Immovable Objects

by Marie Ferrarella

  Damn, she’d hoped to make her getaway before he woke up. She’d done a great deal of soul searching in the wee hours of the morning while he’d slept at her side. While she’d pretended that he would always sleep at her side.

  Delusion, all of it.

  Her common sense and feeling of self-preservation had waged one hell of a wrestling match with her feelings. She wanted nothing more than to stay, to be around so much that he couldn’t imagine what life had been like before she’d entered it.

  But she refused to be a beggar, even in theory. If he wanted her, he’d come for her, he’d tell her that he wanted her. And if he said nothing, if it didn’t matter to him whether she stayed or went, well there was no reason to hang around like some pathetic soul invited to a party who had long overstayed her welcome.

  “I’m getting ready to leave,” she replied crisply. “As of last night, the job’s over. We got the statue, we got the inside man responsible for the theft in the first place—” she ticked off the points on her raised fingers “—and, unless I miss my guess, after Hagen finishes making his deals with the D.A., you’ll never have to worry about MacFarland again.” She moved her hands as if ushering in a drumroll. “All with your reputation sparklingly intact.”

  She took a deep breath as she removed the suitcase from the bed and placed it on the floor beside her. “Everything you ever wanted.”

  Not everything, he thought.

  Nerves began to dance through him the way they never did, no matter what deal was on the table. Still, she looked so calm about what she was saying. Didn’t it matter to her? He wasn’t about to put himself on the line if she could just walk away like this. A man had his pride. “Is this what you want?”

  No, this isn’t what I want. I want you to tell me you want me to stay. I want you to make love with me until I completely melt, like a bar of chocolate you’ve held in your hand too long.

  She tossed her hair over her shoulder in that familiar way of hers, he noted. But her eyes remained distant, leaving him confused. “What I want or don’t want doesn’t have anything to do with it. This was the deal.”

  Last night he would have bet his vast empire and his immortal soul that they had made the kind of connections poets only dreamt about. But maybe he’d deluded himself. Maybe only he’d made that connection while she had just enjoyed herself.

  The virgin’s a fast learner, he thought bitterly.

  Feeling a hole opening up within him, Cole shoved his hands into his pockets. In one pocket his fingers came in contact with a piece of paper.

  And then he remembered.

  “Well, in that case, here.” He took out the folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to her.

  Taking it, Elizabeth opened it to find that it was a check. Neatly signed by Cole. For a hundred thousand dollars more than the amount they’d first agreed on.

  She had her own code of honor. She always had. She held the check out to him. “I can’t take this. It’s too much.”

  He made no attempt to take it back. “You’ve earned it.”

  She didn’t like the sound of that. Her back stiffened as she bristled at the implication. “The nights were complimentary.”

  Cole’s eyes narrowed. Did she actually think that he was about to demean the time they’d spent together? That he was putting a price on it and paying for her “services”?

  He could feel himself getting angry. Was that what she thought of him? Of them?

  Damn it, he hadn’t a clue. He sincerely wished that she was easier to read.

  “I was referring to the fact that you were right about Hagen. If I’d kept him on, who knows where this all might have led?”

  “Right. Hagen.” Since he wasn’t taking it back, she looked down at the check a second time. No, there was no way she was going to take it. Deal or no deal, she’d changed her mind.

  Grabbing his hand, she pressed the check into his palm. “Keep it,” she growled at him.

  Any insight he thought he’d possessed when it came to the female mind evaporated. He was clearly a novice here. But they’d had a deal, an arrangement.

  “What? Why?”

  Because I don’t want your money. I want you and if I can’t have you, I don’t want your money, either. But he needed a plausible reason, so she gave it to him. “This was my first solo caper. It’s on the house.”

  He saw something in her eyes. Something that broke through the barriers. Something that told him his initial take on this hadn’t been wrong. He took heart. Folding the check until it was small enough to fit inside the space of her closed hand, he pressed it back on her. “But you have to take it.”

  This was getting ridiculous. She could refuse payment if she wanted to. “Why?” she demanded. “Why do I have to take it?”

  He looked at her, the soul of innocence even as a hint of a smile began to break through. “Because then, how else am I going to marry you for your money?”

  Completely dumbfounded, she could only stare at him. “What?”

  He hadn’t meant to say anything about marriage. The word had just slipped out. But now that it had, it felt right. The whole idea felt right. “I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

  “Yes, I know. You’re squeaky clean.”

