He slept on an old mattress on a platform he’d built himself. He cooked—when he remembered to eat—on a hot plate. He had no phone. To see him, she had to dig him out herself. Only the most dire of threats had him here this evening.
His eyes narrowed. Kat brushed her fingers across her thumb in the ancient symbol for money. Filthy lucre required to buy more paint, more canvas. And she smiled in triumph.
He was a wild being, barely restrained, hardly civilized. She saw his nostrils flare, his strong jaw clench. Go to hell, he mouthed. Kat lifted an eyebrow and bit her thumbnail at him. With a curt nod, he cocked his dark head toward the simpering woman directly in front of him.
One more hour. Then the revelry began. There was nothing quite so satisfying as being a patroness of the arts.
“Stop torturing the talent, Katharina.”
Kat started at Armand’s voice. “But that’s half the fun.”
“Here.” He handed her champagne. “Leave the man alone to do his work.” He sipped his own. “A successful show once again. I salute your intuition.”
Kat slid her gaze to her friend. Just under six feet, Armand was a striking figure, the premature silver hair in contrast with his athletic build. “You found him.”
“But you had the nerve to showcase a blatant romantic in the heart of Sodom and Gomorrah. You sensed the hunger that exists in the heart of the jaded.” He cocked one eyebrow. “A reflection of yourself, Katharina?”
Only her father had called her that damn Shakespearean name, until Armand. He did it simply to tweak her. Kat snorted. “There’s not a romantic bone in my body.”
“Indeed? I disagree.”
“You enjoy arguing with me.” She scanned the room again. Satisfied, she turned back to Armand. “You don’t approve of much that I do. You’re worse than a father.”
The lines around his green eyes crinkled. “I’m hardly old enough to be yours. Not that you’d know about a father’s guidance.”
“Touché,” she concurred. “How would I, indeed? The old bastard certainly never bothered.” She smiled at him sweetly and patted his cheek. “Speaking of which, you will be my date to all the festivities, right? The Lincoln Center gala, Mona’s godforsaken party and all that crap?”
“Poor Katharina. Mona’s requiring you to bring a respectable escort.”
Kat snorted. He understood her family too well. “You’re a natural. Cary Grant returned to life. You can’t let me down. I’ll never figure out all the forks and shit.”
Tolerant amusement brightened his expression. “Your years in Texas weren’t spent on the range. I have it on good authority that they use full place settings in Texas, too.”
“Nana tried to teach me, but it didn’t stick.” She lifted her chin. “I’m telling you I’m desperate, pal. You can’t let me down.” Then she cocked her head. “Want to help me take Tansy shopping?”
Armand laughed. “Mona must be utterly desperate if she’s asking you to dress Tansy for Martin’s big night.”
“I have taste.” Offended, she sniffed, gesturing around them. “People pay for my taste.”
He scanned her attire. “Red toreador jacket, see-through lace bra and long white spandex skirt. Red stilettos.” One eyebrow lifted. “No panties, if my eyes don’t deceive me.”
Within his green eyes, she saw a twinkle. She’d never been able to shock him. Nor had she been able to tempt him—he’d passed that test and won her over. That was the beauty of their relationship. He’d become her mentor and best friend. Men to fuck were a dime a dozen. A true friend was priceless.
“So?” she challenged.
“Not exactly Tansy’s look.”
“You sound like Mona,” she muttered. “I don’t have to adopt other styles to appreciate them.” She gestured around the room. “Witness Gamble Smith.”
“Ah, yes. The romantic barbarian. Tonight’s the night, I suppose.”
Kat’s eyes went to slits. “I don’t screw all my artists.”
“None of the women—so far, anyway.”
“Asher Domel,” she sniffed.
“Ah, that’s right. No grandfathers, no females, no men over thirty. Perhaps Gamble Smith can breathe easy. He’s probably thirty-five.”
“I’m leaving now. I have guests to entertain.” She turned away, only to have Armand grip her arm. “Let me go. I have paintings to sell.”
