Hearts on Fire: Romance Multi-Author Box Set Anthology

by Violet Vaughn

  Not at the beginning.

  But things had changed now and the plan he’d had of finding some kind of future with her was shot. He couldn’t stay another day and he wasn’t about to wait for her to come back.

  She was clever and he knew she’d piece it all together in time. Without a doubt, this was his worse fuck-up ever and he blamed Leo for all of it. His life would have been perfect had it not been for that man.

  They would realize Leo’s injury came not from the shelf behind him but from the edge of his mobile screen, smashed down on the back of his head with such force using both hands that he’d broken the screen in the process. He’d winced at the sound of cold metal against Leo’s head and wasn’t sure whether he’d killed the guy.

  Earlier that day, while at the coffee shop, he’d been able to slip away unnoticed and had managed to obtain small cartons of kerosene and mineral turpentine. The fire had been easy enough to start and even easier to keep going, especially with the mountain of cardboard boxes in the corner. But his alibi was weak, as he knew it would be. He hadn’t put much thought into this; he’d reacted more than anything. Andrea was already questioning him and he couldn’t afford to creep about like this any longer. There would be an investigation in time when some clever police officer or Andrea, or Leo figured it out.

  All roads led to him.

  He turned off Andrea’s laptop and slipped it back into its case. Even looking through her bank accounts just now had been tempting. She’d have been a great way to spend the next couple of years and it would have been easy because he was starting to care for her.

  Maybe that was what had made him weak.

  He’d acted rashly and out of character. It was Leo’s fault, goading him like that. Otherwise, when he didn’t care so much, when emotion wasn’t hardwired into his thoughts, he was more detached. Detachment made Riley’s life bearable. It meant having no roots and not getting sucked in to places or people. He’d lost that ability with Andrea because he’d started to fall for her. Godammit, he’d almost killed a man to make a better life for himself.

  And saving Leo was something he’d done for himself—he wasn’t a complete monster. Watching the fire spread inside knowing that Leo was lying on the floor dying, turned his insides. He couldn’t bear to have this on his head. Saving the man had been worth it. Because it had turned the suspicion away from him, for now. What he hadn’t factored in was that he had effectively destroyed Andrea’s business in the process.

  His thoughts returned briefly to that first day at the Villa Costanza with Andrea when they’d sat by the tables outside looking onto Lake Como. The more she told him about herself and her business, the more he couldn’t believe his luck. He thought he’d had a good chance with his ex-fiancée but in Andrea he’d found an even better candidate: a business woman without a wealthy and interfering family poking their noses in. It was a shame he hadn’t known about the risk that Leo would pose.

  Still, it was time to move on. Riley picked up his heavy bags and settled his precious laptop and screens into the backpack. He’d have to buy another screen along the way.

  Time for a new adventure. In Padua. Maybe he’d see how Mariella was. Or was it Marietta? It didn’t matter; he was confident that words wouldn’t be the first things they would exchange. She’d been happy enough to see him again after the first time at the casino in Monaco. It wasn’t her slim sheath of a dress that he’d noticed first as much as the huge pile of chips in front of her.

  She was his backup plan. Always have a backup plan—that had been his motto. He looked around at Andrea’s apartment one last time, at the sofas where he had made love to her. One final look before he tossed the memories away.

  Then he closed the door behind him and left.

  41

  Andrea returned home reluctantly.

  She was beat.

  When she walked into her apartment it took her a couple of seconds to register that it was empty. All of Riley’s belongings were gone. She stared at the empty table, at the floor where his sneakers would have been, at the couches where he’d leave his sweatshirt lying. But now there was no sign of him in her apartment at all.

  Her heart tripped and her breath caught in her throat as she rushed into her bedroom. She opened all the closet doors, threw open the drawers and checked. All gone; his clothes, his suitcase, his bags. The hangers were bare. She rushed into the bathroom—as if this would be the final confirmation—and found his toiletries gone, too.

  He’d left.

  It shouldn’t have come as that big of a surprise, not from the way he’d been talking to her before she left. But it was a surprise all the same.

  She looked around frantically trying to find a note, checking her cell for messages, a missed call, or even an email.

  There was nothing. He’d left without any explanation, not even a note and she felt cheated. She’d been duped by him and it angered her that he hadn’t had the courage to face her for one last time. His escape into the sunset—for that was how she viewed it—left her feeling bereft. How callous of him, and cowardly too, to expect her to piece it all together; to not even give her the satisfaction of a confrontation. His absence was a sure sign of his guilt and his complicity in recent events. Leo had told her to wait for the evidence, well, she didn’t need it. This was proof enough.

  She slid down to the floor and stayed there crouched in a tight ball, with her hands on her knees, holding herself together. With her face buried in her arms, she gave herself to the silence and the darkness, and stayed like that for a long time until her legs started to hurt and her back felt tight.

