A big, loud relationship warning alarm went off in Summer’s head. “What does she want?”
“Out of prison.”
“You won’t help her?” Summer didn’t know what she thought of that.
“That’s not an option. She tells me she and my father had to steal to survive, that the world was against them, and that they had to make a living any way they could. No matter how successful I am as a strategy analyst, no matter how much money I make as a businessman, she still believes that if I had continued to participate in the family business, my father would be alive today.”
“She blames you for your father’s death?” This was getting real. Gritty. “How did your father die?”
“One Friday night about ten years ago, he climbed onto a roof to rob a school, stepped on a skylight, and fell twenty feet into an empty classroom. Broke his legs, his back … he lay there all weekend until the janitor found him on Monday morning.”
Summer covered her mouth in horror.
“The police took him to a secure ward in the hospital. He took a week to die.” Kennedy showed no emotion: not embarrassment, and certainly not sorrow. “My mother was grief-stricken. I believe she truly was. I believe she did feel affection for him, although perhaps that affection was driven by how easily she could manipulate him.”
“She … manipulated him?”
“She manipulates everyone.”
With bone-dark certainty, she said, “Not you.”
“Most certainly me. For most of my childhood, I observed my father and mother. I saw how she handled him with a combination of charm, guilt, and misdirection, and I despised him for it. I was unaware of her machinations in regards to me. Until … until I saw her with my little sister. By the time Tabitha was two, Mother had taught her to steal wallets from purses. Mother believed in early training, and Tabitha was good, as I had been.” He moved his pen and notebook around the desk, lining them up in different directions, then parallel to each other. Then he stopped, looked at his hands, and gripped the edge of the table. “Tabitha was caught, as I had been. I saw my mother pretend to be horrified, apologize, tell the kind lady that Tabitha would be going to our church and speaking to the minister.”
“You had a church?”
He laughed shortly. “Not at all. That was my mother, stage-managing her way out of police action. But for Tabitha, the incident was her first realization what we did was not a game. That lady whose wallet she lifted cried because she was poor, because she desperately needed the money we would have taken. Tabitha was tiny, but she saw the lady’s children, she saw the poverty, and she didn’t want to steal more.”
“Your mother forced her to—”
“Not forced! Never forced. Manipulated her. Told Tabitha how disappointed she was in her, how we all had our jobs in the family, how if Tabitha didn’t put her own family first she would be our downfall.” Kennedy hated admitting this, hated admitting who and what his mother was. “I’d heard it before. I heard it when I rebelled, when I felt compassion … when I said I wanted to attend school.”
Summer released her in-held breath. “You didn’t go to school? At all?”
“I was homeschooled.” The man knew how to use sarcasm.
“You went to MIT. You had to be able to test in.”
“My family is blessed with high IQs and technical brains. Once I was no longer in my parents’ custody, I caught up quickly.”
Summer nodded. “I can see you would.” She could also see why he had become so successful. He had the motivation only the child of a misfit could have, and a mind that had grown outside the bounds of conventional education.
“I will never forget the blistering humiliation I felt when I realized I was as much a creature of my mother’s machinations as were my pathetic father and my baby sister.” Kennedy touched Summer lightly on the shoulder. “Whatever affection I felt for my mother died long ago. But I know my responsibilities. I fulfill my responsibilities without fail. But I will not help Mother get out of prison. If I did, whatever damage she did, whoever she hurt with her scams … I would be accountable.”
“I see that. And I’m sorry.” What else was Summer supposed to say? “I’m sorry.” Reading about his early life had given her insight into the reason for his successes. But it hadn’t given her the details, or a glimpse of the pain that had formed him. Putting down her forgotten coffee cup, she leaned in and hugged him.
He didn’t return her embrace. But he allowed her the gesture.
“How did this affect your sister?” she asked.
He gripped her arms and set her back into the chair. “I don’t talk about Tabitha.”
“Okay.” Summer understood his reluctance. But she also knew she had been put firmly in her place.
“As I stated, I always fulfill my responsibilities. Which is why I will now do what must be done.” He showed all the granite-jawed lack of emotion he had while talking about his parents.
“What’s that?”
“I will marry you.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
“What?” The injury to Summer’s brain must have been worse than she realized, because she was hallucinating.
“I will marry you. Right away. We can fly to Las Vegas and be done with it. We can even stay the night if you like.”
Obviously, it wasn’t her brain that had been affected. Kennedy was crazy. “Michael Gracie?” she said. “Remember him? Despite everything I’ve said, you don’t believe he can track us?”
“You give him too much credit. Or perhaps you don’t give me enough. I can distract him, lose him.”
“Why am I even discussing this with you?” She threw her hands into the air, then winced at the thoughtless gesture and the pain it caused. “The whole idea is … absurd. Why would you want to marry me?”
“As you know, I have quite an uncontrollable desire for you, and you seem to react to me with similar fervor.”
“Fervor?”
“And as I know, you have the need for security. You want to be married.”
“What?”
“The other men—”
“Other men?” She felt the hair rising on the back of her head.
“Your other fiancés. They let you think about it too long.”
