Worth Any Price

by Jacqueline DeGroot

  “I’m here to finally enjoy my fantasy woman. I’ve seen you, now I want to touch you.”

  Laura sat perfectly still against the headboard despite the frantic pounding of her heart. Try to stay calm, she told herself. Try to keep him away from Kayla.

  “How did you get in?”

  “I have a key. Even when you changed the locks, I got a key.”

  “How? I know you’re clever, but how did you manage that?” She was going to keep him talking in hopes that the officers patrolling would come to check up on them.

  “Oh, that was easy. I know the company your father’s rental agency uses. I simply called and canceled the service call and instead, I came and installed the new locks myself.” He waved a shiny gold key. “I kept one for me.”

  “How did you know I was changing them?”

  He raised his brows and gave her a quelling look. “Come on Laura, don’t be naive, after what happened, of course you’d change the locks.”

  “You set the alarm that night and came into the house when I had Meggie and Paige over, didn’t you?”

  “I wanted you that first night, but I lost my last pill. I had it in my pocket, but I lost it. I knew I had to come back. I can’t perform, take care of your needs, if you get my drift, without my pill. I watched you sleep for a while though. You are so beautiful. I set the alarm before I left so nobody else could have you until I returned for you. The other night when I found all three of you drunk and asleep by the pool, I thought I had hit the lottery, all my favorite girls in one place. But the damned phone kept ringing and then I heard cars pulling up out front. I watched the men find you and take you all inside from the beach. I didn’t take the time to lock up, I’m sorry.” He flashed her an evil smile.

  “I promise I’ll lock up after I leave tonight though. Now why don’t you just come with me to another room so we don’t wake up the precious little one?”

  She watched as he took a filet knife out of a sheath in his waistband. “We wouldn’t want to wake her. She probably already has enough trauma to deal with. By all rights, Laura, I should take her again. You disobeyed me. You went to

  the cops.”

  Laura’s anger flashed through her and exited out of her eyes with heated fury. But she wasn’t going to lose this opportunity to get him away from Kayla, so she slowly slid over to the edge of the bed.

  “Actually, I didn’t, he came to me.”

  “What an assignment he was handed,” he said, his voice laced with sarcasm. ‘I know he enjoyed himself, I saw the proof. You must have enjoyed yourself too, since you’ve invited him back. But once you’ve had me, no one else will do. Come on Laura, let’s go. I can’t wait for you to show me those beautiful titties I used to admire while you were showering.” The man stepped forward and pulled the cover off the bed.

  Kel pulled his cruiser into the circular drive and stepped out. The night was still except for the rustling of the sea grass and a few orphaned tree frogs. The officer who had been here had just radioed him that all was clear and that he was going to walk the main road one more time before leaving. Kel had waved to him just moments ago when they had passed on the long lane. It was a beautiful night and he sincerely hoped that one day, he and Laura could just sit out on the deck and enjoy it. But right now he was definitely ready for bed, or in this case, the sofa.

  He had not gotten a key from Laura, but knew she would be awake, there was no way she would have gone to sleep without knowing how Meggie was and if they’d found Toby. He was about to ring the doorbell when he saw that the door wasn’t pulled all the way to.

  Without the connection why wasn’t the alarm ringing and waking the dead? Oh don’t tell me she didn’t set it again! And instantly he knew that would not have happened. Not tonight. Not after their argument. He pulled out his gun and quietly pushed the door open, then he pushed it to but didn’t let it latch. He looked around and saw that it was dark on the first level. He climbed the stairs slowly straining to hear any noises in the house. When he got to the top of the staircase, he saw light coming from under Laura’s door. Kayla’s door was closed and no light shone underneath. He doubted that Kayla would be anywhere but in her mom’s bed tonight. They would both be in Laura’s room. And if Laura had left the alarm disengaged, and the front door unlocked, he was going to be absolutely livid!

  Just as he made it to the door, and was about to push it forward, he heard a gun go off. His reflex pushed the door open and he saw Laura with a gun in her hand and a man with a knife swaying in front of her. Kel fired. He double-tapped the man in the head. As the man fell to the floor, Kel looked to Laura for any sign that she was hurt.

  Kayla screamed and Laura, her face as white as a fine porcelain plate, stared at the body on the floor. Then she whispered, “I promised myself that if I ever had the chance that I’d never let him do this to anyone else.”

  He walked over to her side of the bed, skirting the body so he could take the gun from her. She had shot him in the balls. “You did real good, honey. Real good. Now I only have to figure out how to explain how you had a gun that’s registered to me,” he quipped.

  “I’ll tell them you left it here and that I stole it from you, I already have a record for shoplifting.”

  He grinned and put the gun in his waistband before bending down to reach for Kayla who had her eyes tightly closed.

  “We need to see to her, let’s get her out of here. And I need to call this in.” He hefted Kayla into his arms, cooed something into her ear, and waited for Laura to climb over the bed so he could hand Kayla to her. Then he walked back to the body. He had to see the face of the man who had affected so many lives.

  The man had probably been good looking once. Now he would have been called nondescript, easily overlooked in any crowd, and maybe that had been a part of his problem. He didn’t look like a man who leered at women. But then, what did that kind of man look like, he mused.

