Impulse

by Catherine Coulter

  He gave her a little salute and walked toward the balcony. Suddenly he strode back to her, grabbed her, and kissed her, running his knuckles along her jaw. “I’ll go deep-sea fishing with you, all right? Then we’ll fry the fish over a wonderful fire that I’ll build—I was a Boy Scout—on our own private beach, and then we’ll sit by the fire—Do you play the guitar? No? Well, we’ll sing love songs to each other, a cappella.”

  She nodded. “Yes, I’d like that. I play the flute a bit.” He kissed her again and said, “The flute? Well, I’m pretty hot on the harmonica. Good night, you damned pain. Oh, and, Rafaella, I’m not that much of a loner.” And he was gone.

  She stood there, staring toward the balcony, wishing more than anything that things could be different. But they weren’t.

  She slept soundly until eight o’clock. It was Coco who woke her, bearing a tray with a cup of coffee and a croissant.

  “What is this? Breakfast in bed, Coco? Have I got the plague and just don’t know it yet?”

  “I figured you’d need it. Sit up and let me get the tray settled.”

  As Rafaella ate her croissant, Coco sat in the chair facing her, saying nothing. She was beautifully dressed, as usual, in white cotton walking shorts, dark blue tube top, and a red-and-white-checked blouse artfully tied at the waist. Her legs were long and smooth and tanned. Her hair was long and smooth and very blond. Rafaella gave her a dirty look. “How can you look so beautiful this early in the morning?”

  “I have to,” Coco said matter-of-factly. “When I was your age, I never minded if someone flitted into my room to wake me up, because I knew that I looked gorgeous even with on-end hair and no makeup. But now, well, it’s a very different thing now.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Rafaella said, and drank down half the cup of coffee. “Anyway, not for you. You’ll be gorgeous when you’re eighty. It’s the bones. They’re perfect.”

  Coco wasn’t immune, and she smiled, straightening her shoulders just a bit. She waited until Rafaella had another mouthful of croissant, then said suddenly, “What happened early this morning? I saw DeLorio coming out of your room in his undershorts.”

  “I wish you hadn’t seen him. Please, Coco, don’t tell Dominick. I don’t know what he’d do. I just set DeLorio straight, that’s all. He won’t try anything again.”

  “If you say so. Will you be meeting with Dominick today?” At Rafaella’s nod, she rose and said, “Well, then, I’ll see you at lunch.”

  Marcus spoke quietly to Savage, telling him about Marseilles and Jack Bertrand. When he finished, John Savage said, “Okay, buddy, that’s it. Hurley would agree. You’re out of there, Marcus. There’s no reason to get yourself killed when Giovanni’s the target. You were lucky once, hell, twice. No more. We’ll cut a deal about Uncle Morty. Come home.”

  It was tempting, very tempting, but Marcus shook his head even as he said, “No, not yet, Savage. We’ll never get a thing on him until this Bathsheba thing is destroyed, resolved, whatever. Giovanni’s effectively out of business until it is.” He paused, sighing. “Another thing, there’s more to it now than just Giovanni.”

  “The reporter.”

  “Yes. And don’t try to sell me on the notion that you’re a fatalist or, worse, a psychic.” And he told Savage about the boa constrictor.

  There was a whistle on the other end of the line. “This is becoming more complicated than our country’s foreign policy with Central America. What are you going to do?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it,” Marcus said. “I think Ms. Holland and I are going on a Bathsheba hunt. Once it’s resolved, Giovanni will doubtless pull a big deal to prove he’s back on top where he should be, a very big and daring deal to impress all the competition, and we’ll get him.”

  He smiled as the very suave John Savage sputtered on the other end of the line.

  Five minutes later Marcus was in the gym, headed for the men’s locker room.

  “Hiya, boss. How’s tricks?”

  Marcus smiled at Punk, who sported a lime-green streak in her bleached blond hair today. He’d missed her, and he liked the blond hair and its lime-green stripe. He realized as well that he’d miss Callie and most of the other people who worked for him when he eventually left here.

  “Tricks is just fine. How you doing with the stud from San Diego?”

