She balled the black cloth in her hand again. "Off the record, yes.''
"I imagine Cilia's already said it, but be careful, okay?"
"I will."
"She wants to talk to you again." There was some muttering, a chuckle. "Something about a man answering your phone." Boyd laughed again, and Deborah could almost see them wrestling over the receiver.
"I just want to know—" Cilia was breathless. "Boyd, cut it out.
Go feed the dog or something. I just want to know," she repeated into the receiver, "who owns the terrific, sexy voice."
"A man."
"I figured that out. Does he have a name?"
"Yes."
"Well, do you want me to guess? Phil, Tony, Maximillion?"
"Gage," Deborah muttered, giving up.
"The millionaire? Nice going."
"Cilia—"
"I know, I know. You're a grown woman. A sensible woman with a life of her own. I won't say another word. But is he—"
"Before you take this any further, I should warn you I haven't had coffee yet."
"Okay. But I want you to call me, and soon. I need details."
"I'll let you know when I have them. I'll be in touch."
"You'd better."
She hung up and sat a moment. It seemed she was back to square one, all around. But first things first, she reminded herself, and followed the scent of coffee into the kitchen.
Gage was at the stove, in jeans and bare feet, his shirt unbuttoned. She wasn't surprised to see him there, but she was surprised at what he was doing.
"You're cooking?" she said from the doorway.
He turned. The impact of seeing her there in the strong sunlight, her eyes sleepy and cautious, nearly bowled him over. "Hi. Sorry about the phone, I thought I could get it before it woke you up."
"It's all right. I was… awake." Feeling awkward, she took a mug from a hook over the sink and poured coffee. "It was my sister."
"Right." He put his hands on her shoulders, running his hands gently down to her elbows and back. When she stiffened, he felt the pain knife into him. "Would you rather I wasn't here?"
"I don't know." She drank without turning around. "I guess we have to talk." But she couldn't bring herself to face it yet. "What are you making?"
"French toast. You didn't have much in the fridge, so I went down the corner and picked some things up."
So normal, she thought as her stomach clenched. So easy. "How long have you been up?"
"Two or three hours." When he walked back to the stove, she turned around. "You didn't get much sleep."
His eyes met hers. She was holding back, he thought, on both the hurt and the anger. But they were there. "I don't need much—not anymore." He added two eggs to the milk he already had in a bowl. "I spent the better part of a year doing nothing but sleeping. After I came back, I didn't seem to need more than four hours a night."
"I guess that's how you manage to run your businesses, and… the other."
"Yeah." He continued to mix ingredients, then dunked bread into the bowl. "You could say my metabolism changed—among other things." Coated bread sizzled when he placed it in the skillet. "Do you want me to apologize for what happened last night?"
She didn't speak for a moment, then opened a cupboard. "I'll get some plates." He bit off an oath. "Fine. This only takes a few minutes."
He waited until they were seated by the window. Deborah said nothing while she toyed with her breakfast. Her silence and the miserable look in her eyes were more disturbing to him than a hundred shouted accusations.
"It's your call," he said quietly.
Her eyes lifted to his. "I know."
"I won't apologize for being in love with you. Or for making love with you. Being with you last night was the most important thing that's ever happened to me."
He waited, watching her. "You don't believe that, do you?"
"I'm not sure what I believe. What I can believe." She cupped her hands around her mug, her fingers tense. "You've lied to me, Gage, from the very beginning."
"Yes, I have." He banked down on the need to reach out for her, just to touch her. "Apologies for that really don't matter much. It was deliberate, and if it had been possible, I would have continued to lie to you."
She pushed away from the table to wrap her arms around herself. "Do you know how that makes me feel?''
"I think I do."
Hurting, she shook her head. "You couldn't possibly know. You made me doubt myself on the most basic of levels. I was falling in love with you—with both of you, and I was ashamed. Oh, I can see now that I was a fool not to have realized it sooner. My feelings were exactly the same for what I thought were two different men. I would look at you, and think of him. Look at him, and think of you." She pressed her fingers to her lips. The words were pouring out too quickly.