  The man lying at his feet had certainly changed his own life. This man was the reason Laura had needed him.

  He looked down at the man’s crotch where a pool of blood was soaking his pants and the carpet all around the bed. The woman’s a good shot, he thought. A damn good shot!

  Chapter Forty-six

  He hadn’t been able to find her anywhere. He wasn’t sure if it was the media or him that had made her run. But run she had. He’d waited a few days, thinking surely when everything settled down, that she’d call him. But she hadn’t.

  He was stretched out on his sofa, staring out the window at the summer day, watching the birds fly back and forth in his back yard. He fell asleep with the image of her in his mind. The image of her as she’d looked just before she had reached down and led him to her body. He even remembered groaning as he fell asleep.

  When he woke, he sat up, rubbed his face and said out loud. “Okay, it’s time. Time to go find her.”

  Torcello, In The Lagoon of Venice

  He’d finally found her. It had taken almost a week. She was staying in a tiny villa just outside the town square.

  She saw him get off the small boat from the open window and watched as he came toward her little house. The sun was setting behind him and he had an eerie, ethereal glow. He was so tall and formidable that he looked like some kind of medieval conqueror. She was standing in the wide doorway when he walked up to her. He fingered the tiny palm tree in his pocket, marveling at how sturdy that little piece of plastic was. He had worn it smooth while flying over the Atlantic.

  He put his suitcase on the ground and stood gazing at her for a moment before he whispered, “Laura, mi amore.” His hands cupped her cheeks. He looked down into her face, watching the tears well in her eyes. “Will you be my love?” he asked.

  “For as long as you’ll have me,” she managed to sob before his head bent and his lips brus
hed lightly over hers.

  “Forever. I’ll take you forever.”

  He kissed her with the turbulent passion he had carried across a seemingly never-ending ocean.

  When he broke the kiss, his fingertips stroked her cheeks as his lips lingered at the corners of her mouth. Then he shoved his suitcase into the house and bent to gather her into his arms. “Where’s our bed?” he asked as he kicked the door shut behind him. She didn’t need to tell him where her bedroom was, he instinctively moved toward the light at the end of the hallway. Entering the rustic country bedroom, he placed her gently on the bed. “Kayla sleeping on her own again?” he asked. She simply nodded.

  Situating himself bedside her, he stretched out his long body and ran his palm down her torso. His hand rested on her flat belly and he gently rubbed little circles over the silk of her dress. “By the way, how’s my baby?”

  “You know?”

  “When I couldn’t find you, I went to see your ex, figuring he’d have to know where you took Kayla. He didn’t, but he did manage to tell me you had prepared him for your next breaking scandal, that you were pregnant by the man who had helped you get Kayla back. Unless there’s another, I figured that had to be me.”

  “I told my doctor that I didn’t know how I could have gotten pregnant since you pulled out before ejaculating, and he said the pre-come lubricant on a male’s penis has a very heavy concentration of sperm.”

  Her hand reached up and her fingertips grazed the stubble she found there. “You’re okay with this?” she asked timidly.

  “I am more than okay with it. I am ecstatic, delirious with joy in fact. How about you?”

  “I’m thrilled. And you don’t know how happy it makes me to know that you’re okay with it. I didn’t think you would be since you didn’t even want a wife.” Hastily changing the subject, she asked, “How did you find me?”

  “Interpol. They ran your passport, found it had been stamped in Florence, and then pulled your immigration record and found you had listed this little hamlet on the island of Torcello as your place of residence in Italy. Piece of cake.”

  “And here I thought I was running away and hiding from everyone.”

  “You never need to hide from me. Ever,” he whispered as his head lowered and his lips caressed the side of her neck. “Marry me, Laura. Let me take care of you and Kayla and this little one,” he said as his hand moved in an ever-widening circle on her abdomen. He remembered the first time he had rubbed her here, when he had taken his ejaculate from the hollow of her backside and rubbed it into her belly. Pregnancy by osmosis, he thought with chagrin.

  “I love you and I need to be with you. And more than anything, I need to be inside you again,” he murmured huskily as he took her hand and showed her just how badly he was aching for her. “I’m praying that you desire me just as badly.”

  “You wouldn’t believe how my body has yearned for yours. Ever since that night at the Jefferson, I keep reaching for you in my dreams.”

  “Believe me, I know exactly how that feels. My nights have been filled with only thoughts of you—a naked you.”

  “I knew that until I slept with you in my arms, nothing would ever be right again,” she whispered.

  “Well, we’re a long way from sleeping, yet I can hardly wait.” He breathed in her sweet floral fragrance and something else, an underlayment of spice and wood.

  “Has there been a man in here?”

  “Not since I moved in, why?”

  “I smell my aftershave.”

  Laura laughed delightedly. “It’s the smell of my man, Mi Amore.”

  His mouth took hers and he crushed her velvety lips beneath his firm ones. Life was good. Evil had come full circle to make something wonderful happen. Lust and love interchanged and fought for dominance as he made love to her that night. It was wonderful to have both, as they tended to work really well together.