IN ROOM 33

by EC Sheedy

  She laughed. The word "mirthless" came to his mind. "At first I was hurt—totally wrecked, to be honest; then I got mad. A week after he left, I called him at his mother's, told him he could have his damn money. He told me not to be crazy, to 'have fun with it.' He said he wanted me to have it, and that someday I'd know why. He said he loved me and hoped the money would make up for what he'd done. I didn't understand any of it, got angry all over again, but by the time I'd got myself together enough to think about talking to him again... he was dead."

  "Dead?"

  "He was twenty-four, and his heart gave out."

  "Whoa... tough."

  "It turned out Matt had a heart condition when he married me. Knew he didn't have much time left. I guess I was... some kind of last grasp at life. When he started to get sick again, he went home to die, because he didn't want me to see him failing." She pushed her hair back roughly, her face tight with old pain. "I loved him, Wade. He was funny, brave, and—with me, at least—full of life. I tried to give the money back—to his mother. She wouldn't take it, said she'd promised Matt she wouldn't, that he wanted me to think of him when I spent it and to remember how much he loved me. The next day, I went to the bank and told the banker to do something with it and tried to forget about it."

  "A million dollars is damn hard to forget."

  "Easier than forgetting Matt. And the fact that he didn't believe in me, denied me the chance to be there for him at the end, when he needed me the most." She swallowed hard. "I couldn't be there when my dad died, and I wasn't there for Matt... It just wasn't right."

  Wade wanted to touch her, but she remained standing over him, her arms clasped, her posture rigid. "His death, Joy. His choice. Put it away. From what you've said about him, that's how he'd want it."

  She nodded, but without conviction. "I ignored the money for a long time... then, when I saw the Phil, thought what it could do—" She met his eyes. "I don't want you to hate me, Wade. I don't want you to think..."

  "You're your mother?"

  "Something like that."

  "Come here." He held out a hand, and she took it before again sitting beside him on the shabby sofa. "That money is yours, sweetheart. It was a gift. You have nothing to feel guilty about."

  "I was afraid to tell you."

  "First mistake among the many to come." He kissed her because he couldn't stop himself, but he was careful to hold himself back. His body wouldn't do him any favors tonight. "There's one thing we do have to settle."

  "The Philip," she said without hesitation.

  "Yes. I want us to be partners. Fifty-fifty. I want you to sell me half the hotel."

  She hesitated, then said, "And my mother? Her support from the Phil? Nothing's changed there."

  "Everything's changed there, Joy. First, she saved your life and she has my eternal gratitude for that"—he smiled thinly—"although I'd prefer you didn't advise her of that fact."

  "I agree." She smiled back, hers eyes soft, but accompanied by a raised brow and knowing look. "And the second thing?"

  Wade's stomach tightened, then released. "Rupert is the second thing. That man carried a load of hate through life that crippled him, destroyed everyone around him." He took her hand in his, squeezed it. "I saw a lot of myself in him, and it wasn't pretty.

  "And there's one other thing." He lifted her hand to his mouth. "No more Room 33. No more room anything unless I'm in it. Do we understand each other?" He kissed her knuckles, watched her face.

  "Sounds like an order to me."

  "Yes, it is."

  She smiled then, the darkness leaving her eyes. "But as orders go? One I can definitely live with."

  Epilogue

  Eight months later

  Joy cupped her hands over her ears, sighed out the last of her patience. The racket from the floor below made her head hurt and the floor tremble. "How much longer, Wade?"

  "Two weeks max. We'll open on schedule." He kept his attention on the penthouse window he'd struggled to open for the last ten minutes. He cursed. "This thing must have seized up fifty years ago. I need a crowbar—probably break the damn thing."

  The saws—or whatever weapons the construction crew was using to assault the Phil—stopped abruptly.

  The silence was magnificent. And Joy immediately found a better use for her hands.

  She wrapped her arms around Wade's waist, nuzzled the warm spot between his shoulder blades, and tucked her fingertips under the front of his tool belt. "You don't have to do that, you know. You could ask one of the carpenters to come up." She massaged him under the belt, slipped a hand lower.

  He caught it and turned to look down at her. "I don't want anyone up here but us." He kissed her palm, pulled her as close as his tool belt allowed. "Then I can have my way with you any time it looks... convenient." He brushed his lips across her forehead, her cheek, finally taking her mouth, deeply, sensuously.

  When he lifted his head to smile at her, she sighed again. But this sigh had nothing to do with patience and everything to do with either releasing some of the happiness ballooning inside her or bursting from it.

  "Can I finish fixing our window now?" His lips quirked.

  She laughed. "Go for it, tool man."

  She hesitated then, not wanting to change the mood, but knew it was unavoidable. "I saw my mother yesterday to give her the monthly check. She was on her way to see David. She says his trial starts in three weeks."

  Wade looked over his shoulder, frowned. "You know, I don't get it. The guy tried to kill you—her only daughter. That, plus the fact he planted a body"—he turned, pointed to the terrace—"out there, means he's going away for a very long time. And she's sticking by him..." He shook his head.

