Considering what he'd been arrested for and the way things were going, Vin couldn't believe what was showing on the screen of his cell phone as the ringer went off.
As he accepted the call, he muted the local news and held on hard. "Marie-Terese?"
There was a pause. "Hi."
Swiveling around in his desk chair, he looked out over Caldwell and found it hard to comprehend that mere nights ago, he'd stared at the view with such a sense of domination. Now he felt like his life was totally out of control and he was fighting to stay where he was instead of being king of the mountain.
Never one to beat around the bush, he said, "Have you heard the news? About me?"
"Yes. But you were with me late last night, when it happened. I know you didn't do it."
Relief rolled through him - although only about that particular part of the shit storm. "And the other attack, in the alley?"
"I'm on the way to the Iron Mask now. The police want to talk to me."
"Can I see you," he blurted with a desperation that would have shocked him under normal circumstances.
"Yes."
Vin was surprised by the quick answer, but sure as shit not going to argue with it. "I'm at home over in the Commodore, so I can meet you anywhere, anytime."
"I'll come to you as soon as I'm done with the CPD."
"I'm on the twenty-eighth floor. I'll tell the doorman to expect you."
"I'm not sure how long I'm going to be, but I can text you when I'm on my way."
Vin shifted his eyes over to the left, imagining her however many blocks west and south of where he was. "Marie-Terese..."
"Yes?"
He thought of her and her son...thought of the kind of people she'd managed to get away from - thus far. Her ex could easily reach out from prison, maybe already had: even if those attacks weren't tied to her, or were being done by someone else, she still needed to keep the lowest profile she could.
"Don't try to protect me."
"Vin - "
"I'll explain more when you get here," he said gruffly. "But let's just say I know how much you have to lose if your face gets into the media channels."
Silence. Then: "How."
He could tell by the tightness in her voice that she didn't appreciate the look-see into her background. "Jim, my friend...he has connections. I didn't ask him to do it, by the way, but he told me what he found."
Long pause. The kind that made him wish to hell he'd waited to drop that little bomb until she was in front of him. But then she exhaled. "It's kind of a relief, actually. That you know."
"It goes without saying that I'll tell no one."
"I trust you."
"Good, because I would never do anything to hurt you." Now it was Vin's turn to get quiet. "God, Marie-Terese..."
There was the slight squeak of brakes. "I'm just at the club now. We'll talk in a little bit."
"Don't protect me. Please."
"See you soon - "
"Stay quiet. Don't get yourself involved with the shit that's on my tail. For your son's sake and yours. It's not worth the risk."
He stopped himself right there. No way he was going into the whole truth about Devina - partially because he didn't understand it fully himself, and mostly because he hated the idea of Marie-Terese thinking he was crazy.
"It's not right." Her voice broke. "What she's accusing you of. It's not - "
"I know. Just believe me when I say I'm going to take care of it. I'm going to handle this."
"Vin - "
"You know I'm right. See you in a bit." As they ended the call, he prayed she would go with the reasoning - and figured, given the conflict in her voice, that the math was adding up correctly in her mind.
This was good.
Instead of heading downtown to try to find that psychic he'd gone to for help when he was seventeen - which was what he'd intended to do - Vin spent the next hour in the living room, cleaning up pieces of glass and busted leather books and putting the couches and chairs back together. He even got out the vacuum and tried to resuscitate the carpet, making some inroads with the shards and absolutely none with the liquor stains. He had his phone with him the whole time, and when the text came through that Marie-Terese was on her way, he rolled the Dyson into the closet and jogged upstairs to change into a clean silk shirt.
He was almost on the way out of the bedroom when it dawned on him that he was still in the pans' and boxers he'd had on in jail.
Right. Back to the well.
Second trip out into the hall and he had on a sharp-ass pair of black slacks and some black boxer briefs. Changed his socks, too. Shoes were the same Bally loafers he'd been wearing for the past week. Her timing was perfect.
