If Kellen had had time to think about it, she would have suspected that inept little Ceecee had fallen for Max because he was kind, protective, able to keep her safe.
Not so. When he kissed, nothing about Max Di Luca was safe. He was a daredevil who leaped with her into a free fall. He was a beast who dared her to take him in the roughest way possible. He was a dark lover, consuming her in wicked ways she had never imagined.
When he lifted his head, his lips slid across her cheek and rested against her ear. “Now we make more memories.”
Then he was gone. The car door shut. And despite the cashmere throw and the heated seat, she was cold.
The driver put the car in gear. The wheels rolled over the pavement in a soft, rhythmic hiss and Kellen drifted in a sea of pain and the past.
What did she know? What did she remember?
* * *
Nothing in Cecilia’s life had prepared her for the months on the Philadelphia streets. With no resources, no defenses, she drifted from one underpass to another, from an abandoned building to a homeless shelter to that place by the river where a gentleman in an Armani suit tried to rape her. She stabbed him in the neck with rusty scissors and ran again.
The only things she had, the only things she treasured, were Kellen’s identification papers carried in the worn travel wallet beneath her clothes. Keeping them safe obsessed her. They were her link to her cousin, the proof that Kellen had existed, the honored preservation of her memory.
She trudged along the streets, wrapped in rags and her own misery, until the day she saw that man dragging the little girl behind him. The child looked like him, like his daughter, but she was screaming, “No. No! I want my mommy. I live with my mommy. The judge says you can’t have me. I want my mommy!”
He turned and slapped her, one hard blow across the cheek.
The girl staggered and would have fallen, but he held her up by her arm and said, “Shut up, Annabella. Your mommy will pay to get you back.”
In that moment, Cecilia saw herself in the child and Gregory in the man, and she was livid. She couldn’t recall when she’d last eaten. Last night, she had slept on a pile of trash behind a restaurant. But from somewhere inside, strength born of injustice rose up in her, and she attacked. She ran, jumped on the man’s back, wrapped her legs around his waist. She pulled his hair, clawed at his face.
He let go of Annabella’s arm. He whirled in circles, cursing in languages she didn’t know.
People on the sidewalk gaped. She didn’t care. In a frenzy, she dug her filthy nails into his neck, smashed her fist into his nose. She screamed, “Run, Annabella!”
He pried her legs off and dropped her to the sidewalk.
She smacked hard.
He took a moment to kick at her, then raced after the child.
Cecilia shrieked like a banshee. “Stop him. He’s kidnapping that child!” She didn’t know for sure if it was true; she only knew he was abusing that little girl and she would not stand for it.
From down the block, another man was shouting, “Stop him. Stop him!”
“Save the child,” Cecilia yelled. She staggered to her feet.
The father captured the little girl again, picked her up by the waist and flung her over his shoulder. His face was bleeding, his pristine tie askew; his dark eyes were murderous.
Cecilia jumped between him and his town car.
He tried to block her with the flat of his hand.
She ducked beneath and butted him with her head. She nailed him, too, because he released Annabella and leaned over, holding his family jewels.
The kid knew what to do this time. She took off down the sidewalk, veered into traffic, dodging cars, using them as blockades and concealment.
Her daring stopped Cecilia’s breath in her throat.
The father ran after her.
Cecilia flung her weight into his back.
An oncoming car slammed on its brakes, struck him with the right front bumper, spun him into the street.
Cecilia hit the still-moving car on the passenger door, whirled backward and fell facedown on the asphalt. She knew she had to get up. She had to help that child, but the best she could do was crawl… Vaguely, she heard sirens and a man’s rumbling voice she now knew to be Max’s said, “You saved Annabella. You saved my niece.”
Cecilia relaxed, slid toward unconsciousness, then tensed again. Desperately, she groped for the travel wallet hidden under her clothes. Kellen’s documents. She couldn’t lose them.
“What’s wrong?” the man’s voice asked. “What can I help you with?”
She wrapped her fingers around the string, tugged the wallet out so she could grasp it. She opened her swollen eyes, and for the first time, she looked into Max’s strong, grave face.
“Do you want me to keep that for you?” he asked.
At the thought, terror gripped her.
“I’ll keep them safe. I’ll return them as soon as you wish.”
Behind him, she could see policemen and EMTs advancing on her. They would take Kellen’s wallet. They’d ask questions she couldn’t answer.
She offered the wallet to Annabella’s uncle.
He grasped it.
“Don’t look,” she said.
“I won’t.”
“Promise you won’t look.”
“I promise.”
* * *
Cecilia spent a week in the hospital. She’d cracked her tailbone and fractured her cheek. She was dehydrated and undernourished. More than that, the physicians had expressed concern about the old burns around her hairline and on her shoulders. She heard one doctor tell Max that at some point in her life she’d suffered physical and mental trauma, and that no doubt accounted for her overly violent defense of Annabella. He also told Max that she should be confined to an institution until they could ascertain that she was stable.
An hour later, when Max came in, she was out of bed and scavenging for clothing.
