by Lucy Monroe
She couldn't very well tell her sister that Marcus was trying to blackmail her into bed or that she'd tried to justify inexplicable actions from a lifetime ago. It may have only been eighteen months, but in some ways it felt like forever since the time with Marcus.
"Where did you guys go?"
She walked into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. "That fish place down by the water."
"The one with the cute waiter?"
Coming back into the living room, she sat at the other end of the couch from Jenny and picked up the afghan she'd started for Aaron's bed when he got bigger. It was the same vibrant blue of his and his father's eyes.
"Yes. He was there tonight. He kept bringing things to the table. He probably hoped I'd say something about you."
Jenny laughed, her expression wry. "Oh, definitely. The guy must have a thing for girls with hardly any hair and emaciated bodies."
Veronica dropped the ball of yarn she'd been unwinding to crochet.
Scooting across the sofa, she wrapped an arm around Jenny's shoulders. "Emaciated bodies are all the rage now, don't you know? Not that yours is all that skinny anymore. And your hair is gorgeous."
By looking at Jenny now, with her short brown curls framing her pixieish face, it would be impossible to guess that only a year ago she'd been completely bald. True, the curls weren't all that long, but she really did look great. "Sweetheart, you are beautiful."
Jenny laid her head against Veronica's shoulder. "You're my sister. You love me and you'd tell me I was gorgeous if I looked like a troll." Then she laughed. "But don't you dare stop saying it."
Veronica hugged her tight and then moved away, knowing that a little sisterly sympathy went a long way with her independent younger sibling.
Picking up her crochet project again, she said, 'The mirror should tell you the same thing."
Jenny shrugged. "Tell me more about your date with Marcus. Did you tell him about Aaron?"
She tensed and missed a stitch.
Unraveling and starting the row over, she blew out a breath. "It wasn't a date."
"Hmmm. Did you go to dinner with him?"
"You know I did."
"Did you pay for your own meal?"
"No."
"Was the purpose of this nondate to discuss Kline Tech's expansion plans?" Jenny asked, her expression daring Veronica to lie and say that it had been.
"No."
"Sounds like a date to me. I suppose you're going to try to tell me he didn't kiss you goodnight either."
Veronica felt her cheeks heating and cursed the pale complexion that was such a contrast to her dark hair and gray eyes. "No, I'm not going to say that."
Jenny gasped. "He did try. Did you let him?"
The temptation to lie almost overwhelmed her, but she'd had all she could take of betraying her conscience eighteen months ago. "Yes."
She didn't elaborate. Jenny didn't need to know that it had gone beyond a casual kiss to something incendiary. Concentrating on crocheting the blue cotton yarn into something recognizable, she tried to ignore the palpable look that Jenny gave her.
"You let that creep kiss you?" She heard her own earlier disbelief in Jenny's voice and something else. Concern.
Pulling a length of yarn from the skein, she said, "He's not a creep and it didn't mean anything."
"Like it didn't mean anything when he got you pregnant?"
The words acted like explosives against her conscience, forcing her to acknowledge that she had made another huge miscalculation in not telling Marcus about their child. "I think maybe it did mean something." Then.
"What are you saying? Did he say he was upset mat you took off for parts unknown? Did he miss you?" Her sister had swung from teenage cynicism to romantic melodrama at the speed of light.
What could Veronica say? He'd obviously missed her body, but he wouldn't let himself miss a spy.
She decided to focus on the past, rather than the present. "I never told him about Mom and Dad, or you and well… He acted like he was hurt by the omission, like he would have wanted to know and thought I hadn't trusted him enough to say anything."
"Did you?"
"Obviously not." She hadn't thought he was interested, but that was just a symptom of the lack of trust she'd had for him and the relationship they'd shared.
She'd gotten so accustomed to relying on herself that she hadn't considered sharing her burden with a man who saw her as nothing more than a current bed partner. But perhaps shehad meant more than that to Marcus. Then again, she'd seen him break off more promising relationships than theirs. She couldn't have been wrong.
"I thought I had cause. He doesn't see it that way. It hardly matters now. It's all water under the bridge."
"Except that bridge has a baby right in the middle of it."
"Yes." A baby she loved.
A baby she needed.
A baby she might very well lose if Marcus discovered his existence.
Chapter Eight
Marcus was lying in bed, awake and frustrated, when the phone rang.
Instinctively, he reached for it, but then he let his hand drop. It was probably Ronnie wanting to know what he intended to tell Kline about her past.
He didn't have an answer for her and it did not have a thing to do with her refusing to come home with him.
