by Anne Stuart
“That’s getting old,” he said. “Why don’t you come up with another epithet for me? Surely there are some more creative insults.”
“Fuckhead. Dickwad. Shit for brains,” she readily supplied.
“Now I object to the last one. I’m actually quite smart, even if I do stupid things.”
“Like what? I thought you didn’t admit to mistakes,” she said bitterly.
“Mistakes like you, Angel.”
How could she leave herself open like that? She jerked away the moment the words left his mouth, shaking with fury and despair. How did he manage to get past her defenses each time? How did he manage to talk her into lowering them long enough for him to deliver some stinging emotional blow?
It was a good thing he was dumping her—she had to get away from him. She’d forgotten that need in the turmoil of the last few days. He’d hurt her and broken her heart, made love to her and then rejected her, and she’d lost the ability to think clearly. Even now she wanted him to pull the vehicle over, to take her in his arms, to make love to her even if he couldn’t love her.
But it was never going to happen.
She headed toward the back of the RV. At least she’d find some privacy in the bathroom. “I don’t suppose one can take a shower when the RV is on the road?” She used her iciest voice.
“One certainly can,” he mocked. “Just go ahead and try to scrub every trace of me off you. And inside you.”
She’d never considered him particularly cruel, but now she wasn’t so sure. “Let’s just hope there’s plenty of water,” she said, closing the door on the tiny bathroom quietly behind her.
Jesus, he was an asshole, Bishop thought. Evangeline had it right in the first place, along with the other insults she’d hurled at him. He couldn’t remember a more intense twelve hours—from the moment he discovered her missing, right through to her falling into a damp, exhausted sleep in his arms. He always thought he’d had the best sex of his life when he was with her, and yet somehow it always managed to get even better. Last night had damned near killed him.
He hadn’t been counting, but it seemed as if he’d come three times on the same erection, something he would have considered a physical impossibility. But Evangeline managed to confound the laws of physics. If she hadn’t seemed on the edge of passing out he could have kept going. He was as sexually driven as any man, but his wife took him to places he’d never known existed.
She’d laugh if he ever tried to tell her that. She’d never believe him. He’d worked so hard to keep her at arm’s length that she had to think he was nothing more than some horny bastard who shagged anyone he could find.
No matter how cruel it was, this was still the best possible thing to do for her. There was no way he could ever stay with her. It may have worked for Madsen, with the full power of the Committee behind him, or for Taka and Reno with their Yakuza connections. If he tried to keep Evangeline with him, it would be putting a target on her back.
Now that Claude was dead, there was no reason to let the marriage stand. Breaking the connection would only help when it came to people like the Corsinis and all the other enemies he’d racked up in a lifetime of doing bad things for good reasons. Madsen could arrange the annulment, no questions asked, and she could go on to a life of academic boredom and another jackass of a husband, this time a real one.
And he’d snap the bastard’s neck.
It was no wonder he was such a jerk—he couldn’t keep her and he couldn’t let her go.
He wasn’t going to have to worry about it. He’d been such a bastard to her that there was no way she’d forgive him, no reason she’d want to. He’d made sure of that, and the only thing he could do as penance was to let her keep Merlin.
He hadn’t been brought up to love anyone. His father had been an even bigger bastard than he was, a lieutenant colonel in the military with the compassion of a snail. Too bad his mother had died in a car wreck coming home from a night spent with her lover—she might have softened the old guy. It was just as well Bishop had had no siblings for the colonel to take his rage out on—it was easier taking the punishment himself than worrying about others.
Last time he’d checked, his father was still alive somewhere, but that had been long ago, and he’d probably succumbed to a lifetime of cigarettes somewhere along the way. If he was still alive, he’d think his only son had died in Afghanistan. Bishop had tried to talk Madsen into making it look as if he had deserted because of cowardice, a final blow to the old monster’s pride, but Madsen had refused, telling Bishop he’d eventually regret it.
Madsen hadn’t known his father.
Merlin was the first creature Bishop had allowed himself to love. No, maybe that wasn’t quite true, not if he wanted to be strictly honest with himself, something he’d rather avoid. Merlin was only four years old—he’d met Evangeline more than five years ago.
Not that he loved her, he reminded himself. He couldn’t afford to love anyone, not even his damned dog.
The door to the bathroom opened and the RV was filled with the aroma of gardenia soap, the same that had been in the farmhouse. He’d told Madsen’s assistant what to stock in the camper—he remembered everything about Evangeline, and in those intervening years, she still favored the same toiletries. The familiar scent that filled the interior of the camper made him hard.
He glanced at her in the rearview mirror. Her eyes were red. The cut on her cheekbone from last night was blossoming into a black eye, and he wanted to kill Claude all over again. At least Merlin had ripped away half his right hand before Bishop’s bullets had sent him over into the raging river.
He could mock the tears she tried to hide, just to be even more of a prick, but he kept his mouth shut, focusing on the highway ahead. They’d be on the outskirts of New Orleans by early evening, and he could let go of her, place her in Ryder’s capable hands. Not only could, but had to.
