Passion to Die for

by Marilyn Pappano

  Ellie stared off into the shadows, blinking to clear her eyes. “Before everything fell apart, I was looking at colleges and scholarships and grants. I wanted to be a doctor or a teacher. I planned to get established in my career, then fall in love and get married and have children. I was going to live in a small town, in a house with a picket fence, with bicycles in the front yard and a puppy in the back. I wanted the kind of family and home I’d never had, and I really believed I could have it, if I just worked hard enough.

  “Then, in less than twenty-four hours, I lost every dream I’d ever had. My future shrank from all these huge possibilities down to one—staying alive for another day.” She glanced at Anamaria, getting an impression of sympathy, but she couldn’t hold the look for more than a second. “I had always been such a good girl with this huge fear of retribution. I never broke the rules, disrespected a teacher, told a lie or cheated on an assignment. The kids called me Goody Two-shoes. Afterward, every time I got arrested, every time I broke another law, even if it was the difference between surviving or not, I was so ashamed.”

  “That was because you had a conscience,” Anamaria said quietly. “You knew the difference between right and wrong, and you cared. If you were a bad person, Ellie, you wouldn’t have been ashamed, you wouldn’t have feared retribution and you wouldn’t have lived an honest, moral life ever since.”

  “But I did so much awful stuff,” Ellie whispered. And not just on the street. She’d committed her biggest sin after getting off the streets, after months of living in a trendy condo, wearing the nicest clothes she’d ever owned and eating at Atlanta’s best restaurants.

  “You had two choices, Ellie—fight for yourself by doing what was necessary to survive, or give up and become just one more kid who died tragically young.” Anamaria moved close enough to slide her arm around Ellie’s shoulders. “Let me tell you, giving up would have been a tragic loss for all of us who love you.”

  Ellie resisted a moment, the old habit of trying to hold back, then sank into Anamaria’s embrace. Her friend smelled of tropical flowers and cocoa butter, and a wealth of positive emotion radiated from her, warming Ellie, taking the sharp edge off her own feelings.

  Baby Gloriane was never going to lack for love and protection and a safe place in her mother’s arms. Martha had never offered any of that to Ellie, and at eighteen, Ellie had known nothing she could offer her own little girl would be enough. She was too broken. Too damaged.

  The back door opened with a creak, and Ellie quickly swiped her hand across her eyes. It was Robbie, though, and he didn’t step out. “Annie, we need to go, babe.”

  Anamaria’s arm tightened for a moment around Ellie; then she let go and, with one hand on the railing, pulled herself to her feet. She paused a moment, her hand stretched out to but not touching Ellie. “You’ll come through this, intact, stronger than ever and happy. Really happy.”

  Ellie’s smile was unsteady. “Is that a vision or wishful thinking?”

  “The great-great-granddaughter of Queen Moon does not engage in wishful thinking,” she intoned before lightening up. “Take it as you will. Just know that I’ll say ‘I told you so’ when it comes true.”

  “I’ll be happy to hear it.” If it came true.

  Ellie said goodbye to Robbie, then directed her gaze out into the night again. It was a bit too chilly for comfort now that Anamaria was gone, but it was quiet. Peaceful. She desperately needed quiet and peace.

  The sound of car doors closing echoed loudly in the darkness. A moment later, the back door opened again, footsteps moving across the deck. Something warm brushed her as Tommy wrapped the afghan from the sofa around her shoulders before sitting next to her.

  The yarn was soft, fuzzy and smelled comfortingly of his cologne. She buried her face in it, breathing deeply of the fragrance that had once been such a part of her life. It had made her feel warm, desired, happy, loved, aroused.

  Happy.

  Aware of him sitting so close but, like her, gazing into the dark, Ellie straightened her shoulders, grasping the ends of the afghan like a shawl. “The great-great-granddaughter of Queen Moon says I’m going to come out of this mess a happy woman.”

  He glanced at her, his expression unreadable. “I tend to believe what Anamaria says.” Then, after a time…“What do you say?”

