“Oh, Matthew. I don’t even know what to say.”
“There’s nothing to say. It’s sickening. Why get married in the first place if you’re going to cheat on your spouse? Vows are supposed to mean something, but they don’t, apparently.”
Mia nodded. “They are supposed to mean something. They do mean something. They mean everything. I guess I like to think that the one who ends up cheating meant the vows when he or she spoke them.”
“Well, that’s optimistic of you,” Matthew said, “but I don’t buy it.”
“Why?” she asked.
“My father cheated on my mother on their wedding night,” Matthew said. At Mia’s open mouth, he nodded slowly. “Yup. On their wedding night. He told me—when I was around twelve or so. Boasted about it to his sons. How do you like that?”
Mia shook her head. “That’s awful.”
“You ask how your sister ended up becoming a decoy? I’d like to know how my brother ended up a cheating bastard just like our old man. After seeing how it affected our family, what it did to my mother—after that incident—” Matthew stopped abruptly and stared at the ceiling.
“Incident?” Mia echoed.
Matthew could hear the shouting, smell the liquor emanating from his father’s bedroom, smell his mother’s desperation and anguish, hear the police sirens as though it were all happening right now instead of almost twenty years ago. He expelled a harsh breath. “My mom came home one night to find my father naked in bed with a woman. Though it wasn’t the first time, she snapped.”
“Snapped?” she asked hesitantly.
Snapped was an understatement.
“My mother was a nurse,” Matthew said, “and she’d been working the graveyard shift to make extra money. That night, she’d lost a young patient she cared very much about, and when she got home and found my father and the woman, that was it. Something inside her just broke.”
“What ... happened?”
Matthew closed his eyes. “She screamed bloody murder at the sight of them, but my father told her to shut the hell up and close the door, give him some ‘goddam privacy. ’” Matthew opened his eyes and stared at the floor. “So my mother did as he asked, then walked into the garage, got the gun my father kept in there—”
At Mia’s gasp, her hand flying to her mouth, Matthew paused.
“Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this,” he said.
“No, please, Matthew. Continue.”
The memories flooded his mind so fast, yet all he felt was numb. “She held the gun in her hands, opened the bedroom door and stood in the doorway, pointing the gun straight at my father’s chest. My brother and I came home from a party at the moment she’d cocked the trigger—”
Mia gasped. “Don’t tell me you witnessed this scene yourself!”
Matthew nodded. “Sure did. I was thirteen. Robert was seventeen.”
“Thirteen years old,” Mia repeated. “I can’t begin to imagine how scared you must have been.”
You don’t know the half of it, Matthew thought. He could still remember the fear, the paralysis, the way the hairs had stood up on his nape, the way he’d shivered and felt burning hot at the same time. “My brother and I were so shocked we couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. Finally, Robert was saying, ‘Mom, put down the gun.’ He said it over and over and over.”
“And did she?”
Matthew shook his head. “No. She kept it pointed at my father. Finally, she started trembling and burst into tears. Robert and I were afraid to move. Eventually, my father reached over to the nightstand for the phone and called the police.” Matthew paused as images from that night overwhelmed him. He closed his eyes for a moment.
“What was the woman doing?” Mia asked.
“Screaming her head off,” Matthew said. “She kept saying, ‘Do something, do something’ to my father.” He leaned forward and dropped his elbows on his knees, letting his head dangle.
“Matthew, we can change the subject,” Mia said, her voice soft. “There’s no need for you to relive this.”
“I never talk about that night,” he told her, raising his head to face Mia. “Never. Not with Robert, not with anyone. I’ve never talked about it since it happened.”
So why the hell did I just tell her about the worst night of my life? Matthew wondered. Why tonight? Why her? Why at all?
Mia’s hand flew to her heart. “Thank you for sharing it with me, Matthew. I’m so glad you’re able to.”
He looked away. “Must not be easy to hear.”
“It’s not, but I want to hear it. Go on, Matthew. What happened then?”
He heard the sirens, distant and then closer and then so close they rang in his ears. “The police arrived. My mother was still in that same spot, standing in the doorway, crying hysterically, pointing the gun at my father, his floozy screaming bloody hell.”
Mia was quiet, waiting for him to continue.
“My brother and I watched as a team of cops surrounded my mother with weapons pointed at her. It was probably the worst part of the entire night for Robert and me.”
He felt Mia shiver next to him. “The cops arrested my mother and took her away in the squad car. My father didn’t press charges, so my mother was released. She had to spend some time in counseling, but she still came home every day, cooking breakfast and dinner for my father, washing his damned clothes and his semen-stained sheets as though nothing had happened.”
For a few moments, neither of them spoke.
“I guess she must have been broken,” Mia said gently.
Matthew nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly what happened to her. The spirit, the life, caring about anything was just crushed out of her. And then there was the car accident ...”
“The car accident?” Mia prompted with trepidation in her voice.
Matthew slumped back against the sofa, the life force drained out of him. “The police were unable to determine if she ran into the tree on purpose or if she lost control of the car. It was raining that night, but my mother drove in rain at night all the time. It was the summer I graduated from high school.”
