Chapter 15 #2
“You’re absolutely right,” she said. Dane turned to her.
He took the drink and a small twitch of his mouth in the right corner created a faint dimple.
He downed half the drink while she watched.
The throbbing of his throat as he drank mesmerized her.
Made her long for him. She must be a very sick person.
Maybe she did belong with the likes of Dane Blaise.
“You don’t have to tell me—I understand the jewels will be held as evidence until after the trial,” Gable said. He took an envelope from his pocket and looked between her and Dane, unsure who to give it to. Dane tilted his head in the slightest angle toward her.
Gable handed her the envelope and she handed him the evidence receipt for his jewels that Cap had given her. She took the envelope, opened her designer bag, and placed it inside. Her hands still shook slightly, but because of the money in the envelope.
In the time it took her to take her money, Dane finished his drink. He plunked his glass down on the glass cocktail table and stood in one motion. She’d seen him make the move countless times. This time it made her heart skip and fall like a hammer.
“Time for me to go.” He looked at her. “I’ll see you at the Lucky Parrot?”
He was asking. Like he wasn’t sure. She nodded. She remained seated. Not because she was being stubborn or difficult or subtle, but because she was paralyzed. With fear.
*****
He stepped into the dimly lit bar and removed his sunglasses.
As if his eyes had been programmed, they instantly fell on Shana.
But it had been easy. She stood at a big round table in the middle of the room and appeared to be the focal point for the crowd around her.
Standing majestically over her subjects, she laughed, and then she looked directly at him as if his glance had reached out and touched her.
The signature Shana the Gorgeous smile appeared and he felt the twitch in his mouth and the easing between his shoulder blades.
He headed for her, but Sassy and Ronnie headed for him and hugs and handshakes stopped him before he got to her.
Cap sat at the table looking relaxed and raised a glass to him.
Mr. Lucky Parrot slapped his back and put a glass in his hand.
He wasn’t surprised to see the Gables, although they were thankfully relegated to a nearby table. One empty chair waited for him and though it wasn’t close enough to her, he sat and feasted his eyes on her across the table.
They needed to have their talk. This wasn’t the time or place no matter how close they might sit.
The discussion about her future living arrangements would need to wait.
He felt the harder, quicker thudding of his heart like the striking of a clock.
What he’d been purposely putting off as long as possible had suddenly become a matter of urgency.
He lifted his glass and downed the tequila without taking his eyes off her.
*****
She told everyone at the table about her mother’s luck at winning a mysterious sweepstakes.
“Funny thing is—she didn’t remember entering it.” Shana laughed, tried to make it sound real. But when no one else at the table laughed it confirmed her suspicion that something was up. She noticed they all looked at Dane.
He lifted his glass, and stared at the empty bottom.
“What’s going on?” She felt irritation and foreboding but scoffed at herself. How could this be a bad thing?
“Tell her, Dane,” Cap said.
She riveted her attention on him then. It was easy to do.
“Nothing to tell.”
“Tell it anyway,” she said.
He stopped twirling the empty glass in his hands, gave Cap a scowl and then gave her his game-face look. “I arranged for your mother to win the sweepstakes.”
“You fixed the sweepstakes?”
“No—I ran the sweepstakes. Thing is—she was the only entrant.”
“And she never even had to enter.” Shana stood. Then she had no idea what to do or think next.
She stood looking at him with the flood of emotions rising and threatening to overwhelm her again.
It had taken her the rest of the morning to get over her shakiness since she saw him at the Gables.
Hours of yoga, meditation and mental preparation—and a couple of shots of tequila were being undone within a few seconds of exposure to Dane. And his magnanimity.
She reached for her shot glass. It was full and waiting.
Anger and at the same time tenderness surfaced.
What was she going to do with this shot of tequila?
Toast him with it or throw it in his face?
Angry and touched at the same time—same conflict as always.
It was always good and bad with Dane and impossible to tell which way it would balance out.
Before she broke from her paralysis of indecision, Dane spoke.
“You going to drink that shot? Because I could damn well use it if you’re not.”
“I—”
Dane stood and reached out and took the shot glass from her hand as if he knew the alternative she’d been considering. Hell, he probably did know. It wouldn’t take much of a leap to figure.
Shana let it go and smiled at him. “Thank you, Dane.”
He nodded. No smile. Then he knocked back the shot of tequila.
“Least I could do. I’ve been curious to meet your family. I’ve been talking to them on the phone and figured what the hell. Let’s bring them all over here.”
She sat and everyone at the table began talking at once. Dane didn’t sit back down, but dragged his chair around to sit next to her first.
“Now that you have the big fat fee from the Gables that should be enough to last you at least a year. Am I right?”
She laughed. “How do you even know what they paid?”
He shrugged.
“They paid for more than a year—but half of it is yours—”
“Oh no it isn’t. We agreed up front that this was your case—”
“You worked—”
“For free.” He spoke close to her ear, breathing on the fine hairs there, his voice vibrating with force and power. She shivered.
“I don’t know what the hell your hang up is with money, but you better damn well not give it all away.”
She looked at him. “It’s okay for you to give your money away?”
“At least I don’t whine about not having enough.”
Damn. He had a point. Not that it mattered.
She had no nest egg and no steady pay check and until she had one or the other—and until everyone that mattered to her and every cause that mattered to her was taken care of—she would feel like she needed more money.
