Irresistibly Exotic Men: Bed of Lies / Falling For Dr Dimitriou / Her Little Spanish Secret
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Luke replaced the pen, screwed up his eyes and pinched his nose high on the bridge.
Gino’s desk at Aphrodite’s was identical—same layout, same pens. Same scent of leather, polished wood and cigar smoke.
Every little thing was determined to remind him of that night, even while he’d been trying to forget it. Like a convicted man accepting his fate, he let the memories flood in.
The board had expressed their displeasure earlier that day and Luke had been in a white-hot fury. Regardless of the warnings issued to keep his distance from Gino, he’d stormed into the casino spoiling for a fight. Security had wisely kept out of his way, and frustrated as all hell, he’d slammed into Gino’s office.
Luke grunted, remembrance flooding in like waters over a burst dam, too late to stop it.
Those sharp accusations he’d flung at Gino had been like a red rag to a bull, and his uncle had never been one to turn down a fight.
“Dammit all to hell, Gino! Are you using the casino as a money-laundering front?”
Gino shot to his feet, his face flushed. “No! You of all people should know that!”
“Should I?” Luke’s eyes narrowed. “I heard the evidence is before the Director of Public Prosecutions. And if he thinks that’s enough for a trial then there’s probably enough to convict.”
“I know the law, Lucio.”
“Apparently not enough!”
Gino matched Luke’s dark look with one of his own, his breath coming in heavy puffs. “I will not have you stand there and accuse me of breaking the law! I will not!”
“Well, that’s too bad.” Luke shoved his face in Gino’s. “Because right now, I don’t give a damn if you’re fiddling with the tables, cooking the books or ripping off the bloody queen of England. All I care about is that stink rubbing off on me.” He slammed his palms down on the desk, his voice deadly calm. “And no one messes with my job.”
Every time he relived those few moments, it never got any better. Luke recalled every heated word, every frustrated gesture.
And the outcome was exactly the same every time. Midargument, Gino went bright red, clutched his chest and collapsed.
With a vicious curse, Luke shot to his feet.
The doctors said nothing could have saved him, even if he’d had a heart attack right in the middle of the emergency ward. Still, the guilt had eaten at him until Luke could hardly think straight. CPR was futile; the medics had had to pull him off Gino when he’d refused to believe his uncle had been dead for ten minutes.
Guilt had kept him from seeing Rosa before the funeral. Even then he’d defied a direct order and attended the service, for all the good it did everyone. It had been pure torture. A couple of reporters had been thrown out, Marco had erupted in a rage and all the while Rosa’s red-rimmed eyes drilled into his very soul. Still, she’d said nothing, accepted his lame condolences with good grace and said not one word about the argument or Luke’s lengthy absence. Which made him feel doubly worse.
Marco had remained uncharacteristically silent throughout the service, but every time his eyes settled on Luke, they’d been bright and angry. Afterward, he’d let it all come spilling out and Luke had deserved it, had welcomed it, even. It was his cross to bear.
Now he focused on the television screen and the remote control he gripped.
He pressed Play and began to watch.
“You and Lucio—you are friends?” Rosa began after she sent Marco off to get drinks then took a seat on the couch beside Beth.
Beth choked down a laugh. “Hardly. I made an offer on the house, but he refused it then moved in. No.” Her gaze drifted to the archway where he’d disappeared. “Definitely not friends.”
“I see.” She clasped her hands in her lap. “But he told you about Melina and Salvatore. His parents,” she clarified.
“Yes.”
Rosa was shaking her head, the pain of remembrance etched in the lines around her eyes. “My brother and his wife were very proud, very strict and devoutly religious. When Lucio found out about us, he blamed Gino for not making an effort, for not coming to their aid when they’d been struggling for so long in near poverty. Stubborn, just like Marco.” She smiled, but it quickly disappeared. “Lucio lived with us for nearly three years, holding on tight to that grudge every day. He was such an angry, scared boy, trying so very hard to be a man, and anything we did just pushed him further away. But he was a gifted child and he threw himself into his studies, then his job. It gave him strength, gave him the control and security he needed. And I’ve seen him barely a dozen times since then.”
