by Mary Campisi
“That’s bullshit.”
“Not if it’s true.”
“Janice would choose leprosy over motherhood.”
“So there’s no way she can be pregnant?”
His eyes narrowed to liquid silver. “I’m saying there’s a higher probability of a cloistered nun being pregnant than Janice.”
She threw him a cold look and said, “Not if you’re anywhere in the vicinity.”
He yanked her to her feet, his large frame towering over her. “Damn you, Kate, do not ruin this.”
“I’m not the one being accused of fathering a child.”
“I did not father her child.” His grip burned into her skin as he leaned closer. “There is no child,” he bit out, and then in a softer voice, “there can’t be.”
“Is that a fact or merely wishful thinking?”
His expression hardened. “Janice doesn’t even consider children human beings. Besides, she loves her body too much to mutilate it with a child.”
“I think you might need a little more effective birth control than that.” She fought the image of Rourke and Janice, their beautiful naked bodies wrapped around one other.
He threw her a disgusted look. “She was on the pill and I always used protection.”
“Always?”
“Always.”
He sounded so certain that she wanted to believe him but women had been tricking men with pregnancy for centuries. “So maybe she poked a hole in your condom and forgot to take her pill.”
He ignored the comment and insisted, “I did not get her pregnant.”
Kate looked away so he wouldn’t see the pain on her face. “What are you going to do?”
“Force the truth out of her.”
“How? You’ll need a pregnancy test and then it could be wrong or too early or—”
“Kate.” She flinched when he touched her shoulder. “I’ll handle it. I have a man who checks things out for me. He’ll get answers and she’ll never even know it.”
“You mean a private investigator?”
“Right. He’s very discreet. This guy can get a person to spill their life story and never realize they’ve done it.”
His words made her uneasy. “You sound like you’ve used him quite a bit. How many other women did the PI scare away?”
Rourke traced a finger along the back of her neck, massaging in slow circles. “A few. He’s like a second line of defense.”
“Kind of like an antibiotic ointment.”
“More like SPF50. I was not going to put myself in a position to make any woman a permanent fixture in my life.”
The words stung but she forced a casual tone in her voice. “Then I guess I should consider myself lucky I didn’t run after you when I found out about Julia.”
His hand stilled. “I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about Janice and all the other Janices in this world.”
“Of course you are.”
He swore under his breath. “I knew she was looking for a ring the night I met her.”
“But that didn’t stop you from seeing her.”
He did have the good grace to blush. “I never pretended I was going to marry any of them. They all knew it and yet they all thought they could change me.”
“You used them.”
His jaw twitched. “They didn’t have a hard time drinking four hundred dollar bottles of wine or flying first class to Switzerland.”
“Oh, so, you used each other,” she corrected.
“That’s right, so what?”
“I’m not used to people being so blunt about their ulterior motives. Usually, they sugar-coat it a little bit.”
“When you’re tossing hundred dollar bills at somebody, you can give it to them any way you want. And you know what?” His body tensed as he closed in on her. “They’ll take it every time.”
Who was this stranger with the cold eyes and jaded heart? “Is that why you bought me this gigantic ring? Because you thought you could treat me any way you wanted and I’d just take it as long as the carat was large enough?”
“Stop being ridiculous.”
“I’m being serious.” She pointed at the velvet case in his hand. “Something like that should buy you quite a bit.”
“I wasn’t talking about you, Kate.”
Wasn’t he? She couldn’t tell anymore. “You play games with people, Rourke. You say one thing but your actions indicate something altogether different. Maybe your other women closed their eyes to your manipulations, but I can’t.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Could he really not see? “I can’t live this life, wondering if,” she paused and corrected herself, “when you’ll hire someone to check me out. Just in case.” His face paled and she spotted the truth beneath his tan. “My God, you hired someone to spy on me, didn’t you?”
When he didn’t answer, she jabbed his chest with her finger. “Tell me the truth, damn you.”
“Okay. I checked your financials.” He turned away and stared out the window. “It was all public information—the loans, the liens, the second mortgage.”
Kate slipped into a chair and glared at his back. She hated him right now, hated how he’d peeked into her life with the casual disinterest of a passerby. “Did you have a good laugh? Did you think it comical that I drove a ten-year-old car and ate Wendy’s while you had chauffeurs and room service?”
“I found no humor in any of it.”
“Really?” Now she really hated him and his demeaning tone. “You pitied us then, is that it?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Then why did you do it?”
He didn’t respond right away, and when he did, his words were barely intelligible. “I couldn’t seem to help myself.”
“You make it sound like an illness. Where are the reports? I want to see them.” She wanted to know every detail of those reports and the information they’d dug out of their lives.
“I destroyed them years ago.”
“Years ago? How long has this been going on?”
