The Man She Almost Married

by Maggie Price

  His fingers tightened on the photo. Dammit, why the hell had fate thrown them together again? He didn’t want Julia Cruze in his life. Couldn’t want her.

  “You’re wrong, Rick,” Sloan said, crumpling the photo in his fist. “I don’t want it.” He didn’t need a photo to remind him of how her face looked in morning sunlight, of the arc of those sculpted cheekbones, of the sensual set of the mouth that had taken him to heaven countless times. Those images were branded on his soul.

  Rick lifted a shoulder. “My mistake.”

  “You’ve kept tabs on her for me for two years,” Sloan said with disdain. “You know as well as I do that she’s gotten on with her life. She’s engaged to the first assistant district attorney.” Sloan tossed the wadded photo into the trash. “I doubt he’d appreciate my pinning her picture on the wall.”

  “I see your point. You know, Sloan, all you have to do is call the mayor and Julia’s off the investigation. That way you won’t have to deal with her.”

  “The thought crossed my mind.” When he’d stood beside her chair with her coffee cup, he’d wanted to reach out and skim his fingertips across her hair. One touch. One touch he’d denied himself because he couldn’t have stood to watch her cringe away.

  “You going to make the call?”

  “No. For two reasons. An innocent person shouldn’t care what cop shows up to investigate. I’m innocent.”

  “The second reason?”

  Sloan’s gaze drifted to the chair where Julia had sat. After her partner left to take the phone call, there had been an instant when her gaze dropped to his desk, and she’d fallen silent. When she looked up, he’d seen a flash of vulnerability in her face before her eyes went cool and remote. Had she been remembering that long-ago Christmas Eve? The night he’d made promises to her, had told her he wanted her for a lifetime. Forever. And he had. He just hadn’t known then how tenuous a lifetime could be.

  “Sloan?”

  He looked up. “What?”

  “What’s the second reason you won’t call the mayor?”

  “It wouldn’t be fair to Julia,” he said quietly as he leaned back in his chair. “She’s doing her job. Who the hell am I to get her kicked off an assignment?”

  Rick’s mouth tightened. “Well, that’s your call.”

  “That’s right, it is.”

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  “Ask my head of security what steps he’s taking to find out who killed my assistant.”

  “I’m working on it.” Rick slid a thigh onto the edge of the desk. “Vanessa worked out of this office barely three months, but I’m hard-pressed to find someone whose toes she hasn’t stepped on. That leaves a lot of people with a motive.”

  “She didn’t care what anyone thought about her,” Sloan agreed. “Including me.”

  Rick frowned. “Let’s hope the police don’t hear about what happened between the two of you last night.”

  Sloan cocked his head. “It was a museum fund-raiser. Over two hundred people were there. What are the odds that no one heard?”

  “Not good,” Rick said matter-of-factly. “At this point, all we can do is keep our fingers crossed.”

  “Julia thinks I killed her,” Sloan said as he ran a finger absently across a gold-plated letter opener. “She didn’t come right out and say it, but it was in her eyes.” He shook his head. “She believes I’m capable of murder.”

  Rick’s voice went quiet. “It wasn’t your shoulder she cried her eyes out on, Sloan. It was mine. I think she felt like you’d killed her.”

  Sloan’s hand fisted around the letter opener. Julia had bound herself to him, given him all that was in her heart. And with purposeful determination he’d walked away. Had to walk away.

  “I did what was best,” he hissed through his teeth.

  Rick stood and dipped his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “You having second thoughts?”

  “Hell no.” The letter opener slipped from Sloan’s hand, thudding hollowly against the desk’s leather blotter. “She’s alive, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah. The problem is, old buddy, so are you.”

  Chapter 3

  Julia stood under the shower’s pelting rays while the heat of the water seeped into her tired bones. Her numbed brain pounded with the headache that had settled behind her eyes after about the twentieth interview she’d conducted. She had asked the same questions of so many people since leaving the murder site that morning that if someone had admitted killing Vanessa West, Julia wasn’t sure she’d have noticed right off.

