Tangled Destinies

by Diana Palmer

  “Why?” she whispered, and her green eyes pleaded with his dark ones.

  He touched her cheek gently, although his fingers were unsteady. “I don’t want to be a temporary comfort.”

  “Is that all you think I want?” she asked quietly.

  “Yes. And you’re looking at me and thinking that I’m doing this because I misjudged you. Aren’t you?” he persisted.

  She couldn’t deny it.

  “Yes,” he said with a sigh. “And those aren’t the right reasons for something as momentous as what we’d do to each other in this bed. If I take your virginity, it has to be for the right reasons, don’t you see? Such a precious gift has to be given in love. Not out of gratitude or guilt.”

  “You used to be less noble,” she reminded him. Her body felt hot, burning, and she wanted him, not excuses, even though she realized that he was right.

  “I used to be more stupid,” he returned. “I made some bad decisions and they hurt you. I don’t want to take any more risks. I’ve got a second chance now. I’m not about to blow it.”

  He rolled away with those enigmatic words, and while she was puzzling them, he pulled out underwear from a drawer and went to the closet for a shirt and tie and suit.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  He took off his pajama trousers and turned to smile at her fascinated, fixed expression. “I’m going to work, if not to the office. I have to find a big, mean bodyguard for you, Gaby. One who knows it all and isn’t afraid to use it.”

  “You are...so magnificent,” she whispered softly, only half hearing the words.

  He chuckled. “I’m glad I appeal to you. You look pretty good yourself in a similar condition.”

  Her lips parted as his body began to react to that stare. She flushed, and he burst out laughing.

  “It’s so easy for you, isn’t it?” she charged, tearing her eyes away.

  “I accept life for what it is, that’s all,” he countered. He tugged on his clothing, leaving his shirt unbuttoned as he went to sit quietly beside her on the edge of the bed. “Does it embarrass you, seeing me like that?” he asked softly, turning her face to his.

  “A...a little,” she said, faltering.

  “You’ll see more than that when I take you for the first time,” he said, his voice deep and low and gentle. “You’re just beginning to understand the intimacy, aren’t you?”

  Her eyes sought his. “I feel so silly to have reached my advanced spinsterhood and be so unenlightened,” she tried to explain.

  “Oh, your unenlightenedness delights me, little rich girl,” he said with a slow smile. “I look forward to shocking the wits out of you at some future time.”

  “If what you usually do to me is any kind of indication,” she whispered softly, “I don’t think I’ll have enough wits to be shocked. You make me go crazy when you start loving me.”

  “I’d like to love you,” he whispered back. He bent and brushed his mouth slowly over the pajama top he’d lent her, lingering on a hardness that the thin fabric did nothing to hide.

  She moaned softly and laughed, and her hands brought his mouth even closer.

  “Does that please?” he whispered mischievously.

  “It pleases very much,” she replied, nuzzling her face against his hair. “It always did, even when I was too young to understand why it made me feel hot all over.”

  “I was your first man in that respect, wasn’t I?” he said teasingly, lifting his dark head. “The very first one.”

  “Nobody else liked me that way. Boys thought I was too skinny and shy.”

  “Fools,” he muttered, letting his eyes tell her what he thought of her.

  “I hardly even had breasts when you and I met,” she reminded him.

  “Sure you did,” he countered, brushing them lightly with both hands. “Small but perfect, and I loved touching them. Delicate little breasts.”

  “Touch me,” she coaxed, her fingers going helplessly to the buttons of the top. “Marc, touch me,” she pleaded huskily.

  “Unbutton it, then,” he said quietly. “Show yourself to me.”

  And she did, without embarrassment or hesitation, because he was the love of her life, the only man with whom this had ever happened or would ever happen. She belonged to him.

  She tugged the edges away from her high, taut breasts, and he helped her, easing it down her arms so that she was bare to his eyes from the waist up.

  She arched, twisting a little on the cool sheets because she felt burning all over.

  “Are you hot, little one?” he asked as he stared down at her.

  “Burning,” she confessed, trembling a little with it.

  His hands caught her waist, slid up her rib cage, teasing her body until it stiffened. “All right, Gaby, I won’t make you suffer,” he whispered. He lifted her in an arch, right up to his mouth, and at the first touch of his moist, warm lips on one taut breast, she cried out.

  He murmured something that she didn’t hear, and the pressure of his mouth increased, taking her right inside that moistness with a delicate suction that drove her wild. She caught his thick, cool hair in her hands and tried to pull him closer, but all at once he tore himself away from her and got to his feet.

  He stood with his back to her, shuddering visibly, his breath coming hard and fast. He ran a hand through his hair and went to the mirror to fumble with his shirt and tie while she lay helplessly on the bed watching him, her heart shaking her with its pounding.

  “That,” he said ruefully, “was a near thing. You get more seductive than ever with age. I find it incredible that you can still be a virgin.”

  “You’re the only man I ever wanted,” she said quietly. She drew the pajama top back on, trembling a little, and she grimaced with pain as she tugged it over her bandaged shoulder.

  “Yes, I know. It makes me feel humble,” he said surprisingly. “Want something for pain? That doctor in the emergency room gave me some pills for you.”

