by Lia Lee
He opened the door with a snarl and was confronted by a head of bright chestnut hair and a flash of sweet blue eyes.
She came back...
His instincts had been right, because without a pause, he seized her in his arms, dragging her close to his chest. She shoved him away, which was unexpected, and she swore at him, which was even more unexpected.
"What the hell are you doing? Where's my sister?" Seanan demanded.
He had to shake his head and look again. Seanan, not Briony, and he growled.
"You should know better than I do where your damned sister is," he snapped, and her eyes narrowed. She was a small woman, but now something protective and enraged came over her features.
"Start talking and start talking now," she said. "I didn't come here just to see you, and the staff says she and Eva are gone? What the hell?"
Marco glared, something that had set grown men to fear, but Seanan brushed right past him, coming in and looking around with distaste.
He shrugged, because he wasn't in any mood to sugarcoat things for this woman.
"She met up with a damn movie star behind my back," he snarled. "She cleared out before I could confront her about it, like a coward."
Seanan stared at him, and there was nothing but a white heat in her eyes. "This movie star? Was it Paolo Olivetti? In the gem district, at his flat there? Last Thursday?"
Marco fell silent, stunned, and Seanan nodded her head with disgust. She pulled a handful of paper scraps out of her purse. He could see the ticket stubs there as she separated them out and thrust them at him.
"You did this before, you know," she said witheringly. "I'm not my sister, and I was visiting my lover that day. I suppose I got a little caught up with him, but I came here to surprise Bri with a visit, and maybe to spend some time getting your measure too. I can say right now, I'm not impressed."
He flinched as hot shame poured through him. The realization of what had truly happened broke his mind, and Briony's face when he had come in to speak to her that night broke his heart. She had every right to refuse to see him again, but the desperation grew in his throat, making him turn to Seanan.
"Do you know where she's going to go?"
She looked at him scornfully. "So you can go hurt her some more? Beg her to take you back?"
He shook his head. "Never. To apologize. To tell her what a fool I have been. To offer her all the money she needs to care for Eva if she wishes, to see what she wants to do next."
He stopped, hands open.
"To give her a choice. To tell her I was wrong."
For a moment, he thought Seanan would spin on her heel and leave. He wondered dazedly how much angrier Briony might be if he grabbed Seanan and forced her to tell him where her sister was, but thankfully Seanan thawed.
"All right. Best thing you could have said there, I think. I believe I know where she ran to."
***
Chicago, Briony thought, was the opposite of both LA and Florence, and that was appropriate for her mood.
The loft apartment was slightly chilly, but other than that, it was perfect for her at the moment. She would have welcomed the chatter of Oliver, the apartment’s owner and a good friend of Seanan’s and hers. But as Oliver had told her over email, he was touring with the rest of the ballet company he danced with and would be gone for another two months.
But of course you can stay! Get the key from the lady next door, I'll phone her and let her know to give it up. Best cure for a broken heart is some quiet!
Quiet was right. She wondered if it was her imagination that Eva was so quiet since they had come to Chicago. The Midwest fall was setting in with a vengeance, and the tall windows looked out over a sky that was mostly gray. It was only two in the afternoon, but there were already speckles of rain on the glass, with a distant rumbling promising more to come.
She knew she should try to do something, get her life back on track, but Briony felt numb. All she did was care for Eva; she couldn't even muster up the energy to call her sister.
Almost as if her thoughts had summoned her sister, she got a text from Seanan.
This is your warning.
She wondered what it meant, and then the doorbell chimed. A tide of gratitude poured through her. Seanan would make her feel better, help her decide what to do, but when she opened the door, she realized it wasn't Seanan at all.
It was Marco.
She started to close the door in his face, but he stuck his hand in, forcing it open.
"You can't be here, I don't want to see you," she babbled, backing away.
There was no rage on his face, only a hurt and pain that was almost worse. She couldn't let him in, though. If she did and he hurt her again like that, she wasn't sure if she would be able to take it. If she would survive.
"Don't...please don't," he said softly. "I'm here to tell you a few things. You don't have to speak to me again if you don't wish to, just listen."
She subsided, holding herself tight. She shook as if she had a fever. She watched as he took a sealed envelope out of his jacket pocket.
"These are the results of the paternity test for Eva and I."
She blinked as he tore it into a dozen pieces and dropped it to the ground.
"I don't care what they say. You told me Eva is mine. I believe you, and I love her. She will be the princess of Florence when she is grown.
"I made a terrible mistake, Briony. I...thought you had betrayed me. I thought you had gone to meet a lover in Florence."
"Why would you..?"
"Because I am a fool," he said hoarsely. "Your sister set me straight, not that she had to. I am grateful, however. Please, will you listen to me a little longer?"
She nodded, tears welling up in her eyes.
"I love you," he said, the confession coming from deep in his chest. "God, I love you, and if you will allow me, I will make you my wife. I will apologize to you for this every day of our lives if you wish, and I will spend the rest of my life living for your pleasure if you will allow it.