  She tried for a light note, because there was absolutely nothing light about the way she was feeling. “She’s terribly optimistic.”

  “That’s just another way of saying hopeful, and that’s not a bad thing, Ellie. You could use a little hope yourself.”

  “I hoped for a long time, Tommy. I hoped I would get a scholarship so I could go to college. I hoped I would move out of my parents’ house and never see them again. When they threw me out, I hoped they would let me come back, because I didn’t have what it took to be on my own. I hoped I didn’t get caught stealing. When I was running errands for drug dealers, I hoped I didn’t get caught in a drive-by shooting or a drug bust. I hoped I’d never have to sell my body, and I hoped and prayed the second time wouldn’t be even a fraction as painful and horrible as the first. I kept hoping and hoping until I finally learned—if you never hope for anything, you won’t be disappointed.”

  “That’s tough on your spirit,” he murmured.

  “Not as tough as always being disappointed.” That had broken her spirit: the realization that she couldn’t have a normal life. For whatever reason, God or the Fates had decided she didn’t deserve it. How could she have hope for anything after learning that?

  Tommy’s hand went to his shirt pocket, looking for a cigarette that wasn’t there, she surmised, smiling humorlessly. What was it about her that made people want to slowly poison themselves? Her father, her mother, Tommy…

  He shifted on the steps to face her, the newel post at his back. “I know our parents and our childhoods have a huge impact on who we become and what we do and how we feel about ourselves. I know your parents put you through hell, and I understand what that did to you inside. But at the same time, I just want to say get over it. You’re a beautiful, intelligent, successful woman. You have your own house, your own business, friends and people who respect you. Even if you’d really had the fantasy upbringing that you claimed, you’d be a success by anyone’s standards. But considering your real background, it’s nothing less than amazing.

  “You’ve got so much to be proud of, Ellie. You not only survived, but you thrived. Whether in spite of your past or because of it, you’ve done damn good. Robbie and Anamaria and I—we’re proud of you. Why can’t you be?”

  There were few moments in life that she remembered with pride. No one else had ever been proud of her; why should she be impressed with her own accomplishments? She’d done nothing special. She was nothing special.

  Except, maybe, in Tommy’s eyes.

  The thought brought tears to her own eyes. “Really?” she questioned, forcing cynicism into her voice because his words gave rise to a bit of hope deep inside her, and, as she’d just told him, never hoping was better than being disappointed. “Which me are you proud of? The kid whose parents couldn’t love her? The girl with the arrest record a mile long? The teenage prostitute? The one who created a false identity? The one who lied to you about everything? The one who kept pushing you away because she had nothing to give? Which me are you so damn proud of?”

  He reached out then and touched her, his fingers warm against her cheek, his touch light and gentle and so familiar, God help her, that she wanted to curl into it. “You can’t separate them, Ellie. They’re all you. They all combine to make you the woman you are now. How could I love one of them without loving all of them?”

  She stared at him. The smart thing to do was ignore his words. Get up, walk into the house and shut herself away in her bedroom. Pretend the words had never been spoken. She summoned the strength to do just that, but instead of rising from the steps, she raised one hand to clasp his wrist. Instead of walking away, she asked, “You can sti
ll say that?”

  He smiled ruefully. “Only because it’s true. Hell, Ellie, I’ve loved you practically since the day we met.”

  “But you never really knew me.”

  “I’ve always known the things that matter. All this stuff…it’s just background. I’m glad I know, but it doesn’t change anything.”

  Her stomach knotted, and something fluttered in her chest, panic trying to find a way out, as she forced a breath. “Well…before you swear to that, let me tell you the last bit of background, because it might change everything. Let me tell you about the baby girl I gave away for fifty thousand dollars.”

  There was this guy…

  A lot of hard-luck stories started out that way, and Tommy had heard his share. Sometimes he’d empathized; sometimes he’d wondered how women could be so easily fooled; but never had he dreaded the details as much as he did now. If Ellie had kept this secret after confiding everything else, it must be seriously important to her, and that made it just as important to him. She’d expected him to turn away from her after hearing the truth about her criminal history, but he hadn’t. Apparently, she thought this truth might accomplish what the other hadn’t.

