“Hey, Alyssa!”
The dead last person she wanted to see was heading toward her across the lobby. Well, okay, maybe the second to the dead last person.
“Are you okay?” Jules asked. “Where were you last night?”
Resolutely she turned to face her partner.
“Whoa,” he said, taking in the bags she knew were under her eyes, the death-warmed-over color of her skin. “You look like hell.”
He, on the other hand, looked adorable with his perfect hair and his perfect face and his trim little body clad in impeccable army wear—a very clean T-shirt and neatly creased camouflage pants. He looked like GI Joe’s gay little brother.
“At least I’m consistent,” she told him. “Because I feel like hell.”
His concern was immediate and genuine. “Oh, no, did you eat or drink something you shouldn’t have? One of the SAS guys ate some kind of stew and—”
“I had too much to drink last night.”
Jules closed his mouth. And looked at her closely. And just like that, he knew where she’d gone, who she’d been with. “Oh, shit,” he said.
To her horror, tears welled in her eyes.
Jules hugged her. “Okay, sweetie. No recriminations. No blame. You did it. Let’s deal with it. Let’s get you to your room. The last thing you need is for him—or anyone—to see you crying in the lobby.”
Stan was too quiet.
Teri lifted her head to look up at him, and even though he smiled at her, she knew.
He was having regrets.
Her heart sank and all of her newfound self-confidence shrank to a little shriveled ball of lead in her stomach. Maybe he’d never really wanted her in the first place. After all, she’d made it impossible for him to turn her down, coming in here the way she had and taking off her clothes like that. Oh, God.
She sat up, her back to him, wanting nothing more than to find her clothes and leave.
“You all right?” He touched her on the arm as he sat up, too, his hand as warm as his voice.
“I don’t know,” Teri admitted.
He sighed. “We need to talk about this.”
The last of her hope died.
God, she was so stupid. She had been actually lying there mere seconds ago, completely content, thinking what they’d just shared was more than a morning of casual sex. She’d done it again. She’d jumped to the conclusion that this was the start of something big, of a relationship that would build and grow and last, maybe even forever.
But it wasn’t.
It was just what she’d claimed it would be when she first stormed into the room.
A pity fuck. She’d felt bad, so he made her feel better. The end.
And now that it was over, Stan was sitting there, trying to figure out the best way to repair their friendship. He was in mop-up mode. Mr. Fix-It to the rescue.
“Where are you in your cycle?” he asked, and his words didn’t make any sense.
She looked at him. “What?”
“Do you know when you’re due to get your period?”
Oh, damn, he actually thought he might’ve gotten her pregnant. Well, if he had, that was going to be a hard one to fix, wasn’t it?
“I don’t know exactly,” she told him. “Maybe a couple of weeks?”
He nodded. Exhaled a laugh that had nothing to do with humor. “That couldn’t be more perfectly worse, could it? Christ. Okay.” He took a deep breath. Mr. Calm-and-in-Control. “All right. We’re just going to have to wait it out. And if you are pregnant—”
“Don’t worry, I won’t make you marry me.” Teri said it more sharply than she’d intended as she crossed the room. Her underwear was right in the middle of the floor, right where she’d dropped it.
Stan didn’t move. “That’s just one option,” he said evenly as she pulled up her panties, wrestled herself into her bra. “But, you know, if you don’t want to consider—”
“I don’t. Why are we even talking about this?” She pulled on her shirt.
“I thought it might be reassuring for you to know—”
“That you’d ruin your life over an hour of sex? Great sex, but still . . .”
“That I take responsibility for my mistakes,” he countered quietly.
Teri was glad her back was to him as she pulled on her pants, glad he couldn’t see the effect that word had on her.
Mistake.
“What happened here was my fault,” she said just as quietly. She turned to face him and even managed to smile. “You kept saying it was a bad idea. I guess you were right.”
“Teri, don’t run away,” he said, but it was too late.