"I love you, and please, marry me, Briony."
She gasped and stared in wide eyed shock, but Marco wasn't done.
"And if you can't because I am a fool, just let me tell you this. Regardless of your answer, I have been proved wrong. You have acted with far more character than I have. So has your sister. All I can do now is hope to learn my lessons on how to behave with integrity from you."
To Briony's shock, he knelt in front of her, offering up a velvet ring box.
She couldn't stop herself any longer. She pushed his hand aside and threw herself into his arms, kneeling with him.
"Oh god, you hurt me so," she sobbed. "You hurt me, and you thought that horrible thing about me..."
"Can you ever forgive me?" he rumbled. "Please, if you do, I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you."
"Just love me," she whispered, looking up at him with tear-filled eyes. "Love me as much as I love you, for the rest of our lives, please..."
"I love you," Marco whispered, and deep in her heart, Briony knew he would never stop saying it.
He said it again later that night when they were on the jet back to Florence. He said it in the morning when they woke up together. He said it months later when they announced their engagement to the frantic Italian press, and he whispered it to her when she told him she was pregnant again, just two weeks before their wedding.
"I love you," Marco said as he leaned in to kiss her.
The wedding alter was laden with pure white roses, and dressed in pink, held in both their arms, Eva cooed with delight.
"I love you," Briony replied, and as they kissed in front of the jubilant audience, their daughter between them, Briony knew they would never be apart again.
THE END
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Chapter One
The corpse was sprawled out before Detective Anne Sutton like a felled oak. Around the form of the once imposing man, bloomed excessive spatters that were now growing dry and dark. If it weren’t for the number of bullet holes, Anne would’ve had a hard time buying that anyone could get the drop on this huge lug.
“You sure pissed someone off,” she muttered as she pulled on a pair of gloves and leaned over the body.
Beside her, the forensics guy was taking samples and cracking jokes with her partner Jeffers. Ignoring them, she focused on the grisly scene in front of her. Whether this was a hit or a crime of passion, Anne knew that she could put the details together faster than anyone else in her precinct. As much as she hated to think about the political aspects of her job, she really needed to be the one to get the credit for this. This wasn’t her first homicide, but it was definitely the messiest. It reminded her of a case from her rookie days when some idiot had accidentally cut himself with a new knife and claimed his neighbor had targeted him for the campaign sign in his yard.
But Anne wasn’t a rookie anymore, and her higher-ups needed to start seeing her as the capable woman they’d promoted to detective, or she could find herself in trouble and soon.
Brushing a stray lock of chestnut hair away with the back of her hand, Anne scanned the body again. He had no ID. No particularly distinctive identifying marks. His shoes were expensive Italian leather. They were a bit incongruous with the hair, which was greasy and as long as her own. It had been pulled back into a ponytail. He was also wearing a high-end tracksuit. Someone hadn’t been planning to die today.
His pose supported the theory that he had been caught by surprise. A look at his well-manicured nails told her that he definitely hadn’t fought anyone off. That was a pity because it was so easy to run tests on a few skin flakes from under the nails. Forensics did scrapings there anyway, just in case they might find anything useful.
The glint of the ring caught her eye just before she was about to rise. It was pinned beneath one of his monstrous shoes, almost out of sight. Anne moved his foot slightly to retrieve the ring and then held it close for examination.
A broad band of brushed tungsten carbide. Fleur-de-lis pattern on the side. Marquise cut garnet in the middle. Anne knew this ring.
The deft way that he moved his hands had always left Anne under the impression that they were delicate. His fingers were long enough, forever in motion, as he twiddled a pen or held a hand-rolled cigarette. Those hands looked like they could slip in anywhere unimpeded, a testament to his prowess at illicit activities.
But they proved themselves adept at other activities, ones that Anne hadn’t been able to fathom the first time the two of them had met, with his dangerous smirk and her censorious glare daring him to step out of line. Her investigations in that area had found nothing of relevance… but they had found HIM, and now his active fingers were finding every sensitive spot, every weakness. She moaned softly as his cunning fingers brought her to the brink and still demanded more of her vulnerable flesh.
“William!” She gasped as her back arched involuntarily.
He chuckled almost wickedly before leaning forward to press teasing kisses along her collarbone. She panted helplessly, with him on her and in her. She felt as though he had expanded his slim form to make up her whole world. She knew that she should stop this. She knew that they shouldn’t be doing this, and yet he was everything. She had put off the very thought of pleasure like this in her life but was now so consumed by it that she might never break away.
“You like this, pet?” he teased. His voice was deep and smooth, like whiskey and razorblades, and it sent a shiver through her.
“D-don’t stop,” she begged.
His lips spread into a lopsided grin, and, dutifully, he resumed stroking the tender folds between her legs. She shuddered and closed her eyes. Each stroke made her hips want to buck forward, and as she panted, he pressed kisses to her neck, murmuring encouraging words. Exalting her beauty, her scent, her strength.