  The minute she got back to the station, she’d had a session with her boss. It had taken the better part of an hour to explain to Lieutenant Ryan why, in view of her past relationship with the CEO of Remington Aerospace, she’d taken the call. She’d then outlined the reasons she and Halliday should remain on the case, finishing with a firm, “It makes no difference whether the janitor offed her or Sloan Remington, I’ll handle it by the book.”

  “All right, Cruze,” Ryan had finally said, giving her his infamous arctic-blue stare. “The investigation’s yours...for now. Don’t let personal feelings screw it up.”

  “Personal feelings, ” she muttered as she stepped out of the shower and toweled off. If she was going to let a little thing like personal feelings rule her actions, she’d have hunted Sloan down two years ago and shot him square between the eyes.

  She dug her hair dryer out of a drawer and clicked it on. As she raked her fingers through her thick, damp hair, the logical part of her mind sent a firm reminder that Sloan had been right to call off their wedding. As hard as it had been to accept his explanation that he’d suddenly realized his feelings for her didn’t extend beyond blood-stirring lust, it would have been much harder on her heart if he’d gone through with the wedding, then asked for a divorce sometime down the line.

  But she had loved him, and logic hadn’t eased the relentless, wearing grief and pain she’d suffered. Thank God her promotion had come so close on the heels of Sloan’s leaving. Thank God the intense nature of homicide investigations, combined with the unending pressure to clear each case, had been all-consuming.

  And thank God for Bill, Julia silently added, her lips curving as she glanced down at the counter where her diamond ring lay. Over time, Bill Taylor had filled the void Sloan had left, bringing to her tormented heart some modicum of peace. She loved him, was going to marry him, make him a good wife. The fact that Sloan had reentered her life—even for a brief time—didn’t matter. His presence was simply business. Julia’s smile transformed into an ironic arch. She couldn’t count the times she’d heard Sloan say the key to successful business was to deal with whatever came one’s way on a cool, unemotional basis, then move on. He had extended that philosophy to their relationship. There was no reason she couldn’t do the same.

  Fifteen minutes later, Julia fastened the hook on her wraparound halter dress of starched white cotton, then slid her feet into a pair of strappy white sandals. As a concession to the pounding July heat, she’d left her panty hose in her lingerie drawer.

  She checked her reflection in a gilded mirror festooned with garlands of dried flowers that added the crisp scent of lavender to the air. Behind her sat the brass bed with its white mesh-draped canopy. The bed reminded Julia of a hulking, white ghost. It, and the rest of the apartment’s decor, had come compliments of her mother, an interior decorator with a flair for the eccentric. Georgia Cruze had goaded and prodded until Julia gave her free reign to decorate when she’d signed the lease two years ago. Numb from having her life turned upside down, Julia hadn’t cared if the place had curtains, much less wallpaper. Had she paid attention, she would have called a halt to Georgia’s project. But she hadn’t paid attention, and months later when equilibrium returned and Julia noticed her surroundings, she realized she had a tufted, white satin, pillow-heaped bedroom straight out of the Arabian Nights. In her typical whimsical fashion, Georgia had waved away her daughter’s protests, claiming she was
busy with other jobs and would change things later.

  She’d never gotten around to it, and Julia knew why. A tireless romantic, Georgia had created a sensual place of refuge for her daughter to heal in. Heal she had. She and Bill had become lovers in the big, fairy-tale bed.

  The sharp ring of the doorbell jerked Julia out of her thoughts. On the way through the living room she checked her watch, and saw she had only a few minutes before she had to leave to meet Bill.

  “Mother?” Julia pulled the door wide to avoid a collision with Georgia as she swept into the apartment. Along with her mother’s talent for interior design came a flair for the dramatic. “What are you doing here?”

  Georgia raised her hand to pat Julia’s cheek, the gesture accompanied by the clatter of gold bracelets. “It’s nice to see you, too, dear.”

  Julia smiled and placed a kiss on her mother’s fine-boned cheek, which remained soft and unlined thanks to a religious pampering regime. Dressed in a stylish daffodil-yellow suit with red lapels, Georgia looked as flamboyant and memorable as the settings she created.