He flung a small overnight case on the bed and opened it. “Here. Pick out what you want to wear. I’m taking you home.”
“To the home?” Kellen’s travel wallet was on top. She snatched it up, pulled it over her head, settled it on her chest. “To hell with you.”
“My home,” he said. “You saved my niece. Her father is Ettore Fontana, a desperate man without honor. He intended to kidnap Annabella and hold her for ransom. You saved her. The Di Luca family owes you a debt. We always pay our debts. No more fears. You’re safe with us.”
“I’ll never be confined again.” Imprisoned, abused, married. Never again. She turned her back to him, stripped off the hospital gown and started to dress. The guy had good taste in underwear, she’d say that for him.
His voice rumbled with patience. “In my home, you can rest, recuperate, and then when you wish, I’ll help you go somewhere safe. I’ll help you find a job. I don’t know what misfortune put you on the streets, but I will protect you.”
Cecilia had listened to another man once say pleasant things in a convincing voice, and Gregory had murdered her cousin and almost killed her. “Why should I believe you?” she asked hoarsely.
When she had donned one layer of clothes and started on a second, he gently turned her to face him, and his eyes, golden brown and warm, met hers. “Because I’m Maximilian Di Luca. I always keep my word.”
* * *
As the town car rumbled along the asphalt, Kellen touched her wet cheeks. Tears. She remembered so well what Max said, what he did, how she had loved him…
The first time she woke in the hospital, he asked her what her name was.
“Ceecee.” Funny. She hadn’t thought about what she should say. She just said it. Ceecee, her family nickname. That was what he called her.
She groped along the leather seat, pulled herself into a sitting position, asked, “Birdie?
Where’s Birdie? We were supposed to stop for Birdie.”
“Someone else is bringing her to the airstrip.”
“Carson Lennex is bringing her?”
“Right. Carson Lennex.”
“That’s nice.” Kellen took a few more careful breaths. “I think he likes her.”
The driver gave a soft snort.
Kellen tried to remember this driver. She knew everyone at the resort. But she couldn’t remember this woman.
She touched the scar on her forehead.
Had these new memories crowded out the old ones?
Or was the explanation for this memory loss as simple as a concussion?
Her head spun, and she slowly reclined.
43
The Di Luca estate in Pennsylvania’s Brandywine Valley consisted of forty acres of rolling hills planted in vines, a Tuscan-style tasting room and Max’s home. As winter began its first sweep across Lake Erie, Cecilia huddled under a heated throw on the wide porch overlooking the vineyards and watched Max drive his battered pickup in from the blending barn. For the first time in more than two years, since her marriage to Gregory, she believed that, somehow, her life was worth living. More than that—she believed she was worthy of life, and with that revelation, she’d fallen in love with Max. After her marriage, it seemed impossible, but Max made her smile. He made her feel special.
She didn’t expect that he love her back. After all, he made Annabella smile, too. Same with his sister. Same with his mother. He was the kind of guy who cared for his people, and Cecilia had earned her place as one of his people. Still, after Gregory, it was interesting to feel a warm glow in the region of her heart—and other parts.
He ran up the porch stairs and grinned at the sight of her. “If you’re so cold, why don’t you go in?”
“I don’t like to be confined.”
“Right. I knew that. Scoot over.” He crowded her into one corner of the swing, pulled her into his arms and held her.
Slowly, she relaxed and allowed her head to sink onto his chest. “How do you stay so warm?” she asked.
“I’ve always been like this. I sleep naked in the winter.”
“Um.” Her apparently sex-starved mind constructed a glorious naked Max out of internet cowboys and James Bond movies. But Max didn’t deserve to have her using him for her own titillation, and hastily, she deconstructed the image.
“I’m not particularly hairy,” he said, “but I don’t wax and I’m not about to start. Is that okay?”
Naked Max was back, with a light dusting of body hair.
Her mouth was dry. She must be dehydrated. “Sure?”
“Do you have body hair?”
“Um. Parts of me. Since I’m blonde, there’s not actually…much.”
“Ah.” The sound was no more than a slow, soft exhale. He ran his fingers over her cropped head. “Blond all over.”
She broke a sweat. When she’d come out to the porch, the temperature had hovered at thirty-seven degrees. When had summer arrived?
“Whatever you do doesn’t matter to me. I like you the way you are.”
When had his voice grown so deep? Rumbly? “I don’t think that we should…talk about…”
“True. We shouldn’t talk.” He loosened his grip on her, stood up and offered her his hand. “Shall we go in and explore?”
She stared at that hand. She memorized the shape of the palm, broad and square, the length of the fingers, long and blunt, the nimble thumb, the sweeping lines, the scar under the index finger. She stared because she needed to think, but something about the stability and strength of that hand convinced her that thinking was overrated.
Putting her hand in his, she let him lift her to her feet. She didn’t know why he was doing this, but she followed him inside to his bedroom and watched him take off his clothes. When his clothes were off, then she knew why. He looked at her, still skinny, skittish, scarred and scared and broken, and he wanted her.
