by Linda Barlow
She had been flying to London for a meeting with a wealthy client who had hired Fabrications to design the San Francisco branch offices of his international corporation. The client had sent her first-class tickets and arranged first-class accommodations at the Dorchester Hotel in London.
Annie had never been to London, and she’d hoped that Charlie would accompany her, but Charlie had one quirk that he had never been able to conquer—he was afraid of flying. There was no way he would get on a plane and fly ten hours from San Francisco to London.
So she’d gone alone. And seated beside her in the first-class section was Matthew Carlyle, also traveling to London on business.
The dim interior of an airliner during a night flight to Europe can be a strangely intimate place. You meet a stranger, exchange a little personal information—no last names, of course—and sometimes something clicks. You end up saying things to the stranger that you would otherwise never say. In most cases, you’re secure in knowing that after the plane lands, you’ll never see your seatmate again.
But in this case, going first class all the way meant that Annie and Carlyle were staying at the same deluxe hotel. And when he heard that she had hopes of doing some touring in London, he told her that it was his favorite city in the world, and he offered—no, he’d insisted—on showing her around.
Since they were both working during the week, they arranged to see the sights that weekend. They spent Saturday visiting Buckingham Palace, the houses of Parliament, the Tower of London, and the British Museum. Annie was impressed with Carlyle’s encyclopedic knowledge of British history. He even knew the city well enough to take her to several lovely little historic pubs and coffeehouses for occasional breaks from sightseeing.
She felt the chemistry between them right from the start. But she’d been married for five years to a man she dearly loved, and it was a simple matter to convince herself that what she was feeling was just a silly kind of schoolgirl crush that the sophisticated Matt Carlyle was completely unaware of and absolutely immune to.
She didn’t discover that he was not only aware but interested until Sunday afternoon, when they took a car trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare.
Until then she had seen him only in the most trim and proper business suits, but for this excursion he wore jeans, a casual shirt, and running shoes. Somehow this brought him down to earth, making him seem less like a wealthy captain of the computer industry and more like an ordinary guy. He’d rented a small MG for the journey, dismissing the limousine and driver who had been chauffeuring them around the city. Being within its close confines as they drove through the English countryside created an almost electric sense of intimacy.
The day had started out fine, and they’d explored both Shakespeare’s birthplace and Ann Hathaway’s antique thatched cottage under a fine August sun. But the weather had turned progressively gloomy, and when they’d emerged that evening from the theater where they had watched a stirring production of Henry V, they’d had to run back to the car in a downpour.
They were both drenched to the skin and laughing when Carlyle stopped fumbling with the door latch and simply pulled her into his arms, pressed her back against the steaming wet car, and kissed her ravenously on the mouth. Before she could give it a moment’s thought, her arms had wrapped themselves around his shoulders, and she was entangling her tongue with his, matching his passion with her own.
Somehow they’d managed to get into the car, where the irresistible magic of hungry male and receptive female continued. She felt heady with desire as his heat, his touch, his scent combined to assault her senses. She’d forgotten who she was, where she was, what she was doing. All that mattered was the jagged-lightning rush of passion driving its arrows deep into her soul.
She’d thought often, later, that if they had been in the backseat of the limousine that they’d used for their touring of London, anything might have happened. But the rented MG was tiny, and there was a gear shift between them. Carlyle had finally broken off the embrace to whisper, “We passed a pub a couple of miles back. I’m sure they have a room, we can dry off and…”
The reality of what they were doing had penetrated her at those words. She was a married woman—what was she doing?
“No,” she’d murmured. “No, please.”
And he had held her in his arms and tried to convince her: “Come with me. Don’t think about it. Just come.”
“I can’t. Please, don’t ask me.”
“You can. You’ve come this far. Some things are meant to be.”
She had told him no. Finally and irrevocably.
But she had never forgotten the way he had made her feel; not during the days when she had hated him and blamed him for the loss of Fabrications, not even when he was accused of the brutal murder of his wife.
She hated him still; she blamed him still. But, ruthless though she believed him to be, she’d been unable to make up her mind about his involvement in Francesca’s brutal murder.
Was Matthew Carlyle innocent, and justly acquitted?
Or had the state just freed a coldhearted killer?
Chapter Six
Matthew Carlyle sat in his corner office on the third floor of the new building that housed Powerdyme and stared out the window at San Francisco Bay. A crystal tumbler of the finest single-blend scotch stood untouched on the desk at his elbow. Faintly, he could smell it, but he left it alone.
The view from his office was magnificent, but the sun was too bright on his computer screen, and despite the climate control, the room was invariably hot. It was also cramped. And the floor-to-ceiling windows made him feel too exposed.
The new building was, in fact, a disaster.
He hated it, and his employees were none too happy in it either. And it was already too small.
Although sales and profits were up and Powerdyme continued to dominate its end of the software business, a recent survey had shown that job satisfaction within the company had declined, always a troubling indicator. But it was unclear whether that was due to the new building or to the economy or to the fact that the CEO had just spent more than a year in jail.
