Rosalyn rolled out of bed and stomped to the entrance. She threw open the door, ready to berate whichever asshole was responsible for her early wakeup call, only to find a haggard Diego standing there.
He managed to look both terrible and delectable at the same time. His hair stuck up at odd angle, and dark shadows smudged beneath his eyes, his face wan. But his t-shirt was a shade too tight, clinging to his hard muscles with loving precision. And his eyes burned with a fierce, possessive hunger that took her breath and sent tugs down to her core.
She remembered her anger just in time before she fell into his arms in relief. It had barely been twelve hours and she already ached with missing him.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded in her most imperious tone.
Diego’s eyes roamed over her face, drinking her in. “I don’t know,” he told her, seeming perplexed. “I couldn’t stay away.”
Her heart melted. But she had to stay strong. “Diego…” she began.
“I know,” he told her. “I know. But here’s the thing. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time. And I don’t want to give you up—not yet. Not until I have to. So I’m here to explain.” He waited, eyeing her. His jaw had a stubborn set as if he was prepared to keep arguing until he got his way.
Rosalyn sighed. She’d intended to see him anyway, eventually. They may as well have this conversation now.
She stepped aside, allowing him to pass. Even as he brushed against her on his way into the apartment, she sizzled from the contact. Who was she? This needy, sexual woman? What had he turned her into?
“I need coffee,” she told him. “Want one?”
He hesitated, then nodded. He followed her into the kitchen and watched her as she prepared the coffee-maker and began the drip.
“How’s your ribs? And head?” she asked.
His brow tugged down in confusion, then his expression cleared. “Fine. I did a work out last night.”
Her eyebrows shot up in surprise but she didn’t comment. When the coffee was ready, she poured them both cups and then walked back into the main room. She hesitated when she remembered she didn’t have anywhere to sit—other than the bed that held so many memories between them. But there was no choice. She settled back against the cushions and eyed him challengingly to see what he’d do. After a minute of hesitation, he hefted her office chair and brought it down the steps so he could sit at her bedside.
Then he fell silent.
“So, talk,” she suggested. “It’s what you came here for.”
He sighed. “I don’t know where to start.” He was silent for a long moment, apparently gathering his thoughts. Then, his gaze snapped up to hers. “You know how I got into the situation with Victor. My mum and everything.”
She nodded, but didn’t speak.
“So that night, the night it…happened. I went to distract him so Radha and her boyfriend could get away, I found Victor upstairs in his mansion. He was trying to load up bags with the cash he kept there. The place was totally up in flames, but his first thought was his money.”
“He sounds like a winner.”
Diego rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Anyway, I was turning to leave, figured I’d let him make his choices and burn to death. It would have solved everyone’s problems and it was already unbearably hot in there. I had to get out before I choked.”
“So then what happened?” Rosalyn asked softly, then sipped her coffee. He shifted in agitation.
“His kid came in. Not a kid, really, but early twenties. Raoul. He looked a bit like me, my height and weight. He was Victor’s by some stripper he’d known back in the day. He spent ninety percent of his time with his mother, and rarely stopped by for a visit. Why would he? Victor had made his disinterest clear, though the kid still tried. A lot of the gang didn’t even know Raoul was his kid, not unless they’d been there for a long time.”
“Like you?”
He nodded. “I don’t think any of us knew he was there that day. Maybe he’d just arrived when all the madness started. Who knows. Anyway, Raoul tried to get Victor to leave the money behind. But Victor wasn’t having it. He was completely unhinged by that point. He pulled a gun on his own son.”
Rosalyn gasped. Her stomach roiled in nausea at the thought of what might come next.
“Again, I considered leaving them there. But Raoul was only a kid. He didn’t deserve that. He’d been born into the life, he hadn’t chosen it.”
The sadness in his eyes told Rosalyn he saw a bit of himself in that kid.
“So what did you do?” she asked. She gave in to the pull within her, tugging her in Diego’s direction. She set her coffee aside and leaned forward to clasp his hand between hers.
He squeezed back, the grip verging on painful. “I pulled a gun on Victor. I tried to talk him down. Threaten him. Something. But he wouldn’t listen to me. He grabbed Raoul and tried to use him as a shield to get me to leave. And the smoke was building up in the room, obscuring my vision, making a haze in my mind. Everything was happening so quickly. We were going to die, I had no doubt.” He hesitated. “So I ordered Victor to lower the weapon. Instead, he snapped Raoul’s neck, just bam with no warning. And then he laughed. And he turned the gun on me. I had to shoot. I was fucking lucky his shot went wide or three of us would have been dead that day. But the laugh was what’s stuck with me all these years. The man was more evil than I ever knew.”
Rosalyn swallowed, tears burning her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“So am I,” he said. He cleared his throat. “I guess what I came here to say is yes, I killed a man, but I don’t regret that. But when I say I have blood on my hands? I’m talking about Raoul.”
“Oh Diego,” Rosalyn said on a gasp. “You can’t blame yourself for that.”