  “I’d like one if you’re going to be around,” she added nervously. “I go out like a light from medication of any kind.”

  “I’ll be around, all right,” he said darkly. “I won’t leave you until this is resolved. What I need to do, I can do on the phone. I’ll get your capsule.”

  She watched his broad back as he walked into the living room, straightening his tie. Her eyes adored him, but she lowered them before he came back with the capsule. She couldn’t let him know how desperately she loved him. After all, it was only guilt, she reminded herself. Only guilt and leftover desire. She had to remember that, despite his tenderness. Otherwise it was going to be pure hell when it was all over and she was alone again. And this time the loneliness would last all her life. Joe had been her only link with Marc. With Joe gone there would never be another thread to connect her life to his. She would drift forever alone, without hope. She closed her eyes because she couldn’t face that, not just yet. Besides, she had more traumatic concerns. Like how she was going to stay alive with a professional killer after her.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  GABY HAD NO clothes with her, but Marc produced a pair of jeans that had obviously belonged to a smaller man—such as Joe—and a white T-shirt. She had to roll up the jeans, and the T-shirt was revealing enough to have bothered her if she hadn’t been a model for so long. She borrowed his comb and got most of the tangles out of her hair and went to see about making breakfast.

  “Not bad,” Marc remarked when she joined him in the spacious kitchen. “You look a lot better in that T-shirt than I do.”

  She glanced down with a dry smile. “I don’t suppose you’d happen to have a bra?”

  “I never wear one myself,” he returned. His black eyes twinkled as he stirred something in a frying pan. “Hungry?”

  “I cou
ld eat. May I help?”

  “Make some toast. I’ve got bacon and eggs under control.”

  “You can cook?” she exclaimed.

  “I’m handy in the kitchen,” he told her. He dished up the scrambled eggs onto a platter beside a tray of crisp bacon while she buttered bread and put it in the oven to toast. “I had to be, you know. Back in the old days I fed Joe and me out of a single frying pan with a hot plate for a stove. I learned to create.” He glanced at her. “How do you feel about baked beans on mackerel?” he asked with a wicked grin.

  “Yuck!” she said emphatically, shivering visibly as she took out the toast and put it on a saucer.

  “Well, it filled empty space at the time.” He pulled out a chair for her and brought a pot of coffee to the table. Then he sat down too. “Help yourself.” He poured coffee into two thick white mugs. “How’s the shoulder?”

  “It aches a little, but it’s not so bad. I still can hardly believe it happened.” She looked up at him uneasily. “What do we do now?”

  “We wait,” he said quietly. “My uncle is digging up a witness.”

  “Uncle Michael found somebody who can link David Smith with theft?” she burst out.

  “He thinks so.” He smiled faintly as he reached for toast. “Uncle Michael has some interesting, if unconventional, ways of extracting information.”

  She remembered the craggy old man and felt her skin chill. She could imagine exactly what Marc meant.

  She nibbled at her toast and sipped coffee. Life had slowed for her, become precious as she realized how close she’d come last night to losing hers.

  “Don’t brood,” Marc said quietly. “We’ll get him.”

  “Yes, I believe that. The question is, will we get him in time?” She leaned back in her chair with a sigh, and her worried green eyes met his. “I never thought about dying. Not until the past two days. Now I’ve discovered that I’m not indestructible after all, and I’m afraid.”

  “Death comes for us all, one by one,” he returned. “But as long as there’s breath in my body, nobody hurts you.”

  Her eyes searched his hard, determined face, and she smiled. “I’m sorry I involved you. I tried not to. I wasn’t going to tell you any of it. Then this happened—” she touched her shoulder gently “—and I lost my sense of reason.”

  “You’ll never know how I felt when you told me you were leaving your house and hung up on me,” he said. He sipped his coffee and put the mug down and stared at it. “I think that was when I started believing you, Gaby.” He looked up, dark-eyed, wickedly attractive. “That was when I realized that I could lose you.”

  “Would it have mattered, losing me?” she asked, avoiding his gaze.

  “Now what do you think?” he returned. His black eyes narrowed on her face. “Are you that blind?”

  “You’ve never made any secret of wanting me,” she replied.

  “And you think wanting is all it is.”

  “You said it was.”

  He ran a hand through his thick, shaggy hair and glared at her. “Women,” he grumbled. “They forget all the good things and go wild remembering the bad ones. Eat, will you? You’re curdling my cream.”

  “Excuse me,” she said, chiding. “Heaven forbid that I should curdle your cream.” She sipped her own coffee. “Were you serious about a bodyguard?”

  “Until about ten minutes ago I was,” he said thoughtfully. He studied one big, darkly tanned hand. “I’ve got a better idea.”

  “Why do I have this terrible feeling that I’m not going to like whatever it is?”

  “That’s a fact,” he said. He stood up with a weary sigh and stretched, pulling the white shirt half out of his trousers. Under it bronzed muscles rippled, and Gaby’s fingers itched to smooth over them as she had earlier.

  He glanced down, saw her expression and laughed. “Want to touch me? Come on. Here I am. Come get me.”

  He held his arms wide, daring her, challenging her, his white teeth flashing against his dark tan.