“It?”
“Marriage. You realized the dangers inherent in a lifetime relationship. I don’t blame you for that, the divorce rate proves they are certainly there, but I think we can agree we’re two intelligent people who can work out any problem, even going so far as to take that problem to a marriage counselor.” He was pontificating. Oblivious to her rising fury, he continued, “You search for fulfillment imprecisely, for you fear commitment. The abrupt loss of your father scarred you, made you a coward, and your mother’s disinterest taught you the sense of maintaining a shelter around your emotions.”
She contemplated the various shades of red that colored her vision. “So you know what I’m thinking, huh? What I’m feeling? Better than I do?”
“As I said, I have studied you. I may not be right in every instance, but my hypotheses are usually correct.”
In a voice she thought sounded reasonable, she asked, “Excuse me. While I’m flattered you give me credit for some intelligence, I’m obviously not up to your standard of intelligence, because I don’t understand how we got from, Summer, you should go to California where you’ll be safe to, Summer, we have the hots for each other so let’s get married.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not making myself clear.” He looked concerned, as though being unclear was a carnal sin. “That’s unlike me.”
It didn’t escape her attention that he had also tacitly agreed she wasn’t up to his standard of intelligence. She flailed her arms around, and winced again. “This is bullshit! My former fiancés are none of your business. Nor do you know anything about my reasons for ending those relationships. How dare you presume that you do?”
“As I said—”
“Yeah. You studied me. I haven’t studied you, at lea
st not in any depth, so tell me, what would be the point of this marriage? Obviously not eternal bliss, since you’re already discussing a marriage counselor.”
“Eternal bliss is unlikely in any relationship, but I would hope we could live out our lives together.”
“Because we could have good sex?”
“It’s also for your safety.”
He wasn’t making sense. “This is the stupidest conversation I’ve ever had.”
“If we were married, you would not fight to remain here, because you would have no reason to worry about your business.”
“Why not?”
“I’m wealthy.”
She stared at him, stared until her eyes burned, stared while her hand twitched to slap him. “You rich guys think the same damned thing every time—that a woman can’t say no to money. Has it occurred to you my second fiancé was probably as wealthy as you are, and I broke it off?”
“He was older. I assumed—”
“You assumed he couldn’t get it up? Not a problem! He was Italian. He was a great lover. But like you, he thought that if we got married, I wouldn’t care whether I worked at a job that challenged and excited me.”
For the first time, Kennedy broke out of his self-centered pride and noticed her agitation. “If you wished, you could start over again in California.”
She stood up—she was so angry, she didn’t notice any aches or pains—and pulled on her jacket.
He stood, too. “What are you doing?”
“I’m leaving.”
“You can’t leave. He’s out there.”
“You’re in here. Anyway, you don’t believe he’s as scary as I do, and according to you, you must be right. And”—she shook her finger in his face—“if he wanted to take me out, he could merely firebomb this house!”
Her outrage seemed to astonish him. “What did I say wrong? It wasn’t a romantic proposal of marriage, I realize that, but in such grim circumstances—”
She turned on him. “Romantic? You think I’m concerned about romantic? Today I was almost killed by a falling tree. Two weeks ago, a woman who looks like me was hit by a car. Ten months ago, I almost died of hypothermia. Right before that”—she lifted her hand and showed him—“I cut off my own finger to escape a murderer. Before that I lived almost four months in some of the most brutal, primitive conditions on earth. You think I need to get married to survive? You think the fact that I value my business is some ploy to trick you into marriage?”
“Not at all, but—”
“You think you’ve had a tough life because your parents are career criminals and you had to get out and make yourself into the great American success story. You think you’re doing me a favor by honoring me with your hand in marriage. At least you’ve got two whole hands. You don’t know jackshit about survival.” She tapped her chest. “I will survive. And if I don’t, if Michael Gracie kills me, you don’t need to feel responsible. Tell yourself you offered me marriage and I was too stupid to recognize the honor you bestowed upon me.” She stalked toward the back door.
He followed her. “It would be easier for me to keep tabs on you if you are in my custody.”
“Yes, it would be awful if Summer was in your care and lifted the mayor’s wallet or stole some old lady’s diamond wedding ring.” Summer opened the door, then flung herself back to face him, to confront his prejudices and his assumptions. “By the way, I broke into houses to survive. If I hadn’t done it, I would have died. You might have had a tough childhood, but you’ve never had to face a choice like that, so how dare you judge me?” She should have shut up then, but she couldn’t. She finished with a flourish: “You are a pompous, bigoted ass.”
She slammed the door. Really hard.
And she wished she could do it again.
So she did.
CHAPTER FIFTY
The dream started easily, pleasantly. Summer found Kennedy was walking on the beach, barefoot, bare-chested, and handsome as sin. She ran up to him, caught him from behind, and hugged him. He turned in her arms, and kissed her, one of those marvelous deep, wet kisses that taught her heart how to beat. They fell on the sand and rolled, and she was on top, still kissing him. He said, “I love you, please marry me.”