  “Have you seen this morning’s paper?”

  Julia flicked a look at the button-tufted sofa where she’d dumped her leather portfolio. The unopened newspaper still stuck out of its top. “No. I’ve been...busy.”

  “So have I, dealing all day with the Hendersons’ contractor on their remodeling project. That’s why I didn’t get your father’s message until late. I have to say, I’m beside myself.”

  Julia scrunched her nose. “Over what?”

  Georgia plucked a folded newspaper out of her oversize cherry-red leather tote. “You’d better have some wine before you see this.”

  “I don’t really want any wine—”

  “Well, I do.”

  Sighing, Julia trailed her mother into the kitchen, where Georgia had created a cheerful, ice-cream-parlor look with stark-white appliances, sparkling ceramic tiles and countertops. A green-and-white striped curtain that matched the wallpaper covered the window.

  Georgia swung open the refrigerator, clucking as she regarded its meager contents. “Wine, a block of cheese that needs a shave and a few bottles of soda don’t evidence a well-stocked kitchen, Julia.”

  “Doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to cook,” Julia countered easily, and watched her mother’s fine-plucked brow arch. Georgia created gourmet meals with the same ease that Julia combined cereal and milk.

  “I worry that you’re not eating right.”

  “You shouldn’t worry. Mother, I have to meet Bill for dinner—”

  “Bill. You should be thankful for Bill,” Georgia said as she whisked two stemmed glasses from a cabinet.

  “I am.”

  Georgia pursed her glossed lips and gestured toward the white cane stool that nestled below the counter. “Sit.”

  Julia accepted the glass from her mother’s manicured hand, settled onto the stool and took a sip. “Okay, I’m sitting. I’ve had some wine. The ball’s in your court, Mother.”

  “The art museum held a fund-raiser last night,” Georgia said as she slid the half-folded newspaper onto the counter. “Your father and I had other plans, so we couldn’t attend. Thank God. It would have been so...strained.”

  Julia glanced down at the society page, her gaze scanning the pictures of the city’s elite who’d attended the fund-raiser.

  “I just couldn’t believe it when your father told me,” Georgia added as she reached out, flipped the page over and pointed a bloodred nail. “Just couldn’t believe Sloan Remington came back here after what he did to you...to us.”

  Julia froze, wineglass suspended halfway to her mouth as her eyes settled on the picture. Her breathing shallowed. Fire settled in her cheeks...then a string of firecrackers exploded in her head.

  She rose slowly, her body vibrating with fury. “Sloan Remington, you’re a lying bastard,” she said through her teeth.

  “Well, we already knew that, didn’t we?” Georgia asked as Julia grabbed her purse and headed out the door.

  Sloan dived into the water with the precision of an Olympic athlete, his powerful strokes propelling him swiftly toward the far side of the pool. The heated water surrounded his tense body like a warm glove, easing the stress of the day from his muscles.

  Stress of the day, he thought cynically as his fingers grazed the pool’s tiled side. Without surfacing for air, he pushed off again, ignoring the burning in his lungs. The day had consisted of the murder of his assistant, ongoing sensitive negotiations of a final agreement with the military that could net Remington Aerospace millions... and Julia.

  Julia, who for the past two years had remained lodged inside him, like a splinter beneath his flesh, festering and painful.

  During his absence, thinking about her had been too easy. Now that he’d seen her again, to not think about her was impossible.

  But thinking about Julia Cruze was all he could do, all he ever intended to do. Walking away from her had left a dark, unfillable void in his life, but he felt no remorse about the action he’d taken. He’d done the right thing then, just as he’d made the proper decision when he’d told Elizabeth before he left the office that if either Sergeants Cruze or Halliday phoned or showed up, to refer them to the legal department. Sloan had faith that the scores of lawyers on his company’s payroll could keep the entire police force at bay for years.

  But it wasn’t the whole police department he was determined to banish from his sight...and mind. It was a darkeyed, willowy sergeant with a soft, lean body that had joined so intimately with his own.