After the narrow confines of a stark cell in a correctional institution, Carlyle had figured he’d be overjoyed to be back in his sunny office. But the opposite was true. He hated it here, and he’d never been able to work productively in an environment he hated. This damn building had been wrong from the start.
Just like everything else in my life.
There are things you don’t think about while you’re locked up in jail, on trial for murdering your wife. You’d go crazy if you did. You don’t think about the good times—those early days of courtship, surrender, and joy when he and Francesca had still been in love. And neither do you think of the bad times—the all-too-many days after she’d started drinking when you did want her out of your life. How could you persuade a jury to set you free if they knew that you had occasionally committed murder in your heart?
None of them could possibly know what it had been like to live with a beautiful but volatile woman like Francesca, whose very existence seemed calculated to make men crazy. She’d been a superb actress, and only the few people she’d allowed close to her recognized her for the controlling, manipulative, deeply insecure woman she was.
But you don’t think about that—you simply couldn’t allow yourself to remember all the torments she had put you through. And you especially don’t dwell on the fact that your unfaithful wife was pregnant, and that DNA tests admitted as evidence during the trial by your attorneys had proven that you were the father of her child. The marriage had been in trouble, yes, but if he’d known she was pregnant, after so many years of trying to have a child, he’d have tried harder to hold things together. Much harder, dammit.
He was forty-one years old. As the tabloids had proclaimed during the trial, for the last twenty years he had “led a charmed life.” He was the founder of one of the world’s most successful businesses and was,
journalistic hyperbole for once accurate, a billionaire. But, like many extremely successful people, he’d discovered that all the money in the world couldn’t buy happiness, serenity, or peace of mind. Neither could it protect him from the slow-grinding wheels of the American system of justice.
His friends—what few he had left—had advised him to let it go. Put it behind him. Don’t look back.
But his friends hadn’t lived for a year and a half in a sevenby-nine-foot cell with a narrow bunk and a stainless steel seatless toilet, eating vile, fatty, unidentifiable food, and checked every fifteen minutes by a guard. They hadn’t tossed in sleeplessness and despair, alive with the knowledge that twelve strangers could look into your eyes and judge your mind, body, and soul on the basis of the theories and distortions they heard in the courtroom.
Francesca was dead. But he was still alive, and now, finally, he was free.
Somehow, dammit, he had to get his life back.
Matthew picked up the phone and called someone he knew he could absolutely count on—the Reverend Barbara Rae Acker.
She was a wise and compassionate woman who, despite her friendship with Francesca, had been there for him throughout the trial. He was not a religious man, but that did not matter. Barbara Rae’s goodness was not limited to believers alone.
Maybe she could help him figure out what the hell to do with the rest of his life.
“I love him,” the teenager whispered.
Annie took the girl’s trembling hands in both of hers. They were talking together in a private room at Barbara Rae Acker’s Compassion of Angels youth center in the Mission district, where Annie volunteered two evenings a week. The youth center was just a block away from the cathedral construction site, so it was easy for Annie to stop by after work.
The teenager who had come in for counseling had an old, familiar story to tell. Paolina was seventeen, poor, and beautiful. Half Hispanic, she had unusual coloring—golden skin and natural blond hair that was so long it nearly brushed her hips. Her face was a perfect oval with strong, molded features and flawless skin that glowed like the finest polished marble.
The eldest of three sisters and three brothers, she had an intact nuclear family—increasingly rare, it seemed to Annie. Paolina’s parents were very strict. Her father disciplined all his children with a broad leather strap.
Paolina had always followed the rules, she said, weeping. She had obeyed her parents, studied hard, helped out her mother with the little ones, cooked and cleaned and, for the past year, worked part-time as a seamstress to bring the family some extra income.
“I am not a bad girl,” she whispered.
“Of course you’re not,” Annie assured her.
Paolina had never had a boyfriend, she said, until last winter, when she met the young man she loved. She’d never met anybody like him. He followed no rules, respected no authority—although he did believe in and fear God.
“He told me what we were doing was wrong in the eyes of the Lord. So we tried to stop.” Her dark eyes were glistening. “But I love him so much and when he touched me it felt as if God Himself was smiling on us. Do you know what I mean?”
Annie nodded. It had felt like that with Charlie sometimes.
“But how could He be smiling if this happened?” the girl asked, looking down at her swelling belly. “I feel so much shame!”
Paolina was four months pregnant. Despite altering her clothes in an attempt to hide her weight gain, she was starting to show. The preceding night her parents had found out, and her father had threatened to beat her with the strap. “Mama begged him not to, and Father beat her instead,” the girl explained. “Then he told me to leave his house and never show my face again under his roof.”
“Ah, Paolina, I’m so sorry. Perhaps when he is calmer, he will reconsider.”
“No, he won’t,” Paolina said. “It’s not just that I have shamed him, but who I have shamed him with. He hates Vico. He cannot forgive him. You see, Vico did something against the law. Then the police were looking for him, and he lost his job and now he has gone into hiding.”