She was so happy. This was what she wanted. This. His asking not because it was his duty, but because he loved her.
She whispered, “Yes,” and he caressed her until she was on the verge of orgasm, straining, reaching … and as climax took her, he rolled her beneath him and laughed. “Summer, you’ll be happy with me,” he said.
She looked up—but it wasn’t Kennedy. It was Michael Gracie, looming, smiling, looking deeply into her eyes … holding her while she struggled. A wave washed over them, and he pushed her into the sand, into the dark. She was buried in the earth, in a cave, she couldn’t breathe.
Summer woke up, sweaty and tangled in the twisted blankets. Gasping, she fought her way free. She sat up, knees bent, and cupped her head in her hands.
Her subconscious was not exactly subtle. It told her the thing she already knew, but had not acknowledged. Kennedy and Michael Gracie were both brilliant, charismatic, handsome, focused. They were two sides of the same coin.
Kennedy stood in the light, did everything in full view of the world, and fiercely disdained any criminal activity. She suspected he would fire a man for stealing a pencil. So he was the good guy—except that he made no attempt to understand human weakness. He was stiff-necked, unyielding, uncompromising.
Michael lived in the shadows, hid the truth about himself and his activities, murdered with impunity. So he was the bad guy. Yet his people were dedicated to him. Those men in the wine cellar had been willing to do anything he asked, and not just out of fear. He had been kind to Georg’s kitchen staff. His party had raised a hundred thousand dollars for breast cancer research, and he had personally matched the amount. He did good things, maybe not for the right reasons, but they were still good.
Both men were attractive to her.
She did not really trust Kennedy McManus—if driven into a choice among her and his sister and nephew, Summer knew she would lose—yet she had kissed him the first time she met him. Had been tempted to hit the sheets with him.
But having the hots for Michael Gracie? What did that say about her? She had seen him shoot a man in the head. She had cut off her own finger to get away from him. Yet the memory at that moment in the kitchen when he had touched her cheek, and she looked into his eyes, had stayed with her. She felt as if she had caught a glimpse of his tormented soul.
Even more than that, she felt as if he had seen something in her that called to him. Why else would he have singled her out? Had he seen her loneliness? Had he somehow glimpsed the terror and the privation drove her to steal, to live in isolation? That moment when he touched her with compassion had branded her as his, and no matter what stark and terrifying truths she told herself—about kidnapping, extortion, and murder—could not sever that spiritual connection.
Logically, she shouldn’t—didn’t—care if he was tormented.
But emotionally … she cared. She wanted to help him.
My God. She had walked away from her last fiancé because he had tried to reduce her to a decoration on his arm. It hadn’t been easy, but in the end, she had felt pretty good about that.
Then she threw herself into danger to save a child’s life, survived a long-term ordeal that would have killed most people, escaped, built a life … by damn, she was a goddess in every way!
Except in this matter of Michael Gracie, the guy who wanted to reduce her to a grease spot on the highway. Apparently she was a sucker for a man with a tormented soul. Obviously she was a woman who cherished a belief that a woman’s love could transform a psychopath. What kind of self-destructive female had she become?
The kind who wrote love letters to serial killers in prison.
She was disgusted, humiliated, haunted … and yet, she could not shake her mental conviction that she and Michael Grac
ie shared a connection.
A knock sounded at her front door.
She jumped, lifted her head from her hands. Had she summoned him with her thoughts? And which him did she mean?
She slid out of bed and through the tiny living room. She looked through the peephole, and sighed in relief. She opened the door. “Kateri. What’s up?”
Kateri used her walker to shove Summer aside. She trekked in, turned on Summer. “We need to get our costumes for the party.”
Wow. That was a change. “Are we going?”
“I’m having visions about my Coasties dying in some horrible costume party cataclysm and I’m not there, so yes, we’re going.”
Summer inspected her. Kateri’s dark hair stood up in clumps. Shadows ringed her eyes. She hunched over her walker as if it was the only thing keeping her upright. They took Kateri’s visions seriously because sometimes they came true. “You do look sort of rough.”
“You should talk.”
Summer rubbed her face, then headed into the bathroom, leaned over the sink and splashed cool water over it. “Nightmares‘R’Us, babe. I can’t go.”
Kateri followed. “Because he’ll be there?”
Summer’s mind jumped between the two men in her dream. “Who?”
“Michael Gracie. Who else is giving you nightmares?”
“I’m giving them to myself.” Summer used a towel to dry herself off.
“Look, the way I see it, he knows you’re here. If he’s going to kill you, is he going to do it at the party?”
“No. That would cause a fuss, and possibly lead the police back to him.” Summer opened her drawer and got out underwear.
“Right. He’ll sneak in and kill you while you’re alone.”
“Thanks, that’s reassuring.”
“I’m not trying to reassure you. I’m trying to make you weigh the odds and come to the right conclusion.”
“And be your ride to the party.”
“That, too.”
Summer shut the door in her face, dressed, and came out in jeans and a T-shirt. “Michael’s conceited. As in, his murders are clean—he gets away with them all—unless he’s trying to scare the bejesus out of you.”