She’d grabbed her jacket and was already out the door.
Jules Cassidy was walking toward Sam Starrett like a man on a mission.
Okay. Perfect. Here we fucking go. The shittiest day in the world—round two.
Sam didn’t stop eating. He just sat there, at his special table. In his special seat. Shoveling pasta that tasted like crap into his mouth. Giving the world a great big go away message with his glower and his body language.
But Jules didn’t go anywhere. He stood there, obviously waiting for Sam to look up at him. Well, fuck it. Sam wasn’t going to.
So Jules sat down. Sam had to give him credit—the little fruit had balls.
“This has got to stop,” Jules said quietly. “Wasn’t Washington enough for you?”
Well now, wasn’t that the ultimate in irony? Alyssa Locke had warned Sam not to tell anyone about the night they’d spent together in Washington, DC. She’d nearly threatened him with bodily harm over it. And he hadn’t told a soul.
But apparently she’d turned around and spilled the whole sorry-assed tale to her swishy little partner.
“Starrett, you can’t play Neanderthal with me. I know that you care about her,” Jules continued.
Sam finally looked up. Two weeks after he’d seen Alyssa last, after Washington, DC, he’d called Jules. Just to make sure she was really all right. He’d made up some stupid reason why he was calling, but he knew that Jules had seen right through it. He hadn’t asked him any questions then, not even when Sam had asked him not to tell Alyssa.
“I never told her you called,” Jules said softly.
Sam couldn’t hold his gaze. But he managed a nod, a gruff “Thanks.”
“You can’t take advantage of her whenever you feel the urge,” Jules told him gently. “She doesn’t need this. She needs someone who’s going to be there for her, someone willing to commit.” He paused. “Someone who loves her.”
Sam laughed at that—a burst of disparaging air. “Who? You?”
Jules just smiled. “Well, I do love her, but Adam might get a little upset if I tried to bring her home.”
Jules had a live-in lover named Adam. Now, that was more information than Sam had wanted to know. Ever.
Jules sighed. “I know you probably think I’m the last person to judge anyone in terms of what turns them on, but this sadomasochistic thing you’ve got going with Alyssa is killing her. Now, maybe that’s part of the game to you, but—”
Sam put down his fork. “You think I like it? Hooking up with her once every six months? Only to have her hate me again in the morning? Fuck you—she’s the fucking masochist!”
Jules was startled. “But she said . . .”
Sam lowered his voice. “She gets drunk so she’s got an excuse to get down with me. Then she comes to my door and it’s my fault when I don’t turn her away? Fuck you twice.”
Jules narrowed his eyes. “You know, the bad language might be part of the problem. I can see how that might be off-putting for someone like—”
“Yeah, how well do you know her anyway?” Sam said. “It makes her laugh, if you want to know the truth. Jesus, when she’s drunk, she relaxes enough to let herself like me. It’s the rest of the time that . . .” He shook his head. “Fuck.”
“What?” Jules persisted.
“Just leave me the fuck alone.”
&
nbsp; “It’s the rest of the time that what?” Jules asked.
Sam tried to eat. Now it tasted like cold crap.
“She likes you when she’s drunk, but it’s the rest of the time that what?” Jules would not let go of it. “The rest of the time, as in when she’s sober?”
Sam set down the fork very carefully, instead of throwing it across the room. Or at Jules, who simply would not let this rest. “Look, she sobers up, and it’s like she . . . she . . . fuck! She instantly forgets who I am. Sobered up, she can’t see past her own fucking expectations, all right? She thinks I’m some rednecked asshole, so, yeah, okay, I play the part. Jesus.” He glared at Jules. “She thinks she knows me, but she doesn’t have a clue. She’s prejudged, prelabeled, and prerejected me. How the fuck do you fight that?”
Jules laughed. “Well, gee, I couldn’t possibly know what that’s like.”
Sam realized what he’d just said and who he’d just said it to.