“Oh, Matthew,” Mia said, her voice catching. “I’m so, so sorry.”
The pity he heard in her voice strengthened him, brought back the bitterness. “My father had a woman in his bed the night of my mother’s funeral and until his sorry life ended five years ago,” Matthew said.
Mia reached for his hand, and though his first thought was to pull it away, he didn’t.
He let himself have her warmth and softness for a moment, then leaned back against the sofa and slipped his hand from hers. “I vowed that night, the night my mother was taken away by the police, never to get married. Never to be in the position to hurt anyone—a wife, kids. Anyone.”
“Matthew, I know we talked about this earlier, but to deny yourself a family because of someone else’s—”
“Like father, like son,” he said.
“But just because Robert—”
“Just because again? Well, I wasn’t wrong, was I?” he reminded her. “My brother ended up exactly like our old man. And I’m protecting myself and any woman unlucky enough to fall for me from that fate.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. “My father was a wonderful man. I guess I got lucky. Loyal and faithful to my mother for twenty-one years until a car accident took their lives.”
Matthew turned to face her. She seemed on the verge of tears. “I’m glad to know there are some good guys out there,” he told her gently.
“I thought all men were good—like my dad and my grandfathers,” Mia said. “What a naïve idiot I was! It never occurred to me that my own husband would cheat on—” She paused, two spots of color forming on her cheeks.
Interesting. From how she talked about marriage and vows, he assumed infidelity hadn’t been among her marital problems. He wondered how she remained optimistic about love when she’d had firsthand experience with betrayal. It made no sense.
She turned away, and he
realized she was embarrassed that she’d admitted what she did. “Mia, what your husband did doesn’t reflect on you. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“I think I’ll always be embarrassed about it,” she said, her voice small. “About not being enough. I wasn’t enough for him.”
Did she really believe that? “Mia, I don’t know your ex, but I do know this: It’s never about the spouse. It’s about the cheater. Something lacking, missing in them that has nothing to do with how hard you work at the marriage.”
She bit her lip, and it was all he could do not to pull her into his arms and kiss away the imprint of her teeth marks.
She burst into tears.
“Mia?” He kneeled down beside her and took her hands away from her face. “Mia, it’s okay.”
He looked down at her hands, so small and delicate and pale, and he kissed them, first one, then the other.
She didn’t move. She didn’t even flinch.
And then he put an arm around her neck and rubbed gently. He felt her sag against him, and that was it.
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, his mouth tender on hers at first and then hard. He could feel her soft breasts against his chest, could feel his manhood pressing into her stomach.
She hesitated for just a moment, then arched her back, and he picked her up and laid her down on the sofa and covered her body with his own, careful not to rest his weight too heavily on top of her. He trailed kisses across her sweet face, down her neck. He reached behind her to unbutton her top, and he removed it in quick order.
The sight of her breasts, so soft and creamy beneath two scraps of black lace, stopped his breath. With his teeth, he moved aside the lace cup and tickled her rosy nipple with his tongue, raising it to a peak. He gave the same treatment to the other and was rewarded with a hoarse moan from Mia.
She arched up into him again, and he pulled off his shirt, then pressed against her so hard he was afraid he was hurting her. But the expression on her face assured him she wasn’t feeling any pain at all.
He put her hand against his erection, and she hesitated for just a moment, then let him lead her in a hard stroke up and down the length of him.
Their mouths fused, Matthew moved on top of her, showing her just how it would feel once he removed the rest of their clothes.
“Oh, Matthew,” she breathed.
He looked at her then, her eyes closed, her expression so full of desire—and something else ...
Something that made him go numb.
There was hope on her face. Sweet, innocent hope.
Matthew rolled off her and sat up, running a hand through his hair.
“Matthew?”
He said nothing.
“Matthew? Is something wrong?” she asked, confusion in her eyes.
He couldn’t face her. “Look, it’s late. Why don’t you head on in to the bedroom and I’ll bunk right here.”
She stared at him, but he still wouldn’t look at her.
He rolled up his shirt in a ball to make a pillow, then lay down on the sofa and closed his eyes.
And closed the subject.
He heard the tiniest sob escape her lips before she hurried away.
Chapter Eleven
Mia wondered if he was awake yet, if he’d found her note.
She’d woken up at the crack of dawn after tossing and turning all night, memories of the previous evening bombarding her the moment she opened her eyes.
She’d had to get out of there, to get away from him. And so she’d showered and dressed quickly, then tiptoed past his sleeping form on the sofa and out the door.
She’d breathed the moment she hit the air outside.
And burst into yet another round of tears.
Mia had known exactly where to go. The one place that never failed to give comfort, never failed to give her answers: her parents’ gravesides.
At six A.M. on a Monday, the cemetery was empty, save a caretaker walking through the grass. The flowers she’d placed on top of her parents’ tombstones were just beginning to wilt, and Mia wished she’d brought a fresh bouquet.