The home phone rang just as he hit the foyer, and he told the front-desk man to let her up. On the way to the door, Vin double-checked in the shattered mirror that he'd tucked his shirt in properly and his hair was looking okay - which was kind of girlie when he thought about it, but whatever.
Out in the corridor, the elevator arrived with a bing and he stood back a little to give Marie-Terese some space, even though he would have rather taken her right into his arms -
Oh, man. She was gorgeous. Just in jeans and that deep red fleece, with her hair down and no makeup on, she was total pinup material to him.
"Hi," he said, like an idiot.
"Hi." She moved her purse farther up on her shoulder and her eyes shifted around to the open door of the duplex. As she got a load of his golden front hall, her brows lifted slightly.
"You want to come in?" He stepped to the side and motioned with his hand. "Be warned though...the place is a mess after..."
As she moved past him, he breathed in deep. What do you know. The scent of clean laundry was still his favorite perfume.
Vin shut the door, engaged the dead bolt, and put the chain in place. Which didn't seem halfway to safe enough: He had a heebie paranoia about Devina that made him wonder whether that kind of conventional stuff would keep her out of any place she wanted to go.
"Can I get you something to drink?" Not liquor, of course. At least, not in the living room. God knew there was none of it left there.
Marie-Terese headed toward the banks of glass. "This is quite a..." She hesitated as she came across a stain in the carpet and then looked around at the room and less at the view.
"It was even worse before I tried to clean it up a little," he said. "Christ...I have no idea what happened here."
"Why would your girlfriend lie?"
"Ex-girlfriend," he reminded her.
Marie-Terese glanced into the broken mirror to meet his eyes, and the sight of her features all scrambled in the field of cracks freaked his shit out - to the point where he had to go over in hopes of getting her out of its torturous reflection.
As she turned to face him, her eyes were scared. "Vin...that man who was attacked. He was the one I helped in the bathroom - we went in together and talked about this girl he wanted to impress." She put her hand over her mouth and trembled. "Oh, God...he was with me and then he..."
Vin went over and wrapped his arms around her, holding her closely. As she took a deep breath, he felt it from his thighs to his ribs, and goddamn it if he didn't want to kill to protect her.
"It can't be Mark," she said into his shirt. "But what if he's sent someone to find me?"
"Come here." He took her hand and started for the couch. But then, did he really want to talk to her amid the remnants of whatever violence had occurred?
Pausing, he thought about the study...but had memories of being with Devina on that fucking rug. Upstairs...yeah, right, the bedroom was a total no-go, and not just because asking Marie-Terese up there had letch connotations he didn't intend: too much Devina there as well.
Vin settled for the dining room table, walking her over and angling two chairs so that he could face her.
"You know," she said as she put her purse down and they sat together, "I'm actually a tough cookie."
He had to smile. "I believe that."
"You just seem to have come along at a hard time."
Vin extended his hand and touched one of the curled locks of hair by her face. "I wish I could do something to help."
"I'm leaving Caldwell."
His heart stopped. It was on the tip of his tongue to argue with her, but he didn't have that right - not by a long shot. Besides, he was hard-pressed to deny the decision: It was probably for the best. "Where will you go?" he asked.
"Anywhere. I don't know."
In her lap, her hands tangled and twisted as if they were paralleling the thoughts in her mind. "Do you have enough money?" he asked, even though he knew what she was going to say.
"I'll be okay. Somehow...Robbie and I will be okay."
"Will you let me help you?"
She shook her head slowly. "I can't do that. I can't...owe anybody else. I'm having a hard enougf time paying off the people I'm in debt to already."
"How much do you owe them?"
"I have another thirty thousand to go," she said, her hands stilling. "I started with about a hundred and twenty."
"What if I gave it to you and you paid it back eventually? I'm sure they're charging interest - "
"A debt is a debt." She smiled in a sad way. "There was a time when I hoped that some man would come in and rescue me from my life. And one did - except the rescue turned out to be a nightmare. Now I rescue myself - which means I pay my own way. Always."
But thirty thousand dollars? Christ, that was couch change to him.
And to think she'd been working off all that money doing...