The entire story suddenly shifted into much sharper focus. “Wait a moment. Your boyfriend’s name is Vico? Is that short for Ludovico? Ludovico Brindesi?”
“Ludovico Genese,” the girl said. “But he is related to the Brindesi family, yes—Giuseppe Brindesi is his uncle.” She looked at Annie apprehensively. “You have heard about him? From the police, maybe?”
Annie shook her head. “I know the people he used to work for, that’s all.” And I approved his firing.…
“He’s not a bad man,” Paolina said. “He’s just a little wild, and he’s made some mistakes.”
“They’re after him for a drug rap, aren’t they? Does he use cocaine or other drugs?”
Paolina shook her head fiercely. “He thinks they’re foolish. They rot the brain, he says. He would never use drugs.”
But apparently he had no qualms about selling them to people who did use them. According to Barbara Rae, who had had several run-ins with him, Vico had been a troublemaker for years. He’d run with gangs since childhood.
And now he was on the run from the law. If Paolina was sheltering him, she could become an accessory after the fact. “Paolina, do you know where Vico is?”
She shook her head vigorously.
Annie sensed that she was lying. But when the girl broke down in sobs, Annie did the only thing that seemed appropriate—she pulled Paolina close and hugged her.
“Come, we’ll talk to Barbara Rae. She’ll know just what to do. Barbara Rae is very persuasive—she might be able to persuade your father to relent.”
Although Annie spoke with confidence, she was filled with trepidation. She knew Barbara Rae to be an excellent mediator, and it was remarkable how often people changed their minds after she exercised her gentle art of moral persuasion. But she was not always successful. There was something strong, yet tragic, about Paolina, and Annie felt afraid for her.
They were getting up to go find Barbara Rae when, behind them, Annie heard a door slam.
“Where is she?” boomed a male voice, and Paolina’s eyes went wild. She jumped to her feet, whispering, “Madre de Dios,” under her breath, then, “Vico!”
A dark-haired young man came striding into the room, and for an instant all Annie could think was: Here he is, the young Hades, dark and wild, determined to snatch away the pale Persephone and bear her away to his private Underworld.
He was as startlingly beautiful as Paolina. But he was dark, with shiny black hair falling too long over his neck and ears, in defiance of the latest teenage style. His face was classically Roman—a long arrogant oval with an aquiline nose and a determined chin. His eyes were black, with pinpricks of fire in their depths. He was of medium height, stocky and muscular, and he looked the way the still-handsome Giuseppe must have looked twenty years earlier.
Annie had seen him working on the construction site with his uncle, had overheard several of their flash-fire arguments. She had seen him stalk off, defiant, not caring what anybody thought of him.
He was seventeen years old.
Smarter than anybody.
Braver.
He knew what he wanted.
He wasn’t going to let anything stand in his way.
Certainly not his pale, submissive girlfriend or the woman who had, along with Jack Fletcher, discharged him from the construction job that might have given him his one chance to make something of his life.
He walked straight up to Annie, the expression on his face coldly furious. Then he reached out for Paolina’s hand, which seemed to be drawn to him, like iron to a powerful magnet.
“They said she was talking to a youth counselor,” he spat. “Is that what you call yourself here?”
“I work as a volunteer, yes,” Annie said.
“I’ll bet you didn’t tell her that you’re the bitch who fired me from my job.”
Paolina’s eyes flew to Annie’s face. Annie hardened he
rself. She knew his type, all too well. She knew intimately the extent of the betrayal he felt.
“And did you tell Paolina why you were fired?” she countered. “Or did you lie to her about selling drugs to children?”
Something flashed in those dark, mesmerizing eyes. “I do not lie, and I wasn’t selling drugs,” he said, and jerked Paolina’s hand. “Come. We are leaving.”
“She needs help, Vico,” Annie said. “You’re a fugitive from the police. They’re looking for you, and eventually they’ll find you. And when they do and you’re in jail awaiting trial, what’s going to happen to the mother of your unborn child?”
Ignoring her, he turned abruptly, and Paolina turned with him. She was bound to him as if by invisible cords.
“You want to be a man, Vico. You want the respect of a man. But until you learn to accept responsibility for your actions, you are still a boy, and a selfish one at that.”
“Fuck you, Mistress Project Manager,” Vico retorted. “You see nothing, you know nothing, and the people you work for are slime.”
The door slammed behind them as he swept Paolina out of the youth center.
Annie sighed.
It was difficult to be judgmental. Vico reminded her too vividly of her younger self.
Chapter Seven
“Trouble?” a velvety voice inquired.
Annie turned. Barbara Rae Acker had entered the room. “Did you hear that?”
“The tail end of it,” Barbara Rae said. “A very passionate young man.”
“We fired him from his construction job at the cathedral.”
“Annie, you had no choice. He’s on the run from the police.”
“He claims he wasn’t selling drugs, Barbara Rae.”
The minister shrugged. “I’ve heard that too, from some of the other kids on the street. They’re saying the police have him confused with a pusher who looks a lot like Vico. It could be true. On the other hand, Vico has been in various kinds of trouble for years, and I wouldn’t put anything past him.”