She sat down between the two graves and pulled her knees to her chest. “Oh, Mama, Daddy. I know you know what’s going on, and I know you must be worried; but everything’s going to be okay. I know it will.”
A blue jay settled on her mother’s tombstone and whistled, and Mia felt her heart lift just a little.
“You see, Mama? Everything will be okay. Matthew and I are working together to figure out what’s going on—”
Matthew and I.
There was no “Matthew and I” and there would never be, and Mia had better wrap her mind around that fact here and now.
He’d found her lacking.
Just like her husband had.
At least she’d learned that it didn’t matter how blond or thin or gussied up you got. If a man didn’t want you, didn’t love you, he wouldn’t love you if you looked like a Playboy bunny or the Wicked Witch of the West. And if he did want you, did love you, then he’d love you no matter what you looked like.
Which meant it was her, something in her, something about her, that turned off men who caught her heart.
Caught my heart, Mia repeated mentally. Was that true?
No. Last night simply got out of hand. They’d opened up to each other, and one thing had led to another. She’d been so touched when he told her that he’d never shared that terrible story with anyone but her. She’d thought it meant something, that he felt close to her—
But he didn’t. Not emotionally, anyway. Luckily for the two of them, Matthew had had the wherewithal to pour a bucket of cold water on them before things went too far.
And they would have, she knew.
She’d never wanted a man more than she’d wanted Matthew last night, to feel that tall, strong, muscular body of his on top of hers, to feel all that intensity inside her.
And before she would know what hit her, she’d be in love with a man who didn’t love her back.
A man who had one thing on his mind: solving his brother’s murder. Mia knew she was simply a means to an end for Matthew.
She’d best not forget it again. He certainly hadn’t.
Suddenly Mia was glad she hadn’t had the opportunity to dye back her hair and cut it chin length. She wanted to remember that looking like her sister, looking like a “babe,” as her ex-husband had called it, had resulted in nothing but a loss of her self-esteem and identity—
Oh, my God.
Her identity.
As the blue jay flew up and away, Mia realized she knew exactly how to solve Robert Gray’s murder and clear her sister’s name.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
Matthew was furious. Furious.
“I’ve been pacing every inch of this apartment for the last two hours,” he barked.
“I didn’t realize you were my keeper,” Mia said, dropping her keys back in her pocket. “Are you going to let me in now that I’m back?”
The woman in the apartment next door suddenly stepped out in the hallway. “Will you two shut up!” she screamed. “It’s eight in the morning! And you’re making my dog bark like crazy! I am so sick of you, Margot! I’m complaining to the board first thing in the morning!” With that, Margot’s charming neighbor slammed the door.
Matthew stepped aside, and Mia barged inside the apartment.
“Maybe you’ve forgotten a creepy little stalker named Norman who likes to carry around yearbooks with everyone’s photo blotted out but yours,” Matthew said coldly. “Maybe you’ve forgotten that he thinks you’re his girlfriend. Maybe you’ve forgotten—”
“I’m capable of taking care of myself, Matthew,” Mia interrupted, her voice cold as ice. She dropped down on the sofa and crossed her arms over her chest. “As you can see, I’m back here in one piece.”
“That’s not the point,” Matthew said. “The point is that there’s a guy out there who may or may not be a killer and who definitely
seems to be under the impression that you’re his girlfriend. After last night, he probably thinks you’re cheating on him.”
Her face paled, and he felt a bit of victory. Which immediately made him label himself a jerk. But at least he’d gotten through to her how serious this was. She couldn’t just up and leave because her feelings got hurt—
Oh, damn.
He’d been so freaked out by finding her gone, so wrapped up in the thought of Norman getting his psycho hands on her, that he hadn’t even stopped to think about why she’d gone out in the first place.
You idiot.
How he could have forgotten last night for a second was beyond him.
From the moment she’d rushed inside the bedroom last night, he’d been unable to stop thinking about her. The feel of her, the scent of her, the everything of her.
If he hadn’t been able to control himself, they would have made love.
And this morning’s conversation would have been very different.
Interesting, though, Matthew thought, that the mood is the same. Anger. Disappointment.
Had they made love, he would have made some excuse to leave this morning just like your typical jerk who couldn’t deal with commitment or intimacy or a real relationship.
Well, he couldn’t.
And Mia would have been hurt and angry and confused.
Much like she was now that he’d stopped them from making love.
Stopped them from making a mistake with way too many consequences. At least now they could move past this and stay focused on the case.
But first he’d have to deal with what happened last night. Deal with it and be done with it. He sat beside her.
“Look, Mia, about last night—”
“Let’s not waste precious time talking about something that needs no discussion,” Mia interrupted. “Last night was a mistake. I was upset and not thinking straight, and you were. Thank God one of us was.”
It was a mistake.
Yes, it was. That she’d said so, that she thought so, should have made him feel much more comfortable. But instead, his stomach rolled.
“Anyway, the reason I left this morning was because I started formulating a plan for catching the killer, and—”
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