by Marie Force
“Is he dead?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s my fault,” she said with a fresh burst of tears.
He brushed them away. “How can you say that?”
“I turned off the alarm so I could go see what was thumping on the deck. I thought the lounge chairs had blown over, and I went up to get them. I shouldn’t have shut off the alarm.”
“So that’s why,” Michael said with a sigh. “None of us could figure out why it was off. Honey, no one imagined he’d try to get in through the roof. It’s not your fault. If anything, we all think you’re amazing for figuring out a way to make the 911 call. How did you do that?”
“I told him I had to go to the bathroom when I thought of the phone in the cabinet.”
Michael released a ragged deep breath. “I almost took the phone out of there when I first moved in. I thought it was so dumb to have phones in the bathrooms.”
“I remembered you telling me that.”
He caressed her bruised cheek. “What happened to your face?”
“He hit me when I tried to get away from him. He said he wanted…”
Michael’s hand froze. “What?”
She looked away from him, her face burning with embarrassment. “Some of what you’ve been getting.”
“Baby, did he, I mean, Jesus…”
“No. He just did a lot of talking about it.”
He held her even more tightly. “You must’ve been so scared.”
“I thought I’d never see you again, Michael,” she whispered. “I just wanted to see you again.”
“I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I knew it wasn’t safe to keep you with me, but I’ve been so selfish. I’m so crazy in love with you that I was greedy for whatever time I could get with you. It didn’t even matter that I’d put your life in danger.”
She stroked his face. “We were both greedy for the same things. It’s not your fault. You tried to get me to leave a bunch of times. It was my choice to stay. It still is.”
“You’re not staying after this. No way. I’m putting my foot down.”
She smiled. “We’ll see.”
“I mean it, Juliana. This is it.”
“Okay.” She would fight that battle later.
Michael managed to fend off the police who wanted a statement from Juliana. He told them she would talk to them in the morning but not before. No fewer than four cops stood guard in the hallway outside the room where Michael slept on the hospital bed with Juliana in his arms.
He woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat after dreaming that Juliana had been killed instead of Escalada. At some point, a nurse must have covered him with a blanket. Because he was shaking and breathing hard, he got up so he wouldn’t wake Juliana. After he splashed cold water on his face in the bathroom, he sat down in a chair, dropped his head into his palms, and gave in to the need to weep.
When he thought about all the things that could have happened… she might have forgotten about the phone in the bathroom, Escalada might have raped her—maybe even more than once—or cut her throat. The cops could have shot her instead of that animal Escalada. Each scenario was more chilling than the last, and they ran through his mind like a horror movie.
“Hey,” she whispered from the bed. “Where’d you go?”
He wiped his face and got up to go to her. “I’m here. I’m right here.”
She took his hand to bring him back on the bed. “What is it, Michael? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong as long as you’re all right. I love you.”
She curved her hand around the back of his neck to draw him down to her. “I love you, too,” she said, touching her lips to his. “So much.”
He held her as tightly as he dared, his face buried in her fragrant hair.
“Michael?”
“What, hon?”
“I’m worried about work. I won’t be able to go in tomorrow, not with my face all banged up… I was already out last week and now this. I’m going to get fired—”
“Shh.” He kissed her. “Don’t worry. I called the salon. I told them you’d been in a car accident, and they said to take as much time as you need.”
She released a sigh of relief. “Thank you for thinking of that,” she said, reaching for him.
Thrilled that she felt well enough to even care about work, he fell into the kiss. She was everything, and she was still right here with him. For now, for this moment, she was his and she loved him.
“Is there a lock on that door?”
“I don’t know.”
She kissed him again. “Why don’t you check?”
“You need to get some sleep.”
“I’ve had some sleep.” She nibbled on his ear, her hand moving to his chest. “Now I want you.”
He groaned as she pushed open his shirt. “Juliana…”
She pressed her lips to his chest. “What?”
“Sweetheart,” he hissed. “Come on. You’re killing me.”
She laughed. “Then stop resisting.”
When she reached for his fly, he grabbed her hand. “All right. That’s enough. Time to sleep.”
“Michael?”
He took a deep breath to slow the frantic beating of his heart. “What, hon?”
“I need…”
Turning on his side to face her, he said, “What do you need? I’ll get you anything you want.”
“I need to feel like I’m still alive. Is that weird?”
“No,” he said, kissing her with a burst of passion that took them both by surprise. “It’s not weird. It’s normal after what you went through.”
“Make me feel like I’m still alive, will you? Will you, please?”
“Right now?” he asked, startled. “Here?”
She bit her lip. “Yes. Right here, right now.”
“What about the nurses?”
“They were just in a little while ago.”
“I slept through that?”
“Uh huh.” Giggling, she added, “They said you were awfully cute all curled up to me in the bed.”
He studied her for a long moment before he got up to discover there was no lock on the door. “I don’t know about this, Juliana. . .”