“The pieces are flying off the walls.” He tilted her chin upward with one long finger. His normal sang-froid slipped just a hair. “Becoming thirty will not be the end of your life, Katharina. It isn’t all downhill from here.”
“Go to hell, Armand. I’m not afraid.”
Intensity fled as quickly as it had appeared. With a chuckle like that of a favorite uncle, he leaned closer, kissing her on the forehead. “Yes, you are. You’re terrified. That’s why the men in your life get younger by the week.”
Then he released her. “Tansy is special. Call me when you’re ready to go shopping, and I’ll ride to her rescue.”
“Bite me, Delacroix.”
“A tempting prospect for some, I’m sure. Enjoy your conquest, Katharina.” He moved away, quickly swallowed up in the crowd.
Kat swore viciously, than raked impatient fingers through her short, spiky hair. Drawing a deep breath, she surveyed the room, then abruptly decided to head for the prissy caterer. She could use a good fight right about now.
Mona jerked awake on the sofa at the sound of a key in the apartment door lock. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but she was always tired lately. Fingers tightening on the page proofs spread over her chest, she blinked a few times and shook her head, then rose from her afghan swaddling. “Fitz?” She glanced at the stainless-steel clock. One a.m.
The refrigerator door swished gently.
“Fitz?”
He appeared in the doorway of the living room, taking a long pull from the brown glass bottle of his favorite beer. As she watched the strong muscles of his neck tighten while he swallowed, yearning shimmered through her body.
He didn’t speak, both of them waiting, she supposed, to test the winds. Nothing had been the same since that night.
“Long day?” she ventured.
He shrugged. “It was all right.”
He was so still. Too still. Unease rippled down her spine. “Are you upset that I couldn’t go to that party tonight?”
“If you’d skip your own sister’s opening, I couldn’t very well expect that you’d choose a retirement party.”
“Fitz, I wanted to. I adore Ben. It’s just that—”
“You always mean well, Des.” He frowned. “You’re special to Ben. Even if you skipped that, Kat’s your sister. Surely the magazine could have survived without you for a few hours.”
“Fitz, I—” She started to defend herself.
“Forget it,” he said, his voice too neutral.
They’d always argued loudly and often. They made up just as passionately. This aloofness was new, unsettling. And he’d never viewed her this way, never studied her like a bug on a pin.
Six foot one of boxer’s muscles, the crooked nose in character with a man whose appearance disguised a razor-sharp mind, James Fitzgerald was a man’s man to the bone, life grasped in two fists for every one of his forty years. He could have had the decency to grow a paunch, lose some of his thick, sandy hair, let years of long days and late nights show up in his hazel eyes.
But no—her husband played handball every day at his downtown club. Worked hard as the city’s premier investigative reporter, always the first on the big story, ever in demand. Sex on the hoof was Fitz Fitzgerald.
“Hungry?” she asked, dodging another argument over her work habits. She didn’t know why, though; she hadn’t cooked in weeks and the refrigerator offered only beer, olives and butter. They caught dinner together when they could, but it was usually out somewhere, not at home.
He shook his head. Started to speak, then didn’t.
“Are you all right?” She could have kicked herself.
He’d never liked it if she hovered, even less so now that everyone kept watching him for signs of stress from that night. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
Finally, Fitz chuckled, and Mona relaxed slightly. “It’s okay. Join the parade. Hank asked me today if I wanted to see a shrink.”
“A shrink?” The idea startled her. “You?” His behavior was off, but not that off.
He shot her the crooked grin she loved. “Post traumatic stress syndrome, some crap like that.” He shook his head, then crossed to her, setting down the bottle before drawing her to her feet.
Fitz drew her hair back from her neck with one finger. He nipped softly at her skin, and Mona shivered.
“Christ, they act like I’d been a POW or something.”
Mona shuttered her eyes. She still couldn’t stand to think about those two endless days and how close he’d come to death. They’d made fierce, almost-violent love the night he’d been released, but in the two weeks since, nothing. It wasn’t all the extra hours she’d been putting in, either. That had never stopped them before.