  “Oh, him.” Punk shrugged and whipped her gym towel with a loud thwack against a Nautilus machine. “Yesterday’s news. You were right, he was more interested in watching himself come than being with me. I’m off men now, I swear it.”

  Marcus looked around the gym, stopping when he spotted a new man doing bench presses. “Who’s that, Punk? That man with the dark brown hair, the flat gut, and the all-over tan?”

  She turned to the direction he was pointing and stared. “How about that,” she said, smiled up at Marcus, then turned to saunter over to the newcomer, hips swaying, long legs sleek in pink tights, the lime-green stripe radiant as a beacon.

  “Good luck,” he mouthed after her. He worked out for forty-five minutes. Then he returned to his office, only to be collared immediately by Callie, who had a sheaf of papers for his signature. “Now, boss,” she said, and followed him into his office. “Think of yourself as my captive. Please.” She didn’t let him out of her sight for two hours.

  Then there was the gardener who’d gotten drunk and made a pass at a female guest, who was now yelling for the guy’s head.

  There was a professional gambler who’d gotten into the resort under false pretenses. Abramowitz, Marcus’s chief security man in the casino, had spotted him within an hour. He’d been hustled out before he could make a dent in the bank. Marcus himself put the man on a helicopter bound for the airport at St. John’s.

  Marcus was making his rounds in the casino that evening, wishing he was at the compound, worrying despite himself about that damned female irritant, when he was charmingly accosted by three women from New York. He was stuck. It was all he could do not to hurt any feelings when he went to his own villa alone at two o’clock in the morning. The worst part of it was, he was hornier than he could ever remember. But the strange thing was, he was only a tad interested in any of the three women. Not enough to take any one of them to bed. He’d prefer Rafaella on his front lawn, truth be told, or in any mode possible.

  He was still stewing things over the next morning when the kicker arrived. It was a special-delivery envelope waiting for him, marked PERSONAL in heavy black marker. Callie handed it to him silently, her expression faintly puzzled.

  He smiled at her and took the envelope into his office, closing the door. There was a single folded sheet of paper inside the envelope, and its message, in hand-blocked black letters, was short:

  THERE’S NO ESCAPE FOR YOU, GIOVANNI.

  BATHSHEBA IS VERY NEAR NOW.

  YOU’RE A DEAD MAN.

  It was bloody melodramatic, stupidly and childishly melodramatic. And effective. A messenger from Bathsheba was on the island. And no one had any idea which of the guests it was. If it was a guest. It could be someone on the compound. It could even be Rafaella.

  Marcus cursed in frustration.

  He left the resort and took one of the motor scooters over the middle ridge to the compound. He arrived around lunchtime and was shown into Dominick’s library, where he and Rafaella were seated, her notebook open on her lap, her pen poised. There was a tape recorder on Dominick’s desk. Was it Rafaella’s idea, or was it Giovanni’s vanity?

  When Marcus came in, Rafaella looked up, briefly met his eyes, and was aware of a rush of pleasure. A rush of pleasure for a man who was very likely a criminal, though she prayed he wasn’t, but it didn’t matter, because she was falling for him. For the first time in her adult life she was in love with a man.

  How to save him from himself? How to get him out of here, away from Dominick Giovanni, without getting either of them maimed or killed? That brought up another thing: What did Marcus want?

  “Hello, Marcus,” Domi
nick said easily. He hesitated only fractionally, then continued just as easily to Rafaella, “Why don’t you take a break, my dear girl. I’ve been talking your ear off. I’ll see you a bit later.” He leaned forward and pushed the off button on the tape recorder.

  She’d been dismissed. Rafaella only nodded to Marcus on her way out. She wanted to remain by the door and listen, but Merkel, ever-present Merkel, was there, and he smiled at her, shook his head, and pointed her toward the living room, where Coco sat with Paula, who’d just arrived a few hours earlier.

  Paula was the last person Rafaella wanted to see. All her attention, the source of all her WASP angst, was still back in the library. What had happened now? She felt a frisson of concern and began planning how she’d worm it out of Marcus later.

  “Well?” This from Paula, who was drinking a martini.

  “Hello,” Rafaella said absently. “No booze for me, Jiggs. Just iced tea. Thank you.”

