“I’m sorry.”
“Why?” He walked over to the door and pulled it closed. That was something else she noticed he did: He was always moving, doing something, distracting himself so he wouldn’t give too much away.
“It’s what you say to be polite, isn’t it? Why is this so hard?” She took a swallow of coffee, and Vic was still on the other side of the room, saying nothing. “Is this what I’m in for, you picking and choosing what to answer? I don’t like it, Vic. It’s very disrespectful. I don’t deserve this.”
This time his expression was hard and unchanging. She didn’t understand what he was doing, and she realized it scared her. She rested her mug on a side table, wiped her hands, and started back to the door.
“I’m having a hard time trying to figure out what you deserve. I asked myself why you’d keep John from me. You hid him.”
She’d protected him, and now she feared Vic would threaten all of that.
She still had her back to him when she felt him behind her. His hand touched her shoulder, his fingers resting so lightly that she had to shut her eyes to suppress a shiver, not from fear or cold but the fact that she didn’t want to like his touch. She stiffened and told herself this wasn’t okay, but he didn’t pull his hand away—and she was grateful.
“So who’s not answering who now?” His face was so close, his warm breath brushing over her ear. His lips were so close she had to shut her eyes. She couldn’t turn around and could feel every part of him against her even though they weren’t touching. He was in her space, and it was so intimate a place to be.
“Vic, don’t. This can’t happen,” she said, feeling his touch still. Then there was nothing as he stepped away.
She turned around as the air chilled, taking in the two steps he’d moved back. He was standing so close that she could have rested her hand on him, but there was too much that had happened, too many lives destroyed for there to be anything between them. Maybe he knew, as she couldn’t hide how unaffected she was. She shut her eyes and turned away again, but this time she felt his hand slide over her stomach and pull her back against him, and her hands fell over his. Instead of pushing away, she couldn’t stop her body from wanting what he had to offer.
Chapter 25
Fiona had never been able to hide how he affected her. He knew her body so well still, and Vic realized she could hide nothing from him. He didn’t know what had made him take that step and tease her the way he had. Maybe it was the fact that he was angry and hurt for all the years he’d been denied that had him pulling her back to him, holding her as he pressed his hand over the flat of her stomach and then ran his fingers under the curve of her breast. Her head leaned back against his shoulder, her breathing ragged as she seemed to fight her own need for his touch. He didn’t think as he turned her and had her backed against the wall just inside the door, his face inches from hers, his hard body pressing into her softness as he lifted her, pressing against her so she could feel every inch of him.
Yeah, she couldn’t fight him. He could feel her body trembling, could see the vein in her neck pulsing as her heartbeat kicked up. “You want me,” he said. “You can’t hide that.”
Her eyes opened, showing the passion, the fire as her hands flattened against his chest and for a moment just rested there. He started to lower his head to taste her again, wondering whether that one taste would drive him to madness as it had done when he was an impetuous young man.
Then she pushed hard, turning her head to the side. “Put me down,” she said, and all the steel and hardness he’d heard from her that first day he saw her just a few days ago was back.
“Badra, you’re still inside there.” He stepped back, allowing her to slide down and feel him in the most intimate places as he dared to slide his hands over her ass, her back, as if he had every right. Her breath caught, and she tried to hide it.
“Don’t call me that. You can’t. I’m not her. You need to let her go.” She slipped past him, her hand flitting up to her throat. It was shaking.
“Why do you want to write her off? She’s an amazing, fun girl. You can be her again. It’s safe now.”
She turned to him, her face showing everything. “How can you say that?” She leaned in so aggressively. This was a sore point, one he wasn’t sure she’d get past. “You remember what happened when they assumed that because of my name, my face, I was someone I wasn’t? It was a wakeup call, Vic. I will never be her again and live through that kind of scrutiny because of the color of my skin, my name, and who my mother was. No, Vic, you’ll never convince me. I named my son John because it’s an ordinary white man’s name. I won’t have him ever having to endure what I did. He’s John Marino from an Italian family. He can’t be anything else.” She was shaking her head, and he could see how much all of this scared her.
“He’s not a Marino, he’s a McCabe. He can take my name.”
She was looking away again, thinking, and he wondered whether she’d fight him on this, too.
“I’m working on something so you can be who you are. You don’t need to hide, Fiona.” He wanted to be the one to wipe away that shadow of heartache that seemed to be branded so deep inside her that it was holding her back from enjoying everything life had to offer, everything he had to offer. He blinked to wipe that thought away. He’d hidden that part of himself for so long.
For a moment, neither of them said anything until she walked away.
“Where are you going?” he called out, frustrated at her dismissal of him.
She didn’t answer him as she hurried down the hall, and he should have just let her go, but he was done with her pushing him away, walking away, so he was right behind her. When she reached the stairs, she glanced back at him. Her eyes widened, and she started running, fighting him as she raced up the stairs. He was behind her, and a madness hit him. He couldn’t remember ever having been this crazy, this out of control.