"That night, in Santiago's room, after I came to and you were holding me. I looked up into your eyes and remembered the first time I had seen you in the ballroom at the Stuart Palace. I thought I was going crazy."
"It wasn't done to hurt you, only to protect you."
"From what?" she demanded. "From myself, from you? Every time you touched me, I…" Her breath hitched as she fought for composure. That was her problem, after all. Her emotions. "I don't know if I can forgive you, Gage, or trust you. Even loving you, I don't know."
He sat where he was, knowing she would resist if he tried to approach her. "I can't make up for what was done. I didn't want you, Deborah. I didn't want anyone who could make me vulnerable enough to make a mistake." He thought of his gift. His curse. "I don't even have the right to ask you to take me as I am."
"With this?" She pulled the mask from the pocket of her robe. "No, you don't have the right to ask me to accept this. But that's just what you're doing. You're asking me to love you. And you're asking me to close my eyes to what you're doing. I dedicated my life to the law. Am I supposed to say nothing while you ignore it?''
His eyes darkened. "I nearly lost my life to the law. My partner died for it. I've never ignored it."
"Gage, this can't be personal."
"The hell it can't. It's all personal. Whatever you read in your law books, whatever precedents or procedures you find, it all comes down to people. You know that. You feel that. I've seen you work."
"Within the law," she insisted. "Gage, you must see what you're doing is wrong, not even to mention dangerous. You have to stop." His eyes were very dark, very clear. "Not even for you."
"And if I go to Mitchell, to the police commissioner, to Fields?"
"Then I'll do whatever I have to do. But I won't stop."
"Why?" She crossed to him, the mask fisted in her hand. "Damn it, why?"
"Because I don't have a choice." He rose, his hands gripping her shoulders hard before he let go and turned away. "There's nothing I can do to change it. Nothing I would do."
"I know about Montega." When he turned back, she saw the pain. "I'm sorry, Gage, so sorry for what happened to you. For what happened to your partner. We'll bring Montega in, I swear it. But revenge isn't the answer for you. It can't be."
"What happened to me four years ago changed my life. That's not trite. That's reality." He laid his hand against the wall, stared at it, then pulled it back to stick it into his pocket. "You read the reports of what happened the night Jack was killed?"
"Yes, I read them."
"All the facts," he murmured. "But not all the truth. Was it in the report that I loved him? That he had a pretty wife and a little boy who liked to ride a red tricycle?''
"Oh, Gage." She couldn't prevent her eyes from filling, or her arms from reaching out. But he shook his head and moved away.
"Was it in the report that we had given nearly two years of our lives to break that case? Two years of dealing with the kind of slime who have big yachts, big houses, fat portfolios all from the money they earn selling drugs to smaller dealers, who pay the rent by putting it out on the streets, and the playgrounds and
the projects. Two years working our way in, our way up. Because we were cops and we believed we could make a difference."
He put his hands on the back of the chair, fingers curling, uncurling. She could only stand and watch in silence as he remembered. "Jack was going to take a vacation when it was over. Not to go anywhere, just to sit around the house, mow the grass, fix a leaky sink, spend time with Jenny and his kid. That's what he said. I was thinking about going to Aruba for a couple of weeks, but Jack, he didn't have big dreams. Just ordinary ones."
He looked up, out the window, but he didn't see the sunlight or the traffic crowding the streets. Effortlessly he slid into the past. "We got out of the car. We had a case full of marked bills, plenty of backup and a solid cover. What could go wrong? We were both ready, really ready. We were going to meet the man in charge. It was hot. You could smell the water, hear it lapping against the docks. I was sweating, not just because of the heat, but because it didn't feel right. But I didn't listen to my instincts. And then Montega…"
Gage could see him, standing in the shadows of the docks, gold glinting in his grin.