  Jiggs smiled at her. “Just plain, Miss Rafaella?” At her nod, he took himself out of the living room.

  “Well? Is my dear father-in-law quite through with you yet?”

  Rafaella didn’t take the bait on that innuendo. “How was Miami?”

  “Hot but exciting, not boring like it is here. There are shops and shows and people I don’t know, people to talk to, interesting people.”

  “Island fever,” Coco said. “You should have stayed away a bit longer, Paula.”

  “I wanted to. Dominick called me this morning and ordered me back. Like I was a teenager or something.”

  And Rafaella thought: Oh, dear, he’s guessed. That, or Coco told him about DeLorio. She sent a look toward Coco, but the other woman was studying her fingernails and didn’t look up.

  “And DeLorio wasn’t very happy to see me,” Paula added. “Did he give you back your panties?”

  Rafaella smiled. “Why, yes, he did. They were a favorite pair.”

  Paula jumped up from her chair, her face suddenly pale with anger.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, do can it, Paula. Sit down. I don’t want your husband. Stop being dramatic. It’s too hot.”

  “I hope you die,” Paula said, and left the room.

  “How old did you tell me she was, Coco?”

  “Twenty-four going on eight.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “What did Marcus want? Link said he’d just gotten here. He wasn’t expected until this evening.”

  “Yes, he’s here, and I don’t know what’s going on. Dominick dismissed me before I could find out anything.”

  “I suspect you’ll get it out of one or the other of them,” Coco said mildly. “Do you like this shade of peach polish? It’s called Caribbean Sunset.”

  In the library, Marcus said after a long stretch of silence, “Well, Dominick, what do you think?”

  “Our absent villains are no longer absent. You know about Bathsheba in the Bible. She was Solomon’s mother, the wife of King David. You remember how David married her after he’d sent her husband to his death in a battle?”

  Marcus nodded. “Vaguely. My mother was always one for reading from the Old Testament on Monday evenings.” He was standing by the open windows, and the prospect was incredibly lovely. The mixture of colors—all the bright oranges and purples and reds—so beautiful, like a hothouse full of lush, nearly overripe blooms and scents and colors. An Eden, but now there seemed to be danger everywhere. Here, very close. Who had written the threat? Marcus wondered suddenly if he’d acted on an insane impulse to volunteer his life to get Giovanni. And had it become some sort of macho power trip now? He just didn’t know. He hoped not. He turned back to Dominick. “What’s your point?”

  Dominick shrugged. “Nothing, I suppose. That’s the story from the Bible.”

  “Are you telling me that it’s possible someone thinks you sent a man to his death?”

  “So I could have his woman once he was dead? I don’t know, Marcus. The whole thing’s fantastic. Take Coco. She had this hefty, rather stupid boyfriend when I met her. I got rid of him easily enough because he was as poor as he was handsome. It cost me ten thousand bucks, but the guy was tame and uninterested in Coco really. Chances are the name Bathsheba doesn’t have any relevance to anything at all.”

  “I’ve thought about it, Dominick, and it’s time we took direct action. I have a plan.”

  Dominick listened. When Marcus was through he said nothing for a very long time. Then, slowly, he nodded.

  It was late, nearly ten o’clock, and Marcus was seated across from Rafaella on the swimming-pool patio. He purposely kept the distance between them. He needed it. He wanted to deep-six another pair of her panties in the pool. The more he thought about it, the more his fingers itched and his groin ached.

  “Let’s go to the beach.”

  She looked at him, faintly puzzled, but just for an instant. She ran her tongue over her lower lip. “Do the guards go down there?”

  “No.”

  “All right. Shall I get my swimsuit?”

  He just shook his head.

  “Oh? Would you like to tell me why?”

  “Because I’m leaving. I’m going after Bathsheba, which means tracking down Olivier, who’s our main lead. I don’t want to leave you here alone. If DeLorio doesn’t get you, then whoever is trying to scare you will finally succeed at something more. I don’t want you on my conscience.”

  “I can’t leave. I won’t. I’m not afraid, nor am I a fool.”

  “You’re not a lot of things, Ms. Holland.”

