She was safe.
Alone. But safe.
She wasn’t blind. She knew that Michael cared about her deeply. There had been one kiss a million years ago where she’d pulled back and run away and they never spoke of it again. For one bright shining moment she felt normal, like she could have anything that any other girl could.
But all too soon she reminded herself that she was far from normal, and Michael deserved oh so much more than what she could give him. She’d never thought she could give anything real to any man.
Until now. Until Nicholas.
As the door opened to the penthouse suite, Adele briefly considered that the events surrounding Dani were making her more susceptible to his charm. He was a titillating distraction from horror movie her life had become. The minute he walked in from the other room, clad in an elegant suit, his hair long and wild about his shoulders, the rest of the world seemed to fade away. What had been and what would be seemed insignificant to what was. All that mattered was they were there in that moment together. Adele had quickly learned from nearly losing Dani that the present was all anyone ever has.
He approached, drinking her in his burning gaze. Her breath caught in her throat as he took her hand in his and brought it to his lips. She shivered though his skin was warm. “You look wonderful,” he murmured.
She shook her head. She was wearing jeans and an old ratty sweater. She didn’t even wear a speck of makeup. She was white as a ghost, making the circles under her eyes stand out even more. “You lie so effortlessly, Mr. Sterling,” she kidded.
He held a free hand to his chest. “On my honor. I wouldn’t lie about that.”
Her eyebrow cocked. “And what would you lie about?”
He just laughed. “Always the reporter.” He led her toward a beautifully set table. “Come. Let’s eat.”
He pulled out her chair and let her sit. He reached around her, so close she could feel the heat from his body, and took the silver dome from her plate. “I hope you like quail.”
“I love it,” she answered. “How did you know?”
He shrugged as he sat. “Call it a lucky hunch.” He uncovered his own meal. “I used to do quite a bit of hunting when I was younger.”
The memory seemed to pain him. “For her?” she asked quietly.
His eyes shot to hers. “How did you know?”
She shrugged. “Lucky hunch.” Thaddeus approached with a bottle of champagne. “What’s the occasion?”
Thaddeus popped the cork and filled her glass while consuming her with his eyes. It was almost tiresome how on the spot he made her feel.
Nicholas didn’t bother to answer as Thaddeus filled his glass. Their eyes met – a silent duel as Nicholas sent him from the room with nothing more than a look of disapproval.
Nicholas waited until Thaddeus had gone before holding his glass up to her. “That you finally answered my messages and joined me again.”
She held up her glass, unable to tear her eyes from him as she sipped the champagne. “How could I not reward your tenacity? It’s a quality I can appreciate.”
She proved her point as she relentlessly grilled him on his background over the course of their dinner. He answered every question calmly and directly. Every time he tried to turn the table to have her talk about herself, she would give him a vague answer and then meet it with more questions.
By the end of their meal, she knew when he had started Sterling International, how he’d built it from the ground up, acquiring other companies along the way, turning himself into a self-made millionaire through his world travels.
What she still didn’t know anything about was Nicholas the man.
“What are your parents like?” she asked, swirling the last of the champagne in her glass.
“Dead,” he answered simply. There was no pain, no mourning, just a simple statement of fact. “They died long before I enjoyed true success. A shame, but life is like that, isn’t it?”
He saddened her when he talked like that. This was clearly a man deadened by the weight of his losses. “And what about your love?” she queried softly.
There was a slight pause. “The same,” he finally answered. His eyes misted over as he looked at her. She could feel his sadness sweep across the table. He scooted his chair back and walked toward her, offering her a hand. “How about some fresh air?”
She nodded and allowed him to lead her onto the balcony that overlooked the city. “Have you ever heard of the red string of fate?” he asked as they leaned together along the stone railing. She shook her head. “There is an Eastern legend that says we are tied to significant people in our lives by a red string around our ankles. Destiny links people who are supposed to find each other, help each other, and even love each other, by this unbreakable cord. It knows no distance, no time, no circumstance. No matter what happens, this string will never break.” He glanced toward the sky. “Maybe I believe it because I have to, but I believe that red string will restore what was once stolen.” He glanced down at her upturned face. “Do you believe in destiny, Adele?”
“I never did,” she said softly as she lost herself in his eyes. “But life has a way of testing our beliefs, doesn’t it?”
He gave her a slow smile. “Indeed.” He reached out with his hand to brush her hair from her face as the wind danced around them. “Maybe it’s silly to believe in anything more than the here and now. All we really have for sure is this moment,” he added. There was a question there, but Adele couldn’t even remember why she was supposed to turn away from it. In her heart she agreed, her life had been a series of wasted moments. She knew that the moment she had found Dani dying in the forest. Now that a much nicer moment was before her again, promising more than just the absolute loneliness she’d always known, she wondered if it was a moment worth seizing. This showed in her eyes. Like a current between them, Nicholas pulled her into his strong arms.
