Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mandy strolled down the pavement, leaning on Damien’s arm.
It was a fabulous night, the air warm and balmy on her bare arms. Traffic was light in this neighborhood, trees tucked into little squares of dirt curbside, and flowers spilled out of window boxes.
For having spent most of her girlhood in the English countryside, she really did love the city, and this was a quiet, well-established area.
In the restaurant restroom, she had splashed water on her face and got a handle on her emotions.
Now, strolling along on a beautiful summer night, she realized she was feeling at peace with the world.
With herself. So Ben didn’t want a baby.
That was not new information, and if he took himself off now before the baby was born, all the less complicated everything would be.
None of that mattered. It would all work out. She was certain of it.
“Don’t faint from hunger. My building is right here.”
Damien pulled her toward the front doors and led her inside. Since he actually looked worried, she gave a smile to reassure him.
“When I was sick in my first trimester, my doctor told me not to ever worry about the baby. That if need be, my body will give to the baby first, consume my fat stores, then attack my own muscles to provide the baby with nourishment.”
“That’s kind of gruesome. But biological maternal instinct, huh?” Damien stopped in front of the elevators after hitting the button. He opened the bag of food he was holding and pulled out a spring roll. “Eat it. We don’t want your muscles being cannibalized.”
They got on the elevator, and Mandy laughed. “Don’t worry, I have a few fat stores left before they get to the muscles.” But she bit the roll anyway. She was starving.
“Elevator, upset stomach... if I had any coffee, this would remind me of the day we met.”
“Should I bend over? Then it would really be romantic.”
“Yes, it would.” His eyebrows went up suggestively and his eyes darkened. “Though hot is probably a better word than romantic.”
Mandy clamped her mouth shut so carrot and water chestnuts bits wouldn’t fall out. “I was joking! I meant it wouldn’t be romantic, like the day we...oh, never mind. I know exactly what you were thinking, you bloody pervert.”
He just laughed.
After eating, Damien showed Mandy around his apartment.
It had been built in the sixties, so it was sparse on details, with chopped-up rooms and low ceilings.
He had been working on fixing that, adding walnut wood for an accent wall and working on plans with a contractor to knock out the walls that created narrow hallways.
The end result would be an open, airy flow from three principle rooms, instead of the five tiny rooms he had now.
Except he was thinking some modifications to the plans might be needed.
“It’s a great apartment, and so amazingly quiet.”
“That’s why I moved here.” He paused in the doorway of his bedroom. “I was planning to knock this wall out into the other bedroom and make this room bigger and the other into a walk-in closet, but I’m rethinking that.”
“Why?” Mandy went into the room and turned around, taking in the space as her fingers trailed over his bed, lingering on the soft downy white pillows. “And why am I not the least bit surprised that this room is so clean and neat you could probably eat off the floor?”
Because he had become slightly neurotic. He knew he couldn’t control a lot of things in the world, in his life, but he could control his personal environment. He could wrestle order and tranquility into this apartment.
“I’m a neat freak. I’m man enough to admit that. And it’s something that you need to think about—whether or not you can live with that.” He meant that literally. He wanted her to live with him. “And I’m rethinking my plans because I’m hoping that I’m going to have to accommodate a nursery.”
Her head turned sharply back to him.
Damn, that wasn’t right. He had meant to start with her, tell her how he loved her, propose to her. Then discuss living together, the baby, eloping over the weekend.
But he was feeling a little sick, and it wasn’t the chicken. He wanted these changes. He wanted Mandy. But he was terrified she’d say no. Terrified she’d say yes.
God knew he didn’t want to hurt her, and he didn’t want to make the same mistakes he’d made the first time with Jessica.
Mandy stared at Damien, searching his face for something, anything that would reveal to her what he was really saying. He had a way of putting out words that masked what was really going on underneath.
He wanted to build a nursery in his apartment. Did that mean marriage? Living together? A guest room for her baby when she came over to visit Uncle Damien?
Heart pounding, she was about to ask when her cell rang in her purse. She had been hauling her purse around to freshen up her makeup when Damien showed her the bathroom. She absently glanced down toward the sound.
“Let it ring.” His voice was urgent, harsh almost.