  She lifted her head up and straightened her legs. Her laptop lay in its bag on the floor. She had work to do; a million to-do items had piled up in her brain and she needed to get to them now. It wasn’t as if she had anything better to do. If she moped around she would think about Riley and her mind would be abuzz with his lies. Had he ever told her the truth? She shook her head, going down that street would only lead to more despair and she couldn’t be a woman in despair. She had to toughen up and get on with things.

  She got up and walked over to where her laptop lay. Bending down, she pulled it out then powered it on.

  Time to get busy.

  A few hours later, she’d cleared up her backlog of emails and started to look through her business accounts. She usually checked these thoroughly every week but with all that had happened recently, she’d fallen behind a few days.

  That’s odd, she thought, as she stared at the ‘last login date’ on the screen. It showed today’s date.

  A few hours ago, in fact.

  She hadn’t checked her online accounts for days. Her heartbeat started slow, then sped up until it rocketed beneath her ribcage. Images of Riley in the warehouse, of Riley in her bed, of Riley in a thousand places all of a sudden poured into her head like time-lapse photography.

  She felt her head spin, or was it that the room had started to spin around her? It felt as though the blood drained completely from her body, not just her face, as she rushed to check all her accounts.

  Somebody had logged into them today. Riley. She knew it just as she knew that the sun was yellow.

  Expecting the worst, it was with extreme surprise and relief that she found all her balances to be as expected. No money had been taken from her accounts. She skimmed quickly through the last month’s transactions, her fingers shaky, and blinked rapidly, hearing only the sound of her heavy breathing.

  Everything looked fine.

  She checked the transfers. Just in case.

  Nothing. There were no transfers made and only the usual transactions were recorded.

  She hung her head, held onto the edge of the table as though she would somehow sink onto the floor if she had nothing to hold onto.

  That bastard, Riley.

  She didn’t need the proof this time that it had been him. She’d left her laptop out most of the time. Everything anyone needed to know was on her hard drive; the passwords
to every online account she had. Her problem was that she’d been too trusting.

  She’d been taken in. In Riley she thought she’d found someone worth waiting for. But the truth of it had been far from her first expectations.

  In her he’d found some sort of ticket, for the short-term probably, a way of coasting by until something brighter, better and shinier came along. She covered her face with her hands as the burden of Riley’s deception fell on top of her, almost crushing her spirit as she lost faith, and a part of her, along the way.

  Pull yourself together.

  She had to. Because falling apart would never fix anything. She took a deep breath, tried to find it within herself to feel grateful that she still had a way forward. Tried to look for a deeper knowledge that perhaps she had been saved, that perhaps this way had worked out for the best in the end. She sought meaning, tried to claw her way back to the light despite the darkness he had cast over her life.

  After all, Leo was alive, even if he was still in love with his ex and finding it hard to let go. She was alive and she would rebuild her business so that it was stronger and better. She would worry about Riley and the whys and wheres and hows of him coming into her life but she would do this later on. And she would tell the police and the insurance people and anyone else who cared to know, that she’d fallen for a con man. She squeezed her eyes tightly, feeling the heat of humiliation on her cheeks.

  First things first, she set about changing her passwords, then transferred everything to a memory stick for safe keeping.

  Her parents would be visiting this weekend and Dominic had promised to come by tomorrow to check on her. An officer from the police force had left a message for her as had the insurance people. Life would continue and she would move on from this.

  When the doorbell rang, she got up slowly, her thoughts still running around like ants on an open field. Lost in thought, she opened the door and found Leo’s face beaming at her. “I wanted to see if you were okay.”

  Puzzled, she nodded her head and opened the door wider. “Come in,” she said, half expecting to see his ex traipse in after him. “How are you doing?” She asked, wondering what he was doing here.

  Leo stood in the middle of the living room. “This is a nice place you have,” he commented.

  “Thanks.”

  He turned around and their gazes locked.

  “Riley’s gone,” she said.

  “I thought he might have.”

  Her mouth fell open. “Why’s that?” She hung her hands on her hips and watched Leo sit down on the big couch. She sat on the sofa opposite. “Well?” she asked.

  “They found a broken monitor screen under my table. It’s not mine—and I think I already know the answer to this, but it’s not yours either, is it?”

  She shook her head unable to face the truth even as it stared at her so violently in the face.

  “Going back to the warehouse helped.”

  “You went there?”

  “I’ve just come from there. I still don’t remember much but small glimpses of things are coming back to me. I know I felt a sharp pain on my head. That’s all I remember but I don’t for the life of me know how that screen ended up under my table. And when you told me about Riley and about his misplaced screen…it all made sense. I don’t have to remember it, in order to make sense out of it.”

  A flush crept up her face and she was overcome by a gut-wrenching abhorrence for the man she had been with. If Riley’s screen had been found under Leo’s desk, she suddenly knew what the cause of his head injury had been.

  “So, you see, I’m not surprised that he’s gone. He didn’t have a lot of time to make his escape.”

  “Leo.” Her voice sounded raspy. She wrung her hands together. “Why would he knock you out and then go back in to rescue you? Do you think it was deliberate? Knocking you out only to make himself look like a hero?”