She must have known he was there, running after her. She stumbled on the landing of the second floor but found her footing again and ran to her room. She was yelling at him with so much heat and hurt and passion, but he was stuck in a haze, done with her running and hiding. Then he had her, his arm around her waist, lifting her as he kept going past her room to the end, where his master suite was, through his bedroom door with her kicking back at him, hitting his hand with her fist.
“Let me go!” she shouted as he kicked his door closed and dropped her, holding his hands out wide. She was breathing hard, and so was he as she faced him.
He stepped toward her, backing her to his bed, where he pushed her down and touched his lips to hers, kissing her and tasting her. She fisted her hands and slammed them against his shoulder as he deepened the kiss, and her fingers pulled at his shirt, fisting in the material, pulling him to her. It was wild and rough. Her arms went around his neck as he tugged down her jeans and tore away her underwear, then broke the kiss long enough to loop her legs over his shoulders. He freed himself from his shorts and thrust into her hard, and she couldn’t keep quiet. She squealed as he pulled out and into her again and again, his arms beside her head, his hands holding her still.
The fire in her eyes blazed. “Vic!” she cried out as she arched her shoulders, her head back as he moved faster, nothing soft and easy or loving. It was rough and hard, a taking, as if he needed to mark her. As he came apart inside her and she made those soft mewing noises he remembered, he rested his forehead to hers. He stayed inside her until he was positive he could breathe.
Chapter 26
Fiona was in Vic’s bed with the sheet drawn to her waist, lying on her stomach, and he was running his thumb over her lower back, tracing circles softly. She hadn’t been able to speak after he’d fucked her so roughly, bordering on animalistic. It wasn’t just him who had wanted it; she hadn’t been able to fight her body from needing to feel him inside her.
After he’d pulled out, after he’d ripped off his clothes and the rest of hers, he’d moved her further onto the bed, wh
ere he’d rested on his back and moved her over him so she could settle down on him. She had taken every hard inch of him inside her, allowing her head to fall back, her eyes closed as she rode him, and neither had said a word. What could she say, that her words meant nothing and she couldn’t fight the attraction between them any longer? He was so bad for her. He’d almost destroyed her, and here she was, lying naked in his bed after allowing him to love her and mark her, though she’d sworn it could never happen again.
“You okay?” he finally said, and she had to shut her eyes, because that was the one thing she wasn’t. He was still touching her, tracing circles lower over her ass as if he had every right to touch her there. Damn her body for wanting his touch.
“This shouldn’t have happened.” Though I wanted it to.
“But it did. Are you going to tell me you didn’t want this? Because I know you did.”
She had to shut her eyes again because he was calling her out. He was good at that, it seemed. She turned, facing him, seeing him in the bright light of day. He was so dark: his looks, his hair, his face and the whiskers there. His lips were full and tasted better than she remembered.
“Damn you for making me want you again. You’re dangerous, and I don’t know what this is, Vic.” She rolled over and sat up. His hand fell away, and she pulled her knees up, wrapped her arms around them, and rested her cheek there as she took in the only man she’d loved. The hate for him that she’d lived with for so long seemed so different now, so changed.
“We have a history and a son. That’s what this is,” he said as he turned away and left the bed. So much about him was different: the scars on his back, the tattoo of a phoenix rising from the flames, which was low on his hip in a spot too intimate for anyone to see.
He was by the window, and he didn’t care that he didn’t have anything on. He was comfortable with who he was, but there was so much more.
“When did you get the tattoo?” She could see the muscles bunch in his back, but he didn’t turn around. He rested his arm on the window sill, looking out.
“Years ago, in Hong Kong.” That was all he said, and she wondered why he’d chosen such a thing.
“You made something of yourself.” He was wealthy, and she was starting to understand the power she’d sensed from him before. “You have secrets, so much of what you’ve done.”
He turned his head to her. “So do you, Fiona.”
At least he’d said it. Maybe he was starting to understand. She nodded, wondering where he’d been, how he’d climbed out of the path he’d been on, a car thief turning his life around into something respectable, powerful.
“I don’t know what to do with this, Vic. What happened here between us?” She could go back to Bellevue. She could go back to her life, but she realized now there was a piece of her that Vic had always had. Did he have any idea? She supposed not. She hoped not. “You ever wonder what would have happened if I’d listened to my brother, just gotten out of the car and gone home? I have, a thousand times at least. I’ve wondered, if I had just gone home and let my brother pick me up as he pleaded, let you be on your own, you’d have been across the state line, that car would be gone, and none of this would have happened.”
It was that would-have, could-have, should-have that she’d tried her best not to relive, and she reminded herself that Vic would likely have been in jail in that case, doing time as a car thief.
Vic moved to the bed and was standing over her as she glanced up to him, and she didn’t miss his expression. It was filled with such anger. What had she said?
“You never told me you talked to your brother.”
Hadn’t she told him? Of course she had, before they checked into that hotel, both of them high from the joint they’d smoked, and she hadn’t been able to keep her hands off him. It had been the best night of sex she’d had with Vic, not her first time, but she was sure now it was when John had been conceived. He was still staring down at her as if something was wrong.
