by Josie Litton
I knew what that meant; it wasn’t over. Patrick’s own father had conspired in his child’s death. I wasn’t so naïve as to imagine that mine wouldn’t do the same.
Not for the first time, I thought of leaving the city, going somewhere quieter, finding some way to make a life for myself. But Patrick’s ghost would be waiting wherever I went, the haunting reminder that some obligations couldn’t be run from.
In that, at least, I understood what drove Adam. For as long as I could remember, I had resisted the obligation of duty to my family out of the instinctive fear that they weren’t to be trusted. Patrick’s death had changed that, at once confirming that I had been right and giving me a new sense of purpose. But for Adam the imperative of duty has always been present. Nothing else had ever been allowed to take precedence in his life. Until now?
At the thought of him, my body stirred. Having lived chastely until so recently, I was still stunned to discover the unbridled carnality of my nature. But even it was eclipsed by the intensity of emotion that he provoked in me--everything from the rawest anger and pain to an even more powerful need to heal the wounds in us both.
As though conjured by my mind, I looked up to see Adam standing in the entrance to the living room. He’d pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms that hung low on his lean hips. Apart from that, his magnificent body was on full and very distracting display.
“I was afraid you had gone,” he said, his voice sleep-roughened and deep.
Struck by this new willingness to admit his vulnerability, I couldn’t be less candid. “I thought of it.”
He came closer, absently rubbing a hand over his chest. Gazing down at me, he said, “Why didn’t you?”
I looked away from him and shrugged. “It’s too hard to get a cab this time of night.”
He laughed at the absurdity of my excuse and pulled up a chair across from me. Settling into it, his long legs stretched out between us, he said, “You want to know more.”
I thought of denying it but instead seized the opportunity.
Softly, I asked, “Your friend, Rolf, is his sister better?”
Now that she knew justice had been served, was the widow and mother of two dead children finding life a little more bearable?
“It’s too soon to be sure but the early signs are hopeful.”
“That’s good…”
Regarding me, he curled lean fingers around his chin, the tip of one pressing lightly into his lower lip before he said, “We should talk about your uncle.”
I held up a hand to stop him. “I don’t need the details.”
His expression hardened--a flash of his accustomed ruthlessness. But his gaze remained on me, watchful and attentive.
“I think that you do. He was delivered as promised to the agreed upon location. But when my people got there, they found that he was already dead, neatly laid out in a coffin in an Armani suit with a bouquet of lilies on his chest.”
As I gaped in shock, he went on, “There was a note with the flowers. Your grandmother said that she had ended his suffering rather than allow yet more to be inflicted on him.”
I didn’t know why I was so stunned. When it came to achieving her own ends, Grandmother was unhindered by any moral or emotional limits. But to go so far as to kill her ‘baby boy’? And then claim it was an act of mercy rather than what it really was, a sacrifice on the altar of her mad ambitions? Ned’s life for the family’s reputation. I had to wonder how many more such sacrifices there would be before this whole terrible business was over, assuming that it ever could be.
“I was already worried about how your family would treat you once I let you go,” Adam said. “Realizing what she was capable of made me all the more concerned.” He hesitated, then added, “I assumed that you would tell them who had taken you and that all their rage would be directed at me. I was prepared to deal with that. What I can’t do is allow you to become their target.”
A part of me warmed to the thought of being protected by him but I held back. There was so much more that I needed to know.
“Why did you come to New York? The real reason, not--what did you tell that interviewer?--your fondness for the city.”
“You weren’t doing well. Between that and my worry about your family, I couldn’t stay away from you any longer.”
“How did you know--” I stared at him as the meaning of his words sank in. A scattering of memories, moments when I had glanced over my shoulder or felt a shiver down my neck suddenly assumed new clarity. “You were having me watched.”
He didn’t look in the least embarrassed. On the contrary, he defended his actions. “I couldn’t risk you being hurt yet more. But at the same time, I couldn’t just impose myself on you again.”
He flushed a little at that, perhaps thinking of exactly how he had ‘imposed’ himself on me in the past. After a moment, he went on, “I gave the interviews in the hope that you would learn that I was in the city and choose to come to me yourself.”
Exactly as I had done. A flicker of anger darted through me at the realization of how easily I had played into his hands. To gain a little time, I took a sip of the tea but it tasted sour and I set the cup down quickly on a side table.
“You’re good at manipulating people,” I said.
He rubbed a hand along the back of his neck and shrugged. “Sometimes, not always. And not with you. You continually surprise me.”
“Yet here I am, just as you wanted.”
His gaze drifted to the couch. The pillows were still creased where our bodies had pressed against them in the fever of passion.
“As it turns out,” Adam said, “I didn’t know what I wanted. My imagination didn’t extend that far.”
A flush rippled through me--embarrassment mingling with desire. Rather than surrender to either, I tried a different tack. “I could have shown up here with a gun.”
“You could have.” My stomach clenched. The way he said that, I had the horrible sense that he would have let me use it. “But,” he added softly, “I knew that you wouldn’t.”