Stinking cops.
"He killed Jack before I could even reach for my weapon. And I froze. Just for an instant, just for a heartbeat, but I froze. And he had me."
She thought of the scars on his chest and could hardly breathe. To have watched his partner murdered. To have had that moment, that instant of time to see his own death coming. The sharp, shuddering pain that ripped through her was all for him.
"Don't. What good does it do to go back and remember? You couldn't have saved Jack. No matter how quick you had been, no matter what you had done, you couldn't have saved him."
He looked back at her. "Not then. I died that night."
The way he said it, so flat, so passionlessly, had her blood going cold. "You're alive."
"Death's almost a technical term these days. Technically, I died. And part of me slipped right out of my body." Her face grew only paler as he spoke, but she had to know. He had to tell her. "I watched them working on me, there on the docks. And again in the operating room. I almost—almost floated free. And then… I was trapped."
"I don't understand."
"Back in my body, but not back." He lifted his hands, spread them. He'd never tried to explain it to anyone before, and wasn't certain he could. "Sometimes I could hear—voices, the classical music the nurse left playing by the bed, crying. Or I'd smell flowers. I couldn't speak, I couldn't see. But more than that I couldn't feel anything." He let his hands drop again. "I didn't want to. Then I came back—and I felt too much."
It was impossible to imagine, but she felt the pain and the despair in her own heart. "I won't say I understand what you went through. No one could. But it hurts me to think of it, of what you're still going through."
He looked at her, watched a tear slide down her cheek. "When I saw you that night, in the alley, my life changed again. I was just as helpless to stop it as I had been the first time." His gaze shifted down to the mask she held tight. "Now, my life's in your hands."
"I wish I knew what was right."
He came to her again, lifting his hands to her face. "Give me some time. A few more days."
"You don't know what you're asking me."
"I do," he said, holding her still when she would have turned away. "But I don't have a choice. Deborah, if I don't finish what I've started I might as well have died four years ago."
Her mouth opened to argue, to protest, but she saw the truth of his words in his eyes. "Isn't there another way?"
"Not for me. A few more days," he repeated. "After that, if you feel you have to take what you know to your superiors, I'll accept it. And take the consequences."
She shut her eyes. She knew what he could not. That she would have given him anything. "Mitchell gave me two weeks," she said dully. "I can't promise you any longer."
He knew what it cost her and prayed he would find the time and the place to balance the scales. "I love you."
She opened her eyes, looked into his. "I know," she murmured, then laid her head against his chest. The mask dangled from her fingers. "I know you do."
She felt his arms around her, the solid reality of them. She lifted her head again to meet his lips with hers, to let the kiss linger, warm and promising, even while her conscience waged a silent battle.
What was going to happen to them? Afraid, she tightened her grip and held on. "Why can't it be simple?" she whispered. "Why can't it be ordinary?"
He couldn't count the times he had asked himself the same questions. "I'm sorry."
"No." Shaking her head, she drew away. "I'm sorry. It doesn't do any good to stand here whining about it." With a sniffle, she brushed away tears. "I may not know what's going to happen, but I know what has to be done. I have to go to work. Maybe I can find a way out of this thing." She lifted a brow. "Why are you smiling?"
"Because you're perfect. Absolutely perfect." As he had the night before, he hooked a hand in the belt of her robe. "Come to bed with me. I'll show you what I mean."
"It's nearly noon," she said as he lowered his head to nibble at her ear. "I have work."
"Are you sure?"
Her eyes drifted closed. Her body swayed toward his. "Ah… yes." She pulled away, holding both palms out. "Yes, really. I don't have much time. Neither of us do."
"All right." He smiled again when her lips moved into a pout at his easy acquiescence. Perhaps, with luck, he could give her something ordinary. "On one condition."
"Which is?"
"I have a charity function tonight. A dinner, a couple of performers, dancing. At the Parkside."
"The Parkside." She thought of the old, exclusive and elegant hotel overlooking City Park. "Are you talking about the summer ball?"
