“Then here’s to the day you were born. A fine day, especially for me.”
“For you?”
“If you hadn’t been born I wouldn’t have met you. And that would have been way too sad to even think about.” He clinked her glass again. “Happy birthday, beautiful lady.”
It was such a lovely, touching moment, Kayla thought, one that could almost erase the unease she still had about Steven after meeting with her lawyer. And the strange, terrifying incidents back in Cragsmont. And the fact that she was falling in love with a man who could be soft one moment and enraged the next.
“What’s in there?” She pointed to the garment bag.
“Some clothes. I thought we could have dinner tonight. A nice dinner at the hotel. A kind of celebration.”
“Wonderful.”
Which it was, despite the fact that Paul’s shoulders were bursting out of his jacket and he could barely get his shirt buttoned over his chest; all the body-building work he’d done in the penitentiary had had quite an effect.
They drank a little too much and ate a little too much. All of it by soft candlelight at a table draped with a starched white cloth and set with fine silver. Kayla couldn’t help giggling at the way he had to keep adjusting his tie to cover the straining shirt buttons.
And Paul kept shaking his head at his good luck, to be sitting across from a soft, pretty woman in a simple black dress and gold earrings. He was mesmerized by the glow of her face in the candlelight and the swell of her breasts above the modestly scooped neckline, offering sweet hints of the treasure beneath the fabric.
They finished the meal with a shared fresh chocolate mousse and coffee. When the waiter brought the bill and Kayla reached for it, Paul stopped her hand. Digging into his pocket, he brought out several bills and set them down.
“Oh,” she said. “I thought I’d put it on the room bill.”
“No need. I’ll pay. It’s your birthday dinner.”
“Oh. Well, thanks.”
“Which brings up something I need to talk to you about.”
“Yes?”
“I hate that you’re paying for everything.”
She shrugged. “I’m the one with the money. At the moment.”
“Yeah.” He shook his head. “But it doesn’t feel right.”
“Now that I’ve met your dad I can understand why. You’re one of those old-fashioned, gallant types. Men pay, women let them.”
“That’s an exaggeration.”
“Is it? Then I stand corrected. It’s just that nowadays, it’s often the women who have the money and somehow people adjust.”
“I know they do. And honestly, Kayla, I don’t think I’d mind if I could, at least, pay my own way. It’s just that I can’t even do that.” This was tough stuff, but he had to get it out. “I promised to tell you the truth, and here it is. I have nothing. My dad lent me money for tonight. I don’t even have enough to buy you a gift. My lawyer fees took up whatever Ruth didn’t grab. I’m totally broke.”
He saw no disappointment or surprise, only acceptance in her pretty blue eyes. “It’s temporary, Paul. I know the kind of man you are. As soon as you can, you’ll be earning a living again. You can pay your way then, if that would make you happy. Okay?”
He felt himself scowling. What she said made sense, but that didn’t mean it sat well.
“Look,” she said, “I had this very conversation with Walter. I came from nothing, and I still had thousands of dollars in student loan debts when I met him. And, even though most people think a woman who meets and marries a rich man has it made, I was never really comfortable with that part.”
“Which proves my point. Either way, financial inequality is a problem.”
“It can be. We talked it out. Walter said we needed to accept people as they were, not as they wished they were. That he accepted who I was, scarred from a past rape and with student loans, and I needed to accept him as past his prime, arthritis-ridden and given to occasional bouts of crankiness. That we both had positive qualities—assets, he called them—and we should concentrate on those. That only one of his assets was money, and that I had many assets that were equally valuable. That the emphasis on money was superficial.”
“But real as hell if you have none.” More Walter-the-Wise, he thought, chafing under the dead man’s shadow. Did it never end?
“Hey, I grew up poor, remember?”
She had him there. To some extent, she knew just how he was feeling.
But dammit, nothing she was saying, reasonable as it sounded on the surface, made him feel much better. She was right, he was an old-fashioned man, and he probably wouldn’t change much.