  Seventeen

  Long Island, New York

  April 2001

  Charles held her hand to his lips. Her skin felt dry and he was irritated. The private nurses he’d hired weren’t taking proper care of her. Annoyed beyond reason, Charles rummaged about in the drawer beside her bed until he found some hand cream. He gently massaged her forearms, her wrists, the backs of her hands, until the flesh was once again soft and supple. He spoke to her, his voice pitched low, as he massaged.

  “Please wake up. I need you, Margaret. I need you more than you can imagine. I saw that woman, the one who ran into you. I told you about her, honey, you remember? She’s married to him and I know he sent her to kill you. How could it have been an accident? A coincidence? I can’t buy that. But then, you were driving near her house. Why? Did you want to see her? And she looks a little like you, maybe close enough to be your older sister or a cousin. Maybe she tried to kill you because she found out that you had had an affair with her husband, and a child; and she was jealous. What am I to do? Have her arrested? Have her face plastered next to yours in all the newspapers? No, no, that’s impossible.

  “What should I do, Margaret? I could keep the lid on what goes in my newspapers, but all the others? It would be more than just embarrassing. The reporters would camp out here at the hospital like bloody ghouls, waiting and asking everyone questions and more questions: Did they think you’d die? Did you ever mumble about your lovers? What did they think of me as your husband? You don’t know, honey, you can’t imagine. I’m so afraid they’d find out about you and that criminal, and then they’d go tooth and tong after us.

  “I found out one of the reporters for Rafaella’s paper had stepped on a woman’s foot so she couldn’t get away from him, all because he wanted to know how she felt when she found out her son had died in a military plane crash.

  “How I hate that bastard for what he did to you. What he’s still doing to you. And you don’t even know that I know. No one does. You’re so certain that you’ve kept it from me. Remember when you flew to Palm Springs last August and I couldn’t go with you? I found the journals then—by accident, I swear it to you. I read them, every last word in them. God, I hate him.”

  Margaret moaned. Her lashes fluttered, her fingers closed over his, a light pressure, nothing more. She opened her mouth and said very clearly, “No…Dominick, no. Rafaella, please, you must understand.”

  “Margaret? Oh, God, Margaret!” He was
shaking her now, babbling, lightly patting her cheeks, jerking at her hands.

  She’d said his name. Charles felt a surge of pain, pain so deep, so sharp, he nearly cried out with it. Dominick. Dominick Giovanni. That criminal was Rafaella’s father. Thank God she didn’t know. And Margaret had said his name in the same breath with Rafaella’s. Charles stared down at his wife’s pale face. But Margaret’s eyes were closing—No, no!

  Margaret was quiet, her hands limp, her head turned slightly away from him on the pillow. Charles jabbed the call button again and again. Then he sprinted to the door and yelled, “Come here! Hurry! She woke up!”

  Giovanni’s Island

  April 2001

  Marcus lifted her, his fingers digging into her buttocks, and he smiled painfully at the feel of her panties, thin but still a barrier, and he ripped them off her, jerking them down her legs.

  He was naked, and now she was too. He told her to wrap her legs around his hips and he lifted her to help her and she never stopped kissing him, his mouth, his nose, his ear. “Marcus,” she said over and over. “Marcus, Marcus,” and he loved the sound of his name when she said it.

  And when her legs were tight around him, he spread her with his fingers and brought her down over him and slid upward into her, moaning with the pleasure of it, and felt her body tighten around him, jerking and easing, then closing tighter and tighter, and it drove him crazy.

  “I’ve missed you too damned much,” he said against her ear, then turned his face and took her tongue into his mouth.

  “It’s—just—sex.”

  He managed to laugh even as he worked her with his hands, lifting her, then bringing her down fully over him. He went deeper still, and when he felt his orgasm nearly upon him, he grabbed her hips in his hands, pressing her tightly against him, holding her still.

  “Don’t—move. Don’t. I don’t want to leave you.”

  “No,” she said into his mouth. “No, I won’t move.” But she did, unconsciously clenching her muscles, squeezing him, and he cried out, his hips thrusting upward, and he knew he was a goner—and he hadn’t brought her to a climax. He tried to stop, but it was too late.