Ryder had already established a safe house while he scouted locations for the new office—Evangeline would be safe there until they finished with His slimy Eminence and the men who were literally his acolytes. The Corsinis’ sex trafficking couldn’t be crushed that easily—it had been going on for decades—but the center of operations could be smashed, and the person in charge eliminated.
Once the endless ordeal was finally finished, she’d be free. No one but the Corsini crime family could connect her with the shadow operative who sometimes went by the name of James Bishop, and that connection would be severed.
He glanced back at her. She was wearing cutoffs and a baggy T-shirt, and he could see the outline of her breasts beneath the loose fabric. He yanked his gaze back to the road. He couldn’t afford to get distracted. Last night had been as good a way to end things as possible. Each time he touched her, he went a little farther down a path that could destroy them both, and his cruelty this morning would keep her away from him. What was the good in hurting her if he only . . .
He pushed the thought out of his mind. They were as safe as they could be right now. The Corsinis might guess that Clement was dead but they couldn’t be certain, nor could they know whether he’d managed to kill Evangeline or not. Bishop had made sure they’d left absolutely no trace behind, and by the time Claude’s battered body washed up, he’d be unrecognizable. There were no DNA, fingerprint, or dental records on file for him anywhere. He’d be a John Doe, the worst kind of epitaph for a prima donna like Claude.
He smelled coffee, and he would have given his left nut for some, but chances were if he asked Evangeline, she’d put rat poison in it. He could make it the final six hours without caffeine, though it would be harder.
He was acutely aware of her coming closer, and he gripped the steering wheel tighter for a moment before relaxing his hands. From his peripheral vision he could see the insulated bottle she held out to him. “What’s this?” he said. “A peace offering?”
“Ins
urance that you don’t fall asleep at the wheel and kill us both,” she said. Someone else might have thought her gesture was completely casual, but he could hear the rawness in her voice, both from her recent tears and her screams last night. Screams for help when Claude had taken her. Screams of pleasure when he’d . . .
“Thanks,” he said briefly, taking it. “Sure you didn’t add rat poison to it?”
“I’m trying to stay alive, remember? And I didn’t see any rat poison in the cupboard, or I might have been tempted.”
Against his will he laughed. No matter how bad things were, she always managed to summon up some fight. Here was a woman who wouldn’t let life get the best of her, even if it brought a scaly bastard like himself.
“I’m going to sleep,” she said with an entirely unconvincing yawn. “Wake me when we get to New Orleans.”
He nodded, sipping at the coffee. One sugar, lots of cream. The way he’d always taken it, something she had to have remembered from Italy. If he had any choice, he would have jerked the wheel to the right, parked by the side of the road and grabbed her. He didn’t glance at her.
“Sweet dreams.”
Her derisive snort made him smile to himself.
Chapter Twenty
Evangeline lay on the bunk with her eyes open. She’d managed to bury herself in sleep during the last few crazy days, but that escape had finally abandoned her, and she lay still, hugging herself, staring out at the landscape speeding by. James was up in the driver’s seat, concentrating on the road, listening to jazz again, and it suddenly occurred to her that from now on the sound of cool, cerebral jazz would make her want to throw up.
Half a dozen times she’d been about to push herself off the mattress, head to the front of the camper, and start an argument with him. By tonight he was going to be out of her life. Forever. Some small, self-destructive part of her wanted to hold on to anything for the last short time she had, even a fight. She didn’t move. The sooner he was gone from her life, the sooner she’d start to let go, and she wasn’t going to bother with any more questions, questions that he’d never answer. As far as he knew she was sleeping, and that made it easier on both of them.
He stopped once, to let Merlin out to pee, to make himself another cup of coffee, to glance at her supposedly sleeping body before heading back to the driver’s seat. By the time they were back up to speed, Merlin had paced back to her, nuzzling her face. Unlike James, he wasn’t fooled by her feigned slumber, and he wanted cuddles and games and attention, but she remained motionless. Finally, with a sigh of canine acceptance, he climbed up onto the bunk and curled up at her feet, taking a good third of the narrow bed. It was the first time he’d ever relaxed his guard enough to get on the bed with her, and it was almost enough to bring silent tears, the ones she’d fought since she’d left the shower. She slid a surreptitious hand down to scratch his head and he sighed blissfully. If there was only some way her life could be that simple.
It was growing dark earlier and earlier, particularly the farther south they went. Over the Canadian border the sun had been going down around 8 p.m.—it was a full hour earlier as they neared the Gulf of Mexico. Small night lights came on automatically in the back of the RV, but she and Merlin lay mostly in shadow; even the renewed sound of heavy traffic, the stop and start of the caravan, the street noise and raucous music wasn’t enough to make her lift her head, though it made Merlin jump down and pace to the front to sit at James’s side. They were in the city. They were near the end.
She wasn’t going to make it any easier for him, she thought, dry-eyed. He’d carried her into the camper—he could carry her out. He could set her on her feet and turn his back on her. If he could.
