Her plan: find an Internet café and drink coffee until the library’s doors opened.
The library. She shook her head. Once upon a time she’d have killed time by shopping in Manhattan or Paris or Milan. But not now. Not with her budget and travel restrictions. She needed somewhere free and air-conditioned where she could pass the hours and keep herself too occupied to think about the ecstatic “welcome home” dance her hormones had done when Lucas’s lips had touched hers.
She didn’t spot anyone following her. Nevertheless, she squeezed into a group of a half dozen other people crossing the street trying to get lost in the crowd.
It might have only been sixty hours since her “dead” husband had risen, but she’d already figured out the Lucas of today wasn’t the Lucas of her past. He wasn’t going to jump when she crooked her little finger. And she wasn’t sure exactly how far he’d go to make her fall in line with his plans. Whatever those were, she wanted no part of them…unless they included a new divorce. And that didn’t seem to be on his agenda.
She observed the other commuters until she managed to figure out how to buy a day-pass ticket and then she boarded the train. It was disgusting how reliant she’d become on others for trivial but necessary details in twenty-nine years. Her father was right. She’d had no clue how to survive in the real world.
But she was going to learn.
She wasn’t co-dependent at work. On the job she was more than competent. Just look how well she’d done these past three years with that damned Andvari challenging her every step. The company had made her job a living hell by stealing most of KCL’s suppliers. She’d had to bust her butt to find the goods the cruise line needed at reasonable prices. Even her father hadn’t been able to find fault with the creative solutions she’d presented to the Andvari problem.
But personally, well, she needed a little more work than a day at the spa could fix. And that was probably her father’s point in exiling her halfway across the country.
Understanding his motives didn’t mean she wasn’t still peeved with him. Seriously she’d-never-forgive-him peeved.
The DART ride passed quickly and mercifully without incident. She even managed to get off at the right stop. After coffee and a fruit-yogurt-and-granola parfait she entered the library as soon as the doors opened. One whiff and she felt right at home. Nothing smelled like a building full of books.
Back during her college days she’d spent a lot of time hanging out in the stacks, studying and avoiding her father.
See a pattern here, Nadia? Her shrink’s voice echoed in her head.
Hmm. She avoided the pushy men in her life by hiding out. Yes, definitely a pattern. One she needed to correct. And she would. As soon as she was on firmer ground. But for now she’d continue avoiding Lucas. And if he found her in this library, then Google said there were twenty-two others in the Dallas area and all had free Wi-Fi. She’d keep moving and try to stay one step ahead of him.
Speaking of Google, he’d had her so rattled she’d forgotten to do an Internet search on him.
With the first order of business determined, she found a quiet table tucked in the back and out of sight of the main entrance and booted up her laptop. She typed in Lucas Stone and hit Search.
There were several Lucas Stones, but none of them were hers. Not hers. Him, she corrected. She tried a different search engine with the same results, then a third and a fourth. How peculiar. If the man owned businesses, he shouldn’t be this hard to find.
She opened her e-mail account and typed in her brother’s address. Mitch had resources she lacked. She composed a quick message asking him to check the apartment paperwork for an eviction clause and the will constraints to see if Lucas could indeed boot her out and what the consequences of that would be.
And then she made her last request.
As much as she hated asking for help again, she needed to know exactly who and what she was up against with Lucas Stone.
“You dodged your driving lesson.”
Lucas’s voice behind her in the apartment hallway made Nadia jump. She hadn’t heard him open his door. She kept her back to him and turned her key in the lock. “Sorry. I had things to do.”
“You failed to mention your busy schedule last night when I told you to meet me at nine.”
Searching her brain for any excuse to get out of another evening in his company, she faced him. He wore faded jeans and a white V-neck T-shirt. Both Diesel. The man had learned how to dress his assets. And he had quite a few of them to display.
Ignore his assets.
“Probably because you ordered me to be ready instead of asking. You should remember that orders give me hives.”
Her father had excelled at issuing commands and he’d expected unquestioning compliance. So, yes, she’d stood up to Lucas. Unforgivably rude of her, but given that the alternative of spending the day with him had been much more dangerous to her willpower, she’d decided a little discourtesy was the wiser option.
“You have five minutes to get ready for your lesson.”
“Lucas, I’m tired. I’ve been out all day. I just want dinner and sleep.”
“We have reservations after your lesson. You won’t have to cook.”
Another meal she wouldn’t have to prepare. Tempting, but hadn’t he heard a word she’d said? “And if I refuse?”
He pulled his cell phone from his back pocket.
He’d call his attorney or the press or…whoever could make her life the most miserable. ’Nuff said.
“It’ll take me more than five minutes to get ready.”