  “You’re a wicked man.” She laughed.

  “Wicked. And hardheaded. And hot-blooded as all hell, just like you. Come on. Come here and make a little love with me.”

  Her body tingled. She glanced up at him and then down again, demurely. “No. I’m a good girl.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “Besides, you have to go to work, don’t you?” she asked.

  “How can I work and leave you here alone?” he replied, sobering.

  “You can’t follow me around for the rest of my life and ward off trouble,” she said, lifting her face. “Nobody can.”

  “I’m going to call that police sergeant and see what’s going on,” he said abruptly.

  “Now?” she burst out. “But it’s barely morning!”

  “So what?” He jerked up the phone and dialed the precinct, his fingers idly fumbling for a cigarette.

  Gaby cleared the table and went to wash up the breakfast dishes, her ear attuned to Marc’s deep, curt tones in the living room as she walked back and forth between the kitchen and dining room. It was several minutes before he broke off the connection and hung up.

  “Oh, boy,” he said in a weary undertone. “Oh, boy, oh, boy.”

  It was obvious that he wasn’t celebrating. His face had new lines and his eyes were stormy as they searched hers.

  “Bad news?” she asked hesitantly.

  “Worse than bad. That witness I told you Uncle Michael was working on? They picked him up early this morning and he spilled his guts. Apparently what he said was enough to convince the district attorney that he had probable cause for a case against David Smith. They picked up David about a half hour ago. The sergeant was just about to call and tell me.”

  “But that’s wonderful!” she burst out. Her face flushed with color from relief and joy. “Oh, Marc, it’s over! It’s over!”

  She ran flying into his arms, buried her face against his chest, and clung. “I was so worried and all for nothing. I’m going to buy Sergeant Bonaro a cigar, a big fat black one and—”

  “It’s not over,” Marc said quietly, pulling her away from him.

  “But I don’t understand,” she said, searching his troubled face. “You said they arrested Smith.”

  “It wasn’t Dave who was after you, baby,” he said. “Sit down. No. Here, on my lap.”

  He sank down into a big armchair and pulled her down with him, easing her head back against his arm while he smoked his cigarette.

  “Gaby, Dave broke down when he realized that he’d been found out. He confessed to all of it, to stealing from the company and selling parts on the side with Joe’s help. He even admitted that he gave drugs to Joe, damn him, to try to damage his credibility in case Joe said anything about the illegal goings-on. Apparently he never meant to kill him. It just happened. But he also admitted to the attempts on your life.”

  “I’ll have to testify,” she said. She understood that.

  “He admitted to advertising a contract for your life,” Marc continued in a voice as dark as night. “The required amount of money was put into a numbered account out of the country, and the contract man was given a photograph of you and as much information as Dave had at the time.”

  “Then they can pick up the killer,” she ventured.

  His arm drew her closer and he sighed. “Gaby, Smith doesn’t know who the killer is. He’s never seen him. He doesn’t know his name. He can’t call him off. The contract man has been paid. He’ll fulfill the contract.”

  She could feel the blood draining out of her face as she stared up at him, horrified.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, pulling her closer, so that her hot face was buried in his throat. “I’m sorry. The sergeant says Dave is half-crazy with fear, because he knows that if anything happens to
you, he’ll be tried for first-degree murder. His whole plot backfired.”

  “Why did he do it?” she asked miserably.

  “Money. His wife liked living high. He was in love with her. Men do crazy things when they’re in love. I know.” He brushed his lips over her disheveled hair. “She was threatening to leave him, so he had to get some extra cash. At first it was just a few parts here and there, for some spare spending money. Then she got more demanding, and he doctored the books and got a little more. It snowballed. Eventually he was in too deep to quit. Joe found out—” he paused, his voice deepening when he continued “—and demanded to be cut in for a share. They made a pact. Everything went fine until I brought in outside auditors. I didn’t really suspect anything. It was just a routine kind of thing, to make sure of my figures for the IRS. But Joe thought I was on to him. He threatened to talk, to tell me, because he knew I’d pull him out of the fire, like I always did. But Smith had no such guarantee and he panicked.”

  “And poor Joe got in the way.” She touched his shirtfront lightly, staring at it with eyes that weren’t really seeing anything. “All he really wanted out of life was to be you, did you know?” she said with a soft smile. “He worshipped you, despite all the arguments and plotting. You were his hero.”

  “He did a fair amount of worshipping you as well,” he told her. “He always wanted you. That’s why he lied to me. He knew I wanted you too.”

  “I didn’t want to hurt him.”

  “Yes. I know that now. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you, Gaby. It had been me and Joe against the world for too long. Losing him hurt like hell.” She nestled closer, feeling his comforting arms around her as hers wound around his neck, and she held him, rocking with him. “I wanted to come to you when it happened,” she whispered. “And at the funeral, but I couldn’t. I was afraid you’d hate me for the rest of your life.”

  It was a long minute before he spoke. “I thought I would too. Until you came to see me and kept calling me, battering away at my conscience. Last night, when you called that last time and told me someone was after you, I wouldn’t have cared what you’d done. I’d still have come running to see about you.”