No words were needed as her body melted against him. All remaining doubts melted to nothingness as she wound her arms around his neck and met his kiss with equal passion. His mouth was warm as it covered her full, parted lips, capturing her soft sigh. Fire raced through her veins until she went up like a bottle rocket when he took full possession of her mouth. Her fingers clutched handfuls of hair as he lifted her to him, the force between them raw and electrifying. When he pulled away she could barely stand.
“I’ve wanted to do that since I first laid eyes on you,” he muttered into her hair.
Her head tilted back. “So what took you so long?”
He groaned as he bent for another scorching kiss. His large hands pressed into her back, molding her body to his so that she could feel the depth of his passion. Though it should have been so foreign to her, it felt right – like the other half of her she had never been able to find, but didn’t even know she was looking for. All the walls she had painstakingly built were crumbling down, and she knew from that alone she should run away. Or at least tell him why she should run away. Instead she pressed closer still and aggressively kissed him back.
She loved his warm, strong hands on his body, and the way his mouth blended with hers. As their tongues dueled she felt electricity shoot down to her very core, making her body veto her brain’s faint cries of reason.
With almost a guttural sound he lifted her up effortlessly into his arms and carried her back into the room, until he could sit her on the table behind them. Without breaking his stare he shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it into a chair. His dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, and as he drew closer she planted tiny, exploratory kisses along his neck. His hand cupped her head and guided her back up to his persuasive mouth. When he clutched her long, ebony tresses, she felt her insides tighten from his hunger. “Nicholas,” she whispered softly.
She wore a wispy summer dress that fell loosely from an empire waistline, and his strong fingers dipped down to slide up either of her bare legs under the hemline. Goosebumps sprang up all over her flesh as the warmth of his hand sp
arked off even more electricity. It led to another kiss, and then another, until she was clutching him by the hips to bring him closer to her between her parted legs. His eyes were cloudy with his need, and she could feel his body reach for her. He was like a man possessed to consume her, and that was the most intoxicating idea of all. In this moment he needed her more than any other woman, and he wanted to claim her as his own.
Her legs locked instinctively like scissors behind his back. There were no voices calling her from the shadows, no demons lurking just outside her peripheral vision. This night she was not battling her monsters alone. His demanding kiss drove them away. He was an alpha male in every sense of the word. In his arms she felt safe and protected in a way she never had before. Her fingers dug into his back as his mouth broke apart from hers and made a blazing trail to the soft curve of her ivory neck.
His teeth grazed against her skin as her fingers wound themselves in his long hair. He was making all her latent fantasies a reality, and she was powerless to stop it. The more he kissed her, the more she wanted to be kissed. The more he touched her, the more she wanted to be touched. It was like within his arms she was another woman entirely. In that moment there was absolutely no question that she wanted to be filled… satisfied… loved.
The wind smashed the open French doors from the balcony into the inside wall with a loud clattering, as if in answer to her unspoken question to the fates whether or not to continue this heated exchange. She jumped from the loud noise, and he stared down into her face where he towered over her. “Are you afraid?” he asked as his strong fingers traced her face and she was once again held captive in his eyes.
Just as she opened her mouth to answer, a voice broke in. “Mister Sterling.” He dragged his eyes away from her, but barely.
“What is it, Thaddeus? Can’t you see I’m busy?”
“I am terribly sorry, sir. There is a call.”
“Tell them to call me back,” he commanded as he pulled her closer into his embrace. It was almost as though he was afraid she’d fly away into the night if he didn’t hold on tight.
“I tried that, sir. They say it is urgent.”
Nicholas grew enraged as he turned to Thaddeus with a clenched jaw. “I said… tell them to call me back!”
His fingers dug into her tender hips where he clutched her in his hands, and his face hardened as he stared at his servant with what seemed like pure hatred in his eyes. What had burned red hot suddenly froze over with his anger, which seemed irrational in the context of the conversation. Adele gently untangled herself from his grip. “Nicholas, it’s okay.”
Instantly he was filled with remorse. “Please don’t go,” he whispered hoarsely.
“You have business. I understand.”
His face fell. “To hell with business. I don’t want you to go.”
It was such a sincere response as the anger drained from his body. He looked like a lost little boy whose balloon had taken flight on the wind. He looked so vulnerable, in fact, that her heart instantly went out to him. She kissed her fingertips and placed them on his lips. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I won’t go far.”
He reluctantly released her. Thaddeus approached. “I’ll bring the car around, miss.”
“That’s okay,” she said quickly. “I could use the fresh air.”
Both men seemed perplexed as she made a hasty retreat from the penthouse.
That night her dreams were muddled. In one moment she was in someone’s arms, being kissed and held and touched much like Nicholas had done. The next moment she was wrapped tight in a claustrophobic coffin, too paralyzed to move and break free from her bondage. She gave up on sleep somewhere around dawn. Nicholas, who had apparently also suffered a sleepless night, sent her a text once again apologizing for his outburst. She didn’t answer it right away.
She was still sorting it all through.