Vin squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. Shit, he hated the pictures in his mind - even though they were mere hypotheticals for what she'd forced herself into, they lashed at him. And it would have been so easy for him to make it all go away for her - although he could see where she was coming from: Precisely that kind of savior routine had soured on her big-time, and the lesson had been too hard-learned to let go.
He cleared his throat. "What did the police say when you spoke to them just now?"
"They showed me a picture of the guy, and I told them I'd seen him at the club and talked with him. I was in a panic that some eyewitness had popped out of the bushes and said that they'd seen me going into the bathroom with him, but the cop didn't mention anything like that. And then..."
When there was a long pause, he had a feeling she was trying to choose her words.
He cursed softly. "Tell me you didn't say anything about being with me last night."
She reached for his hands, holding them tightly. "That's why I'm leaving."
As his heart seized up, he wondered if he shouldn't tell the thing to quit bothering to beat altogether. "You didn't. Oh, God...you should just stay out of - "
"When they asked me what happened after I talked with the guy, I told them that I left the club with one Vincent diPietro and that you and I were together all night long. From nine thirty to about four a.m." When he would have jerked his hands back, she held them in place. "Vin, I've done enough in life to be ashamed of. I've let a man abuse me for years...even in front of my son." Her voice cracked, but then grew strong. "I've whored myself out. I've lied. I've done things I used to look down on other women for...and I'm done with it. No more."
"Fucking hell," he muttered. "Fuck-ing hell."
Without thinking, he leaned in and gave her a quick kiss, then took his hands away and stood up. Unable to contain himself, he paced the length of the living room, up and back. Then did it again. She watched him the whole time, one arm draped along the back of the ornate chair she was on.
"I gave the police my cell phone number," she said, "and I'll come back to testify if I have to. I figure Robbie and I'll pack up tonight and just go. If the press doesn't know how to find me, my face isn't going to show up anywhere."
Vin stopped in the archway to the living room and thought of that security tape with his so-called face on it. Marie-Terese had no idea what she'd dropped herself into, because there was a fuckload more going on than simply an assault case. So, yeah, it was best that she just get out of town. He had a feeling he and his freaky-ass buddy Jim were going to have to figure out a way to get rid of Devina, and it wasn't just going to be a case of telling her to go pound sand.
As for who might be on Marie-Terese's tail? It couldn't be Devina because the trouble had started...shit, the night he'd first seen Marie-Terese at the Iron Mask.
"What?" Marie-Terese said.
He replayed the details of that evening. Devina had left before he and Jim had thrown down with those two college kids. Which meant it was theoretically possible that she could have killed the pair in the alley...except it made no sense. Why would she go after men who had been with Marie-Terese? Like that ex-husband, she wouldn't make others a target, and besides, Vin hadn't had anything much to do with Marie-Terese at that point.
"What's going through your mind, Vin?"
Nothing he could tell her, unfortunately. Nothing at all.
He paced down and back one more time - and then it dawned on him. Courtesy of her stepping up to the plate for him, he had her over a barrel. And he was a man who always took advantage of those kinds of things.
"Stay here," he said. "I'll be right back."
He strode out of the room and headed for the study.
Five minutes later, he returned with his hands full, and the second Marie-Terese saw what he was carrying, she opened her mouth to no-way him.
Vin shook his head and cut her off. "You say you pay your debts." One by one he laid out five stacks of one-hundred-dollar bills. "Well, I'm sure you'll allow me to do the same."
"Vin - "
"Fifty thousand dollars." He crossed his arms over his chest. "Take it. Use it to pay off the debt and carry you for a couple of months."
Marie-Terese shot up from her chair. "I'm telling the truth, not doing you a favor - "
"Sorry. You're not going to win this. I owe you for protecting me, and I have determined the going rate for that obligation is fifty grand. You're just going to have to deal with it."
"The hell I will." She picked her purse up from the table and slung it onto her shoulder. "I'm not
"A hypocrite? I beg to differ. You think you're the only one with pride? You're saying I'm not allowed to feel indebted to you? Pretty damn closed-minded."