He shook his head, rejecting her words. “I could’ve saved him. I could’ve taken Victor out at any time. But I never expected…his own son.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said again. And when he turned away Rosalyn came off the bed and straddled him on the chair. She put her hands on either side of his head and turned his face towards her. Reluctant eyes met hers.
“It’s not your fault,” she repeated, firmer this time.
“I’ve done so many bad things,” he told her, his expression one of quiet devastation. “But that’s the worst of all of them.”
She wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder. He took a shuddering breath and pulled her close, so tightly she could barely breathe. But she didn’t complain. She simply offered him what comfort she could with her body.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“It was the last stop in a long line of bad deeds, Rosalyn.”
“That’s not you anymore,” she whispered against his neck. “You’re a better man, now.”
He made a sound. “Not nearly. Not nearly good enough.”
But he still didn’t let her go.
Chapter 13
They made love in the morning light; a soft, slow movement of hands and bodies. But a sense of desperation dogged at Diego’s heels. Impending doom was like a cloud on the horizon. He didn’t know what, but he knew things couldn’t stay the way they were. It was too good to be true.
They lay tangled in bed together, naked skin cooling.
“I have to leave,” he whispered to the ceiling, stroking Rosalyn’s hair.
“Now?” she asked drowsily, cuddling closer.
He squeezed his eyes shut. “No, but soon. I have to leave the city.”
Sudden alertness tensed her muscles and she propped herself up on her elbow to stare down at him. She studied his face intently. “When?” she asked.
“Soon. As soon as I can.”
“But why?”
He sighed. “It was always the plan. It’s why I fight—to earn enough money to leave America and start over somewhere new.”
“And…this plan hasn’t changed?” Her voice was hesitant. He knew what she was rea
lly asking—didn’t being with her change the plan?
He tangled his fingers in her hair as it hung down past her shoulder. “What choice do I have? I can’t fight forever. And I can’t work while I’m supposed to be dead.”
“But maybe you don’t have to be,” she suggested. She rested her head on her pillow, curling on her side to face him. He shifted so he mirrored her position. They weren’t quite touching, still naked, and oddly vulnerable.
“As far as I can tell, I’m still wanted for murder if I show up alive. Or if I’m not right now, me turning up a year later will surely make them suspicious enough to investigate. And even then, they aren’t the ones I have to worry about. Mickey alone—he’d be pissed I had anything to do with what happened to Victor. They were tight, and had been together a long time.”
“But if all that could be resolved—”
“Then I’m still an ex-con with no skills but criminal ones,” he finished for her. “Face it, Red. I’m not a good bet.”
“Plenty of ex-cons get jobs. I think you’re using that as an excuse.”
He frowned. “You think I want to leave? Go to some no-name hell-hole in the middle of nowhere and hide for the rest of my life?”
She tilted her head. “I think running is usually easier than fighting.”
He scowled and sat up. “What do you know about it?” he demanded.
“I’ve been through shit, too, remember? But rather than give up, become simply another statistic, I stayed and I fought for what I wanted. For the life I knew I deserved.”
“Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? We all get what we deserve in the end.” He flopped back against the bed, anger holding his muscles tight. He was angry at her for saying these thing, but angry at himself most of all. Angry she might be right.
“You deserve better than you think, Diego. All you have to do is believe that.”
He snorted. “Easier said than done.”
She ran her palm over his bicep, studying him. He relaxed at even that slight touch of hers. “Okay,” she said eventually, voice wobbling. “If you want to go, I can’t stop you.”
God, and didn’t that just break his heart. She wanted him to fight for her. And worst of all, he almost wanted to himself. But that was a slippery slope to heartbreak.
She sighed, a sheen of tears gathering in her eyes. “So how long do you think we have?” she asked. “Months?”
He shook his head. “Weeks. Maybe three more fights and I’ll have enough. I’d rather more, but I don’t think I can risk it. I need to stay hidden that bit longer.”
She shifted closer. “Then I suppose we better make do with what time we have.” She pressed her lips against his and he lost himself in her again.
“Come with me?” he murmured against her lips. The words had bubbled up out of nowhere, born of his desperation, his loneliness, his fear. But also the soft temptation of her, the way she made him feel like he was a better man than he was.
She pulled back, staring down at him. “To where?” she asked, not immediately agreeing or disagreeing.
“I don’t know, forget it. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“But, tell me, where will you go? What are your plans?”
He shrugged. “I’ll go by boat to Mexico, then go south from there. Stop somewhere when I find a place that I can rebuild a life, somewhere that won’t ask too many questions.”
“I can’t leave. I have a job. A calling.”
“I know. I shouldn’t have asked. It was stupid.”
He kissed her again to distract her. She resisted at first, but soon melted into his arms.
Later, though, as she slept with her head on his chest, he wondered if maybe she was right. Maybe he was running. But how could he stop?