Rosa’s voice broke, but she valiantly held on to her composure. “And now he’s living with you.”
“Not living with me. He’s in the spare room.”
“So he trusts you.” When Beth shook her head, Rosa said, “He does, bella. If he didn’t, you’d have been out within a day.”
“It’s not trust that’s keeping him there, Rosa. It’s suspicion. He thought I was Gino’s mistress.”
Rosa choked back a laugh. “Really?”
“Yes.” Beth bit her lip to stop a smile from escaping. “We both agreed to work this out together and not get the police involved.”
“Ah.” She tapped a finger on her chin in thoughtful silence.
“Look, there’s nothing—”
Marco returned then with a bottle of wine and four glasses, cutting off Beth’s protest.
She took the proffered glass, determinedly avoiding Rosa’s scrutiny.
“So you’re living with Luke, huh?” Marco began, grinning over the rim of his glass as he perched on the couch arm.
Beth swallowed a sigh. “Not that way we’re not.”
His eyebrows rose. “But you share a house.”
Ah, yes. The house. “For the moment, yes.”
“There you go.” Marco took a swig, rolled the wine around in his mouth then swallowed. “Significant milestone, I’d say.”
“You both look good together,” Rosa interrupted. “I can see there’s something else there than just friends. Sì?”
“No!” Beth cleared her throat and tried again. “No, there isn’t.”
Rosa made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort. “You need a good strong man in your life. I may be old but I know amore. Love, it will make your problems go away. It will make you trust again, eh?”
She took Beth’s still hands and squeezed. “I know how much you guard your secrets, bella. Lucio, he has a few of his own.”
Beth blinked, looking from Rosa to Marco grinning behind his wineglass.
Since when had the evening turned into a “what Beth needs is a man” discussion?
She recalled the times Rosa had mentioned her family. On the massage table, clients opened up and talked about the most intimate details of their lives—family feuds, career woes, relationships. Rosa’s favorite subject had been her family. She’d boasted of their virtues nearly every session, how talented her son was, how her handsome nephew needed a good woman to slow him down, make him appreciate life more.
Luke suddenly appeared, interrupting Beth’s response.
“You found it, Lucio?” Rosa asked, drawing away from Beth.
“Yes.” His eyes were expressionless, unreadable. “We should go.”
Rosa looked surprised. “You are not staying for dinner?”
“Sorry. Beth?”
Beth threw Rosa an apologetic glance and stood. “Maybe another time?”
“Sì.” Rosa kissed Beth on both cheeks, her eyes full of unanswered questions. “Ciao, bella. Drive safely.”
Eleven
They went back the way they came, this time with a guard holding a ladder against the wall. Luke opted to drive and Beth let him, knowing if they were spotted, he’d lose their pursuers quickly.
“I’m sorry you got messed up in this,” Luke said suddenly.
Beth sighed. “Rosa just wanted to help me, Luke. You’re not to blame for that.”
He shook his head. “I still can’t believe she went to all that trouble to help you out.”
“I can.” She gave a small smile. “Her heart is very much in the right place.”
Luke slanted her a look but she remained silent. Was he waiting for her to point out all of this could’ve been sorted out days ago, if only he’d picked up Rosa’s calls? She never kicked someone when he was down and despite the facade, Luke had been squarely punched.
“I just hope this doesn’t turn around to bite us in the ass,” he said quietly.
“Then we’ll just have to be extra careful,” Beth said.
They lapsed into silence. Beth wanted to ask him what he’d found in Gino’s office, but if he’d wanted her to know he would have shared. So instead she went with the main question that had been bugging her for the past hour.
“So who’s Gabrielle?”
His eyes remained fixed on the road. “My ex-wife.” Wow. She had not seen that one coming. “How did you two meet?”
“In college.”
“And were you—”
“Look, Beth, I’d rather not talk about it, okay?”
She watched him work his jaw, his mouth a thin line.
“Okay.”
The deep rumble of thunder filled the silence. Beth peered out the darkened window. “Might rain.”
“Looks like it.”
Great. Now I’m resorting to the inanities of weather. She snapped her mouth closed and took a deep breath of moisture-laden air.