  "When he's sentenced, she wants to buy a condo near whatever prison they send him to." Lana, obsessed with David's situation, had accepted his story. He'd never intended to kill the girl. It had been a horrible, tragic mistake that he'd paid for every day since. He'd been drunk, she'd led him on; then, when she wanted to stop, he'd gotten mad. Too mad. His memories stopped there, started again with him banging on Rupert's door, then his taking charge, telling David what to do. Everything, Lana rationalized, was Christian Rupert's fault, including David's botched attempt to kill Joy. Her mother was as confounding as ever.

  "You're kidding."

  "She asked me for the money, Wade." Joy held her breath. "It's extra, I know, and it might be hard right now with all the renovation expenses."

  "We'll do it, if it's what you want." Wade put his arms around her.

  She nodded.

  "Done." He kissed her, tightened his grip.

  She never wanted to leave the circle of his arms, wanted him to hold her forever. "But what I really want is to live happily ever after in this beautiful penthouse with you."

  "Happily ever after, huh?"

  "Uh-huh."

  He thought a second, then smiled. "Done."

  The End

  Page forward for an excerpt from EC Sheedy's

  A Perfect Evil

  Excerpt from

  A Perfect Evil

  by

  E.C. Sheedy

  It was past four in the morning when Hannah heard him, his voice a cracked whisper, his words labored, urgent Heart pounding, she abandoned her book, threw back the covers, and reached for her robe in one reflexive motion.

  The bedside lamp cast a garish pool of light over a chrome hospital bed sitting stage center in the luxurious room. The man in the bed lay sprawled over its bunched linens as if the effort to reach the intercom had been his last. His hand still rested on the call button. Pungent antiseptic clashed with the lingering fragrance of the sandalwood he'd burned every evening for as long as she'd lived with him. A task that in the past six months had become hers.

  Hannah hurried toward him, her bare feet stepping from hardwood to carpet without registering the difference.

  "Milo, what is it?" She lifted his hand, rested it on his chest and caressed his sunken cheek. Not cold. Not
yet. "It's Hannah, Milo. Can you hear me?"

  His eyelids slid open, and his eyes slowly focused on her. Relief flooded through her, but ebbed quickly when she saw the depth of his suffering.

  "Hannah," he mumbled. "I'm going."

  "No." She shook her head, held his dull gaze, willed him to hang on. No, you can't go. I won't let you. Not now. Not ever. "No," she said again, with more conviction than she felt. She would hold him here. She had to. He was her life—her linchpin.

  "You're in pain," she said. "I'll get you something." She righted his bedding, smoothing the linens with trembling hands before reaching for his pills.

  He grasped her arm with surprising strength, dug his nails into her flesh. "No. No pills," he said, his lips compressing against the pain. "The drawer. Open the drawer." He made a weak gesture with his head toward the opposite wall, where a George III bureau sat beside a window draped in blue velvet. His grip slackened.

  She knew the drawer he wanted open. Years ago she'd sold him the bureau when—

  Not now. Don't think of that now.

  "Please," he urged. "There's no more time. I should have done this sooner, but I was...weak." The words rattled in his throat. The last coins in the bank, few and precious.

  "I'll do it, Milo. Rest now." She stroked the hair back from his forehead, then crossed the room to the bureau.

  The eighteenth-century piece had a base comprised of three drawers, a drop-front desk area with a series of cubbyholes, and a glass-fronted bookcase on top. She pressed her index finger on a rose carved into the molding at the base of the bookcase, then tugged to open a narrow drawer. Inside were three sealed and numbered envelopes, one thicker than the others. She'd never seen them before. She carried them back to his bedside. Closer to the light, she saw that two of the envelopes had her name on them. The other was unmarked; Milo gave her no time to wonder about any of them.

  On sight of the envelopes, he drew in a ragged breath and fixed his gaze on them. The pain in his eyes deepened to beyond the physical, gave way to fear when he took the letters from her hand to crush them against his chest.

  "Water, please," he murmured.

  A water glass with a bent straw sat by his bedside. She put the straw to his lips and held his head as he sipped. "I'm calling the doctor."

  "Too late." He inhaled as deeply as his ruined lungs allowed and stroked the envelopes, as though to ensure himself they were still there. "You know I... love you, Hannah," he whispered.

  She didn't answer, didn't know what to say. Was love their bond? Or was it merely an accommodation—two isolated souls sharing the same shadowy, secluded place giving small comfort to one another. But when she thought of his leaving, her brittle spirit quivered with hurt. Yes. She did love him as much as her shriveled heart allowed. He was her protector, her guardian angel, and she'd entrusted him with what was left of her life. She wouldn't know how to live without him.

  "Shush," she finally said. "I'm with you. I'm always with you." I'd die for you if I could. Isn't that a kind of love? Or is it only the terror of being left behind?

  He wheezed, the air making a scraping sound across his palate as he labored to pull in another breath.

  How many did he have left?

  How many breaths made an hour, a day, a life?

  Oh, Milo, don't go. Please, please, don't leave me.