“What is it?” she asked as she sat up, and he had his knee on the bed now, his arm reaching over her, his hand resting on the bed beside her hip.
“You never told me you talked to Ari. You told him where we were, what we were doing?”
Why was he so upset now? “What are you doing?” She pressed her hands to her head, brushing her hair back. “Of course I told him. He wanted to come and get me.”
“Did he know where you were?”
“Of course. I told him I was at the hotel. He knew you stole cars. I shouldn’t have gone with you, but you could talk me into anything then. I did anything for you. Ari told me not to stay with you, and I should have listened.” Her chest ached for a moment at the thought of the brother she hadn’t heard from since she’d lost her parents. In blame, he’d lashed out at her.
Vic pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. She couldn’t figure out what was wrong. “Did you tell your brother about the car I stole?”
She had to think back, remembering how angry Ari had been and how defiant she was. “Why would it matter now?”
There was a moment as Vic turned his head away, his jaw tensed. When he looked back at her, she had a sick feeling in her stomach.
“Because whoever called the cops knew about the car I stole,” he said. “They knew the owner was out of the country. I always wondered who it was. The Ziploc bag of powder in the trunk…the whole thing was wacked.”
Maybe it was shock that hit her. She was positive her ears were ringing. She wanted to believe he was wrong. “That’s crazy. Ari would never put me in that kind of jeopardy, and Mom and Dad…he’d never hurt them.” She wanted to cry. There was no way her brother could have done that, but Vic was shaking his head.
“Think about it. The only reason you were dragged into it was that you called me. The cop grabbed my phone and saw your photo on the screen, and it was because of what you said. Do you remember?”
Of course she did. It was what had set off the cops, made them think the worst attack that had happened could happen again. We’re going to miss the plane.
“It wasn’t Ari. You’re wrong, Vic,” she said, but she still remembered the day she’d walked out of her parents’ destroyed house, the words her brother had tossed in her face: It’s all your fault.
Please, no, don’t let it be him was all she could think as she rested her cheek against Vic’s chest and allowed him to hold her a little tighter.
Chapter 27
“Are you sure it was him?” Vic said from behind his desk in his home office. His private investigator, Tom, was seated in a deep brown wing chair on the other side. His long surfer hair had recently been cut to something more conservative and above his ears.
“We’ve had a tail on him, waited until he left, and I went through his home, his office. He called the reporter. He had notes on all your business deals, your success. Notes on Badra, too, and John. He had photos of all of you as if he’s been watching you for years. I did track down the private investigator he used—past tense. Maybe that was why he finally called the reporter. It’s creepy.”
Vic was still having a hard time getting his head around the fact that Ari, Fiona’s brother, had been keeping tabs on them. Even worse, he had been Tish’s source, although he didn’t believe she knew that. “So we don’t know for sure it was him who tipped off the police all those years ago in Phoenix?”
Tom shook his head. “Can’t confirm that, but it fits if you think about it. He gets rid of you and gets his sister back. She just had the bad luck of calling you when the shit hit the fan. He didn’t account for that, I’d say. I’m assuming again, but I’m good at what I do, so it’s most likely accurate.”
Vic had to frown at Tom’s easy way, but he was right: He was very good at what he did.
Tom continued: “It appears from the file I found, the photos, that he was not happy with either you or the lady.”
Vic only nodded. He didn’t need Tom to do any more digging. He already knew it wa
s Ari. Fiona’s brother had never liked him, and the pieces were now falling into place. He realized the arrogant young man had tried to destroy Vic, but he ended up destroying his own family instead.
“So he owns a bar in Long Beach, gambling debts…”
And he blamed Vic and his sister for something he had done.
“He’s one step from losing everything. Do you want me to keep tailing him?”
“Yeah, just keep tabs on what he’s up to.” A man with that much hate was dangerous.
“How are you planning to rein him in? Can’t see someone like that just letting things go,” Tom added, but Vic had no intention of sharing his plans. He’d already bought up Ari’s markers and his mortgage, and he’d put things in motion to take everything from a man who had ruined so many lives. “And what about the reporter, the story?” Tom linked his fingers together, rested his hands over his knees.
“It’s buried,” he said as he closed up the email in his inbox, the one from his lawyer confirming the sale of the Oregon Press to him. He stood up and walked around his desk, a cue for Tom that they were done. “Thanks for coming by,” he said before shaking the man’s hand and watching as he walked out of his office. Vic could hear him say something to someone as footsteps echoed on the hardwood.
“Hey, Vic,” John said as he burst into the office, dressed in blue jeans and a navy T-shirt. “Mom said we’re staying, that you enrolled me in a private school here.” He had a big smile on his face, and Vic took in Fiona, who was in the doorway. She appeared relaxed, and the smile that touched her lips was one he’d waited a lifetime to see.
He held out his hand as she crossed the room to him and slid her hand into his. “Yeah, talked your mom into staying. We have a lot to work through, years to catch up on, and you’re both home where you belong. We’re a family,” he said to Fiona before he leaned down and pressed his forehead to hers and a kiss to her lips.
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