I probably shouldn’t rock that boat, I thought. But I needed to know where, if anywhere, this was going. With both of them.
Before I could say anything, though, a powerful knock sounded on my door. Frowning and irritated at the thought that it might be Luis again, I walked to the door. Dante and Joel exchanged a look and followed me; something in the rhythm or force of it sounded like danger, and the two of them must have picked up on it as well.
“Livia Ramos?” a strange voice said from the other side.
“Yes?”
“Portland P.D., open the door please.”
Chapter 18
Joel took several steps back, and Dante frowned a question down at me. I shrugged, but slipped the chain off its lock and pulled the door open.
Three officers stood on the other side, beefy and intimidating with impatience etched on their faces.
“What can I do for you?” I asked, channeling every ounce of professional ice I could manage while clad in nothing but pink silk.
“We received a report about illegal business activities,” the biggest, baldest one said as he removed his sunglasses. “Excuse me.”
He pushed into the room and glanced around suspiciously.
“Whoa—hold on, you can’t come in without a warrant,” Dante said.
At the same time, I asked, “What’s this all about?”
The officer didn’t answer either of us. I looked around for Joel, but he seemed to have disappeared completely.
“Nice place,” the officer said. “How many of these parties does it take to pay for it?”
I couldn’t process what he was asking me. Unable to come up with any kind of response, I just stared at him. Dante turned to me and I shook my head, bewildered, silently asking him what was going on. The officer turned to me after a long moment, slicing through my soul with his piercing blue eyes.
“Well?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re asking me,” I said in a rush.
“Well, this place must run you, what—a grand a month with utilities? How many clients do you take on to pay for it? Fifty? More?”
“Fifty…what? No. One to five a month, depending on the assignments,” I replied, still confused.
The confusion on Dante’s face deepened, and he turned to the officer.
“Sir, there was no transaction here today, just some mutual fun.”
The officer looked at Dante, blinked, and looked again.
“You’re Dante Drake,” he said, surprised. “It would serve you well to get out of here before the press get wind of this. We know where to find you if we need you.”
The officer’s grin was ugly, but it didn’t cut as deep as the look that Dante shot me as he grabbed his keys and jacket, then strode out of my apartment.
“This will make for some killer headlines,” the officer said gleefully. “Jess, call Jimmy at the Crier. He’ll love this.”
“Wait, what?” Panic made my mouth run dry, shoving my heartache down into the pit of my stomach. “No, don’t call Jimmy, please. If he knows I was here with him like this he’ll end the contract! Please don’t do that; Jim’s my first big client…”
I was babbling—I knew I was, but I couldn’t help it. I was watching the carefully woven strands of my life unravel before my eyes, and I didn’t even understand why.
“Hold on, Jimmy at the Crier? He’s your client too?” The officer frowned.
“What do you mean?” I wailed. “He’s my only client right now; the job pool is bone dry unless you have a reputation. I don’t have a reputation yet; I need one or I’ll never get any more clients…”
“So, wait, you’re new to this? How did you manage to land Dante ‘the Legend’ Drake without a rep?”
“What are you talking about? Dante isn’t a client!”
“Okay, hold on.” The officer pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled deeply, exuding exasperation. “Ms. Ramos. Are you or are you not using your apartment for illegal activities?”
“What illegal activities? What are you talking about?”
My panic was hitting a hysterical velocity. If somebody didn’t give me a straight answer soon, I was going to lose it.
“Bill, who called in that report?” the officer asked his colleague.
“Um…says it’s her ex-boyfriend and neighbor. Luis Greg.”
My head snapped up, instantly cleared by a sudden rage.
“Luis?” I repeated. “He filed a report saying that I was doing what, exactly?”
“Prostitution,” the officer said, looking suddenly uncomfortable.
“Go get him,” I hissed through my teeth.
“Excuse me?” the officer said, all arrogance once more.
I didn’t care. I was done with Luis’s crap. This went beyond annoyance; this was straight-up harassment, and I was not going to stand there and take it.
“He’s right next door,” I said, pointing. “You go get him, you bring him in here, and you look at him. Make him make his nasty, bullshit accusation to my face.”
I was trembling with fury now. The officer in charge nodded to one of the other officers still hovering by the door. He left, and I shivered as my anger turned my veins to ice. I didn’t say a word as we waited for the officer to return. I heard Luis’s slimy voice echoing in the hallway and felt suddenly nauseous.
“Need me to identify her? Why? Doesn’t she have an ID? It’s those two johns you need to identify,” he was saying.
The officer escorted him into the room. He leered at me, looking me up and down. I felt more exposed and filthy than I ever had before, which only stoked my temper. He came to stand beside me, his beady little eyes glinting up at me from his four-inch deficit. I barely spared him a glance, meeting the officer’s eye instead.
“Sorry to have to do this, baby,” Luis said, his voice dripping with false chagrin. “But I told you you were going to get in trouble with thugs like that. Maybe now you’ll reconsider, hm?”
He swung his arm to slap my ass but I dodged.