Taking a long breath, she dropped the heated throw, pulled off her headband, her gloves, her boots, socks, sweatshirt, jeans.
Max started to chuckle when she got to her winter underwear, and he came to help her. The man was efficient; he got her naked in no time. Then she was naked and he was naked and they were naked together, and she was very warm, and for the first time since seeing Gregory kill her cousin, she could sleep without nightmares.
She was safe.
Max’s family had gathered Ceecee into their collective bosom and smothered her with loving care. Yet as winter turned to a cold, wet spring, Max watched over her, gave her everything: food, drink, heat, love, laughter and sex, not necessarily in that order. It was, for Ceecee, a happy time…within reason. Someday soon, Max was going to want more from her. He would want to know where she came from, what her real name was, why she was hiding from her past.
She wasn’t ready to tell him. When she remembered her cousin, her soul shriveled with sorrow and guilt. Kellen Rae had had so much to live for, and she had died saving Cecilia. When Cecilia tried to look into the future, she couldn’t see herself ever telling Max the truth. When she did, Max would turn away and she would be alone and unloved. She did deserve that, but she couldn’t throw away what she had. Not yet.
But as she grew stronger, the old Cecilia, the person she had been before she met Gregory, the person who had gone off on her own to travel the United States, reasserted herself. She loved Max so much she couldn’t live without him, and that frightened her. She grew impatient with his care, then irritable. She started feeling tired, not really ill, but queasy and irritable. She looked for something to occupy her mind, and he was always working, so she offered to help him.
That was when Max made his fatal mistake.
He ran his hand through his dark hair and agreed. He said, “Sure. You’ve got a business degree. That would be great.”
He didn’t realize what he’d admitted.
At some point, he had looked at the documents Cecilia so vigilantly guarded. He believed she was Kellen Rae Adams. He thought she had a business degree. He probably knew the police wanted to talk to her in conjunction with the explosion at the Lykke house in Maine.
He had looked.
He had lied.
She was so sickened by the betrayal she threw up. Then while he was at work, she called his car service, took Kellen’s papers and ran away to Philadelphia. She didn’t have a plan, or money, or even good sense. What she had was a terrifying sense of panic. Max knew her secret, he’d never said a word about it to her—and the secret was a lie.
She had the car drop her off at Rittenhouse Square. She wandered the walks under budding trees and through cold sunshine. How could she explain to him her marriage, her cousin Kellen’s death, her own cowardice and deception?
Beneath Cecilia’s fear was a lurking anger.
Why had he looked at the papers she so carefully guarded? How dare he invade her privacy! Why had he broken his word? He had ruined everything.
A man, rough, unpolished, walked the path toward her. He had pulled the collar of his coat up around his ears and kept his hands plunged deep in his pockets. He had a desperate air about him, a reckless attitude she identified from her time on the streets.
She veered to avoid him.
He walked to intercept her, and she recognized him: Annabella’s father, Ettore Fontana, his face a death mask.
How had he found her so quickly?
Probably an informant on Max’s staff.
Across the wet, brown lawn, she saw a man running toward them. Running as fast as a linebacker could run. Max!
How had Max found her so quickly?
Probably through his credit card, the one that paid for the town car.
She tried to run.
Ettore grabbed her by one arm, pushed her up against a tree trunk and pulled a pistol out
of his pocket. He touched it to her forehead.
She froze, afraid to move, afraid not to move. She felt the cool metal, saw the black barrel, smelled her own fear.
Max raced toward them, his mouth open as if he was yelling, but she heard no sound except the heavy beat of blood in her ears.
Then…then nothing.
Nothing, until the moment when she woke in the hospital from her coma.
She remembered so much. Almost everything. But nothing would ever bring back that year after the bullet had entered her brain.
That didn’t matter, did it?
What mattered was that in the years since, she’d lived and grown and become the woman the real Kellen Rae Adams would be proud to know.
And maybe what mattered was that Max Di Luca seemed to think they had unfinished business.
Perhaps they did.
44
The town car slid to a stop.
Kellen sat up, groggy, her chest aching, her breath a struggle, her little finger so hot and swollen it felt as if it was a fat sausage roasting on a fire. She half laughed. Her chest, her fingers were the least of her problems. She would get on a helicopter, fly to the hospital and be made well. That was easy. That was clear. It was the welter of emotions connected to Max and their past that was difficult.
The chauffeur opened the back door, grasped Kellen by the waist and forcefully helped her out.
Wait. The car had stopped at the airstrip, but the runway lights were on. A small corporate jet waited, stairs down, engine idling. That made no sense. They didn’t need an airplane to get her to the hospital.
“Where’s the helicopter?” she asked.
The chauffeur put her arm around Kellen’s shoulders, pulled her tight and said, “We’re taking the plane.”
“Max said there would be a helicopter.”
“Max does not command me.”
Kellen looked up at the woman who held her so tightly. In the reflected light of the runway, that face looked like a horror mask from around the campfire. But Kellen recognized the hazel eyes, the unkempt blond hair, the wide mouth, the high, aristocratic forehead. Erin Lykke.