And if he wasn’t careful, his stupid male pride was going to destroy the evening. He stood, held out a hand to her. “Okay, let’s table that for another time. I need to get you naked.”
Laughing, Kayla rose and threw her arms around him. “I thought you’d never ask,” she said, then whispered in his ear, “And here’s a hint—I’m not wearing anything under my dress.”
His body responded immediately. He grabbed her hand and ushered her out of the restaurant.
He began to make love to her in the elevator, which was, thankfully, empty of other passengers. Began with slow, languid kisses, which escalated and grew more intense as they neared the door of the room. Once inside, neither could get their clothes off fast enough, or manage to make it to the bed.
Instead, still greedily tasting her mouth with his tongue, Paul backed Kayla against the closed door, put her arms around his neck, broke the kiss long enough to tell her to hang on and brought her legs up so they encircled his waist. Supporting her with his splayed hands, he plunged into her immediately, savoring the moan of pleasure she made. Again and again, he plunged into her; she met his insistent thrusts with equally eager hips.
There was no time for foreplay, no room for subtlety. They were, each of them, on fire, and within moments, both burst into flame, their cries of completion filling the far corners of the room, echoing off the high, slanted ceiling.
Together, they sank onto the deep carpet, Kayla on top of Paul, straddling him, her exhausted, labored breath rasping in his ear. His senses were whirling, his body was shaking, and his entire being was giving thanks for the treasure he had found.
After a long while, Kayla emitted a long, loud sigh. “Wow,” she said softly.
“Yeah.”
Another few moments went by before he said, “I think that may have been the closest thing to heaven it’s possible to experience, short of death.”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
Another silence, broken at last by Paul. “We should get into bed, but I don’t think I can walk.”
“We can crawl.”
Somehow, they dragged themselves over to the large four-poster and crawled under the covers, hugging each other and shaking in the aftermath of so much exertion.
“Is this thing we have together considered an asset?” he whispered in her ear.
“Most definitely. And you have so many more.”
“Like what?”
She moved away from him, just a bit, and lay on her side, her head resting on her outstretched arm, gazing at him with a look that could only be described as adoration.
He’d meant his question as part of after-glow pillow talk, but it was apparent that Kayla was totally serious. “Like the way you stare at me, through me, into my very soul. Like your good heart and strong body. The way you listen and really hear. Your ability to give to me, the fact that you keep taking care of me, the fact that you dance with me even when you don’t want to.”
“Not to mention my incredible prowess in the sack.”
She traced his mouth with her finger. “Bragging again. It’s not pretty.”
“Not bragging. Just stating an asset.”
She rolled over, fitted her back to his front, brought his hand around to cup her breast. “Have I told you lately that I’m crazy about your assets?”
>
He smiled, kissed her milk-white shoulder. They lay like that, spooned against each other, for a long while.
“This money thing,” he began.
“Oh, Paul, don’t.”
He knew he was screwing up the moment, but it was still on his mind, sticking in his gut. “Your having money is not an asset. It’s a detriment.”
“How?”
“What other people think. Like Hank. He thinks I’ve landed on my feet. A rich widow—how lucky can a guy get?”
With another sigh, she moved out of the cocoon of his embrace and lay on her back, staring at the ceiling. “I know. Lou suggested the same thing. I told her she was wrong.” She angled her head and gazed at him. “I guess I long ago had to stop caring about what people thought of me. There’s nothing I can do about it, and I refuse to let other people’s opinions dictate the way I live my life.”
He reached out a hand, stroked her cheek. “Talk about assets. You are one strong, gutsy women, you know that?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I’m just a person, Paul. I am what the circumstances of my life made me. I have strengths and weaknesses, like everyone else.”
“Nah. More strengths than weaknesses, trust me. And I want you to know I admire the hell out of that.”