  Lungs on fire, he pushed upward toward daylight, gulping air as he burst through the water’s calm surface. He swam to the pool’s edge and heaved himself up into a sitting position, his legs dangling in the warm water.

  With the late-afternoon sun beating against his damp flesh, he stared across the pool at the wide, inviting terrace, the base of its slender columns accented with hydrangeas heavy with pink, blue and violet blossoms. He pictured his mother crouched on her knees, carefully setting each bush in place while their gardener stood by, anxious to do the job himself.

  “We’ll have blooms in two years, then every summer there after,” she’d announced when her teenage son and daughter took a break from half-drowning each other in the pool. Sloan hadn’t paid much attention at the time. It was years later—when he’d suffered the jarring, devastating loss of both his parents within months of each other—that he began to notice the flowers, bushes and plants that his mother had tended with such devotion.

  Sloan dragged in a deep breath, pulling into his lungs the scent of the roses that clambered up the brick fences surrounding the perfectly mowed and raked lawn. He would miss living here, this place where he’d grown up.

  His gaze shifted past the terrace to the stately three-story stone house, filled with aging wood and leather and silver. Everything quietly elegant, and getting slowly better and better with time.

  True, he’d been gone for two years, he acknowledged as he used his forearm to swipe his wet brow. Nevertheless, he always knew the house was here, waiting. That wouldn’t be the case when he left this time.

  After the phenomenal success of the new-wing-design tests and the military’s enthusiastic response, he’d decided to build a state-of-the-art production facility near D.C. and move there. Selling the house would be a natural result of that decision. His sister didn’t want the house—she was married to a film producer, had two children and a life firmly ensconced on the West Coast. The family home was just another part of the past that needed letting go.

  “Lord almighty!” His housekeeper’s voice, raised to eardrum-rattling volume, split the air, snapping Sloan from his quiet thoughts. “Miss Cruze, if you’ll just wait in the study, I’ll announce you—”

  “Not necessary, Hattie, I’ll announce myself.”

  Eyes narrowed against the glaring sun, Sloan tracked Julia’s determined march across the terrace, the hem of her white dress swirling around her ca
lves like storm clouds. As she rounded the corner of the pool, he recognized the signs of boiling fury—the flashing of her dark eyes, the flush of her cheeks, her shoulders as stiff as wire.

  “Have pity on an old lady, Miss Cruze, I can’t keep up in this heat.” When the housekeeper’s gnarled hand settled on Julia’s arm, Sloan saw the instant softening at the corners of her mouth. Her steps faltered and she turned.

  “Hattie, I’m sorry. I...didn’t mean to fluster you.”

  The woman patted at the gray tendrils that sprang from the tight bun at her nape. “Well, the way you came through the front door without knocking had me jumping out of my skin.”

  “I...” Biting her lip, Julia shoved her dark, tumbled hair behind her shoulders. “I forgot to knock. Didn’t think...”

  The sharp blade of regret pierced through Sloan when he saw the flush deepen in her cheeks. Not since the day they met had Julia ever had to knock on the front door of his home.

  Her hands clenched, then unclenched. Standing there in a white halter dress that caressed her tan shoulders and cinched her waist to impossible thinness, she looked embarrassed... and gorgeous.

  The sight of her made him want to forget all about blockading lawyers. Sloan pulled one leg out of the water and propped a forearm negligently across his knee. “Hattie, the heat’s getting to all of us. Why don’t you bring Julia and me something to drink?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  His voice had Julia whipping around to face him. “You and I need to talk.”

  “Fine. We can talk while we drink—”

  “I don’t want a drink. I want to talk. Whether it happens here or downtown is up to you.”

  He shifted his gaze back to Hattie, whose eyes had gone saucer wide. “Bring a pitcher and two glasses. And my dinner, when it’s ready. I’ll eat on the terrace.”

  “Yes, sir.” Hattie shot Julia a wary look before bustling off.

  Making no move to stand, Sloan sat staring up, remembering how he used to enjoy watching Julia’s temper take hold, then crack like lightning. Another memory that belonged to the past.