When the Winnebago finally came to a halt, she wanted to groan. Her body was aching from her enforced stillness, not to mention the activities of the night before, all she’d been through, the brutal and the beautiful. It took all her strength of will to lay perfectly still, to keep her breathing even. The lights came on fully, but she didn’t let her eyelids quiver, and she felt him approach her, then stand over her, looking down at her for an endless moment, as if deciding what to do with her. Would he pick her up and carry her inside? He seemed to have no trouble carrying her around—he was a lot stronger than his lean frame suggested. Or would he join her on that narrow berth, cover her body with his in a final joining . . .?
He did neither. “Merlin, come,” he ordered in a soft voice. And a moment later she was alone in the RV, in the darkness.
She pushed herself into a sitting position, leaning against the wall of the van, staring sightlessly ahead of her. So that was that. It was over. She should thank him, really she should, for not prolonging matters. A clean break, fast and sharp, was the best way to deal with things. She drew her knees up, hugging them. Already she could feel the muggy heat of Louisiana infiltrate the camper as the artificially chilled air began to dissipate, and she wondered whether he’d locked her in. Maybe she’d die of asphyxiation before he could decide what to do with her. That would be just fine with her—she’d lost everything. Annabelle, her beloved camper, a goodly amount of her research, possibly even her job. She’d had a grant for the work she’d been doing, and it had all hinged on the last two American sites. Without that research she would have nothing to publish, and the college was going to take a very dim view of things. Which mattered less than she thought. She had money of her own—maybe she’d just disappear. She’d told herself she’d never go back to Italy—maybe it was time to lay that particular ghost.
She heard her own cynical laughter. In fact, she’d spent the last few days doing just that—laying that particular ghost. It was time to exorcise him for good, and a week or two in Venice should do the job nicely.
This time there would be no need to try to drive him from her mind and her body with a series of unsatisfactory love affairs. She’d accepted the truth, looked at it clearly and without sentiment. Something happened when they were in bed together, something unlike anything she’d ever experienced, and she knew perfectly well what the magic ingredient was. Not his remarkable prowess and inventiveness or even his sheer gorgeousness.
It was the stupid, incontrovertible fact that she loved him.
She could only hope the condition wasn’t terminal.
She hadn’t heard the footsteps outside, and when the door opened and the lights flooded the space, she didn’t have time to slide down into the bunk again. It didn’t matter. The man who stood there was a stranger.
“Dr. Morrissey?” He stepped up into the camper and shut the door behind him, pushing the switch to keep the lights on. “I’m Matthew Ryder. Bishop has asked me to look after you.”
She blinked, unable to come up with a response for a moment. “Where has he gone?” she said before she could stop herself.
“He’s taking care of some legal business that was waiting for him. In the meantime I’m going to transport you to a safe place for you to stay for the duration.”
“The duration of what?”
Matthew Ryder looked vaguely annoyed, not at her, but at his absent friend. “He didn’t explain things to you?”
“Not much. Why can’t I just go home?” Now she was sounding positively plaintive, and she wanted to kick herself. She was made of stronger stuff than that, and she wasn’t going to pancake simply because James had finally done what he’d always done: abandoned her.
“I’m afraid we’re still in the midst of a very sticky situation, one that leads all the way back to when you first met James in Italy,” Ryder said. “The man who tried to kill you in Montana worked for a major crime family, one which has a large contingent of members and a very profitable business centered in this city, and they’d like nothing better than to get their hands on James. They blame him for the execution of Dimitri Corsini.”
She thought of that seemingly sweet old man. “I thought Claudia . . . er . . . Claude killed him?�
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Only the lightest twist of a smile touched Ryder’s impassive face. She stared at him, trying to memorize his features, but he kept in the shadows, and she could find nothing particularly interesting or memorable about him. In fact, he looked like a pencil pusher, a civil servant of some sort, totally bland and forgettable. She suspected he was anything but.
“I’m afraid Claude knew his usefulness to the Committee was coming to an end, and he decided getting rid of you was a good idea,” he said smoothly. “If anything, you’re in even more danger than you were before, and I’ve promised James I’ll make sure you’re safe until this is dealt with. With luck it will only be a few weeks . . .”
“A few weeks?” she said, her resignation fading. “I can’t stay here that long! I have to start classes at the end of the month, I have to do something about salvaging my work.”
“Don’t worry, Dr. Morrissey.” His bland voice was soothing. “We’ve got it all in hand. You’ve got a leave of absence from your teaching position, and I promise, the time will fly.”
She stared at him in patent disbelief. “Don’t call me doctor,” she said finally, for lack of anything else to say. “I’ve got a PhD, and it’s pretentious. I’m Evangeline.”
“Bishop’s Angel,” he murmured, and she turned away so the man wouldn’t see her flinch of pain. “I hope I can count on your cooperation in this. It’s to keep you safe.”
“And if I don’t cooperate?”
His smile was very cool. “I’m afraid you’ll be doing it anyway. Bishop wouldn’t like it if I had to hurt you, but personally I wouldn’t hesitate.”
She looked into his eyes then; they were flat, black, and completely soulless. He was another man like James, one who did what he had to do with no remorse. “Would you kill me?”
“It wouldn’t come to that. I’m too good at what I do.” He held out his hand. “It’s getting hot in here, and there’s a nice apartment with clean clothes and food and cable TV awaiting us across town.”