“I’m willing to take my chances,” Juliana said with a saucy grin. “What’ll they do? Kick me out?”
His heart pounding and imaging the headlines should they be caught, Michael shrugged off his shirt and dropped the suit pants he had put on almost twenty-four hours earlier. “I had no idea you were such a risk taker.”
“I’m just full of surprises,” she said, pulling the covers over them.
“This is definitely a first,” he whispered.
She replied with a hot kiss that robbed him of all rational thought. Her arms went around him, urging him over her.
“Does your neck hurt?” he asked, pushing up her hospital gown to find her naked underneath.
She caressed his back. “No.”
Concerned about hurting her, he trembled from the effort to contain overwhelming urges.
“Love me, Michael.”
With only the slightest of movements he slid into her. Not wanting to cause her pain, he kept up a slow, easy pace that somehow affected him more than any other time with her ever had. All the anxiety and emotion and love from that long day—not to mention the fear of getting caught—had him on the verge of losing control in a matter of moments. “I’m not going to last long, baby,” he whispered through gritted teeth, reaching under her to hold her tight against him.
“You won’t have to,” she said in a breathy voice that told him she too was teetering on the edge.
He tightened his hold on her to keep her still so her climax wouldn’t hurt her.
With a gasp, she clutched him from within, dragging him over the edge with her.
“Did it work?” he asked when he had caught his breath. He could very safely say that making love with her in a hospital bed, after nearly losing her, had been the most erotic
experience of his life.
She laughed. “Oh, yeah. I’m very definitely alive.”
He kissed her forehead and then her lips. “Yes, you are. But we’re both going to be dead if we get caught like this.” He disentangled himself from her and found his clothes. After he got dressed, he said, “There. Now I can breathe again.”
Juliana smiled when he lay down next to her again. “Thank you.”
“Believe me, it was my pleasure.” Kissing her softly, he added in a teasing tone, “I want to be the guy who’s there for you in your time of need.”
She linked her fingers with his. “You are.”
His smile faded. “Except that you’re in this bed tonight because of me.”
“Don’t do that, Michael. You didn’t cut me.”
“In the morning the cops are going to want your statement.” He brought their joined hands to his lips. “Do you think you’ll feel up to it?”
“What do I have to tell them?”
“Everything that happened from the time you first heard something on the roof until he was shot.”
She looked away from him.
“What?”
“I don’t want them to know he said that other stuff about, you know…”
“I think you could leave that part out since he didn’t actually do anything.”
“He might have if the cops didn’t show up when they did. I think that’s why he didn’t kill me right away. He wanted something else first.”
Michael stopped breathing. “Did something else happen, Juliana?”
Her cheeks flushed with color. “He was…”
“Tell me,” Michael urged.
“Turned on,” she whispered.
“How could you tell?”
“He pushed it against me when he put the knife—”
“Stop.” His heart racing with anxiety, Michael hugged her close to him. “That’s enough. You don’t have to tell the police about that.”
“He said he had to come back because he’d left a loose end behind and that he couldn’t let me live because his clients wouldn’t want anyone left who could link him to the trial.”
His blood gone cold, Michael sat up. “He said that? In those exact words?”
“Just about.”
“Holy shit. This is a nightmare that refuses to end. You can link him to the Benedettis. They haven’t found anything else to tie him to them.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re still in danger.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Early the next morning, Michael’s detail took him home to shower and change. He returned in less than an hour with clothes for Juliana to wear home from the hospital. For the moment, his colleague George Samuels was handling the trial. Since they had no real defense, the Benedettis’ attorneys were calling a parade of character witnesses to testify on their behalf. According to George, the previous afternoon consisted of glowing praise for the brothers’ care of their widowed mother, their work at the YMCA with underprivileged kids, and other bullshit that George didn’t think the jury was buying. Michael’s absence had been explained as a personal emergency.
Juliana showered and got dressed. The nurses changed the dressing on her cut and showed Michael how to do it at home. The stitches would dissolve, and they hoped the scar would be undetectable. However, the bruise on her face had exploded with color overnight, and she had a black eye. She was weak from the blood loss and the cut hurt like crazy, but otherwise she felt well enough to go home.
“God, I look like hell,” she complained to Michael when she came out of the bathroom.
“Not to me.”
“You have to say that.”
“I don’t care how you look as long as you’re alive and safe. It’s going to be a long time before I care about anything else.”
She put her arms around him and rested her head on his chest. “I’m sorry you were so scared.”
“Scared doesn’t begin to describe it.”
“Let’s go home.”
The detectives were coming by the house in an hour to take her statement. Michael had asked Tom Houlihan to be there, too.
“We need to talk about our living situation,” he reminded her as he helped her into the wheelchair the nurses left for them.
“Not now, okay?”
“Not now, but later. Definitely later.”