“It might be my mother. Or Ben. Just let me check.” Mandy pawed through her purse and pulled the phone out. It was Caroline. She answered it, not sure what her roommate could possibly want since she knew she was out with Damien.
“Hello?”
“Mandy, this is us, all three of us.” It was Caroline’s voice, so Mandy wasn’t sure what the us entailed. All of her roommates, she had to assume.
“Hi, Caroline. Listen, I’m a bit busy. Can I ring you later?”
Damien was giving her a most frightful scowl.
“No! Just listen to me. I have to tell you something about Damien ... Honey, this will come as a shock I know, but you need to know this.”
Mandy was only half listening, waiting for that moment when she could interrupt Caroline to tell her it would have to wait.
“Damien’s wife was killed. Murdered.”
Mandy turned toward the window, startled. “I know that, Caroline. But how do you know that?”
“I read it online in the Chicago Tribune’s articles. Damien was charged with killing her. The cops were certain he did it, but the grand jury didn’t indict him.”
Mandy almost dropped the phone. Damien had been arrested? Good God. She felt a hot flush start up her neck. “Why are you telling me this?”
“So you can get yourself away from him. Just go to the restroom and sneak out the front door of the restaurant. You don’t want to be involved with a man like this.” Caroline’s voice was urgent.
Mandy swallowed hard, her heart aching. “I’m with Damien at his apartment right now. I’ll talk to you later.”
She hung up the phone.
Jamie shook her head at Caroline, who looked as flustered as she’d ever seen her. “That was not a good thing to do for a lot of reasons.”
Allison tucked her hair behind her ear impatiently. “What did she say? Was she horrified? What restaurant is she at? We’ll go pick her up.”
Caroline bit her lip, another gesture that indicated extreme agitation. Caroline didn’t have bad habits. She froze bad habits with the force of her will.
“She’s not at a restaurant. She’s at Damien’s apartment.”
Jamie clapped her hand over her mouth. “Caroline! She’s at his apartment and you told her that he’s a murderer?”
“Well, I didn’t know when I told her!” Caroline’s cheeks flushed an angry red.
“Okay, this could be bad.” Allison’s long legs ate up the living room as she paced back and forth. “What did Mandy say?”
“Nothing. She just hung up on me.”
“Well, she must not think he did it. And she knows him better than we do. She’s probably right.” Jamie looked at both of them. “Right?” She didn’t want to think that the man who’d shown such interest, such concern for Mandy could be a cold-blooded murderer. “They didn’t indict him, after all.”
“Because they didn’t have any evidence, not because he didn’t do it!” Caroline dropped the phone on the couch. “Damn, I’ve made a mess out of this. What if she confronts him and he...does something to her?”
Jamie didn’t think that was likely, really, she was sure he wouldn’t. But what if he did?
“Oh, shoot. We have to call her back!”
Mandy’s phone rang again as she sat heavily down on Damien’s bed. A glance at it showed it was Caroline again. She turned it to vibrate and ignored it.
Damien was staring at her. “What’s the matter? You look all flushed. Is talking about a nursery here too soon? Am I rushing you?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered, though she supposed she knew the answer. It was something of a miracle that Damien had shared with her what he had. But she wished she had known the full truth about Jessica right from the start, because it explained so much.
“Tell you what?” A cautiousness slid over his face.
“That you were arrested for killing Jessica.”
Shock sprang into his eyes. “Who the hell told you that?”
“Caroline. Just now. Apparently she read a newspaper article.”
He turned away from her, paced the room, voice bitter. “And do you think I did it?”
That startled her. “No. Of course not. Absolutely not! But why didn’t you tell me when you talked about Jessica last night? It must have been so painful for you...so horrible to be accused like that.”
She could only scratch the surface of imaginings of what he had been through. He had loved his wife. She had been killed, after they’d argued. And then in that intense, soul-shattering grief, he had been arrested for doing such a heinous act.
His thumb twitched, but he stopped walking.
“Horrible? Oh, yeah, it was horrible. That’s why I didn’t tell you, Mandy.
How do I find the words to tell you that the cops thought I followed my wife, angry that she’d spent too much money, angry that she flirted with other men, and I closed my fingers around her neck and squeezed the life out of her? ”
His voice cracked.
“Damien...” Even she could hear the pity in her own voice.