As a gay man, Jules had spent most of his life prejudged, prelabeled, and prerejected by most of society.
Including Sam.
“Ah, fuck.” He couldn’t hold the other man’s gaze.
“Fuck is kind of like your aloha, right?” Jules said. “It means hello and good-bye and thank you and—in this case—I’m sorry?”
Sam had to laugh at that. “I am sorry,” he managed to say. “You’re . . . okay.”
“Whew,” Jules said. “I was worried about myself for a minute there.”
“Just don’t get too close.”
Jules grinned. “Sweetie, you’re hot, but my heart belongs to Adam.” His smile faded. “And something tells me your heart belongs to Alyssa.”
Sam looked at him. “Does she . . .” God, he couldn’t believe he was actually asking this. “Ever say anything about me?”
Jules looked uncomfortable.
“Forget it,” Sam said. “Don’t answer that. That’s not fair. Whatever she said, she probably said it in confidence.”
“She thinks you’re great in bed.”
Sam laughed. “She told you that?”
“Well, sure. We compare notes. Kidding! No, the past few days, she’s been doing this kind of hold me back, you know, keep me away from him thing.” Jules sighed and shifted in his seat, as if deciding how much to tell him. “Between you and me, Alyssa doesn’t get out much. I’m pretty much a hundred percent certain that she hasn’t been with anyone between you and you. No, I’m a hundred and ten percent certain. She would’ve told me if she had.”
“She talks to you about private stuff, huh?” Sam asked. He shook his head and had to laugh. “You and me, together we’re the perfect man for Alyssa Locke. She tells you her secrets, and you love her unconditionally—and you’ve got no problem telling her that. And me . . .”
Jules nodded. He knew what Sam gave her. There was no need to say it aloud.
Sam made her come.
“I think she’s the one who’s been using me,” he told Jules.
Jules nodded again. “Maybe you should tell her it’s not enough.”
Sam nodded, too. He closed his eyes, remembering the way she’d walked in on him crying. Jesus. It was possible that she already knew.
“Mrs. Shuler, remember me? I’m Senior Chief Stan Wolchonok. Marte Gunvald’s son.”
Helga peered out from behind the chain lock on her hotel room door at the large man standing there. Marte’s son. “Of course,” she said with a smile to hide her lie. Had they met? Yes, obviously they had.
“Desmond Nyland called me, ma’am. He thought you might appreciate some company for lunch.”
“Oh, is it that time already?”
“Yes, ma’am. If you’re not ready, I don’t mind waiting out here.”
Don’t leave without your room key, notepad, and purse. The note was right there, right in front of Helga’s nose. “Let me just get my purse,” she told him. Stanley. Stanley, Stanley, Stanley.
She closed the door and went to the dresser, quickly leafing to a fresh page in her notebook. “Stanley,” she wrote, and stuffed her pad into her purse, along with the room key. On second thought, she took the pen and wrote the name on the palm of her left hand. “Stanley.”
She checked her hair and her lipstick in the mirror and went out the door.
“Got your key?” Stanley asked, holding the door open a crack.
Helga opened her purse. There it was. Good. She held it up for him to see and he closed the door tightly.
“Don’t you have better things to do with your afternoon?” she asked.
“Actually, ma’am, I do have to eat and . . .” He smiled tightly. “Let’s just say I welcome the distraction.”
Hmmm. “Do I know you well enough to comment that that sounds as if you’ve got woman trouble?”
He laughed. “I don’t think anyone knows me well enough to say that to me.”
“Not even your mother?”
“With the sole exception of my mother. You’re right. But she’s been gone a long time.”
“She helped save my life,” Helga told him. “Did I already tell you that? She and Annebet and your grandparents, too. When the Nazis began rounding up the Danish Jews, they took us in. Hid us. For weeks. It was doubly dangerous because Hershel—my brother—and Annebet were working for the resistance.” She pushed the down button for the elevator. “Did your mother ever tell you about that time?”