The next day she fidgeted in the hard wooden pew of the Church of the Holy Sacrament as she watched Isabel Rocha light candles. The old woman had said nothing to her from the time she entered the church, walking right past Adele’s outstretched hand. Adele stood for a moment while she waited, but Isabel apparently had a lot of praying to do. Adele heaved an impatient sigh as she resigned herself to another uncomfortable stay in the church.
It would have been better had Michael been there, but after what had happened with Nicholas the night before she wasn’t entirely sure she was ready to see Michael yet.
Though they were not a couple, Adele still – and always – felt in a sense she belonged to Michael. That she had given her passion away so easily to another man, a stranger at that, felt strangely like a betrayal.
The thoughts of Nicholas’s eyes, hands, lips had haunted her ever since. She’d come dangerously close to breaking her own rules with him, almost immediately, which made him a dangerous man. Only instead of being frightened, she felt herself being drawn closer just like a moth to a flame. Why did she trust him when she had never been able to trust herself?
Granted he was charming. Granted he was the most handsome man she’d ever laid eyes upon. But she’d managed to keep herself chaste with would-be suitors before. She knew how to play their game; she simply chose not to participate at all. Yet with Nicholas she was drawn back, as though there really was an invisible and unbreakable red string pulling the two of them together.
Being in his arms had felt right. How could it have felt right? He was a stranger. And not just any stranger, but one she had previously set out to destroy in order to save her beloved Darlington. Now she had folded like a cheap lawn chair for a couple of kisses.
This is what she needed to be doing, she thought, watching Isabel rise from her kneeling position. This is the Adele she knew, the only place her identity made sense. She was the one who never compromised and the one who always got her story. No matter what.
Let Denise use her womanly wiles to get to the bottom of Nicholas Sterling’s agenda. That was no place for someone like Adele.
Yet, the thought of Denise in Nicholas’s arms instantly made her hands clench into claw-like fists. Her face wore a possessive scowl and it took her a moment to realize that Isabel had turned from her candles and was staring right at her.
Isabel finally approached and Adele once again stretched out a hand. “Thank you so much for meeting with me,” she began, but the old woman was quick to cut her off.
“I’m not doing this for you,” she spat out. “I’m doing this for Father Michael. I have no patience for the faithless.” With that she turned and stalked out the church, leaving Adele aghast behind her.
When Adele collected her wits, she sprinted from the church and straight down the steps to keep up with the departing gypsy.
“You want answers but you’re not ready to believe them,” Isabel stated when Adele was in earshot. “You twist the information so you can validate what you think, but ignore what you know.”
“But I don’t know anything,” Adele insisted.
Isabel stopped and spun around to Adele. “You know. You’ve just forgotten.”
She resumed her quick pace and said not another word as they marched into the older part of Darlington, straight to a psychic shop tucked in with the rest of the mystical businesses.
Beads clacked against each other as she pushed through to a red velvet room where a table and a crystal ball waited. Isabel sat on one side and took a deck of tarot cards from a carved wooden box.
Adele sat without instruction and waited. She hated having to entertain this kind of thing for information, and it was highly annoying that once again, for this case, she ended up with no choices on the matter. Isabel shoved the cards toward Adele. “Shuffle these.”
Adele hesitated a moment, then finally decided it was a harmless enough task. She did it and handed them back.
Isabel said nothing as she laid out the cards. Adele crossed her arms in front of her, waiting not so patiently, her eyes scanning the candle lit room and all the religious statues of all
faiths that lined the walls. They reminded her of her mother’s statues, which didn’t do much to soothe her. She jumped as Isabel began speaking in her firm, if cackling voice.
The first card was the Hierophant. “You are a seeker of knowledge and rely on what you can see and grasp with your logical mind, ignoring anything that comes from your instinct and intuition,” Isabel stated, pointing at a card.
“Well, duh,” thought Adele. That was how she became the reporter she was. She remained unconvinced this woman could tell her anything from a silly deck of cards.
The next card was the Lovers card placed upside down. “You’re alone by design,” Isabel continued, which caused Adele to fidget. “You don’t let anyone close to you because love, like God, requires a faith you do not possess.”
That hit a little too close to home. Adele’s feathers were immediately ruffled. “All that proves is how observant you are,” Adele snapped. “You know I’m a reporter and you can tell I’m not married because I don’t wear a ring. I know how these things work, you know,” Adele advised. “You work off of vague generalizations to convince the gullible. I think you’ll find, Mrs. Rocha, that I am not gullible.”
Isabel went on to the next card – the Three of Swords – and for the first time since the reading began, looked Adele right in the eye. “You were born of violence,” she stated.
For once in her life, Adele Lumas was struck speechless.
CHAPTER NINE
Adele exploded through the doors of the church, on fire with her fury. “Michael!” she screamed as she raced down the aisle.
Michael and Brenda both emerged from the confessional. Good, thought Adele. She could kill two birds with one stone.
“Addie, what’s wrong?” Michael asked, and his concern made her sick. How could he pretend to be her friend all these years? She had trusted him… she had loved him… how could he have betrayed her so?
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