  Leo’s dark eyes glistened as he considered her question. It looked as though he wasn’t so sure himself. “I’ve tried to think about his motivations, but not remembering much about that day makes it sketchy. From what I’ve pieced together, I don’t think he thought it through. I think Riley was the kind of guy who had a risky streak in him. I think something went wrong recently and he panicked. I think he had a small window of time—when you were away—to do something. I almost get the feeling he had his back up against a wall. I don’t even think he meant to kill me. I believe he didn’t think it through.”

  She swallowed and sat down properly on the couch. There had been so many more layers to Riley than she’d at first noticed. He’d sniffed through her bank accounts, had known her worth but had taken nothing. A part of her wanted to believe that it was because he cared for her, that not every part of him was evil, that somewhere deep down inside his feelings for her had been genuine, but she was holding onto these wishes by the tips of her fingers. It was time to let go. Because in light of all that had happened, it wasn’t very likely at all that he had a caring bone in his body. He’d used her. All those nights in bed, the way he would…she closed her eyes tightly wishing she could erase the memories.

  “What is it?” Leo asked, interrupting her train of thought. It looked as though he was about to get up, the way he sat forward, fidgeting around with his hands.

  “I’m so stupid,” she said, pulling at the skin on her neck. “I don’t think he ever cared for me.”

  This time she saw him swallow and his face turned slightly red. She might even have imagined it. But it still made her feel all tingly inside. Whatever his reasons were for coming to see her, it gave her a feeling of relief to have him here so that she could share these insidious thoughts that had been eating away at her. Leo appeared to be concerned about her and the idea that he’d cared enough to come and see her—instead of going back home to his ex-wife—left her with a warm and fuzzy feeling. But she knew this wasn’t the type of feeling she should have for him. Not for her business partner.

  “I think he cared, in his own way. Maybe not in the way that…” He didn’t finish his sentence.

  “How do you know about the monitor screen? Did you go into the warehouse?” she asked.

  “No, they won’t let anyone in while they carry out further investigation. Some of the investigators were leaving and they told me what they knew once one of the other traders vouched for me and told them that I’d been in the fire.”

  “What else did they tell you?”

  “That the fire had been started along the sides of the warehouse floor and that a liquid accelerant had been used, most likely turpentine, and something else that I now can’t remember.” He gave her a wry smile before continuing. “And that it was poured along the perimeter of the warehouse but the stock on display and our boxed products helped the fire to spread rapidly. That’s why the fire spread down the warehouse, towards the front, and not along the office.”

  “What I saw of the office seemed to be fine.”

  “Exactly. They said there’s smoke and dirt but our files and computers are intact.” It had been a huge relief to hear that news.

  Leo brushed his hand through his hair and she noticed it now, the patch of shaved hair towards the back of his head.

  “They also told me that they found the shelf, fallen to the ground and the smashed monitor screen under the table. I think he must have knocked me out. I don’t remember him coming in, though. I don’t remember speaking to him. But the evidence we have points to it being his.”

  Andrea angled her head. She’d come to the same conclusion herself.

  “I was worried that he might do something to you,” said Leo. “We don’t know how desperate things were for him.”

  She would tell him later about her bank accounts and that Riley had accessed them. It didn’t seem so important now, not in the context of the information he had revealed to her. The man had tried to kill Leo. Her news about Riley using her for her money was embarrassing, if nothing else.

  “How’s Gianna?” she asked, wa
nting to change the subject. This whole matter would consume their lives for months to come, and the investigations would continue and there would never be an end to it. She wanted to put this behind her.

  “Gianna?” he asked, his face turning blank.

  “You seemed anxious to get back to her.” He hadn’t, but she was digging for more information.

  “I only went there to pick up my car. After the fire, they took me straight to the hospital. Gianna picked my car up and drove it back to hers. She wanted me to stay and rest up but I feel like a third wheel; she and her fiancé are busy making plans for the wedding. A simple ceremony in Bali was the last idea they were talking about.”

  She felt happier to hear that.

  “Have you ever been?”

  “To Bali?” She shook her head.

  “Me neither. It’s meant to be beautiful.” Leo sat back, easing himself onto the couch.

  “Are you invited to the wedding?” she asked him. Thinking how odd it would be.

  “No,” he shook his head. “That would be too weird. I know you thought it was strange that I went to Ava and Nico’s wedding.”

  The air loosened up and tension eased away from her shoulders. Her body seemed to relax for the first time in days and she curled up her legs on the sofa, tucking her bare feet under her.

  “I did find it slightly strange,” she confessed, “but I attributed it to you being the type of guy who gets on with most people. Even his ex.”

  He nodded his head. “That’s me,” he said. She thought he was about to say something else, but he didn’t. If anything, he seemed suddenly tongue-tied. She was beginning to feel comfortable, thinking they could sit and talk for a while, when he got up suddenly. “I can see that you’re fine and I think I should be going.”

  “You’re the one who’s had the head injury, who was knocked unconscious in a blazing fire, who’s been in hospital for a few days with amnesia, and you’re wondering if I’m okay?”