“Not a lot. And I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “We can’t take the elevator. If the power goes out . . .”
“Of course,” she said. “What was I thinking?” She followed him to the stairs.
He held the door for her. “Did you say your brother’s name was Hershel?”
“Yes.” She held tightly to the bannister as she started down the stairs.
“Hershel Rosen?”
“Yes.”
“My aunt Anna told me about him,” Stanley said.
“Really?” Helga stopped on the landing between flights of stairs, and Stanley courteously let her pretend that it wasn’t because she was out of breath. “Did she tell you they had been married?”
“Well, considering she called herself Anna Rosen, I guess I’d always just known—”
“Anna? Not Annebet?”
“My mother sometimes called her by her full name, you know, when they were arguing, but her prescription pad said Dr. Anna Rosen.”
Helga wasn’t sure whether she wanted to laugh or cry. Anna had been Hershel’s sweet name for her. She started down the stairs again. “No wonder I could never find her. I searched for a Dr. Annebet Gunvald.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I should have known,” Helga said. “Anna Rosen. What did she tell you? About Hershel.”
“That she’d married him when they were both pretty young,” Stanley told her. “That they didn’t have your parents’approval. That he was Jewish. When I was a kid I used to go with her to synagogue. She claimed she was an atheist, but . . . She liked to go. She told me she and Hershel worked for the resistance, that it was pretty unorganized, even after the Germans came looking for the Jews, but that everyone in town stepped forward to hide their neighbors.”
“Seventy-eight hundred Jews in Denmark,” Helga told him, “and all but four hundred seventy-four escaped to Sweden, thanks to people like your mother and her family.” She smiled. “Do you know when your father—no, your grandfather—came to warn us that the order had come to remove the Jews from Denmark, my father and mother didn’t believe him. They argued for so long that your grandfather was still there when the Germans came pounding on the door. We hid in the basement, and Herr Gunvald went out the back. He came around the front of the house and told the Germans that we weren’t home, that we were vacationing up north. He told them to go away, that he’d been asked to keep the property safe, and he was determined to do so. He threatened to call the police. And do you know, they actually left?”
“I can’t imagine what that must’ve been like to live through,” he told her
as he ushered her into the dank restaurant in the basement. She snuck a look at her left palm. Stanley.
“We stayed with Marte’s family for weeks while Annebet and Hershel used their contacts to try to arrange passage to Sweden,” she told him, thanking him as he held out a chair for her at a nearby table.
He glanced around the room as if he were looking for someone before he sat down, too. He was trying not to let it show, but she could read frustration in his body language.
“She’s not here, is she?” Helga said.
He looked startled for a moment, but then he laughed. “No, she’s not.”
“You want to talk about it?”
His smile was beautiful. “The situation is a little, um . . . Well, let’s just say it’s not something I’d share even with my mother.”
“Ah,” Helga said. “You slept with her. That pretty pilot, right? What happened? Didn’t you tell her you’re in love with her? Of course not. Men always leave out the most important details.”
Stanley didn’t blink. “Might I recommend the curried vegetables over noodles? There’s a buffet line, I can get us both plates. It’s quicker than ordering.”
“Don’t worry,” Helga said. “I won’t tell.”
She probably wouldn’t even remember by the time he came back with their lunch.
By 1220, Alyssa was feeling solid enough to give lunch a try.
But the sight of Sam Starrett and Jules Cassidy sitting together in the hotel restaurant, deep in discussion, made her blood run cold.
What was Starrett up to? God, he was probably setting Jules up for something. This had to be some kind of cruel con, some kind of payback or revenge trick—all because she’d seen him cry.
Didn’t it?
Except she was watching Starrett’s eyes as she walked toward him. She saw when he first noticed her. He looked up and a myriad of emotions crossed his face. Apprehension and embarrassment, anger and even fear—she saw it all before he quickly looked away.
He actually thought she was going to walk up to him and rub in his face the fact that she’d seen him crying.
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