"You're twisting my words!"
"Am I." He nodded at the cash. "Don't think so. And I also don't think you're crazy enough to bolt out of town with no resources. You use your credit cards, there's a trail. You withdraw the funds from your bank account, there's a trail."
"Damn you to hell."
"I have a feeling I've done that to myself already, thank you very much." He leaned down and shoved the piles in her direction. "Take the money, Marie-Terese. Take it and know that there are no strings attached. You never, ever want to see me again, that's okay. Don't go with nothing, though. You can't do that to me. I wouldn't be able to live with it."
In the tense stretch of silence, he realized that this was the first time since he'd started making paper that he was giving any of it away. Or at least trying to give it away. Over the years, he'd never supported charities or causes of any kind - if money was going out of his pocket, he had to get something tangible in return, and always at an increase in value.
"You're going to take this," he murmured. "Because this isn't knight-in-shining-armor time. I'm not trying to save you. I'm repaying a debt and giving you one of the tools you're going to need to build your better future."
When she didn't reply, he tapped one of the bundles. "Think of it like this - I'm helping you buy your own white horse...Gretchen, for God's sake, you need to take the money."
The bastard used her real name. Damn him.
God...it had been so long since anyone had called her Gretchen. To Robbie she was "Mom." To everyone else, she was Marie-Terese. She'd always loved her real name, though, and hearing it now, she wanted it back.
Gretchen...Gretchen...
She stared at the money. Vin was right: She took that and she had serious breathing room. Except...how was this different from before? It was still a man bailing her out. It just didn't feel right.
She stepped up to him and put her hands on either side of his face.
"You are a lovely, lovely man, Vincent diPietro." She pulled him down to her lips and he went willingly, his palms settling lightly on her shoulders as their mouths met. "And I want to thank you." Happiness flared in the hard lines of his face. But only for a moment. "I'll always remember your gesture," she murmured.
"You don't have to take the hard route," he said, his brows drawing together. "You - "
"But see, that's what I learned. Things are hard for me now because I tried to take the easy way out first." She smiled up at him, thinking that she was going to remember how he was looking at her now for the rest of her life. "That's the problem with white horses. You have to pay for them yourself or you'll always be using someone else's reins."
He stared down at her for the longest time. "You're breaking my fucking heart in half right now, you really are." His hands tightened on her arms and then released as he stepped back. "It's like...I can reach out and touch you, but you're already gone."
"I'm sorry."
He looked over at the cash. "You know...I've never realized this before. But money is really just paper when you come down to it."
"I'm going to be okay."
"Are you." He shook his head. "Sorry, that came out wrong."
Except he was right to be worried. Hell, she was, too. "I'll stay in touch."
"I'd like that...Any idea where you're headed?"
"I don't know. Haven't given it a lot of thought."
"Well...what if I told you I had an empty house I could lend you. It's out of state - " He held up his hand as she went to interject. "Just wait a minute. It's in Connecticut, in horse country there. It's a farmhouse, but it's close to the town, so you wouldn't be isolated. You could crash there for a couple of nights, get your feet under you, figure out where to go next. And it's better than a hotel, because you won't have to use a credit card. You could leave your house tonight after dark and get there in less than two hours."
Marie-Terese frowned as she thought it over.
"Not a handout, not cash, no strings," he said. "Just a place for you and your son to lay your heads. And when you're ready to leave it, just lock the place up and mail the keys back to me."
Marie-Terese walked around to the windows in the dining room and looked out at the stunning view as she tried to think through what the next day and week and month would be like...
She got nothing back. Not a clue.
Which was a pretty clear signal she needed somewhere safe to figure it all out. "Okay," she said quietly. "This I will take you up on."
She heard Vin approach from behind, and as his arms went around her, she turned and embraced him as well.
They held each other for a long, long time.
It was hard to say when things changed for her...when she started to notice not just the comfort of his broad chest against her, but the warmth of his body and the strength in his muscles and the spice of his expensive cologne.
