Covet fa-1

by J. R. Ward

  “You think?”

  “What do you have to lose?”

  “Well, she is next to me at work and I see her every day.”

  “But you're not exactly having a good time now, are you? At least you can have some closure.”

  He met her eyes in the mirror. “Why were you crying?”

  “Because…I can't do this anymore.”

  “You know, I'm glad. I picked you because you don't seem like the kind of woman who…” He flushed. “Ah—”

  “Who should be doing this. I know. And you're right.”

  The guy turned to her and smiled. “This actually worked out okay.”

  “It did.” On impulse she reached out and gave him a hug. “Best of luck. And remember when you're asking that woman out that you're a catch and she'd be lucky to have you. Trust me. I've learned the hard way that a good man is hard to find.”

  “You think?”

  Marie-Terese rolled her eyes. “You have no idea.”

  He smiled even more widely. “Thank you—I mean that. And I think I will ask her. What the hell, right?”

  “You only live once.”

  He was beaming and full of purpose while he left the bathroom, and as the door eased shut, Marie-Terese went back to staring at herself. In the light that shone down on her from above, all the smudged black makeup made her look like a bona fide Goth.

  How ironic that on her last night in the club, she finally looked like a regular.

  Leaning to one side, she snapped free a paper towel, thinking she'd tidy her eyeliner. Instead, she ended up rubbing her lipstick off, just ripping the glossy coat from her mouth. Never again. She wasn't ever wearing that horrible gooey stuff again…or any of the rest of the makeup…or the ridiculous slutty clothes.

  Done. This chapter of her life was done.

  God, it was amazing how light she felt. Amazing and insane. She had no idea what she was going to do next or where she was going to go, so by all that was rational, she should have been panicked. But all she could think of was how relieved she felt.

  Turning away from the mirror, she reached for the wrought-iron doorknob and realized that she had gone from tears to smiling. Opening the way out, she— Looked up into the grim face of Vincent diPietro.

  He was leaning against the wall right across from the private bathroom, his arms crossed over his chest, his big body tensed up in spite of what should have been a relaxed pose. His expression was of a man who'd just had his gut slit open.

  Chapter 21

  The problem was, he had no reason and no right to feel sucker punched.

  As Vin stared at Marie-Terese, taking note of the flush on her cheeks and the fact that she didn't have any lipstick left on her mouth, he shouldn't have felt a thing. Same deal when that guy had come out of the bathroom with a smile on his face and his shoulders set like he was so the man—there should have been nothing unusual going on in the center of Vin's chest.

  This was not his woman. This was not his business.

  “I need to go,” he said, standing up from the wall and turning away. One look at the thick crowd and he headed for the back of the club, for the hallway that, thanks to last night, he knew had a door at the end of it.

  All the way along, his father's drunken voice dogged him: You can never trust a woman. They're sluts, every one of them. Give them a chance and they'll fuck you every time—and not In a good way.

  Marie-Terese caught up with him about a third of the way to the exit, her high-heeled shoes clipping over the tiled floor. Grabbing his arm, she tugged him to a halt. “Vin, why are you—”

  “Behaving like this?” Damn it, he couldn't look at her. Just couldn't do it. “You know, I don't have an answer for that.”

  She seemed nonplussed. “No, I was asking…why did you come? Is there something wrong?”

  God, where to start with that one. “Everything is fine and dandy. Just frickin' perfect.”

  As he started to walk off again, he heard her say loud and clear, “I wasn't with him. That man in there. I was not with him.”

  Vin glanced over his shoulder; then marched back up to her. “Yeah, right. You're with men for a living—or do you think I've forgotten what a prostitute does for money.”

  While he watched her pale, he felt like a total bastard. But before he could backpedal, she filled the silence.

  Lifting her chin, she said, “It's the truth, and whether or not you choose to believe it is your problem. Not mine. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to change.”