Maybe it would be forever. She wouldn’t tell him that. She didn’t think he’d understand.
That was the one difference between them that she could discern. Otherwise they shared the same ambitions, the same needs, the same flaws. And an overwhelmingly powerful attraction to each other.
“Another round of tequila.” She held up her glass as the waitress walked by.
*****
“I second that,” Dane said. But he immediately regretted it when she turned to him. Her green eyes undid him. He wanted her. All of her. All to himself. He looked around the table. Many of their friends surrounded them, but they would understand. He took her hand and stood, pulling her with him.
“Let’s go outside and soak in some of that crisp air first.” He didn’t have to drag her.
He was half surprised that she came willingly.
He went out the front door and crossed the street to the ocean side, away from the people they knew, across some rocks that jutted into the water before he stopped and pulled her in.
“Does this mean you’re staying around, girlie?” He held his breath, held her in his arms. Tight. She stood still and leaned against him, but didn’t answer him. Not right away. She looked into his eyes and then looked away. He let her take her time.
It was the hardest test of his patience he ever remembered.
“Why did you really pay to bring my family here? And why did you try to hide it from me?”
“You would never have agreed to let me pay for it if I’d told you. Some misplaced notion about pride and money you have going on—”
“That’s only the answer to one of my questions. The easy one.” Her smile verged on a laugh. He automatically smiled back.
She was right. It was the easy question. He didn’t know if he knew the answer to the hard question.
He really had wanted to meet her family.
Especially her brothers. They were protective of her, but they trusted and respected him now.
In spite of the rapport he’d built up, he got little from them about her father.
He wanted to talk to her mother in person to see if she might help unravel Shana’s mysteries.
He wanted to help Shana most of all, to pay her back for helping him put to rest the fable of Elena being a traitor.
He still had the scar, but it was no longer an open wound.
He wanted to help Shana work through whatever it was about her relationship with her father that had left her so unsettled and unhappy and dissatisfied with herself.
He thought of his own father and laughed at himself at his presumption that he could possibly help.
He couldn’t tell her any of this.
He said, “I wanted to help you.”
*****
Maybe it was the timbre, the vibration in his voice that made her read so much into his simple words. Whatever it was overwhelmed her. Again. She was touched and angry and happy and appalled all at the same time. She shoved at him to give her space.
She scowled at him but couldn’t stop the tears if she’d put a rubber shield around her eyes. She collapsed back into him and let him hold her and held him back and yelled at him and felt awful that she couldn’t just be pleased the way he wanted her to be. The way she should be, shouldn’t she?
“I want to go home to Sydney. To see them there.” She didn’t want them here for some reason.
“Is it because that would make this—whatever we have—too real? Give us too much meaning?”
His words surprised her. She squeezed her eyes shut, but he lifted her chin and forced him to see his face. It was heartbreaking. She sobbed as she spoke.
“What do you mean? Do you want us to be real? Do you want us to have more meaning?”
“Truthfully, I don’t know what the hell I want except that I want you to stay.”
“For now.”
He nodded.
“I agree—I don’t want to commit to you. I deserve better.”
“I agree.”
*****
His heart pounded. He agreed, but he didn’t like it. Didn’t want it to be true. Then he did something he’d never done before, never allowed himself to succumb to. He opened his soul to her and begged him with his eyes not to break him.
Had he lost all sense of self-preservation, of pride, of reason? What the hell was wrong with him? Before she got past the shock of seeing his desperation and vulnerability, purposefully put on display for her, before she had a chance to destroy him, he shoved away from her.
He turned and walked, but not back to the Lucky Parrot. He walked along the ocean, his steps steady and nimble. He let the cool sea breeze cascade over him and calm him. It cooled him, allowed him to remain intact, but it didn’t calm him on the inside. He turned when he sensed her following him.
“You’re brave.” His words were harsh and warning and he let the anger rise up to take the place of the desperate longing and close down the vulnerability he’d allowed.
She didn’t flinch. She gave him that look. They both stood still. She was only three feet away, but outside his reach. He closed his eyes, but he still felt the effect of that loving look, the knowing and the gentleness and the assurance flowed and calmed him like the sea air never could.
He took a deep shuddering breath as he felt her approach. He opened his eyes again.
“I won’t leave,” she said.
He breathed again and felt her arms wrap around him.
The tightness that had strangled his chest loosened as her arms tightened and her hands caressed his back and the snake of tense muscles.
He breathed again and tried not to think of the unspoken words.
But they hung in the air around them, circling and pervasive.
For now. She wouldn’t leave him—for now.
*****
Dane grabbed her by the hair and pulled her in for a kiss.
“Don’t read too much into my generosity,” he said. Of all things he could say, after separating his mouth from hers.
“Warning taken.” But his kiss had too much tenderness and passion mixed with the desire and a touch of desperation that spoke of his vulnerability, so she let his words go. Ignored them. She let go of her defenses and let him melt her heart—for now.
She could wait. Maybe her family would help settle her and give her the grounding to make a decision. Later.
Dane’s phone rang.
“Let me get this.” He glanced at it. “It’s Anatoly Ivanof on the line.” He put the phone to his ear as he held her gaze with an intense look. She wasn’t sure how things would work between them. There were things she didn’t understand about Dane.
But she understood that if it was Anatoly calling, it could mean only one thing. Another case.
#The End#