“Ten.”
“Ten minutes? But—”
“Clock’s ticking. We’re running out of daylight for your lesson.” His watch face glinted in the overhead lighting.
“Don’t you have anything better to do than harass me?”
“What could be more important than reconnecting with my long-lost wife?”
“I am not your wife.”
“Would you like to see the copy of the divorce petition and the final decree I received today? I compared your signatures to the ones from your old letters. The signatures on the legal documents are good copies. But they’re not yours.”
Just what she was afraid of. Mitch was supposed to be overnighting the paperwork to her so she could verify that fact.
Then Lucas’s words registered. Her letters.
A flush warmed her from the inside out. He hadn’t had Internet access back then so they’d corresponded the old-fashioned paper way. The notes they’d exchanged had been…racy to say the least. Full of fantasies and intent and raw emotion.
She’d kept everything he’d given her. Every letter. Every ticket stub. Every dried, pressed flower. These days the collection was buried in the back of her closet in Miami.
After Lucas’s “death” she’d practically set up a shrine in her room for Lucas and their son. Her father had hated that. Now she knew why he’d badgered her so tenaciously to find someone new, rushing her past her grief until she’d struck back by deliberately bringing home the worst possible candidates, one after another, and flaunting them in her father’s face until he’d quit nagging her.
But none of those men had ever been able to take Lucas’s place or make the numbness go away. And none of them had been able to fill the void caused by the loss of her baby.
Lord, what if she had found someone? What if she’d married him? She shoved away the thought.
“You still have my old letters?” She’d lost count of the number of nights she’d slept with his clutched in her arms.
Memo to self: Throw the crap out.
“I kept them to remind me that some women don’t honor their vows.”
“But I—”
He held up a hand. “Your father screwed us both. I don’t hold you responsible for that. Get moving, Nadia. You only have eight minutes left.”
She stomped into her apartment and swung the door shut behind her. A boom jerked her around. Lucas had his palm splayed on the wood. He’d caught the door before it slammed in his face.
“I’ll wait inside.”
So she wouldn’t change her mind and lock him out. Smart man to know the thought had crossed her mind. More than once.
She could argue with him, but what purpose would that serve? He had her with the dual threats of eviction and exposure and he knew it. She marched into her bedroom and locked that door before stripping.
She would not dress up for him. Instead she pulled on last year’s black jeans and a lime-green XCVI shirt. The ruched knit top made her br**sts look larger. She probably should have had them augmented like everyone else in her Miami circle, but she still had an allergy to hospitals. Couldn’t get near one without feeling as if her throat had closed up and she was going to suffocate.
She checked the mirror and finger combed her desperately in-need-of-a-trim-and-highlights hair. Waking up from a coma with a shaved head and tubes coming out of every orifice had not been a pleasant experience. It had gone downhill from there when her father had told her about Lucas and their baby. And then a month later she’d learned the horrifying truth that her mother’s death hadn’t been an accident nor had it been Mary Elizabeth Kincaid’s first attempt at suicide.
Once Nadia had climbed out of her deep pit of grief, she’d vowed to never allow herself to be that vulnerable again. And that meant not opening her heart to a man again—particularly the one in her living room.
Shaking off the memories, she freshened her makeup. She had enough pride that she couldn’t go out looking like yesterday’s news. She stabbed her feet into a pair of Michael Kors sandals and yanked open her door.
Lucas Stone could force her to spend time with him, but he couldn’t make her forget the hard lessons his disappearance had taught her.
Falling in love with him had been as natural as breathing and the easiest thing she’d ever done in her life.
Losing him had been the hardest. And it had almost driven her to follow in her mother’s footsteps.
Five
A bloodcurdling scream to Nadia’s right scared the bejeezus out of her. She jumped sideways in the semicircular restaurant booth and landed half in Lucas’s lap.
She twisted toward the source. A woman in the next booth stared goggle-eyed at the man slumped beside her in his seat, his chest covered in red, his mouth moving soundlessly, his eyes wide and unfocused.
Horrified, Nadia glanced around. What had happened? Had he been shot? She hadn’t heard a gun.
She gathered her composure. She’d been trained for disaster back in the days when she worked on KCL’s ships, although she’d never had to deal with more than basic first aid. Peeling herself away from the heat of Lucas’s body, she tried to slide from the booth to offer assistance. Lucas caught her wrist in a firm grip and held her back.
Heart pounding, she tugged her arm, but Lucas kept her in her seat. “Let me go. I’m trained in first aid and CPR. I can help.”
A smile lifted one corner of his mouth. Why was he smiling when the guy beside them could be dying?
“Nadia, it’s a play,” he whispered.