The first fat drops of rain began to fall as they arrived home. Inside the house, the darkness was lit only by the warm glow of a small lamp.
When Luke paused in the hallway to retrieve a stray piece of mail that had fallen from the side table, she plowed straight into his broad back.
It was like touching naked flame. She sprang back. “Sorry.”
“How are you holding up?”
His concern and silent scrutiny undid her.
It could have been the way his eyes caressed her face, the gruffness of his voice, the way he sensed all those hidden feelings she tried to bury. Or his incredible vulnerability behind an almost impenetrable wall of control. And here she was standing a bare inch away and practically aching to reach out and smooth those creases hovering across his brow. “I’m fine. Just not very tired.”
“Do you want a drink?”
“Okay.” Inside, her heart was doing a dance on her ribs. “I’ll be down in a moment.” She went to the stairs, gave him one brief glance then went up to her bedroom.
Dressed in a pair of loose drawstring linen pants and a blue tank top, Beth paused at the top of the stairs. Below lay an abyss of darkness, punctuated only by the candles on the coffee table, their familiar fragrance drifting through the ground floor. The flames danced and teased, as if they knew their purpose was to calm and soothe but deliberately doing the opposite.
She took a deep breath and descended. Luke’s long legs stretched out on the floor, crossed at the ankles. His back was cradled by the leg of the couch and in his hand he absently twirled a half-full wineglass.
Swiftly she crossed the room and tugged the curtains apart. “You should really see the sky—it’s great on a night like this. See?”
Through the inky blackness, past the fence line, the river rippled and tossed with the wind. In the distance a brief glimpse of stars glittered, tiny diamonds in indigo velvet, before the rolling black storm clouds gradually engulfed them.
“Here comes that rain.”
“Yep.” Luke poured some more wine then gestured to the spot beside him. She sat, took the glass he offered then sipped in silence. And slowly, the lull of the alcohol, the slashing rain and the flickering candles began to work their magic.
With a gentle snort, Beth shook her head.
“What?” Luke said.
“Your aunt.” At the questioning curve to his eyebrow, she added, “She really loved Gino, didn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
Beth sighed. “My parents missed out on so much.”
Luke watched her contemplate the fabric of her pants, as if they provided an answer only she could decipher.
“Tell me,” he said softly.
She shot him a brief glance from under her lashes then focused on her hands, linking her fingers together. Here is the church, here is the steeple …
“Oh, just …” She gestured with a shrug. “It’s nothing.”
“Not nothing.”
When her expression tightened, Luke sensed the remnants of something more, something worrying enough to make her shift uncomfortably and straighten her shoulders.
Then she took a deep breath and began to speak.
“I was seventeen and just out of high school while my mom worked two jobs. Then one day, in the middle of fourth term, she booked us on a flight to Perth with money I knew we didn’t have.”
She stopped abruptly, letting the silence swallow her confession. Luke remained still, allowing her time to reveal the pieces of her past.
“I had no money, no life and barely a functioning parent,” she eventually continued. “For once I wanted to be normal, to travel, to experience new things.” He could almost hear her wistfulness as she recalled long-forgotten dreams. “I should’ve said no but she was so excited. She never got excited about anything, not since my dad left. I couldn’t—” she hesitated, then finished lamely “—bring myself to rain on her parade.”
I was just a naive teenager, Beth reminded herself. Wanting an adventure. An escape from the endless boredom of my life.
Her mouth tilted at the memory. She’d locked her past tightly away and she could try to convince herself that Luke’s appearance had forced the memories to surface. But the truth was, her very existence had already begun to turn the key. Now the door gaped wide-open.
Yet her slowly blossoming trust continued to war with a lifetime of secrets. She could feel the warm burn of his eyes and braced herself for the breathlessness and panic to set in. It was there, buzzing faintly in the background, but way less urgent, less dark than before.
That meant something. It had to.
“I was in an accident and people died, my mother included. So about a year later, I met a guy. He seemed nice and I liked him. I was eighteen and of course, you fall in love with every guy you date, right? So one night, after we … uh, were in bed—” she swallowed, embarrassed “—he told me he was a reporter, that he’d been trying to track me down for weeks and could I give him an exclusive.”