He turned to face her, his expression unreadable. “Too long.”
“You knew about Julia and my business.”
He nodded. “And Clay’s financial troubles.”
“Of course. Do you know what color my sheets are too?” He tensed but said nothing which only further infuriated her. “Do you have any idea how grotesquely bizarre this is? It’s like someone watching through a peephole while you shower.”
“I never meant to hurt you, or make you uncomfortable, and I certainly wouldn’t demean you in any way.”
“That’s exactly what you did.”
He moved toward her and knelt down on one knee. “I’ll make it up to you. I promise.” He clasped her left hand and slid the ringer on her finger. “Marry me and let me make it up to you.”
She stared at the diamond glittering on her finger like a beacon of hope. This had been her dream since the first time she kissed him and now he was offering it to her in vibrant carats. “Can you promise me there won’t be any more Janices lurking in the shadows? That one won’t come to the door next month or next year and present me with a child and tell me it’s yours? What happens when I’m older and heavier and the young things flit over you like butterflies? Will you still want me then?”
“I will always want you,” he said with uncompromising fierceness.
“I think you believe that now and I appreciate your words. I really do. But Janice made me realize something today. We’re too different, Rourke—our lives, our backgrounds, everything. I don’t belong here.”
“You said you loved me. How can you just walk away from that?”
“I’d rather walk away now than have you toss me away later.”
“Stop talking nonsense.”
She eased the ring from her finger and laid it on the table next to her. “Julia can see you during breaks and when it doesn’t interfere with her schoolwork. I’d like her home the end of next week so we can ge
t ready for school.”
“Kate, let’s talk this out. What can I say to change your mind?”
“Don’t say anymore. Just let me go.”
His jaw twitched. “I can’t do that.”
“You have to.” She stood and faced him. “After all, you’re going to be a father.”
“I told you she’s manipulating me.”
“I guess I should thank her then for making me realize what life would be like with you.” His expression darkened as he clenched his teeth and stared at her. “Good-bye, Rourke.” She turned and walked away from the dream and the man she’d loved forever.
Chapter 27
“How long are you going to feed me this line before you tell me the truth?”—Angie Sorrento
“…and then he had the nerve to try and tell me to stay.” Kate whacked at a finishing nail, missed, and hit her thumb. “Damn!” She threw down the hammer and grabbed her injured thumb.
Angie glanced up from her computer. “Ten minutes ago you spilled paint all over your pants. Now you hammered your thumb. Maybe you should just go home and take a little rest.”
“I’m fine.”
“Sure you are.”
Kate studied the red spreading over her thumbnail. “Really, I’m okay.”
Angie sighed. “If you say so.”
Kate heard the clicking of the computer keys and knew Angie had turned back to her work. If only it were that easy. “Okay, so I’m not fine.”
The clicking stopped. “It’s been six days since you came back and all you’ll tell me is Julia learned how to water ski and is thrilled to be going to a Cub’s game?”
Kate shrugged and dragged her gaze toward Angie. “Julia’s impressionable. How many thirteen year olds get a chance to meet a professional baseball player?” Actually, it was the whole team, but Kate was not going to go there. So what if Rourke Flannigan knew everyone?
“You’re right.” Angie shrugged. “I’m sure you’re just moping around here because you miss Julia.”
“Right.” You know that’s not the only reason.
Angie picked up her pen and rolled it between her fingers in the exact same way Rourke had. “She’ll be home in eight days and then you’ll be fine.” Her voice slid an octave. “Then everything will be fine, won’t it?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Good.”
He broke my heart again and it’s a miracle it’s still beating.
“Kate?”
Why couldn’t he have stayed away?
“Kate!”
She jumped and forced Rourke Flannigan from her brain. “What?”
“I just want to know one thing?” All traces of the earlier compassionate tone disappeared and in their place was Angie’s usual no-nonsense voice. “How long are you going to feed me this line before you tell me the truth?”
“His ex-girlfriend’s pregnant.” There.
“Oh.” Angie eased from her chair and moved toward Kate. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around Kate’s shoulders. “What a bastard.”
Kate swiped at a tear. She needed Angie’s barrage of ill-intentioned curses to remind herself Rourke Flannigan was no good for her. “He said it wasn’t true,” she sniffed, “that it was all a set-up and he was going to get to the bottom of it, but what’s the use?”
“Could it have been a set-up?”
“Maybe, but either way there’s always going to be another woman gunning for him.”
“Hmmm. I don’t like the guy but you can’t fault him for the women out there trying to hook up with him or his money.”
“He had no business associating with that kind of woman.”
“Honey, three quarters of the male population have no business but given half a chance, they’d all grab onto a silicone Barbie.”
“Men are pigs.”
“Most are.”