“How could you know that? I am a Delaney, however much I might wish otherwise.” I didn’t understand then why it was important to me that neither of us overlook that fact, only that it was.
Off in the distance, a siren wailed, the sound rising to a shrill cry before falling away into hollow silence.
“I know what you told the therapists.”
I stared at him blankly, at first not understanding. He couldn’t possibly mean-- Not even he would--
I started to rise but Adam was on his feet first. His hands closed on my shoulders. Quickly, before I could speak, he said, “All I wanted was to be sure that you were getting the help you needed.”
Outrage threatened to choke me. My lips curled in disgust. “It wasn’t enough for your spies to tell you that I was going to a therapist?”
He winced but showed no sign of relenting. “You didn’t go back after the first appointment with either of them. You hardly left your apartment and when you did, you looked as though you weren’t eating or sleeping. I finally gave in and tried to find out what was wrong.”
“By hacking confidential medical files?” Nothing could excuse such a violation of my privacy. It didn’t matter if he had been driven by concern for me. He had no sense of boundaries.
Or so I thought. What he said next forced me to consider the possibility that his view of himself and his actions really might be changing.
“I know it was wrong,” Adam said slowly. “I shouldn’t have done it but please try to understand. I was shocked by what you told the therapists. I didn’t know what to make of it. No matter how they tried to diagnose you, it was clear that you believed your feelings for me were real.”
His gaze flitted away for a moment but returned quickly to me. His eyes were wide, the pupils dilated as though with wonder.
“I started to think…to hope…that might be true.”
A pulse fluttered in the base of my throat. I took a breath and
let it out slowly. His knowing what I felt left me unbearably exposed but I couldn’t focus on that, not then. Instead, the question that I was afraid to even think sprang from my lips. “Why would you care?”
His hands fell away from me. Released, I floated free in a vacuum of uncertainty, waiting for his answer, whatever it might be.
With the air of a man confronting a reality that, as bewildering as it was, could no longer be denied, he said, “Because you’ve upended my world. I hardly recognize it any more. Before we crossed paths, my life was simple. Duty was all I’ve ever known. It was all I needed.”
He truly believed that yet he couldn’t have been more wrong. And I couldn’t let him go on thinking otherwise.
“That isn’t true. You had parents, a family who loved you. That’s why you assumed that my family would do anything they had to in order to save me.”
My challenge startled him but after a moment, he said, “Perhaps you’re right but whatever I knew as a child is so far distant that it might as well have happened to another person. Without duty, I would have had nothing to hold onto. My life would have careened out of control.”
And that would have been yet another tragedy. Control was as vital to the damaged boy he had been as to the man he had become. How that squared with my need to claim my own life I didn’t dare to think.
Quietly, I said, “Is that why you want to protect me now? Because you think it’s your duty.”
“Yes…and no. I want to protect you because you deserve that but also because the thought of you being hurt is a knife through the heart that I didn’t think I had.”
His admission would have touched me much more deeply if it hadn’t been uttered with such blatant dismay. Clearly, Adam was far from reconciled to his feelings, whatever they might be.
As for my own, they were still far too contradictory for me to be sure of anything. I couldn’t deny that something had shifted between us in the hours since I had confronted him. But I wasn’t at all certain of what that meant beyond the swiftly passing moment.
While we had been talking, the room had filled with pale gray light. It had the effect of softening his usually chill blue gaze, making it appear warmer and less guarded.
Or perhaps that wasn’t a trick of the light. Perhaps it was real.
I could think of only one way to find out. Taking hold of my courage, I said, ““Earlier, you said that you wanted to ask me a question. What is it?”
The muscles of his throat worked. It occurred to me suddenly that this man--powerful, infuriating, valiant, seemingly indomitable--was battling doubts and fears just as I was. To some degree that put us on level ground and reassured me.
Yet I was still vividly aware of the wariness in his voice when he spoke more softly than was usual for him. “Despite everything that’s happened--what I did to you--is there a way for us to be together?”
I’d half-expected him to ask if I could forgive him. I might even have had an answer for that. Instead, I was thrown into confusion.
My heart leaped at the thought of being with him but my mind hesitated. I knew how I was supposed to feel; the therapists had made that clear and even without them I understood the expectations of society. By its standards, I was a victim. The only proper response was to hate Adam and to want to see him pay for what he had done. Learning why he had done it could moderate that somewhat but it wasn’t supposed to change the essence of how we stood in regard to one another.
But the truth was that I didn’t feel like a victim. I had missed him; I had yearned for him; and I had done something about it, on my terms, not his or anyone else. Moreover, he had let me.
The memory of the just-past night combined with the haunted look of longing in his eyes decided me. He had given me honesty; he deserved the same.
Softly, in the hush of the new day, I said, “I don’t know, Adam. But I’m willing to try if you are.”
Chapter Ten
I stared at Grace as I struggled to come to terms with what had just happened. She hadn’t said ‘no’.