From the corner of her eye she could see Luke’s still profile. The dim light and deep shadows cast his features into sharp angles, doing nothing to hide the flint in his eyes or the tightening of his jaw.
She didn’t want to take that step backward, to delve into that pool of loss, betrayal and the inevitable vulnerability that failure had brought her. The past was dead and gone but still had the power to humiliate. Just as she felt a mild panic attack well up in her chest, she recalled the tiny bits of memory she’d shoved away—the irritation on Jack’s face when she’d slammed out the door, the hurtful revelation that cut like tiny shards of glass. And the sickening realization she would never truly be able to leave the past behind. She had to get out before it completely destroyed her.
She straightened her back against the hard couch leg. The panic attack faded as she went on. “So, there you go.” She drew a stray curl behind her ears with a firm hand. “That’s why I don’t trust anyone.”
When he reached for her, she pulled back. “Don’t.”
He ignored her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “Don’t what?” he murmured. “Don’t touch you? Or don’t care that you’ve been hurt?”
She buried her face in his chest, her answer muffled. “Both.”
“Too late.”
As they sat there on the floor cradling each other, she felt the tight constraints of her past begin to crumble.
“You’re into touching a lot, aren’t you?” she muttered against his shoulder.
“Yep.” She closed her eyes as his fingers went into her hair. God, that felt good. “Get used to it.”
After an eternity of her against the world, Beth nearly convinced herself he meant that. He’d slowly attacked her defenses, questioned her reasons for being alone. She knew she couldn’t hold out forever under this tender barrage. Openness was a luxury she did without, and yet she could feel herself warming to it, welcoming it.
Regretfully, she drew back and felt a surge of terrible loss. But that was dumb. How could she lose what wasn’t hers?
“Why do you blame yourself for Gino’s death?” she asked after a while.
His eyes watching her over the rim of his wineglass suddenly sharpened. “You really want to go down that road?”
She tilted her chin up. “Yes,” then, more softly, “I want to help you.”
“I was suspended, I confronted Gino, we argued and he had a heart attack,” he stated flatly.
He paused, almost as if he expected her to run screaming from the room. She stayed right where she was.
“Don’t look at me like that!” he muttered.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re doing right now. I don’t deserve it. I don’t need it.”
Beth sighed. “You don’t think you deserve my understanding and support?”
“No. Weren’t you listening? I killed my uncle.”
“So you said.”
Her composure was beginning to irritate him. “So I don’t need—”
“Don’t tell me what to feel, Luke.” She poked a finger in his chest. “You loved Gino. You miss him. How he died doesn’t erase a lifetime of good memories. Do you even know what I would’ve given for a family like yours?”
Luke’s scowl matched hers. “They’re not saints.”
“So whose are? At least they love you.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand.”
“Whatever taints them taints you, right?” From the look on his face she knew she’d hit a nerve. “And you think bottling up your misplaced guilt is a good way of handling it? If Gino were alive, you’d still have to go through the inquiry. You’d still be on suspension. Nothing would’ve changed. Would Gino have wanted you beating yourself up about it?” She went on more gently. “With all this craziness around you, you don’t need to take the blame for Gino, too. You can’t do your job if you don’t respect your own decisions. Believe me, I know.”
Luke was staring at her, his dark eyes narrowed to speculative slits.
“How do you do that?” he muttered.
“What?”
“Know exactly what—” He looked away.
“What you’re thinking?” She gave him a smile. “You’ve hardly cornered the market on the guilt trip. Don’t punish yourself. Tell Rosa how you feel.”
Luke snorted. “And have her hate me?”
“She won’t hate you. She loves you.”
Luke just stared straight ahead, intent on his thoughts.
His profile was perfect—full mouth, strong nose, broad brow. And underneath lurked a vulnerability that tugged at her heart so badly she wanted to wrap her arms around him and never let go.
“You can trust me, too, you know.”
Luke tilted the glass to his lips and swallowed, letting her statement hang until it felt like a leaded weight.
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