"Yeah, that's it. I'd considered skipping it, but I've changed my mind. Will you go with me?"
She lifted a brow. "You're asking me at noon, if I'll go with you to the biggest, glitziest event in the city—which begins eight hours from now. And you're asking me when I've got to go to work, have absolutely no hope of getting an appointment at a hairdresser, no time to shop for the right dress."
"That about covers it," he said after a moment.
She blew out a breath. "What time are you going to pick me up?"
At seven, Deborah stepped under a steaming hot shower. She didn't believe it could possibly ease all the aches, and she was over her quota of aspirin for the day. Six hours in front of a computer terminal, a phone receiver at her ear, had brought her minimal results.
Each name she had checked had turned out to belong to someone long dead. Each address was a blind alley, and each corporation she investigated led only to a maze of others.
The common thread, as Gage had termed it, seemed to be frustration.
More than ever she needed to find the truth. It wasn't only a matter of justice now. It was personal. Though she knew that warped her objectivity, it couldn't be helped. Until this was resolved, she couldn't begin to know where her future, and Gage's, lay.
Perhaps nowhere, she thought as she bundled into a towel. They had come together like lightning and thunder. But storms passed. She knew that an enduring relationship required more than passion. Her parents had had passion—and no understanding. It required even more than love. Her parents had loved, but they had been unhappy.
Trust. Without trust, love and passion faded, paled and vanished.
She wanted to trust him. And to believe in him. Yet he didn't trust her. There were things he knew that could bring her closer to the truth in the case they were both so involved in. Instead, he kept them to himself, determined that his way and only his way was the right one.
With a sigh, she began to dry her hair. Wasn't she just as determined that her way, only her way, was the right one?
If they were so opposed on this one fundamental belief, how could love be enough?
But she had agreed to see him that night. Not because she wanted to go to a fancy ball,
she thought. If he had asked her for hot dogs and bowling, she would have gone. Because she couldn't stay away. If she was honest, she would admit she didn't want to stay away.
She would give herself tonight, Deborah thought, carefully applying blusher. But like Cinderella, when the ball was over, she would have to face reality.
Moving briskly, she walked into the bedroom. Spread over the bed was the dress she had bought less than an hour before. Fate, she mused, running a hand over its shimmering sequins. He'd said he liked her in blue. When she'd rushed into the dress shop, frantic, it had been there, waiting. A liquid column of rich, royal blue, studded with silvery sequins. And it fit like a glove from its high-banded collar to its ankle-skimming hem.
Deborah had winced at the price tag, then had gritted her teeth. She'd thrown caution and a month's pay to the winds.
Now, looking in the mirror, she couldn't regret it. The rhinestone swirls at her ears were the perfect match. With her hair swept up and back, her shoulders were bare. She shifted. So was most of her back.
She was just slipping on her shoes when Gage knocked.
His smile faded when she opened the door. Her own lips curved at the sudden and intense desire she saw in his eyes. Very slowly she turned a full circle.
"What do you think?"
He discovered, if he did so very slowly, he could breathe. "I'm glad I didn't give you more time to prepare."
"Why?"
"I couldn't have handled it if you were any more beautiful."
She tilted her chin. "Show me."
He was almost afraid to touch her. Very gently he laid his hands on her shoulders, lowered his mouth to hers. But the taste of her punched into his system, making his fingers tighten, his mouth greedy. With a murmur, he shifted, reaching out to shut the door.
"Oh, no." She was breathless, and unsteady enough to have to lean back against the door. But she was also determined. "For what I paid for this dress, I want to take it out in public."
"Always practical." He gave her one last, lingering kiss. "We could be late."
She smiled at him. "We'll leave early."
When they arrived, the ballroom was already crowded with the glamorous, the influential, the wealthy. Over champagne and appetizers, Deborah scanned the tables and the table-hoppers.
Books by Nora Roberts Page 379