What the hell was she thinking?
My first instinct was to remind her of all the reasons why she should put as much distance between us as possible.
My second--only by the narrowest of margins--was to carry her straight back to bed and lose myself in her before she had a chance to change her mind.
But I was a civilized man--on occasion. And besides, she hadn’t said ‘yes’ either. She was willing to try and that alone was more than I could have hoped for. So much so that for a moment I had no idea what to do next.
Then reason--or what passed for it in my befuddled state--asserted itself.
“Thank you,” I said, the words vastly inadequate to the gratitude I felt. She was giving me her trust, however cautiously. I couldn’t do less in turn.
That new found resolve was tested a moment later when she shrugged self-consciously. The motion disturbed the oversized robe she was wearing. It slipped off her shoulder and down one arm, far enough to reveal the creamy swell of her breast.
Hastily, I said, “Let’s go out. We can get breakfast.”
That was what normal couples did, surely? Shared meals, went to movies, spent “quality” time together? It occurred to me just then that I had never wooed a woman and had only the most superficial idea of how to go about doing so. A rare sense of inadequacy nibbled at the edges of my mind but I dismissed it quickly.
The morning light, growing stronger by the moment, emphasized the hollows under her cheekbones. That decided the matter.
“Breakfast,” I said decisively and was heartened by the quirk of her smile.
We chose a small café a few blocks north of the Plaza. At that early hour, the tables out in front were all but empty. The sun was fully up by then and the air was pleasantly warm with just a hint of autumn. As we ate, I set myself to take note of the small details about this woman who so entranced me.
She didn’t like Hollandaise sauce and asked gently that it be left off the poached eggs she ordered. She did like Mimosas but sipped hers sparingly. She was comfortable with silence whereas I was not, worried as I was about what she was thinking.
Even so, it was a pleasure just to watch her. Her hair--with the sheen of mahogany silk--had been brushed and left to fall loosely down her back. Her mouth was soft and slightly swollen, evidence of the passion we had shared. She was paler than I would have liked but under my gaze, her cheeks flushed a little.
“How long can you stay in New York?” she asked.
I appreciated how she put that. How long could I stay rather than how long I would. She understood that I had responsibilities, at least some of which couldn’t be put on hold indefinitely.
All the same, I said, “I’d prefer to stay as long as you want to be here.”
She hesitated and I could see that something was on her mind. Finally, she said, “I have no plans to leave. There are things that I need to do.”
My first thought was of Haven House and what I knew was her sincere commitment to it. But another possibility occurred to me. To test it, I said, “You wouldn’t prefer to be farther away from your family?”
In a city of seven million people, there should have been ample space to avoid them. But the truth was that the Delaneys were entrenched everywhere--in finance, politics, the media. Everywhere she turned, she would find reminders of them.
Grace speared a bite of egg white but didn’t lift it to her mouth, instead just moving it around the plate. “How far would be far enough? If they decide to retaliate because of Ned, they’ll find me wherever I am.”
I agreed with her, which was why I was determined to keep her well protected. She didn’t have to know all that would entail. But I needed to understand her intentions.
“You don’t strike me as the sort of person who will just sit by and wait for them to act,” I said. That was an understatement. I’d experienced firsthand how formidable her resistance could be.
“I’m not,” she agreed. “But I’
m not going to be impulsive either. I have to figure out what to do.”
That was a relief so far as it went. But the fact that she intended to do something concerned me. “If you’re thinking of challenging them directly--”
If she was, I wanted to know about it at once, the better to help her. The mere possibility of her going up against her lethal grandmother and the others was alarming in the extreme.
She toyed a little more with the food before setting her fork down. Looking at me, she said, “I’d rather concentrate on us right now, all right?”
I could hardly argue with that, although for a moment I was tempted to do so. The dispute with Sebastian notwithstanding, I was accustomed to being the person in charge, the one others looked to for answers and direction. But with Grace, I had to temper my natural instincts no matter how difficult that was. Perhaps it would help if I thought of it as a kind of penance.
She would confide in me when she was ready…or not. Meanwhile, I could only hope that events didn’t overtake my new-found patience.
We walked through Central Park on our way back to the hotel. Other couples were out enjoying the unusually warm weather. Superficially at least, we blended in with them. It was a pleasant fantasy and one that I admit to enjoying.
Beneath a willow tree near a pond, we kissed. She tasted of sunshine and Grace, perfection. When we broke apart at last, she took my hand and turned it over in hers. With a fingertip, she traced the thin white scar that ran across my palm, old evidence of the desperate thrust of a dying man, one of those who had killed my parents and paid for it with his life.
“How did you get this?” she asked.
“I cut myself slicing mushrooms.”
“You cook?” She didn’t try to hide her incredulity.
“No,” I admitted. “But I’ve seen people do it.”
She smiled, a little sadly I thought, and traced the scar again before looking up at me. Her eyes were wide and luminous, seeing far more than anyone else ever had.