  And hooking up with her, Elizabeth thought, would make him anything but that, even if she renounced any connections to Jeremy. Cole’s world was a completely different one from hers, and if he had any idea whom he was actually dealing with, he’d be horrified. Better to leave now, before he found out.

  She’d turned away from him. Cole moved so that he was in front of her again. Suddenly, he knew that he was fighting for the most important thing in his life. He couldn’t afford to have her walk out on him. His world would never be the same.

  “No, not that reputation. The one where I always make savvy acquisitions.”

  Her eyes narrowed. Wait a second here. “Is that what you think I am? An acquisition?” Her voice went up several octaves as she repeated the word.

  Her mood didn’t improve any when he laughed.

  “I had a feeling you were going to take that the wrong way. Glad I can at least predict something about you.” And then, before she could tell him to take a flying leap, he took her hands in his, becoming serious. “I had you investigated.”

  Her confidence slipped a notch. She would have sworn that he wouldn’t be able to find out anything about her, but the way he looked at her told her that he had. What? What did that weasel Hagen tell him?

  As always, when everything else failed, she brazened it out. “And?”

  “And I don’t care,” he told her simply. “I don’t care what you did before we met. All I know is that you’re the most exciting woman I’ve ever come across.” He grinned, for once able to read the thoughts that were crossing her mind. “Even without that knack of yours for making things float and move. The point is, Gypsy, I’m not about to let you get away.”

  Whether he knew it or not, he was still making her sound like a possession. Maybe that was his world, but it wasn’t hers. She’d just declared her emancipation from Anthony; she wasn’t about to slip her neck into another yoke.

  There were ground rules to establish, and if she didn’t do it now, she might never get the chance.

  “Look, I’m not an object to hold on to or drop. It’s not up to you whether or not I ‘get away.’ If I stay or go, it’s because it’s my choice, not yours—”

  There was more. Maybe a lot more, but she didn’t get a chance to say it, didn’t get a chance to let her thoughts link up into one another, because Cole pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

  Kissed her long and hard. The heat between them was so intense, she worried that she’d go up in flames.

  Elizabeth anchored her fingers on his shoulders, holding on as she sank deep into the folds of his kiss. Letting her head spin.

  Letting the room fade.

  He took her soul and sent it on a whirling ride that left her wanting more. Her
body temperature had soared and her brain felt feverish.

  Taking a deep breath, Cole stopped kissing her. Because if he didn’t, there would be no stopping. She made him hungry in so many different ways, it completely messed with his mind. And he needed her to resolve this, to tell him that she would stay. That building a life together wasn’t out of the question for her.

  She was a unique woman. Precisely because any other woman with her background would have jumped at the chance to join the truly legitimate world. Yet she hadn’t said anything to make him feel as if he’d won his case.

  Smiling into the green eyes he’d grown to love so well, Cole coaxed, “You were saying?”

  She looked at him, dazed, just barely able to focus her eyes, but hardly her mind. “Was I talking?”

  “Yes.” He always made use of opportunity when it presented itself, giving credence to the old adage about all being fair in love and war—and this, he knew, was a little bit of both. “I believe it was something about agreeing to marry me.”

  Very slowly, as a smile bloomed on her lips, she shook her head. “I don’t seem to remember that.”

  “Think hard.” He brushed his crooked finger along her cheek. He was winning. He could feel it. “I definitely remember the words marriage and yes being uttered.”

  And then she laughed. “Liar.”

  “No one’s ever accused me of lying,” he told her, keeping a very straight face. “Because I don’t.”

  “You and George Washington, right?”

  He tucked his arms around her again. He had a good feeling about this. Things were definitely turning his way. “Man stole the cherry tree story from me. So, is it yes?”

  She pretended still to be debating her answer, even as everything within her sang Yes. “You’re rushing me, Williams.”

  “Sorry.” He brushed a kiss to her temple, then lingered there a moment, allowing her sweetness to penetrate his senses. “How much time do you need to say yes?”

  She leaned her head back to look up at him. “What makes you think I’ll say yes?”

  Well, there he had her, Cole thought. “You wouldn’t have kissed me like that if no was on your mind.”

  “There’s nothing on my mind,” she told him in a moment of complete honesty, trying her best to look peeved. She failed. “You sucked it all out.”

  “I can do better.” And then, because he knew he’d won, because he knew it was going to be all right, he said the words he realized hadn’t been uttered yet. Words she needed to know as much as he needed to say them. For the first time. Forever. “I love you, Gypsy.”