He was warm, though.
And so very strong.
And so...
Marie-Terese ran her hands up his back, feeling the softness of the silk shirt he had on, but concentrating on the hard man beneath the fabric. In a flash, she saw him in the mirror in his old bedroom, naked and rearing up before her, his muscles flexing along his spine.
Vin moved his hips back. "I think...I think we should probably - "
She arched into him and felt the erection he was trying to hide. "Be with me. Before I go...be with me?"
Vin's entire body shuddered. "God, yes."
He took her hand and the two of them hit the stairs fast. On instinct, she headed left toward a black-and-gold room with a massive bed, but he tugged her in the opposite direction. "Not there."
He took her into another bedroom, one that was smaller and done in warm reds and tans. As they landed on the satin-covered mattress, they melded hip to hip, mouths fusing, tongues meeting, hands going to zippers and buttons and belt buckles.
She all but ripped off his shirt, and when his chest was bared, her palms rubbed over his smooth skin and his tight muscles. Shifting back, she helped with the shucking of her jeans and tops and then focused on getting his pants off.
"Holy Christ," he grunted as she pushed his slacks down to the middle of his thighs and gripped his erection through his briefs.
Fusing their mouths and sucking on his tongue, she stroked him through the thin, flexible cotton of his boxer briefs until the head of him burst out past the waistband. The instant she went skin-on-skin with him, he broke the contact of their lips and hissed in a breath through clenched teeth.
His Armanis went the way of his pants, getting shoved roughly down his legs, and she eased her way over his chest, kissing, nipping, allowing her hair to fall all around and tickle him as she went lower.
Just as she stood his arousal up and was ready to take him between her lips, his hands tightened on her arms. "Wait..."
A single, glistening tear formed at his tip and wept down his head and onto her hand. "Your sex doesn't want to wait, Vin," she said huskily.
Another tear followed the first, as if her words were just as erotic as anything she could have done to him physically.
"I need you to know...something."
Marie-Terese frowned. "What?"
"I..." He put both hands to his face and rubbed so hard it was like he wanted to sand his features down. "When I'm with you, it's not like how I've been. You know, with anyone else lately."
"Is...that a good thing?"
"I definitely think so." He dropped his arms. "But I've done some out-there shit, to be honest. With strangers."
Marie-Terese felt her brows pop, as if they were doing so of their own volition. "Like what?"
He shook his head like he didn't want to remember. "Nothing with men. But that's really about the only line I've drawn. I just...I haven't been tested and I haven't always been careful. I feel like you deserve to know that before we do anything riskier than kissing and sex with a condom."
"Weren't you monogamous with Devina?" Although even as she asked, she realized the question was pointless because the woman hadn't been monogamous with him.
"There were other women along with her sometimes. If you know what I mean."
An unwelcome picture of Vin covered in female flesh barreled in. "Wow."
She was about to make a crack about it taking a special man to get a prostitute to blush, but given how he'd reacted before to her bringing up her "profession," she stopped herself.
"But it's not going to be like that with you." His eyes drifted around her hair and her face and her bare breasts. "To me...you're everything I need, all that I want. I can't describe it. Just when you kiss me, that's all I'm after - What?"
She smiled as she stroked him slowly. "You make me feel precious."
"Come up here and let me show you exactly how precious."
He pulled gently on her arms, but she resisted, not wanting to be diverted. Funny, it felt odd and wonderfully unfamiliar to want to do what she had been on her way to doing.
"Vin, please let me give you this..." Moving her palm up and down, she watched his head fall back and his mouth open and his chest heave. "And I'll just make sure you don't finish. How about that."
Before he could argue, she bent down and used the head of him to part her lips - in a rush, he groaned and his hips shot up, the movement pushing his erection deeper into her mouth. As she sucked him in, his fists balled up the duvet, his arm muscles straining, his pecs and his six-pack going rigid.
He was gorgeous like this, stretched out on the red satin, his big body sexed up to the point of no return...
In this hot, erotic moment, Marie-Terese had him exactly where she wanted him to be.