The answering service picked up the call and the ringing stopped. A few seconds later, his mobile phone started buzzing. Irritated, he threw back the covers and got out of bed.
He grabbed the small flip phone up from the top of the dresser and opened it. "Hello?"
"Marcus?"
The shock of hearing his mother's voice when he had been expecting Ronnie's left him momentarily speechless.
"Marcus! Are you there?"
"Yes, I'm here. What can I do for you, Mom?"
"Your father's had a heart attack. He's in the hospital…" Her voice trailed off into a sob while Marcus's fingers tightened on the phone.
"How serious is it?" He felt concern for his mother's emotional distress, but curiously numb to his father's illness.
"I-I n-need you to c-come!" she said, without answering his question.
"I'll be there in an hour."
"Th-thanky-you…" She was still crying when she cut the connection.
He got dressed quickly and was on the road in a matter of minutes. There was only one major hospital in the town of his youth and he went directly to it, knowing without a doubt that his mother would not have left as long as Mark was still a patient.
Sure enough, she was in the waiting room when Marcus arrived. She looked up when he walked in and a smile of gratitude crossed her features.
He crossed the room and pulled her into a hard hug. "Are you okay?"
She patted his back and nodded. "They said it was mild. They're still running tests, but it doesn't look like any permanent damage was done."
"I'm glad." And he was. He hated seeing his mother hurt and he didn't wish Mark any ill. He simply had nothing to give the man who had pretended he did not exist until his thirteenth year.
She pulled back and ran her fingers through blond hair that looked as natural as his own, a habit they both shared when they were agitated. "He's already making noises about getting dis-charged. I want him to stay the night, but he says that as soon as they're done running tests, he wants to leave."
Typical.
She sighed and sat down, patting the seat beside her, which Marcus took without saying anything.
"I was hoping you'd talk to him." She bit her lip. "I need to know he's in the clear. I'll be a nervous wreck if he goes home without even a single day of observation."
Of course she would, She cared about Mark Danvers more than her own pride.
"He's not likely to listen to me."
His mother's still beautiful face settled into a frown. "You are determined not to try with him aren't you? It's been almost twenty years; can't you forgive him?"
He didn't want to have this di
scussion with her, not right now. She was upset already and he didn't want to make it worse, but he couldn't give her what she wanted. He could not heal the bond his father had broken between the two of them. He didn't even begin to know how.
When he looked at the other man, he saw someone who had maintained two lives, hurting everyone involved for the sake of his own need. He saw a man whose convictions had dismissed the possibility of divorce, but had allowed him to maintain an adulterous relationship for over a decade. Some convictions.
Marcus loved his mother and he tolerated Mark, but he could never truly respect him.
"I'll talk to him," he said, in an effort to avoid the confrontation.
His mother smiled, her relief palpable. "Thankyou. Your brother and sister are on their way, but they have to fly in and who knows when they'll arrive."
He found it interesting that his siblings had experienced much less difficulty adjusting to his mother's role in their lives than he'd had dealing with the marriage between his parents. Probably because they were grown and had moved away from home by the time their mother died and his had taken her place.
Besides, his mother was a loving, generous-hearted woman whom it would be very difficult to dislike. She did not fit anyone's perception of the wordmistress .
He found his father sitting up in the hospital bed when he entered the room. The older man looked as if nothing had happened at all, his dynamic presence apparent even though he was wearing the ridiculous standard hospital gown that usually washed out others.
"So, your mother called you. I'd hoped she would."
"She needed someone to be with her."
"Yes." Mark's eyes were the same color as Marcus's, but that was the only physical characteristic they had in common. "I worried her."
"You need to take better care of yourself." The words just came out.
He'd meant them to imply his mother would be lost without Mark, but his father seemed pleased by his apparent concern for his health.
"I will. More exercise, less fatty foods and less stress appears to be my dictum.."
"Mom wants you to stay the night for observation."
Mark's face set in familiar stubborn lines. "She's a woman. She worries too much, but I'm going home. I'm fine now."
"She won't be if you insist on going."
Mark opened his mouth to speak and Marcus put up his hand.
"I know you care about her. I'm just asking you to show it this once."
Mark's mouth snapped shut.
"You're not the only person affected by your decision, and I think you should take that into account when you make it."
"You don't think I do that much, do you?" Mark asked, his voice surprisingly subdued.
"No, but there's a first time for everything." He wasn't accusing his dad, just stating a fact.
"If you think it's that important to her, I'll stay."
"Good."