  "I love you, too," she said, fighting a growing desperation. She would say the words. If she couldn't hold him, perhaps the words would.

  A tear caught lamplight at the edge of his eye and glowed a golden course into his thinning brown hair. "When you read these, you'll hate me."

  "Never! I could never hate you."

  "You don't know..."He shook his head and lifted his hand from the letters resting on his chest "Back in the drawer. Until... after. When you're strong again. I didn't mean for it to be you, didn't want that. But I trust you. You won't hurt her. It was so long ago. So long. I tried to make it right... can't ever. God, Hannah, I'm sorry, so sorry." He swallowed hard, shuddered convulsively.

  She didn't know what he was talking about But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered except his leaving. "Oh, Milo—" She wanted to console, but the words knotted in her throat Useless. There was no solace to be given, no promises to make. Even on the edge of death, Milo would see the missing truth. She owed him better.

  "Please," he murmured, touching the letters. "The drawer."

  She scarcely glanced at them as she did what he asked, returned quickly to his side. This time she sat on the bed and took his hand in both of her own. Cool. Too cool. Not the hand of the warmhearted man who'd come for her five years ago. Only bones under skin now. Kindling.

  His fingers curled around hers, so tight they hurt. "Read yours first. Alone." He raised his death-glazed eyes to hers. "I wanted you to be safe, I never thought I'd go before—"

  "Be still, Milo. It's all right. Everything will be all right." Impotent words, useless against the dread webbing tighter in her belly, the vile disease in his lungs.

  "Try to forgive me... to understand?"

  "I'll forgive you anything. You know that. You're more to me than life and—" Her voice broke. "Nothing you could say, or write, will ever change that."

  He rolled his head, the subtle negative thick with resignation and disbelief. "I've left you everything—" He stiffened, grimaced, and clenched his eyelids closed.

  Hannah knew the enemy in his body had renewed its merciless assault. She gripped his hand and held tight, leaning to kiss his knuckles. So little comfort for the life he'd given her. It seemed forever before he exhaled and the tension in his body eased.

  How many breaths?

  "You'll take care of Mother? Tell her I love her and that I left... peacefully." He managed a faint smile.

  "I will."

  "And yourself. Take care of yourself. Promise me that."

  She nodded, swallowed against the building pressure to weep.

  "Good." He moved his thumb over the back of her hand. "If I could," he murmured, "I'd say hello to Will and... little Christopher. Tell them how you miss them. How much you love them."

  His soft words were a warm hand on her heart; the moan was hers. It was too cruel, this life. First love, then mistakes and unthinkable losses, leaving nothing but broken souls adrift in a bleak and empty wake. Alone. Always alone. And now Milo. She buried her head near his shoulder and wept.

  He reached for her, used his waning strength to nudge her head onto his shoulder. "Lie with me, Hannah," he whispered.

  She stretched out beside him, pressed her cheek to his, her tears heating their skin. He caressed her hair, soothed her, the almost dead consoling the not alive.

  "Warm. So warm." He continued to stroke her hair, his fingers stopping at her nape. "A woman in my arms." He kissed her forehead softly. "My first woman."

  With that he ran out of breaths, his last wafting over her cheek on an endless sigh.

  A Perfect Evil

  by

  EC Sheedy

  ~

  Available at your favorite eBook Retailer

  Page forward for other ebooks by EC Sheedy

  More eBooks from

  EC Sheedy

  ONE TOUGH COOKIE: A contemporary romance set on Spain's magical Costa del Sol and featuring a heroine resolutely determined to be financially, emotionally, and physically independent. She wants no man—until she meets Mister Wrong.

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  OVERKILL: The first in a series of short stories and novelettes featuring the Raven Force, a privately funded group of covert agents who work against the illegal arms/drug trade. Ravens cover the globe to get the job done—and to fall in love.

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  CALIFORNIA MAN: A romance set on an idyllic Pacific Northwest island, it tells the story of a timid, reclusive island woman who meets a golden California man—a man determined to calm her fears and gain her love.

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  MAN FOR THE MORNING: A single mother gets a break from her busy responsible life with
a trip to Paris. Open-hearted, open-minded to all that life has to offer in the City of Light, she meets a man her polar opposite.

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  LOVE LETTERS, INC.: A clever and funny tech writer moonlights writing love letters for the "dating impaired" and ends up with love being returned to sender.

  All available at your favorite eBook Retailer

  EC Sheedy who also writes as Carole Dean, lives in British Columbia. She is an island dweller—and loves it. Every morning she wakes to the ever changing sound and colors of the ocean outside her window. Whatever its mood, summer calm or winter storm, she finds it the perfect background for writing romance. She lives with her husband of many years and a Rhodesian Ridgeback who has convinced them both he is a person in dog's clothing.

  For more about EC Sheedy and to see some views from her window, visit EC's webpage www.ecsheedy.com

  Or follow her on Twitter @EC_Sheedy

  To contact EC Sheedy, email: ecsheedy@ecsheedy.com

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  The Morning Post Chronical - News

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17