  Melting, she was melting. Right here, right now. She sighed, thinking that she couldn’t remember ever being happier. Not ever.

  “You’re right, you can do better.” And then she looked at him, afraid to grab this happiness with both hands. Afraid of being disappointed again. She searched his eyes. “And you’re sure about this? You want to marry me?”

  He’d never been more sure of anything in his life. “I already told you, I don’t lie.”

  She pretended to be serious. “That could be a problem down the road.”

  He drew her even closer, silently reveling in the feel of her. “Only if I join your line of work.”

  That was something she hadn’t thought of. As his wife, she couldn’t very well be sneaking into places, pulling off jobs. And yet, she didn’t want him to order her to stop. It was a gift she wanted to offer him.

  She studied his face. “Then you wouldn’t tell me to give up my life?”

  She was her own person. It was what had caught his attention from the very first. He’d no more try to subdue and change her than he’d geld a prize-winning thoroughbred. “How could I? It’s what makes you be you.”

  “I’d be a liability.”

  Was she deliberately trying to make him tell her to leave her life? “Never happen.”

  The sigh that escaped her lips had blissful written all over it. Elizabeth threaded her arms around his neck. “You do love me, don’t you?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” He paused, waiting. When she made no attempt to say anything, he prodded, “How about you?”

  Her eyes were sparkling as she told him, “I love me, too.”

  “Gypsy—”

  “And you.” She laughed, and there was pure joy in the sound. “I love you, too.” And then she shook her head, a sliver of concern pricking at her. “But you really don’t know what you’re getting into.”

  “So?” His shoulders rose and fell carelessly. “You’ve got the rest of your life to show me.”

  “There you go, ordering me around again.”

  Cole inclined his head obligingly. “I’ll have to work on that.”

  “Don’t,” she cautioned. “It’s what makes you be you. Besides,” she added mischievously. “I like wrestling for the top position.”

  He orchestrated his first negotiation. “How about we split that, fifty-fifty? Half the time you can be on top, the other half I’ll be on top?”

  Her eyes shone. “We’re not talking about arguments, are we?”

  “We’re talking about anything you want to talk about. But we’re talking about it later.” Like a man with a mission, he began to undress her.

  She could feel her body priming. Anticipation. A vague memory teased her brain. “Don’t you have an early-morning meeting?”

  He wasn’t about to leave this room until after he’d made love with her even if the president was calling an emergency meeting.

  “I’m the boss.” He threw her blouse aside, going to work on the skirt. “They won’t start without me.”

  Tit for tat, she thought, as she unzipped his trousers. “Just as long as you don’t start without me,” she whispered.

  He could feel that by now familiar feeling tightening his gut, filling his loins. It was a feeling he was determined to continue being familiar with for the next half century or so. Maybe longer. You never knew about the advances science was going to make.

  “Never happen,” he promised just before his mouth came down on hers.

  Epilogue

  He could sense it.

  Sense her happiness.

  As Anthony sat alone in his small, utilitarian apartment, feelings came to him like warm waves of water in the dark.

  For the first time in her life, Elizabeth was truly happy. It was an unshackled happiness, not hampered by doubts, by fears. Happiness in its purest sense.

  Something he knew Danielle felt, too.

  Something he knew he never would experience himself. Happiness was something that had eluded him, would continue to elude him. He couldn’t recall a single instant when that unfettered sensation had soared through him. The closest he’d come was to have burdens lifted from his shoulders. By Jeremy.

  Jeremy who was doing better this morning. Jeremy who needed to be avenged.

  Probably the man who’d tried to kidnap him early this morning was somehow connected to the men who had beaten Jeremy so badly.

  But who?

  Why?

  He was going to have to find out the answers himself. He knew that he couldn’t rely on Elizabeth’s help anymore. She’d crossed over, gone to the other side. The side where normal people resided.

  In simple terms, she’d abandoned him. Just as everyone else had.

  Anthony felt lonelier than he ever had in his life.

  But there was no time to spend pitying himself. He had a job to do. He had to find out who had tried to kill Jeremy and who was asking all those questions about his sisters and about him.

  And he was going to have to do it alone.

  Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Marie Ferrarella for her contribution to the FAMILY SECRETS: THE NEXT GENERATION series.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-6852-8

  IMMOVABLE OBJECTS

  Copyright © 2004 by Harlequin Books S.A.

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