The smile she gave him was so sweet, he felt his heart turn over in his chest. “You really get to me, in a way that no other woman has ever gotten to me.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I think you’re pretty terrific yourself. And now I’d like to prove to you just how terrific you are. Lie back.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good boy.”
“Like this?” He rested his head on the pillow, crossed his arms under his head and gazed at her. In the soft lamplight, her pale body was all curves and hollows, all shadows and woman.
She moved over him, trailing soft kisses down his chest and belly, till she took him in her warm, moist mouth. “Exactly like this,” she murmured.
Waking to the sound of cars driving by on the street below, Paul glanced at the clock. Nearly noon! They’d both slept in. Although the word sleep didn’t accurately describe what had happened in that bed throughout the night. He was still making up for lost time, and she seemed to have no problem keeping up with him. He figured in fifty years, he might get tired of making love with Kayla. Maybe not even then.
At that moment, he was on his back, his arm stretched out, cradling her head. She lay on her side, one long leg slung over his thighs, one small hand resting on his chest. He watched her stirring, then she opened her eyes and smiled at him.
“Good morning,” he said, kissing her forehead.
She gazed at him through drowsy, half-lidded eyes. “Good morning to you. I have a confession to make.”
“You, too?”
“Yes. It’s only that…I love you.”
Her words made ice form in his veins. “No. No, you don’t really mean that.”
A frown puckered her brows. “Not exactly the response I was looking for.”
He pulled away, sat up and propped his head against the pillow, frowning himself. Her declaration had shocked him to the core; he felt as if he’d taken a fist in the belly. “It’s just that you can’t love me.”
“Of course I can.”
He shook his head, adamant. “No. We can be together, but don’t mention that word. Love. You’re right. I am old-fashioned, and that word means commitment, maybe marriage. And yeah, maybe in the future. But not now. Who am I? What do I have?”
She made a gesture of disgust, sat up, crossed her legs and glared at him. “Are we back on that again? That’s not why you love someone.”
“Kayla.” He had to make her understand. “I have nothing, not even my name. It’s been smeared all over the city.”
“But you are so much more than your name.”
“No. I’m a man. And without my good name, I’m nothing. This isn’t about money now, this is about my name.”
Kayla had just about had it. “What is this?” she said, throwing her hands up in the air. “Some kind of macho rant? I don’t care about your name, because that’s all about what other people think of you. I used to care what they thought,” she said with intensity. “I hid for years. Years! The terror ran me, made my life a living hell. And all because I thought I had done something wrong, that other people would point at me and whisper. What did that accomplish? Nothing. By giving power to the boy who hurt me, he won, they all won. But it doesn’t have to be that way. What we are, inside—” she pounded her chest with a fist “—that’s all that’s important. My name? Who cares? I grew up, I got strong.”
“So strong,” he shot back, “you married a man old enough to be your grandfather.”
She gasped, stared at him in horror. “How dare you? Walter was a wonderful person, whatever his age.”
“I’m sure he was. You quote him all the time. He taught you so much. The wisdom according to Walter. But he wasn’t a husband, he was the parents you never had. He took care of you, sheltered you. Hell, you didn’t start to grow up until he died.”
The arrow struck deep. “No! You are so wrong! You may not talk about Walter and me that way.”
“Try and stop me.” He sat up straighter, leaned in, equally intense and just as combative. “You with your little lectures about how you got over your past, and how I need to get over mine, how I really ought to swallow my completely justified anger. Your little rules about how you can’t possibly be around a man who loses his temper.”
“And your point is?”
“My point is that you had a long time to get over what was done to you. You’re asking me to do what it took years for you to do. Pardon me if I haven’t achieved sainthood just yet.”
They glared at each other, two fierce warriors, nose to nose. Kayla’s insides were roiling with thunderous anger and hurt. If she’d been someone other than who she was, she might have hauled off and slugged him.