  As she brought up her hand to push her hair over her shoulder, he saw that she had something gripped in her fist…a rumpled paper towel with smudges of red all over it.

  “Wait.” He stopped her and glanced at the thing. “You took off your lipstick.”

  “Of course I—Wait, I guess you assumed that man kissed it off me, right?” She pivoted around and beelined for the locker room door. “Good-bye, Vin.”

  Now it was his turn to drop a newsflash: “I broke up with Devina this afternoon. My girlfriend is now an 'ex. That's what I came to tell you.”

  Marie-Terese halted, but did not face him. “Why did you do that?”

  He traced the back of her with his eyes, from her small shoulders to the proud set of her spine to the dark hair that fell below her shoulder blades. “Because when I looked at you across that table at the diner, no one else existed. And whether or not anything happens between you and me, it took meeting you to show me what I was missing.”

  She looked over her shoulder, her spectacular blue eyes astonished.

  “It's the truth,” he said. “The God's honest truth. And it's why I was so upset outside of that bathroom. I'm not saying you're mine…I just wish you were.”

  As the moody, depressive music from the club filled the air between them, he scrambled to put together the magic combination of words that would keep her from taking off on him.

  Although not channeling his father was probably the first place to start, he thought.

  She turned around and he felt the measure of her stare. “I'm going to go get changed and tell Trez I'm quitting. Will you wait for me?”

  What…had he heard that right? “You're quitting?”

  She held up the paper towel. “I've known for a while I couldn't keep doing this…I just didn't know tonight was the end. And it is.”

  Vin stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her, holding her carefully so she could pull back if she wanted to. She didn't though. As their bodies met, she took a deep breath…and hugged him back.

  “Yes…yes, I will wait for you,” he whispered. “Even if it takes hours.”

  As if he knew precisely the right time to appear, Trez walked out of his office at the far end of the corridor and strode toward them.

  He extended his hand to Vin. “So, you taking her out of here?”

  Vin lifted his brows as they clapped palms. “If she'll let me.”

  Trez looked down at Marie-Terese, his brown eyes impossibly kind. “You should let him.”

  Marie-Terese blushed the color of a Valentine's Day card. “I…ah…listen, Trez I'm not going to come in anymore.”

  “I know. And I'll miss you, but I'm glad.” When the man held out his huge arms, the two of them hugged briefly. “I'll tell the rest of the girls, and please don't feel like you have to keep in touch— sometimes a clean break is the best. Just remember, if you need something, anything—money, place to stay, shoulder to lean on—I am always here for you.”

  Okay, Vin liked this guy. A lot.

  “I will.” She glanced at Vin. “I won't be long.”

  After she ducked into the locker room, Vin dropped his voice, even though it was arguably unnecessary, as no one was in the hall with them. “Listen, she told me about how tight you're being with the police. I appreciate it, but if it costs you or her anything, you open right up, okay?”

  The guy smiled a little, his self-confidence palpable. “You don't worry about the cops. You just take care of your girl a
nd everything'll be cool.”

  “She's not my girl, really.” Although if he had half a chance…

  “Can I give you a piece of advice?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  As the guy stepped in close, it was unusual for Vin to have other men meet him square in the eyes given how tall he was, but Trez sure as shit didn't have a problem with that.

  “Listen to me carefully,” the man said. “There's going to come a time, maybe sooner rather than later, that you're going to have to trust her. You're going to have to have faith that she's who you know her to be and not what you fear. She did what she had to here, and maybe she'll tell you the whys. But this kind of shit, it doesn't get left behind in either of your minds for a long time…if ever. Let me assure you of what you already suspect, though. She's not like some of the other girls here. If life hadn't been what it was, she never would have been here, got it?”

  Vin totally saw the guy's point—except he wondered just how much the club owner knew. Given how he was looking at Vin, it was as if he saw…everything. “Yeah, okay.”

  “Good. Because if you do a head job on her”—the guy put his mouth right next to Vin's ear—“I'm going to make a meal out of the meat on your bones.”