One finger slipped inside her, and he moved down so that all she could see was the mess of blond curls as he went to work. Heat began to well inside her. He was rubbing now, up and down, up and down the sides of her folds, but his clever tongue had also put itself to work. She gasped with each breath, and a staccato stream of gratitude and pleading issued from her lips.
The explosion of pleasure almost caught her off guard. Her hips jerked forward and froze, and she cried out, afraid that this feeling would stop. But William didn’t stop. He kept lapping at her and rubbing her until her muscles had relaxed, and she lay spent on his bed.
When he finally pushed his considerably wide cock inside her, she just laughed softly, pulling a hand back through her hair.
“You know how to make a girl receptive to your advances,” she murmured, moving her hand along the sinewy muscles of his left side, where a long scar marred the otherwise white marble perfection of his skin.
“Oh, ‘advances’ is what we’re calling him?” William joked. “I always through I’d call him Sir Richard.”
Anne laughed as all the tension released from her body. It only returned a few moments later for an encore of the pleasure before. A little quake. An aftershock. And she clenched around him as his brow furrowed, and he tensed all over, letting out a deep groan.
After going slack again, he laid himself beside her with one of his smirks on his lips. She looked at him with a lazy fondness. She couldn’t even make herself be ashamed. It was impossible to stop herself when he was around. He was like an addiction. And like any good addict, she made every excuse to get her fix. Otherwise, why would she be here?
He rose, and she grabbed for him, ordering him to stay. William waved her off, and returned with washed hands and a few wipes for her to clean up with. So fastidious. Then he lay beside her again and reached for the nightstand.
“I love this,” he said softly, toying with her long chestnut hair that had fallen around her head, mussed and sweaty. “You’re like Goldilocks.”
“You’re like Goldilocks, with your blond curls.”
William rolled his eyes and slipped the ring he’d left on the nightstand onto the index finger of his left hand, where it usually always rested. “Goldie was never so butch. Imagine a fairytale princess with a crewcut.”
“Or a mohawk,” Anne suggested. She took his hand and stroked her fingers over the back of it, feeling his skin, memorizing every line, and the little scar just above his knuckles. The garnet of his ring caught the glint of the lamp.
“Hey! Annie!” Jeffers snapped his fingers in front of her face.
“Don’t call me Annie,” she responded automatically. Then she shook her head and held her hand out. “Gimme an evidence bag.”
Jeffers crouched down beside her. “Whatcha got there?”
“Evidence,” she snapped. “It’s a ring. Obviously, it wouldn’t fit any of our vic’s fat fingers.”
“Woman’s ring?”
“It’s a man’s design,” she said in as neutral a tone as she could muster.
But neutrality had never been Anne’s strong point when it had come to William Oscar Spencer.
***
By the time they’d returned to the precinct, the tension had bunched Anne’s shoulders up so tightly that she could barely turn her neck. It had been years since she’d seen William, and now his ring had been found at a crime scene. It was hard to imagine that he’d ever be that sloppy when it came to doing a job. But he had been put away for smuggling and felony tax evasion, and that was just facts. He had been caught, once.
Never mind that William had been a grifter and a thief at best, a pathological liar at worst. He
’d never killed anyone, to Anne’s knowledge, but he’d had his lovely fingers in everything that could be gotten into back then. Anne knew as well as anyone on the force that involvement in crime only begat more crime. Couldn’t keep your hands clean when you were already elbow deep.
If only he’d still been behind bars when this murder had occurred. Then, she could’ve written him off, and Jeffers could go get his testimony about what had happened to his ring. But he had gotten out on appeal a little over a month ago, so she was compiling a list of suspects with William’s ridiculously British name at the top.
Jeffers came over and set a cup of coffee in front of Anne. He slumped into his own chair with a grunt. His hair was sloppy, as per usual, and his shirt wrinkled beyond salvaging.
“Got a long list there?”
“My list for leads is longer than my list of suspects.” Anne sighed. “We’re going to have to jump on this yesterday, before the smart ones have the sense to get out of town.”
“My kingdom for a time machine.”
Anne scowled at him and went back to her list. “We do some legwork while we wait for Shaw to finish up the autopsy.”
“No doubt about the cause of death though.”
Anne rolled her eyes. “Obviously, but there might be evidence on the body.”
She shouldn’t have to explain things like that to Jeffers. He was six years her senior and had been a detective for two years already. Though, he could be teasing her. Most of the detectives weren’t overly thrilled to have someone her age among their number.
It was hard to tell sometimes whether Jeffers was pulling her leg or just being lazy. His attitude was generally jovial, but he hadn’t been too pleased when he had worked up the courage to ask her out a few months ago and she had turned him down. Darren Jeffers wasn’t entirely unpleasant to look at, but beyond on the job joking around, Anne had never had much connection with him. Not to mention, she couldn’t afford another indiscretion. No way Jeffers would be able to keep quiet if they so much as went out for a non-platonic coffee.
“I’m going to make a phone call,” Anne said, picking up her coffee and her phone. “When I get back, we hit it.”