Instead, she got out of bed, stomped over to the dresser and started grabbing clothes. “Fine. Go on and on about your name, and my money, and what you’re going to do to my brother when you find him. I am not going to stick around watching you getting eaten up by it. I won’t.”
“You don’t have to. You can buy your way out of whatever ails you.”
She whirled around, her fists tightly clenched. “That was low!”
She saw on his face the moment he realized he’d gone too far. He scowled, snapped out “Sorry.”
She didn’t acknowledge his apology. “Shall I give all my money away? Start over? Is that what you want? Because I don’t. I grew up in poverty and it tastes bad, real bad. I won’t go back there.”
“Well, I can’t be with you and not contribute my share. I can’t be with you with this cloud of distrust hanging over me. I don’t want you to love me, Kayla.”
“Fine,” she snapped back. “I take it back. I don’t love you.”
“Then we’re agreed.”
Sudden tears filled her eyes. “Except, I can’t take it back.” She covered her eyes with her hands. “Damn you.”
No, no, no, Paul thought, his gut churning. The entire discussion had gotten way out of hand, all because of his stupid pride. He’d spouted off, said way too much, stuff he wasn’t even sure he meant. And he’d hurt her so. What was the matter with him? Whatever he might say to the contrary, he wanted Kayla’s love, craved it. Would die if she removed it.
Just then the phone rang, and both of them jumped, then stared at it. Kayla shrugged and stormed off into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
He picked up the phone, growled into it. “Yeah?”
“Paul? It’s Brian. You okay?”
He swiped a hand across his face. “I’m fine,” he lied, willing his churning gut to settle down. “What’s up?”
“Good news. I have a friend in Internal Affairs, and it looks like there’s a break in your case. IA has opened an investigation on Hatcher and his gang.” These were the crooked co
ps who’d been dealing drugs.
“Great.”
“I’ll have more for you when you come in today. You are coming in, right? My shift starts at one. Charley’ll be there, too.”
“See you then.”
He hung up the phone just as Kayla exited the bathroom and began to dress. He didn’t want her to cover that lovely body of hers. Wanted her to come back to bed, where he would show her, in the only way he knew how, that he was an idiot and was sorry. Sorry for his temper, sorry that he’d met her now, when his life was hanging in the balance.
“Good news,” he said.
“Oh?”
“There’s some movement on my case. Looks like they’re going after the cops who framed me.”
She paused in the act of fastening her bra. “Oh, Paul,” she said, genuinely pleased. “That’s wonderful.”
The generosity of her response gave him hope. “Don’t get dressed, Kayla,” he said beseechingly. He patted the mattress next to him. “Come back to bed. I’m sorry. I’m a fool. I didn’t think before I opened my stupid mouth.”
She shook her head. “Don’t, Paul. We both said things we shouldn’t have. And I have to get dressed.”
“Where are you going?”
“To meet with Joe and Terri.”
He threw the covers back. “I’ll come with you.”
“No. I need to do this myself. Look, I’ll be safe in my car, they have valet parking. And you’re going back to your old precinct, right? Why don’t I meet you there, say at three?”
“All right.” But he wasn’t happy. “I wish you’d known me when I was more even-tempered. Before jail, before all this.”
Her smile was sad. “But I didn’t meet you then, did I? So why bother wishing it?”
Kayla steered her car through traffic, mulling over her visit with Joe and Terri. It had been a stilted, bittersweet meeting. They’d talked about Steven, and they’d all agreed that he was out of hand. Joe was going to try to get him into some grief counseling, but he didn’t have a lot of hope. He also apologized for his brother but let her know that if Steven wanted to continue fighting her, there wasn’t much he could—or was willing—to do about it.
And she had realized, sitting there in their large, beautifully appointed, high-rise condominium, that she didn’t really belong there anymore. They weren’t her family. She had occupied a place in their life for a few short years, because she’d married Joe’s father.
Whispers in the Night Page 21