  As Trez straightened and flashed another one of his small smiles, Vin wasn't fooled in the slightest as visions of hot-dog rolls, hamburger buns, and BBQ sauce swirled in his head.

  “You know,” Vin murmured, “you're okay, big man, you really are.”

  Trez bowed a little. “Feel the same way about you.”

  When Marie-Terese came out about ten minutes later, her face was free of makeup, she had on jeans and another fleece, and her duffel bag was nowhere in sight. “I just threw out my stuff,” she said to Trez.

  “Good.”

  They all walked down to the exit, and when they got to the door, she hugged her boss again. “Trez, about the police—”

  “If they show up here looking for you, I'll let you know. But I don't want you to worry about it, okay?”

  She smiled up at him. “You take care of everything, don't you.”

  A dark shadow passed over the man's face. “Almost everything. Now run along, you two. And don't take this the wrong way, but I hope I never see you again.”

  “Bye, Trez,” Marie-Terese whispered.

  He reached out and brushed her cheek softly. “Goodbye, Marie-Terese.” As the owner opened the back door, Vin put his arm around her waist and led her out into the night air.

  “Can we go somewhere and talk?” he said as their footfalls echoed around in the stillness.

  “The diner?”

  “I was thinking…somewhere else. Actually, I have this place I want to take you to.”

  “Okay. I can follow you?”

  “How about I just drive us both?” As she glanced back at the club, he shook his head. “Actually, follow me, please. You'll feel safer with your own car.”

  There was a pause, as if she were testing her instincts. Then she shrugged.

  “No…that's not necessary.” She looked up at him. “I really don't think you'll hurt me.”

  “You can bet your life on that.”

  Vin escorted her over to the M6, and after she was settled in the passenger seat, he got in behind the wheel. “We're going to the Wood.”

  “What's that?”

  “A residential part of town where every single street ends with 'wood. Oakwood, Greenwood, Pinewood.” He started the engine. “It's like the city planners just ran out of inventive names at that point, and you have to wonder why there isn't a Woodwood Avenue over there.”

  She laughed. “I've been here for about a year and a half. I should probably know where it is.”

  “It's not far. Just about ten minutes.”

  Five blocks over from the club, he eased onto the Northway and went up one exit, getting off at Caldie's northern suburbs. As they passed street after street of postage-stamp lots, the houses were small and became even smaller as he went on.

  He had memories of these neighborhoods, but not the Norman Rockwell, squeaky-clean, happy-family kind. More like him sneaking out of the house to get away from his parents and hooking up with his friends to go and drink and smoke and fight. Anything was better than being home back in those days.

  God, how he'd prayed for them to go away. Or for him to leave. And he'd gotten his wish, hadn't he.

  “Almost there,” he said, although Marie-Terese seemed perfectly content next to him, her body relaxed, her head back against the seat rest as she looked out the window.

  “I feel like you could just keep driving for hours,” she murmured, “and I'd be happy just to sit here and watch the world go by.”

  He reached over and took her hand, giving it a squeeze. “When's the last time you had a vacation?”

  “Forever.”

  “Ah. I know how that one is.”

  When he got to 116 Crestwood Avenue, he pulled into the driveway and up to a tiny two-bedroom with aluminum siding and a concrete walkway to the front door.

  The place where he'd grown up had never looked so good, the bushes around the foundation trimmed and the big oak tree free of dead branches—and when there was grass growing on the ground, it would be mowed every week. He'd also replaced the roof two years ago and had the siding redone and the driveway resurfaced. It was the best-kept house on the street, if not in all of the Wood.

  “What is this?” she said.

  He was abruptly embarrassed, but then that was the point. Devina had never been here. No one who worked with him even knew about the place. Ever since he'd started making it, he'd shown people only what he'd been proud of.

  He opened his door. “This…is where I grew up.”

  Marie-Terese was out of the car by the time he came around, and her eyes were going over every inch of the house, from stoop to flashing.