“That’s enough,” the officer said sharply.
Luis shrugged and sneered smugly at me. “I’ll post your bail,” he assured me. “And I’m a lawyer, so this’ll all be done and over with in no time. You know. Assuming.”
“Assuming what, exactly?” the officer questioned, pinning Luis to the spot with his gaze.
“Assuming she’ll work with me. Cooperate and all that,” Luis said.
His predatory gaze was all the interpretation the officer needed. A vein popped out on his forehead as his jaw worked. He glanced from Luis to me and back again, growing more red in the face and tense with every passing second. My fury was the only thing keeping me from slinking away from his intimidating presence, rooting me to the spot.
After a long moment, the officer reached forward, grasping Luis’s wrist and spinning him around.
“Hey! What’s the big idea?” Luis bellowed.
“Luis Greg, you are under arrest for falsification of a police report, sexual coercion, blackmail, and harassment. Ex-boyfriend my ass. Ms. Ramos, does he stalk you?”
“He’s always in the hallway when I am,” I answered, my voice shaking.
“I like to people-watch!” Luis whined.
“And stalking. Anything else?” The officer looked around at his colleagues and me, then back to the short, greasy man he was cuffing. “Ah, that’ll do for now. Good thing you’re a lawyer, Luis! You’re gonna need one!”
“No, wait! You don’t understand! She is a prostitute! Out at all hours, wearing practically nothing! Men in the house! You should have heard the noises coming from her room this afternoon!”
“Can we add eavesdropping? Is that a crime?” one of the officers asked gleefully as they led Luis out of my apartment.
The last officer shot me an apologetic smile as he shut the door. My racing heart slowed abruptly, my blood pressure tanked, and I slid weakly to the floor as black rings clouded my peripheral vision. I sat, just ca
tching my breath, for a full minute.
A door opened behind me and I gasped, choking off a scream. Joel appeared, fully dressed and looked sheepish. He sat beside me on the floor and nudged me with his shoulder.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Not really,” I said shakily. “Dante thinks I’m a prostitute. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life.”
I groaned, folding over on myself until Joel squeezed me in a firm embrace.
Panic slowly seeped out of my body, replaced by a bone-level exhaustion. It was only six o’clock, but I didn’t even know if I had the energy to drag myself to bed.
Exhaustion left me numb, except for the sharp cut of Dante’s abandonment. How could he believe that, even for a moment? Didn’t he know me at all?
No, I realized. No more than I knew him.
Chapter 19
My shrieking phone ripped me out of a nightmare filled with stormy seas. I groggily reached for the place where I usually set my cell, but my hand landed on nothing but empty table. I rubbed my face vigorously and pushed my hair back, blinking up at the ceiling. The phone stopped ringing before I managed to wrestle myself out from under my covers.
“Probably wasn’t important anyway,” I mumbled as I slipped and stumbled to the floor.
When had I gone to bed? The clock said it was only 9:30, but I felt like I had been dreaming for days. I scrunched my forehead, batting away the cobwebs in my brain until the whole previous day came into focus.
“Oh, God,” I groaned. Dante still thought I was a hooker.
I had to call him.
I eventually found my phone on my desk, a breath away from a dead battery, and I plugged it in. Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and ignoring the growling in my stomach, I unlocked the phone. One missed call, from Dante.
My heart raced and my breath caught in my throat. My thumb hovered over the “call back” button as butterflies flipped my belly like a pancake. Before I had convinced myself to press the button, the phone rang again, startling me into dropping it.
“Hello?” I answered breathlessly, saving the phone from the floor at the last possible second.
“Livia!” Dante sounded relieved, which made me instantly and irrationally irritated. “Look, I need you to come to the rink. It’s important.”
I was in no mood to be reasonable. Whatever it was he wanted to say to me, he could darn well say it over the phone.
“I have a lot of work to do today,” I told him icily. “You know, lots of johns to pleasure.”
He sighed but it sounded like an almost-laugh. That only irritated me further.
“Just come,” he told me. “I need you to come.”
I needed you to stay, I thought.
“As far as I can tell, your needs are none of my concern,” I said.
I knew how I sounded. I was too hurt and defensive to care.
“Livia, damn it, get your fine ass down here and let me talk to you,” Dante growled.
I raised a brow, though he couldn’t see it, and crossed my legs defiantly.
“You can talk to me over the phone. I’m busy.”
“The hell you are. I’m not going to say this over the phone. Will you just come down here?”
There it was. That almost pleading tone I was looking for. But I wasn’t going to be satisfied until I heard him verbalize it.
“What’s the magic word?” I asked with saccharine syrup in my tone.
“Livia…!”
“Nope, wrong word. Buh-bye, now.”
“Livia wait!”
I waited.
“Are you still there?” he asked plaintively.
“For the moment.”
“All right. Will you please come down to the rink?”
“There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“No comment.”
I actually laughed, which I think surprised us both.
“Fine,” I said with as much reluctance as I could muster. “When?”
“As soon as you can,” he said insistently. “Now, or sooner.”