  “I was seventeen, still on the streets, and I’d met my quota for the night. It was cold, so I went to this all-night diner to get a cup of coffee.” Unlike before, when she’d hardly been able to look at him, she kept her gaze locked on him, searching for the slightest change in expression. It was an effort, but he kept his face blank and his posture relaxed while he listened.

  “His name was Andrew. He’d been out partying and stopped there on his way home for some food. He so obviously didn’t belong in that part of town. His clothes, his watch, his car…there were dollar signs practically dancing in the air around him. He sat at the table next to mine and struck up a conversation, and we talked for more than two hours.”

  It was easy to imagine: a vulnerable girl whose only value to anyone was sex and a rich man interested in her, not her body. He’d probably bought her coffee, flirted with her and made her feel like any teenage girl on a date with her biggest crush.

  “He asked me to come back the next night and the night after that. The fourth night, I went home with him. He was the first man I—” Her mouth flattened, and she swallowed hard. “The first man I wanted to have sex with. To—to make love with. He was everything I’d dreamed of before…” Her shrug said what she didn’t: before she lost her virginity to a john who’d made her pray that the next time wouldn’t hurt so bad.

  “I wanted so much to be saved, and he wanted to do it. He rented a condo for me, bought me fabulous clothes and gave me more money than I’d ever seen. He said he loved me and he wanted to marry me.” Her smile was thin and painful. “This rich, gorgeous guy wanted to marry me. It was incredible. Like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.”

  Except Pretty Woman was a fairy tale. And they lived happily ever after. Ellie’s Prince Charming had turned into a toad.

  “I was so much in love and so blissfully unaware. When I got pregnant, I thought life couldn’t be any more perfect. I told him, and…” Even after so many years, there was a faint undercurrent of hurt in her voice. “He walked out on me.”

  Tommy let his gaze drop to her hands, wrapped tightly in the fringe of the afghan. He didn’t want to hear any more; it was all in the past; it didn’t matter.

  But of course it did. To her. To him.

  “He quit paying the rent on the condo, so I had to move out. I’d saved some of the money he’d given me, and I sold everything he’d bought for me, so I managed to get by for a while. I was seven months pregnant when the money ran out. I didn’t know what to do. I tried to get in touch with him, but he wouldn’t return my calls. Finally, I threatened to show up at his family home in Athens. The next day, his uncle, who was also his attorney, contacted me.

  “Part of his uncle’s job was cleaning up Andrew’s messes,” she went on, her tone cool and detached. “You see, he was already married to a woman from a family as influential as his own. And I wasn’t the first underage girl he’d gotten pregnant. In fact, Uncle Randolph had the routine down pat. He moved me into an apartment in Alpharetta. He paid my living expenses. He promised to find a really good home for the baby, and he gave me fifty thousand dollars in exchange for forgetting that Andrew existed.”

  She’d been in love with another man. She’d given birth to another man’s child. And for four and a half years, she’d refused to even consider marrying Tommy. Because she hadn’t loved him? Because she couldn’t love him?

  Or because the first bastard had hurt her too damn much to risk it again?

  If you never hope for anything, you won’t be disappointed.

  The biggest part of her life had been nothing but one disappointment after another.

  “I had a girl.” Ellie’s voice was hollow, insubstantial in the night. “She was seventeen inches long and she weighed eight pounds, and I held her for a minute. I kissed her and told her I loved her and I was giving her up for her own good. Then I handed her back to the nurse, and…I died a little inside.”

  Her last words were barely a whisper; then she fell silent, waiting for him to say something.

  For five years he’d wanted intimacy with her. To know everything about her. To become a part of her. To make her a part of himself. Who knew intimacy could hurt as much as the lack of it?

  His voice was ragged when he finally spoke. “Is that it? No more secrets?”