  He took her arm and led her up to the front door. As he unlocked and opened the way, the scent of artificial lemon rolled out like a welcome mat, but it was a false greeting, as fake as the chemicals that were approximating the smell.

  Together, they stepped through the jambs and he flipped on the hall light, then closed the door and cranked the heat on.

  Cold. Damp. Disordered. In contrast to the exterior, the house inside was a mess. He'd left it exactly as it had been the day his parents had fallen down the stairs together: an artifact of ugliness.

  “Yup, this is what I grew up in,” he said roughly, looking down at the only fresh stretch of rug in whole the house—which was at the foot of the staircase. Where they'd landed after they'd fallen from the top landing.

  As Marie-Terese looked it all over, he went into the living room and clicked on a lamp so she could also see the ratty sofa with the bald patches on the arms…and the low coffee table with the cigarette burns…and the bookshelves that were still filled more with his mother's empty vodka bottles than anything you could read.

  Man, the light was not kind to the orange-and-yellow drapes that hung with wilted exhaustion from their wrought-iron rods or the faded rug that had a worn track leading from the couch into the kitchen.

  His skin was crawling as he walked over to the archway and hit the light switch for the fixture over the stove.

  What should have been Betty Crocker awesome was even worse than the living room: The Formica countertops were stained with circles left by cans that had sat for weeks, bleeding rust onto the surface. The refrigerator with its loose handle was harvest gold, or probably had been when it had been bought—now it was hard to tell how much had been intentional color choice and what was decay and dust. And the pine cabinets…what a mess. Originally they'd been glossy, but they were now dull, and the section of them that was under the old leak in the ceiling had strips of varnish bubbling up from the wood like streaks of poison ivy on skin.

  He was so ashamed of it all.

  This was his real estate Dorian Gray, the rotting reality he kept locked in his proverbial closet while to the rest of the
world he presented only beauty and wealth.

  Vin glanced over his shoulder. Marie-Terese was wandering around, her mouth slightly parted, as if she were watching a scene in a movie that had shocked the shit out of her.

  “I wanted you to see this,” he said, “because it's the truth and I never show it to people. My parents were both alcoholics. My dad worked as a plumber…my mom was a professional smoker and that was about it. They fought a lot and died in this house, and to be honest, I don't miss them and I'm not sorry. If that makes me a bastard, I'm okay with it.”

  Marie-Terese walked over to the stove. Sitting on the cooktop, between the gas burners, there was an old spoon cradle which she picked up and dusted off. “'The Great Escape.”

  “An amusement park up north. Ever heard of it?”

  “No. As I said, I'm not from here.”

  He came over, looking at the cheap, touristy thing with the red logo on it. “I bought that on a school field trip. I thought maybe if the other kids saw me getting something homey for my mother, they wouldn't guess what she really was like. For some reason, the lie was important to me. I wanted to be normal.”

  Marie-Terese put the thing back with more care than it deserved and stayed where she was, staring at the thing. “I go to a prayer group every Tuesday and Friday night. At St. Patrick's.”

  Her revealation caught his breath…and he had to force himself to be cool. “You're Catholic? Me, too. Or at least my parents were married in a Catholic church. I'm lapsed and then some.”

  She tucked some of her hair behind her ear and took a shuddering breath. “I go…I go to the meetings because I want to be around the normal people. I want to be…like them again someday.” Her eyes flashed up and met his. “So I understand. I understand…all of this. Not just the house, but why you don't bring people here.”

  Vin's heart thundered in his chest. “I'm glad,” he said hoarsely.

  Her eyes drifted around. “Yes…every bit of this, I get.”

  He held out his hand. “Come with me. Let me show you the rest of the place.”

  She took what he offered, and the warmth of her palm in his was transformative, lighting up his whole body, showing him just exactly how cold and numb he usually was. He'd been hoping she'd accept him even with this in his background. Praying.