“Sooner than now? What kind of superpowers do you think I have?”
“Just come.”
He hung up before I could answer, and a sharp twist of anxiety curled up with my hunger, souring my belly. A large part of me still didn’t want to go; he had been so quick to leave, so eager to abandon me without hearing my side of the story.
Why did I owe him anything? But the rest of me was dying of curiosity. What did he need from me that he couldn’t ask for over the phone?
“If curiosity doesn’t win, you’re in the wrong business,” I told my reflection in my bedroom mirror. “But first…let’s handle this disaster.”
Chapter 20
I spent half an hour putting myself together. Just long enough to look like a competent human. Any more, and he might have gotten the impression that I was dressing up for him.
Which I most certainly am not, I lied to myself as I wriggled into a scoop-necked royal purple shirt which set off my eyes and breasts in equal measure. My stomach growled. I was not going to see Dante in this condition, I decided.
“Pastry, fruit, or…ooh! An avocado omelet. With…tomato and onions. That’ll take up some time.”
I allowed myself a rather witchy cackle as I dawdled over the stove. Making Dante wait gave me a sick sort of pleasure, but damn it, he shouldn’t have left me like that yesterday. It was just disrespectful. Completely understandable, perhaps, considering the shallow nature of our pseudo-relationship, but rude nonetheless.
My one mistake was adding caramel creamer to my coffee. As the cream swirled into the black liquid, it took on his exact coloring. I gazed into the cup, watching scenes and flashes from our few intense dates play out before my eyes. His hands, his chest, his gorgeous face, his incredible body.
I swallowed hard, suddenly quivering deep in my center.
“Damn you, Drake,” I said with less venom than I wanted.
I added more cream, but it didn’t help. It just made me wonder what our kids would look like. My mind drifted down this parallel reality, into a universe where Dante wasn’t irritating me—a universe where we had fallen in love and gotten married and had a bunch of beautiful kids.
The smell of over-cooked eggs dragged me back into this reality, and I snapped out of it with another furious curse.
“Well fine then, Dante. You get one last chance. Show me what you’re made of.”
I directed my comments at the wall, where a small girl in a blue dress gazed benignly back at me from a painting. I wondered what an apartment would look like if it combined his tastes with mine….
“Stop it,” I ordered firmly. “All right, it’s time to go. If I don’t get this over with, I’ll be scribbling Livia Drake on everything like a darn school girl.”
I left my breakfast half-finished and grabbed my jacket. The realization that Luis wouldn’t be waiting in the hallway gave me a bit of relief, and I felt unstoppable as I walked to the elevator.
Whatever Dante had to say to me, I could take it, ball it up, and shoot it right back at him twice as hard. With that thought as my armor, I drove through the morning traffic to the rink.
* * *
The security guards were expecting me, and let me in without any trouble. The one guarding the inner door smirked at me as I passed, as if he knew something I didn’t, which didn’t help my mood any.
I had spent the entire drive conflicted with myself. I alternated between being angry enough to forget that Dante Drake ever existed, and dreaming of falling into his arms over and over again. The mystery of why I was even there only exacerbated my conflict.
The rink was busy. The coach stood at one side, blowing a whistle and shouting instructions. The guys raced across the ice, a great synchronized wall of white and blue. They turned at the goal and started back the other way, weaving in and out of each other in a perfect rhythm, leaving trails like intricate braids on the ice behind them.
During the drills, I couldn
’t pick out Dante or Joel (assuming Joel was even there); the team was seamless, like a single organism waving its phalanges around.
“Did you bring me here just to show off, or what?” I muttered in the general direction of the players.
Curiosity piqued, I sat on the wall in front of the penalty box and watched them work. Back and forth, in and out, around and around they went. The coach blew the whistle again, and the team instantly split into two groups. Coach dropped a puck, and they were off, playing as fiercely as they had when they were surrounded by screaming fans.
Now, Dante made himself known, taking the lead of his half. The team leader of the other side played hard, but Dante’s skill was undeniable. I wished they had been wearing their names on their jerseys, but the flashes of face that I could see through his helmet made me think that the other leader must be Joel.
Intrigued, I watched Dante signal to the other team leader half a second before charging through his defensive line and whacking the puck directly into the net. Dante skated back around, talking and gesturing to the opposing team leader. Joel (I was pretty much convinced that it was Joel, now) shifted his shoulders angrily, but nodded as Dante talked.
Could they actually be working together now?
Practice lasted another hour, and by the end of it, I could see significant improvement on Joel’s part. He won a quick round, earning a whoop from Dante which made me grin.
The cold had just begun to make me stiff when the coach called them all into a sort of loose huddle. I couldn’t hear what was said, but his tone sounded positive and encouraging—a huge difference from how he had sounded while berating Dante and Joel, I imagined.
Once the huddle broke, Dante skated over to me, beaming.
“So? What did you think?” he asked.
My defenses had relaxed watching him play, but they snapped back into place when he came over.
His Eternal Flame Page 65