It felt good to slash Rourke’s name. Kate opened her mouth and spilled out more dirt. “Do you know he hired a detective to spy on the woman? Said that’s what he does so he can stay uninvolved?”
“You can’t really blame the guy, considering all the traps women are setting for somebody like him.”
“But do you know what the sickest thing was? He spied on me, too.”
Angie pulled back and looked into Kate’s eyes. “Spied on you? When?”
“Here. He said he knew all about my loans and Clay’s business problems.” She dragged a hand over her face and forced herself to continue. “He even admitted he’s been doing it for years.”
“Years?”
“I know, it’s bizarre.”
“Yeah. Bizarre.” Angie toyed with a coil of dark hair, twisting it around her finger, tighter and tighter. “But why would he spy on you for years? I always thought the guy walked out of Montpelier and never looked back. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I know. He said he couldn’t stop, which made no sense at all.” Kate closed her eyes and willed everything about Rourke Flannigan to disappear.
“Oh my God.”
“What?” Kate blinked her eyes open and stared at Angie. “What’s the matter?”
“Don’t you see? If he told you he couldn’t stop spying on you for all these years, it could only mean one thing.”
“What? The man’s a control freak who won’t let anything go, even when he doesn’t want it anymore?”
Angie opened her mouth and the words inched past her lips. “All these years, I never would have guessed.”
“Guessed what?”
“He loved you, Kate. From the very beginning, he really loved you and he’s never stopped.”
***
Rourke was in a foul mood tonight, just as he’d been the last several nights. He hid it when he was with Julia, or at least he tried to, but other than that, he was miserable and bent on making everyone else miserable, too. Janice had evaporated and reappeared in New York on a photo shoot—a hand and foot lotion ad, very busy she’d said, no time to talk until she returned tonight. She was giving him a line and he’d been half tempted to fly to New York and confront her, but common sense and a fear he wouldn’t be able to control his anger won out. So he waited. She’d be here soon enough and then he’d drag the answers out of those lying, red lips.
Maxine had taken Abbie and Julia out for pizza and a movie. She’d developed a strong maternal tendency these past several weeks, ever since her trip to Montpelier. Rourke refused to think of anyone associated with that town, except for Julia, of course. He sipped his bourbon and considered the evening ahead. Janice would pounce on him shortly, overflowing with chatter and buzz like newly uncorked champagne. She’d bring him a tie or cuff links or some other nonsensical gift he didn’t need or want. All he wanted was the truth so he could go about reconstructing the rubble that had become his life six days ago. At least he still had Julia.
The front door opened and the clickety-clack of heels on tile broke through the quietness. “There you are.”
“Hello, Janice.” He lifted his bourbon and sipped.
Coco Chanel suffocated his breath as she stepped closer. Had he really thought her antics tantalizing or had she merely been another distraction from his real problem—trying to forget Kate? She inched toward his mouth but Rourke turned his head seconds before she kissed him.
Janice sighed and perched on the arm of the couch. “Okay, you’re angry.”
Had she purposely crossed her legs just now so her skirt rode up her thigh, inches from the garter belts she loved to wear? “Why would I be angry?” He hadn’t mentioned Kate or what she’d told him. In fact, he hadn’t mentioned anything to Janice other than ordering her back to Chicago immediately. An order she’d avoided.
“I can read body language, Rourke.” She ran a hand down his arm and inched closer. “I’ve always been very good at that…bodies, I mean.” She eased her fingers along his chest to his belly and settled on his thigh. “I think you’re tense,” she said, working slow circles over the muscles of his leg. “And I know just how
to relieve that ache.”
He shoved her hand away. “I’m not in the mood for your games, Janice.” He stood and moved to the fireplace, several feet from her groping hands.
“Rourke.”
“Start talking.”
She sniffed, twice. She was a much better actress than he’d given her credit for. The tears appeared on command, along with the sniffling and somehow she conducted the theatrics without smearing her makeup. Now that was truly an art.
“Oh, Rourke, I don’t know where to begin. Hormones. I can’t seem to control them these days.” She offered him a teary smile. “I’d hoped to tell you under different circumstances. I was thinking a table at Gianoni’s and a bottle of Cristal but…” she lifted her slender shoulders and a fresh wave of tears fell.
Despite his anger, a tiny thread of panic gripped him. She was just acting, wasn’t she? That’s why she’d thrown the hormone thing in, wasn’t it?
Janice turned to him and murmured in a voice heavy with anguish. “I know you never wanted a child. I know you think them bothersome and demanding. I know.” She buried her face in her hands. “I am so sorry.”
Rourke sucked in the last whiff of oxygen from the room and forced his legs to move toward her. “Janice.” He reached out and awkwardly touched her shoulder.