She wanted her husband back, but she still hadn’t seen the man who’d gone to work that fateful morning. “You were in real danger, Fitz. Anyone would be shaken.”
“I’m not shaken,” he murmured against her ear. His tongue slid along the outside curve. “I’m glad as hell to be alive.”
She couldn’t help digging her fingers into the long muscles of his back. She’d been so terrified that she’d never again be able to touch him. Have him touch her. She tightened her arms around him with every ounce of her strength. “Oh, Fitz, I—” She buried her forehead in his shoulder and struggled not to cling. “I am so very glad you’re safe.”
He pulled her deeper into his embrace. “I just kept thinking that I had to make it out because I couldn’t leave you alone.”
She’d been alone all her life, and he had saved her. As important as his love had been his promise never to abandon her. He knew a Mona no one else did. He was the only one who’d ever put her first. Made her feel good enough, just as she was.
The tears she hadn’t let herself shed wouldn’t be held back. She burrowed more deeply into his arms. “I love you so much. Fitz, I was so scared.” She stared into those hazel eyes she adored. “I’m a strong woman. I can survive whatever I have to endure, but—oh, God—” Her throat tightened.
He leaned his forehead against hers. “I was scared, too, Des. I had a lot of time to ponder what’s important.” His eyes fired from within, alight with a new tenderness.
She relaxed against him. Desire stirred to life.
“Make a baby with me, Des.” His mouth lowered to hers, brushed across her lips.
It was a slap of ice-cold water. “Wha—” The back of her neck prickled. She couldn’t have heard right. She wanted him so badly, craved the comfort only Fitz could provide, but his words shuddered through her like a palsy. “Fitz, we always said—” They’d agreed—no children.
He placed a finger over her lips, then teased a long caress down her throat. “I remember what we said.” His eyes went dark and serious. “I didn’t believe I cared, as long as I had my job and you, but I’ve changed. I realized that night that we’re only living on the surface. Look around at this place.” His arm swept out, encompassing the cool Scandinavian decor they’d painstakingly assembled, leather and blond wood and clean lines of metal. “At how we’re living. There’s more to life than cold ambition, Des. Much more.”
“Our life is good.” But even as she scrambled to marshal her arguments, a chill ran through her. She wasn’t enough after all. The man she’d loved for ten years suddenly needed more than she could give him. She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her.
“Sh-h,” he whispered, tightening his arms and stroking her hair, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “It has been good, yes. But lately… We’re missing so much. I didn’t see it before, but all of a sudden I’m realizing that I wish for what my parents have.”
She stiffened against him, his words sinking into her stomach like a stone. She couldn’t give him what his parents had, that big, utterly normal American family. She didn’t know the first thing about normal.
“Hey,” he murmured, rocking her gently, soothing her with his hands. “It’s a switch, but we could do it, Des. You and me, we could have it all. Just think about it, okay?”
He held her close, and all Mona could focus on was what she could say to make him forget this crazy notion. She had no desire to hear about babies. She needed to be enough for Fitz, all by herself. He couldn’t alter everything so abruptly. Couldn’t just kick the legs out from under her.
He’d been shaken, she understood that. Anyone would be. But the two of them would get past it. In time things would go back to the way they’d been, if she’d stay the course. In the manner that she’d learned over so many years, she squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated on blocking out the words she didn’t want to hear, reforming them into a reality she could tolerate.
She lifted herself to her toes and drew him down to her kiss. Kept her eyes closed so she wouldn’t have to lie to him.
He soughed out a gust of relief. “God, Des, I love you.” He met her mouth with his own, his clever hands roaming over her body with a new urgency.
Luxuriating in the unique pleasure only Fitz could bring her, Mona ignored how she was letting him believe she agreed. He’d come out of this strange mood and be Fitz again if she’d only be patient. So she concentrated instead on binding him to her, bringing him back to what they had, how good they were together.