Rosalyn worked on the update of her story as Diego did his own thing. She didn’t mention what she was writing. Their relationship was in a delicate place after the argument. He was raw and vulnerable after his confessions, and she didn’t want to risk what they’d built by telling him what she’d done so soon. She’d find the time later, once they were back on steadier ground. Hopefully the new article she came up with instead of her original submission would be much more to his taste, less full of personal details of his life, and a wider look at the economic problems that a certain class of society faced.
The guilt still sat heavy on her heart.
They sat in companionable silence as she rewrote large sections of her submission. She took out all the personal things Diego had told her of his childhood. Instead, she made it a hard-hitting condemnation of the way society failed certain people, and the lengths they had to go to in order to survive. She tied in pieces of information from the homeless people she’d encountered a few month previously for the article that never came to light. She kept in the criticism of the rich people that watched the fights, though. She felt no guilt about that.
She sent off her revisions a little after midday. Pleased with her changes, knowing they would hurt Diego less, and be more political besides, she took Diego out for lunch.
It took him a while to relax in the crowded café, but they soon fell into conversation about the little things in life that said so much about a person. Favourite films, music, TV shows. Diego didn’t read much, but he liked watching gritty HBO dramas and big budget comedy films. She preferred things with guaranteed happy endings. She’d been through enough horror in her life that she didn’t need misery in her fiction, too.
After lunch they walked around the city, hand-in-hand, until night fell and they took some takeaway dinner back to her apartment. They ate, they made love, they talked, and they hung out like a normal couple. But there was a strange, ephemeral quality to the day, as if they were living in a bubble or an alternate universe.
Like it wasn’t real life, and they’d soon wake up from the dream.
Thursday morning, a copy of the Journal was delivered while Diego was in the shower. And that’s when it all fell apart.
Anthony had printed the wrong article.
She called her boss immediately, keeping her ear on the bathroom to make sure Diego was still in the shower. The newspaper crinkled as she balled her hands into angry fists.
Anthony answered right before she thought it would click over into voice mail.
“You printed the wrong article,” she hissed.
“Hello to you, too,” he replied.
“Don’t be coy with me. Why would you do this?”
Anthony sighed. “Your first article was better. It had more human drama.”
Rosalyn growled. “But I asked you not to print it. And I disagree. The second one was better. It was hard-hitting and gritty.”
“No one reads hard-hitting and gritty. You know this. I’ve told you a hundred times. You sent me a good article, and I ran it, like I promised.”
Tears burned in her eyes. “This is a disaster.”
“Hardly. It’s just an article.”
“Just an article that exposes a man in hiding to the world.”
“Using a pseudonym,” Anthony added.
“Sure, but there are enough details in this article to identify him if people look. You may have ruined a man’s life.”
Anthony grunted. “You wrote the article, not me. If you want to blame someone, blame yourself.”
He hung up. Rosalyn let out a sob, then clapped her hand over her mouth to hold the rest back. Shit. Diego couldn’t find out. Not now. It would destroy him.
The shower shut off. Rosalyn glanced around her apartment desperately looking for a hiding place he’d never look. In the end, she shoved the paper in her desk drawer and arranged some files on top of it.
He walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. Even in her panic, she couldn’t help but admire him. He really had a beautiful body, honed to perfection.
“Did the paper come?” he asked. “I thought you might want to do the crossword again.”
The slight hint of hope in his eyes broke her heart.
“I checked, it didn’t come yet. Must be running late.”
“Oh.” His face fell. “Never mind.”
“We should go out and do something. See the sites.” Her words tumbled out faster than usual and her heart fluttered in panic. He couldn’t know. Couldn’t find out. She simply had to keep him away from copies of the Journal all day. Distract him. Anything.
Simple.
And then she had to hope she hadn’t destroyed his life, and bring everything he’d fought so hard to escape straight onto his head.
Her impulsivity was getting her into so much trouble lately. But now it wasn’t only her. It was Diego, too, getting hurt by her actions. And her heart broke at the knowledge.
He’d been right—they were bad for each other. But neither had predicted it would be her, not him, that would ruin everything.
Chapter 14
Diego pulled up out the front of the warehouse on Saturday night with his head not at all in the fight. Instead, it was back with Rosalyn and the odd way she’d been acting the last few days. Sometimes she eyed him with a panicked gaze when she thought he wasn’t looking, and she was no longer quite as warm with him, as if she was holding herself back.
If Diego didn’t know any better, he’d think she was planning to break up with him. Not that he’d blame her. But after everything he’d told her, how close they’d grown, he couldn’t deny it would hurt.
And it was only a matter of time, really. Hell, he was leaving as soon as he had enough cash to survive. Maybe it was better if they called it off early, anyway.
But Diego knew he wouldn’t—couldn’t. Somehow he’d let his heart get entangled with hers. She was his, in a way he’d never experienced before. And even more than that, he was hers. He’d told her things he’d never told anyone—trusted her more than himself.
He’d even begun rethinking his plans to leave, thinking about what she’d said about staying and fighting for her. The idea grew more tempting every day. But he was so afraid of putting her in danger that he wasn’t sure he could. Even to keep her safe.
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