After Juliana gave the detectives her statement—skipping over Escalada’s rape threats—Tom showed them out. Juliana rested on the sofa against the mountain of pillows Michael insisted on.
“I think we can work this so the Benedettis won’t know that Escalada gave them up,” Tom said.
“Until they’re tried for the attempted murder-for-hire of the cops and Rachelle,” Michael reminded him.
“That’ll be a year or more from now. If we can keep a lid on it until discovery, Juliana will be safe from them.”
“What happens after discovery?” Juliana asked.
Tom and Michael exchanged glances.
“Protective custody,” Tom said. “Followed most likely by witness protection.”
Juliana twisted her fingers as she absorbed the news. She thought that threat died along with Escalada. Unfortunately, he had told her just enough to keep her ensnared in the case.
Tom sat down next to Juliana. “I know what you’re thinking: we failed to keep Rachelle safe, so what’s to say the same thing won’t happen to you.” He took her hand. “I’m not going to feed you a big line of bull because you’ve seen how bad it can get. I’m just going to promise you that we’ll do everything we can to ensure your safety.”
“That’s all you can do. Thank you, Tom, and thank you for the flowers, too. They’re gorgeous.”
“Feel better soon.” Tom stood up to shake hands with Michael. “Take as much time as you need. George has things covered in court.”
Michael thanked him and walked him to the door. When he came back, he sat down next to Juliana. “Can I get you anything?”
“No, I’m good, but you need to get back to work.”
“I will, tomorrow probably. We need to talk about what’s going to happen now. I think you should go home—to your place. You’d be safer there.”
“I’d be alone there.”
“You’re going to be alone here when I go to work tomorrow.”
“But I won’t be alone at night. I can ask Mrs. R to come over during the day. She’d love to hang out with me.”
Michael sighed with exasperation. “You’re working me. I know that look. You think if you look at me that way you can get whatever you want.”
She reached for his hand. “What look?”
“That one! You’re doing it again! It’s not going to work. I want you to go home. I don’t want you here anymore.”
“Now you’re just lying to my bruised and battered face,” she said, kissing the palm of his hand.
He rested it against the bruised cheek. “I never knew you were such an operator. Maybe you’re more like Paige than I thought.”
“Oh!” She punched his chest. “Take that back!”
He chuckled and leaned in to kiss her. “I don’t want to.”
“I’m not kissing you until you take it back.”
“You’re going home,” he said, nudging at her lips with his tongue.
“Make me.” She tormented him by sliding her lips over his without giving him the access he craved.
With a groan of frustration, he gave in. “Fine! Stay. Get yourself killed. See if I care. Now kiss me.”
“You forgot something,” she said with a victorious smile.
“What?”
“Take back the Paige crack.”
He rolled his eyes. “I take it back, I take it back! Now will you kiss me?”
She held him at arm’s length. “One more thing.”
“What?”
“The part where you said you don’t want me here and the ‘see if I care’ comment… I didn’t like that, either.”
&
nbsp; “No?”
“Not so much.”
“I’m seeing a whole new side to you that I’m not sure I like.” In truth he was so relieved by the sassy spark in her gorgeous brown eyes that he would take anything she cared to dish out.
She folded her arms. “Now you’ve got to take that back.”
He laughed. “I take it back. I take it all back,” he said, moving her arms and nuzzling the uninjured side of her neck.
“Say something nice so I’ll forget all that mean stuff.”
He pretended to struggle to think of something.
She pushed him away. “Forget it!”
“No wait, I think I’ve got it.”
Raising a skeptical eyebrow, she said, “This had better be good.”
“You’re everything to me. You make me happier than I’ve ever been in my life. Just knowing you’ll be here when I get home gets me through anything I have to face during the day. I don’t know how I ever lived before I knew you, and the thought of you being in danger because of me…” He shook his head when he couldn’t go on.
She held out her arms to him, and he rested against her chest.
“How was that?” he asked a minute later.
“Good,” she said in a voice gone hoarse with emotion. “Really, really good.”
He tilted his face up to hers and was rewarded with a kiss he would never forget.
Over the next two weeks, word got out among her friends and clients that Juliana was recovering from an accident at home. In an unprecedented display of selflessness, her sister Donatella coordinated with the salon to organize appointments for hair styling sessions for Juliana’s closest friends and longest-standing clients in Michael’s living room.
When people asked why she was staying there, Juliana simply said that she and Jeremy were taking a break to figure some things out and that she was renting a room from Michael in the meantime. To her great relief, no one pressed her for more information. While she was self-conscious about being out in public with the colorful bruise on her face, she told her sister and close friends that the bruise and the bandage on her neck were from a car accident.
Juliana enjoyed the parade of friends who came by to check on her and appreciated Dona’s efforts to organize “Juliana’s Salon,” which kept her busy and her mind off her troubles—not to mention it provided some welcome extra income since her clients insisted on paying her.