  She stared at him.

  “Because I can take just about anything, Ellie, but it’s kind of hard taking it all at once.”

  One slender hand slid out from under the shawl, and she wrapped her fingers tightly around his. “Did you listen to what I said, Tommy? I gave up my baby girl. I traded her and the promise of secrecy for money. I abandoned her, just like your mother left you.”

  He twisted his hand so he held hers. “You were a child who gave your own child a chance at a better life. My mother was older than you are now, and she walked away from her family because it suited her. It’s not the same, and you know it. You loved your baby enough to leave. My mother didn’t love me enough to stay.”

  She tried to push away, so he caught both her hands in his. “I couldn’t take care of her,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “I couldn’t even take care of myself.”

  “But you did take care of her, Ellie. You gave her to someone who would love her and protect her and give her all the things you never had.” She’d broken her own heart, and just listening to her talk about it damn near broke his.

  The tension holding her stiff eased a bit.

  “I wish like hell things had been different for you. I wish you’d never had to go through all that crap. I wish you’d had a boringly normal life with no worries more important than whether the boy you liked was going to ask you to the prom. But like I keep telling you, it doesn’t matter. I’m sorry, and I’d really like to break this Andrew guy in half. But it’s in the past. It doesn’t matter.”

  The look in her eyes was faint and alien, for her at least. He saw it in his own eyes every time he looked in the mirror. “It doesn’t bother you that I was in love with him?” she asked with the slightest undertone of hope.

  He brushed a strand of her pale blond hair back before grinning crookedly. “You were twenty-five when we met. I never expected to be the first guy you loved. I just hoped to be the last.”

  For a moment she showed no response. She just looked at him, her expression puzzled, as if she wanted to believe what he was saying but couldn’t quite. Then, with a shudder, she pulled the afghan closer, huddling into it, looking lost and vulnerable and confused. “I—I—”

  Jumping to her feet, she rushed across the deck and inside the house, closing the back door hard but not before he heard the small choke of a half-swallowed sob.

  Eyes closed, head falling back, Tommy breathed loudly. As he’d told her, he could take just about anything. But it damn sure wasn’t easy.

&
nbsp; Not that Ellie had ever been easy, he thought with a thin smile. But she was worth it. The two of them together—if they could work out a together—was worth all the heartache in the world.

  Chapter 9

  After a restless night, Ellie was up early Tuesday morning. She looked worn-out when she studied herself in the mirror; makeup couldn’t hide the shadows beneath her eyes or the lines at the corners of her mouth. But there was something different in her face this morning: doubt.

  She’d told Tommy everything, and he’d said it didn’t matter. Her worst memories and most painful secrets, her flaws and insecurities and her ugly past, and to him it was just background. It didn’t change the way he looked at her. Didn’t change the way he thought of her. He still found her worthy.

  How incredible was that?

  Maybe he was right—Anamaria and Robbie, too. Maybe her parents had lied to her all those years and she did deserve love and respect and friendship and a normal life.

  Maybe she was a better person than she’d given herself credit for.

  Tommy slept in, probably the first weekday morning in his adult life, and, unsettled inside, she let him. She fixed a cup of coffee, found a protein bar in the cabinet—the only thing in the kitchen that even came close to breakfast food—then wrapped the afghan around her shoulders and went outside to sit in a rocker on the front porch.

  The morning was still, the streetlamps buzzing, a few houselights on here and there. Occasionally a car passed at the end of the block, or a boat on the nearby river, but mostly it was quiet. Chilly. Soothing.

  She’d finished with breakfast but was still rocking slowly, the empty coffee mug cradled in her hands, when a dark vehicle turned onto the street. The headlights flashed across her as the driver pulled into the driveway; an instant later, the engine cut off. A. J. Decker climbed out, pushing the door shut with a controlled thud, then joined her on the porch, leaning against the railing in front of her.

  He looked as if he’d had a restless night, too. Short as his hair was, it stood on end, and he wore a layer of weariness as easily as his leather jacket.