His mother entered the room and was thrilled to find out Marcus had convinced his father to stay the night under observation. She wanted to stay with him and Marcus offered to go to the house to be there when his siblings arrived.
He ended up staying all the next day and returning toSeattle after his father had been discharged from the hospital. His half sister had offered to stay a few days and Marcus had felt no guilt leaving his parents in her capable hands.
Veronica put down the phone in frustration.
Marcus wasn't in his cubicle, he hadn't answered the phone at his temporary apartment and Mr. Kline's PA refused to give out any information on his whereabouts.
She needed to get the blackmail stuff out of the way once and for all so she could tell Marcus about Aaron, but he seemed intent on thwarting her. If worried thoughts were deadly, Veronica would be in the county morgue by now. She needed to know what Marcus was going to do about her past.
When she went home that night, she was short-tempered and snapped at Jenny, broke one of Aaron's toys trying to fix it and went to bed in one of the worst moods she'd been in since coming home fromFrance .
Marcus settled into his chair, taking a sip of the bitter coffee he'd just poured from the employee pot located in the small alcove at the end of his and Ronnie's row of cubicles. He grimaced.
She hadn't made the coffee; that was for sure. Ronnie made coffee like she did everything else— extremely well.
He used to tease her and say that the coffee beans were afraid of malfunctioning when such a terrifyingly efficient person had hold of them. She laughed at the time, but now he wondered if that comment, like many others, had hurt her and contributed to her reason for not trusting him even though he'd been her lover.
He'd often joked about her robot-like efficiency. He'd been completely blind and insensitive to the fact that a woman, particularly a woman as passionate as Ronnie, might not like being referred to that way.Was it his fault that she believed he hadn't been interested in knowing anything more about her than how she responded in bed?
He wasn't sure it mattered. Facts were facts. She hadn't trusted him and he couldn't change that. But he wouldn't settle for the same misinterpretation of his motives now. And just as soon as he figured out what they were himself, he'd let her know.
He could no longer pretend he was only interested in solving the case, or even working Ronnie out of his system. His body and his heart wanted her back in his life. He had to decide whether he'd let his mind listen to them, whether he could take a risk on a woman who had already betrayed him once.
Even if her reasons for doing so had been pretty damn potent.
Pushing the thoughts away, he focused on the task at hand and morosely considered the stack of employee personnel files on his desk. He had requested copies of the files on all employees with access to the information that had been leaked over the past six months and he had a list of fifteen suspects, eight in design, six in marketing and one in corporate administration.
Veronica Richards was one of them.
The sound of her gentle voice answering a phone call broke into his thoughts.
With her cubicle only a few feet away from his own, the sensation was not a new one. He couldn't understand the words, but the soft tones of her voice were unmistakable and acted as a reminder of what she'd refused to give him after their date on Monday night. Herself.
Although he was more sexually frustrated than any other time in his life, he was glad she had said no. He couldn't afford to forget his responsibility to his client again and being around her made him do that.
She'd tried to talk to him after he returned from his trip, but he had put her off. He needed time. Time for his investigation and time to digest everything he had learned on Monday night.
No matter how he stacked it, he wasn't willing to accuse Ronnie of the espionage without solid proof, thus the pile of files for him to go through. He couldn't rip her life apart without just cause. He could only hope if he found it, he would have the moral strength to do right by his client.
He wasn't sure anymore and that scared him.
He had to face the fact that he still wanted her to be innocent.
He wanted to believe that she wouldn't betray her loyalty again in order to deal with her current financial problems. The feelings rocketing through him didn't make sense and they filled him with self-disgust, but he would do everything in his power to protect her until he had no choice to do otherwise.
That level of weakness toward a woman who had not only betrayed him, but had trusted her cohort in crime with more truth than her lover frustrated him more than his unrelieved sexual desire.
Cursing under his breath, he pulled the top file toward him and opened it; Ronnie's was on the bottom. He'd told himself that was because he already knew the pertinent facts of her life and work history. He knew she had a past that included corporate spying and selling secrets for money, but she'd also had a sister on the verge of dying.
Taking notes on the possible avenues for investi-gation in the file on another marketing admin, he w
as interrupted by the gentle tenor of Ronnie's voice.
"Jack wanted me to tell you that he'll meet you at the restaurant for lunch at twelve-thirty. He's running a little behind."
His head snapped up and he met cool gray eyes. She looked like a woman in complete control, like she'd never come anywhere near letting him ravish her unresisting body in the front seat of his Jag.
He casually shut the unmarked file. 'Thanks."