He bore her down to the ivory leather sofa, his lips following the path of skin his fingers bared. Mona gloried in his touch, in the knowledge that he was safe and alive and back with her, and shut out the words he would forget in time. She tore at his clothes, desperate for the touch and taste of his skin. He joined their bodies savagely, and Mona welcomed the surge of power, the sense of connection. She needed this, needed him. Needed to grasp that they were together once more, that the terror was over. With a cry at the unbearable sweetness, she let Fitz carry her away into blessed forgetfulness, reveling in the rightness of this moment…of this man for whom she had surely been made.
“So how did we do?” Kat gnawed at the cuticle of her right thumb and paced the honey-gold oak floors she’d stripped until her fingers bled. As she crashed from the high of the packed crowd, the risk she’d taken stole her breath away. Making this month’s rent was going to be dicey.
Gregory Adams never faltered as his fingers danced over the calculator. “If you’d stop hanging over me, I could get this done faster. ‘A watched pot’ and all that,” he said mildly.
She should go outside, of course. Baby-sit the talent. With every tick of the clock, Gamble’s glower had darkened. Maybe the busty blonde was still amusing him and he’d wait a little longer.
She couldn’t leave yet; she had to know. “I never should have gotten my own apartment,” she muttered to the navy beret covering Gregory’s thinning light-brown hair. “It was too soon. I shouldn’t be paying you so much.”
A small snort issued from his still-lowered head. “You’re not paying me anything yet.” He’d wandered in one day and bartered framing labor for a workroom in the back of her space.
“Then I should be charging you for the pleasure of being here.” She ripped away a sliver of skin and hissed at the sting.
He sighed and drummed his fingers. One glimpse of her books, and he’d banned her from her paperwork weeks ago. “Go away. I’ll call you when I’m finished.”
“Not on your life. I’m suffering here, damn it. Keep working.”
His head lifted. Sympathetic pale-blue eyes studied hers. “Armand would help you out if you’d just ask,” he reminded her.
“Great. So I’d have two wolves breathing down my door.”
“Breathing down your neck,” he corrected, as his fingers flew. “Or blowing down your door.” Gregory had been an English major as well as a failed
painter. “You’re mixing your metaphors.”
“Bite me,” she countered.
“Oh, I believe I’ll leave that to the glowering giant outside the door. He’s far more likely to be interested in your backside. Speaking of which, why don’t you already have him naked in your apartment?”
She waved the comment away. “That’s only sex. This is money.”
His grin was quick and shrewd. “Yeah.”
The door behind them opened. The caterer stood there with palm out. Kat had beaten him down unmercifully on his price, exchanging a promise to distribute his cards liberally, but she couldn’t get off scot-free. “Ms. Gerard, we’re finished out here.”
“I’ll be right with you.” She closed the door in his face and turned to Gregory. “Well?” she whispered. “Will the check bounce?”
Gregory held up a hand, did a little more finger magic, then frowned.
Kat’s heart sank. “I screwed up, didn’t I? Should have done the show of pieces done with bedsprings.”
He looked up, a sparkle in his eyes. “As long as you don’t eat but once a week, we’ll be fine.” Then he grinned. “Just kidding. Actually, we’ll make expenses this month. Only by a hair, but enough. And we’ve got more pieces coming in to sell on the buzz.”
Kat shrieked and threw herself across the space between them. She clasped his face between her hands and smacked a big wet kiss straight on the mouth. “We’re saved! Oh, Gregory, maybe I’ll pay you after all.” She twirled around the desk, then jerked open the door to let the goggle-eyed caterer inside. “Write this man a check, Gregory.” Over her shoulder, she winked at the slender man. “And then go get laid. I intend to.”
Behind her, Gregory’s laugh buoyed her. For tonight, she wouldn’t worry about next month’s bills. That was next month. Tonight, the juices were flowing. She was still in business, despite everyone’s predictions that she wouldn’t stick with this any longer than she’d done anything else. She began mentally running through her list of potential partners for the evening but realized that none of them was what she wanted.
Then she glanced across the gallery at the figure seated alone in a dark alcove, his posture, even at rest, projecting a barely leashed inferno.
Mercy Page 3
