlos and Val. “Okay, let’s do it, but I need your help to make sure I don’t make a fool of myself on camera.”
“Camera?” said Carlos.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Sorenson went to second-rate bloggers. If I’m going to do this, I’m doing it right. I still have the card from that producer at NBC who called when Dad was first investigated. I’ll give her a call; see if she’s still interested.”
“Go big or go home,” Carlos said.
“You said it.” She laughed, feeling more lighthearted than she had in days. She took a step toward the door to the street, then turned back to the owner. “Carlos, this is a gorgeous property, but it’s not right for my purpose. Too many windows; I’d have nowhere to hang all the canvases. Thank you, though. It was lovely meeting you.” Feeling flush with energy and excitement, she pulled Val along and headed back to her parked car.
“I’m going to marry her, Sullivan.”
“What?” His boss rose to full height and leaned forward, planting both beefy hands on his immaculate wooden desk.
“You heard me. I’m going to ask Arianna Rose to marry me. It’s crazy, it makes no sense, and yet nothing seems more right.”
Sullivan sat back down with a huff and propped his polished-to-a-mirror shoes up. “Does your father know?”
He shook his head. “You’re the first person I’m telling.”
“Me?” He raised a brow. “Why tell me first? We’re not friends.”
Lance inwardly chuckled at Sully’s no-nonsense bluntness. “I’m telling you first because I want you to call off the hounds. Tell the FBI to stop following her.” He kept talking at his boss’s shaking head. “Hear me out. Arianna is innocent.”
“Of course she is.” Sully snorted. “I’ve seen the news and surveillance video. If a pretty piece of ass like that was in my bed, I’d believe anything.”
Lance clenched his fists and reminded himself hitting his boss was not only a fireable offense, but possibly illegal too, given that Sullivan reported to the president of the United States. “I’ll say it again. Arianna is innocent. Stop following her.”